Roger Pearse

Lost historical texts are always interesting.

To summarise, Josephus names his sources as:

1. Dius, Phoenician History

2. Menander the Ephesian (or Menander of Ephesus, for those using google), Acts of the kings of Tyre.

And he quotes both verbatim (there seems no good reason to suppose he does not).

From the 1911 Encyclopedia entry we learn that these were Hellenistic writers; that Dius was largely dependent upon Menander; that the material from each is preserved here and in Antiquities VIII.5,3; that they preserve the bare outline of events from 970 to 772 B.C.

Tertullian mentions Menander the Ephesian in Apologeticum 19:

The archives of the most ancient races--the Egyptians, Chaldaeans, and Phoenicians--need to be openned, and their citizens must be called upon, through whom knowledge must be provided--a certain Manetho the Egyptian and Berosus the Chaldaean, but also Jerome the Phoenician king of Tyre; and their followers, too: Ptolemy the Mendesian and Menander the Ephesian and Demetrius the Phalerean and king Juba and Apion and Thallus and the one who either proves or refutes these men, Josephus the Jew.

Another chunk is found in Theophilus of Antioch, ch. 22:

Then concerning the building of the temple in Judaea, which Solomon the king built 566 years after the exodus of the Jews from Egypt, there is among the Tyrians a record how the temple was built; and in their archives writings have been preserved, in which the temple is proved to have existed 14345 years 8 months before the Tyrians founded Carthage (and this record was made by Hiram46 (that is the name of the king of the Tyrians), the son of Abimalus, on account of the hereditary friendship which existed between Hiram and Solomon, and at the same time on account of the surpassing wisdom possessed by Solomon. For they continually engaged with each other in discussing difficult problems. And proof of this exists in their correspondence, which to this day is preserved among the Tyrians, and the writings that passed between them); as Menander the Ephesian, while narrating the history of the Tyrian kingdom, records, speaking thus: "For when Abimalus the king of the Tyrians died, his son Hiram succeeded to the kingdom. He lived 53 years. And Bazorus succeeded him, who lived 43, and reigned 17 years. And after him followed Methuastartus, who lived 54 years, and reigned 12. And after him succeeded his brother Atharymus, who lived 58 years, and reigned 9. He was slain by his brother of the name of Helles, who lived 50 years, and reigned 8 months. He was killed by Juthobalus, priest of Astarte, who lived 40 years, and reigned 12. He was succeeded by his son Bazorus, who lived 45 years, and reigned 7. And to him his son Metten succeeded, who lived 32 years, and reigned 29. Pygmalion, son of Pygmalius succeeded him, who lived 56 years, and reigned 7.47 And in the 7th year of his reign, his sister, fleeing to Libya, built the city which to this day is called Carthage." The whole period, therefore, from the reign of Hiram to the founding of Carthage, amounts to 155 years and 8 months. And in the 12th year of the reign of Hiram the temple in Jerusalem was built. So that the entire time from the building of the temple to the founding of Carthage was 143 years and 8 months.

Chapter XXIII.-Prophets More Ancient Than Greek Writers.

So then let what has been said suffice for the testimony of the Phoenicians and Egyptians, and for the account of our chronology given by the writers Manetho the Egyptian, and Menander the Ephesian, and also Josephus, who wrote the Jewish war, which they waged with the Romans.

That's all that I can access on the web on this. There are a couple of JSTOR articles if people can get to them (I can't).

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Minimalist

There is always the Ernest L. Martin variant, Stephen.

http://www.presence.tv/cms/books199.php

yalla

I looked for Dius last night but got nothing except the last 4 letters of Claudius.
So this was good research guys.
Do I gather from the above posts that the source for the riddle/temple stories etc of Hiram and Solomon thus becomes a writer, Menander, who dated as 'early second century BCE' wrote more than half a millenia after the supposed events and therefore we would be wise to treat with a rather largish chunk of salt?

S.C.Carlson

Looks like crank archeology to me.

DCHindley

Why?

DCH

Minimalist

He may well be wrong but Tuvia Sagiv seems to think he is onto something.

http://www.templemount.org/mtmoriah.html#2.

Part of Martin's argument was that scripture required "living water" (i.e., not from a cistern) to cleanse the temple after a sacrifice and the only reliable water source in Jerusalem which met the criteria was the Gihon Spring. As the ancient Judaeans would not have the ability to raise running water uphill during the period of the alleged First or rebuilt-First Temples, he reasoned that the Temple would have to have been located at ground level, near the spring, which would have been next to Mount Moriah....not on it.

Of course Martin ignores the fact (and this is not surprising, he was a Fundie) that Judaism changed over time. The requirement for living water might not have been made until they had the ability, in Herod's time, to generate water pressure and raise the water to the top of the Temple Mount.

It's an interesting argument but one thing is certain. When the Romans levelled a city (which they did not do often) they usually did it right.

S.C.Carlson

How much do you know about Herbert W. Armstrong?

Stephen

S.C.Carlson

With the inability to perform proper archeological digs on the Temple Mount, this topic attracts all sorts of cranks.

Stephen

Zeichman

Also, does anyone know which Temple's construction Hecataus described? There certainly doesn't seem to be much discussion of Solomon in non-Jewish sources.

Minimalist

The Gihon Spring is not on the Temple Mount. Eilat Mazar has a dig going there, now.

She is not a crank even though she works for cranks.