<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
<html>
<head>
<meta content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" http-equiv="Content-Type">
</head>
<body bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000">
On 2/19/2013 3:12 AM, Eli Turkel wrote:
<blockquote
cite="mid:CAGDtJ1EqDVvCkoaoOt7jEPbzqcvRi9QaUrZ_19SPDePRE9+0=Q@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">
<div dir="ltr">The standard Persian cronolgy is
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Cyrus - Cambysis (son)</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Darius - Xerxes (son) - Artaxerxes (son).</div>
<div style="">Darius usurps the crown and as Lisa points out the
exact events are murky.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>These events are noted in various writings on walls and other
writings that survived</div>
<div>(see for example <span class=""
style="font-family: Arial; font-weight: bold; line-height: 20px;"><a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0415552796/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER"
style=""><font color="#000000">The Persian Empire: A Corpus of Sources
from the Achaemenid Period</font></a><font color="#004b91"> </font></span><span
style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial; line-height: 20px;"></span><span
class=""
style="font-family: Arial; color: rgb(102, 102, 102); line-height: 20px;">-
by Amélie Kuhrt)</span></div>
<div><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br>
</span></div>
<div style=""><span
style="font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Lisa writes</span></div>
<div><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><<Chazal
actually don't say much about how long Darius and Cyrus reigned.>></span></div>
<div><font face="arial, sans-serif"><br>
</font></div>
<div><font face="arial, sans-serif">However they give the total
Persian rule as 54 years</font></div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<br>
Again, with all due respect, I have to correct this. They give the
total Persian rule *after the fall of Babylon* as 54 years. The
Persians and Medes existed as kingdoms even when Babylon was overlord
of the whole region, and many of the stories the Greeks record as
having happened under those rulers may have happened during the
Babylonian period.<br>
<br>
It's notable that Herodotus apparently never heard of Nebuchadnezzar.
I mean... that's sort of like a modern historian who never heard of
Napoleon. But it makes sense if the Greeks only had contact with
Nebuchadnezzar's Persian and/or Median proxies.<br>
<br>
The Tanakh records Nebuchadnezzar invading and destroying Egypt.
There's no archaeological evidence of such a Babylonian campaign. But
we don't consider Yechezkel a navi sheker, so it probably happened.
Greek sources describe the Persian king Cambyses invading and
destroying Egypt in much the same way, though Persian and Egyptian
sources talk about Cambyses son of Cyrus in much more positive terms.
The Cambyses who destroyed Egypt may have been the other Cambyses
Darius mentions in his Behistun inscription. The father of Cyrus the
Great. And he may have undertaken that campaign at the behest of
Nebuchadnezzar, in much the same way that the king of Edom went to war
against the Moabites at the behest of his overlord in Jerusalem. It's
how things worked back then.<br>
<br>
<br>
<blockquote
cite="mid:CAGDtJ1EqDVvCkoaoOt7jEPbzqcvRi9QaUrZ_19SPDePRE9+0=Q@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">
<div dir="ltr">
<div><font face="arial, sans-serif">standard chronolgy says Darius I
ruled from 522 to 486 BCE (36 years)</font></div>
<div><font face="arial, sans-serif">including the battle of Marathon</font></div>
<div><font face="arial, sans-serif"><br>
</font></div>
<div><font face="arial, sans-serif">Lisa and I both seem to agree
that his son Xerxes was Achashverosh. This means Achasverosh</font></div>
<div><font face="arial, sans-serif">was the son of Darius and not the
father of Darius as chazal seem to state.</font></div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<br>
Might I ask where Chazal state this? I mean, it isn't Chazal who say
that the grandfather of Achashverosh in the Megillah was also named
Achashverosh. That's from Tanakh.<br>
<br>
<blockquote
cite="mid:CAGDtJ1EqDVvCkoaoOt7jEPbzqcvRi9QaUrZ_19SPDePRE9+0=Q@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">
<div dir="ltr">
<div><font face="arial, sans-serif">In any case if Achashverosh is
the son of Darius I then he reigned after the Temple was rebuilt in the
days of Darius</font></div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<br>
But we don't agree that he was the son of Darius I. Darius I, also
known as Darius the son of Hystaspes, was the king whom Chazal call
Darius the Persian, who reigned *after* Achashverosh of the Megillah.<br>
<br>
<blockquote
cite="mid:CAGDtJ1EqDVvCkoaoOt7jEPbzqcvRi9QaUrZ_19SPDePRE9+0=Q@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">
<div dir="ltr">
<div style=""><span
style="font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Again Ezra and
Nehemia seem to use the same names as the standard secular chronolgy.
Seder Olam Raba is written in EY about 500 years later while the more
detailed Gemara statement are about 1000 years after the events.</span></div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<br>
Let me explain what I think happened:<o:p></o:p>
<div align="center"><br>
</div>
<tt>Cyrus II Cyrus the Great<br>
Cambyses II Cambyses II<br>
Darius I Darius the Persian<br>
Xerxes I Ahasuerus III<br>
Artaxerxes I Darius the Persian<br>
-------------- --------------------<br>
Darius II Darius the Mede<br>
Cyrus III Cyrus the Great<br>
Artaxerxes II Ahasuerus II<br>
Artaxerxes III Darius the Persian<br>
Arses (Xerxes II) Ahasuerus III<br>
Darius III Darius the Persian<br>
</tt><br>
The column on the left is a list of the kings of Persia that you'll
find in any history book. Ignore the break in the middle, which I only
inserted to make the match to the right side more clear. On the right,
there are two lists. The first is the list of Persian kings according
to Chazal (I'll explain Ahasuerus III in a moment), and the second is
the list of Medo-Persian kings over the same period.<br>
<br>
As I mentioned in my previous email, Chazal describe a kind of rotating
high kingship between the Medes and Persians. Darius the Mede was king
of Media *and* high king of the Medes and Persians. Cyrus was king of
Persia. When Darius died, Ahasuerus succeeded him as king of Media,
but Cyrus, who was still king of Persia, became high king of the Medes
and Persians. Ahasuerus killed Cyrus and became high king of the Medes
and Persians and apparently even took the Persian throne for himself.<br>
<br>
Ahasuerus III is there because of the story of Babylon's destruction,
which was revenge by Darius over the murder of his son by Babylonian
pretenders, and because it explains why Nechemiah had to return to
Persia temporarily.<br>
<br>
There were a lot of things the Greeks didn't understand. For example,
they didn't know that the Persian name of the king we call Darius was
Daraya-wahush. So they didn't know that the shortened form Wahush,
which they transliterated as Ochus, was referring to Darius. They
didn't realize that the hypercoristic form of Kshay-arsha was Arsha, or
more familiarly Arsha-ka, so they created transliterated names of Arses
and Arsaces, not realizing that these were just nicknames for the king
they otherwise called Xerxes.<br>
<br>
Chazal say that Artaxerxes (Persian Arta-khshatra) was a title used by
multiple Medo-Persian kings. See, all of the various maamerei Chazal
fit together into a coherent account of the history of that time period.<br>
<br>
<blockquote
cite="mid:CAGDtJ1EqDVvCkoaoOt7jEPbzqcvRi9QaUrZ_19SPDePRE9+0=Q@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">
<div dir="ltr">
<div style=""><span
style="font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Everyone
agrees that the Greek accounts need to be taken with a very large grain
of salt both because they were prejudiced and because they didnt use
modern historical methods for determining the truth.</span></div>
<div style=""><span
style="font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Nevertheless
they present Persian-Greco wars from about 500 to 450 (50 years).</span></div>
<div style=""><span
style="font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">It is hard to
believe they made up battles between themselves and the Persians.</span></div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<br>
Nor am I suggesting that they did.<br>
<br>
<blockquote
cite="mid:CAGDtJ1EqDVvCkoaoOt7jEPbzqcvRi9QaUrZ_19SPDePRE9+0=Q@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">
<div dir="ltr">
<div style=""><span
style="font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">If the entire
Persian empire lasted only 54 years then these wars began immediately
after the conquest of Babylonia and then immediately following the end
of these wars Alexander invaded Persia (implying that the Peloponnesian
wars never occurred).</span></div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<br>
See above, regarding the existence of both Persia and Media during the
Babylonian period. In fact, the king of the Medes is known to
conventional history as one of Nebuchadnezzar's vassal-allies in the
destruction of Assyria and the rise of Babylon.<br>
<br>
Lisa<br>
<br>
<font color="#000099"><font face="'comic sans ms', sans-serif"><br>
</font></font>
</body>
</html>