Their original home may have been at the eastern edge of this steppe region near the Altai Mountains of Siberia, where pole tops from the eighth century B.C., which are similar to those later excavated in the Scythian mound burials in the Ukraine, have been found. They would be followed over the centuries by groups such as the Huns, the Magyars (who settled in Hungary), the Bulgars (who settled in Bulgaria), and the Mongols. The Scythians were the first of numerous waves of warriors on horses who swept westward over the vast Eurasian steppes, which extend from Mongolia more than four thousand miles to the Carpathian Mountains in Europe. Though some of the details of Herodotus’s account have been questioned, archeological evidence has confirmed much of his information on the Scythians. The most important source for the early history of the Scythians, Medes, and Persians was the fifth-century “Father of History,” Herodotus, 17 who traveled to the Greek colony of Olbia 18 on the northern shore of the Black Sea to get invaluable information on the history and culture of the Scythians, who had eventually settled in the area of present-day Ukraine. B.C.) is the first Greek writer to note the Scythians. 16 But, she then comes to the curious conclusion that the Cimmerians were the “lost tribes” deported by the Assyrians from the northern kingdom of Israel. Kristensen rejects the classical evidence that the former tribes came from the north and locates Gamir in the area of the Mannai (biblical Minni) near Lake Urmia in northwestern Iran. In a careful examination of these sources, Anne G. The cuneiform texts of Assyrian kings refer to the invasion of the Cimmerians and the Scythians in the eighth through the seventh centuries B.C. 14 I have contended that there is new archaeological evidence to suggest that some Scythians may have served as mercenaries in the Babylonian armies of Nebuchadnezzar when they attacked Jerusalem.

More problematic is the identification of the “foes from the north” in Jeremiah and in Habakkuk with the Scythians, a view favored by a minority of scholars.

13 The word has been identified with the Akkadian (i.e., Babylonian) word Ishkuza for the Scythians. In the Old Testament, the Hebrew word Ashkenaz occurs in Genesis 10:3 in its parallel, 1 Chronicles 1:6 and in Jeremiah 51:27. This general view of the Scythians is based on a wealth of classical references, 10 and is generally reflected in all the commentaries, e.g., “The Scythians are cited as an especially strange kind of barbarian” 11 “The ‘Scythian’ represents the lowest kind of barbarian who was probably also a slave the term was applied to tribes around the Black Sea.” 12 Periphrastic versions render the terms barbaros, skuthēs as: “barbarians or Scythians ” 3 “alien, savage” 4 “uncivilized and uncouth” 5 “barbaric and uncouth” 6 “foreigner, savage” 7 and “foreigner or savage.” 8 Whereas older foreign translations were content to transliterate the word, more recent translations attempt to use explanatory terms. Who indeed were the Scythians? And why does Paul refer to them? In this article, I will give a survey of their history and culture and examine different ways in which scholars have understood the function of the word in Colossians 3:11.

Many readers of this journal will have memorized Galatians 3:28, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” 1 They may not be as familiar with the parallel passage in Colossians 3:11, which omits any reference to gender: “Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.” 2

Galela kingdom of the dead