An Atheist Explores the Apocrypha Part Two: Women are Stronger Than Kings. Plus: Detailed Book-Keeping. Yay. (1 Esdras 1-5)
1 Esdras
1-5
Women are Stronger Than Kings. Plus: Detailed Book-Keeping. Yay.
Welcome to the first instalment of An Atheist Explores Sacred Texts (Apocrypha version).
In this series I work my way chapter-by-chapter through the Old Testament Apocrypha, commenting on it from the point of view of the text as literature and mythology.
For more detail, see the introductory post https://bit.ly/3aEJ6Q5
For the online KJV I use, see here http://bit.ly/2m0zVUP
And now:
1 Esdras 1
“And such a passover was not kept in Israel since the time of the prophet Samuel”
The First Book of Esdras looks back to the reign of King Josias (Josiah), during Passover of his eighteenth regnal year, where he ordains that the Levites should bring the Ark of the Covenant to rest in the temple and to “no more bear the ark upon your shoulders”. There then follows an ostentatious Passover sacrifice, where Josias offers 30,000 lambs and 3000 cattle, the governors of the temple (Helkias, Zacharias, and Syelus) give 2,600 sheep and 300 cattle, and the “captains over thousands” (Jeconias, and Samaias, and Nathanael his brother, and Assabias, and Ochiel, and Joram) give 5000 sheep and 700 calves.
That’s a lot of livestock, it’s no wonder that the “feast of sweet bread” lasts seven days. Think about what a gruesome slaughterhouse the temple must have looked like after all that.
The rest of the chapter then gives a bit of a history lesson. The Pharoah of Egypt tries to pass through to fight the Babylonians, but Josias unwisely goes out to fight him instead, against the advice of the prophet Jeremy (who I assume is Jeremiah), and dies. A textual oddity – “And in all Jewry they mourned for Josias”. Who is writing this, and when, I wonder. Because would the Hebrews refer to themselves as “Jewry”. It sounds like a non-Jew who is compiling this.
Josias’ son, Joachaz, is crowned and manages three months before the king of Egpyt deposes him and makes his brother, Joacim (Joachim) king in his stead. If this all seems familiar, it’s because “These things are written in the book of the stories of the kings of Judah”, i.e. Kings and Chronicles. Joachim “does evil before the Lord” (I’d guess deposing your brother with the help of a foreign government counts), and therefore, for some reason, God uses the Babylonians to punish him (actually as I recall, Joachim does something like try to sacrifice in the Temple and thus combine the roles of king and priest, a big no-no). “Nabuchodonosor the king of Babylon came up, and bound him with a chain of brass, and carried him into Babylon”. Come on Bible, let’s pick one spelling of Nabuchadnezzar and stick with it, shall we? Wierdly, Joacim’s son, Joacim, is crowned and then the exact same thing happens to him. I had to double check in case it wasn’t just a mistaken repetition of the text, but I think I remember a confusion of Joachims from Kings. It doesn’t help that Nabuchadnezzar (I’m not using the stupid spelling that’s used here) apparently steals the “holy vessels of the Lord” twice.
After this, Nabuchadnezzar plants Zedechias as a puppet ruler, during which time the government and priesthood “did many things against the laws, and passed all the pollutions of all nations, and defiled the temple of the Lord”, even turning against prophets that were sent to them. You can see the tension between a religious people and the sense that their kings and priests are serving a foreign power.
Eventually the unrest is too much for the Babylonians who come in and conquer everything whole-cloth, killing or capturing everyone – “and spared neither young man nor maid, old man nor child”, steal the “holy vessels of the Lord” for the third time, and this time take the Ark and burn the temple down for good luck.
And that’s where the chapter ends, with the fulfilment of a prophecy of Jeremiah. I’m guessing this all serves as a prologue either to events within The Captivity or during a time of rebuilding once Cyrus restores the Jews to Israel.
1 Esdras 2
“In the first year of Cyrus king of the Persians, that the word of the Lord might be accomplished, that he had promised by the mouth of Jeremy”
Ha! Well, I was half-right. This chapter begins with Cyrus deciding to restore the Jews to Israel, on the unlikely basis that “The Lord of Israel, the most high Lord, hath made me king of the whole world”. Are we really to believe that a Graeco-Persian king, with his own religion, is going to give thanks to the Israelite God? I forget exactly, though, isn’t Cyrus the one beguiled by Esther? Maybe she convinced him.
Cyrus also returns all the temple ornaments, of which we get a remorseless catalogue – “A thousand golden cups, and a thousand of silver, censers of silver twenty nine, vials of gold thirty, and of silver two thousand four hundred and ten, and a thousand other vessels”, suggesting to me that the author of Esdras was a bureaucrat of some kind.
This is reinforced as the chapter goes on when we get to the reign of Ataxerxes, when “Belemus, and Mithridates, and Tabellius, and Rathumus, and Beeltethmus, and Semellius the secretary, with others that were in commission with them” write letters to the king warning him to check the records to learn that the Israelites have a history of rebellion. This follows a thrilling story of library research and letter-writing, and the reconstruction is harassed until the time of King Darius, who is presumably in the next chapter.
1 Esdras 3
“And he said thus, O ye men, how exceeding strong is wine! it causeth all men to err that drink it:”
There’s an odd little interlude now, with a nice Rule of Three motif to it. King Darius hold a big feast, and three men in the royal bodyguard decide that each will write a sentence, slip it under the King’s pillow, and whoever the King chooses as wisest will be rewarded. How they came to that conclusion, I don’t know, but anyway, one writes “Wine is the strongest”, one writes “King is the strongest” (sycophant) and one writes “Women are strongest: but above all things Truth beareth away the victory”, which seems like a bit of a cheat to me having two options, but… still.
Darius discovers these and calls the young me to explain further what each meant. For this chapter we get the explanation of why wine is strongest – because it changes men’s behaviours and makes them forget what they have done, basically. Honestly, it’s a nice bit of writing – “It turneth also every thought into jollity and mirth, so that a man remembereth neither sorrow nor debt”.
1 Esdras 4
“O ye men, are not women strong? great is the earth, high is the heaven, swift is the sun in his course, for he compasseth the heavens round about, and fetcheth his course again to his own place in one day.”
This chapter encompasses the other three answers, from two men (the third one having cheated a bit and given two answers in one). First of all we get an explanation of why a King is the strongest thing – basically because he has power of life and death over all of his subjects, people have to surrender the fruits of their labour to him, and whilst he is free to act as he wishes those around him must bend to his command.
Then the third man delineates his case. His name is given as Zorobabel, which seemed familiar. A quick search with that spelling gives him as one of Jesus’ ancestors in the family trees given in the gospel, but I’m sure he’s a minor functionary in one of the other Babylonian stories. I’ll come back to that, as maybe his significance will be expanded on.
His argument for women being strongest is that men do what they do for women, even kings, and that everyone was once borne by a woman – “Women have borne the king and all the people that bear rule by sea and land”, and that men act as fools for women – “Yea, many there be that have run out of their wits for women, and become servants for their sakes”. Zorobabel also mentions that arts of viniculture and tailoring, which would appear to be considered exclusively the work of women, but are considered important nonetheless. He gives a potentially cheeky example to the King as well – “Yet did I see him and Apame the king's concubine, the daughter of the admirable Bartacus, sitting at the right hand of the king, And taking the crown from the king's head, and setting it upon her own head; she also struck the king with her left hand. And yet for all this the king gaped and gazed upon her with open mouth: if she laughed upon him, he laughed also: but if she took any displeasure at him, the king was fain to flatter, that she might be reconciled to him again.” A risky move that; if the King had been offended it might not have gone well for Zorobabel.
He then switches to his sneaky bonus answer, “Truth” – “All the earth crieth upon the truth, and the heaven blesseth it: all works shake and tremble at it, and with it is no unrighteous thing”. It looks at first like he’s equating The Truth with God, in one of those occasions where religious people use words in a completely different fashion to confuse the issue, like The Word. But, however, he then he goes on “Neither in her judgment is any unrighteousness; and she is the strength, kingdom, power, and majesty, of all ages. Blessed be the God of truth” Her? No wonder this book was left out of some versions. Not only is it far too favourable to women, it even appoints a goddess as the greatest thing. I wondered if this was reference to a Babylonian goddess; it could possibly be a reference to Innana, Queen of Heaven, but it’s her brother Utu/Shamash, the Sun God, who is the God of Truth.
However, later on it’s mentioned that Zorobabel lifts his face to the sky and calls to the “King of Heaven”, “And said, From thee cometh victory, from thee cometh wisdom, and thine is the glory, and I am thy servant”.
Oh, he wins the contest, and for his prize asks Darius to continue the work started by Cyrus and restore the Jews to their homeland with all their treasure, and, apparently, wrest tribute from the Edomites as well.
1 Esdras 5
“After this were the principal men of the families chosen according to their tribes, to go up with their wives and sons and daughters, with their menservants and maidservants, and their cattle.”
This chapter is pretty much a remorseless list of everyone and everything that returns from Babylon to Jerusalem, accompanied by 1000 horsemen of Darius. For example, verse 12 is a typical example – “The sons of Elam, a thousand two hundred fifty and four: the sons of Zathul, nine hundred forty and five: the sons of Corbe, seven hundred and five: the sons of Bani, six hundred forty and eight”.
After a while the writer gets bored of enumerating everything and descends to a simple list. Verse 31, for example, is a monstrous tour de force – “The sons of Airus, the sons of Daisan, the sons of Noeba, the sons of Chaseba, the sons of Gazera, the sons of Azia, the sons of Phinees, the sons of Azare, the sons of Bastai, the sons of Asana, the sons of Meani, the sons of Naphisi, the sons of Acub, the sons of Acipha, the sons of Assur, the sons of Pharacim, the sons of Basaloth”.
And, yes, all of the intervening verses and on until verse 46 is much of the same, including treasures carried back and a little bit of in-fighting amongst the priests.
Interestingly, Zorobabel has a compatriot called Jesus, and the two of them seem to be in charge of rebuilding the temple. This goes on for another 20 verse that describe all the sacrifices and trumpets and weeping that accompanies the reconsecration of the temple, until the “enemies of the tribe of Judah and Benjamin” hear the commontion and, as either a peace-offering or perhaps a cunning ploy, to help out. Zorobabel and Other Jesus rebuff them saying “It is not for us and you to build together an house unto the Lord our God”.
Thanks to this, the “enemies” strive to hinder the rebuilding of Jerusalem. The writer then forgets his chronology as we are told “they hindered the finishing of the building all the time that king Cyrus lived: so they were hindered from building for the space of two years, until the reign of Darius”. Except that verse 6 tells us that this happens in the second regnal year of Darius. So… er…
Women are Stronger Than Kings. Plus: Detailed Book-Keeping. Yay.
Welcome to the first instalment of An Atheist Explores Sacred Texts (Apocrypha version).
In this series I work my way chapter-by-chapter through the Old Testament Apocrypha, commenting on it from the point of view of the text as literature and mythology.
For more detail, see the introductory post https://bit.ly/3aEJ6Q5
For the online KJV I use, see here http://bit.ly/2m0zVUP
And now:
1 Esdras 1
“And such a passover was not kept in Israel since the time of the prophet Samuel”
The First Book of Esdras looks back to the reign of King Josias (Josiah), during Passover of his eighteenth regnal year, where he ordains that the Levites should bring the Ark of the Covenant to rest in the temple and to “no more bear the ark upon your shoulders”. There then follows an ostentatious Passover sacrifice, where Josias offers 30,000 lambs and 3000 cattle, the governors of the temple (Helkias, Zacharias, and Syelus) give 2,600 sheep and 300 cattle, and the “captains over thousands” (Jeconias, and Samaias, and Nathanael his brother, and Assabias, and Ochiel, and Joram) give 5000 sheep and 700 calves.
That’s a lot of livestock, it’s no wonder that the “feast of sweet bread” lasts seven days. Think about what a gruesome slaughterhouse the temple must have looked like after all that.
The rest of the chapter then gives a bit of a history lesson. The Pharoah of Egypt tries to pass through to fight the Babylonians, but Josias unwisely goes out to fight him instead, against the advice of the prophet Jeremy (who I assume is Jeremiah), and dies. A textual oddity – “And in all Jewry they mourned for Josias”. Who is writing this, and when, I wonder. Because would the Hebrews refer to themselves as “Jewry”. It sounds like a non-Jew who is compiling this.
Josias’ son, Joachaz, is crowned and manages three months before the king of Egpyt deposes him and makes his brother, Joacim (Joachim) king in his stead. If this all seems familiar, it’s because “These things are written in the book of the stories of the kings of Judah”, i.e. Kings and Chronicles. Joachim “does evil before the Lord” (I’d guess deposing your brother with the help of a foreign government counts), and therefore, for some reason, God uses the Babylonians to punish him (actually as I recall, Joachim does something like try to sacrifice in the Temple and thus combine the roles of king and priest, a big no-no). “Nabuchodonosor the king of Babylon came up, and bound him with a chain of brass, and carried him into Babylon”. Come on Bible, let’s pick one spelling of Nabuchadnezzar and stick with it, shall we? Wierdly, Joacim’s son, Joacim, is crowned and then the exact same thing happens to him. I had to double check in case it wasn’t just a mistaken repetition of the text, but I think I remember a confusion of Joachims from Kings. It doesn’t help that Nabuchadnezzar (I’m not using the stupid spelling that’s used here) apparently steals the “holy vessels of the Lord” twice.
After this, Nabuchadnezzar plants Zedechias as a puppet ruler, during which time the government and priesthood “did many things against the laws, and passed all the pollutions of all nations, and defiled the temple of the Lord”, even turning against prophets that were sent to them. You can see the tension between a religious people and the sense that their kings and priests are serving a foreign power.
Eventually the unrest is too much for the Babylonians who come in and conquer everything whole-cloth, killing or capturing everyone – “and spared neither young man nor maid, old man nor child”, steal the “holy vessels of the Lord” for the third time, and this time take the Ark and burn the temple down for good luck.
And that’s where the chapter ends, with the fulfilment of a prophecy of Jeremiah. I’m guessing this all serves as a prologue either to events within The Captivity or during a time of rebuilding once Cyrus restores the Jews to Israel.
1 Esdras 2
“In the first year of Cyrus king of the Persians, that the word of the Lord might be accomplished, that he had promised by the mouth of Jeremy”
Ha! Well, I was half-right. This chapter begins with Cyrus deciding to restore the Jews to Israel, on the unlikely basis that “The Lord of Israel, the most high Lord, hath made me king of the whole world”. Are we really to believe that a Graeco-Persian king, with his own religion, is going to give thanks to the Israelite God? I forget exactly, though, isn’t Cyrus the one beguiled by Esther? Maybe she convinced him.
Cyrus also returns all the temple ornaments, of which we get a remorseless catalogue – “A thousand golden cups, and a thousand of silver, censers of silver twenty nine, vials of gold thirty, and of silver two thousand four hundred and ten, and a thousand other vessels”, suggesting to me that the author of Esdras was a bureaucrat of some kind.
This is reinforced as the chapter goes on when we get to the reign of Ataxerxes, when “Belemus, and Mithridates, and Tabellius, and Rathumus, and Beeltethmus, and Semellius the secretary, with others that were in commission with them” write letters to the king warning him to check the records to learn that the Israelites have a history of rebellion. This follows a thrilling story of library research and letter-writing, and the reconstruction is harassed until the time of King Darius, who is presumably in the next chapter.
1 Esdras 3
“And he said thus, O ye men, how exceeding strong is wine! it causeth all men to err that drink it:”
There’s an odd little interlude now, with a nice Rule of Three motif to it. King Darius hold a big feast, and three men in the royal bodyguard decide that each will write a sentence, slip it under the King’s pillow, and whoever the King chooses as wisest will be rewarded. How they came to that conclusion, I don’t know, but anyway, one writes “Wine is the strongest”, one writes “King is the strongest” (sycophant) and one writes “Women are strongest: but above all things Truth beareth away the victory”, which seems like a bit of a cheat to me having two options, but… still.
Darius discovers these and calls the young me to explain further what each meant. For this chapter we get the explanation of why wine is strongest – because it changes men’s behaviours and makes them forget what they have done, basically. Honestly, it’s a nice bit of writing – “It turneth also every thought into jollity and mirth, so that a man remembereth neither sorrow nor debt”.
1 Esdras 4
“O ye men, are not women strong? great is the earth, high is the heaven, swift is the sun in his course, for he compasseth the heavens round about, and fetcheth his course again to his own place in one day.”
This chapter encompasses the other three answers, from two men (the third one having cheated a bit and given two answers in one). First of all we get an explanation of why a King is the strongest thing – basically because he has power of life and death over all of his subjects, people have to surrender the fruits of their labour to him, and whilst he is free to act as he wishes those around him must bend to his command.
Then the third man delineates his case. His name is given as Zorobabel, which seemed familiar. A quick search with that spelling gives him as one of Jesus’ ancestors in the family trees given in the gospel, but I’m sure he’s a minor functionary in one of the other Babylonian stories. I’ll come back to that, as maybe his significance will be expanded on.
His argument for women being strongest is that men do what they do for women, even kings, and that everyone was once borne by a woman – “Women have borne the king and all the people that bear rule by sea and land”, and that men act as fools for women – “Yea, many there be that have run out of their wits for women, and become servants for their sakes”. Zorobabel also mentions that arts of viniculture and tailoring, which would appear to be considered exclusively the work of women, but are considered important nonetheless. He gives a potentially cheeky example to the King as well – “Yet did I see him and Apame the king's concubine, the daughter of the admirable Bartacus, sitting at the right hand of the king, And taking the crown from the king's head, and setting it upon her own head; she also struck the king with her left hand. And yet for all this the king gaped and gazed upon her with open mouth: if she laughed upon him, he laughed also: but if she took any displeasure at him, the king was fain to flatter, that she might be reconciled to him again.” A risky move that; if the King had been offended it might not have gone well for Zorobabel.
He then switches to his sneaky bonus answer, “Truth” – “All the earth crieth upon the truth, and the heaven blesseth it: all works shake and tremble at it, and with it is no unrighteous thing”. It looks at first like he’s equating The Truth with God, in one of those occasions where religious people use words in a completely different fashion to confuse the issue, like The Word. But, however, he then he goes on “Neither in her judgment is any unrighteousness; and she is the strength, kingdom, power, and majesty, of all ages. Blessed be the God of truth” Her? No wonder this book was left out of some versions. Not only is it far too favourable to women, it even appoints a goddess as the greatest thing. I wondered if this was reference to a Babylonian goddess; it could possibly be a reference to Innana, Queen of Heaven, but it’s her brother Utu/Shamash, the Sun God, who is the God of Truth.
However, later on it’s mentioned that Zorobabel lifts his face to the sky and calls to the “King of Heaven”, “And said, From thee cometh victory, from thee cometh wisdom, and thine is the glory, and I am thy servant”.
Oh, he wins the contest, and for his prize asks Darius to continue the work started by Cyrus and restore the Jews to their homeland with all their treasure, and, apparently, wrest tribute from the Edomites as well.
1 Esdras 5
“After this were the principal men of the families chosen according to their tribes, to go up with their wives and sons and daughters, with their menservants and maidservants, and their cattle.”
This chapter is pretty much a remorseless list of everyone and everything that returns from Babylon to Jerusalem, accompanied by 1000 horsemen of Darius. For example, verse 12 is a typical example – “The sons of Elam, a thousand two hundred fifty and four: the sons of Zathul, nine hundred forty and five: the sons of Corbe, seven hundred and five: the sons of Bani, six hundred forty and eight”.
After a while the writer gets bored of enumerating everything and descends to a simple list. Verse 31, for example, is a monstrous tour de force – “The sons of Airus, the sons of Daisan, the sons of Noeba, the sons of Chaseba, the sons of Gazera, the sons of Azia, the sons of Phinees, the sons of Azare, the sons of Bastai, the sons of Asana, the sons of Meani, the sons of Naphisi, the sons of Acub, the sons of Acipha, the sons of Assur, the sons of Pharacim, the sons of Basaloth”.
And, yes, all of the intervening verses and on until verse 46 is much of the same, including treasures carried back and a little bit of in-fighting amongst the priests.
Interestingly, Zorobabel has a compatriot called Jesus, and the two of them seem to be in charge of rebuilding the temple. This goes on for another 20 verse that describe all the sacrifices and trumpets and weeping that accompanies the reconsecration of the temple, until the “enemies of the tribe of Judah and Benjamin” hear the commontion and, as either a peace-offering or perhaps a cunning ploy, to help out. Zorobabel and Other Jesus rebuff them saying “It is not for us and you to build together an house unto the Lord our God”.
Thanks to this, the “enemies” strive to hinder the rebuilding of Jerusalem. The writer then forgets his chronology as we are told “they hindered the finishing of the building all the time that king Cyrus lived: so they were hindered from building for the space of two years, until the reign of Darius”. Except that verse 6 tells us that this happens in the second regnal year of Darius. So… er…
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