The Persian Empire and Biblical Literalism

This might be completely boring to the usual readers of this blog, but I've always been interested in history. Specifically American and European history and the cultures that preceded them. Sure, I know that Africa and Asia had flourishing civilizations too, but as someone primarily descended (as far as I know) from Europeans, that's where my interest lies. Occasionally intersecting with Biblical history, as Christianity, and the world from which it sprung, inarguably created the template for European civilization from the Roman Empire onwards. I've been listening to a series of podcasts about the empires in what we now refer to as the Near East that existed in what is now Iran, Iraq, Syria and environs. I just finished one focused on the Persian Empire during the time of Cyrus the Great and his immediate successors, Cambyses II and Darius I (also called The Great). This was an area where I got most of my knowledge (or what passed for it) from an English Biblical scholar from the late 1800s, E.W. Bullinger. 

Now some might find it odd that I would depend on this source, but 20 years ago I was involved with a religious group that used Bullinger as a source for much of its doctrine. In addition to numerous books covering subjects such as figures of speech and the word of God encoded in the constellations, Bullinger produced The Companion Bible. The Companion Bible took the King James Version of the Bible and annotated virtually every verse, and added over a hundred appendices further cataloging word usage, Greek word definitions and customs of the Biblical era. One appendix dealt with the genealogy of the Persian kings, included in an effort to tie the kings mentioned in various books of the Old Testament with historical records. In the Bible, several kings are mentioned: Ahasuerus, Artaxerxes, Darius the Mede and Darius the Persian. While there are several Artaxerxeses and Dariuses, there is no Ahasuerus in the historical record. Bullinger, in the snip from his appendix pictured here, took information from the Greek historian Herodotus, and records left by Cyrus and Darius themselves and tied it all in a neat bow. Here's a link to some of his assumptions:

http://www.posterite-d-abraham.org/BULLINGER/append57.html One of the things that we know about Cyrus the Great was that, rather than slaughtering conquered people and killing their rulers, he allowed a measure of self-rule, including underwriting the cost of rebuilding their temples. The temple in Jerusalem was one of these, for which he is called, in the Bible, messiah.  In Bullinger's calculation, Cyrus' solicitude toward the Jews was because of his parentage. He claims that the Ahasuerus of the Book of Esther was Astyages, the historical ruler of Media and that after the events laid out in Esther he married Esther and by her fathered Cyrus. Furthermore, he believed that Darius' father Hystaspes was also a son of Astyages by a different mother, Vashti, the deposed queen of the Book of Esther. For 20 years this was as good an explanation as any in my mind. 

Until recently when I started listening to and reading real historians. 

According the available records, Astyages was the ruler of Media and the overlord of the smaller territory of Anshan, where Cyrus' father Cambyses I was king. Cyrus may or may not have been the grandson of Astyages by way of Astyages' daughter. At any rate, once Cyrus inherited the throne of Anshan he revolted against his over-king, Astyages, and replaced him, eventually conquering most of the region, including the former regional super-power, Babylon. Not only was he not the son of Astyages, but the Book of Esther describes a time several generations after Cyrus. Cyrus left behind a document now called "The Cyrus Cylinder" where he describes his many victories, as well as his genealogy. Just as in the image above, he lists his genealogy as son of Cambyses, who was the son of Cyrus (I) who in turn was the son of Teispes. So far so good. Now we come to Darius. 

Darius was a high-ranking military officer in the army of Cambyses II, the son and heir of Cyrus the Great. He may have assassinated Cambyses, but he certainly assassinated Bardiya, the second son of Cyrus and the legitimate successor to his brother Cambyses. Darius justified this assassination by claiming that Bardiya had actually been secretly killed by Cambyses, and that the man he killed was an imposter posing as Bardiya. When the dust had settled, Darius was the new King of Kings. He handled the question of his legitimacy by calming to descended from the same Teispes that Cyrus was descended from; if this was true Darius' father Hystaspes would have been the second cousin of Cyrus. There is some disagreement among historians about whether Darius' genealogy (which he had inscribed on the side of a mountain) was completely invented, if it was true up through his great-grandfather and only the descent from Teispes was invented, or it was completely true. I lean toward some combination of invention, since there is no indication previous to his assassination of Bardiya that he was of the royal house. 

All of this is documented in ancient documents, but the temptation for Biblical literalists to make parts of the Bible fit together, not only with each other, but with historical records, leads to some silly conclusions. Bullinger, in addition to making Cyrus the son and legitimate heir to Astyages when he actually revolted and defeated him, and Hystaspes, Darius' father another son of Astyages, decided that since Cyrus and Darius, in their respective royal genealogies, list Teispes as a common ancestor, then the fathers and grandfathers in their genealogies must be referring to the same people. This is really jamming it all together with a shoehorn to make it all fit when there is every indication that it will never fit and the Biblical records are just stories to teach a lesson and not historical documents. 

All in all, interesting stuff...to me anyway