Words of Ahikar

The Words of Ahikar is the oldest surviving Israelite story, with known copies in Aramaic dating back to the 5th century BC. As it has been translated into many languages over the past two and a half millennia, it now has several names and translations, including the Words of Ahiqar, the Story of Ahikar, and various variations of the name, including Achiacharos, from the Greek translation, Ảḥyqr from the Aramaic translation, Akyrios from the Old Slavonic translation, Ḥayqār from the Arabic translation, and Xikar from the Armenian translation. This translation uses the most common English variation of Ahikar, which is based on a transliteration of the oldest surviving Aramaic version of the name. The oldest fragments of this book found to date, were discovered in Elephantine, Egypt, and date to the 5th century BC, making it a couple of centuries older than the oldest of the Dead Sea Scrolls.While the story is set during the Assyrian Captivity of the Samaritans during the 7th century BC, it is generally accepted by scholars that the book was written in its current form in the 6th century BC, during the Babylonian Captivity of the Judahites. The primary reason for this dating is the repeated referenced to Bôlả, which is generally accepted as a reference to the Neo-Babylonian god of the 6th century BC named Belu, more commonly called Bel in English based on his appearance in the Septuagint’s Book of Daniel, where he was called Bel. This book also repeatedly refers to the Highest God, El Elyon, the ancient Canaanite and Israelite god from the Torah, however, does not mention Yehwa, and therefore does not appear to have been written by a Judahite. As Tobit claimed to be Ahikar’s uncle, and a Naphtalite captive in Assyria, this indicates that Ahikar was viewed as being a Samaritan, and not a Judahite at the time that Tobit was written.While Bôlả was the Aramaic translation of Belu, it was also the Aramaic translation of the Canaanite term Bôl, more commonly spelled as Ba‘al in English based on the Hebrew spelling of ba'al‎, meaning ‘lord,’ or ‘husband.’ This means that if the text was written by a Samaritan during the Neo-Assyrian era, the term would have been a common Canaanite word used in Samaria for ‘the Lord,’ or at least a ‘Lord.’ According to all historical evidence, and the written evidence in the Septuagint and Masoretic Text, the Israelites at the time were using the term Ba‘al to refer to several gods, including the god worshiped at the temples in Jerusalem and Samaria. Nevertheless, by the era of the oldest surviving fragments of Ahikar, the term does appear to have been interpreted as a reference to the Neo-Babylonian Bel, likely because the Israelites had stopped referring to their gods as Ba‘al by that era.

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