Ahiqar tra leggenda e rielaborazione letteraria. Una tradizione e i suoi riflessi

Giancarlo Toloni

doi:10.3989/sefarad.013.001

Authors

Giancarlo Toloni Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.3989/sefarad.013.001

Keywords:

Ahiqar, Elephantine, Tobit, Aramaic, Historicization, Ummānū

Abstract

The legend of Ahiqar, Sennacherib’s powerful Prime Minister, is told in the homonymous History and Proverbs, whose the oldest witness is the Elephantine version (5^th century BC). The figure of the Assyrian wise came later in the book of Tobit as an important partner of Tobit; so, to give prestige to his book, the autor of Tobit has exploited the fame of the History of Ahiqar, and historicized its protagonist. This legend of court was also known to the Jewish communities of the Egyptian Diaspora –including that of Elephantine: in the Hellenistic period it was adapted to Jewish tradition, becoming a wisdom novel. Ahiqar also appeares in some writings in demotic: in two fragments of papyrus of the first century AD, and in the Instructions of Anchsheshonqy, but especially in an inscription found at Uruk-Warka in a Babylonian tablet (165 BC) which contains a list of ummānū, ‘scholars (of the court)’. Among them is Ahiqar, designated with an Aramaic name, Aḫu ͗aqari. This is, therefore, an apocryphal identification: the ummānu Ahiqar is placed under Esarhaddon and in Assyria, by a spurious historicization, very similar to the one that made the author of Tobit.

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