Possible Hindu Appropriations of Middle Eastern Legends

SEARCH     Home     Site Map     Calendar     Karmapa     News    DONATE
 

Wish-fulfilling Cow Cows represent the All-good.  The image of fruits of nature emerging from a cow's horn -- a horn of plenty -- is tied to the Cow of Plenty of Indian mythology, whose name is Surabhi.  She belonged to the Vedic sage, Vasishtha. Kamadhenu is the sacred cow as she relates to Hindu ritual.  Her 5 gifts are sacred offerings.  They are:  milk, curds (yoghurt,)  butter, urine (considered a pure substance that can serve as medicine,) and manure (which is used for plastering walls and floors, and which, dried, is used as fuel.)   She also gives us a further gift, her offspring -- a calf, the source of further cattle. The Mahabharata (ch. 76, 77, 83) on the sacredness of cows. In the Himalayan tradition, butter is sculpted to make offerings such as tormas, and it also provides the oil that fuels butterlamps.   Ghee, clarified butter, is the very essence of cow.  As such, it is the substance that, in India, is used to bath sacred images.  Classification of Chinese Buddhist scripture  (p'an-chiao) owes a debt to Chih-i (538-597), who thought Dharma could be understood in terms of successive stages of refinement, similar to the way ghee is produced from milk: Just as milk derives from a cow, cream derives from milk, butter derives from cream, melted butter derives from butter, and ghee derives from melted butter, so the twelve divisions of the canon derive from the Buddha, the sutras derive from the twelve divisions of the canon, the extended sutras derive from the sutras, the Perfection of Wisdom derives from the extended sutras, and nirvana, which is like ghee, derives from the Perfection of Wisdom.   ~ Quoted by Peter Gregory. Hindu deity, Lord Vishnu, in his avatar or active form as Krishna, is called Govinda and Gopala: "the cow-finder" and "cow-protector."  These epithets are references to his existence in Vrindavan as a herdsman.  This is metaphorical in the same way that King David (The Bible: Old Testament. Psalm 23) sang, "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want."  From the viewpoint of a devotee of Krishna the Cowherd, the cosmic cow is seen as incorporating all deities. Cow = Wealth   The Maasai of East Africa, who live off the milk and blood of their prized cattle are frequently heard to make the claim that all the world's cattle actually belong to them.  If that is so, then they once were rich beyond belief, for there is evidence to show that cows were the world's first "portable" wealth. Once, the world was divided into those who kept wealth in the form of cattle, and those who did not.   Herders of sheep and goats were considered by the cattle-rich, as somewhat inferior.  On the other hand, the Greeks and the Romans looked down on all those who used butter instead of olive or other vegetable oil. The English word chattel meaning possessions derives from capital ( < caput = head.)  It further evolved into cattle, the collective word for cow.  In other words, especially in lands where the Romans left their imprint, cattle means wealth.  And in many other cultures, besides. There is a motif in the mythology of the world known as "cattle-raiding."  In classical mythology, Hermes the Trickster steals the cattle of the sun.  One of the most famous Irish tales (c. 1100 CE) is The Cattle Raid of Cooley (Táin Bó Cúalnge). [Link to the finale in which the brown Bull of Cualaigne appears.  No longer  available.] Heavenly Cow  In Indian folktales, Dhol is the name of a white cow that holds the earth between her horns.  And we know  the Indian cow has been protected for millennia for the economic reasons this symbolism expresses.  A less direct symbolism is expressed by the fact that the white cow is "the vehicle" of Goddess Parvati. In ancient Egypt, there were a number of cow deities.  Nut, the sky goddess emanates as Mehueret, the Flood.  Another is Hesat and milk was referred to as "beer of Hesat.'"   The Egyptian goddess of fertility, Bata, was depicted as a cow, or as a human with the ears and horns of a cow.  She was a deity of Upper Egypt (Sudan.)  Even today, that part of the world has a special relationship with cows.  The Masai of East Africa consider that all the cattle in the world belong to them. Cow-horned Hathor, daughter of Ra, is another Egyptian goddess associated with the heavens.   The Celestial Cow, who carries the sun's disc between her horns, she is later portrayed as a slender woman wearing the horns.  As "Eye of Ra" she transforms into avenging Sekhmet -- lion-headed death deity, goddess of war and pestilence -- to punish humans for their  transgressions.  She nearly wipes out all mankind before Ra manages to arrest her activity by getting her drunk with beer that had been colored to look like blood so that she once again becomes benevolent. Europe Europa was a once a Phoenician maiden whom Zeus desired.  Jealous Hera turned her into a white cow and chased her towards the west, the region that today bears her name. Wild, white cattle of pre-Roman Britain Indo-europeans carried the notion of a cosmic cow with them to northern Europe, for in the mythology of the Eddas, Audhumla ("Without Impurity") was the creator of humankind.  From a stone, she licked Man into being over a period of three days.  She was created from ice-melt at the beginning of time, and preserves herself while sustaining the status quo by licking the salt and hoar frost which would otherwise build up on Niflheim, abode of the gods.  The titans or Ymir feed on her milk. In southern Gaul, Damona was the name of this cow who exists in relation to the waters of the earth. The ultimate food was the milk of such a cow.  Ethne is an Irish goddess, who subsists on milk from a sacred cow. The Basques had a special relation with the cow. They used to worship Mari at her sacred caves or "houses of Mari."  It is believed that her guardian, a fiery-eyed, red-haired cow (or bull?) Beigorri, may occasionally be seen there still.  It is this animal that is painted on the walls of the sacred caves, many of which contain evidence of occupation from over 20,000 years ago. Is it a cow or not? There seems to be a definite idea as to what constitutes Cow that is rather different from the vague categorization of  deer / antelope /gazelle.  Cows are definitely not water buffalo nor are they yaks.  The Hindu Goddess Durga slew a primordial demon Mahisha, who had at first taken the form of a huge water buffalo but the bull, Nandi is the vehicle of, and hence all bulls are sacred to, her consort, Maheshvara or Shiva.   Though people cannot deny there is a relation here, the distinction between buffalo and bull is considered very important.  Many people who would never eat roast beef will eat "buff burger". The sub-family of even-toed mammals known as Bovines is separated into several Genus. 1. Bos are true cattle, descended from the ancestor of the European cow known as the Aurochs (Bos primigenius.) There are 3 species: Bos taurus, European cattle; Bos indicus, tropical cattle; and Bos frontalis, Bhutan cattle. 2. Bison is particular to North America, "American bison." 3. Poephagus is the yak. 4. Bibos is the guar (wild buffalo of India.) 5. Bubalus is the [east Asian] water buffalo, sub-divided into River and Swamp types. 6.  Anoa is a small-size variety, now classed with Bubalus. 7.  Syncerus is the impressive African or Cape buffalo. Chromosomal studies and field experiments show that Bos, Bison and Poephagus will cross-breed, but not with Bubalus or Syncerus. ~ National Research Council report.  The Water Buffalo: New Prospects for an Under Utilized Animal. Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1981. The Yak For Tibetans who live in mountainous terrain, we can say that the yak [a male term, actually] is their cow. "The nomads call their animals "wish-granting yaks," for they provide all their needs - - hides and wool for warmth and shelter, meat and milk products for food, and even dried dung for fuel."  Inextricably linked to the fortunes of Tibet, the yak may go a long way to help preserve her culture* -- no pun intended. *Yogurt or curd need some culture from a previous batch that contains an essential lactophile bacteria. Greatest Places says: The yak is a hefty, primitive looking beast, somewhat resembling the ancient paintings of bisons. The high plateau is the natural ecological niche for this unique animal, which flourished best at heights above 13,000 feet. Below this altitude, there is a similar, though less powerful animal, the dzo, which is actually a crossbreed between a yak and a cow.  Strong enough to do heavy field tasks, yaks also supply their owners with milk, butter, meat, dung, and hair. Apparently the value of yak dung in the woodless regions of Central Asia cannot be over estimated. It is the main fuel of the country and burns with a hot, steady flame. Yet in 1994, 10, 000 were established in reserves by the current authorities, along with the always rare moose-like takin. A dri is the female yak. About the fierce, wild yak, 'kusat'  (bos grunniens) Juintow's photo of Tibetan cow. The Dalai Lama has been quoted as saying that mixing Buddhism and Christianity is like "trying to put a yak's head on a cow's body."  This kind of reference to the cow in discussions of religion/philosophy is a very ancient one in the Indian tradition.   Even a thousand years ago, when the Nyaya metaphysicians disputed Buddhists about matters of ontology [being-ness/existence] they referred to  "eternal cow-ness" as being distinct from "bovine particulars." Wordplay Cattle (kine is an archaic English word) are grouped into herds that consist of cows, heifers and calves.  To control breeding, bulls are kept apart.  Steers are castrated bulls that are raised for meat.  Non-agricultural people do not seem to know what an ox is, nor the relation between oxen and steers.  An ox is a powerful draught animal and a young one is known as a bullock. The flat wildflower with a yellow centre is called an ox-eye daisy, and a person who is gazing longingly at a loved one is said to be "making calf eyes." Bovine is an adjective derived from the Latin bos.  Yes, boss. Gentle The cow epitomized gentleness and appears in The Bible as the opposite of the fierce predators. Isaiah XI, 6-7: The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them,  7. And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together, and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The Bull Taurus is today the second constellation in the Western hemisphere, in the spring.  Many different cultures have seen the red-eyed bust of a bull in the arrangement of stars, and the notion of a Bull of Heaven is very ancient. In a way, it is the opposite of the heavenly cow, for in  Mesopotamian myth, it was the embodiment of a terrible drought created by Anu for the goddess Ishtar. The Mediterranean island of Crete was the legendary home of the Minotaur -- a bull-headed monster according to the Greeks, but archaeologists of the 19th century revealed a misunderstanding.  Ancient Cretan culture is called Minoan after Minos, the legendary ruler of the island.  The largest building on the site was found by Sir Arthur Evans to be extremely complex in its layout -- a veritable maze.   Add to these two facts the discovery of the emblem of the Minoans, a double-headed axe or labrys (not unlike a flattened dorje) that was found carved into stone pillars and we have a Laby-rinth and a Mino-taur. The Minoans did have a sacred relationship with the bull, and bull-leaping youths depicted on the walls of the palace at Knossos indicate some elaborate ritual associated with it.  This involved dancing or tumbling between the sharp horns of unrestrained bulls.  Horned altar stones similar to contemporary abstract sculptural pieces were also found there.   Sadly, other aspects of this seem to have a root in reality.  Legend has it that offerings of youths were made regularly to the Minotaur, and indeed human remains were recently found that indicate the intentional butchering of human beings. As a punishment for murder, the step-child of Hera [Hera-cles] was condemned to a series of trials or labours by King Eurystheus,.  The seventh was to capture the fierce marauding bull of Crete who some say was Zeus himself in his role as the shape-shifting trickster that carried off the Phoenician maiden, Europa.  It is more likely that the ferocious beast had been the animal lover of the queen of Crete, for when King Minos insulted Poseidon, that god avenged himself by inducing in the Queen , a near-deadly lust for a bull. According to the Greeks, this relation engendered the Minotaur, a bull-headed monster who was kept in a "labyrinth" and to whom the youths of the land were sacrificed. Later, Herakles made a lasso, and chasing the beast until it weakened, finally succeeding in throwing the lasso over the bull's head.  Having pacified the beast, Heracles leapt on its back and rode it across the sea back to the Peloponese.  He presented it to Eurystheus, who thought to sacrifice it to Hera, queen of heaven.  But Hera continued to bear a grudge against the hero who, through no fault of his was the offspring of her husband Zeus and the earthly woman Alcmene.  She refused the offering, and so the bull was released to run wild in Greece. While serving in Persia, the Romans encountered the cult of Mithras, Sol Invictis, vanquisher of the Bull, and that religion became exceedingly popular among legionnaires of the Empire stationed everywhere. They prayed, "Spirit of Spirit, if it be your will, lend me immortal life so that I may be reborn, and the sacred spirit breathe in me again." Greek carving (3rd century CE)  of Mithras Tauroctonos. Mithras vanquishing the Bull of Darkness with his dagger, though originally a Persian image, became characteristically Roman.  Mithraism vied in popularity with Christianity to the extent that several of the important aspects of its mythology were assimilated to Christianity by the late 4th century.  One of these is the important date of 25th December, the winter solstice which marks the birth of the Lord of Light, who is essentially a solar deity.  It was customary to mark the day with gift-giving.  Mithras can also be said to have been born of a virgin, and to have lived among shepherds.   His priests were the Magi. An excellent description of bullfighting and its lifestyle appears in a collection of articles by Susan Orlean about extraordinary people called The Bullfighter Checks Her Makeup.  The title chapter is about matadora Cristina Sanchez.  (Reprinted by Doubleday, 2001.)  Shiva Nandi means joyous.  Nandi the Bull is the vahana (vehicle) of Shiva. However in ancient times, there was worshipped the Lord of Joy (Nandikeshvara), who was depicted as a man with a bull's head. The bull is also the emblem of Adinath, the first Jain tirthankara. In South India, on the north shore of the Cauvery, is the Hindu temple called Vallalar Koil that is sacred to Shiva as Sri Vadhanyeshwar.  At this shrine, Parvati his consort is called Gnanambika (Wisdom Mother.)  At this place is the shrine of a yogi, Sri Medha Dakshinamurti.  He is depicted under a banyan tree but somewhat surprisingly he is seated on Nandi, Shiva's bull.  The bull, a symbol of male sexuality, is the driving force of attainment in many symbolic systems.  Consider Zeus, sky god of the Greeks who, in the form of a white bull, unrelentingly pursues Europa.  It may be that the prototype of that myth is the Indian cosmogony in which the First Being, Purusha, out of loneliness, splits into two aspects, male and female.  The female, aware that the two are brother and sister, out of shame assumes the form of a cow and flees her brother's advances.  Accordingly, he becomes a bull, so she eludes him by becoming a mare.  No matter what form she assumes, he changes to correspond, and so all the various animals of creation are born. Arrogance According to legend, Vrishabha Deva (Nandi) was getting too proud of the fact that he was the one who carried the Great God.  Shiva wanted to teach him a lesson, so he placed a lock from his matted hair on the bull. Unable to bear the weight, Rishaba Deva felt humbled and realized his mistake. He prostrated before Lord Shiva begging his pardon.  Shiva not only forgave him, but also initiated him into the mysteries of Divine Wisdom.  Thereafter, when Shiva imbued the form of the yogi Dakshinamurti, Nandi also served as his mount. Harappa humped bull ("zebu") Wonderful Nandi (of Nagpur?) Ox If, as we have seen, the cow stands for wealth, then the ox stands for work. Any castrated male animal of the cattle family, especially if it is to be used for hauling logs, a cart or a plow, can be called an ox.  The plural of ox is oxen, one of the few English words still in current use that retains the ancient ending in its plural form.  A young ox is a bullock and that is how the mind is depicted in the first of The ten ox-herding pictures: a playful version Chogyam Trungpa's commentary at Shambhala 2009 ushers in the Year of the Female [Ch: yin] Earth "Ox," so let's face it, this is actually the Year of the Cow!  The northern musk-ox, like oxen or yaks, are classified as Bovidae, but at least up to 1997,  it has been classified in the same sub-family as sheep and goats.  It likely received the "ox" part of its name due to its hefty and imposing appearance.   In folklore, it is often the general impression that matters, so since there is no apparent difference between the sexes except for the female's smaller size, she could satisfy our mental associations with the "ox" of East Asia's 12-animal calendar.    ~ 18th-century image < John Platts.  A Library of Wonders and Curiosities Found in Nature,  . . .   . 1884. No Bull. Death is a Cow with Calf. Aeons ago, during the time of Buddha Padmattara, a certain layman, seeing some monk being accorded a chief place in the sangha by that buddha, made the aspiration that he might achieve the same status under a future buddha.  After he had spent many intervening lives in the heavens, he became a monk under Buddha Kashyapa. Later, he finally took a human birth during the time of Buddha Shakyamuni. Known as Bahia, after the land of his birth, he became a wealthy trader and managed to complete seven successful overseas voyages.  On his eighth trip, he was ship-wrecked though he did manage to reach shore where he emerged naked as the day he was born.  He made himself a garment of bark [perhaps as he had seen certain islanders do on his travels in the Pacific] and so he became known as Barkcloth-Bahiya. He made it back to Sopara, the legendary port north of Bombay where people set sail for Shri Lanka and other exotic places in search of riches.  There, taking up a cocoanut shell, he wandered about for alms.  He was treated as a holy man, given homage and receiving the usual contributions of food, shelter, clothing and medicine. Sceptics offered him various fine things to test him, but he realized what they were doing and did not give in.  That led to his being showered all the more with donations and respect so that he, himself, began to believe that he was one of the  arhats. Just then, a devata who had once been a relative in a former existence, out of compassion for him and aware of the line of thinking that had arisen in his mind, went to where he was staying said, "Hold on there, Bahiya; you are neither an arhat nor have you even entered that path.  You don't even have the practice to become one!" "Well, nagini, who in this world is one? Or who is even on the way?" "Bahiya, there is a city in the north called Shravasti.  There there is one, a real self-awakened person -- a Buddha.  And he teaches the Dharma that leads to arhatship. " Then Bahiya, chastened by his meeting with the spirit being, left Supparaka right then and, in the space of a day and a night, made it all the way to where the Blessed One was staying at Anathapindika's monastery in Jeta's Grove outside Shravasti. At the time, a large number of monks were outside doing walking meditation.  He went over to them and said, "Where, venerable sirs, is the Buddha staying? We'd like to see him." "He's gone into town for alms." Then Bahiya hurriedly left the Grove and entering Shravasti, saw the Blessed One out "begging" for alms.  He seemed so calm and so calming, his senses and his mind at peace, tranquil and poised in the ultimate sense, accomplished, trained, composed and restrained.  Just like a Naga. So seeing him, Bahiya went over and threw himself down prostrate at His feet.  He said, "Teach me the Dharma, Blessed One! Please, teach me, Tatagatha, something that will benefit me in the long run and make me happy." The Buddha replied, "This is not the time, Bahiya. We are here in town for alms." A second time, Bahiya said to the Buddha, "But anything could happen at any moment to you or to me. Teach me the Dharma, O Blessed One! Please, teach me, Tathagatha, what will help me and make me happy in the long run." A second time, the Blessed One answered, "Not now, Bahiya.  We have come here for alms." So a third time, Bahiya said to the Buddha, "But our lives could end here and now. Teach me the Dharma, Blessed One! Teach me the Dharma, Tathagata, so that I may be helped and be happy forever." "OK, Bahiya. This is it: When you see something, just see it. When you hear something, just hear it. When you feel something, then feel it.  And when you are aware of something, just know it. That is how you should train yourself.   So that when for you there is only the seen in reference to what is seen, only the heard in reference to what is heard, only the sensed in reference to what is sensed, and only the cognized in reference to what you cognize, then Bahia, there will not be any distinctions any longer. So that when you are not "thereby", you will not be 'therein.'  When you are not "therein", you will be neither 'here' nor 'there' nor in between. This, just this, is the end of stress." Through hearing this brief explanation of the Dharma from the Blessed One, the mind of Bark-cloth Bahiya  right then and there was released from consequences [or karma] through lack of clinging/desire.  Having instructed Bark-cloth Bahiya with this brief explanation of the Dharma, the Blessed One left. And not long after that, Bahiya -- attacked by a cow with her calf -- lost his life. Then the Blessed One, having gone out to Shravasti, and then returning from his alms round and having eaten a meal together with a large number of monks, saw that Bahiya had died. On seeing him, he said to the monks, "Take Bahiya's body up on a litter and carry it away and cremate it; then build him a memorial. Your companion in the holy life has died." "As you say, lord," the monks replied. After doing what the Buddha had told them to, they went back to the Blessed One and, on arrival, having bowed down to him, sat to one side. As they were sitting there, they said to him, "Bahiya's body has been cremated, lord, and his memorial has been built.  What will happen to him? What is his future state?" "Monks, Bark-cloth Bahia was wise. He practiced the Dharma in accordance with the Dharma and did not pester me with issues related to it.  Bark-cloth Bahiya has achieved nirvana - he has been released." Then, realizing the significance of that, he exclaimed: Where water, earth, fire, and wind have no footing: There the stars do not shine, the sun is not visible, the moon does not appear, darkness is not found. And when a sage, a noble person, through sagacity has known [this] for himself, then from form & formless, from bliss & pain, he is freed.                 ~ Khuddaka, Udana 1-10 Much later, according to the Dhammapada (v. 101, or Thousands v. 2) when Buddha was telling his disciples that Bahia had attained release after hearing just one verse, a monk asked how it was possible for a single verse to lead to Nirvana.  The Buddha answered: Better than a thousand verses comprising useless words, is one single beneficial line that through the hearing of it, one is pacified. ~ Tan Chade Meng Bull of No-Death To Hindus and Buddhists, the King of Dharma and Lord of Death are one and the same: Yama, here with his sister/consort Yami and their water buffalo are shown in a bronze image at the Patan Museum, Nepal. One of the Tibetan Buddhist dharmapalas is a manifestation of Manjushri, the midnight blue Defeater-of-death, Yamantaka also called Yamari (Yama's enemy) or Vajrabhairava (absolutely terrifying) who may be depicted as riding or standing on a bull while trampling Yama, god of death, underfoot.  Read about Yama and Yamantaka.  A single bull-headed Vajra Bhairava (Dorje Jigje) appears with Vetali, his consort. The Golden Calf In the most ancient Indian texts, the Vedas: Wise poets have spun a seven-strand tale  around this heavenly calf, the Sun. ~ Dirghatama Rishi, Rig Veda 1.164.5 In Genesis 32 we learn how Aaron the princely brother of Moses decided that it would benefit the wandering Israelites to have a visible, tangible representation.  He (24) . . . told them, 'Whoever has any gold jewelry, take it off.' and "Then they gave me the gold, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf!"   It is as if the bits of gold cohered of themselves to form the calf -- the ultimate symbol of prosperity. Later (Deuteronomy 9: 21) we find that Moses " took that sinful thing of yours, the calf you had made, and burned it in the fire.  Then . . .  crushed it and ground it to powder as fine as dust and threw the dust into a stream that flowed down the mountain." Of all the Israelites, the descendants of Levi were the only sept (sub-clan) that remained true to the-god-without-form, and so they had the duty and the honour of being attendants at the temple in Jerusalem where the sacred Ark of the Covenant was later installed. White Buffalo-Calf Woman The symbolic animal is correctly referred to as a bison, but we could say that a bison is a type of buffalo, just as a yak is. At least a thousand years ago, the Lakota Sioux, a people of the American plains (who had migrated south from their Iroquoian homeland), say that at a time of extreme drought and lack of game, a female spirit (wakan) appeared to two brothers.  The one who reached out to touch her was incinerated. Read Lame Deer's account. HH Kusum Lingpa Rinpoche identified White Buffalo Woman as Yeshe Tsogyal.  He believes that she is the one who delivered the first pipe --  he considers it a ter -- to the first pipe guardian. (Chief Arvol Looking Horse is the current guardian of the Sacred Pipe of the Lakota.) The selling of culture necessitates a coalition for the protection of ceremonies.  ________________________________________________________________ Basques:  These distinctive people, who inhabit Western Spain, have a language (like Burushaski that is spoken in the Himalayas) that is one of the world's few unique tongues.  Geneticist Luiga Luca Cavalli-Sforza found Basques strikingly different from their neighbors as far as heredity. Govinda: The Indian religious path that emphasizes devotion to deity is called bhakti, and one way to practice this is by singing bajan or hymns.  "Govinda" is probably one of the most famous of these, for the arrangement on an EP disc that also included the Krishna mantra by George Harrison of The Beatles (Apple Records, 1970) made the Top Ten on British record charts. The traditional bhajan [song of praise]: Govinda jaya jaya, Gopala jaya jaya, Râdhâ-ramana Hari, Govinda jaya jaya. [ Back ] [ Home ] [ Up ] [ Next ] [ The Bear ] [ Cattle:  Cow, Bull & Calf ] [ Deer ] [ Dog ] [ Elephant ] [ Goat & Sheep ] [ Hare & Rabbit ] [ Horse ] [ Lion ] [ Monkey ] [ Pig, Sow & Boar ] [ Rhinoceros ] [ Serpent ] [ Birds ] [ Tortoise ] [ Fish ]

Copyright 1998-2012 Khandro.Net  All rights reserved. 

This comprehensive web site is designed with Firefox as browser but should be accessible in others.  However, if you eliminate underlining in your Preferences you might miss some of our 5, 000+ links. 

Taken from:

http://www.khandro.net/animal_cow_bull.htm

 

Europa and Jeroboam of Israel



 

 

[The AMAIC considers the Middle East – West comparisons of John R. Salverda as interesting, with some of them we think being very likely. But we do not necessarily agree with all of the following] 
 

 

Europa and Jeroboam of Israel

 

 by John R. Salverda

Do  Kidnapped Europa and Her Brothers Represent Lost Israelites?

 Background:

Greek Mythology relates that the chief god Zeus disguised himself as a white bull and abducted  the Phoenician princess Europa daughter of Agenor  from her home in Tyre, Lebanon. They went to Crete where Europa gave birth to Minos, Rhadamanthys, and Sarpedon.
Minos became king of the Minoans in Crete.

Sarpadon went to Lycia in Anatolia (in present-day Turkey).

Rhadamanthus went to Boetia in Greece. His sons were Gortys and Erythrus whose name is Greek for Edom.

 Virgil (69 - 18 BC) makes Rhadamanthus one of the judges and punishers of the damned in the Underworld (Tartarus) section of The Aeneid.

Pindar says that Rhadamanthus is the right-hand man of Cronus (now ruling Elysium) in the Isles of the Blessed (a term that could be applied to the British Isles) and was the sole judge of the dead.

 Elysium, a paradise which Homer placed in the far west, on the banks of the encircling river Oceanos.

 Cadmos and his brothers sons of Agenor of Tyre in Phoenicia were sent to search for Europa. Cadmos founded Thebes in Greece and introduced the Phoenician [Proto-Hebraic] Alphabet to the Greeks. He was reponsible for the creation of the Spartans who sprang from the earth.

 In the article below, John R. Salverda, analyses the legends surrounding these figures and finds in them traditions concerning the Ten Tribes of Israel in their journeys westward from the Land of Israel after being exiled by Assyria.

Europa Lost

Europe is named after a descendant of Io's who was called, 'Europa.' The myth of Europa can be found in any book of Greek Mythology, and has been well known for almost 3000 years. Can anything new be learned from it' No, but oddly enough, we can still learn something old, from it. Let us begin by examining the name itself. The name Europa, is a feminized form of the same Hebrew name that comes to us through Biblical sources, in its masculine Latin form, 'Jeroboam.' I learned this, when I compared two maps of the same city in Syria, one had the city labeled, 'Jerablus,' while the other had it as, 'Europos.' It occurred to me that this was a perfectly reasonable transliteration, and that both names were one and the same.

King Jeroboam, the first king of the northern ten tribes of Israel, is mentioned often in the Bible, unfortunately his name usually follows after the phrase, 'the sins of...' This is because Jeroboam was infamous for reintroducing the worship of god in the form of a bull, and calves were set up as images of god's savior, these constituted the 'sins of Jeroboam.' This tendency toward tauropomorphism, began at the Exodus, when Israel's agent of deliverance, (legends say it was Michael the Archangel) was overwhelmingly agreed, by the very witnesses of the event, to have been a calf, of whom they built a golden image. This was an idol, not of God, but of the son of god, and they sang these words as they danced around it, 'This is your god oh Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.' Israel was regularly personified as a maiden, (the Virgin Israel) who was beloved by God and betroth to Him. But the Israel of Jeroboam, went, whoring after foreign gods. It becomes obvious that, to some, she was known by a feminized version of King Jeroboam's name. The evidence for this identification is overwhelming. Europa got carried away adoring god in the form of a bull as well, and both the Virgin Israel and the maiden Europa, were from Phoenicia. The resulting, 'loss among the nations,' occurred in both cases, from the same place, and for the same reason. Does it surprise us to think that this story, (which included a promise by God to his People who were dispersed amongst the nations,) may have, in ancient times, received a wider distribution, than to be stored away on some Temple scroll and only be known, eventually, through the Bible' In fact the story was far famed, as we might have known.

The Greek myths tell us that Europa had a son who ruled over the Island of Crete, his name was Minos. If Europa be from Jeroboam, and the Cretans spoke Western Semitic, (the same language as the land of Canaan) which they did, then I'll bet 'Minos,' is the same name as 'Manasseh.' In fact one wonders indeed, if there wasn't a bit of confusion between the stories of the Cretan, King Minos, and the later Judean, King Manasseh. How many other kings, from this same area, with the same name, were famous for sacrificing youths to a bull headed god' (Minotaur, Manasseh's Torah' is Manasseh an alternate version of the name Moses' as in Judges, chapter 18, Verse 30, if so, perhaps the Minotaur was blasphemously named for the Law of Moses.) Thus it seems likely that the 'Minoan' civilization was named for the son of Joseph, Manasseh.

This series of coincidences about Europa is impressive enough without mentioning this other weird point, which was the fact that Israel was prophesied to be regathered by an heir to the throne, and returned to her homeland in the last days. (Isa. 11;10-12) But, this famous promise, must be cited here as evidence that Europa is Israel, because this hopeful prophecy is also coincidental to the 'myth.' The Greek myth asserts that the true heir to the throne was sent to find the lost Europa, and he was told not to return until he could bring her back.

Cadmus and the Brothers of Europa

Although the story of Io must have been in existence in one form or another, since the Exodus, (parts of her story belong to the days of Abraham, but most of it, is the story of Hermes Argiophontes, her deliverer, who plays the role of Moses at the Exodus) there is no doubt that the version of her story which has come down to us, did not receive it's final form, until after her descendant Cadmus came to Greece. We know this, because the story incorporates the use of the Alphabet within its body, for Io was able to spell her name in the sand with her cow hoof. (This part of the story relies upon the fact that the Greek 'I' was just a 'Jot,' and the letter 'o,' resembles a hoof print.) She was thereby identified when she returned home after her extensive 'wanderings.' This detail limits the Greek antiquity of Io's story, until about 850 BC. when the Greeks first began to use the Alphabet. But, this was a Phoenician story that was brought to Greece at a later date, generations after these events actually occurred, and the Phoenicians knew about the founding of Argos already for years back home, because, they were Israelites and the city of Argos was a colony of Hebron, also it was they who had an alphabet which Io could spell, the Hebrew alphabet.

No one doubts that the Hebrew alphabet was used in Greece, but it seems to me, calling it 'Phoenician,' is a bit misleading. If Moses, famous for his writings, wrote anything, then it is logical to assume him to be the oldest known user of this alphabet. The Greeks, in keeping with the identification of Moses with Hermes, (the serpent stick carrying messenger of god who delivers god's earthly wife from her bondage,) credit Hermes as the inventor of the alphabet. Cadmus is accredited with bringing the alphabet of Hermes, from Phoenicia to Greece, but, not until about 850 BC. It's easy to dismiss all myths in a group as fairy tales, but Cadmus was not a god, he was a man who is famous for doing something which really happened, others who lived within a few hundred years of him speak of Cadmus as an actual historic personage. He came to Greece with a colony and was considered to be the founder of Thebes, a quite well known city in Boeotian Greece, which was even called 'Cadmea,' after him.

While there seems to have been a real Cadmus, it is, as if a very familiar religious doctrine, has gotten attached to him. Because the role of Cadmus in the story about the return of Europa, foreshadows a type of the Christian Messiah, he is made to perform a series of tasks, which are obviously designed to fulfill many key Messianic prophecies. These tasks were, perhaps, more 'expected,' of him than were actually 'performed' by him. He destroys the serpent by transfixing it to a tree, thus, 'lifting it up,' and 'nailing it to the tree.' Leaving the Sparti in Greece, Cadmus goes to the Northwest, into Europe proper, where they make him King, in the land of the Enchelians, (Angels' Angles, or English') where, in the end, he and Harmonia, never really die but are instead Miraculously translated.

The Sparti remained in Greece, where they left many descendants, and worshipped Cadmus as a hero, with shrines. One famous, such hero shrine of Cadmus, was located in the Greek nation of Sparta, on the Laconian coast, and was maintained by the Spartans, (sown ones) even down to the days of the Jewish high priests Onias, and Jonathan. As reported by Josephus, and recorded in Rabbinical writings, Onias and the Spartans, wrote to each other, and both recognized the Spartans as having a common ancestor.

-John R. Salverda

For more articles on the Hebraic Connections of Greek Mythology, see:

"Helleno-Yishurin. The Hebrew Origin of Greek Legends"

 

Bellerophon and Pegasus

 

[The AMAIC considers the Middle East – West comparisons of John R. Salverda as interesting, with some of them we think being very likely. But we do not necessarily agree with all of the following] 

 

Bellerophon

Bellerophon and Pegasus

by

 

John R. Salverda

Bellerophon: The Successor of Perseus

Following the story of Perseus in Greek mythology is the story of "Bellerophon," he was a descendant of Sisyphus from the Corinthian cycle of myths, not from the Argive cycle as was the Danaan Perseus. The two stories do not appear to have been originally connected in the Greek myths. However the story of Bellerophon was apparently recognized by the Danaans as the follow up to the story of Perseus, it was therefore added on to it and thus intrudes itself into the Argive mythology. Later mythographers, presumably the astrologers from the priesthood of Micah's idol (because Pegasus is also a constellation) the same ones who added the story of Perseus at Joppa on to the earlier stories of Perseus, (as their priesthood, these would logically have accompanied the Danites to Mycenae) make Bellerophon out to be the rider of the winged horse Pegasus. Homer however, the earliest of the Greek Mythographers, says nothing about it. (Although he was well familiar with both the Argive mythic cycle containing Perseus, and told an extensive version of the story of Bellerophon from the Corinthian mythic cycle, Homer apparently did not have a nexus between them, and makes no mention of Bellerophon riding Pegasus at all.)

Because they thought it reasonable to place Bellerophon chronologically right after Perseus, we can ourselves draw some conclusions in regards to placing his deeds into the sequence of mythological events. We have learned from abundant ancient sources, that Pegasus was born out of the blood that flowed at the slaying, by Perseus, of Medusa.

While Homer is silent on Pegasus, Hesiod nearly as ancient, tells us; "But when Perseus had cut off the head of Medusa there sprang from her blood, stout-hearted Chrysaor and the horse Pegasus so named from the pegai (springs) of Okeanus, where he was born." (Hesiod, Theogony 280 ff).

Ovid tells us that Perseus "looked at her ghastly head reflected in the bright bronze of the shield in his left hand, and while deep sleep held fast Medusa and her snakes, he severed it clean from her neck; and from their mother's blood swift-flying Pegasus and his brother sprang."

(Metamorphoses 4.770). From Apollodorus we get, "Perseus, therefore, with Athene guiding his hand, kept his eyes on the reflection in a bronze shield as he stood over the sleeping Gorgons, and when he saw the image of Medusa, he beheaded her. As soon as her head was severed there leaped from her body the winged horse Pegasus and Chrysaor the father of Geryon. The father of these two was Poseidon." (Apollodorus 2.38-46). In keeping with the theory that the slaying of Medusa was a Greek version of the Hebrew law giving, we shall extend the logic to assign the mythical battles of Bellerophon, to the time shortly after the Scriptural Exodus. As this was the time when Joshua, taking over from Moses, undertook the conquest of Canaan, so we are compelled to attempt to coordinate the deeds of the conquering Greek hero Bellerophon, with the activities and attributes of the conquering Hebrew hero Joshua.

The Scriptures tell us that Joshua was an Ephraimite descendant of Joseph, while according to the Greek myths, Bellerophon, was a citizen of Ephyra, and was a descendant, the grandson, of the Ephyraean Sisyphus. As Homer puts it; "There is a city Ephyra, ' there lived Sisyphus, Aeolus' son, and he had a son named Glaucus, and Glaucus in turn sired Bellerophon the blameless." (Iliad Book 6. Page 144 ff) Therefore the identification of Bellerophon with Joshua is consistent with not only the Perseus being Moses association, but also with the Sisyphus being Joseph association that I have made elsewhere.

Bellerophon was famous for being exceptionally chaste. (Homer and Hesiod in the most ancient of accounts, both introduce him as, "Bellerophon the blameless.") The wide spread notion that Bellerophon exhibited a superior morality when it comes to controlling his sexual desires, displays itself in the Greek myth in just the way one would expect the descendants of the Biblical Joseph to display it. For the well known story of Joseph and the wife of Potiphar, which would have been very familiar to people from the tribe of Joseph, was also used to illustrate the virtue of Bellerophon. The Israelites had the following account about Joseph; "And Joseph was a goodly person, and well favored. (Ginzberg, from "Legends of the Jews" puts it this way; "Joseph was of ravishing beauty, and the wife of his master was filled with invincible passion for him.") And it came to pass after these things, that his master's wife cast her eyes upon Joseph; and she said, Lie with me. But he refused, ... And she caught him by his garment, saying, Lie with me: and he left his garment in her hand, and fled, and got him out. ... And she laid up his garment by her, until his lord came home. And she spoke unto him according to these words, saying, The Hebrew servant, which thou hast brought unto us, came in unto me to mock me: And it came to pass, as I lifted up my voice and cried, that he left his garment with me, and fled out. And it came to pass, when his master heard the words of his wife, which she spoke unto him, saying, After this manner did thy servant to me; that his wrath was kindled." (Gen. 39:7-19) Now, notice the similarities in structure, detail, and order, that we get from the very ancient Homeric account concerning the "mythical" Bellerophon; "To Bellerophon the gods granted beauty and desirable manhood; ... Beautiful Anteia the wife of Proetus was stricken with passion to lie in love with him, and yet she could not beguile valiant Bellerophon, whose will was virtuous. So she went to Proetus the king and uttered her falsehood : '... Bellerophon who tried to lie with me in love, though I was unwilling.' So she spoke, and anger took hold of the king at her story." (Homer, Iliad 6. 144 ff), remarkably coincidental indeed for two supposedly unrelated stories.

Pegasus

The Exodus from Egypt was accompanied by an aerial phenomenon, the pillar of cloud and fire flew around in the sky and accomplished many of the major miracles of the story. That is why the Greek myths have Perseus, the "mythical" Moses, flying around on winged sandals as he accomplished his fabulous tasks. The defeat of the Amorites by Joshua was also an aerial manifestation "'Yahweh cast down great stones from heaven upon them' more died from hailstones than Israel slew with the sword." (Joshua 10:11). That is why the Greek myths have Bellerophon, the "mythical" Joshua, flying around on the winged horse Pegasus as he accomplished his fabulous tasks. The two airborne incidents were considered to be related by the Jews as well, for according to Ginzberg's research, "The hot hailstones which, at Moses' intercession, had remained suspended in the air when they were about to fall upon the Egyptians, were now cast down upon the Canaanites." ("Legends of the Jews"). The character known as Pegasus was apparently developed as a symbolic poetic devise that was specifically designed to link the two stories, the Danaan tale of Perseus to that of the Corinthian story of Bellerophon. Accordingly we can find the links between Moses and Joshua integrated throughout the "myth" of Pegasus.

Because of the way in which the Greek myths depict the winged horse Pegasus as having been born, not just of Medusa, but from her spilt blood, the result of the successful quest of Perseus, it may be surmised that Bellerophon, the rider of Pegasus, owed his miraculous conquering abilities, as well as his commission, to the famous act of Perseus. This mythological point has it's Scriptural parallel in that Moses had turned over to Joshua the "reins of power," so to speak, for the conquest of Canaan (Num.27:15-23; Deut.31:7-8,23; Josh.3:7-10). But why did Moses have to give up his office to Joshua' We are told in the Scriptures that Moses would have been allowed to lead the people to the promised land except for one thing, he had committed the sin of presumptuous arrogance when he struck a rock to produce a spring.

Pegasus (whose name means, "of the springs," or wells) was more than once associated with the wonderful creation of springs by striking rocks at certain mountains. The spring Hippocrene miraculously sprang from a rock that laid below Mount Helicon, the mountain of the Muses, (That's Muses not Moses, they both had a mountain where a rock was struck to produce a spring and both were attributed with inspired writing, but the gender, the number, and the spelling, were all different. I'll explain their relationship, but it will have to wait until a future article.) when Pegasus struck the rock with his hoof. Here quoting Hyginus, "Pegasus, offspring of Poseidon and the Gorgon Medusa, who on Helicon, a mountain of Boeotia, opened up a spring by striking the rock with his hoof. From him the spring is called Hippocrene (Horse Fountain)." (Astronomica 2. 18). Strabo tells us the equivalent, "The same horse (Pegasus), it is said, caused Hippocrene to spring up on Helicon when he struck with his hoof the rock that lay below that mountain." (Geography 8. 6. 20). Also, there is the very Moses like story about how the rider of Pegasus was not allowed to enter Olympus when he was thrown from the back of the winged horse. "Bellerophon 'after the creation of the spring, as he was attempting to fly to heaven, and had almost reached it, he became terrified looking down at the earth, and fell off and was killed." (Pseudo-Hyginus, Astronomica 2. 18) Notice here that striking the rock is connected to the denial of entrance to the "sacred" place. And also see how there was a lofty vision of the earth just before the hero died. "And Yahweh spoke unto Moses that selfsame day, saying, Get thee up into this mountain' and behold the land of Canaan, which I give unto the children of Israel for a possession: And die in the mount whither thou goest up,' Because ye trespassed against me among the children of Israel at the waters of Meribah' Yet you shall see the land before thee; but you shall not go thither'" (Deut. 32:48-52) Also, from Hyginus again, "When Bellerophon had come ' riding on Pegasus, and he is said to have fallen in the Aleian plains and to have dislocated his hip." (Fabulae 57). "And as to Levi he said: ' put to the test at Massah. You began to contend with him by the waters of Meribah, 'Wound severely in their hips those who rise up against him, 'that they may not rise up." (Deut 33:8-11) Note the odd detail of the injured hip received for rising up.

This entire series of similar motifs leads me to believe that this part of the Greek myth is, although somewhat garbled, a version of the story of the Levite Moses, who following divine instructions, had struck a rock at mount Sinai with his rod miraculously forming a spring. Then later he tried it again without following the instructions and because of this he was not allowed to enter the promised land. This was why he had to commission Joshua to take over the leadership of Israel in his stead. Presumptuous arrogance was the error and the moral of the story in each case. "Pegasus winged high threw down to earth his lord Bellerophon, who thought to reach the abodes of heaven, and share the company of Zeus. Sweets gained un-rightly await an end most bitter." (Pindar, Isthmian Ode 7. 44 ff). It should perhaps be pointed out at this juncture that it was not only Moses but Aaron, Miriam and the entire generation of complainers that were "bucked" off on the way of the wells to the promised land. Contrary to the Bellerophon myth, Joshua and Caleb were the only two people allowed to complete the journey.

 

For more articles by John R. Salverda on the Hebraic Connections of Greek Mythology, see:

"Helleno-Yishurin. The Hebrew Origin of Greek Legends"

Danaans and the Tribe of Dan

 

[The AMAIC considers the Middle East – West comparisons of John R. Salverda as interesting, with some of them we think being very likely. But we do not necessarily agree with all of the following]  

 

Danaans

by

 

John R. Salverda

Background:



The early Greeks were once ruled by Israelites in addition to receiving cultural and ethnic input from the Canaanite Nations. This is reflected in Greek Mythology.

The Israelite Tribe of Dan had early contacts with Greece and with offshoots of the Greeks in Ionia (present-day western Turkey on the Asian side).

In the article below, John R. Salverda, analyses through Greek Legends compared to Biblical Narrative parallels to Ancient Israel.

The Danites were a band of rovers, they were not satisfied with the size of the allotment which the official coalition of the Jacobites had afforded them, around Zorah and Eshtaol, so they defied the priesthood of Phinehas, appointed a Levitical priesthood of their own, (directly descended from Moses, not Aaron) and set out to found new lands. First they went up north, and, with the apparent approval, or at least the acquiescence of the Sidonians and the Upper Manassites, they took the city of Laish, (this city was very close to the Sidonian capitol at the time, a place called Hazor) killed all the Laishites, moved in, and called the place Dan, after their own tribal patriarch. They also held the seaport of Joppa, and it must have been their friendly relations with the seafaring Sidonians that allowed them to build a fleet of ships there. Then, in the days of Deborah, war broke out between the sons of Jacob, and the Sidonians. Treaty obligations, agreed to by the Danites, called for a mutual non aggression pact, with the Sidonians. (The Sidonians had already upheld their end of the bargain when they withheld retaliation against the Danites at the taking of Laish.) When the sons of Jacob threatened the Danites for their neutrality in the war, in accordance with the 'Song of Deborah,' (at Judges 5:17) the Danites, 'lived in ships.' These then, were the Danaans, who 'fled' in their keeled ships, from their brothers, the sons of 'Aegyptus,' (the Jacobite) to live with the Inachids at Argos, in the land of, what would come to be called, 'like Canaan' (Mica+Cana, Mycenae).

 

The Greeks tell a story of how the Danaans, one of the main branches of the ancient Greek peoples, came from their Original homeland to settle with the Inachids of Argolis. These Danaans, otherwise known as the daughters of Danaus, were fleeing from their cousins the sons of Aegyptus. Danaus and Aegyptus were brothers, the former having fifty daughters but no sons, and the latter having fifty sons but no daughters. Aegyptus was intent on marrying his fifty sons to the fifty daughters of Danaus, but Danaus and his girls wanted no part of any such wedding. H. J. Rose in his, "A Handbook of Greek Mythology" (page 272), has an interesting take on this wedding between cousins. He says, "This was of course the natural thing for them to do, by Greek law, for a girl with no brothers, ... an encumbrance on the estate, as Attic law called her, was by universal custom married to her next of kin." This is interesting because Rose has here shown us, that the Greeks dealt with the problem of inheritance, where the father has had no sons but only daughters, in a way that was very similar to the Hebrew law. For his comment cannot help but remind us of the story in the scriptures, about the daughters of Zelophehad.

Zelophehad had, not fifty, but five daughters and no sons. None of them were married, at the time that Joshua and the chieftains were dividing up the land of Canaan. They complained in the presence of the high priest, that it would not be fair if the inheritance of their father were to be divided up amongst the other tribes. It was therefore agreed upon, so that a family might not lose its inheritance altogether, that in the case where there were no sons but only daughters, the girls could indeed inherit the property. Now, while the girls had gotten their inheritance, there were those who feared that they may marry men from other tribes thereby letting the inheritance be divided up among the other tribes anyway. In order to prevent this possibility, a remedy was decided upon whereby the daughters would have to agree to marry within their own clan. Then, hopefully, the girls would eventually produce sons of their own who could pass the inheritance down through their family line. While we are told about the girl's request to receive their father's inheritance, the Hebrew scriptures do not inform us as to what the daughters of Zelophehad thought about the forced marriage arrangement, this later stipulation, would obviously not have been so favorably accepted by them as the original judgment was. Sure enough, in keeping with the comparison between the Greek and Hebrew stories, just as Hypermnestra and her sisters the daughters of Danaus were married unto their father's brother's sons, so we are told in the Hebrew scriptures at Numbers 36:11 "For Mahlah, Tirzah, and Hoglah, and Milcah, and Noah, the daughters of Zelophehad, were married unto their father's brother's sons."

 

Now, of course, the intent here is not necessarily to equate the story about the daughters of Zelophehad with the story about the daughters of Danaus, however, the similarities between the Hebrew and Greek laws in this regard, are certainly worth our notice. It should furthermore be here pointed out, that the Hebrew story takes place, chronologically speaking, in the days just prior to the Danite apostasy. Also noteworthy, is the fact that the daughters of Zelophehad, who are biblically referred to, at Joshua 17:6, as the daughters of Manasseh, (they were in fact his great, great, great, granddaughters) were of the clan of Gilead. Thus, they were associated with the Danites (the Greek Danaus) in the so called, "song of Deborah," (Judges 5:17 "Gilead abode beyond Jordan: and why did Dan remain in ships'") as opposed to joining the sons of Jacob (the Greek Aegyptus) in their war against Sisera. Therefore, it seems possible at least, that the Danites who left Israel in those days, could have brought with them, as one of the grievances justifying their departure, this story of their Gileadite Allies, which was indeed current at that very time. In fact, the Greek law, that parallels the Hebrew one, and which they apparently continued to follow in their new Grecian homeland, had only recently been introduced into Hebrew law just prior to their emigration.

The Greeks say that the Danaans came to the city of Argos and demanded their portion of royalty there. They claimed to be descendants of Io and therefore members of the royal family. (It does seem reasonable that, as descendants of Abraham, they could have pressed their partial ownership of Hebron, the parent city, as a 'legal' claim to royalty over its colony.) They had been chased from the land of Aegyptus, (the Jacobite) by their brothers, the sons of Aegyptus. To accomplish this emigration, they are said to have invented the keeled ship, which enabled them to sail over the deep seas, and make their escape to Argos. The Greek claim that the Danaans invented the keeled ship, fits nicely with the Biblical claim that the Danites lived in ships, they were after all in possession of the seaport Joppa, where by all indications ship building was a major industry. It is often said, by historians who have studied the matter, that the Phoenicians with their access to the cedars of Lebanon, one of the few trees which produces timbers large enough to be suitable for the task, were the probable inventors of the keeled ship. A simple reclassification of the Hebrew Danite, as a branch of the Phoenicians, makes this speculation fit the Greek myth.

 

Neither does the Saga end here because then, in accordance with Greek mythology, the sons of Aegyptus also went to Argolis, following after the delinquent Danaans, to bring them back and punish them for their treachery. But it took them a bit longer to get there, leap frogging from port to port along the coasts, in their less seaworthy unkeeled barges. By the time the sons of Aegyptus arrived at Argos, the Danaans were already established, with a degree of royal power, and the Argolian army was ready to defend them. Now, the sons of Aegyptus, a mere posse in the face of an army, could not enforce a return upon the Danaans, and because they were told not to return empty handed, they decided to quit their homeland back in Israel, and resolved to remain in Argos. The sons of Aegyptus sued for their portion of the royalty at Argolis on the same basis that the Danaans did, and they were recognized as well.

 

This brings us to a story that seems to reflect the circumstances that brought about an end to the war between the northern Canaanites of Hazor and the Jacobites, which must have been what was known to the Greeks as, "the myth of Lynceus and Hypermnestra" or, otherwise known as, the myth of 'The Danaids.' The Jacobites were not united in their war against the Canaanites, as we have pointed out the Danites did not participate in this war, and they were admonished by Deborah for their complacency, so were the people of Gilead who also apparently sat out the hostilities. The term "Gilead" was an often used alternative name for the phrase "upper Manasseh," which makes a plausible origin for the name "Hypermnestra," for the Hebrews were fond of assigning a figurative woman to represent national or tribal groups, and the word "hyper," is the usual Greek term indicating "above" or "beyond," as in beyond a river. Also, as if there weren't enough coincidences between these two stories already, the Greek name "Lynceus" means the same thing in Greek, that the Hebrew name "Laish" means in Hebrew, namely a "small lion." Therefore, as allies in opposition to the Jacobite aggression, it is not completely unreasonable, that the tribe of "upper Manasseh," who spared the city of "Laish," during the war against Canaan, may have served as the origin for the Greek myth wherein Hypermnestra, refusing her charge to kill him, spare the life of Lynceus. Perhaps they were considered contractual partners, as if under a treaty. It is plausible, is it not, that such a treaty or contract, might be symbolized, in Greek mythology, as a marriage. At least we don't have to rely exclusively on the Hebrew story of the daughters of Zelophehad, as the origin for the Greek myth about the wedding of Hypermnestra and Lynceus.

 

Those Jacobites who made up the coalition of the willing in the struggle against Canaan, were able to win the war through the efforts of a very brave woman named Jael. Jael was not a Jacobite instead she belonged to a race, known as the Kenites, who were, at that time, also at peace with the Canaanites. However, the Kenites were on friendly terms with the sons of Jacob as well, in fact, Zipporah, the wife of Moses was a Kenite (also called Midianite and Ethiopian), and the apostate Danite priesthood were her descendants. Jael herself was a relative who could not have been too far removed from the Danite priesthood, for it is noted right in the Scriptural account of the war, that her family was descended from the house of Hobab, who is therein called the father-in-law of Moses. It may have been this Kenite relationship to the Danite priesthood, combined with Danite treaty obligations mentioned earlier as necessitated by the close proximity of the Danite stronghold at Laish to Hazor the chief city of the northern Canaanites, that gave the Canaanite General Sisera the false sense of security that he must have had in order for him to take a nap in the tent of Jael.

Jael deluded the weary Sisera completely and when he had fallen asleep, she took a pin and ran him through so that he died. Now, how many stories are there in which a man is beguiled into falling asleep by, and in the presence of, the woman who intends to murder him, and then while the man is sleeping the treacherous woman runs him through with a pin and kills him' I can think of only two, one is the Scriptural account of Jael and Sisera, and the other is the Greek myth that is known as 'The Danaids.' Furthermore, it is not only this very particular story that coincides between the Scriptures and the myth, but also the placement sequentially of each tale. Just as the story of Jael and Sisera comes at the end of the war that saw a falling-out between the Jacobites and their brothers the Danites, who 'dwelt in ships,' so to, the Greek myth of the Danaids is the story of the subsequent reconciliation between the progeny of Danaus, who fled in ships from their brothers the sons of Aegyptus at the time of their quarrel.

It should be said at this juncture that, while the scriptural story makes the female assassin Jael out to be a heroine, the Greek myth of the Danaids is coming to us from the complete opposite point of view, for the Greek heroine Hypermnestra is famed for not doing, exactly what Jael did do. In fact the Greeks must have looked at the deed of Jael as an act of the most heinous kind of treachery, for they have assigned to the other forty-nine sisters of Hypermnestra, those who did commit the deceitful act, an extra punishment of frustration in Hades. They are compelled to unsuccessfully fill a leaky water jar forever. Thus the Danaids can always be recognized on pottery, coins, and other works of art, by the fact that they were always carrying their ever present water jugs. It is interesting to note, in this regard, that according to the song of Deborah, the water distributors played an important role in spreading the word that rallied the warriors who fought on the side of the perfidious Jael, furthermore, when Sisera came to the tent of Jael, the first thing he asked for was to be served water. At any rate, in vilifying the treacherous Jael it does seem as though the Greeks felt the need for some reason, perhaps the one here outlined, to defame the entire water carrying guild as well.

 

Are we to conclude that these two very similar traditions, containing complete series' of parallel motifs, each sprang up independently and without cross contamination between these two cultures, the Greek and the Hebrew, separated only by a well worn path across the Mediterranean sea? We know that pottery traversed between Greece and the Levant, so why are we so reluctant to identify the popular stories that were told in each place? This, perhaps wouldn't be so difficult to admit in itself, but in fact I think that we shall find, that it was more than simple cross contamination, it was a more direct contact, for the original waves of immigration to Argolis in Greece, the forefathers of the Mycenaean civilization, were the sons of Anak, closely followed by the Danites and the Jacobites, but of these, predominantly the Danites, so much so, that throughout the writings of Homer, he usually refers to the Peloponnesian Greeks, by the general term "Danaans."

 

At this point, the question naturally arises; Did the Danaans come from, the Scriptural home of the Danites in the land of Jacob, or as the Greek myth seems to indicate, from the land of Egypt? If there is a simple answer to this question, it is this; The Greeks had a poor knowledge of world geography. Furthermore, our understanding of Greek geography leaves much to be desired. While, on the one hand, it is true that we moderns now call the land of the Nile, Egypt, and we did get this habit from the Greeks, it is not so certain, on the other hand, that the original ancient Greek myth tellers themselves, had this same interpretation. For the ancient myth itself, which we have culled from Apollodorus ( 2.1.4-5), runs thusly; "Belus (the father of Aegyptus) remained in Egypt, reigned over the country, and married Anchinoe, daughter of Nile, by whom he had twin sons, Aegyptus and Danaus, but according to Euripides, he had also Cepheus and Phineus. Danaus was settled by Belus in Libya, and Aegyptus in Arabia." Here we can plainly see, that Aegyptus was not a King of Egypt, but of some other land in Arabia. The Greek myths go on to tell us, that Aegyptus in his Arabian land, conquered a nearby people who were known as the "Melampodes," and that it was this territory, that he went on to name after himself, "Egypt." The term, "Melampodes," often interpreted as meaning "black footed," is thought by many to be another name for the Egyptians themselves. Certainly Aegyptus would not have had to conquer the people whom his father was ruling over. However, if we are to look for a people who's land neighbored the land of Arabia, and who were not already subjected to Egyptian suzerainty, then I suggest, that we look to those ancient rebellious slaves from Egypt who lived on the border of Arabia, the Jacobites. And since the people who lived in the land of Jacob at that time, were the same people who once served as slaves, stomping out the mud bricks for the Pharaoh's building projects, the term "Melampodes," or "black footed," could easily have been a derisive reference to them, as famed for their muddy black feet. They had as we know, come from the land of the Nile, so the Greek confusion between the Melampodes and the Egyptians wouldn't seem to be so far fetched after all. (Do we call the calf god, 'of Egypt,' because of the Greeks? Perhaps we should change that to, 'Jacob's calf god.')

 

Furthermore, it should be pointed out that the term "Egypt," was not the popular nor usual name for the land of the Pharaohs. By any measure, the most popular name was "Misir," as in its equivalent Hebrew name Mizraim. The Hittites, the Assyrians, and the Chaldeans, like the modern Arabs all used this name, and not the name "Egypt." In fact the Greeks were aware of this name for the land of the Nile from a very early date as well. The ancient Greek script, called linear B, which was used by the Danaans, and has been deciphered as the language of Mycenaean Greek by the modern philologists, does contain the usual term, in the form "Misirayo," which has been translated to mean, "the Egyptian." The term "Aikupitiyo," has also been found to occur in the same linear B script, and it has been translated as well to mean, "the Egyptian." Of course, these modern scholars are only following a well established usage and offer no explanation as to why the Mycenaean Greeks should refer to the Egyptians by two different names in the same script. Allow me to offer an explanation, The Mycenaean word, "Aikupitiyo," means, just as it so closely resembles "Jacobite," they were like the people of Misir, but not exactly. This resemblance between the two words, is striking, but this it in itself is not enough to identify them with each other, however, combined with the similarities between the stories in the Hebrew scriptures, and the myths of the Greeks, we may draw some more definite conclusions.

 

We know from the Scriptures that the Jew wandered to the land of the "Jacobite," but the myths have Io wandering to the land of "Aegyptus." And, while we know that the Danites had a family quarrel with their brothers the "Jacobites" which caused them to retreat into their ships, the myths have the Danaans fleeing by ship from their brothers, the sons of "Aegyptus." We notice the error, but we especially notice the consistency of it, it is apparent that the earlier myths had it right, but the later speculation misplaced the name of Jacob on the land of the Nile. If this last point should seem like a circular argument remember, the evidence for identifying Io and the Danaans, with the Jew and the Danite, are strong enough to stand on their own. Identifying Jacob with Aegyptus is a conclusion based upon these stronger evidences, it is certainly not supposed by me to be proof of the Io and Danaus theories.

 

So far we've only covered the few short generations between Joshua's expelling of the Anakim, and Deborah's report of the Danite apostasy, many other similar waves of Greek immigration by the descendants of Io, were to follow. For it was about 100 years after the days of the Danite apostasy, that the sons of Perseus immigrated to Argolis from the city of Joppa in Phoenicia, and these more recent Danites had, in the mean time, developed their own version of the events of Hebrew history. These sons of Perseus, those whom we will be referring to as the Perseids, have been attributed with building the walls of Mycenae and as such, can be placed into actual historic chronology. For these walls have been found by archaeologists and dated in synchronization with Egyptian history. The Perseids knew that they were related to the earlier established Danaans by race, but as to the story of Io and Hermes they must have had their doubts. It is apparent that they had neither the ability nor the desire to abolish the earlier mythology, so they simply added their own version of history onto it, as if their stories were subsequent events. They gave a son to Hypermnestra and Lynceus whom they called "Abas," (plausibly meant to represent Abraham,) which is the usual Hebrew word for "father," and they made this Abas to be the father of their own mythological history, which they began at the story of a Acrisius and Proetus. Of any story attributable to the Greek mythological character who was known as Abas there is little to report. It was said by some that he was a great warrior, but there is no report of his participation in any war, some say that he invented the shield, or that he had a magic shield which one only had to display, (a bit like the Ark of the Covenant,) and the enemy would be miraculously disbursed. Not to discount the story of his shield, but there was a much more important role to be played by Abas, which was that of a genealogical connector between the earlier Danite/Inachid dynasty and the subsequent Danite/Perseid one.

 

-John R. Salverda

For more articles on the Hebraic Connections of Greek Mythology, see:

"Helleno-Yishurin. The Hebrew Origin of Greek Legends"

Abraham in Greek Mythology

 

by

 

John R. Salverda

[The AMAIC considers the Middle East – West comparisons of John R. Salverda as interesting, with some of them we think being very likely. But we do not necessarily agree with all of the following]

Abraham and the Minyan Athamas

Contents:


Minyans, Kurds, Armenians, and UR.

Thessalians.

Abraham and the Ram-Lamb?

The Almost-Consummated Sacrifice of the Son!

Competing Wives and their Allegorical Significance.

Isaac and the Mountain.

Different Hebrew Traditions Coalesced in Greek Mythology.



Minyans, Kurds, Armenians, and UR

The Athamas of Greek Mythology, as the King of Orchomenus a city founded by Minyas, was a well known Minyan. Abraham and his family were said to have been from Ur of the Chaldees. These two statements fit together because the Minyans were the Armenians (Ur-Manneans indicating those from the mountains [ur] of Minni), and the Armenians of Urartu were famously known as the Chaldians of Urartu. This is the land where Noahs ark landed, and the People of Noahs land, could build ships, (The Greek word for ship, is plausibly derived from the very name of Noah, naus) and they were very colonial. The Minni, named in connection with Ararat, by Jeremiah (from Jeremiah 51:27), are the same People as those mentioned by Josephus (quoting Nicolaus of Damascus), who uses the Greek form Minyas, (Antiquities i. I. 6,) to indicate a place in Armenia, the country where Noahs Ark landed. Thus there are fairly convincing connections between the Greek, Minyas, and the Armenians. Historians know well these People and call them the Manneans, or the kingdom of Van. This group lived in the mountains, (alternately known as, the Gordyan or Cordyaean mountains by Berosus, and as, the Chaldean mountains by Xenophon,) where Noahs ark landed. The Chaldeans are the descendants of Noahs grandson, Arpachshad. Abraham was one of these Chaldeans. These three closely related peoples, the Armenians, the Hebrews, and the Minyans, knew about each others existence, and they kept in touch in ancient times. Since the Manneans, are known to have been largely composed of Hurrians it seems reasonable to assume that the Hurrians were so called after Ur, the homeland of Abraham (The pre-Canaan home of Abraham, the city of Haran, named for Abrahams brother, and the surrounding quod-city area, including the cities of Nahor, named for either Abrahams brother or his grandfather, Pethor the home of Balaam, and Carchemish were also settled, according to modern archaeologists, by the Hurrians.). The theory that Abraham came from the city of Ur in Sumer dies slowly, but surely. As has been argued by Prof. Cyrus Gordon and others, Abraham was a nomadic herdsman, he was from the mountains of Noah, the ship builder, with specialized abilities like knot tying for the rigging of canvas, astral navigation for nomadic travels, and he had herds for wealth, (goats and sheep, animals that are specialized for the mountains,) he was not a city dwelling farmer, like the Sumerians, and obviously did not come from the urban centers of the plains of Shinar.

 

Thessalians

Trading merchandise, stories, and perhaps even adventurous tourism, would go between Greece and the Minyans by way of a seafaring, horse breeding People, who also had ties to the Minyan culture called, the Thekel, (the Thekelwesh, of the Sea Peoples,) more familiarly known as, the Thessalians or Thessalonians, a name they adopted about 825 BC. The People of Thessaly, were from the Levant, and were a branch of the Aeolians, the sons of Aeolus, (plausibly from Eloah [god], with the usual Greek suffix, -us appended) the Hebrews knew of these People and called them, the sons of Elishah. The Aeolians traded extensively with the people of the land of Canaan, (see Ezekiel 27:9-25) and, gray colored, Minyan ware, (as it is so called by modern archaeologists who find it scattered throughout northern Greece and southern Thrace from the time preceding the Troy VI period), likely came from the Maneans down through the Mitanni to the coastal cities on the Cyprus corner of the Mediterranean sea, from there the goods were carried over sea by the Aeolians of Thessaly, to northern Greece and Thrace. The Thessalians, as is evidenced by the story of the Argonautica (often referred to as the Minyan tale), were also familiar with another oversea route, between Armenia and Greece, through the Black Sea.

 

Abraham and the Ram-Lamb?

The Minyans, as Hurrians from Armenia, knew well the story of the Hebrew, Abraham, they called him Athamas. The Minyans most likely got their, only slightly tainted, version of the story, brought over by migrants from the area of Carchemish and therefore named its Greek colony at the city of Orchomenus (a plausible transliteration, and supposed by some to have been founded by Athamas himself) after the place. Even a cursory comparison of the two supposedly unrelated stories displays them as remarkably coincidental. Athamas began a movement toward, the abolition of, that age old and wide spread, religious concept, human sacrifice (as well as its companion tradition, cannibalism). Although we praise Abraham for his role in this abolition, it seems that some factions (mainly, the Achaeans) of the ancient Greeks, were of a different opinion. They considered their Abrahamic equivalent Athamas, and his descendants as well, to be cursed for their part in the civilizing of mankind (See Herodotus 7. 197 Athamas the son of Aeolus contrived death for Phrixus, having taken counsel with Ino, and after this how by command of an oracle the Achaeans propose to his descendants the following tasks to be performed: whosoever is the eldest of this race, he is brought forth to the sacrifice. This is done to the descendants of Kytissoros the son of Phrixus, because, he brought the wrath of the gods upon his own descendants.). In both cases, whether Scripture or myth, the abolition of human sacrifice in favor of animal sacrifice (the ram) is the obvious message of the story. Pausanias describes a statue depicting the sacrifice of this ram; "There is also a statue of Phrixus the son of Athamas carried ashore to the Colchians by the ram. Having sacrificed the animal, he has cut out the thighs in accordance with Greek custom and is watching them as they burn." (Pausanias, Description of Greece 1. 24. 2) Take note of the Greek custom of cutting out the thighs as if to make the sacrifice Kosher. There is no doubt in my mind as to where they got such a notion.

 

The Almost-Consummated Sacrifice of the Son!

Intricate details of Abrahams life appear as parts of the Greek myth as well, I cant think of another pair, of ancient stories which are so similar, and yet so seldom compared! Both Abraham and Athamas were divinely commanded to sacrifice, each their own son, with a knife on a mountain top, and each was about to comply when the child was saved, each by the miraculous appearance of a ram. The ram was considered to have been supplied by God, and was said to have been acceptable to Him as a replacement sacrifice instead of the son of man. ... The symbol of the sacrificed lamb of god, appears in the Greek Myth, complete with an association to the Hebrew story of the garden of Eden, for the quest of the Argonauts, like the Biblical quest of all mankind, hangs in (nailed to) a tree, in a sacred grove, there is a serpent, and the way is guarded. Phrixos sacrificed the golden-fleeced ram to Zeus Phyxios, but gave its fleece to Aetes, who nailed it to an oak tree in a grove of Ares." (See Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 1. 80) "The fleece in Colchis and the apples of the Hesperides, since they seemed to be of gold, two serpents that never slept guarded and claimed as their own." (Philostratus the Elder, Imagines 2. 17. 6) This association begs for the conclusion that these Greeks had some knowledge about the Hebrew concept of the original sin as well as the hopeful promise of the Messiah. No doubt they did, for they knew many intricate details of the Hebrew story, including the sophisticated religious symbolism inherent in the parable of Abrahams two wives.

 

Competing Wives and their Allegorical Significance.

Both Abraham, and Athamas, are said to have had a pair of competing wives each of whom were obvious allegories of differing religious concepts. Offspring was gotten from each of the wives, and the quarrel concerned, whose offspring, and their attending religious concept, would be favored, this is true in both stories. Ino is the Greek equivalent of Hagar from the Hebrew story, while Nephele is the counterpart of Sarah. Consider the Ino, Hagar identification first; The Greeks considered Ino to be the loser of the wifely quarrel, she was exiled and had to flee from her family home, with her half dead child in her arms, (Gen. 21:14,15) to the point of her death, when god intervened, granting Ino powerful miraculous abilities over water, thus saving the lives of Ino and her son Melicertes and appointing them to become great religious icons among the People who lived in the land of her exile, which we are told in the myth, was Corinth in Greece. Except for the location and names, all of these motifs are straight from the life of Hagar, who was looked upon as symbolic of earthly Zion, the covenant with slavery and death (Gal. 4 :22-31).

 

On the other hand, Sarah was symbolic of freedom, the Heavenly Zion, the wife of God (also in Gal. 4 :22-31). Now, Consider the identification of Nephele with Sarah; Nephele was created as a duplicate of Hera, the heavenly wife of god, "Zeus formed a figure of Hera out of cloud (Nephele) (Diodorus Siculus, Library of History 4. 69. 4) "a Cloud (Nephele)? its form was like the supreme celestial goddess, the daughter of Kronos. The hands of Zeus set it as a trap for him, a beautiful misery (Pindar, Pythian Ode 2. 32 ff). Zeus fashioned a Cloud (Nephele) to look like Hera (Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca E1. 20). Hers were the favored offspring, who were carried off to the Egyptian land, (That Colchis [in the Caucasus] was an Egyptian land we learn from Herodotus who says:

There can be no doubt that the Colchians are an Egyptian race. Before I heard any mention of the fact from others, I had remarked it myself. After the thought had struck me, I made inquiries on the subject both in Colchis and in Egypt, and I found that the Colchians had a more distinct recollection of the Egyptians, than the Egyptians had of them. Still the Egyptians said that they believed the Colchians to be descended from the [Egyptian] army of Sesostris (Herodotus Histories 2.104) from which they eventually had a miraculous epic deliverance (Argonautica).

 

Isaac and the Mountain.

 

On the day of Isaac's being weaned, Ishmael was caught taunting of Isaac over heirship. (Gen. 21 :8, 9) ... Phrixus, the fugitive, was the son of Nephele. The Greek myth likewise connects the conflict between the heirs with the exile to the Egyptian land and eventual deliverance of Phrixus, when his bones and descendants are brought back home with the Argonauts. Phrixus sacrificed the ram at its own suggestion to Zeus alone, because he is the god of fugitives;" (Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica 2. 1141 ff) See how Apollonius in writing the Argonautica looks upon the sacrifice of the ram to be to the one god, Zeus alone, and further note the phrase the god of fugitives as it may relate to the god of Abram who was a stranger in the lands of Canaan and Egypt and the eventual epic deliverance of Israel. If you study the story of Athamas you will come across the term, "Laphystius" which is a surname of Zeus and is associated with the mountain upon which Athamas nearly sacrificed his son, it is derived from the verb "laphussein", meaning "to flee" and is apparently synonymous with the similarly used term "Phyxius" (Paus. i. 24. 2, ix. 34. 4.). Phyzius means "the god who protects fugitives" and occurs as a title of Zeus that is often used for him in Thessaly (Schol. ad Apollon. Rhod. ii. 1147, iv. 699; Paus. ii. 21. 3, iii. 17. 8).

And he said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years (Gen 15:13).

Different Hebrew Traditions Coalesced in Greek Mythology.

 

There was a famous famine in the land of Athamas that precipitated and instigated the sacrifice and exile of his offspring Phrixus. "The oracle prophesied an end to the dearth if Phrixos were to be sacrificed to Zeus. When Athamas heard this and was pressured by the joint efforts of the inhabitants, he had Phrixos placed on the altar. (See Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 1. 80) Now, it was a famine, or a dearth as Pseudo-Apollodorus would have called it, that drove Israel into the Egyptian realm and placed them under the suzerainty of the son of the sun god. However there must have been some confusion among the Greek mythographers concerning the chronology of the events for they seem to have compressed three generations of Hebrew history (those of Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph), into one generation (that of Phrixus) of Greek mythology. Phrixus is the Minyan version of Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, all rolled into one. As Isaac he is almost offered up as a sacrifice by his father on a mountain top, but is saved at the last minute by the miraculous appearance of a ram. As Jacob he goes off to the Egyptian land where he stays until the end of his life. In each case his descendants returned and his bones are carried back home for burial (this is also true of Joseph). As Joseph, Phrixus has an episode with the wife of Cretheus. Cretheus had Demodice as wife; others name her Biadice. Moved by the beauty of Phrixus, son of Athamas, she fell in love with him, and could not obtain from him favor in return; so, driven by necessity, she accused him to Cretheus, saying that he had attacked her, and many similar things that women say (Hyginus Astronomica 2.20). This is an obvious doublet of the same story told about Joseph with the wife of Potiphar. Later Phrixus was given the daughter of the son of Helios (the same Helios whom the Greeks associated with the Egyptian city of Heliopolis) to wed, just as Joseph was wed to the daughter of the High Priest at Heliopolis. Aeetes, the son of Helios received him (Phrixus) and gave him Khalkiope, one of his daughters (See Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 1. 80). Famines played an important role in the Hebrew story as well. And there was a famine in the land: and Abram went down into Egypt to sojourn there; for the famine was grievous in the land. (Gen 12:10) and again, And there was a famine in the land, beside the first famine that was in the days of Abraham. And Isaac went unto Abimelech king of the Philistines unto Gerar. (Gen 26:1). Evidently the famine in the days of Abram was so well known that it had to be distinguished from the later famine of Isaac's time. The grievous famine of Abram drove him into the land of Egypt, just as the later famine had done in the days of his descendants Jacob and Joseph. Perhaps it was this feature, the fact that both famines had driven the Hebrews, as fugitives or sojourners, into the land of Egypt, that had mislead the Greeks into combining the two events. Of course, the story of the epic deliverance, in one instance the Exodus and in the other the Argonautica, would serve as the continuation and conclusion in both cases.

 

It truly stretches credulity to imagine that these two widely spread versions of apparently the same story could have been written by two different peoples, the Greeks and the Hebrews, without awareness of one another, as if by instinct. The Greeks who wrote of Athamas obviously had, not only passing, but intricate knowledge, not only of the story, but much of the theology connected to the history of the Hebrew Abraham.

 

--

 

-John R. Salverda

 

For more articles by John R. Salverda on the Hebraic Connections of Greek Mythology, see:

"Helleno-Yishurin. The Hebrew Origin of Greek Legends"