Daniel 4

[JLG]

If Daniel had friends…

Daniel 4:

- They would speak about Daniel’s visions and dreams and their interpretations!

- And Daniel 4 is a good example of them!

- Thinking about what happened to King Nebuchadnezzar because of his pride would mean a source of inspiration!

- They could think about how God could have struck the king, different possibilities and how the one he chose was powerful!

- And about all its implications!

- And the fact that the king didn’t change in spite of Daniel’s warning!

- They could discuss about the importance to think and work on humility to get away from pride and get closer to God!

- Many people look for pride and nourish their mind with it going away from God at the same time!

- Many may think it is a quality!

- But for God it is one of the main human stupidity!

- And for the men who understand it!

- But pride is everywhere among the supposed important people of this world!

- Comparing humility and pride and the consequences of both can be the source of constructive discussions!

 

[JLG]

If Daniel had a wife…

Responsa Literature

The most useful source to study wifebeating is responsa literature. There are a variety of attitudes found in the responsa literature towards wifebeating. While there are sources in this literature that declare wifebeating unlawful, there are others that justify it under certain circumstances. Gratuitous wifebeating, striking a wife without a reason, is unlawful and forbidden by all. Rabbinic sources are in general agreement about the beating of “good wives” who do not deserve beating. However, the attitude of rabbinic sources toward “bad wives” (who do not behave the way good women should) is ambivalent, and wifebeating is occasionally sanctioned if it is for the purpose of chastisement or education.

A bad wife is one who does not perform the duties required of her by Jewish law, who behaves immodestly, or who curses her parents, husband, or in-laws. Rabbis regularly advise men to restrict their wives to the home and be responsible for educating them. Thus the husband, who “owns” his wife, is given a great amount of latitude in educating her. In this view it is permissible and acceptable to beat one’s wife in order to keep her in line. The rabbis who justify beating see it as part of the overall “duties” of a husband to chastise his wife for educational purposes.

David Grossman and Solomon B. Goitein pointed to the influence of the Muslim surroundings on the Geonim and later on during the Golden Period of Spanish Jewry in Muslim Spain. Talmudic academies flourished in Iraq (Babylon), where Islamic jurisprudence developed in the eighth to ninth centuries. By the time of Mohammed (570–633), the redaction of the Talmud was near completion. Both systems viewed women as enablers and in both societies women were supposed to stay at home.

In the Koran, a husband is encouraged to beat his wife if he thinks she is not acting modestly or is not obeying him: “Men shall have the pre-eminence over women … but those whose perverseness ye shall be apprehensive of, rebuke; and remove them into separate apartments, and chastise them. But if they shall be obedient unto you, seek not an occasion of quarrel against them: for God is high and great” (Chapter 4, Sipara V, verse 33). “And if ye fear a breach between the husband and wife, send a judge out of his family, and a judge out of her family: if they shall desire a reconciliation, God will cause them to agree; for God is knowing and wise” (verse 34).

Abd al-Qadir (1077/8–1166, Iran), in his commentary on the passage, “Those whose perverseness,” from the Koran quoted above, makes it clear that: Recreant wives are to be punished in three degrees: (1) They are to be rebuked, (2) if they remain rebellious, they are to be assigned separate apartments, and so be banished from bed; and (3) they are to be beaten, but not so as to cause any permanent injury (commentary on Sipara V, verse 33, p. 83). It is clear that the Muslims too made a distinction between the good and the bad wife, the latter to be punished if necessary.

There are sources which make it clear that a husband has no right to beat his wife as one beats a prisoner. Also when one beats a wife, one should take care not to hit her on the face, avoid brutality, and not injure her permanently. In Islam, there are many kinds of divorce and a woman can initiate divorce if she is willing to lose her assets. There are diverging opinions on whether a husband can be forced to divorce his wife depending on the different streams of Islam.

 

[JLG]

If Daniel had a wife…

In Summary

In summary, we have noted that both Christian and Muslim sources sanction wifebeating/chastisement for the purpose of education. In Jewish sources there are clear differences. The early geonic (Babylon) responsa while having a mixed attitude toward forced divorce seem to agree that stranger assault is more severe than wife assault, because the husband has control over her and not over the stranger. In the Spanish/Muslim sources there seems to be more leeway for the husband to beat the wife, especially for the purposes of education and retaining the dominant position. In marked contrast to these sources are the French medieval sources in which the attitude is that a husband is as accountable to his wife as he is to a stranger. The German medieval sources go furthest by stating that one has to be more stringent in cases of wifebeating than with stranger assault because he must honor the wife who is under his protection and thus he is more accountable to her than to a stranger. It is possible that this reflects the higher status of German women in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.


What becomes clear is that from the fifteenth century onwards, when women’s status declines all over, the cultural differences break down. Illustrative of this decline is Isaac ben Judah Abrabanel, who lived in Christain Spain in the fifteenth century. In his Commentary on Genesis I, he writes that only man is created in God’s image; masculine man was the pinnacle of God’s creation and woman was only meant to be a helpmate and a vessel for man’s use. Thus it should not shock us if rabbis begin again to allow wifebeating for educational purposes and/or do not view wifebeating as grounds for divorce. There still remain some rabbis who are bold enough to choose sides and unconditionally condemn wifebeaters and force them to divorce their wives, but they are a minority. Most are intimidated by the halakhic problems of mamzerut which might result when a husband is forced to divorce his wife against his will and then recants. Thus, although in modern times there are almost no rabbinic authorities who justify wifebeating for the purpose of education, there are many who still do not allow a forced divorce to free the victim of wifebeating. Because of the hardships imposed on women by this reluctance, there has been some talk of reviving a takkanah procedure such as R. Perez (thirteenth century) suggested. However, without a rabbinic will, there seems to be no rabbinic way to make use of this creative halakhic tool.

 

[JLG]

4) If Daniel had children what type of school would he promote?

Daniel 1:
Then the king ordered Ashpenaz his chief court official to bring some of the Israelites, including those of royal and noble descent. They were to be youths without any defect, of good appearance, endowed with wisdom, knowledge, and discernment, and capable of serving in the king’s palace. He was to teach them the writing and the language of the Chaldeans.

- They should learn how to respect God’s creation!

- Thus they should have the possibility to go to the forests or to the beaches or wherever and clean them and take away the shit let by normal people (old and young)!

- But they should do it on a regular basis!

- And they should have the opportunity to express themselves about this reality!

- And they should be able to tell their parents about it and if necessary educate them!

​

​

 

[JLG]

1) Geographical locations in the book of Daniel

Daniel 8:

- Shushan the citadel (in the province of Elam):

https://biblereadingarcheology.com/2018/09/20/shushan-the-citedal/

Shushan The Citadel With Bible In Hand
Shushan the Citadel or palace of the Persian King Ahasuerus features heavily in the Bible book of Esther. Ahasuerus is better to known to history as King Xerxes I, who presided over the empire of the Medes and the Persians when it was at its height. The ancient city of Shushan also known as Susa, is located on the edge of the modern Iranian city of Shush. It was excavated beginning in the 1890’s right through to the 1960’s. Unfortunately the site has been heavily damaged by looting, primitive archeological technique as well as by the war between Iraq and Iran, 1980-1988.
The ancient city of Shushan was the capital of the kingdom of Elam until it was conquered by Cyrus the Great shortly before he went on to conquer Babylon. Before that time, Elam frequently found itself on one side or the other of the power struggle between Assyria and Babylon for regional supremacy. The Assyrians and Babylonians would deport and settle entire captive populations to various parts of their empires. Famously, the Assyrians deported the majority of the population of the northern 10 tribe kingdom of Israel during the reign of King Hezekiah of Judah. The people of Elam were among those whom the Assyrians then settled into the emptied land of Israel (Ezra 4: 9-10).
When Cyrus the Great captured Elam he brought it under Persian rule for the first time. Cyrus son and successor Cambyses II made Shushan one of the four capitals of the Persian empire. Years later the fourth king of the empire of the Medes and the Persians named Darius I (also known as Darius the Great) began building massive palaces in the capitals of Shushan and Persepolis. Shushan the citadel would mostly serve as a winter palace for the Persian kings as the extreme heat of the summer there can be very quite uncomfortable (the average temperature in Shushan during July 2018 was 45 degrees Celsius or 113 degrees Fahrenheit). The Biblical prophet Nehemiah also served at Shushan the citadel as cup bearer to King Artaxerxes, son of Ahasuerus (Xerxes I).
The walls that you can see in the image above were built on top of the ancient foundations in modern times to help visitors see the original layout of the palace. Bible readers can easily see for themselves the features of the palace described in detail in the book of Esther. Let’s take a closer look.

 

[JLG]

2) Geographical locations in the book of Daniel

Daniel 8:

- Shushan the citadel (in the province of Elam):

1 – The Courtyard of the Garden

“And when these days were completed, the king held a banquet for seven days for all the people present in Shushan the citadel*, from the greatest to the least, in the courtyard of the garden of the king’s palace.” (Esther 1:5) *footnote: Or “Shushan the Palace”​

The location of the great courtyard may be seen in the upper part of the photo. Here King Ahasuerus holds a massive sumptuous feast for his nobles, his governors and palace officials “from the greatest to the least“. During this feast, his wife Queen Vashti angers the Persian “King of Kings” by refusing to come when she is summoned. She is deposed as Queen. Esther 1:6 mentions the courtyard had “pillars of marble“. This grand audience hall had 36 Persian columns each topped with colossal ornamental pillar tops called capitals carved into the form of two kneeling bulls. The capital alone is 4 meters tall. A carefully reconstructed capital from this room may be seen at the Louvre in Paris. The columns beneath it stood 17 meters meaning the ceiling was 21 meters high (70 feet)! The room would have been an impressive location for the king’s feast.

2 – The Courtyard of the House of the Women

“Day after day Mordecai would walk in front of the courtyard of the house of the women* to learn about Esther’s welfare and about what was happening to her.” (Esther 2:11) *footnote: Or “of the harem”​

This part of the site has been badly eroded and damaged by the ravages of time as well as early, more primitive archeological technique. The King’s harem, or the house of the women is believed by some to have been on the far left of the picture. The courtyard of the House of the Women is partially obstructed by trees. Beneath it and completely obstructed by the trees was the House of the Women (the harem). Here a series of apartments have been found, each with a small courtyard. Appropriately these are near the king’s apartment. The beautiful Hebrew woman Esther along with some other beautiful women from various parts of the empire were taken here for 12 months of massage, beauty treatments and a specialised diet in preparation for the king’s final selection of Queen to replace the uncooperative Vashti. With the exception of the king and a trusted eunuch, no man could enter the house of women on pain of death. For this reason Esther’s Uncle Mordecai waits anxiously outside the House of Women in the courtyard for any news concerning his niece. This courtyard is also the probable location of Queen Vashti’s banquet for noble women which was held at the same time as the Kings banquet (Es 1:9).

 

[JLG]

3) Geographical locations in the book of Daniel

Daniel 8:
- Shushan the citadel (in the province of Elam):

3 – The Second Courtyard, one of two outer courtyards

“Later the king said: “Who is in the courtyard?” Now Haman had come into the outer courtyard of the king’s house to speak to the king about having Mordecai hanged on the stake that he had prepared for him.” (Esther 6:4)​

This large outer courtyard, seen to the right of the picture, was separated by a considerable distance from the inner courtyard. This area was where supplicants who had come to see the king would wait until they were summoned. On entering the massive palace at Shushan one would have had to pass though a series of courtyards, each more impressive than the last. The waiting area was designed to awe those who entered it and to impress upon them their relative smallness and the greatness of the king that they had come to call upon.

4 – The Inner Courtyard

“On the third day Esther put on her royal robes and stood in the inner courtyard of the king’s house, opposite the king’s house, while the king was sitting on his royal throne in the royal house opposite the entrance.” (Esther 5:1)​

Entering the Inner Courtyard without having been invited to enter was punishable by death. Esther took her life into her hands entering here without permission. Forgiveness could come only from the king who Esther knew would be able to her see from his throne room. As the Bible states, this inner courtyard faced the royal house where the king’s throne room and apartments were located.

5 – The Throne Room

“… while the king was sitting on his royal throne in the royal house opposite the entrance. As soon as the king saw Queen Esther standing in the courtyard, she gained his favor, and the king held out to Esther the golden scepter that was in his hand. Esther then approached and touched the top of the scepter.” (Esther 5:1.2)​

The throne room was reached from the inner courtyard by means of a long ramp. The throne is on a raised platform. From his elevated position, the king could see from his throne that Queen Esther was waiting for an audience. Although Esther had broken the law, Ahasuerus extends his royal sceptre in symbol of his pardon which she gratefully accepts by touching. The throne room was directly in front of the king’s royal apartments.

The King’s Gate
The book of Esther also mentions the King’s Gate (Esther 2:21) which is unfortunately is just outside the right of the picture. Here while yet a humble servant, Mordecai performs his duties to the king. The massive Gate which was separated by a distance from the palace complex was only discovered and excavated in the 1970’s. Inside the gate was a large statue of Xerxes father, Darius I (also known as Darius the Great). As the book of Esther states, there was a large public square in front of the gate (Esther 4:6).
Conclusions
The palace ruins confirm the details described by the writer of the book of Esther and demonstrate that the writer had first-hand knowledge of the palace. The French archeologist Jean Perrot was the world’s foremost authority on the ancient palace at Shushan. Perrot served as director of the French archaeological mission to Susa and worked at the site from 1968 till 1979. Commenting on the palace at Shushan (Susa), Perrot wrote: “One today rereads with a renewed interest the book of Esther, whose detailed description of the interior disposition of the palace of Xerxes is now in excellent accord with archaeological reality.”

 

[JLG]

1) Geographical locations in the book of Daniel





Daniel 9:





- Kingdom of Egypt:





https://bible-history.com/old-testament/egypt-kingdom-abraham





The Kingdom of Egypt During the Time of Abraham


Genesis 12:14, 15 - "And it came to pass, that, when Abram was come into Egypt, the Egyptians beheld the woman that she was very fair. The princes also of Pharaoh saw her, and commended her before Pharaoh: and the woman was taken into Pharaoh's house."


Abraham and Ancient Egypt. The Bible records that during a famine Abraham and his wife traveled down into Egypt. It also mentions the Pharaoh of Egypt and his dealings with Abraham and his wife (Gen. 12). It is very difficult to determine the exact time that Abraham had come into Egypt, and there have been numerous speculations regarding the Pharaoh that spoke with Abraham, none of which are certain. Below is a chronology that is accepted by historians.





Ancient Egyptian Chronology. (From the 1st Dynasty to the Persian Conquest). The history of Egypt from the 1st Dynasty which was around 3100 BC*, all the way to the invasion of Egypt by Cambyses of Persia in 525 BC can be divided into these periods:


1. The Early Dynastic Period (3100 BC - 2686 BC) 1st Dynasty**
2. The Old Kingdom (2686 BC - 2181 BC) 3rd Dynasty
3. The First Intermediate Period (2181 BC - 2040 BC)
4. The Middle Kingdom (2040 BC - 1795 BC) 11th Dynasty
5. The Second Intermediate Period (1795 BC - 1650 BC)
6. The Hyksos Rulers (1650 BC - 1550 BC)
7. The New Kingdom (1550 BC - 1069 BC) 17th Dynasty
8. The Third Intermediate Period (1069 BC - 702 BC)
9. The Persian Conquest of Egypt (525 BC) 27th Dynasty

*These dates are generally accepted among scholars. It is interesting to note that before 1600 BC the chronology of ancient Egypt is very uncertain.
**A dynasty is a series of rulers all descending from the same family. One Egyptian priest named Manetho from the third century BC wrote a history of Egypt and arranged it by 31 dynasties.

 

[JLG]

2) Geographical locations in the book of Daniel

Daniel 9:

- Kingdom of Egypt:

https://www.bibleodyssey.org/en/places/main-articles/egypt

Egypt is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible almost seven hundred times, and it is referred to another 25 times in the New Testament, making it the most frequently mentioned place outside Canaan in the Bible. In biblical times, Egypt was already an ancient civilization and the pyramids were thousands of years old. Israel’s status as a relative newcomer can be seen in the fact that many of the events described in the Hebrew Bible are set in an era now known as the New Kingdom (1550-1069 B.C.E.), which was the most recent of the major periods of ancient Egyptian history. Egypt and Israel shared a border in antiquity as they do today, and this led to occasional contact and interaction between the peoples of the two lands. Certain biblical passages allow us to get some sense of the nature of that relationship, but Egyptian texts are less helpful in that regard.

Was Egypt enemy territory for people in the Bible?

The relationship between Egypt and the Israelites is complicated. According to several biblical passages, the Israelites spent about four hundred years of enslavement in Egypt (Gen 15:13, Exod 12:40-41, Acts 7:6). That was their longest sojourn away from Israel, and Exod 14 describes it coming to an end in dramatic fashion when the Red Sea is parted and the Israelites are able to escape to freedom. The great majority of the biblical references to Egypt are related to the exodus tradition, which describes Moses leading the people through the waters and on the road to the promised land. That period of captivity is the basis for the biblical view of Egypt as a place of banishment and bondage.

But that is only part of the story. The land of the pharaohs is also sometimes the Bible’s go-to place, and on occasion it was a destination for people leaving Israel either on their own or because they were forced to flee. In a reversal of the exodus journey, they headed south to seek asylum or refuge from oppression and tough times. Among the biblical notables who travel to Egypt in order to escape hardship are Abraham and Sarah (Gen 12:10-20), King Jeroboam of Israel (1Kgs 11:40), a group of people fleeing the Babylonians (2Kgs 25:26), the prophet Jeremiah (Jer 43:5-7), and the newborn Jesus and his family (Matt 2:13-15). There are even some passages in the prophetic books that refute the notion that Egypt is a place of enslavement by advising Israelites to relocate there to avoid exile in Babylon. The biblical view of Egypt is therefore a mixed one, both an arrival point and a departure point, an ally and an adversary. So the answer to the question of whether or not Egypt was enemy territory depends on which part of the Bible you happen to be reading.

 

[JLG]

3) Geographical locations in the book of Daniel

Daniel 9:

- Kingdom of Egypt:

Is Israel mentioned in Egyptian sources?

Egypt is commonly referred to in the Bible, but the favor is not returned in the Egyptian written material. The Egyptians were meticulous record keepers, but in all of their annals there is not one reference to the exodus or the events and individuals associated with it in the Bible. That includes Moses, whose name is of Egyptian origin despite the attempt to connect it to Hebrew in Exod 2:10. (It comes from an Egyptian word that means “to give birth to a child” that is also found in the names of the pharaohs Thutmose and Ramesses). Another biblical figure who had an extended stay in Egypt is Joseph, but he too is not mentioned in Egyptian sources even though the Bible reports that he rose to a position of great authority there (Gen 37-50). That lack of attestation has raised questions in the minds of many scholars about the historicity of these biblical traditions.
The lone mention of Israel in an Egyptian text is found on a stela, or stone slab, that commemorates a military campaign of a pharaoh named Merneptah, who ruled from 1213 to 1203 B.C.E. This stela dates to approximately 1208 B.C.E., and it is important because it contains the earliest reference to Israel outside the Bible. Merneptah’s campaign took him to Canaan, and the inscription lists the various enemies he encountered and defeated along the way. Among those listed is one referred to as Israel, and what is particularly interesting is that the name is identified as a group of people and not, as the others on the list, a place. This tells us that by that time there was an entity in Canaan that was known as Israel. It sheds no light on how they got there or how long they had been there, but this Egyptian evidence provides the earliest clue we have that is related to the origin of the people who would go on to produce the Bible.

 

[JLG]

1) The Administration in Egypt

https://www.britannica.com/place/ancient-Egypt/Government-and-conditions-under-the-Ptolemies

Government and conditions under the Ptolemies

The changes brought to Egypt by the Ptolemies were momentous; the land’s resources were harnessed with unparalleled efficiency, with the result that Egypt became the wealthiest of the Hellenistic kingdoms. Land under cultivation was increased, and new crops were introduced (especially important was the introduction of naked tetraploid wheat, Triticum durum, to replace the traditional husked emmer, Triticum dicoccum). The population, estimated at perhaps three to four million in the late Dynastic period, may have more than doubled by the early Roman period to a level not reached again until the late 19th century. Some of the increase was due to immigration; particularly during the 2nd and 3rd centuries, many settlers were attracted from cities in Anatolia (Asia Minor) and the Greek islands, and large numbers of Jews came from Palestine. The flow may have decreased later in the Ptolemaic period, and it is often suggested, on slender evidence, that there was a serious decline in prosperity in the 1st century bce. If so, there may have been some reversal of this trend under Cleopatra VII.

Administration

The foundation of the prosperity was the governmental system devised to exploit the country’s economic resources. Directly below the monarch were a handful of powerful officials whose authority extended over the entire land: a chief finance minister, a chief accountant, and a chancery of ministers in charge of records, letters, and decrees. A level below them lay the broadening base of a pyramid of subordinate officials with authority in limited areas, which extended down to the chief administrator of each village (kōmarchēs). Between the chief ministers and the village officials stood those such as the nome steward (oikonomos) and the stratēgoi, whose jurisdiction extended over one of the more than 30 nomes, the long-established geographic divisions of Egypt. In theory, this bureaucracy could regulate and control the economic activities of every subject in the land, its smooth operation guaranteed by the multiplicity of officials capable of checking up on one another. In practice, it is difficult to see a rigid civil service mentality at work, involving clear demarcation of departments; specific functions might well have been performed by different officials according to local need and the availability of a person competent to take appropriate action.

By the same token, rigid lines of separation between military, civil, legal, and administrative matters are difficult to perceive. The same official might perform duties in one or all of these areas. The military was inevitably integrated into civilian life because its soldiers were also farmers who enjoyed royal grants of land, either as Greek cleruchs (holders of allotments) with higher status and generous grants or as native Egyptian machimoi with small plots. Interlocking judiciary institutions, in the form of Greek and Egyptian courts (chrēmatistai and laokritai), provided the means for Greeks and Egyptians to regulate their legal relationships according to the language in which they conducted their business. The bureaucratic power was heavily weighted in favour of the Greek speakers, the dominant elite. Egyptians were nevertheless able to obtain official posts in the bureaucracy, gradually infiltrating to the highest levels, but in order to do so they had to Hellenize.

By the same token, rigid lines of separation between military, civil, legal, and administrative matters are difficult to perceive. The same official might perform duties in one or all of these areas. The military was inevitably integrated into civilian life because its soldiers were also farmers who enjoyed royal grants of land, either as Greek cleruchs (holders of allotments) with higher status and generous grants or as native Egyptian machimoi with small plots. Interlocking judiciary institutions, in the form of Greek and Egyptian courts (chrēmatistai and laokritai), provided the means for Greeks and Egyptians to regulate their legal relationships according to the language in which they conducted their business. The bureaucratic power was heavily weighted in favour of the Greek speakers, the dominant elite. Egyptians were nevertheless able to obtain official posts in the bureaucracy, gradually infiltrating to the highest levels, but in order to do so they had to Hellenize.

 

[JLG]

2) The Administration in Egypt

Economy
The basis of Egypt’s legendary wealth was the highly productive land, which technically remained in royal ownership. A considerable portion was kept under the control of temples, and the remainder was leased out on a theoretically revocable basis to tenant-farmers. A portion also was available to be granted as gifts to leading courtiers; one of these was Apollonius, the finance minister of Ptolemy II Philadelphus, who had an estate of 10,000 arourae (about 6,500 acres [2,630 hectares]) at Philadelphia in Al-Fayyūm. Tenants and beneficiaries were able to behave very much as if these leases and grants were private property. The revenues in cash and kind were enormous, and royal control extended to the manufacture and marketing of almost all important products, including papyrus, oil, linen, and beer. An extraordinarily detailed set of revenue laws, promulgated under Ptolemy II Philadelphus, laid down rules for the way in which officials were to monitor the production of such commodities. In fact, the Ptolemaic economy was very much a mixture of direct royal ownership and exploitation by private enterprise under regulated conditions.

One fundamental and far-reaching Ptolemaic innovation was the systematic monetarization of the economy. The monarchy also controlled this from top to bottom by operating a closed monetary system, which permitted only the royal coinage to circulate within Egypt. A sophisticated banking system underpinned this practice, operating again with a mixture of direct royal control and private enterprise and handling both private financial transactions and those that directed money into and out of the royal coffers. One important concomitant of this change was an enormous increase in the volume of trade, both within Egypt and abroad, which eventually reached its climax under the peaceful conditions of Roman rule. There the position and role of Alexandria as the major port and trading entrepôt was crucial: the city handled a great volume of Egypt’s domestic produce, as well as the import and export of luxury goods to and from the East and the cities of the eastern Mediterranean. It developed its own importance as an artistic centre, the products of which found ready markets throughout the Mediterranean. Alexandrian glassware and jewelry were particularly fine, Greek-style sculpture of the late Ptolemaic period shows especial excellence, and it is likely that the city was also the major production centre for high-quality mosaic work.

Religion
The Ptolemies were powerful supporters of the native Egyptian religious foundations, the economic and political power of which was, however, carefully controlled. A great deal of the late building and restoration work in many of the most important Egyptian temples is Ptolemaic, particularly from the period of about 150–50 bce, and the monarchs appear on temple reliefs in the traditional forms of the Egyptian kings. The native traditions persisted in village temples and local cults, many having particular associations with species of sacred animals or birds. At the same time, the Greeks created their own identifications of Egyptian deities, identifying Amon with Zeus, Horus with Apollo, Ptah with Hephaestus, and so on. They also gave some deities, such as Isis, a more universal significance that ultimately resulted in the spread of her mystery cult throughout the Mediterranean world. The impact of the Greeks is most obvious in two phenomena. One is the formalized royal cult of Alexander and the Ptolemies, which evidently served both a political and a religious purpose. The other is the creation of the cult of Sarapis, which at first was confined to Alexandria but soon became universal. The god was represented as a Hellenized deity and the form of cult is Greek, but its essence is the old Egyptian notion that the sacred Apis bull merged its divinity in some way with the god Osiris when it died.

Culture

The continuing vitality of the native Egyptian artistic tradition is clearly and abundantly expressed in the temple architecture and the sculpture of the Ptolemaic period. The Egyptian language continued to be used in its hieroglyphic and demotic forms until late in the Roman period, and it survived through the Byzantine period and beyond in the form of Coptic. The Egyptian literary tradition flourished vigorously in the Ptolemaic period and produced a large number of works in demotic. The genre most commonly represented is the romantic tale, exemplified by several story cycles, which are typically set in the native, Pharaonic milieu and involve the gods, royal figures, magic, romance, and the trials and combats of heroes. Another important category is the Instruction Text, the best known of the period being that of Ankhsheshonq, which consists of a list of moralizing maxims, composed, as the story goes, when Ankhsheshonq was imprisoned for having failed to inform the king (pharaoh) of an assassination plot. Another example, known as Papyrus Insinger, is a more narrowly moralizing text. But the arrival of a Greek-speaking elite had an enormous impact on cultural patterns. The Egyptian story cycles were probably affected by Greek influence, literary and technical works were translated into Greek, and under royal patronage an Egyptian priest named Manetho of Sebennytos wrote an account of the kings of Egypt in Greek. Most striking is the diffusion of the works of the poets and playwrights of classical Greece among the literate Greeks in the towns and villages of the Nile River valley.

Thus there are clear signs of the existence of two interacting but distinct cultural traditions in Ptolemaic Egypt. This was certainly reflected in a broader social context. The written sources offer little direct evidence of ethnic discrimination by Greeks against Egyptians, but Greek and Egyptian consciousness of the Greeks’ social and economic superiority comes through strongly from time to time; intermarriage was one means, though not the only one, by which Egyptians could better their status and Hellenize. Many native Egyptians learned to speak Greek, some to write it as well; some even went so far as to adopt Greek names in an attempt to assimilate themselves to the elite group.

 

[JLG]

3) The Administration in Egypt

Alexandria occupied a unique place in the history of literature, ideas, scholarship, and science for almost a millennium after the death of its founder. Under the royal patronage of the Ptolemies and in an environment almost oblivious to its Egyptian surroundings, Greek culture was preserved and developed. Early in the Ptolemaic period, probably in the reign of Ptolemy I Soter, the Alexandrian Museum (Greek: Mouseion, “Seat of the Muses”) was established within the palace complex. The geographer and historian Strabo, who saw it early in the Roman period, described it as having a covered walk, an arcade with recesses and seats, and a large house containing the dining hall of the members of the Museum, who lived a communal existence. The Library of Alexandria (together with its offshoot in the Sarapeum) was indispensable to the functioning of the scholarly community in the Museum. Books were collected voraciously under the Ptolemies, and at its height the library’s collection probably numbered 500,000 or more papyrus rolls, most of them containing more than one work.
The major poets of the Hellenistic period, Theocritus, Callimachus, and Apollonius of Rhodes, all took up residence and wrote there. Scholarship flourished, preserving and ordering the manuscript traditions of much of the classical literature from Homer onward. Librarian-scholars such as Aristophanes of Byzantium and his pupil Aristarchus made critical editions and wrote commentaries and works on grammar. Also notable was the cultural influence of Alexandria’s Jewish community, which is inferred from the fact that the Pentateuch was first translated into Greek at Alexandria during the Ptolemaic period. One by-product of this kind of activity was that Alexandria became the centre of the book trade, and the works of the classical authors were copied there and diffused among a literate Greek readership scattered in the towns and villages of the Nile valley.

The Alexandrian achievement in scientific fields was also enormous. Great advances were made in pure mathematics, mechanics, physics, geography, and medicine. Euclid worked in Alexandria about 300 bce and achieved the systematization of the whole existing corpus of mathematical knowledge and the development of the method of proof by deduction from axioms. Archimedes was there in the 3rd century bce and is said to have invented the Archimedean screw when he was in Egypt. Eratosthenes calculated Earth’s circumference and was the first to attempt a map of the world based on a system of lines of latitude and longitude. The school of medicine founded in the Ptolemaic period retained its leading reputation into the Byzantine era. Late in the Ptolemaic period Alexandria began to develop as a great centre of Greek philosophical studies as well. In fact, there was no field of literary, intellectual, or scientific activity to which Ptolemaic Alexandria failed to make an important contribution.

 

[JLG]

- Coming back to Daniel 4 thread 53:
Also notable was the cultural influence of Alexandria’s Jewish community, which is inferred from the fact that the Pentateuch was first translated into Greek at Alexandria during the Ptolemaic period. One by-product of this kind of activity was that Alexandria became the centre of the book trade, and the works of the classical authors were copied there and diffused among a literate Greek readership scattered in the towns and villages of the Nile valley.

- Think about the translation of the Pentateuch into Greek: what influences?

 

[JLG]

30) God and Job / Job and God

Job 38-40
Then God answered Job out of the windstorm:
...
Job said in answer to God:
“Look! I am unworthy.
What can I reply to you?
I put my hand over my mouth.
I spoke once, but I will say no more.”

- Job has spoken and now he doesn’t want to say anything more!

- He is probably tired of defending himself!

- He knows he is nothing compared to God!

- But he knows he is not guilty!

- And yes, there is a time to speak and a time to shut his mouth!

- Can we think about situations where we don’t think it is necessary to defend oneself?

 

[JLG]

4) There is no one like him on the earth and a wealthy farmer

Job 1
And God said to Satan: “Have you taken note of my servant Job? There is no one like him on the earth. He is an upright man of integrity, fearing God and shunning what is bad.” At that Satan answered God “Is it for nothing that Job has feared God? Have you not put up a protective hedge around him and his house and everything he has? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his livestock has spread out in the land.

- The devil has a very strange way to think!

- Parents take care of children and we think it’s normal!

- Animals do the same!

- God created a fantastic earth and he put man on it!

- And it’s a jewel: we know how the planets in the solar system are!

- And look what men keep doing: they destroy it faster and faster!

- Is that normal?

- Is that away to thank God?

- Fortunately they will pay the price!

- And man won’t be able to do it again!

 

[JLG]

11) There is no one like him on the earth and a wealthy farmer

Job 6
“If only my anguish could be fully weighed And put on scales together with my calamity! For now it is heavier than the sands of the seas. That is why my words have been wild talk.

- Job speaks about what he feels!

- And he feels bad!

- He expresses his feelings!

- And when you feel bad you need to tell about!

- Or not!

- Because either you can become a prisoner of a state of mind!

- Or you can free yourself by evacuating the stress through activity!

- In the case of Job, he can also speaks about his state of mind!

- And there is no escape!

- It’s only wild talk!

 

[JLG]

18) There is no one like him on the earth and a wealthy farmer

Job 7
When I say, ‘My couch will comfort me; My bed will help ease my misery,’ Then you terrify me with dreams And frighten me with visions, So that I would choose suffocation, Yes, death rather than this body of mine. I loathe my life; I do not want to go on living. Leave me alone, for my days are like a breath.

- The devil is always active against Job!

- He doesn’t want him to rest!

- He uses visions to terrify him!

- It works against Job!

- But it doesn’t work on Job because he keeps faithful to God!

- Whatever the devil does, he fails!

- Job will never speak against God!

- Of course, he can say that God is fighting against him!

- Because he doesn’t know the devil is striking him!

- But his faithfulness has no limit!

- And the devil can’t understand that!

- That’s why there is no one like him on the earth!

 

[JLG]

26) There is no one like him on the earth and a wealthy farmer

Job 9
If I call out to him, will he answer me? I do not believe that he will listen to my voice, For he crushes me with a storm And multiplies my wounds for no reason. He does not let me catch my breath; He keeps filling me with bitter things.

- He is away from God!

- No more communication!

- The link is cut!

- And he thinks it is because of God when it is because of the devil!

- And this distress is more destructive than the rest!

- Because God is his compass and his light and his creator!

- And he has always been close to him!

- So Job thinks there is no way and no escape!

 

[JLG]

- He can’t live without God’s approval!

- Thus there is nothing left to him!