Jesus and Edessa
The Huqoq Elephant Mosaican Alternate Analysis
A meeting in AD 65, rather than Alexander
Ralph Ellis
His article, “The Huqoq Elephant Mosaic – an Alternate Analysis,” March 2022.
The elephant mosaic at Huqoq is read as a meeting in AD 65 between King Izates-Manu VI of Edessa and the high priest, rather than as Alexander or an Antiochus.
The mosaic
He reports that work at the Huqoq synagogue, northwest of Tiberias, has gone on since 2011, and that Jodi Magness uncovered the elephant mosaic in 2014. First details came out in 2015. A National Geographic article in 2016 showed the panel. His note does not give the magazine’s issue or page. He gives the panel as 196 by 112 centimetres, in three registers. Above, a king in military dress, marked by a diadem, offers a calf to figures in white. Soldiers and war elephants come with him. Below, that army and its elephants are defeated.
He writes that, apart from the zodiac, this is the only secular scene in the synagogue, so the subject is open. The find and the description are the excavation’s. They were not re-measured for this page.
His reading
He lists the candidates already proposed for the king: Alexander the Great, Antiochus IV, and Antiochus VII. His own claim is different. The abstract says the scene comes from the Talmud, and that it shows King Izates-Manu VI of Edessa meeting the high priest Mattathias ben Theophilus in AD 65. He calls that meeting a turning point, leading to the Jewish Revolt and the destruction of the Temple. “Comes from the Talmud” and the names of the king and the priest are his identifications, not labels written on the mosaic.
He says his Josephus citations follow the Whiston translation. He does not name which printing.
This page is the introduction. The full article is on its own page, and the PDF remains there. His title includes “an Alternate Analysis.” The mosaic photographs come from the Huqoq excavation under Jodi Magness. His identification of the figures is a separate claim.
Sources
- Ralph Ellis, “The Huqoq Elephant Mosaic – an Alternate Analysis,” March 2022.
- Jodi Magness, National Geographic, 2016, his note 1. The issue and page are not given.
- Josephus, Whiston translation, as his closing note states. The printing is not named.
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