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Home , Bartatua, Caucasus Mountains, Cimmerians, Don (river), Sarmatians, Scyles

The —Who Were They? And Why Did Paul Include Them in Colossians 3:11? Edwin Yamauchi Scythians in the Bible Classical sources Colossians 3:11 (7th c. b.c.) is the first Greek writer to note the Scythians. The most important source for the early history of the Scythians, Many readers of this journal will have memorized Galatians 3:28, , and was the fifth-century “Father of History,” “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, ,17 who traveled to the Greek colony of Olbia18 on the for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”1 They may not be as familiar northern shore of the to get invaluable information on with the parallel passage in Colossians 3:11, which omits any ref- the history and of the Scythians, who had eventually settled erence to gender: “Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or in the area of present-day . Though some of the details of uncircumcised, , Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is Herodotus’s account have been questioned, archeological evidence all, and is in all.”2 has confirmed much of his information on the Scythians.19 Who indeed were the Scythians? And why does Paul refer to them? In this article, I will give a survey of their history and cul- Scythian origins ture and examine different ways in which scholars have under- The Scythians were the first of numerous waves of warriors on stood the function of the word in Colossians 3:11. horses who swept westward over the vast Eurasian , which Periphrastic versions render the terms barbaros, skuthēs as: extend from more than four thousand miles to the Car- “ or Scythians [who are the most savage of all]”;3 pathian Mountains in . They would be followed over the “alien, savage”;4 “uncivilized and uncouth”;5 “barbaric and un- centuries by groups such as the , the Magyars (who settled in couth”;6 “foreigner, savage”;7 and “foreigner or savage.”8 Whereas ), the (who settled in ), and the . older foreign translations were content to transliterate the word, Their original home may have been at the eastern edge of this more recent translations attempt to use explanatory terms.9 near the Altai Mountains of , where pole This general view of the Scythians is based on a wealth of tops from the eighth century b.c., which are similar to those later classical references,10 and is generally reflected in all the com- excavated in the Scythian mound in the Ukraine, have mentaries, e.g., “The Scythians are cited as an especially strange been found. According to Herodotus (4.12), after moving west- kind of barbarian”;11 “The ‘Scythian’ represents the lowest kind of ward around the , the Scythians pursued the Cim- barbarian who was probably also a slave; the term was applied to merian tribes over the Mountains. tribes around the Black Sea. . . .”12 Archaeologists have identified objects in the Ukraine, which Old Testament references confirm Herodotus’s account:

In the Old Testament, the Hebrew word occurs in Gen- The archaeological record indicates that the , no- esis 10:3; in its parallel, 1 Chronicles 1:6; and in Jeremiah 51:27.13 The madic horsemen like the Scythians, did live in this area in the word has been identified with the Akkadian (i.e., Babylonian) word eighth to the first half of the seventh centuries b.c. . . . The Ishkuza for the Scythians. More problematic is the identification of Cimmerians indeed do appear to have been expelled from the the “foes from the north” in Jeremiah and in Habakkuk with the region by the Scythians around the middle of the seventh cen- Scythians, a view favored by a minority of scholars.14 I have con- tury b.c., as reported by Herodotus (4.11–12), . . . .20 tended that there is new archaeological evidence to suggest that some Scythians may have served as in the Babylonian Cimmerians armies of Nebuchadnezzar when they attacked Jerusalem.15 The Cimmerians may be associated with biblical (Gen. Scythian history 10:2–3; Ezek. 38:6). They were known in Akkadian as Gimmiraia Cuneiform sources and in Greek as Kimmerioi.21 They went westward into Mi- The cuneiform texts of Assyrian kings refer to the invasion of the Edwin M. Yamauchi (Ph.D., Brandeis University) is past President of Cimmerians and the Scythians in the eighth through the seventh the Evangelical Theological Society and Professor Emeritus of History centuries b.c. along ’s northern frontier. In a careful ex- at Miami University in , Ohio. A nationally amination of these sources, Anne G. Kristensen rejects the clas- recognized authority on early church history, bib- lical archeology, Gnosticism, and ancient magic, sical evidence that the former tribes came from the north and lo- he has authored, co-authored, edited, or co- cates Gamir in the area of the Mannai (biblical Minni) near Lake edited seventeen books, written chapters for thir- Urmia in northwestern .16 But, she then comes to the curious ty-four books, and published hundreds of articles conclusion that the Cimmerians were the “lost tribes” deported in reference works and journals. by the Assyrians from the northern kingdom of Israel.

Priscilla Papers ◆ Vol. 21, No. 4 ◆ Autumn 2007 • 13 nor (), while the Scythians proceeded southward into Me- in 480 b.c. (Her. 7.64). Mounted Sakai archers fought at the battle dian territory (in northwestern Iran). In central about of Plataea in 479 b.c. 675 b.c., they devastated the city of Gordium, the capital of the Scythians and legendary , an event corroborated by Assyrian sources, who called him Mita. The Greeks first encountered Scythians when they established They then in 644 b.c. attacked , the capital of the Lyd- colonies on the northern shore of the Black Sea in the sixth cen- ian king Gyges, who is credited with the invention of coinage. tury b.c. There are more than four hundred representations of They attacked the Ionian Greek cities on the west coast of Turkey, on black-figured vases dating between 530 and including , Smyrna, and . In 490 b.c. M. E. Vos believes that it was probably Peisistratus (who doing so, the Cimmerians would have passed close to the site of reigned 546–527 b.c.) who recruited Thracian and Scythian mer- Colossae in the valley of the Lycus River, which feeds into the cenaries to help him establish his tyranny in .29 Maeander.22 In the mid-fifth century b.c., a corps of about three hundred Scythian bowmen, clad in their exotic peaked hats and decorated Scythians and Assyrians , served as state policemen in Athens.30 Because of their Though Assyrian texts do not mention the Scythians until late in appearance and their broken Greek, they were made the butt of the eighth century b.c., a relief from the reign of Ashurnasirpal jokes by , for example, in his play, Thesmophorizae.31 II (883–859 b.c.) depicts mounted warriors who are shooting ar- In the fourth century b.c., the Scythians established a fortified rows backward—a skill perfected by Scythian horsemen. The first city by the lower . In this period, Scythian power extend- reference to the Ishkuza is found in the texts of Sargon II (721–705 ed as far west as the under king Atheas, but was abruptly b.c.). The most important references come from the reign of Es- halted when the aged king was killed by Philip, the father of Al- arhaddon (680–669 b.c.). A Scythian chief named (the exander, in 331 b.c. There is a gap in our archaeological evidence Protothyes of Her. 1.103) demanded an Assyrian princess in mar- between the period of the Steppe Scythians (7th–4th c. b.c.) and riage as the price of an alliance. the rise of the Late Scythian culture (2nd c. b.c.–3rd c. a.d.).32 Scythians and Medes Scythians and Sarmatians33 In 612 b.c., the Assyrians were overthrown by a coalition of In the mid-third century b.c., another nomadic tribe, the Sarma- Medes,23 an Indo-European tribe who had settled in the north- tians, who had lived to the east of the Scythians, began to over- ern , and the Chaldeans, who occupied south- power them. The typical mounds of the Scythians were ern Mesopotamia. The report of Herodotus (4:1), that the Scyth- displaced by Sarmatian tombs. This development can be traced ians had dominated “the upper country of Asia for twenty-eight most dramatically by recent excavations at the most important years” at the time Median kings were in power in the region, has fortified settlement of the Scythians, the city of Neapolis, located raised problems for scholars. near modern in the . By the first centurya.d., A number of suggestions have been offered that can accom- the had occupied Neapolis, resulting in a sharp de- modate the presence of Scythians in the region before they were cline in material culture. Various groups of Scythians and Sarma- expelled by the Median king .24 The Scythians then went tians continued to be engaged in raiding and warring with their back over the Caucasus to settle on the northern shores of the neighbors, such as the kingdoms of and of Bosphorus, Ukraine, especially along the lower reaches of the Dnieper River until the second century a.d. and the Crimean peninsula. Scythian culture Scythians and Persians and The Persian king Darius II (522–486 b.c.)25 invaded the area of Herodotus relates the example of two exceptional Scythians who European by crossing the at the western end of adopted Greek culture—but to their own peril. Anacharsis (6th the Black Sea in the year 514 b.c. Though some of the details of c. b.c.) had been sent by the king of Scythia to learn the ways of his account have been contested,26 his general account has been Hellas (Her. 4.77). He was later numbered by the Greeks among corroborated by the discovery of Persian inscriptions in the area the Seven Sages.34 uses Anacharsis, in a dialogue with the of (Bulgaria) and ().27 Darius was frus- famous Athenian archon , to question the Greek enthusi- trated by the Scythians’ refusal to fight a pitched battle. After the asm for athletics. Persian retreat, the Scythians attacked some of the Greek settle- But the Hellenized Anacharsis was repudiated by the Scyth- ments north of the Black Sea.28 ians (Her. 4.76). Josephus (Contra Apionem 2.269) recounts, found at the battle of Marathon, where a Persian “Anacharsis, whose wisdom won the admiration of the Greeks, force sent by Darius in 490 b.c. was defeated by the Greeks, may was on his return put to death by his compatriots, because he ap- have come from Scythians serving under the Persians. Some of peared to have come back infected with Greek habits.” the eastern Scythians, called the Sakai by the Persians, served as Herodotus (4.78) also relates the story of Scyles, the son of a contingent in the vast army of Xerxes when he invaded the Scythian king Ariapithes and a Greek woman. When Scyles

14 • Priscilla Papers ◆ Vol. 21, No. 4 ◆ Autumn 2007 (5th c. b.c.) became king, he brought his army outside the Greek Jeannine Davis-Kimball, excavating at Pokrovka in Kazakh- city of and entered the city, where he had a second home, stan, unearthed in 1994 the tomb of a young female warrior/priest- living there for a month at a time as a Greek. But, when this was ess with about forty bronze arrowheads and an iron dagger.45 discovered, his brother beheaded him. Scalps and skulls Alcohol and There is no doubt that the practice that gave the Scythians their Many of the customs of the Scythians struck the Greeks as bi- lasting reputation for savagery was their brutal treatment of their zarre. For example, Herodotus (4.84) reports that the Scythians enemies. According to Herodotus (4.64), in the battlefield the drank their wine neat, that is, undiluted with water, contrary to Scythians would drink the blood of the first enemy they killed.46 the custom among the Greeks, who diluted their wine with wa- Their practice of bringing the severed head of an enemy to their ter in large kraters. According to Athenaeus (Deipnosophistae chiefs is depicted on an ornamented cup. 11.499), “the Scythians are in the habit of drinking to great excess” Herodotus also reported that the Scythians would scalp their and “to get drunk is to behave like a Scythian.” François Hartog victim and then use the scalp as a napkin! At times, they would comments, “So to drink wine is the mark of a civilized man, but flay the entire skin and use it or display it. The Greeks invented to drink wine undiluted is the mark of a savage and represents a the word aposkythizein for the process of .47 The Scyth- transgression.”35 ians would also take the top of the skull, decorate it, and use it as The drinking of blood and alcohol sealed a special “blood a drinking bowl (Her. 4.65). brotherhood,” as described in classical sources such as Herodo- That these are not simply wild tales has been proven by archae- tus (7.4). Lucian’s Scythian Toxaris explains, “For, once we have ological evidence. From the frozen tombs at Pazyryk, a warrior cut our fingers, let the blood drip into a cup, dipped our sword- whose skin was tattooed had been scalped.48 From a recent excava- points into it, and then, both at once, have set it to our lips and tion at a seventh- through sixth-century b.c. settlement at Bel’sk in drunk, there is nothing thereafter that can dissolve the bond be- the Ukraine, the excavations “have uncovered a skull-cup ‘work- tween us.” This rite is depicted in several plaques.36 shop’ with several human skull-tops which had already been made Herodotus (4.74–75) reported that the Scythians entered into drinking bowls with handles made from temple bones.”49 a tent-like structure and placed hemp seeds on red hot stones, Horse and human sacrifices which then produced fumes. He noted, “The Scythians howl in their joy at the vapour-bath”—as we would now say, they were get- Scythian kings were buried in huge mounds, some as high as ting high on pot! Discoveries at the frozen tombs at Pazyryk have twenty meters, with a circumference of about one hundred me- dramatically confirmed the details of Herodotus’ account, includ- ters. The bodies of the dead were mummified by extracting the ing frames for a tent, a bronze cauldron, and hemp seeds.37 internal organs and saturating the skin with pitch and wax. Horses would be slain and their meat eaten at a great funeral Bows and arrows banquet. At one tomb, the remains of thirty-five horses, fourteen The Scythians used short, powerful composite bows.38 They were wild boars, and two stags indicate that at least 1,300 people par- ambidextrous and could shoot while riding horses, even turn- ticipated in the feast.50 In 1898, a tomb was found with as many ing backward to do so. Their distinctive trilobate (three-barbed) as 360 slain horses.51 arrows were sometimes poisoned with either snake venom or Herodotus (4.71–72) also describes how the king’s spouse and hemlock. They invented a combination bow case and quiver called servants were also killed to accompany their lord to the next life. a gorytos.39 These could hold as many as two hundred arrows. After a year, fifty of the king’s servants were mounted on fifty Gorytoi richly decorated with gold overlays have been found, in- horses around the tomb and were also killed.52 In a survey of cluding one in a tomb at Vergina in , which has been sixty-two Scythian tombs catalogued by Renate Rolle, there was plausibly identified as the tomb of Philip, Alexander’s father.40 evidence of in about a third of the tombs.53 In one tomb, seventeen mainly older retainers were buried.54 But, in Women archers = ?41 another tomb, a young man was killed to serve as a protector for Herodotus (4.110) recounts how the Scythians encountered a young woman; he had his skull crushed.55 armed women Amazons, whom they called oiorpata or “man- Robert Drews reports that “in the Arzhan [300 miles killer.” He identified them as the Sauromatae (4.116–17). The story east of Pazyryk], excavated between 1971 and 1974, the chieftain of the Amazons was associated in Greek myth with such heroes was buried with his consort and fifteen other human attendants, as , , and , and was depicted on countless and the humans were sent to the underworld with at least 150 and painted vases.42 possibly 160 riding horses.”56 A number of Scythian tombs indicate that at least some of the Conclusions Scythian women wore armor like the men and used weapons in- cluding the .43 The percentage of graves of armed Because six of the eight terms Paul uses in Colossians 3:11 can be women among the Sarmatians near the Lower is strikingly understood as antithetical pairs, some scholars have sought to higher than among the Scythian graves.44 understand “barbarians, Scythians” as another antithesis. Three recent revisionist interpretations have appeared.

Priscilla Papers ◆ Vol. 21, No. 4 ◆ Autumn 2007 • 15 The non-Cynic barbarian versus the Cynic Scythian The problem with Goldenberg’s solution is thatbarbaros is not Martin, citing the letters of Pseudo-Anacharsis,57 offers a the same as the place “Barbaria,” nor is skuthēs the same as the “Scythian perspective.”58 In contrast to the usual stereotype of the place Scythia; moreover, if Paul had wished to make such a con- Scythians, Martin cites a passage in Strabo (7.3.7), which men- trast, he could well have used the term aithiops, the Greek term tions the idea of the Scythian as a “noble savage,” unspoiled by which literally meant “sun-burnt face” and which was used by Greco-Roman civilization. From the view of an Anacharsis, a the Greeks for dark- or black-skinned peoples, especially those barbarian would be anyone who is a non-Scythian. He cites the south of Egypt.67 fourth-century b.c. playwright , who upbraided popu- Goldenberg does make the insightful observation that Paul’s lar prejudice against the Scythians by exclaiming, “A Scyth, you emphasis on the egalitarian view of all individuals in Christ re- say? Pest! Anacharsis was a Scyth!”59 From a Cynic standpoint, gardless of their gender, race, culture, or status is consciously the Scythians were the truly wise ones and the Greeks were the or unconsciously in sharp contrast with both Greek and Jewish actual “barbarians.” Martin concludes, “The Colossian author . . . views about the superiority of a free male. He cites Laer- has abolished even the divisive Cynic categories of those who live tius 1.33, who reported that used to say there were three according to as the Scythians and those who do not.”60 blessings for which he was grateful to Fortune: “that I was born a human being and not an animal, a man and not a woman, a Greek The free barbarian versus the slave Scythian and not a barbarian.” He also notes the daily prayer of , who Douglas A. Campbell, who criticizes Martin’s proposal as im- recited: “Blessed art thou, O Lord our God, who has created me plausible,61 has offered his own solution. By noting that there are human and not animal, male and not female, Jew and not gentile many references to Scythian slaves, and by discerning a chiasmic [goy], circumcised and not uncircumcised, free and not slave.”68 arrangement (an arrangement wherein the first and second halves The Scythians as savage barbarians mirror each other, like the Greek letter X, or chi), he understands that Scythian is related to the term “slave,” and that barbarian is The assumption of all three of these new proposals is that, since six related to the term “free.” He further speculates, “It would also of the eight terms in Colossians 3:11 are exclusive antitheses, the follow in this scenario that Onesimus lies behind the ‘Scythian terms “barbarian, Scythian” must also be somehow understood as slave’. While Philemon would be the free barbarian, specifically antonyms. But, suppose that Paul, when writing or dictating his a Phrygian.”62 The objection to his proposal would be that, while letter, was not overly concerned with consistency, but was moved it may be conceded that the terms Scythian and slave were often with impassioned intensity at the wonderful promise of the Gos- linked, the terms “barbarian” and “free” were not. pel? Indeed, the niv and other English translations obscure the actual succession of the final words by inserting an “or” in be- The black barbarian versus the white Scythian tween “slave” and “free.” The Greek, after listing the first two pairs Building on the observation that Barbaria could occasionally with the conjunction kai (literally “and”), then lists the next four designate an area in eastern ,63 and the recognition of the words without a conjunction: “barbarian, Scythian, slave, free.” white Scythian versus black Ethiopian contrast as widely attested From a rhetorical analysis, Campbell and other scholars have in classical texts and art,64 David M. Goldenberg has argued that objected to the “pell-mell” order of the last succession of words,69 the term “barbarian” should be understood as representing black but, from an oratorical standpoint, such a torrent of words would races and the term Scythian as representing white races.65 have lent force to Paul’s affirmation. Herodotus does not describe the Scythians’ physical appear- In favor of the customary understanding of “Scythian” as im- ance, but the pseudo-Hippocratic treatise, Airs, Waters, Places 20, plying a “savage” is the unanimous testimony of Jewish texts such asserted, “It is the cold that burns their white skin and turns it as 2 Maccabees 4:47; 3 Maccabees 7:6; 4 Maccabees 10:7; Philo, ruddy.” described them as “ruddy,” tall, and slender. In- Legat. 10; and Josephus, Contra Apion 2.269. The church fathers deed, the skeletons of many of the Scythian kings/chiefs were also seemed to understand the word in this sense. Modern mis- over six feet tall. in his Tetrabiblos writes: sionaries, such as the five who were massacred by the Aucas70 in Ecuador in 1956, have been inspired to hazard their lives with They are white in , straight-haired, tall and well- the promise that even the most murderous savages when won nourished, and somewhat cold by nature; these too are sav- to Christ will one day stand among the many tribes and nations age in their habits because their dwelling-places are continu- in heaven.71 ally cold. . . . We call these men, too, by a general name, Of particular interest to Priscilla Papers readers, another im- Scythians. plication, as Goldenberg notes, is that Paul’s egalitarian view of Goldenberg concludes, “To summarize, we have seen that the the unity of all believers in Christ frees the church from the ra- Greco-Roman sources use ‘Scythian’ as a synonym for the distant cial, gender, social, and cultural prejudice of the superiority of northern peoples (Scythians, Sarmatians, , ), and free males. A multicultural Christian church today wherein be- ‘Ethiopian’ for the distant southern peoples (black Africa), and lievers of all races and both genders are free to serve Christ fully that the paring of Scythian/Ethiopian is used as a figure of speech is the application of Paul’s teaching in Colossians 3:11 set along- to denote geographic extremes and uncivilized behaviour.”66 side Galatians 3:28.

16 • Priscilla Papers ◆ Vol. 21, No. 4 ◆ Autumn 2007 Notes Translators Howard and Deidre Shelden for their translation into Galela (Maluku, Indonesia) rendered barbaros as “people from-somewhere- 1. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scriptural citations will be taken else” (that is, foreigners) and skuthēs as “people whose law you-’t- from the NIV (New International Version). All classical citations will be know” (implying uncivilized folk). taken from the LCL (Loeb Classical Library), and all patristic citations 10. A wealth of untranslated Greek and passages are listed will be taken from the ANF (Ante-Nicene Fathers series reprinted by by J. B. Lightfoot, Saint Paul’s Epistles to the Colossians and to Philemon Eerdmans). (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, reprint of the 1879 edition), 217–19; 2. The majority of English versions simply transliterate the Greek see O. Michel, “Skuvqhß,” TDNT, 7.448; Karen S. Rubinson, “Scythians,” skuthēs (Skuvqhß): these include the Douay-Confraternity Edition, jb, ABD, 5.1056–57. kjv, nab, neb, niv, nrsv, rsv, and translations by J. Edgar Good- 11. E. Lohse, Colossians and Philemon (Philadelphia, Pa.: Fortress, speed, Hugh Schonfield, Gerrit Verkuyl, and Charles Wilson. The older 1971), 144. foreign translations including the Vulgate, French, German, Italian, and 12. Peter T. O’Brien, Colossians, Philemon (Waco, Tex.: Word Books, Russian versions also transliterate the name. 1982), 193. 3. The Amplified New Testament (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1958). 13. By a curious development in the , the word Ashkenaz 4. The Letters of St. Paul, trans. Arthurs S. Way (London: Marshall, came to designate the Jews from the Valley as opposed to those Morgan & Scott, 1950). from Sepharad (a Hebrew word found in Obadiah 20, which originally 5. Eugene H. Peterson, The Message (Colorado Springs, Colo.: Nav meant Sardis in Asia Minor), which came to designate Jews from . Press, 1993). 14. See A. Malamat, “The Historical Setting of Two Biblical Prophe- 6. New Living Translation (Wheaton, Ill.: Tyndale House, 1996). cies on the Nations,” Israel Exploration Journal 1 (1950/51): 149–59; A. 7. The New Translation (Wheaton, Ill.: Tyndale House, 1990). L. Oppenheim, “Scythians,” Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, Supple- 8. J. B. Phillips, The New Testament in Modern English (London: Col- mentary Volume, 252. For the majority view, which questions the iden- lins, 1972). tification, see A. R. Millard, “Scythians,” International Standard Bible 9. For example, whereas La Sacra Bibbia (Roma: Società Biblica Bri- Encyclopedia, 4.364–66. tannica e Forestiera, 1953) has “barbaro e Scita,” the Parola del Signore 15. See E. Yamauchi, Foes from the Northern Frontier (Grand Rapids, (Roma: Alleanza Biblica Universale, 1976) renders the words “barbari Mich.: Baker, 1982; Eugene, Ore.: Wipf & Stock, 2003 reprint edition). o selvaggi.” Similarly Bonnes Nouvelles Aujourd’hui (n.p.: Les Sociétés 16. Anne K. G. Christensen, Who Were the Cimmerians, and Where bibliques, 1974) “non-civilisés, primitifs”; Dios Habla Hoy (Nueva York: Did They Come From? (Copenhagen: Munksgaard, 1988). Sociedad Biblica Americana, 1983) “extranjero, inculto.” Wycliffe Bible Appendix: The Translation of “Scythians” Examples supplied by Wycliffe Bible Translators Nation Language Translator or WBT Source Translation Africa Cameroon Badwe’e Keith Beavon “a tribe of people who excessively war against other tribes” Congo Bangala Douglas Boone “people of the bush” Swahili Douglas Boone “savage” Ethiopia Konso Douglas Boone “those who oppress others” Sidamo Douglas Boone “the people who have another culture” Nigeria Mbembe Gary Barnwell “don’t know book” Senegal Kwatay Elizabeth Raymond “river-dwellers” Sudan Jur Mödö Andrew Persson “people who have no understanding” Mundu Dorothea Jeffrey “If . . . you know nothing” Asia Laos Lao Carolyn Miller “far from civilization” Hawaii Pidgin Joe Grimes “one nodda guy come from even mo far like Sytia” New Guinea Arapesh Bob Conrad “those who do not know any good customs” Filifita Bob Conrad “those who live in the jungle and are ignorant of good customs” Papua Meyah Bob Sterner “the foreigners who live in their areas” Philippines Bukdon Manobo Elizabeth Raymond “those who have not studied” Tagbanwa Elizabeth Raymond “fierce people who don’t have any education at all” Kankanaey Elizabeth Raymond “savage/headhunter” Solomon Isles Sa’a James Ashley “really evil heathen people of Sitia” Sulawesi Uma Bob Sterner “not schooled” Mexico Nahuatl David Tuggy “people from the wilds” Orizaba David Tuggy “outsider”

Priscilla Papers ◆ Vol. 21, No. 4 ◆ Autumn 2007 • 17 17. E. Yamauchi, “Herodotus,” Anchor Bible Dictionary, 3.180–81; 45. Jeannine Davis-Kimball, Warrior Women (New York: Warner idem, “Herodotus—Historian or Liar,” in Crossing Boundaries and Link- Books, 2002), 56–57. ing Horizons, ed. G. D. Young, M. W. Chavalas, and R. E. Averbeck 46. Rolle, The World of the Scythians, 82. (Bethesda, Md.: CDL Press, 1997), 599–614. 47. Rolle, The World of the Scythians, 82. 18. Juri Vinogradov, Olbia: Geschichte einer altgriechischen Stadt am 48. Rolle, The World of the Scythians, 83. Schwarzen Meer (Constance: Universitätsverlag Konstanz, 1981). 49. Rolle, The World of the Scythians, 83. 19. K. S. Rubinson, “Herodotus and the Scythians,” Expedition 17 50. Rolle, The World of the Scythians, 34. (Summer 1975): 16–20; E. Yamauchi, “The Scythians: Invading Hordes 51. Rolle, The World of the Scythians, 35. The sacrifice of horses was from the Russian Steppes,” Biblical Archaeologist 46 (1983): 90–99. practiced by the Cushite XXVth Dynasty of Egypt. See E. Yamauchi, Af- 20. Ellen D. Reeder, ed., Scythian Gold: Treasures from Ancient rica and the Bible (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 2004), 116–17. Ukraine (New York, N.Y.: Harry N. Abrams, 1999), 25. 52. Evidence of such human sacrifice at the death of a ruler was 21. See Yamauchi, Foes, ch. 3, “Cimmerians.” discovered by Leonard Woolley at the famous tombs he uncovered at 22. The site of Colossae has been surveyed, but has as yet not been Ur, where, in one of the royal tombs, he found six men and sixty-eight excavated. See E. Yamauchi, New Testament Cities in Minor women servants. See C. L. Woolley, Ur of the Chaldees (New York, N.Y.: (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1980; Eugene, Ore.: Wipf and Stock, 2003 Norton, 1965), 58. More than 300 retainers were buried with the Nubian reprint edition), ch. 12, “Colossae.” See Andrew L. Bennett, “ king at Kerma in the Sudan. See Yamauchi, Africa and the Bible, 72–73. from Art: Investigating Colossae . . .” Archaeological Society 53. Renate Rolle, Totenkult der Skythen (: DeGruyter, 1979). Bulletin 50 (2005): 15–26. 54. Rolle, Totenkult der Skythen, 44. 23. See E. Yamauchi, Persia and the Bible (Grand Rapids, Mich.: 55. Rolle, Totenkult der Skythen, 24. Baker, 1990), ch. 1, “The Medes.” 56. Robert Drews, Early Riders (New York, N.Y.: Routledge, 2004), 74–75. 24. See Yamauchi, Foes, 78–80; J. A. Scurlock, “Herodotos’ Median 57. Abraham J. Malherbe, ed., The Cynic Epistles: A Study Edition (At- Chronology Again?! (sun ‘including’ or ‘excluding’),” Iranica Antiqua 25 lanta, Ga.: Scholars Press, 1977). These letters are dated to the 3rd c. b.c. (1990): 149–63. 58. Troy Martin, “The Scythian Perspective in Col 3:11,” Novum Tes- 25. See Yamauchi, Persia and the Bible, ch. 4, “Darius.” tamentum 37 (1995): 249–61; cf. idem, “By Philosophy and Empty De- 26. See A. Sh. Shahbazi, “Darius in Scythia and Scythians in Perse- ceit”: Colossians as Response to a Cynic Critique (Sheffield: Sheffield ,” Archäologische Mitteilungen aus Iran 15 (1982): 189–235; Thomas Academic Press, 1996). J. Nowak, “Darius’ Invasion into Scythia: Geographical and Logistical 59. Frank M. Snowden, Jr., Blacks in Antiquity (Cambridge, Mass.: Har- Perspectives,” (unpublished M.A. thesis; Oxford, Ohio: Miami Univer- vard University Press, 1970), 197, speculated that “If Paul was acquainted sity, 1988). with Menander, and it does not seem unlikely, his celebrated pronounce- 27. J. Harmatta, “Herodotus, Historian of the Cimmerians and the ment on oneness in Christ [in Col. 3:11] may have been an adaptation of Scythians,” in Hérodote et les peuples non grecs, ed. O. Reverdin and B. Menander’s statement of the inconsequence of race.” He was apparently Grange (Geneva: Vandoeuvres, 1990), 121. not aware that in 1 Cor. 15:33 Paul quotes from Menander’s Thais. 28. J. R. Gardiner-Garden, “Dareios’ Scythian Expedition and Its Af- 60. Martin, “The Scythian Perspective,” 259. termath,” Klio 69 (1987): 326–50. 61. Douglas A. Campbell, “The Scythian Perspective in Col 3:11: A 29. M. F. Vos, Scythian Archers in Archaic Attic Vase Painting (Gron- Response to Troy Martin,” Novum Testamentum 39 (1997): 81–84. ingen: J. B. Wolters, 1963). Her view has been contested by B. M. Lavelle, 62. Douglas A. Campbell, “Unravelling Col. 3:11b,” New Testament “Herodotos, Skythian Archers, and the doryphoroi of the Peisistratids,” Studies 42 (1996): 132 n. 39. Klio 74 (1992): 78–97. 63. Note that the indigenous inhabitants of North Africa were called 30. H. A. Shapiro, “Amazons, , and Scythians,” Greek, Ro- , peoples who still persist in the interior of Morocco and Algeria. man and Byzantine Studies 24 (1983): 105–14. See Reuben G. Bullard, “The Berbers of the and Ancient Car- 31. V. Ehrenberg, The People of Aristophanes (New York, N.Y.: thage,” in Africa and Africans in Antiquity, ed. Edwin M. Yamauchi (E. Schocken, 1962), 175. Lansing, Mich.: Michigan State University Press, 2001), 180–209. 32. Yurij P. Zaytsev, The (2nd century BC to 3rd 64. According to Snowden, Blacks in Antiquity, 171, “It is most fre- century AD) (Oxford: British Archaeological Reports, 2004), 36. quently the Scythian whom the Greek, and later the Roman, cited, to- 33. See T. Sulimirski, The Sarmatians (London: Thames and Hud- gether with the Ethiopian, in numerous examples of distinctly un-Greek son, 1970). and un-Roman physical types.” 34. Jan Fredrik Kindstrand, Anacharsis: The Legend and the Apo- 65. David M. Goldenberg, “Scythian-Barbarian: The Permutations phthegmata (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1981). of a Classical Topos in Jewish and Christian Texts of ,” 35. François Hartog, The Mirror of Herodotus (Berkeley, Calif.: Uni- Journal of Jewish Studies 49 (1998): 87–102. versity of California Press, 1988), 169. 66. Goldenberg, “Scythian-Barbarian,” 97; cf. David M. Goldenberg, 36. Reeder, Scythian Gold, 149. The Curse of Ham (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2003), 37. See Sergei I. Rudenko, Frozen Tombs of Siberia: The 23, 43, 45. of Horsemen (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1970). 67. Just as feminist scholars have called attention to the ignored pres- 38. Reeder, Scythian Gold, 116. ence of women in the Bible, Afrocentric scholars have called attention 39. Reeder, Scythian Gold, 71. to the neglected presence of blacks in the Bible such as Moses’ Cushite 40. M. Andronikos, “The Royal Tombs at Aigai (Vergina),” inPhilip wife, Tirhakah, Ebed-melech, etc. However, extreme Afrocentric claims of Macedon, ed. M. B. and L. D. Hatzopoulos (Athens: Ekdotike Athe- that all the people in the Bible are black undercuts their credibility. See non, 1980), 202, 218–21. my Africa and the Bible. 41. The word amazon meant “without a breast” from the tale that 68. Goldenberg, “Scythian-Barbarian,” 100–01. Amazonian girls had their right breast cut off to make them better ar- 69. Campbell, “Unravelling Col. 3:11b,” 122. chers as reported in Pseudo-, Airs, Waters, Places, 17. 70. The word “Auca” means “savage” in Quechua, the name given to 42. Shapiro, “Amazons, Thracians, Scythians.” the Waorani Indians by the Ecuadorians. 43. Rolle, The World of the Scythians, 87–88. 71. Elisabeth Elliot, The Savage My Kinsman (New York, N.Y.: Harper, 44. Rolle, The World of the Scythians, 88–89. 1961); Steve Saint, End of the Spear (Carol Stream, Ill.: Tyndale House, 2005).

18 • Priscilla Papers ◆ Vol. 21, No. 4 ◆ Autumn 2007