Sanballat II is hypothesized to be a hereditary governor of

Samaria Samaria (; he, שֹׁמְרוֹן, translit=Šōmrōn, ar, السامرة, translit=as-Sāmirah) is the historic and biblical name used for the central region of Palestine, bordered by Judea to the south and Galilee to the north. The first ...

under the Achaemenid Empire. If he existed, he reigned during the early and mid fourth century BCE. He is hypothesized to be a grandson of

Sanballat the Horonite Sanballat the Horonite ( he, סַנְבַלַּט ''Sanḇallaṭ'') – or Sanballat I – was a Samaritan leader and official of the Persian Achaemenid Empire who lived in the mid to late 5th century BC and was a contemporary of Nehemiah. Etym ...

, who is mentioned in the Book of Nehemiah and the

Elephantine papyri The Elephantine Papyri and Ostraca consist of thousands of documents from the Egyptian border fortresses of Elephantine and Aswan, which yielded hundreds of papyri and ostraca in hieratic and demotic Egyptian, Aramaic, Koine Greek, Latin and Co ...

. The regnal number of "II" is a modern convention, and he would not have been called that at the time. The hypothesized time period where Sanballat II was governor may have coincided with the construction of the Samaritan Temple on Mount Gerizim.

Samaria papyri

Frank Moore Cross Frank Moore Cross Jr. (1921–2012) was the Hancock Professor of Hebrew and Other Oriental Languages Emeritus at Harvard University, notable for his work in the interpretation of the Dead Sea Scrolls, his 1973 ''magnum opus'' ''Canaanite Myth and ...

was involved in the purchase and excavation of ancient papyri at

Wadi Daliyeh The Wadi Daliyeh (وادي دالية) is a wadi in the West Bank, located fourteen kilometres north of Jericho, flowing east from the Samarian hills down to the Jordan Valley. The valley has caves containing archaeological material. Archaeologi ...

, preserved by the dry climate. A Sanballat is indeed referred to in these papyri, but the time period seemed to be somewhat later than the period described in the Book of Nehemiah. As a result, Cross came to the conclusion that at least three different Sanballats ruled as governor of Samaria during the Persian era, and that the governorship had passed down a family line. He believed that the order went

(5th century BCE); Delaiah, son of Sanballat; Sanballat II; Hananiah, son of Sanballat II; Sanballat III. For Cross, the first Sanballat is the person described in the Book of Nehemiah; the second Sanballat was who was in the Wadi Daliyeh papyri; and the third Sanballat is the subject of the story in

Josephus Flavius Josephus (; grc-gre, Ἰώσηπος, ; 37 – 100) was a first-century Romano-Jewish historian and military leader, best known for '' The Jewish War'', who was born in Jerusalem—then part of Roman Judea—to a father of priestly ...

's ''

Jewish Antiquities ''Antiquities of the Jews'' ( la, Antiquitates Iudaicae; el, Ἰουδαϊκὴ ἀρχαιολογία, ''Ioudaikē archaiologia'') is a 20-volume Historiography, historiographical work, written in Greek language, Greek, by historian Josephus, F ...

'' book 11 that takes place around the time of Alexander the Great's invasion of the Persian Empire. However, the matter is not settled. There has been opposition (discussed by Dus̆ek) that Sanballat II may not have existed.

References

External links

* {{cite journal , title=The Discovery of the Samaria Papyri , journal= The Biblical Archaeologist , publisher= American Schools of Oriental Research , location=

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

, United States of America , author=Frank Moore Cross, Jr. , author-link=Frank Moore Cross, Jr. , volume=26 , number=4 , date=December 1963 , pages=109–121 , doi=10.2307/3211040 , jstor = 3211040, s2cid=189256904 Ancient Samaritan people People whose existence is disputed Samaritan culture and history