Nimrod and Babel.

First I want to quote here the Young's Literal Translation of Genesis 10:8-12.

And Cush hath begotten Nimrod; he hath begun to be a hero in the land; he hath been a hero in hunting before Jehovah; therefore it is said, "As Nimrod the hero in hunting before Jehovah."

And the first part of his kingdom is Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar; from that land he hath gone out to Asshur, and buildeth Nineveh, even the broad places of the city, and Calah, and Resen, between Nineveh and Calah; it is the great city.

The YLT used the same source texts as the KJV, or rather the source texts KJV onlyists keep saying the KJV uses, however these very verses show how the KJV was influenced by the mistakes of the Septuagint/LXX and the Vulgate, like verse 11 where all three of those translations imply Asshur founded Nineveh.  What Asshur founded wouldn't be discussed till we reached Shem's part of the genealogy, this verse is clearly still part of the Nimrod narrative.  The only thing I'd change from the YLT translation is swapping "Asshur" for "Assyria".

There is a claim going around out there that the Book of Jubilees 9:3 supports the LXX version of 10:11, but that is not correct.

"And for Ashur came forth the second Portion, all the land of Ashur and Nineveh and Shinar and to the border of India, and it ascends and skirts the river."

That statement is only saying Nineveh is in the land allotted to Asshur, it doesn't say who founded it.  That sentence can be compatible with either interpretation/translation of Genesis 10:11.  Jubilees doesn't seem that interested in the Nimrod subject, it has no counterpart to these verses but possibly alludes to his daughter marrying Heber/Eder and becoming the mother of Peleg in it's version of the Genesis 11 genealogy.  Josephus isn't quite saying Asshur founded it either, but he is much closer to seeming influenced by the LXX version.

Calah/Kalhu is the city 30 or 40 miles south of Nineveh/Mosul today commonly called Nimrud, but that is a purely modern name for the City, no one in Antiquity called it that, it fits because modern archaeologists recognized it as a city associated with Nimrod.  Resen doesn't seem to have been found.  Maybe the failure to find Resen is because people have been assuming "between Nineveh and Calah" means also on the Tigris, maybe it could be a city between them but also further east or west, and that's why it isn't first listed between them?  Erbil/Arbella was considered part of Assyria in antiquity, and it's one of the oldest cities in the region, I have a hunch that maybe it's Resen.  

Which of the cities talked about is being called the "Great City"?  At first glance it might seem to be Resen, but given the context of Jonah 1:2, 3:2-3 and 4:11 it's possibly more likely to be Nineveh.  Or another candidate for Resen could be Karana/Qattara modern Tell al-Rimah.  Tell-Hassuna and Tell-Taya are some other ancient sites near Nineveh believed to have been inhabited pre 2400 BC but their ancient names aren't known.

None of the Nimrod cities in Genesis 10 is likely to be the city of Asshur, that city is south of Calah.  So it was probably the city Asshur himself founded, and either he failed to or didn't try to stop Nimrod from encroaching on his territory.  They may have simply came to an agreement, and maybe the people who inhabited these cities were largely Assyrians from the beginning but benefited from living under Nimrod's protection.

In the past I've argued for the Babel of Genesis 10&11 being Eridu and Nimrod being Enmerkar.  I'm still attracted to that theory but have been considering an alternative.  I do absolutely still think the Pre-Flood Eridu is the city of Genesis 4, which again has a translation issue, here is how I'd translate the verses in question.

Genesis 4:16-18

And Cain went out from the presence of Yahuah, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden.  And Cain knew his wife; and she conceived, and bare Enoch: and he (Enoch) builded a city, and called the name of the city, after the name of his son.

And unto Enoch was born Irad: and Irad begat Mehujael: and Mehujael begat Methusael: and Methusael begat Lamech.

So the City of Irad could be Eridu.  Now the Eridu of Post-Flood Mesopotamia may not actually be the same city or on the same location.  But I'm also growing skeptical of the usual assumption that a Global Flood model means no Pre-Flood cities could have left ruins behind.  Mainstream archaeologists believe Eridu goes back to 5200 BC, so that's pre even the oldest plausible date for The Flood.

It is a misleading translation that makes people think Genesis 11:4 is about height.  It's about them creating their own Heaven at the top of the Tower, an early form of idolatry.  And the Hebrew word Migdol is sometimes used of some structures we today wouldn't exactly define as a tower.

Here is a Wikipedia page listing various known Sumerian Temples.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89_(temple)
 Not all of them have been archaeologically found, some may be different names for the same Temple.  Some are thought to have originally been to different gods then they are usually associated with now, so what the Temple was called is probably more informative to it's origins.  All of them are named "House of ____" in some way.  The Tower of Babel I would expect to be named "House of Heaven" or something like that.  Eridu's is not, it's instead looking in the opposite direction, the Abyss.  More then two fitting examples exist, but other factors make only two viable.

Uruk's Temple to Inanna is one, and a good theory could be made for making that work with Nimrod as Enmerkar, saying Genesis 10 isn't different cities but rather describing the expansion of what he controlled, first the Tower, then the City of Erech/Uruk, then Accad, then all of Shinar.

But I'm instead going to consider another city, and that Nimrod is actually Etana who is the first Post-Flood King to rule all of the countries.  The King's List possibly made up all names before Etana, other sources make him seemingly the first King of Kish and of any place after The Flood.  Etana here would be a special Throne name, like many Kings Nimrod likely had many names.

Which leads me first to how Genesis 10:8-12 seems like a short narrative inserted into the Genealogy.  In which context I wonder if Nimrod simply is the same person as a Son of Cush from verse 7?  One of them being the name given at birth and the other a name he became known by later?  The theory that Ninurta is a later deification of Nimrod is going to be relevant to my theories here quite a bit.  Zababa is a deity who is mentioned rarely and was possibly just another form of Ninurta, one reason being that they had the same wife, Bau.  Zababa could easily be a Sumerian form of one of the names mentioned in Genesis 10:7, Seba, Sebta or Sebtcha.

Alternatively you could argue that Nimrod might not be the immediate son of Cush but a later descendant of his. That is pretty much required for identifying him with anyone later then Enmerkar on the Kings List.  And the fact that Uruk's isn't quite the first Post-Flood dynasty means it might be necessary even for the Enmerkar theory.  Depends on when you date the Flood really, if you're using a Septuagint or Samaritan version of Genesis 11 to support a pre 3000 BC date for the Flood then Enmerkar is not likely to be an immediate son of Cush.

Now the Sumerian Temple I feel most likely to be The Tower of Babel is the E-me-ur-ana (House which gathers the divine powers of heaven) at Nippur.  It seems either archaeologists haven't found this Temple or it's another name for the E-Kur. (Or the Temple some maps identify as a Temple of Inanna since she was or became the deity of Uruk's "House of Heaven").  The Ekur was also known as the "mooring-rope" of heaven and earth. The statement in some sources that Enmebaragesi was the first to build a Temple to Enlil at Nippur may just mean he was the first to make it a Temple to the Sumerian Enlil, as Babel in Genesis 11 was not originally about a specific deity.

Nippur was the religious capital of Sumer, it was never the political capital but control of it was required to claim to be King of all of Sumer and Akkad.

Nippur is a flawed modern transliteration, the ancient name of the city was Nibru or Nibbur.  The Septuagint, Josephus and possibly Jubilees all render Nimrod's name as Nebrod.  This isn't the only place related to Sumerian/Semitic etymology where the letter B and M seem oddly interchangeable, the above mentioned Zababa is also spelled Zamma, and in 1st Century Aramaic "bar" is the word for Son but many Assyrian Inscriptions are transliterated as saying "mar" instead.  Micah refers to a "Land of Nimrod" according to Genesis 10 Shinar was the land of Nimrod starting at Babel and eventually extending to include Assyria.  Nippur was one of the cult centers of Ninurta, but another was near by Marad (which is another purposed origin for the name Nimrod via Ni-Marad "Lord of Marad"), the main Temple at Marad had Kalama in the name, a possible origin for Calneh.

Erech is Uruk, that's the one name from Genesis 8:10 that has no mystery to it, except for people who want to remove Shinar from Mesopotamia altogether.

Accad is Akkad, a city known to have existed but archaeologists haven't quite found.  But it's also used as the name of a region (Mesopotamia north of Sumer proper but south of Assyria) and of a language.

Before he was a King Sargon was associated with Kish.  That list of Sumerian Temples has only 3 in Akkad and only one in Kish, awfully small for cites that had both been capitals.  Maybe Akkad and Kish were the same city?

The Babylon of Hammurabi and Nebuchadnezzar is described in some texts as being founded by Sargon of Akkad, (which fits other sources dating it's founding to that time period).  Saying he built it "before Akkad" and possibly that it was a re founding of an older city.  That geographical relationship to Akkad makes it look to me like Akkad is either Borsippa or Kish.

If the younger Babylon was a city founded to be a new Babel, it's interesting that it's Nippur who proceeded Babylon as the chief cult enter of Enlil(later replaced by Marduk) the Mesopotamian Zeus analogue.

The name of Kish likely derives from Cush.  The Temple listed as a Temple at Kish is the one for Zababa, and Zababa's only Temple appears to have been the one at Kish.

The theory that "Calneh" is really a phrase meaning "all they of" I consider possible.  I also, as said above, think it could be related to Kalama, a Sumerian word that seems to mean "land" or "world" and is in the name of a few Temples including the ones at Marad and Bad-Tibira.

Ninurta was also worshiped by the Assyrians, one of his major Temples was at Kalhu/Calah, where the name Nisroch might come from an Assyrian name for Ninurta.

Nimrod being the founder of Niniveh is the basis for why Christians in various eras have identified him with the Greek Historiographical figure of Ninus.  Ninus appears to be a composite figure, I definitely do think he's partly a Greek memory of Nimrod, but some ancient statements about when and for how long he reigned (Castor of Rhodes apud Syncellus p. 167) make him seem more like Sargon of Akkad or his grandson Naram-Sin, which given what I talked about above could also fit associating his wife with the founding of the Babylon of Nebuchadnezzar.

However the name of Ninus's supposed wife comes from an Assyrian Queen who lived around 800 BC, and that's also about when Herodotus originally placed Semiramis.

But in the context of Ninus as Nimrod, I think Belus is really his grandfather Ham rather then his father Cush.  Usually the Greek mythical Belus of Egypt is assumed to be separate from the Belus of Assyria, but both have good reasons to argue they could be Ham.  Aegeyptus son of Belus would be Mizraim and Danaus would be Phut (Diodorus Siculus gives us reasons to suspect the Amazons descended from Phut, and some names of Amazons were also names of Daughters of Danaus).  Agenor is most popularly identified as a brother of Belus but Nonnus and Tzetzes make him a son of Belus, Agenor was the first ruler of Phonecea in Greek mythology so he could be Canaan.  Cepheus could be Cush as the first King of Aethiopia, but perhaps also the Philistines or more Canaanites based on his association with Joppa.

Maybe the Torah's Calendar was never a Lunar or Lunisolar Calendar?

First some terminology clarification.  The traditional Rabbinic Hebrew Calendar we're used to calling a Lunar Calendar is strictly speaking a Lunisolar Calendar, the phases of the Moon come first but synchronization is done with a Solar year so the seasons don't drift out of place.  The same is true of the popular variants I've discussed already like the Samaritan Calendar, the Kariate reckoning and the proposed Lunar Sabbath model.  A strictly Lunar Calendar would be something like the Islamic Calendar which makes no attempt to reconcile and so Ramadan has fallen all over the Gregorian Calendar.

But I've lately been questioning the traditional assumption that the Torah's Calendar is Lunar at all.

Let's start with the fact that the Torah has completely different words for Month and Moon, that is not what I'd expect from an ancient strictly Lunar month based culture.  Month is Chodesh/Hodesh (Strongs Number 2320) while Moon is Jerah/Yerach (3394).  There are a few places where the latter word is used of a passage of time, but that's because even without a lunar calendar the concept of a month is still tied poetically to the Moon somewhat as it's phases come at least close.

Japan for example had a Lunar Calendar until 1873, and that's why their language uses the same word for both Month and Moon, Tsuki.  That's why in the English version of episode 6 of my favorite Anime, Noir, it sounds weird when Mireille says "so many Months and Years have passed", in a language where all the word "month" means is a fraction of a year my mind goes "why even include months in that expression?".  But I'm pretty sure in the Japanese she's saying "so many Tsuki and Hi", Hi being an alternate word for both Sun and Year and sometimes Day.  So a more poetic yet equally literal translation would be "so many Moons and Suns have passed" which sounds more right even if technically equally as redundant.

The phrase "Rosh Chodesh" gets translated "New Moon" sometimes because of our traditional assumptions, but Rosh means the beginning or head of something not quite "New".  Colossians 2:16 is the one New Testament reference to the Jewish concept of the "Rosh Chodesh", and it again uses a Greek word for Month, not Selene the word for the Moon.

Because we think of it as the Crescent New Moon so much talk about Rosh Chodesh is spent on saying we don't know for certain exactly when it is till it happens.  With Dispensationalists saying it typologically fits the Pre-Trib Rapture and "no man knowth the day or the hour" verses.  But there is one clear Biblical reference to people knowing for certain the next day is a Rosh Chodesh, 1 Samuel 20:5.

The Torah never talks about the Full Moon, even in regards to the Holy Days that should happen about then on a Lunar or Lunisolar calendar.  Two verses elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible are often translated as referring to the Full Moon, but those are highly disputable as I've discussed before.  For Psalm 81 I don't know how to translate it but my hunch is it's about the Jubilee Yom Kippur sounded Shofar.  The word for "feast" used here is sometimes used of Sacrificial animals like Exodus 23:18, Psalm 118:27 and Isaiah 29:1, so that could be the Yom Kippur Sin Offering in this verse.  The root of the word thought to refer to the Full Moon appears in Leviticus 16:13 where it's translated "cover".

And then there is all the evidence that The Bible clearly thinks of a Month as being 30 days not 29 and a half.  It's there when you do the math of the Flood chronology of Genesis 7 and 8 with 5 months being exactly 150 days beginning on the 17th of the second month and ending on the 17th of the seventh month.  And it's also in Revelation with 42 Months, 1,260 days and three and a half years being treated as synonymous time periods.  

However there is one thing often taken as evidence for a 365 day year in the Torah, and that is how that number happens to be the number of years Enoch lived. But that could be a coincidence.

Genesis 1:14-19 discuses the Sun (greater light), Moon (lesser light) and stars being made for signs and for seasons and for days and for years.  But you'll notice in verse 16 the Sun is made and talked about first, it has priority.  And months are seemingly missing from the discussion.

It is well known that the Hebrew Calendar was influenced by the Babylonian Calendar during the Captivity, the names we're now used to calling the months come from Babylon for one thing.  Well the thing is Babylon had a Lunisolar Calendar, so even that aspect of it could be Babylonian in origin.

Lunar Calendars were more popular with the ancient Pagans then you might expect given the modern popular narrative that ancient Paganism always started with Sun worship.  In fact the most prominent not at all Lunar Calendar used by Pagans in classical antiquity was the Civil Egyptian calendar, but even they originally had a Lunar one which they kept using for ceremonial purposes.  Actually even in Greece the Attic Lunar Calender's main purpose was for how they observed Pagan festivals.

Now as much as we love to see all things Egyptian as bad, it wasn't the Egyptians much of the Torah is telling the Israelites not to be like, it was the Canaanites, (When Jerusalem is derogatorily called "Sodom and Egypt" it's about them being inhospitable to strangers not any particular customs.).  One of the Canaanite tribes was the Amorites, Babylon first became a major player in Mesopotamia under it's Amorite dynasty, so that Babylonian calendar could be Canaanite in origin.

There is one indisputable difference between the Torah Calendar and the Civil Egyptian Calendar, and that is when to start it.  Exodus 12 proclaims Aviv (the time of the Barley Harvest, early Spring) to be the first month while the Egyptian Calendar starts near the Autumnal Equinox.

It is a common traditional conjecture that before Exodus 12 the first season was Fall rather then Spring, and that in Exodus 12 YHWH is swapping the First and Seventh months.  I'd been thinking of making a post on how we can't entirely prove that using Scripture alone and so shouldn't build so many theories on it.  But since they were in Egypt for several generations it's very possible the Egyptian Calendar was their starting point and what month to make the first month was the only change YHWH is making in Exodus 12.  Though different agricultural and climate circumstances in Canaan probably brought further differences, the Egyptian Calendar was organized around 3 seasons rather then 4 because of how much they were ruled by the flooding of the Nile.

In a hypothetical Torah based Solar Calendar the Intercalary month of five or six days (if that was the method used for synchronization) would go between Adar and Nisan rather then in September.  (BTW, those 5 days were when the Egyptians observed the birthdays of Osiris and Horus, not anywhere near Christmas.  And the Egyptian new year was September 11th on our calendar coincidentally enough.)  Or maybe you would try to put them before the Seventh Month to keep Yom Teruah close to the Fall Equinox.  

Genesis 1:14 is possibly using Signs in place of Months, I have over the years gone back and forth on the Mazzaroth/Gospel in the Stars theory.  Maybe fellow Mazzaroth proponents like Rob Skiba should consider that the Star Signs can be an alternative to the Moon for how to determine the months of the year.  Josephus did refer to Nisan as being when the Sun is in Aries, in the first century the Sun entered Aries around the Spring Equinox, and that month is indeed when the Barley Harvest happens.  The Romans had a Seven Day Barley Festival similar to Unleavened Bread that was the 12-18th of April, but due to the awkwardness of Caesar's revisions that may be off from when in the Sun's journey it was supposed to be.

It is popular to theorize that Revelation 12:1 is describing some astronomical alignment involving the Moon. If it is it could be an exception and not proof the months are usually defined by the Moon.  But I'm skeptical of that altogether, I think it's probably a purely supernatural vision and not something predictable using Stelarrium.

Now I do believe the Passover through Pentecost of Christ's Passion, Resurrection and sending of the Holy Spirit was likely based on what the Jews of the time were doing regardless of if it was still accurate.  But it may be it happened to be a year when they did line up, or at least close enough that First Fruits was the right Sunday.  Since I favor 30 AD and a Thursday Crucifixion on the 14th of Nisan followed by a Sunday Resurrection on the 17th of Nisan, I have long placed the Passion on the 6th of April 30 AD and The Resurrection of the 9th.

But maybe not all the Jews were already using the Babylonian Calendar in Christ's time?  Maybe it was originally mainly the Pharisees, who became the only sect to survive the 70 AD war?  It was the Sadducees who actually controlled the Priesthood and The Temple, and according to Josephus they were a Torah only sect.

The Qumran Community who wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls also rejected the Lunar Calendar, the Temple Scroll is our main source on their Calendar but it's discussed in other scrolls too.  I don't think that Calendar is right either, like the Lunar Sabbath model it wants to synchronize the monthly and yearly cycle to the weekly cycle by giving every 3rd month an extra day creating a 364 day year.  As I've talked about before the language in Leviticus 23 about Firs Fruits and Pentecost is clearly assuming they won't always line up.  They make the first day of the year a Wednesday because that was the day the Sun and Moon were created.  But at least they correctly placed First Fruits and Pentecost on Sundays.  Weeks are not even remotely mentioned in the Genesis 1 account of the fourth day, so they aren't connected to the sun, moon or stars.

The Book of Jubilees was popular with them because it too rejected the Lunar Calendar (Chapter 6 verses 32-37).  Something I bet Rob Skiba didn't notice when using the book for his agendas (This Calendar also seems to be endorsed by Enoch 72-82).  But indeed Jubilees has the same problem as the Temple Scroll system.  In fact it's criticism of the lunar system is a little hypocritical since it doesn't line up perfectly with the seasons either, being one day short of a solar year will inevitably create the same issue even if it'd take longer.

The Hebrew Roots movement has a lot of irrational fear of Sun Worship wrapped up into it.  Obviously actually worshiping the actual Sun or Moon or any other inanimate object is a Sin.  But Malachi does call Jesus the Sun(Shamash) of Righteousness, there is no equivalent title making the Moon a symbol of Jesus.  So I have no problem believing Jesus Rose from The Grave at Sunrise on a Sunday Morning, or that he was born on or soon after the Winter Solstice.  I'd rather base my calendar on the astronomical object that is explicitly a symbol of Jesus then one that is not and was frequently the basis for Pagan ceremonial calendars.

You might ask "are you gonna also question if Biblical days begin and end with Sunset?"  Well I did consider it, but I concluded that they do.  Genesis 1 lists them as Evenings and Mornings, and later Torah verses after Exodus 13 do the same, like Exodus 16 which is also the proper origin of the Sabbath.  Also Exodus 27:21 and Leviticus 24:3.  Instead I'm just going to point out that even that is also determined by the the Sun, when the Sun sets.  [Update: on this paragraph I've had a change of mind since.]

But I'm not just disagreeing with the current Hebrew Roots movement here.  This may shock you to learn but the Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican and other mainstream Christian Churches do use the Moon to calculate "Easter".  It's just that explaining why it doesn't always line up with Rabbinic Passover is complicated.  In most Languages "Easter" is just called Pascha.  If Catholic "Easter" was just a Christianized Spring Solstice festival as many allege it would consistently happen in the 20s of March.

Also remember that as a Six-Day Young Earth Creationist I do believe originally the Solar and Lunar cycles were in sync and there was no need to choose between them.  I think that was the case at least until the Flood but maybe also till the time of Joshua or even Hezekiah.

I'm not ready to propose a specific calendar model just yet.  I merely want to open up this line of discussion.

Or maybe I am.  But take everything below with a grain of salt, it's all stuff I could easily abandon.  What I've talked about above is the point of this post.

In Fact ignore everything below, I've revamped it all here.

https://midseventiethweekrapture.blogspot.com/2021/09/biblical-calendar-proposal.html

[Update 2023: I have an even newer idea to add.

https://solascripturachristianliberty.blogspot.com/2022/04/passion-week-chronology-completely.html]

The Tribes of Mizraim

I already announced my abandonment of the Mizraim wasn't Egypt theory.  What I want to get into here is how my research into the Tribes of Mizraim named in Genesis 10:13-14 clearly verifies that we are dealing with North Western Africa, even if the name Mizraim itself might be difficult to find there.  Plus I still think Khem/Kemet comes from Ham.

Tribes is the term I'm using because strictly speaking Genesis 10 names no sons of Mizraim, they are all tribal designations (the -im suffix) that came from Mizraim.  They could come from names of sons, or names given to regions, or other things.

I should also add that I don't think Josephus's "Ethiopic War" happened, I think that was a myth he or someone before him imagined because they didn't know where to finds the tribes of Mizraim.

I want to start with Patrhos, it is a well documented name for Upper Egypt, particularly the area around Thebes.  It comes from Egyptian pꜣ tꜣ-rsy "the southern land" (e.g., pBritish Museum EA 10375, line 16; cf. Sahidic Coptic ⲡⲁⲧⲟⲩⲣⲏⲥ and Bohairic Coptic ⲡⲁⲑⲟⲩⲣⲏⲥ.^[1][2]).  Isaiah 11:11 lists Pathros between Mizraim and Cush, suggesting that in that context Isaiah is using Mizraim mainly of Lower Egypt.

Caphtor is a complicated subject because of the desire some have to make it Crete or Cyprus or a location in Turkey.  But even Wikipedia ultimately comes down on the side of it being in the Nile Delta region.

The equation of Keftiu with Caphtor commonly features in interpretations that equate Caphtor with Crete, Cyprus, or a locality in Anatolia. Jean Vercoutter in the 1950s had argued, based on an inscription of the tomb of Rekhmire that Keftiu could not be set apart from the "islands of the sea" which he identified as a reference to the Aegean Sea. However in 2003, Vandesleyen pointed out that the term wedj wer (literally "great green") which Vercoutter had translated "the sea" actually refers to the vegetation growing on the banks of the Nile and in the Nile Delta, and that the text places Keftiu in the Nile Delta.^{[Claude Vandersleyen, Keftiu: A Cautionary Note, Oxford Journal of Archaeology, vol 22, issue 2, 2003]}

The Targums and Miamonides refereed to Caphtor as Caphutkia and places it as Damietta on the eastern edge of the Nile Delta near classical Pelusium.  

But the name Caphtor could also be related to Coptos and the Greek Aegyptos and thus Egypt.  They come from Hut-ka-Ptah the name of the Temple Complex of Ptah in Memphis.  There is a Hebrew word spelled and pronounced the same a Kaphtor and translated Knop or Lintel, it's used in The Pentateuch only when describing The Menorah. 

I actually think these two tribes may be enough to account for all of Egypt proper.  Caphtor as Lower Egypt and Pathros as Upper Egypt, Egypt's traditional two great divisions.

The Casluhim are recorded in the inscriptions of the Temple of Kom Ombo as the region name Kasluḥet.  [Archibald Henry Sayce (2009). The "Higher Criticism" and the Verdict of the Monuments. General Books LLC. p. 91.]  Ancient Jewish traditions associated them with Pentapolis aka Cyeneica, suggesting they were the people indigenous to that region before the Greek Colonists came there in Classical times.

As far as the alleged confusion about whether the Philistimes came from Casluhim or Caphtor.  Amos 9:7 refers to their relationship to Capthor as a direct comparison to Israel's relationship with Egypt. So I believe they were Casluhim who had sojourned in Caphtor before eventually settling in the Gaza Strip.

The Lehubim is the name elsewhere contracted to Lubim and the people from who's name comes Libya, a region that at it's broadest Classical Greek definition also included the land of the decedents of Phut, the Berbers in the far west of Africa. 

The three remaining names in Genesis 10:13 I suspect are to be looked for in modern Sudan and Ancient Nubia.

The Naphtuhim may be the namesake of Napata, and/or perhaps via the tendency of B and P to sometimes become confused in etymology Nobatia and Nubia itself.  The Nubians were originally a distinct ethnic group from the Kushites, but the two get conflated a lot making my research difficult.  It seems they were originally further up the Nile from the region Egypt usually called Kush.

I think the name of Anamim/Anemim/Enemim could come from people of Khnum, an Egyptian Deity worshiped on Elaphantine/Syene island near Aswan, but was mythologically viewed as the source of the Nile.  Maybe they were the people of Kerma, or maybe way further south near Tana Kirikos or Lake Victoria.  Or maybe they were the Blemmyes/Blemmues/Balnemmoui?  [Update: Turns out the Blemmyes spoke a Cushetic Language.]  Or Anem could be Akhmim which may have actually been Khent-min.

The Ludim present potential for confusion with the Lud/Lod son of Shem who settled in Turkey commonly known as Lydia (or Lydus in Greek Mythology).  But I think it's the Mizraimite Ludim who are being alluded to in Jeremiah 46:9 and Ezekiel 30:5 with the context there being about Egypt and other nations near Egypt.  Those Ludim are presented as being famed for their Archery which was also the case with the Ancient Nubians.

I think the Mizraimite Ludim were the people of the region known in late Antiquity and medieval times as Alodia which name can be traced back to Ancient Kushite inscriptions as Alut.  Here are some maps of Christian Nubia.

As an extra Biblical Note, I think Makuria is also the land Herodotus knew as Macrobia.

Update: Since I mentioned Phut, Mizraim's brother, above I might as well deal with the documentation on him.

Pliny the Elder Nat. Hist. 5.1 and Ptolemy Geog. iv.1.3 both place the river Phuth on the west side of Mauretania (modern Morocco). Ptolemy also mentions a city Putea in Libya (iv.3.39).  This might be the same river mentioned by other authors under other names being connected to the Atlas Mountains.

Other references seem to place Phut closer to Egypt.  Putaya was the name of the Persian Satrapy of Libya, Nebuchadnezzar refereed to the Cyrenians as the "Putu Yavan" (Ionians in Libya).  I think this location closer to Egypt is probably where Phut first settled, then they migrated further west and their original settlement was taken over by the Casluhim and Lehubim/Lubim.

The notion that Phut and Lubim became different names for the same place is attested by Josephus in AotJ Book 1:6/2.

Egypt as a major Empire and center of Trade located on the crossroads of two continents had a very diverse population. So none of this means other grandsons of Noah didn't also contribute to ancient Egypt.  I still think the Origins of Osiris and Horus could partly lie in the Horite genealogy of Genesis 36 (thus descent from the Hitties and Hivites), as well as that Seb/Keb/Geb could be partly based on one of the three Sebs who were sons of Cush.

Update April 2022: The Philistines.

I feel like ranting on this subject a bit.  We now know that the City of Gaza is indeed the oldest of the Philistine Pentapolis, Biblically it's the only one mentioned in Genesis.  We also know the oldest settlement there was an Egyptian Fort built back in the Early Bronze Age.  We also know it was essentially Egypt's regional capital in Canaan during the 18th and Nineteenth Dynasties.  Meaning archeology tells us exactly why The Bible depicted them as essentially Egyptian Colonists.

But the notion that the Philistines weren't in that region till Rameses III, and that they came from the Aegean, continues to pervade because Egyptian records don't use that name till then.  I think Philistines/Peleset was never what they called themselves but always a mostly derogatory term, related to a Hebrew verb used of wallowing in the dust/dirt.  I think the time of Rameses III is simply when these colonials decided to claim independence from their mother empire like the Yankees in 1776, and so only then did the Pharaoh also use this insulting term for them.

But most importantly the Peleset were NOT Sea Peoples in any 20th Dynasty records, scholars like to group then in with the "peoples of the Sea" and "peoples of the Isles" they allied themselves with, but Rameses III did NOT apply that term to the Peleset or the Tjekker.  

If the Philistines post Rameses III seem in their language and fashion and art similar to the Mycenean Greeks, it's because of cultural exchange via the Denyen/Danoi/Danaans they were allied with, not because they originally came from there.

I also read an English Translation of the Peshita where Genesis 10:13-14 says that out of Casluhim came both the Philistines and Caphtorim.

The Bible says the Philistines main patron Deity was Dagan, this is somewhat a mystery since Dagan is in the standard Canaanite pantheon but not a major player. And Archeologists haven't found the evidence for this, partly because they only count anything as Philistine starting with Rameses III.  We know the Egyptians tended to syncretize storm gods like Baal/Hadad with Set.  So Dagan might have been the Canaanite deity who was identified with Osiris or maybe Amon.

Update October 2023: I mostly do still stand by that prior Philistines rant.  But I have also come to think about how the nature Hebrew winds sometimes using the names for in fact peoples or locations and started to consider that maybe the Philistim of the Table of Nations has nothing to do with the later Biblical Philistines was a reference to Pelusium.

Hades and The Sea

I've become a believer in Universal Salvation, and I stress the importance of a Physical Bodily Resurrection.  However I remain undecided on whether or not I think the Soul/Spirit has a concise state between physical Death and Resurrection, i.e. on the issue of Soul Sleep.  No matter what I would say I don't believe in the Platonic notion of the Immortality of the Soul because I don't believe souls have a Pre-Existence.

Those topics bring up discussion of the words translated "Hell" a lot.  Sheol and Hades (which are clearly the Hebrew and Greek counterparts to each other) are sometimes translated Grave, insinuating they can sometimes be an idiom for being buried in the Earth rather then an Underworld where disembodied Souls and/or Spirits reside.  For example the KJV translates Sheol that way a lot, including the first few times it shows up in Genesis, but translates Hades this way only once, in 1 Corinthians 15:55 which is also the only time Paul ever uses the word.

I had been highly skeptical of that ever being a valid translation, especially since there are other words for Graves, Tombs and Sepulchers.  But then I noticed something in Revelation chapter 20 I hadn't before, in verse 13.

"And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them:"

The reference to there being dead in the sea here clearly refers to how many people are buried at sea, in ancient and medieval times when we didn't have modern preservation technology if you died while at sea you were probably buried at sea whether you would have preferred that or not because the body was going to start to rot.

So that heavily implies "hell" here (which is Hades in the Greek) being used in contrast to that is the location of physical bodies not otherworldly souls/spirits.

"But Death is also a location name then" you may ask.  The Psalms speak often of the Valley of the Shadow of Death which I feel is a term for Sheol whether it's used literally geographically or poetically.

This also makes me start wondering about the Beast rising out of the Sea in chapter 13 (it is the same word for sea in the Greek).  Since there is already reason to suspect the beast is subject to an early Second Resurrection, maybe this is an idiom of that.  But I can't right now think of any historical Antichrist candidates who were buried at sea.

This verse certainly further shows that the Resurrection isn't merely Spiritual.

Debates about when to celebrate "Easter".

First, a reminder that "Easter" is a word used only in English and other Germanic languages.  All of the Greek and Latin speaking ancients I'm about to talk about actually said "Pascha" everywhere modern English discussions/translations of them like Wikipedia say "Easter".

Also, by the First Century the word Peshach/Pascha was being used for all the Nisan Holy Days together and not just 14th which is the Proper Torah terminology, but this looser application is perhaps anticipated by Ezekiel 45 21-24.  That's why in Acts 12 it's still Pascha after the Days of Unleavened Bread have started.

First I want to discuss how the Quartodecimanism debate that went on in the Second Century was not the same thing as the arguments modern Hebrew Roots/Torah Observant Christians have with mainstream Western Christianity, or even the same thing as the debate that was had at the Council of Nicaea.

Both sides of the original Quartodeciman controversy were using the same calendar, and it seems like it was a lunar Calendar, if it was exactly the same Calendar the Jews of the time were using or not I don't know for sure but I think it probably was.  The debate was about whether the main celebration (Feast being the word used) should be on the 14th of Nisan (the position of the Quartodecimans) or the following Sunday which seems to be what most Christians were doing. The Sunday observers fasted through the 14th till Sunday morning.

It wasn't a debate between two entirely different methods of when to calculate anything, but a debate about whether the day Jesus was Crucified, or the Day He Rose from the Dead should be the day of the Feast.  Or in the context of Leviticus 23, Exodus 12 and Numbers 28, the day the Passover Lamb is killed or First Fruits, which is always on the morning after the Sabbath hence Sunday.

Modern Torah observant Christians often assume the Quartodecimans were the ones on their side of the dispute, and anyone who wanted to do anything but hide under their beds on a Sunday must have been closet Pagan sun worshipers.

The truth is both sides of the dispute were adding to the Torah by seeing a full Fast as being required at all.  But if you read Leviticus 23 more closely, specifically verses 9 through 14 which are about First Fruits.  Verse 14 says.

"And ye shall eat neither bread, nor parched corn, nor green ears, until the selfsame day that ye have brought an offering unto your God: it shall be a statute for this age throughout your generations in all your dwellings."

So, it sounds like a fast of sorts ends on First Fruits.  It's also interesting that Esther's fast was at the time when Passover would normally be celebrated, but it lasted three days trough the 14th and 15th days of the month, leading to her final victory on the 17th.

Melito of Sardis' Passover teaching clearly teaches the Torah being done away with, so no the Quartodecimans were not the Hebrew Roots people of their time.

To Christians the two most important events in history are the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus Christ.  I would argue that the Resurrection is more important, in the Sermon on Mar's Hill in Acts 17 Paul's presentation of The Gospel to a gentile audience does not directly refer to the Death of Jesus at all, but the climax is definitely The Resurrection.  In 1 Corinthians 15 Paul refers to both the Crucifixion and the Resurrection at the beginning, but the rest of the chapter is primarily about the Resurrection.

Crucifixion Day is a day to mourn (which is often an appropriate time to Fast in Jewish thought), The Resurrection is what we celebrate.

Polycrates_of_Ephesus defended the Quartodeciman position by citing the long established traditions of the Churches in Asia.  But I've already talked about how The Bible itself gives us reasons to suspect that region was where things first started going wrong.

The debate about Easter at the Council of Nicaea is also highly misunderstood.  This debate was only about first if Christians should use the same Lunar Calendar as the Jews, and then if all Churches should use the same calendar.  There was not even any disagreement that it should be a Lunisolar Calendar.

The Council's final decision was that it should be determined independent of the Jewish calendar, and that there should be a universal agreement.  But what that final calendar was took a long time to form.

And it wasn't till centuries later that the Roman Church started making a deliberate effort to make sure Christian Passover never lines up with Jewish Passover, doing that is arguably just as much in violation of Nicaea's decision as adopting the Jewish reckoning would be, since that's not a truly independent decision.

Nicaea was addressing a disagreement that began in the late 3rd Century, so it predated Constantine's influence but was still a century after the Quartodeciman controversy.

One of the arguments against the Jewish Reckoning made at this time was that it sometimes had Passover happening before the Spring Equinox.  Now that makes it seem to me like a form of the modern Rabbinic Jewish calendar is what they were breaking with here, and indeed it seems to have developed at the same time this Christian disagreement started.  The modern Kariate reckoning has if anything the opposite problem, a tendency to happen maybe a little too long after the Equinox.  My current opinion is that Nisan should begin with the Crescent New Moon closest to the Spring Equinox, whether it's before or after..

Did the Church's developing Anti-Semitism play some factor in why this happened?  Possibly, but just as Anti-Semites criticizing Israel doesn't make criticism of the Israeli Government inherently Anti-Semitic, there is likewise disagreement even among Jews on if the Rabbinic calendar is correct.

I'm not a legalist, I don't think it's a big deal if we're technically observing things on the wrong day.  But I wanted to clarify how neither of these disputes were an Ancient Hebraic Christian practice being suppressed by a Solar Calendar using organized Church.  The origin of the current method the Roman Catholic Church and most Protestant Churches use is much longer and more complicated.

Is it possible the word Arnion is related to Karneios?

Karnieos was a uniquely Dorian epithet of Apollo that reflected Apollo's associations with Rams and Shepherds.  As Apollon Karnieos he was depicted as having two Ram's Horns which fits the imagery of the Beast from The Earth in Revelation 13.  Apollo was also associated with Prophecy.
https://www.mfa.org/collections/object/stater-of-metapontion-with-head-of-apollo-karneios-1249

Because Dorian was a distinct dialect of Greek, and not the same dialect the New Testament was written in, maybe it's possible the K at the beginning of this word was a result of the Doric accent thus making Arnion/Arnios/Arnia basically the same word.  Apollo's association with Rams and Shepherds was not unique to the Dorians however.
https://sites.google.com/site/apollonslyre/theoi-gods/apollon/about-apollon/apollon-karneios

Corinth was a Dorian part of Greece and did indeed have a Temple to Apollon Karneios, so Christians would have been exposed to the concept.  When arguing that Pergamon might be Ilium/Troy I cited evidence that stuff from the Iliad might have been alluded to in Revelation, scenes that specifically involved Apollon.  Well the Iliad also refers to Apollon as Shepherding the Herds of Ilium.  So Apollo could well be link-able to the Idol Shepherd of Zechariah 12.

Apollo is also said to have taken the form of a Wolf in one account, making two of his epithets Lycegenes (born of a wolf) and Lycoctonus (killer Wolf), fitting Jesus reference to False Prophets being Wolves in Sheep's Clothing.

Apollyon from Revelation 9:11 was an ancient variation on the name Apollo.  Like in Aeschylus's play Agamemnon, where Cassandra says repeatedly.  "Apollo, thou destroyer, O Apollo, Lord of fair streets, Apollyon to me."  I've argued before that if Apollyon is one of the beasts in Revelation 13 it's the second one rather then the first.  Apollo was also associated with Locusts, hence his epithet Parnopion.  Apollo was also said to be the ancestor of the Centaurs which one could also see as relevant to Revelation 9.

This discovery weakens my past desire to see Arnion as a word for Goat thus further tying Yom Kippur into the narrative of Revelation. Though the second link does also discus an association of Apollon Karnieos with the Goat god Pan.

The Septuagint rarely used any from Arnion but it does provide precedent in Jeremiah 11:19 for Arnion being used to translate the Hebrew Kebes.  Exodus 29:38-41 uses Kebes for the daily offering.  Exodus 12:5 does also associate the word Kebes with the Passover Lamb.  Leviticus 23:12 uses Kebes of the animal sacrifice linked to the Aparche offering giving on the Sunday following Passover.

Rome as Ephraim

It’s interesting how Rome is the one nation left out of attempts to say Western Nations come from the Lost Tribes.  The Lost Tribes get identified with people in Greece, and then associated with people west and north of Rome, yet Rome itself in-between them is not.  Troy is often made a stepping stone in this process yet Rome was the first to claim descent from Tory, all the others were just copying Rome, and Britan's claimed Trojan connection is deliberately derivative of Rome as it also comes via Aeneas.  Since I no longer so strongly think Rome is Edom, I’m interested in exploring this possibility.

Now I have already talked about how some myths of Troy make it perhaps the same place as Joppa, though I also now think Homer wrote the Iliad under the pretense of Iion being Pergamon.

Some things about the myths of Romulus might first make one look to Benjamin to be the Israelite Tribe they're connected to, first the Wolf association (Genesis 49), then how the story of the Rape of the Sabine Women echos Judges 21.  But those could both be about this Tribe’s relationship with Benjamin as opposed to Rome being Benjamin.  Judges 21 also involved Ephraim.  And being nursed by a She-Wolf could be a Prophecy that it would be a Benjamite who’d bring The Gospel to Rome, in the apocryphal Acts of Paul when he’s beheaded in Rome milk rather then blood spills from his wounds.  Actually in 1 Corinthians 3 and 1 Thessalonians 2:7 Paul does use the imagery of a mother nursing her children with Milk to describe his nurturing of young Gentile believers.

My most recent speculations on the Fourth Beast of Daniel argue for it being Joseph who is a Bullock and a Calf and a “Unicorn”, the Ten Horns being Ephraim and the Little Horn Manasseh.  Ephraim is foretold to become the Fullness of the Gentiles in Genesis 48, and Paul uses that term in his Epistle to the Romans.  And I’ve also argued for Ephraim being the Horse Rider which can be interesting for the Troy connection.

In Greek Mythology the ultimate progenitor of the Trojans and Dardanians is Dardanus.  Attempts to give him an Israelite origin suggest Dan, as well as Dara son of Zerah in 1 Chronicles 2:6 aka Darda of 1 Kings 4:31.  Those names are evidence the name is Semitic in origin regardless of if he can be identified with a specific Biblical figure.  Maybe Dardan means “Pearl of Dan/Judgment” like how Darda means “Pearl of Wisdom”, a fitting title perhaps for the Shrine the Ephraimite King Jeroboam built at Dan.

Dardanus is sometimes said to have his origins in Arcadia, which when comparing Pelops to Jehu I argue is sometimes code for Samaria, Micah 1 used an Eagle as a symbol of Samaria which became a symbol of Rome.  Later Roman writers would however attempt to say Dardanus came from Italy.

Iasus is a name that pops up in Greek Mythology multiple times.  While Iesous is how Joshua is transliterated into Koine Greek, Iasus could be a much more ancient Greek form of that name (just look at the difference between Iapetos and how Japheth is rendered in the LXX). Dardanus had a relative named Iasus, Dionysius of Halicarnassus said Iasus was his older brother but Virgl in the Aeneid (3.163f) seems to make Iasus his father.  But it’s also easy to look at the biography of Dardanus and see him as partly based on Joshua himself.  The Mountains of Ida could be Girezim & Ebal in this analogy, the city of Dardanus founded at the foot of Ida could then be Shechem or Shiloh.  Analogies that also work for seeing Dardanus as Jeroboam.  Or you could look at Dardania’s placement in Anatolia as making it the northernmost key city of the Trojan Empire which would again make it Dan in the sense of Dan’s importance to Jeroboam.  Which would then perhaps make Ilion/Pergamos equal Bethel.

The Ephraimites carried away by Assyria I still believe were settled east of the Euphrates.  Of those left after the captivity, the ones who rejected Hezekiah’s Passover Invitation I think mingled with gentiles to become the Samaritans.  But some did accept the invitation.  1 Chronicles 9:3 says Jerusalem’s population included people form the tribes of Judah, Benjamin, Ephraim and Manasseh.  Joel 3 says the Philistines and Tyrians sold as slaves to the Ionian Greeks people of Judah and Jerusalem.  Some Ionians and Greeks colonized southern Italy possibly before Rome was founded.

The Roman Republic was founded around 508-504 BC, but since 244 years seems too long a time for only 7 kings, the traditional 752 BC date for the founding of the city may have been exaggerated.  Meaning Rome could have been founded after the Northern Kingdom fell.  Joel is traditionally a contemporary of Jeroboam II.

The name Rome could have a Semitic origin in Strongs Numbers 7312-7319.  Remus the brother of Romulus could come from Reem the Hebrew word translated Unicorn in Moses blessing on Joseph in Deuteronomy 33.

So adjusting something I argued before about Native Americans and the Lost Tribes.   I think the Many Nations from Ephraim are the Latin Nations, the Iberian Penensula, Italy & Corsica, Mesoamerica and the Philippines.  While Manasseh is the United States.