Book of Tobit and the Neo-Assyrian Kings

Book of Tobit and theNeo-Assyrian Kings

by

Damien F. Mackey

Biblical scholars, such as Edwin Thiele, can be so committed to the supposedlyunassailable accuracy of neo-Assyrian chronology that they are prepared to

sacrifice multiple biblical synchronisms in order to ‘rectify’ the biblicalchronology.

Here, instead, far from my passive acceptance of the received neo-Assyrianchronology, I shall be questioning the very number and succession of the neo-

Assyrian kings.

Introduction

The extent of the neo-Assyrian succession that will occupy myattention in this article will be limited to that embraced bythe Book of Tobit, i.e., from “Shalmaneser” to “Esarhaddon”.Whilst the standard textbook arrangement of neo-Assyrianmonarchs runs something like this (my reason for includingTiglath-pileser III will become clear from Table 2):

Table 1 Tiglath-Pileser III 745–727 BC "son of Ashur-nirari (V)"

Shalmaneser V 727–722 BC "son of Tiglath-Pileser (III)"

Sargon II 722–705 BC

Sennacherib 705–681 BC

Esarhaddon 681–669 BC

my revision would truncate this by reducing theseconventionally five kings to a mere three, as according to thesuccession given in the Book of Tobit, whose accuracy Iaccept. Hence:

Table 2 Shalmaneser V 727–722 BC "son of Tiglath-Pileser (III)"

Sennacherib 705–681 BC

Esarhaddon 681–669 BC

The relevant parts of Tobit, all occurring in chapter 1, areverses 10, 12-13, 15, 21 (GNT):

Later, I was taken captive and deported to Assyria, andthat is how I came to live in Nineveh.…. Since I took seriously the commands of the Most HighGod, he made Emperor Shalmaneser respect me, and I wasplaced in charge of purchasing all the emperor's supplies.

…. When Shalmaneser died, his son Sennacherib succeeded himas emperor. …. two of Sennacherib’s sons assassinated him and thenescaped to the mountains of Ararat. Another son,Esarhaddon, became emperor and put Ahikar, my brotherAnael’s son, in charge of all the financial affairs of theempire. ….

The royal succession is here clearly given. “Shalmaneser”, whodeported Tobit’s tribe of Naphtali (see Tobit 1:1), wassucceeded at death by “his son Sennacherib”, who was, in turn,upon his assassination, succeeded by his “son, Esarhaddon”. No room here for a Sargon II. And Tobit’s “Shalmaneser” appears to have replaced Tiglath-pileser III as the Assyrian king who is said in 2 Kings 15:29to have deported to Assyria the tribe of Naphtali: “… Tiglath-Pileser king of Assyria came and took Ijon, Abel Beth Maakah,Janoah, Kedesh and Hazor. He took Gilead and Galilee,including all the land of Naphtali, and deported the people toAssyria”.Is the Book of Tobit therefore contradicting the Second Bookof Kings?

Objections to Tobit

It is common for scholars to point to what they consider to bethe historical inaccuracies of those books generally describedas “Apocryphal”.To give some examples(https://www.christiancourier.com/articles/111-apocrypha-inspired-of-god-the): “Professor William Green of Princetonwrote: “The books of Tobit and Judith abound in geographical,chronological, and historical mistakes” (1899, 195). Acritical study of the Apocrypha’s contents clearly revealsthat it could not be the product of the Spirit of God”.And (https://books.google.com.au/books?id=27KsQg7): “The booksof Tobit and Judith contain some serious historicalinaccuracies …”.And - but more sympathetically(http://douglasbeaumont.com/2014/11/10/journey-through-the-deuteroncanonicals-tobit/):

The book of Tobit has occasionally been identified as beingin the literary form of religious novel (much like Estheror Judith). Although it has sometimes been considered tobe partially fictional (in the same way that Jesus’proverbs are), Tobit was taken to be historical byPolycarp, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Athanasius,Cyprian, Ephrem, Ambrose, Augustine, and Aquinas. Despiteits solid historical pedigree, however, Tobit is oftenattacked for its historical errors (much like otherbiblical books are attacked by skeptics today).Further, Tobit’s manuscript history is messy. Thesealleged historical errors seem to have been caused by (andcan be explained by) Tobit’s multiple manuscript versionsand scribal inconsistency.

[End of quotes]

The common historical objections to the accuracy of Tobit arethose already referred to, pertaining to both Tiglath-pileserIII and Sargon II. Thus, for example, we read at(http://taylormarshall.com/2012/03/defending-the-book-of-tobit-as-history.html):

1. Objection: It was Theglathphalasar [Tiglath-pileser] III who led Nephthali (IV Kings, xv, 29) into captivity (734 B.C.). But Tobit wrongly says that it was (i, 2), Salmanasar [Shalmaneser]. ….

2. Objection: Tobit wrongly states that Sennacherib was the son of Salmanasar (i, 19) whereas he was in verified history the son of Sargon.

These cease to be problems, however, if - as I have argued ina thesis and in various articles - Tiglath-pileser III was thesame as Tobit’s “Shalmaneser” [= history’s Shalmaneser V], andSargon II was the same as Tobit’s “Sennacherib” [= history’sSennacherib].

Might not the Book of Tobit have the last laugh on itscritics?

Revised Neo-Assyrian Succession

Whether or not my truncation of five neo-Assyrian kings tobecome three is valid, there are certainly some strong pointsin favour of such a reduction.

Tiglath-pileser III/Shalmaneser

That Shalmaneser (so-called V) may be in need of a morepowerful historical alter ego seems to me to be apparent from thefact that certain considerable deeds have been attributed toso virtually unknown and insignificant a king. According, forinstance, to 2 Kings 17:3-5:

Shalmaneser the king of Assyria came up against him, andHoshea [king of Israel] became his vassal and paid tributeto him.  But the king of Assyria found treachery in Hoshea,for he had sent messengers to So king of Egypt, and he didnot offer tribute to the king of Assyria as he had yearafter year; so the king of Assyria arrested him, andconfined him in a house of imprisonment. So the king ofAssyria went up in all the land, then he went up to Samariaand besieged it for three years.

Despite this, Shalmaneser qua Shalmaneser has left hardly atrace. According to one source, “there is no known reliefdepiction of Shalmaneser V”(http://emp.byui.edu/satterfieldb/rel3). Be that as it may,

there is so little evidence for him, anyway, that I was led tothe conclusion, in my university thesis:

A Revised History of the Era of King Hezekiah ofJudah

and its BackgroundAMAIC_Final_Thesis_2009.pdf

that Shalmaneser must have been the same ruler as Tiglath-pileser III (Volume One, p. 147):

Unfortunately, very little is known of the reign of this‘Shalmaneser’ [V] to supplement[the Book of Tobit]. According to Roux, for instance: …“The short reign of … Shalmaneser V (726-722 B.C.) isobscure”. And Boutflower has written similarly: …. “Thereign of Shalmaneser V (727-722) is a blank in the Assyrianrecords”. It seems rather strange, though, that a king whowas powerful enough to have enforced a three year siege ofIsrael’s capital of Samaria (probably the Sha-ma-ra-in of theBabylonian Chronicle), resulting in the successful sack ofthat city, and to have invaded all Phoenicia and even tohave besieged the mighty Tyre for five years … and to haveearned a hateful reputation amongst the Sargonids, shouldend up “a blank” and “obscure” in the Assyrian records.The name Tiglath-pileser was a throne name, as Sargon appears tohave been – that is, aname given to (or taken by) the king on his accession tothe throne. In Assyrian cuneiform, his name is Tukulti-apil-ešarra, meaning: “My confidence is the son of Esharra”. Thisbeing a throne name would make it likely that the king alsohad a personal name - just as I have argued … that SargonII had the personal name of Sennacherib.The personal name of Tiglath-pileser III I believe to havebeen Shalmaneser.

And on p. 148 I continued:

Boutflower had surmised, on the basis of a flimsy record,that Tiglath-pileser III had died in battle and had beensucceeded by Shalmaneser: …. “That Tiglathpileser died inbattle is rendered probable by the entry in the AssyrianChronicle for the year 727 B.C. ….: “Against the city of ….

Shalmaneser seated himself on the throne”.” Tiglath-pileseris not even mentioned.

[End of quotes]

But the following may constitute the real crunch.On pp. 371-372 of my university thesis I discussed thefollowing fascinating piece of research by S. Irvine, who,however, may not - due to his being bound to a conventionaloutlook - fully appreciated just what he had uncovered (Isaiah,Ahaz, and the Syro-Ephraimitic Crisis, Society of Biblical Literature,Dissertation Series No. 123, Scholars Press, Atlanta, 1990):

According to my revised neo-Assyrian chronology (as arguedin detail in Chapter 6), Tiglath-pileser III himself washeavily involved in the last days of the kingdom of Israel.And indeed Irvine has discussed the surrender of Hoshea toAssyria, interestingly, and quite significantly, toTiglath-pileser III of Assyria, in connection with what herefers to as “ND4301 and ND4305 … adjoining fragments of a summaryinscription found during the 1955 excavations at Nimrud and subsequentlypublished by D. J. Wiseman”….. Here is Irvine’s relevant sectionof this: ….

Line 11 reports that Hoshea … submitted personally toTiglathpileser. Where and when this occurred is notaltogether clear, for the Akkadian text is criticallyuncertain at this point. Wiseman reads, ka-ra-ba-ni a-dimah_-ri-ia, and translates, “pleading to my presence”.This rendering leaves open the date and place ofHoshea’s submission. More recently, R. Borger and H.Tadmor restored the name of the southern Babyloniantown, Sarrabanu, at the beginning of the line …. Onlinguistic grounds this reading is preferable to“pleading” (karabani). It appears then that Hoshea paidformal homage to Tiglathpileser in Sarrabanu, where theAssyrian king was campaigning during his fourteenthyear, Nisan 731 – Nisan 730. The event thus occurredwell after the conclusion of the Assyrian campaigns“against Damascus” (Nisan 733 – Nisan 731).

This may have vital, new chronological ramifications. Ifthis were indeed the “fourteenth year” of the reign ofTiglath-pileser III, who reigned for seventeen years …. andif he were Shalmaneser V as I am maintaining, then this

incident would have been the prelude to the followingAssyrian action as recorded in 2 Kings 17:5: “Then the king ofAssyria invaded all the land and came to Samaria; for three years he besiegedit”. These “three years” would then approximate to Tiglath-pileser III’s 14th-17th years. “In the ninth year of Hoshea the kingof Assyria captured Samaria; he carried the Israelites away to Assyria” (v. 6).That event, as we know, occurred in c. 722 BC. And it mayjust be that this apocalyptical moment for Israel isrecorded in the fragments of Tiglath-pileser III now underdiscussion. I continue with Irvine’s account: ….

The Assyrian treatment of Israel at large, presumablyonce described in 1. 10, is also uncertain. Accordingto Wiseman’s translation, the text refers crypticallyto “a district” and “their surrounding areas” ….Alternatively, Borger and Tadmor restore the Akkadianalong the lines of III R 10,2:15-18: “[House of Omri]in [its] en[tirety …together with their pos]sessions [Iled away] to [Assyria]” …. This reading is conjecturalbut possible. If it is correct, the text reports the wholesaledeportation of Israel. The truth of this sweeping claim is aseparate question ….

Further on, Irvine will propose that this “statementexaggerates the Assyrian action against Israel”, though he does not denythe fact of an Assyrian action. Thus: …. “Notall the people could have been exiled, for some people obviously must haveremained for the new king Hoshea to rule”. But if this were, as I ammaintaining, the time of Hoshea’s imprisonment by Assyria,with the subsequent siege and then capture of Samaria, hiscapital city, then there may have been no king Hoshea anymore in the land of Israel to rule the people.

[End of quote]

Sargon II/Sennacherib

Without going over old ground here I shall simply referreaders to a recent article:

Assyrian King Sargon II, Otherwise Known AsSennacherib

https://www.academia.edu/6708474/Assyrian_King_Sargon_II_Otherwise_Known_As_Sennacherib

according to which Sargon II, Sennacherib, the same person,represent ‘two sides of the one coin’. This conclusion arose,not from any direct intention to defend the Assyriansuccession in Tobit 1 (from Shalmaneser straight on toSennacherib), but from the significant overlap beyond mere co-regency that I found there.And I notice that this connection has been taken up by A. Lyle(Ancient History: A Revised Chronology: An Updated Revision ..., Volume 1)(https://books.google.com.au/books?id=w), when he writes: “Sennacheribis conventionally listed as a separate king. There are somewho believe that he is the same king as Sargon, including thisrevised chronology”.I believe that this serves to solve a host of problems, manyof which I discussed in my thesis. For example, there is theconstant problem for conventionalists of whether to attributesomething to Sargon II or to Sennacherib, an irrelevancy in myscheme of things. Wm. Shea seems to struggle with this(SARGON'S AZEKAH INSCRIPTION: THE EARLIEST EXTRABIBLICALREFERENCE TO THE SABBATH? Biblical Research Institute SilverSpring, MD (https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:_96AnfQDj1gJ:www.auss):

The Azekah Text

The "Azekah Text," so called because of the Judahite siteattacked in its record, is an Assyrian text of considerablehistorical significance because of its mention of amilitary campaign to Philistia and Judah. …. In this tabletthe king reports his campaign to his god. An unusualfeature of this text is the name of the god upon whom theAssyrian king calls: Anshar, the old Babylonian god who wassyncretized with the Assyrian god Assur. This name wasrarely used by Assyrian kings, and then only at specialtimes and in specific types of texts, by Sargon andSennacherib. The text is badly broken. In fact, until 1974its two fragments were attributed to two different kings,Tiglath-pileser III and Sargon. In that year, Navad Na'amanjoined the two pieces, showing that they once belonged tothe same tablet. When Na'aman made the join between the twofragments, he attributed the combined text to Sennacherib,

largely on the basis of linguistic comparison. Because thevocabulary of the text was similar to the language used inSennacherib's inscriptions, Na'aman argued that Sennacheribwas the author. However, since Sennacherib immediatelyfollowed Sargon on the throne, it would be natural toexpect that the mode of expression would be similar. In alllikelihood some of Sargon's scribes continued to work underSennacherib, using the same language.

[End of quote]

 Likewise, G. Gertoux has appreciated the need to recognise asubstantial overlap - though not a complete one, as in thecased of my reconstructions - between Sargon II andSennacherib. This is apparent from what he has written in hisAbstract to Dating Sennacherib’s Campaign toJudah (http://www.academia.edu/2926387/Dating_the_Sennacheribs_Campaign_to_Jud):

The traditional date of 701 BCE for Sennacherib's campaign to Judah, with thesiege of Lachish and Jerusalem and the Battle of Eltekeh, is accepted byhistorians for many years without notable controversy. However, the inscriptionof Sargon II, found at Tang-i Var in 1968, requires to date this famouscampaign during his 10th campaign, in 712 BCE, implying a coregency withSennacherib from 714BCE. A thorough analysis of the annals and the reliefs ofSargon and Sennacherib shows that there was only one campaign in Judah andnot two. The Assyrian assault involved the presence of at least six kings (orsimilar): 1) taking of Ashdod by the Assyrian king Sargon II in his 10thcampaign, 2) taking of Lachish by Sennacherib during his 3rd  campaign, 3)siege of Jerusalem dated 14th year of Judean King Hezekiah; 4) battle of Eltekehled by  Nubian co-regent Taharqa; 5) under the leadership of King Shabatakaduring his 1st year of reign; 6) probable disappearance of the Egyptian kingOsorkon IV in his 33rd year of reign. This conclusion agrees exactly with thebiblical account that states all these events occurred during the 14th year ofJudean King Hezekiah dated 712 BCE (2Kings 18:13-17, 19:9; 2Chronicles 32:9;Isaiah 20:1, 36:1, 37:9).

[End of quote] Less perspicacious in this matter, however, was Edwin Thiele,who, in his much lauded text book, The Mysterious Numbers of theHebrew Kings (Academie Books, Grand Rapids, 1983), had beenprepared to sacrifice biblical chronology on the altar of apresumed highly accurate conventional neo-Assyrian chronology.I wrote about this, for instance, on p. 22 of my thesis:

Firstly, regarding the Hezekian chronology in itsrelationship to the fall of Samaria, oneof the reasons for Thiele’s having arrived at, and settledupon, 716/715 BC as the date for the commencement of reignof the Judaean king was due to the following undeniableproblem that arises from a biblical chronology that takesas its point of reference the conventional neo-Assyrianchronology. I set out the ‘problem’ here in standard terms.If Samaria fell in the 6th year of Hezekiah, as the OldTestament tells it, then Hezekiah’s reign must have begunabout 728/727 B.C. If so, his 14th year, the year in whichSennacherib threatened Jerusalem, must have been about 714B.C. But this last is, according to the conventionalscheme, about ten years before Sennacherib became king andabout thirteen years before his campaign against Jerusalemwhich is currently dated to 701 B.C. On the other hand, ifHezekiah’s reign began fourteen years before Sennacherib’scampaign, that is in 715 B.C, it began about twelve tothirteen years too late for Hezekiah to have been king forsix years before the fall of Samaria. In short, the problem asseen by chronologists is whether the starting point of Hezekiah’s reign shouldbe dated in relationship to the fall of Samaria in 722 B.C, or to the campaign ofSennacherib in 701 B.C.

[End of quote]

Another knotty problem that dissolves completely, though, ifSargon II be Sennacherib.Thiele’s influential work has in fact had a disastrous effect,serving to destroy a three-way biblical synchronism for thesake of upholding a hopelessly flawed conventional Assyriology.Still on p. 22, I wrote:

….The Fall of Samaria

This famous event has traditionally been dated to c. 722/21BC … and, according to thestatement in 2 Kings, it occurred “in the sixth year ofHezekiah, which was the ninth year of King Hoshea ofIsrael” (18:10). While all this seems straightforwardenough, more recent versions of biblical chronology, basingthemselves on the research of the highly-regarded ProfessorThiele … have made impossible the retention of such apromising syncretism between king Hoshea and king Hezekiahby dating the beginning of the latter’s reign to 716/715BC, about six years after the fall of Samaria.

[End of quote]

That vital three-way synchronism, the Fall of Samaria; 6th year Hezekiah;9th year Hoshea; coupled with the known neo-Assyrian connectionsattached to it, is a solid biblico-historical rock offoundation that needs to be staunchly preserved and defended,and not overturned on the basis of a flimsy and unconvincingMesopotamian ‘history’.

Esarhaddon

In my thesis, I, flushed with my apparent success in reducingSargon II, Sennacherib, to just the one king, became ‘toocute’ afterwards in the case of Esarhaddon by trying to makehis entire reign fit within that of his father Sennacherib. I would have been far better off having paid closer heed tothe Book of Tobit, as I had done in the cases of Esarhaddon’spredecessors.Esarhaddon does not need any tampering, or fusing with anyother neo-Assyrian king.

I now fully accept the triple succession of neo-Assyrian kingsas laid out in Tobit 1, namely:

“Shalmaneser”(= Tiglath-pileser III), the father of

“Sennacherib” (= Sargon II), the father of

“Esarhaddon”.

July 16, 2015

Our Lady of Mount Carmel