Remember the Titans: Haman the descendant of Anak.
Part two of the On Titans, the Titan and the Titanic, and oh, the titanic irony of it all.
Disclaimer: this article is intended as irony and as such is completely immune to any accusations of disinformation that may be levelled against it. Raspberry, .gov.au!
Part two of:
The Book of Esther
The very ironic Biblical book of Esther, which I mentioned at the start of my article about the Titan in passing, recounts the unexpected rise of Esther: how she was chosen by King Xerxes to become Queen of Persia, and how Esther’s position enabled her to save the Jewish people from the type of existential threat that has pursued them throughout history, and still threatens their existence today.
This existential threat is personified in the villain of the book, Haman the descendant of Anak.
Bearing an irrational ancestral grudge against the Jewish people, and a particular grudge against Mordecai because Mordecai refuses to bow to him, Haman wants to destroy Mordecai and his people.
Having the ear of King Xerxes, Haman makes a spurious complaint against the Jews to the King.
King Xerxes, under Haman’s advice, issues an order for all the people of his kingdom to attack and destroy the Jews on a particular day.
Mordecai tells his niece (Queen) Esther about the threat. Initially she seems a bit reluctant to help, but Mordecai motivates her by saying, “Do not imagine that because you are in the king’s palace you alone will escape the fate of all the Jews. For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows if perhaps you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?”
For such a time as this — a truly inspirational quote — let us be awake ourselves to when it might be ‘such a time as this’ — when we might be being called upon to make a stand, even against Titans, even unto death.
Or not. For some of us, just getting through today might be a challenging enough ‘such a time as this’, might it not?... (that’s how I feel a lot of days…)
In any case, Esther appeals to King Xerxes, a risky business in those days even for the Queen.
King Xerxes is shocked to learn that the Jews are Esther’s people and have been targeted, for the King really seems to be in love with her, and Haman’s subsequent pleas for mercy to Esther while Xerxes walks around in the garden, working it out in his own mind, are misinterpreted by Xerxes as sexual assault when he returns from his walk. Haman’s doom is sealed: the Jews are granted permission to defend themselves and King Xerxes orders Haman and his sons to be executed on the very gallows the villain had set up for Mordecai.
Haman and the Titans
Strangely enough, though, something I forgot when I wrote the first few paragraphs of the Titans post, but I remember it now, is this: the character of Haman in the book of Esther also has an admittedly rather tenuous link to the Titans of Greek mythology, believe it or not.
You see, in the book of Esther it says Haman was one of the descendants of Anak.
Joshua’s spies
Be patient with me here, because I might be accused of drawing a long bow, so this takes a little explanation: you see, we must start with the Biblical book of Numbers, which was written approximately a thousand years earlier than Esther in the history of Israel, after Moses and the Israelites had spent forty years in the wilderness; rather ironically, Moses himself and his contemporaries failed to get to the promised land.
But the book of Numbers describes the next generation of Jews, the children of Moses’ generation, at last making their first forays into the land that was promised to them.
Joshua’s spies were bringing back news from Canaan, for they had been spying on the inhabitants, and they came back terrified; for they saw the inhabitants of the land they were meant to conquer, and the people there were giants, and these were actually the descendants of Anak, the antecedents of Haman:
The land, through which we have gone to spy it out, is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people that we saw in it are of great height. And there we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak, who come from the Nephilim), and we seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them (Numbers 13:32-33).
The Nephilim, you may already know, are mentioned in the book of Genesis; they were giants, and the children of the sons of God and the daughters of Adam:
The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown (Genesis 6:4).
Now there are several reasons why the Nephilim are thought to be giants: firstly, this passage in Joshua, but also in the 3rd century BC Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, the Septuagint, the Hebrew word Nephilim is translated by the Greek word gigantes, giants. (The gigantes, by the way, which are actually a different race of giants from the Titans, resemble the Titans in almost every relevant point and I believe might very well be the same ancient story of the Nephilim, filtered through a different source. All this is speculation of course.)
Giants, Titans and Tartarus.
Of course, the Greeks and the Hebrews are not the only cultures to mention giants in a past epoch. Near-Eastern mythology has stories of giants as well, such as the epic of Gilgamesh; the idea was certainly not confined to the Hebrew Bible in Ancient times. Ireland has Fynn, there are giants in Norse mythology, Pan Gu the Chinese giant, there are giants in Australian indigenous legends, and there are American Indian giants; I could go on and on. Of course, these are widely believed to be mythical but on the other hand there have been plenty of giant skeletons found. I remember reading somewhere that the Giant Skulls were actually Mammoth skulls misinterpreted, but the one in the newspaper article below doesn’t look like this.
From something written in the New Testament, however, we can close the circle of the connection between Haman and the Titans.
For in the letter of 2 Peter there is another reference to the angelic fathers of the Nephilim; in a passage that seems to consider these angels as somewhat analogous with the Greek Titans.
You see, in his second epistle, Peter speaks of the “angels who sinned”, who were thrown into a place called Tartarus:
For if God did not spare the angels who sinned, but threw them into Tartarus and locked them up in chains in utter darkness, to be kept until the judgment… 2 Peter 2:4
Tartarus - the deepest part of Hades
Tartarus was the deepest and darkest place of punishment in the underworld, the depths of the depths, a doom-laden dungeon at the very bottom of Hades, into which the Titans were thrown and chained up as punishment by Zeus, in Greek mythology. (By the way, to me this does make the choice of name for the ship, “Titanic” and also the submersible, “Titan” somewhat inauspicious, to say the least, if one were into Onomancy at all. )
Greek mythology is kind of vague, or at least inconsistent, as to how many Titans there were and whose children they were and why Zeus punished them, but what is quite definite in every one of the various accounts is that Tartarus was the place wherein they were imprisoned and punished.
And in Ancient Greek mythology, the Titans were gigantic in stature. But in the earliest Greek myths of the Titans, the Biblical morality tale is somewhat perversely reversed, as we often find it in the pagan myths: the Titans are the undeserving victims of Zeus’ persecution.
Victimhood apparently has a long history.
So in quite a natural analog, 2 Peter roughly equates the angels who sinned, that is, the ‘sons of God’ mentioned in Genesis 6, with the Titans punished by Zeus in Greek mythology.
But let us make this clear: Peter sees the story of the sons of God as real history, not as a ‘cleverly devised myth,’ and the angels are seen as punished justly, not persecuted by an unjust tyrant as in the earliest Greek stories, such as those by Aeschylus (which is not to cast aspersions on the great Aeschylus: the truth of Christ is sometimes glimpsed in pre-incarnation poetry; Aeschylus was such a great and inspired poet that his play Prometheus Bound actually foreshadows the crucifixion in a prophetic way, and the Zeus of Aeschylus is a usurper like the Zeus of the temple in Pergamum, and not a metaphor for the divine being.)
Neverthless, if the Biblical story was the original source, that would explain why in some of the older Greek myths, the Titans were the offspring of Uranus (heaven) and Gaia (earth); does this not sound like a surviving cultural relic, an ancestral memory or ancient retelling or even a conscious reworking of the antediluvian history of the rebellious angels coming down to earth and having children with the daughters of earthly men, and producing giants?
Haman was a descendent of Anak - one of the giants
And here we come to the link with Haman: Haman was a descendent of Anak, who was one of the Nephillim, who were the children of the rebellious angels chained up in Tartarus.
So it would not be surprising if Haman was a very tall and impressive man. A titanic man, perhaps, a giant, more or less, for then would he not have thought even more of himself to be a descendant of the giant gods who were the justly aggrieved victims, those giants called by the Greeks Titans, unjustly imprisoned by the Ruler of Heaven in Tartarus?
(Then again, maybe Haman wasn’t tall - it would be kindof funnier for the story of Esther, which admittedly does contain a touch of irony and humour here and there, if Haman was short, actually, but the Bible doesn’t tell us this, one way or another, not so far as I know. ) (It would also be funnier, because when you said, “Hey man” to him, it wouldn’t be funny if he was tall.)
Haman’s boasts
Whether or not he was tall or short, Haman in the book of Esther exhibited the titanic tendency to boast.
Haman was very proud. And the reason Haman was so incensed with Mordecai, actually, is that when King Xerxes exalted Haman and ordered everyone to bow and do homage to him, Mordecai refused to bow.
Like Stockton Rush rushing to get to the bottom of the ocean, Haman certainly rushed in to his project of vengeance. He rushed to get Mordecai and the Jews killed.
But quite ironically, the one fact he wasn’t aware of was that the beloved wife of King Xerxes, Queen Esther, was a Jew. This should remind the mighty men and high up bureaucrats of this world to get themselves good researchers and fact checkers who will tell them even unpleasant truths: perhaps Haman’s servants knew Esther was a Jew but didn’t tell him because it was a politically inconvenient fact? I can just see the articles: “Fact Check: Queen Esther is a Jew. Rated false. This rumour started because she was seen speaking to the despicable Mordecai, etc etc.”
It’s great to think positive in life and be optimistic, but ofttimes I think it one should consider the possibility that supportive wife and family and friends can be slightly unhelpful in situations where a man at his heights is tempted to hubris. Greedily his family and friends grasped at the glory, and so they fed Haman’s pride with flattery and encouragement.
Here is where Haman’s story departs from the template of the Titan and the Titanic, of course; for unlike the makers of the Titan and the Titanic, Haman had no one giving him helpful advice that he was going down to his doom. But I suppose if he had’ve had any good advisors, he wouldn’t have listened to them any more than the makers of the Titan and the Titanic did.
In some ways, Haman’s end is as tragic as the Titanic’s and the Titan’s end; unbeknownst to Haman, his doom was already sealed, even while his friends and family were all spurring his pride and arrogance on:
Now Haman went forth that day pleased and very much encouraged.
But when Haman saw Mordecai at the king’s gate, and he did not rise or tremble in his presence, Haman was filled with rage toward Mordecai. But Haman restrained himself and went on to his home.
He then sent for his friends to join him, along with his wife Zeresh. Haman then recounted to them his fabulous wealth, his many sons, and how the king had magnified him and exalted him over the king’s other officials and servants. Haman said, “Furthermore, Queen Esther invited only me to accompany the king to the banquet that she prepared. And also tomorrow I am invited along with the king. Yet all this fails to satisfy me so long as I have to see Mordecai the Jew sitting at the king’s gate.”
Haman’s wife Zeresh and all his friends said to him, “Have a gallows 75 feet high built, and in the morning tell the king that Mordecai should be hanged on it. Then go with the king to the banquet contented.”
Within a couple of days, Haman himself, the son of Titans, was hanged on this very same gallows.
Haman was kindof a Titan.
So here I draw these very tenuous strands together: if the book of Joshua is to be believed and the sons of Anak were the Nephilim, and if the giant Titans are to be identified with the rebellious angels who fathered the Nephilim, you could sort of say that Haman was, more or less, a descendant of the Titans, or of some kind of Titan look-alikes, anyhow.
Maybe it’s a long bow to draw. But in any case, however you look at it, Haman’s fall because of pride was quite like the sinking of the Titanic, and the Titan, and the fall of the Titans themselves.
What can we learn?
No ship is so unsinkable that it can’t be sunk.
No plan is so impregnable that it can’t be thwarted.
And no giant is so invincible that it can’t be defeated.
Operation Warp Speed - Safe and Effective
And this all cannot help reminding me of something else that was rushed. I’m sorry, {cringing} I should not mention it, I should not talk about it, I should leave the subject alone, I should just leave the article there, with the nice ironic but affirmative and optimistic ending, but I just can’t help it.
I can’t help thinking of Operation Warp Speed - a truly Titanic boast, just in the name! A Titanic operation, these Titans, like Babylon, deceiving the nations with their pharmakos, because they are “working at the speed of science.”
Did the government and the pharmaceutical companies not follow the established safety protocols for the development of experimental medications, which includes longitudinal trials that should last at least ten to twelve years? Or did they not follow them? I think they did not, for they did it all in not even one year; Moderna was the outlier here, for I believe they made their vaccine in not more than a week.
Or did whoever was running this (the DOD? Big Pharma? someone else?) despise the real scientific authorities and the real medical experts?
And did not Fauci perhaps unintentionally himself leave himself open to the accusation of possessing just a slight bit of hubris when he claimed to be Science? Did the inimitable Fauci not say that if anyone criticised him they were criticising Science with a capital S?
And is not Science, after all, with a capital S, féted and exalted and exulted over everywhere in the world today, the oracle of the masses, the prophet of the profits? For it can even tell us marvels such as that a man is the same thing as a women and 2+2=5 and that the climate is changing constantly but always for the worst, and that information is misinformation if it is false and disinformation if it is true, as well as many other useful facts that are beneficial to all and maleficent to none.
Although I can’t deny it, the repeated catch cry, “Safe and Effective,” sounds a little bit like “Unsinkable” in retrospect.
But if that is bad enough, ultimately, the real fall we are talking about occurs when people despise the divine authority of the real angels; this is what hubris is; and any one of us can fall for this.
For those of us who avoided the jabs, and those of us who got vaxxed despite seeing through the lie, and those who, believing the jab as gospel truth at the time, were then undeceived, might there not be a danger that we might now puff out our chests, and indulge in the pride that leads to a mighty fall as enthusiastically as any Titan or Titanic or Titans?
Especially for those of us who avoided the jabs; might we not end up boasting that we endured under the coercion?
What guarantee is there that we will stand firm the next time we are coerced?
Pride comes before the fall.
Or, seeing all that has happened, might we not ourselves actually come to despise the government appointed over us, and might this not too be a mistake, and might this not too be hubris?
To paraphrase Soren Kierkegaard again, boast and you will regret it.
Does not Paul’s letter to Timothy say,
First of all, then, I urge that petitions, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgiving be offered for everyone— for kings and all those in authority— so that we may lead tranquil and quiet lives in all godliness and dignity. 2Timothy 2:1-3….. ?
It’s not as if anyone wouldn’t like to lead a tranquil and quiet life, is it?
Is the lesson not, then, do not despise authority?
But I’m not sure this is the lesson we should learn.
Below is the passage from 2 Peter about Tartarus in context:
For if God did not spare the angels who sinned, but threw them into Tartarus and locked them up in chains in utter darkness, to be kept until the judgment, and if he did not spare the ancient world, but did protect Noah, a herald of righteousness, along with seven others, when God brought a flood on an ungodly world, and if he turned to ashes the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah when he condemned them to destruction, having appointed them to serve as an example to future generations of the ungodly, and if he rescued Lot, a righteous man in anguish over the debauched lifestyle of lawless men, (for while he lived among them day after day, that righteous man was tormented in his righteous soul by the lawless deeds he saw and heard) —if so, then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from their trials, and to reserve the unrighteous for punishment at the day of judgment, especially those who indulge their fleshly desires and who despise authority. 2 Peter 2:4-9
This biblical passage, which is really meant to encourage the ordinary even-Christian that she (or he) will be rescued from the coming judgement if she (or he) perseveres in righteousness, may well set off a conversation between two extremists such as Good Christian Citizen Wokester and Conspiracy Realist. It would go something like this, I would suppose:
WARNING Disinformation follows after this point:
Good Christian Citizen Wokester:
‘is not the phrase those “who despise authority” in 2 Peter directed towards those rebellious persons who question the worldly authorities, like you, you Conspiracy Theorist? The Bible says that we must trust the powers that be, doesn’t it, in other words, to paraphrase somewhat, that we should put our trust in princes?’
Conspiracy Realist:
‘Do not the two examples, Noah and Lot, amply prove the opposite, that this assumption be false?’
Good Christian Citizen Wokester:
‘Come now, could the virtuous Noah really have questioned the authority and trustworthiness of the rulers of his day?’
Conspiracy Realist:
‘But wasn’t everyone except Noah and his family swept away in the flood? Did that not include all the rulers and worldly authorities of Noah’s time, who were clearly rebels themselves? Was Noah really on good terms with such people? Likely, he mostly ignored them, in fact, while they taunted him, while he was hammering nails into planks of wood, making the Ark.’
Good Christian Citizen Wokester:
‘But surely! Surely the righteous man Lot was in agreement with the town authorities of Sodom and Gomorrah, surely he was, or are you a Conspiracy Theorist, you Conspiracy Theorist? Lot was a good man, and that means a good citizen that doesn’t question authority, doesn’t it?’
Conspiracy Realist:
‘Were not those rulers and authorities in the towns of Sodom and Gomorrah the types of men who thought it was a fine deed indeed for the men to rape divine visitors, angels to whom hospitality ought to have been freely given? Is that lawful under any law?’
Good Christian Citizen Wokester:
‘Surely not… Surely the town guard and the Sodom and Gomorrah police force would have stepped in to stop this crime from happening? Surely they would have, if the people were actually intending to commit a crime… And then, if the police or authorities of Sodom commanded some kind of such a thing, would not Lot have, like a good citizen, jumped to obey?’
So Conspiracy Realist reads the passage again, and says to Good Christian Citizen Wokester,
Conspiracy Realist:
‘Was it not in fact quite the reverse? — was it not all the men in the town (Genesis 19:4) who were calling for Lot to deliver over the visitors? Did not all the men in the town include the police and the authorities and the magistrate and the town clerk?… So is it not true that those who despise authority in the 2Peter quote are quite clearly those who despise the authority of the divine angels, not the earthly authorities? Might not those, like Lot, who disobey the unjust commands of earthly authorities in doing so be obeying a Higher Authority?’
Good Christian Citizen Wokester balks; he cannot quite stomach this, so he changes the subject to sports; specifically, the NRL.
Good Christian Citizen Wokester:
‘Did you know, the Gold Coast Titans are in big danger? Their superstar duo David Fifita and Tino Fa’asuamaleaui are no longer bound by their contracts to stay with the team, after the shock sacking of Justin Holbrook. I’m waiting to see what happens in the next game.’
We who play the game are not those heading towards the ironic tragic ending.
But I give the last word to the apostle Paul, who bears the hope of the resurrected Jesus in the marks on his body of his persecution, for there is a little passage in his first letter to the Corinthians about sports as well, where he hints that it might be ironic indeed if he who had preached to others was disqualified for the prize.
Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore I do not run like someone running aimlessly; I do not fight like a boxer beating the air. No, I strike a blow to my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize. I Corinth 9:24-27
So, no, the ironic tragic ending is not for Paul: he runs the race to win. He fights like a boxer with his own body. He competes in the games to get a crown that will last forever.
And so should we, my ironic friends, so should we. But I believe and trust that we will never be Titans, which is something I think we can be thankful for.
~~~
This is a sequelae to:
The Jewish people don't appear to be under any REAL threats, that I can see - except perhaps for the very justified resentments against 'the Zionist people', which they accept, and bring also upon themselves - by failing to denounce the Fascistic, Zionist-Apartheid State's, brutal and murderous ethnic cleansing campaign, against the Palestinian people. https://gordondimmack.substack.com/p/on-the-rise-of-antisemitism-in-the
In case you missed it - the UNLAWFUL OCCUPIERS in the West Bank, have been blatantly murdering Palestinians of all ages, recently - shooting little children in the head for instance, and also going on murderous pogroms outside of their unlawful, stolen, gated-communities in the West Bank, through Palestinian neighborhoods, where they set people's houses and cars on fire, shoot people, etc.- while the Zionist Genocidal War Forces stand guard over them, safeguarding their lawless rioting.
The Palestinians as an unlawfully occupied people, whose lands are being annexed, have a lawful right to ARMED Resistance. And so, the Zionist Terrorist State declares them "Terrorists", and proceeds to murder 10 people and wound more than 100 - even shooting the cameras of the few journalists (Al Jazeera), who were even attempting to record the atrocities. You can see Bibi Netanyahu unapologetically announcing these Warcrimes, the most recent of which was an attack upon a refugee camp, called Jenin.
Not so long ago, the Al Jazeera Journalist, Shireen Abu Akleh was murdered deliberately by the Zionist soldiers, for covering a similar raid upon Jenin. At first the Zionist Entity blamed the murder on Palestinians - then when confronted with evidence, concocted a mendacious narrative to cover up her deliberate murder, by a sniper. She was wearing clear "Press" markings.
She was also a US citizen, whose murder will go unpunished, because the Biden Regime is an accessory to all of these atrocities - and it would be politically inconvenient to make any fuss about the murder of an unarmed American journalist, attempting to do her job, as a reporter. And the ICC has been cowed and turned into a political body, as opposed to a juristic one. If you want to fact check that - go look at how Gonzalo Lira is currently imprisoned in Ukraine, for telling the truth about that conflict. Meanwhile Vladimir Putin is being falsely charged by the ICC - for evacuating children (frequently orphaned or separated from their families) from the Warzone - in what is now actually the 4 newest Russian Oblasts - after the population voted overwhelmingly to rejoin Russia.