Gog and Magog

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Gog (Hebrew, etymology unclear) is the prince of Mesech and Thubal for the prophet Ezekiel (chapters 38 and 39) and lives in the land of Magog . In the Revelation of John , in the New Testament of the Bible , Gog and Magog are two peoples who will be delivered from Satan on the last day . Together with him they go into battle, but are ultimately defeated by Christ ( Rev 20 : 8  EU ). Magog is also mentioned in the table of nations as the son of Jafet and the grandson of Noah . His brothers are Gomer , Madai , Jawan , Tubal , Meschech and Tiras . According to Flavius ​​Josephus , it could have been the Scythians .

The apocalyptic motif of Gog and Magog found widespread use in Europe and the Middle East from late antiquity and the early Middle Ages and was interwoven with various traditions and legends (e.g. in the Alexander novel and the Koran ).

Dhū l-Qarnain builds a wall against Gog and Magog ( Persian miniature painting, 16th century)

Gog and Magog in Islam

Gog and Magog are in Islam under the name Yaʾdschūdsch and Maʾdschūdsch ( Arabic يأجوج ومأجوج, DMG Yaʾǧūǧ wa-Maʾǧūǧ ) known. In the Koran, in Sura 18 , verses 83-98, it is told how the two-horned man , who is partly equated with Alexander the Great by Islamic tradition , fought against Gog and Magog and finally defeated them by pouring copper over a wall of iron. They couldn't break out because they couldn't destroy this wall. Before Judgment Day, however, they will break through the wall and pour onto the earth from all the hills.

Islamic tradition describes how the Gog and Magog, after their emergence, eat and drink whatever they find edible and drinkable, so that nothing is left. After reaching Jerusalem, they lull themselves into believing that they have destroyed all life on earth. Then they shoot arrows in the sky, and when they fall back stained with blood, they believe that they have wiped out the inhabitants of heaven too. At the intercession of Jesus, God then sends down worms that penetrate the gog and magog through the noses and ears, eat them from the inside and come out again on their necks. This is how the Gog and Magog die.

Medieval myths

The Georgian Step'annos Orbelean describes in his Historia that Dhū l-Qarnain had enclosed the wild tribes of the north. However, at the end of time they will be delivered by Gog and Magog and ravage the whole world, and the "Son of Destruction" will arise, followed by the return of Christ and the annihilation of the unbelievers.

Geoffrey von Monmouth tells in the Historia Regum Britanniae (History of the Kings of Britain) (1, 17, around 1136) how the island of Britain was settled by Trojan refugees under Brutus . Corineus , one of his followers, became the ruler of Cornwall , where there were particularly many giants . The most hideous of them, Gogmagog , was three and a half meters tall and so strong that it could uproot whole oak trees . When Gogmagog and twenty other giants attacked Brutus during a service, he had them killed except for Gogmagog, who was to wrestle with Corineus for his entertainment. Gogmagog broke three of Corineus' ribs, but the latter dragged him to the coast and threw him from the cliffs into the sea, where he shattered.

In the Middle Ages, the Scandinavians also traced their ancestry back to Magog, who eventually lived in the north. Since he had left the Middle East very early, his language was still very similar to that of Paradise ( original language ). According to the Gesta Hungarorum , Magog was Prince of Scythia and the progenitor of the Hungarians. According to the Central Irish Lebor Gabála Érenn (§10) Magog, the son of Jafet , was the progenitor of the peoples who came to Ireland before the Gaedil, namely Partholon , the son of the Greek king Sera, Nemed and the descendants of the Nemed , Gaileoin, Fir Domnann , Fir Bolg and the Túatha Dé Danann .

Cartographic representation

Anglo-Saxon world map from the Cotton collection, original approx. 1000, copied approx. 1836, colored
Tabula Rogeriana, 1154

With the roughly schematic Anglo-Saxon world map from the Cotton collection of approx. 1000 (preserved as a modern copy), the empire of Gog and Magog is set relatively close to the Arctic Circle and the Arctic Sea . It is found north of Azerbaijan , near the Caspian Sea, but again clearly northeast of a lion depicted on the Eastern Sea in a region that would be assigned to China today. The identifiable surrounding regions clearly point the region towards Central Asia. Amazingly, Marco Polo also describes two countries Gog and Magog in almost exactly this region in his Il Milione .

The linguist Mahmud al-Kāschgharī presents in his work Compendium of the Languages ​​of the Turks ( dīwān lughāt at-turk ) a map of the Old World in disk form from the year 1072, which is now in the Pera Museum in Istanbul , the Taklamakan desert and the Altai in the middle. The representation is chosen so that the east is on top, as on all Christian maps of the time. To the south, Hindustan and Kashmir are listed next to the Gog and Magog area.

On the Tabula Rogeriana from 1154, which is attributed to Al-Idrisi during his time at the court of Roger II , a rectangular map of the world with the south at the top, the land of Magog can be found in the extreme northeast. It is difficult to assess the actual completeness of the presentation in this area. An equation with the empire of the Gök-Turks or the empire of the Mongols not far from the Great Wall of China by the cartographer suggests itself.

On the world map of Pietro Visconte from 1326, Gog and Magog are in the extreme east of the world, beyond Cathay and China. On the map of Andrea Bianco from 1436 they inhabit a peninsula in the far east of the world, opposite the earthly paradise . In later maps they move to northeast Asia , roughly in the area of ​​the Kamchatka .

On the map Geographia sacra by Abraham Ortelius ( Theatrum Orbis Terrarum , Antwerp 1601) Magog is a city in northern Mesopotamia , on the Arbonai river , which is shown as a tributary of the Euphrates and lies in the approximate area of ​​the Orontes , although with the opposite direction of flow. not far from paradise.

Gog and Magog in art

Legend has it that the giants Gog and Magog are guardians of London ; they stand as sculptures above the exit of the town hall. In his short story Gone Astray , Charles Dickens tells how he saw these giants as a young boy. (The original sculptures that Dickens describes were destroyed during World War II.)

In The Last Days of Mankind there is a dialogue in act V, scene 7 between two men of German origin named Gog and Magog, whom the author Karl Kraus describes as "two gigantic fat balls". They are described as very nationalistic.

Martin Buber published a historical novella Gog and Magog in the newspaper Davar in 1941 , which appeared in 1945 under the English title For the Sake of Heaven and in which the Hasidic rabbi Jaakow Jizchak von Przysucha appears as the protagonist.

Gog and Magog also appear in the novel The Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol . Sobakevich, a salesman of dead souls, compares the governor and the lieutenant governor with Gog and Magog: “Just give him a knife and put him on the Post Street, and he will cut your neck off for a single kopeck! He and the lieutenant governor, that's Gog and Magog! "

In the science fiction series Andromeda, there is a destructive species called Magog.

On the album Foxtrot by the group Genesis , the 6th part of the piece Supper's Ready , Apocalypse in 9/8 (co-starring the Delicious Talents of Gabble Ratchet) , the "guards of Magog" are quoted, an allusion to the interpretation of the text the revelation of john . Even Peter Hammill took for his 1974 released album In Camera , the contiguous pieces of Gog and Magog on; the former was later to be found in the live repertoire of his band Van der Graaf Generator .

literature

  • JG Aalders: Gog en Magog in Ezechiël. JH Kok, Kampen 1951.
  • Muhammad Ali: The Antichrist and Gog and Magog. Ahmadiyya Anjuman Isha`at Islam Lahore Inc., Columbus OH 1992.
  • Andrew Runni Anderson: Alexander's Gate, Gog and Magog, and the Inclosed Nations. The Medieval academy of America, Cambridge MA 1932.
  • David Yo'elAri'el: Milhemet Gog u-Magog, meshihiyut ve-apokalipsah ba-Yahadut - be-'avar uve-yamenu. Jedi'ot Acharonot . Sifre hemed, Tel Aviv 2001.
  • Daniel I. Block: Gog & Magog in Ezekiel's Eschatological Vision. in: Eschatology in Bible & Theology. Evangelical Essays at the Dawn of a New Millennium. InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove IL 1997.
  • Sverre Bøe: Gog and Magog, Ezekiel 38-39 as Pre-text for Revelation 19.17-21 and 20.7-10. Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2001.
  • Marie Felicité Brosset : Histoire de la Siounie par Stéphanno s Orbélean. St. Petersburg 1864.
  • E. van Donzel / Claudia Ott : Art. Yā dj ū dj wa-Mā dj ū dj in: The Encyclopaedia of Islam. New Edition Vol. XI, pp. 231a-234a.
  • Timothy John Mills: The Gog pericope and the Book of Ezekiel. PhD dissertation. Drew University 1989.
  • Jon Ruthven: The Prophecy That Is Shaping History. New Research on Ezekiel's Vision of the End. Xulon, Fairfax VA 2003.
  • Wolfgang Hohlbein : Magog.
  • Hugo Bieling: On the legends of Gog and Magog. in: Report: about the school year .. / Sophien-Realschule in Berlin (1881). Weidmann, Berlin 1882. Digitized

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Flavius ​​Josephus: Antiquitates I 123.
  2. ^ W. Montgomery Watt in: Encyclopaedia of Islam. New Edition, sv al-Iskandar
  3. ↑ See van Donzel / Ott 232a.
  4. ↑ http://la.wikisource.org/wiki/Gesta_Hungarorum
  5. ^ Marco Polo , Il Milione , Northern Italy, 1299
  6. ↑ Alessandro Scafi, Mapping Paradise, A history of Heaven on earth (London, British Library 2006), 201
  7. ↑ Alessandro Scafi, Mapping Paradise, A history of Heaven on earth (London, British Library 2006), 208
  8. ↑ Alessandro Scafi, Mapping Paradise, A history of Heaven on earth (London, British Library 2006), plate 16
  9. ↑ (Nikolai Gogol: Die toten Seelen ; Aufbau-Verlag Berlin and Weimar; 3rd edition 1978; p. 116)
  10. ↑ http://cyberreviews.skwc.com/gendis.pdf