by
Damien
F. Mackey
When the ancient world
conventionally dated to the C18th BC is shunted downwards and re-set in what I
consider to be its proper place, at approximately c. 1000 BC (during the United
Monarchy period of Israel), then there emerges from the supposedly earlier
period of history a whole galaxy of biblical characters, including King Hiram,
who were actual contemporaries of Israel’s great kings, Saul, David and
Solomon.
But who is Hiram Abiff?
Introduction
Sufficient compelling biblical characters of the
United Monarchy period emerge from the historical records of what convention
has estimated as the C18th BC for me to accept that revisionist historian Dean
Hickman had got it right when he, finally solving the problem of the ‘liquid’
chronology of king Hammurabi, re-set his era at the time of David and Solomon
(“The Dating of Hammurabi”, Proceedings of the 3rd Seminar of Catastrophism
and Ancient History, Uni. of Toronto, 1985, pp. 13-28).
A crucial connection in all of this was
Hickman’s identification of the powerful king, Shamsi-Adad I, as king David’s
Syrian foe, Hadadezer.
Now, according to 2 Samuel 8:3, this Hadadezer
was the son of Rekhob (Rehob), and Hickman was able to find that name, Rekhob,
embedded in the name of Shamsi-Adad I’s father, Ilu kabkabu, or Uru kabkabu
(Rukab = Rekhob).
Given this revised scenario, then Shamsi-Adad
I’s younger contemporary, king Hammurabi of Babylon, must now be a close contemporary
of the great king Solomon himself.
Other biblical links with history also arise
from this revised scenario.
For instance: Zimri-Lim of Mari, a troublesome
foe of king Hammurabi’s, can now be recognized as king Solomon’s foe, Rezon [or
Rezin]. And once again there is an appropriate match for the father’s name:
Iahdulim (or Iahdunlim), the known father of Zimri-Lim, equates with Eliada. 1
Kings 11:23: “And God sent another trouble-maker, Rezon, the son of Eliada, who had gone in flight from his lord,
Hadadezer, king of Zobah”.
This series of correspondences has led me to
write:
Zimri Lim to be Re-Located to
Era of King Solomon
One might also expect, now, that this
well-documented era of Hammurabi and Zimri-Lim, revised, could yield up
evidence for the great King Hiram of Tyre, a loyal friend of both David’s and
Solomon’s.
And that is just what we find.
King Hiram of Tyre
I have previously identified King Hiram with the
powerful Amorite king, Iarim-Lim (or Yarim-Lim), whose conventional dates are
c. 1780 BC – c. 1764 BC, or, according to a Middle Chronology, c. 1735 BC
-?
{The element, -Lim, in the king’s name, may
serve the same purpose as it did in the case above of Iahdu-lim, equating to
biblical El-iada (Lim = El)}.
The power of Hiram, as Iarim-Lim, extended
from Phoenicia (Lebanon) all the way through Babylonia, to Elam. In Chapter Two of my
post-graduate thesis:
A Revised History of the Era of King Hezekiah
of Judah
and its Background
I wrote concerning this:
… what may perhaps help us to gain some real perspective on potential
range of rule at this approximate time in ancient history are the geographical
terms of a recorded message from Iarim-Lim – whom we met as a powerful (older)
contemporary of Hammurabi – to the prince of Dêr in Babylonia, whom,
incidentally, Iarim-Lim calls ‘brother’ [cf. 1 Kings 9:13].
Kupper tells of it:
In this message, Iarimlim reminds his ‘brother’ that he had saved his
life fifteen years before, at the time when he was coming to the help of
Babylon, and that he had also given his support to the king of the town of
Diniktum, on the Tigris, to whom he supplied five hundred boats. Outraged by
the prince of Dêr’s ingratitude he threatens to come at the head of his troops
and exterminate him.
…. Whatever the circumstances of the [Babylon] expedition were, it says
a great deal for the military power of Iarimlim, who had led the soldiers of Aleppo as far as the borders of Elam [modern Iran].
According to a report of the day (Mari Letters), Iarim-Lim’s
(Yarim-Lim’s) status was greater than that of Hammurabi …:
… there are ten or fifteen kings who follow Hammurabi of Babylon and ten
or fifteen who follow Rim-sin of Larsa but twenty kings follow Yarim-Lim of Yamkhad. ….
In the same Chapter Two, I had reproduced [Dr.
Donovan] Courville’s argument that Iarim-Lim had conquered Alalakh from the
Philistines, and he (his dynasty) had ruled there (Alalakh Level VII) for about
half a century, before the Philistines resumed their former occupation there.
…. The obvious conclusion was that the people of Iarim-Lim (Amorites) had
conquered this city and probably also the surrounding territory, ruling it for
a period estimated to have been about 50 years. At the end of this time, the
original inhabitants were able to re-conquer the site and reoccupy it.
It is perhaps this half century or so of Amorite
dominance, extending as far as Elam, as we saw, that pertains also - at least
in part - to the time of the First Dynasty of Babylon. This is such an obscure
dynasty prior to Hammurabi that we cannot say very much about its origins. But
Herb Storck has helped to ease this situation somewhat in his fine article
[“The Early Assyrian King List, The Genealogy of the Hammurapi Dynasty, and the
‘Greater Amorite’ Tradition”, Proc. 3rd Seminar Catastrophism and Ancient
History, 1986, Toronto, pp. 43-50] in which Herb is able to show a link
between the earliest Assyrian kings and the early Hammurabic dynasty, thus
concluding [p. 45]:
Nine of the 17 tent-dwelling [Assyrian King List] kings can reasonably
be identified with GHD [Genealogy of the Hammurabi Dynasty] ancestors of
Hammurapi.
One of these possibly is Zuabu (Assyrian
King List) with Su-abu or Sumu-abum (GHD), the apparent founder of the First
Babyonian Dynasty. There is also a Sumu’epuh, very similar to this name,
Sumu-abum (Su-abu), preceding Iarim-Lim. …. And, most interestingly, the name Iarim-Lim
here is followed by the name, Hammurabi. This may, of course, be a
different Hammurabi. {In fact there was at the time of Hiram and Solomon a
similarly named Huram-abi, a master-craftsman, 1 Kings 7:13, who has
become the key figure in Freemasonry, as Hiram-abiff. See below}.
Whilst Courville’s estimation that the dynasty
of Iarim-Lim was chronologically located to “the general era of the
Exodus-Conquest” came far closer to reality (about 300 years closer), in my
view, than does the conventional estimate, it was still only about halfway
right according to this present (Hickman-based) re-setting of it to the time of
David and Solomon. My contribution here has been to identify this great
Iarim-Lim as the biblical King Hiram. This brings Iarim-Lim about half a
millennium later than even Courville’s radical chronological estimation for the
king and his archaeological level.
I have discussed the latter in detail in my
thesis, how Dr. Courville’s wrong placement of Iarim-Lim, in relation to
biblical history, has led him to a degree of misalignment with the Alalakh
stratigraphy. Given that Iarim-Lim (Hiram) was an ally of David’s, then we
might expect that Iarim-Lim had suppressed (at Alalakh VII) one of David’s
major enemies. These were the Syrians (not relevant here) and the Philistines.
This may further support Courville’s conclusion
that the majority of Alalakh levels pertain to the Philistine peoples.
Hiram Abiff
The semi-legendary Hiram Abiff (Abif) is loosely
based upon a skilful biblical artisan sent by King Hiram to King Solomon, to
assist the latter with the building of the Temple of Yahweh. King Hiram tells
Solomon about the man (2 Chronicles 2:13-14):
‘I am sending you Huram-Abi, a man of great skill, whose mother was from
Dan and whose father was from Tyre. He is trained to work in gold and silver,
bronze and iron, stone and wood, and with purple and blue and crimson yarn and
fine linen. He is experienced in all kinds of engraving and can execute any
design given to him. He will work with your skilled workers and with those of
my lord, David your father’.
The Hebrew words for what is here rendered as
Huram-Abi, are:
אבי
חורם
חורם אבי
In I Kings 7:13-14, however, the man is simply
called “Huram” (Hiram), not Huram-Abi:
King Solomon sent to Tyre and brought Huram, whose mother was a widow
from the tribe of Naphtali and whose father was from Tyre and a skilled
craftsman in bronze. Huram was filled with wisdom, with understanding and with
knowledge to do all kinds of bronze work. He came to King Solomon and did all
the work assigned to him.
Torrey, long ago, considered that the element, Abi (אבי),
was not actually part of the man’s name, but was the Hebrew for a ‘chief
counsellor’, hence Huram (Hiram), the king’s “right-hand” man (“Concerning
Hiram (“Huram-abi”), the Phœnician Craftsman”, JBL, Vol. 31, No. 4 (1912), pp. 151-155). Torrey would conclude (p.
155):
To be sure, the reading ואבי gives a good
deal of trouble, and not a few have preferred to regard this as the
original form of the ‘second element’ of the name, and to suppose this founder
of the Masonic Order to have been called “Huram abiu” … (or perhaps “Hiram
abiu”).
But the accepted translation of the passage is
wrong. Here, again, the noun בא has the same meaning as before. He who
had been styled (by the Chronicler) “the right-hand man” of the king of
Tyre is now, with one of the Chronicler’s own literary touches, termed “the
right-hand man of King Solomon”.
[End of quote]
It seems that the so-called Hiram Abiff may be
regarded as more allegorical than real anyway According to http://www.ephesians5-11.org/hiram.htm for instance:
Although the most important element of Masonic symbolism deals with the
death, burial and resurrection of Hiram Abiff, there is nothing in Scripture to
support it. Masonic Grand Lodges have stated that the account is not based upon
fact, but rather is an allegory, used to teach.
The ape of Christ?
Certainly, the Evangelical Truth site regards it
as such (“Hiram Abiff – the false christ of Freemasonry”: http://www.evangelicaltruth.com/hiramabiff.htm):
Freemasonry substitutes God’s perfect example and man’s only hope of
salvation Jesus Christ for a spurious fantasy figure called Hiram Abiff.
Instead of using Christ as its model of truth, fidelity and salvation it
transfers its loyalty to this phantom figure Hiram. Freemasonry teaches: “If
we possess the same painstaking fidelity as our Grand Master did in the hour of
tribulation then will our final reward be that which belongs to the just and
perfect man.”
Hiram here becomes Masonry’s Saviour and following in his footsteps is
said to ensure a glorious “final reward.” Rather than viewing Christ as the
way, the truth and the life Freemasonry looks to another – Masonry’s Hiram
Abiff. The Lodge practices ultimate deception here eradicating man’s great
representative and furnishing a foolish non-existence religious alternative.
Acts 4:12 says: “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is
none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.”
Jesus Christ is the sinner’s only hope! He is man’s only way.
The Lost Word
According to the teaching of the 3rd Masonic degree (the Master Mason
degree) there was a mystical word which was only known to three people. These
were King Solomon, Hiram, King of Tyre and a fictional Masonic character called
Hiram Abiff. These three appointed fifteen craftsmen from among those working
on rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem to preside over the rest of the
workers. The English working of the lecture explains: “Fifteen
Fellow-Crafts of that superior class appointed to preside over the rest,
finding that the work was nearly completed, and that they were not in
possession of the secrets of the Master’s degree … conspired together to obtain
them by any means … At the moment of carrying their conspiracy into execution,
twelve of the fifteen recanted” (English ritual p. 68).
The three remaining plotters (not to be confused with the three who know
the mystical word) continued undeterred. The degree records how they confronted
Hiram Abiff in the Temple and “demanded of our Grand Master the secrets
of a Master Mason, declaring to him that his death would be the consequence of
a refusal.” The degree continues, “Hiram Abiff, true to his
obligation, replied that those secrets were known only to three, and could only
be made known by consent of them all.” One of the scheming Craftsmen
struck Hiram with “a violent blow full in the middle of the forehead” whereupon
he sunk “lifeless at the foot of the murderer” (English ritual p. 69).
In this fable, the Temple in Jerusalem was a temporary resting place for
Hiram’s remains after his death, Mount Moriah being his final interment.
Hearing of the news, King Solomon is said to have sent out some of his most
trusted craftsmen to find the body. In the English working of this Masonic
degree there were 15 workmen sent out, in the American version 12 men were
sent.
….
Hiram usurps the place of Christ
Romans 6:3-6 says, “Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized
into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with
him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by
the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if
we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in
the likeness of his resurrection: Knowing this, that our old man is crucified
with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should
not serve sin.”
This is the only religious blueprint that God recognises and has
ordained. Salvation involves our identification with Christ. Paul here uses
metaphors to depict the nature and significance of salvation. Baptism relates
to our spiritual burial with Christ in conversion – representing our dying to
self; resurrection refers to our rising with Him into newness of life. This
passage reveals Christ’s role as man’s sole Representative, and in particular
outlines the victory He secured for us through His glorious resurrection over
sin, death and the grave. In turn, it shows the Christian’s direct interest and
spiritual involvement in this great transaction. It is showing how Christ
became our Substitute in His atoning work.
Even though the Lord was sinless, He was condemned on our behalf so that
we could be eternally free. He took our sin and guilt in full upon Himself.
Finally, when He rose again He did it in our stead. He therefore averted our
deserved destiny, which was eternal punishment. Sinners must hence appropriate
their part in that central resurrection in order to overcome eternal
punishment. The cross is the focal-point of the Christian faith; outside of it
there is no salvation. Colossians 2:10-14 and 3:1-4 repeat the great truth we
see represented in Romans chapter 6.
It is clear that while Hiram (King of Tyre) assisted King Solomon at the
building of the first Temple, there is no mention whatsoever in Scripture of
any “Hiram Abiff.” This character is in fact a Masonic invention. Accordingly,
there is no teaching in Holy Writ relating to Hiram’s murder and discovery, as
these secret societies intimate. The teaching embodied in this story is
extra-biblical. Plainly the whole thing is one elaborate Masonic fabrication.
This whole secret society fixation with Hiram is a problematic area for
evangelicals, as they see Christ as man’s sole Redeemer and only perfect
exemplar, whereas secret societies seem to be always promoting Hiram as an
alternative Christ.
Jesus cautions us in John 10:1, “He that entereth not by the door into
the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a
robber.” He then goes on to explain, “I am the door: by me if any man enter in,
he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture” (John 10:9). If
someone wants to experience the favour of God and one day experience eternal
bliss, they must come exclusively through Christ. He is the way – the only way.
Christ alone is our access to God.
How true and solemn the words of Scripture are: “For the time will come
when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they
heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away
their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables” (2 Timothy 4:3-4).
Dr. Albert Barnes explains this matter, where he comments that “The word
rendered fable means properly ‘speech’ or ‘discourse’, and then fable or
fiction, or a mystic discourse. Such things abounded among the Greeks as well
as the Jews, but it is probable that the latter here are particularly intended.
These were composed of frivolous and unfounded stories, which they regarded as
of great importance, and which they seem to have desired to incorporate with
the teachings of Christianity … One of the most successful arts of the
adversary of souls has been to mingle fable with truth ….
