Manasses (given name)

Manasses or Manasseh is a given name of seven persons of the Bible, a tribe of Israel, one of the apocryphal writings and several more modern persons.

Manasses
Origin
Word/name Hebrew
Other names
Related names Manasseh
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The Biblical individuals

It was probably in this frenzy of his varied forms of idolatry that "Manasses shed also very much innocent blood, till he filled Jerusalem up to the mouth" (verse 16). The historian of II Par. tells much the same story, and adds that, in punishment, the Lord brought the Assyrians upon Juda. They carried Manasses to Babylon. God heard his prayer for forgiveness and deliverance, and brought him again to Jerusalem, where Manasses did his part in stemming the tide of idolatry that he had formerly forced upon Juda (xxxiii, 11-20).

At one time, doubt was cast on the historicity of this narrative of II Par., because IV Kings omits the captivity of Manasses. Schrader (op. cit., 2nd ed., Giessen, 1883, 355) gives cuneiform records of twenty- two kings that submitted to Assurhaddon during his expedition against Egypt; second on the list is Minasii sar ir Yaudi (Manasses, king of the city of Juda). Schrader also gives the list of twenty-two kings who are recorded on a cuneiform tablet as tributaries to Asurbanipal in the land of Hatti; second on this list is Miinsii sar mat Yaudi (Manasses, king of the land of Juda). Since a Babylonian brick confirms the record of the historian of II Par., his reputation is made a little more secure in rationalistic circles. Winckler and Zimmern admit the presence of Manasses in Babylon (see their revision of Schrader's "Keilinschr. und das A. T.", I, Berlin, 1902, 274). Conjectures of the Pan-Babylonian School as to the causes that led to the return of Manasses, the groundwork of the narrative in IV Kings, etc., do not militate against the historical worth of the scriptural account.

The Tribe of Israel

Main article: Tribe of Manasseh

Deriving its name from Manasses, son of Joseph, this tribe was divided into two half-tribes, an eastern and a western.

The tribe east of the river Jordan was represented by the descendants of Machir (Judges 5:14). Machir was the first-born of Manasses (Joshua 17:1). The children of Machir took Galaad (Numbers 32:39); Moses gave the land of Galaad to Machir (verse 40). Two other sons of Manasses, Jair and Nobe, also took villages in Galaad, and gave thereto their own names (verses 41-42).

The territory of the western half-tribe is roughly sketched in Jos., xvi, 1-3. It was that part of Samaria which lay between the Jordan and the Mediterranean, the plain of Esdrelon and the towns of Jericho, Sichem and Samaria. The eastern half-tribe occupied north Galaad, all Basan and Argob (Joshua 13:30-31; cfr. Deuteronomy 3:13) — an immense tract of land extending east of Jordan to the present Mecca route (darb elhaj) and far beyond, so as to include the Hauran.

The Apocryphal

The Prayer of Manasseh is an apocryphal writing which purports to give the prayer referred to in II Par., xxxiii, 13, 18-19. Its original is Greek. Nestle thinks that the prayer and other legends of Manasses in their present form are not earlier than the "Apostol. Const.", xi, 22; and that the prayer found its way into some Manuscripts of the Septuagint as part, not of the Sept., but of the "Apostol. Const." (see "Septuaginta Studien", III, 1889). The prayer is not in the canon of Trent, nor has there ever seemed to have been any serious claim to its canonicity.

Post-biblical individuals

References

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