|
Dierk,
Sorry for the delay in responding to your posting.
<
Are you actually aware in the very moment of 2Macc 4.33-38 in the context
of
Onias III's liquidation, Russell? Daphne near Antioch was his final place of refugee acc. to 2 Macc; there and nowhere else he was killed by a paid death squad that - not by chance - came from Tyre. Who had made the decisive deal in Tyre in winter 171/70 BC? Right - you know that already, so no further comment is needed. The two alternative Antiochs (the 2nd I have developed and presented on Orion-L in 1998, I think) are thus still in the discussion. >
As I understand it, instead of Menelaus traveling to Antioch of Syria in
170 BCE, and there bribing Andronicus to assassinate Onias III, who was in the
nearby suburb of Daphne (the conventional view), you propose that Menelaus
wintered at Tyre, and there secured Andronicus' services in assassinating Onias
in Daphne near Paneas and Antioch in the Huleh Valley at the sources of the
Jordan. the advantages of this proposal are that (1) 2 macc. 4:33 refers
to Onias taking refuge in a "place of sanctuary at Daphne near Antioch," which
could conceivably refer to either location; (2) that Menelaus is said on this
trip to have sold some temple vessels at Tyre (4:32); and (3) it is a reasonably
straight shot inland from Tyre to the Huleh valley on the road connecting the
coast to Damascus.
However, despite these positive arguments, this theory suffers from several
problems which I consider fatal (and which prompted me to discount
this geographical possibility wheni considered it around 1990). (1)
Menelaus was "summoned by the king" regarding his failure to make promised
payments, accompanied by Sostratus the captain of the citadel who was
responsible for the collection of the revenue (2 Macc. 4:27-28). These
payments and their accounting were normally made in person to the king
(4:23-24), and it seems indisputable that this took place at the capital,
Antioch of Syria. (2) Menelaus is not said to have wintered at Tyre, and
given that he was answering the king's summons (and under military escort!),
such a delay would have been unacceptable. (3) Meanwhile, Onias learned
that Menelaus had stolen temple vessels, and publicly denounced him. If
this had taken place in the hinterlands of the upper Jordan valley, the protest
would not have reached either Menelaus or the king. Rather, those
complaints would have been voiced at Antioch of Syria. (4) As events
happened, Antiochus IV had left Antioch to deal with a rebellion in Tarsus of
Cilicia, leaving Andronicus as his deputy in his absence (4:30-31).
Menelaus personally met and negotiated with Andronicus: "Therefore Menelaus,
taking Andronicus aside, urged him to kill Onias" (4:34). This will have
taken place at Antioch of Syria. (5) It is virtually inconceivable that
Andronicus, Antiochus IV's second in command, would have left Antioch to Tyre on
a summons from Menelaus, or would have traveled to the Huleh valley in hopes of
luring Onias out of sanctuary. In any case, if Menelaus could have sent
someone to contact Andronicus in Antioch, logically he could have made the trip
from Tyre himself. (6) After Onias was assassinated at "Daphne near
Antioch," the king "returned from the region of Cilicia" (i.e. to Antioch) where
"the Jews in the city" along with Greeks and "many also of other nations"
reported the crime to the king (4:35-36). Antiochus "stripped off the purple
robe from Andronicus" and led him naked "around the whole city to the very
place" where Onias was slain, and there had Andonicus executed. That this
city was Antioch of Syria is indicated by Antiochus's return to the city (his
capital), the city's cosmopolitan population, as well as the fact that
Daphne was located within the city (compare the description in Pliny - Daphne
was just across the Orontes), unlike Daphne and Antioch of the Huleh valley,
which are entirely distinct locations. (7) Additionally, Diodorus also
reports the execution of Andronicus for complaints regarding a different murder
for which a Galilean setting makes no sense. (8) Finally, the death of
Onias in summer, 170 BCE (see
J. Goldstein, II Maccabees [Anchor
Bible vol. 41A; Garden City, New York:
Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1983] 238-39) on evidence of Diodorus
(as I recall) and Dan.
9:25-26 appears inconsistent with the chronology of events you
propose.
Conversely, the conventional view that Menelaus had Onias assassinated at
Antioch of Syria while he was summoned there with the Jewish tribute money is
entirely unproblematic and accords with the plain sense of the narrative at
4:27-38. For all these reasons, the conventional geographical settings
appears preferable.
Finally, the idea that Daphne was Onias' residence in exile is not found in
Maccabees, but is a common scholarly construct. A residence within a
foreign land would have disqualified Onias from the office of high priest (see
4QD and certain passages in Maccabees discussed by J. Baumgarten, "The
Disqualification of Priests..."). Rather, Onias's presence in Antioch
(and temporary sanctuary in a synagogue in Antioch, according to
Kraeling, who notes the presence of a Jewish population at Antioch at an early
date) is best explained IMO as a special trip to denounce Menelaus before the
king.
Best regards,
Russell Gmirkin
|
