POSTSCRIPT TO THE SECOND EDITION OF THE HISTORICITY OF BIBLICAL ISRAEL: STUDIES IN 1& 2 SAMUEL (2010)
The Sundial of King Ahaz
by Anthony Lias
In 1985, Professor Kamal Salibi, of the American University of Beirut, wrote a brilliant book entitled The Bible Came from Arabia. Having had unexpected access to a gazetteer of Saudi Arabia published at Riyadh in 1977, his study of it confirmed him in the belief that the place-names of the Hebrew Bible – the actual location of which has always troubled Biblical scholars if taken to apply to what we now call Palestine – fitted perfectly if applied to the region called Asir, situated in West Arabia abutting on the Red Sea.
As someone who has a working knowledge of the original Hebrew vocabulary of the Bible, and who has published three books on place-names myself, I found the hundreds of examples listed by Professor Salibi absolutely convincing. However, I have recently found what I regard as a further powerful proof that Professor Salibi’s argument is correct. To explain why, I must point out that Asir lies (and lay) well within the tropic zone (between 17 and 19 degrees north of the Equator).
Now according to Isaiah 38:7,8, the prophet Isaiah (early eighth century BC) tells King Hezekiah in Jerusalem that ‘the Lord’ will give him a ‘sign’, namely this: “I will bring again the shadow of the degrees, which is gone down in the sun dial of [your father, King] Ahaz, ten degrees backward. So the sun returned ten degrees, by which degrees it was gone down.”
This retrograde motion of a shadow cast by a gnomon (i.e., a sundial pointer) has traditionally been regarded as a ‘miracle’, because at the latitude of the present-day Jerusalem (31 degrees 47 minutes north of the Equator), such a motion would be impossible. However, and I quote a respected figure, the English mathematician/astronomer Thomas Keith (1759-1824): “If a horizontal dial, which shows the hour by the top of the perpendicular gnomon, be made for a place in the torrid zone [i.e. the tropics], whenever the sun’s declination exceeds the latitude of the place, the shadow of the gnomon will go back twice in the day, once in the forenoon and once in the afternoon, and the greater the difference between the latitude and the sun’s declination is, the farther the shadow will go back.” Thomas Keith, A New Treatise On The Use Of The Globes. Revised Edition. London, 1855, pp. 336-7.
Now according to Professor Salibi, the original Jerusalem of Isaiah’s time will not have been in today’s Palestine, but in Asir, and within the torrid zone. Therefore the retrograde shadow on the ‘dial of Ahaz’ will not have been a ‘miracle’, but a fact. And no doubt an experiment could be set up in Asir at the present time to prove this. (N.B: since declination is the angular distance north or south of any heavenly body from the celestial equator, and since the highest possible declination of the sun is 23 degrees 28 minutes, it is plain that during certain months of the year the shadow will go back for every location within Asir.) It is possible that Professor Salibi is unaware of these astronomical details, which I believe are a vindication of his thesis.
The story about the odd behaviour of the sundial of King Ahaz also occurs in 2 Kings, 20:8-12. Here, the story makes it obvious that Isaiah knew that the “shadow of the degrees” on the sundial would go back, and that King Hezekiah did not. My theory is that Isaiah (who is thought by some Biblical scholars to have acquired some astronomical knowledge from the Assyrians), duped Hezekiah into thinking he was witnessing a ‘miracle’, while in reality he was witnessing a genuine phenomenon in the Jerusalem of Asir whose existence is proposed by Professor Salibi, not the later one of Palestine. The fact of the retrograde motion of the shadow of a gnomon within the tropics is independently confirmed and fully explained by Denis Savoie in his book Sundials, Design, Construction and Use (English translation by Bob Mizon, Springer Praxis Publishing, 2009), Appendix F (6), pp.163-4.
I must conclude by saying that Professor Salibi nowhere impugns the religious message of the Hebrew Bible. His thesis, in The Bible Came from Arabia and in the third part of the present work, centres purely on the correct location of places mentioned in the Bible. [Note: for anyone interested, Denis Savoie provides a diagram in Appendix F (6) of his book demonstrating the shadow’s retrograde motion, as well as an explanatory mathematical formula.]
Posted by Kamal Salibi at 9:19 AM
mohamad jalloul said...
Interesting argument. I would surely read the book at first occasion.
aboualfa said...
This article is just what i needed to furthur mess up my conception of history and it is a great feeling to know more than the others!!
I wonder if the writer's english quote of Isaiah 38:7,8 is what Dr. Salibi would have translated from old hebrew!?[ in terms of wording not the concept]
Kamal Salibi said...
to aoualfa: the translation from the Hebrew is correct in all the versions I know, including the Arabic one by Van Dyck/Butrus Bustani/Yusuf alAsir
Wolfganggr said...
Anthony Lias has really a brilliant mind.
If i knew the text, which i did not, i surely would have taken it as a parallel to the famous 'sun stand still above gideon' passage in judges, because this behaviour of a sun-dial was unknown to me.
Its really fascinating you can make such findings in a text which has been written 2800 years ago and has been studied for more than, lets say 300 years.
Kamal Salibi said...
The Hebrew for "degrees" in the original is MA`ALOTH, which can mean "steps", as in a staircase. This his given rise to much speculation as to what the "sundial" of Ahaz was like. That this sundial involved a "shadow" being cast on "steps" marking degrees is certain. What I would like to subject to further inquiry is the word rendered in the standing interpretations as the personal name "Ahaz" (cf. Arabic AKHADHA, 'take, hold"), because the text does not plainly indicae that it was the name of King Ahaz, the father of King Hezekiah. This it could well have been, but not necessarily so. (For example, it could have been, in the context, an auxiliary verb. Do not quote me on this unless I give my OK)The issue, however, does not make the least difference to the argument presented by Mr. Anthony Lias.
Kamal Salibi said...
My last comment was a postscript to my response to the query of Aboualfa. ks
Kamal Salibi said...
I fully endorse the comment of Wolfganggr. In barely two pages of text, modestly yet elegantly expressed, he has brought about a revolution not only in knowledge, but in the variety of surprising ways in which virtual certainty can be reached.
Kamal Salibi said...
Wolfgang Grassmann said:
i could prove the effect of the sundial with use of the astronomy-program 'Stellarium'.
I wonder why i haven't thougt at that at once.
I took the city of Abha as a Reference and i took to be the
Date of the Summer-Solstitium, which means the 21 of June.
I was able not only to prove the mere existence of the effect,
but also its magnitude which is very near to the ten degrees as described
in the bible.
The Azimut-Angles starts ( at sunrise , i used sunrise, but the numbers are fully the same at sunset )
at 65° 1' and it goes up to 74° 59'53'' which is approximately 75°. From that point on the shadow
goes back to lower values.
So the difference between the values is exactly ten degree, as prophecied by isahja.
This was far more that i ever imagined. :-))))
With all best wishes
Kamal Salibi said...
To Dr. Grassmann: With the information provided by the Biblical books of Isaiah and 2 Kings regarding the contrary movements of the shadow of the gnomon on the surface of the sundial of Ahaz, to what dregree can one determine the exact location of this sundial, and the time of year in which the vent took place -- if at all?
Kamal Salibi said...
correct vent took place = EVENT took place
Kamal Salibi said...
Hi Rami. Your wustion (no.2) has kept me awake nights, and no I can approach a fully satisfactory answer where the supposed name of King Ahaz (not at all central to the argument of Anthony Lias) is concerned. I would read the word as the present participle (ism fa'il) of the Hebrew AHAZ (Arabic AKHADHA), "taking". Accordingly, the Hebrew of Isaiah 38:8 would read, word for word: "Behold, I am bringing back the shadow of the degrees going down(YOREDAH, in the singular; hence uncertain so far)on the degrees that are taking(OHEZ, not AHAZ)the Sun (meaning, as in Arabic, "that follow the sun") in the opposite direction. And the Sun went back ten degrees on the degrees that are going down." This means, "Behold, I am bringing back the shadow of the degrees ten degrees on the scale (dial)that goes by the Sun in the opposite direction, and the Sun went back en degrees on the descending scale.
Had the original Hebrew said AHAZ HAM-MELEKH instead of simply 'HZ.which is readable as OHEZ, this retranslation would not hold. It still needs some touching up where I put in the query.
Thank you for calling my attention to a matter I should have noticed myself.
aboualfa said...
Well, i wondered at the beginning how come Dr. Salibi let Isaiah 38:7,8 slide without his personal touch!! It turned out you didn't after all! And the re-translation solidified the meaning and was not peripheral to it which made it more convincing.
rami aboualfa
Kamal Salibi said...
I have checked, and the queried part of he tradslaton is correct. YOREDHAH is the adverbial form of YOREDH, which in Hebrew is identical with the feminine (not "singular" which, though correct, was a typing mistake) fo YOREDH, meaning "going wond," and hence means "going down" as an adverb. Again, I thank you for your perceptive -- and very helpful -- comment on a subject which may be abstruse, yet is nonetheless of the first importance.
Dear Mr Salibi,
ReplyDeleteI wish to comment on this post about what you wrote (YOREDHAH meaning 'coming down') which is correct and it goes further than that but i don't want to comment publicly, not yet. Can i sent you an email? Thanks...
Please do send me an e-mail. My address is kamal.salibi@gmail.com
ReplyDeleteI am sorry that i didn't write you earlier. I was waiting for an email to my emailadres but it didn't work that way, and after i wrote this comment i forgot the blog-address so it took me a long time to find you back. I actually gave it up till i found it just a couple of minutes ago.
ReplyDeleteI will send you an email within one day but i shall not write everything i know because that is just too much and it's a huge shock and treasure in one time but we must be very carefully. Why? This subject is very sensitive because of its huge message towards humanity.
I hope after our email contact that we can meet one day so that we can speak face to face...and only if i can trust you in this matter. i would like to keep peace in people's heart which shall be very difficult if humanity sees what has been done to them, and how we all are misleaded for thousands of years. It's already hard for me to speak out and my heart cries every day since i have discovered this which have made of me a researcher while it isn't my work at all but i can't let this subject pass me by.
God bless you in wisdom, power and love...
Thank you for your message, and I hope our ways one day will cross. As a scholar in the humanities, I consider it wrong for me not to make publicly known what I come to know, with harm meant to none.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteCOMMENT RELATED TO THE POSTSCRIPT OF ANTHONY LIAS TO KAMAL SALIBI'S WORK, REGARDING THE RETROGRADE MOTION OF THE SHADOW OF A GNOMON ON A SUNDIAL AT TROPICAL LATITUDES:
ReplyDeleteDr. Nurdin al-Mustaqim has conducted an experiment today, which is the summer solstice, in the city of Abha, in Asir (17-19 degrees North of the Equator), to demonstrate this point, and has kindly reported to me the following:
I CAN SWEAR AND GUARANTEE THAT SINCE 1030AM WHEN I STARTED TO MAKE REGULAR OBSERVATIONS THE SUN WAS GOING COUNTERCOCKWISE FOR A FULL 180
DEGREES UNTIL 2PM AND AFTER THAT IT HAD GONE BACK IN THE OP0SITE WAY CLOCKWISE FOR 20 DEGREES AT MY LAST READING OF 3:30pm. SOME PERIOD WAS UNREADABLE DUE TO CLOUDY WEATHER. I GUESS THIS WILL PROVE THE POINT
ANYWAY AND I KEEP LOOKING TO SUNSET AND MAY REPEAT IT IN FOLLOWING DAYS.
Relayed to my readers with many thanks to Dr. Nur for his patient work
Kamal Salibi
WELL,I WANT TO SAY FOR THE RECORD THAT I PERFORMED THE SUNDIAL EXPERIMENT ON 21 TO 23 JUNE 2010 HERE IN ABHA,THE HEARTLAND OF ASIR,AND MY EYES AND THE PICTURES TAKEN CONFIRM THE REVERSE MOTION TWICE IN THE DAY BY WHAT I THOUGHT 20 DEGREES WITHOUT EVER SEEING THESE COMMENTS BEFORE. IF IT IS 10 DEGREES THEN LET IT BE 10,AS IT CAN BE MEASURED OR POSTED FOR ALL BY DR.SALIBI. TO ME IT IS A GREAT STEP FORWARD FOR MANKIND AND HISTORY THAT HIS DISCOVERY ABOUT BIBLICAL GEOGRAPHY MUST BE TAKEN AS WORKING BASIS WITH ALL THAT GOES WITH IT.
ReplyDeleteI owe a great debt of gratitude to Dr. Nur who spent three days in Abha observing the movement of the shadow of what stood from the gnomon of a sundial. By means of this experiment, he demonstrate beyond the shadow of a doubt that the astronomical event occurring in Old Tesament Jerusalem, as reported in Isaiah 38:7,8 and 2 Kings 20:18-12 and explained by Mr. Anthony Lias in terms of a 'Jerusalem' located in Asir rather in Palestine, is the sort of astronomical event that occurs regularly in the tropical land of Asir, twice a day, during the period of the summer solstice. The same event cannot possibly occur at any time of year in a Jerusalem located in Palestine, well within the temperate zone. From now on, with the astronomical postulation of Mr. Lias demonstrated by Dr. Nur on the ground in connection with a hitherto forgotten Jerusalem of Asir, I cannot but endorse the statement of Dr. Nur that this new vision of Biblical geography must be taken by academe, as by mankind, "as a working basis, with all that goes with it."
ReplyDeleteMAY I THEN ADD THAT THIS SHOWS THE HIGH LEVEL OF ASTRONOMICAL KNOWLEDGE AT THE TIME OF KING AHAZ/EZEKIAH AND THIS IS THE TESTIMONY OF THEIR SCIENCE WHICH THEY HAVE WANTED TO PASS ON TO US OVER TIME BY THEIR RECORDING THE THORAT FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS SO TRUTH WOULD REMAIN UNTIL US.WE MUST THANK KING AHAZ FOREMOST AS HE IS WITH US NOW.IT IS LIKE A GPS SATELLITE POSITIONING WHICH WILL ENABLE ONE TO FIND A POSITION ANYWHERE,ANYTIME . FOR THOSE WHO COMPLAIN ABOUT LACK OF ARCHEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE AND ARE ASKING US TO PRODUCE KING DAVID/DAUD'S DRIVER'S LICENSE FROM THE GROUND BEFORE THEY WOULD BELIEVE AND NOT REMAIN IN THEIR OWN FAIRY TALES,I SAY THIS IS ASTRONOMICAL ARCHEOLOGY IN FULL SWING,WHAT CAN THEY PRODUCE?
ReplyDeleteTHE PALESTINIAN JERUSALEM WAS BUILT MUCH LATER BY KING CYRUS OF PERSIA AS SUCH..:
ReplyDeleteThe Book of Ezra is a book of the Hebrew Bible. It is the record of
events occurring at the close of the Babylonian captivity, especially
The Return to Zion. At one time, it included the Book of Nehemiah, and
the Jews regarded them as one volume. The two are still distinguished
in the Vulgate version as I and II Esdras.
The book is divided into two principal parts:
* The history of the first return of exiles, in the first year of
Cyrus the Great (536 BCE), till the completion and dedication of the
new Temple in Jerusalem, in the sixth year of Darius (515 BCE). From
the close of the sixth to the opening of the seventh chapter there is
a period of about sixty years.
* The history of the second return under Ezra, in the seventh year
of Artaxerxes Longimanus, and of the events that took place at
Jerusalem after Ezra's arrival there.
The book thus contains memorabilia connected with the Jews, from the
decree of Cyrus to the reformation by Ezra (456 BCE), extending over a
period of about eighty years.
Contents
[hide]
2 Chronicles 36:22 Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia-- in
order to fulfill the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah-- the
LORD stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, so that he sent a
proclamation throughout his kingdom, and also put it in writing,
saying,Ezra 5:13 'However, in the first year of Cyrus king of Babylon,
King Cyrus issued a decree to rebuild this house of God.Jeremiah 25:12
'Then it will be when seventy years are completed I will punish the
king of Babylon and that nation,' declares the LORD, 'for their
iniquity, and the land of the Chaldeans; and I will make it an
everlasting desolation.Jeremiah 29:10 "For thus says the LORD, 'When
seventy years have been completed for Babylon, I will visit you and
fulfill My good word to you, to bring you back to this place. (NASB
©1995)
REFERENCES/BIBLE BOOK OF EZRA
<< Ezra 1:1 >>
New International Version (©1984)
In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, in order to fulfill the
word of the LORD spoken by Jeremiah, the LORD moved the heart of Cyrus
king of Persia to make a proclamation throughout his realm and to put
it in writing:
New Living Translation (©2007)
In the first year of King Cyrus of Persia, the LORD fulfilled the
prophecy he had given through Jeremiah. He stirred the heart of Cyrus
to put this proclamation in writing and to send it throughout his
kingdom:
English Standard Version (©2001)
In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the LORD
by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the LORD stirred up the
spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, so that he made a proclamation
throughout all his kingdom and also put it in writing:
New American Standard Bible (©1995)
Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, in order to fulfill the
word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah, the LORD stirred up the
spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, so that he sent a proclamation
throughout all his kingdom, and also put it in writing, saying:
AND I WILL JUST CONCLUDE HERE AS NOT EVERYONE MIGHT KNOW IT THAT I SAW RECENTLY SHIMON PERES,PRESIDENT OF ISRAEL,ON TV HONOURING KING CYRUS OF PERSIA AS:'THE FIRST ZIONIST'& RIGHTLY SO. THE FACT THAT THEY CAME TO BE KNOWN AS PHARISEES (OR FARSIS/PERSIANS IN THE LAND OF PHILLISTINES & AMONG THEMSELVES ALL THE WAY TO THE NEW TESTAMENT SHOWS THAT THEY WERE REPRESENTATIVES OF THAT FOREIGN POWER,AS TODAY THE EURO KHAZAR JEWS HAVE COME IN THE LUGGAGE OF BRITONS BY VIRTUE OF BALFOUR DECLARATION TO INCARNATE THEIR NEO POST COLONIAL AGENDA ON THE PETROL SCENE. THE FACT THAT THEY WERE SEEN THEN (& NOW) AS UNRELATED IMMIGRANTS SHOWS THIS COULD POSSIBLY THE SAME POWERFUL SOVEREIGN PEOPLE OF JUDDAH TAKEN CAPTIVE A MERE 40 YEARS BEFORE BY THE BABYLONIANS BEFORE BEING FREED BY THE PERSIANS NOR COULD IT BE THEN THE SAME JERUSALEM WHICH HAD BEEN SACKED. THE FACT IS THEY WERE GIVEN A CHOICE TO RETURN TO ASIR & SOME DID BUT THE TRADE ROUTES HAD MOVED TO SHIPS & THE SILK ROAD TOWARD THE MEDITERRANEAN SO A COLONY/GOVERNORSHIP IN PALESTINE UNDER THEIR SPONSOR WAS MORE PROMISING. WHEN ALEXANDER THE GREAT DEFEATED THE PERSIANS THEY SERVED HIM THE 'GOD-GIVEN -PALESTINE-CHOSEN-PEOPLE-ESCAPED-FROM-EGYPT'FANTASY SUCCESSFULLY TO JUSTIFY THEIR PRESENCE THERE THROUGH THEIR SEPTUAGINT TRANSLATION OF THORAT TO GREEK WHICH BECAME THE MANTRA OF TODAY'S INTERNATIONAL GEOPOLITICS.
ReplyDelete