|
|
|
|
Ahasuerus
|
| |
|
| |
Ahasuerus (Latin:Xerxes, Persian: Khashayarsha, commonly transliterated Achashverosh) is a name used several times in the Hebrew Bible, as well as related legends and apocrypha.
name Ahasuerus is equivalent to Xerxes, both deriving from the Persian Khashayarsha. The form Xerxes has not traditionally appeared in English bibles, but has rather appeared as Ahasuerus.
Discussion
Ask a question about 'Ahasuerus' Start a new discussion about 'Ahasuerus' Answer questions from other users |
Encyclopedia
Ahasuerus (Latin:Xerxes, Persian: Khashayarsha, commonly transliterated Achashverosh) is a name used several times in the Hebrew Bible, as well as related legends and apocrypha.
Equivalence of the names Ahasuerus and Xerxes
The name Ahasuerus is equivalent to Xerxes, both deriving from the Persian Khashayarsha. The form Xerxes has not traditionally appeared in English bibles, but has rather appeared as Ahasuerus. Many other translations and paraphrases have used the name Xerxes. This name or title (i.e. Ahasuerus) applied in the Hebrew Scriptures to three different rulers. The same name (or title) is also applied uncertainly to a Babylonian official noted at the Apocryphal book of Tobit.
The name Xerxes comes to us directly from the Greek ??????. The English name Ahasuerus is derived from the Latin transliteration of the Hebrew Áchashwerosh (???????). This in turn is the Hebrew equivalent of the Babylonian Achshiyarshu: both this and the Greek ?????? are transliterations from the Old Persian Xayara (also spelt Khsayârshâ). Thus this literary change was created as the name moved across each of the language groups in a westerly direction from Persia until it entered English translations of the Bible.
In the Bible
Book of Esther
Ahasuerus is given as the name of the King of Persia in the Book of Esther. 19th century Bible commentaries generally identified him with Xerxes I of Persia,, although this assumption is now rejected by other scholars. The Greek version (Septuagint) of the Book of Esther refers to him as Artaxerxes, and the historian Josephus relates that this was the name by which he was known to the Greeks. Similarly, the Midrash of Esther Rabba, I, 3 identifies the King as Artaxerxes. The Ethiopic text calls him Arteksis, usually the Ethiopic equivalent of Artaxerxes. Bar-Hebraeus identified him as Artaxerxes II, a view strongly supported by the 20th century scholar Jacob Hoschander. . An inscription from the time of Ataxerxes II records that he was also known as Arshu understood to be a shortening of the Babylonian form Achshiyarshu derived from the Persian Khshayarsha. (Xerxes). The Greek historians Ctesias and Deinon noted that Artaxerxes II was also called Arsicas or Oarses respectively similarly understood to be derived from Khshayarsha, the former as the shortened form together with the Persian suffix -ke applied to such shortened names.
Book of Ezra
Ahasuerus is also given as the name of a King of Persia in the Book of Ezra. Jewish tradition regards him as the same Ahasuerus of the Book of Esther; the Ethiopic text calls him Arteksis, as it does the above figure in Esther. 19th century Bible scholars suggested that he might be Cambyses II.
Book of Tobit
In some versions of the deuterocanonical Book of Tobit, Ahasuerus is given as the name of an associate of Nebuchadnezzar, who together with him, destroyed Nineveh just before Tobit's death. A traditional Catholic view is that he is identical to the Ahasuerus of Daniel 9:1 In the Codex Sinaiticus Greek (LXX) edition, the two names in this verse appear instead as one name, Ahikar (also the name of another character in the story of Tobit). Other Septuagint texts have the name Achiachar. Western scholars have proposed that Achiachar is a variant form of the name "Cyaxares I of Media", who historically did destroy Nineveh, in 612 BC.
Book of Daniel
Ahasuerus is given as the name of the father of Darius the Mede in the Book of Daniel. Josephus names Astyages as the father of Darius the Mede, and the description of the latter as uncle and father-in-law of Cyrus by mediaeval Jewish commentators matches that of Cyaxares II, who is said to be the son of Astyages by Xenophon. Thus this Ahasuerus is commonly identified with Astyages. He is alternatively identified, together with the Ahasuerus of the Book of Tobit, as Cyaxares I, said to be the father of Astyages. Views differ on how to reconcile the sources in this case. One view is that the description of Ahasuerus as the "father" of Darius the Mede should be understood in the broader sense of "forebear" of "ancestor."
In legend
In some versions of the legend of the Wandering Jew, his true name is held to be "Ahasuerus."
See also
External links
- Curious Myths of the Middle Ages by Sabine Baring-Gould, M.A.
|
| |
|
|
