PHUL. - King of Assyria (II Kings 15:19 and I Chron. 5:26), to be identified "with absolute certainty" (O.

Hellmann) with the great king Tiglath-Pileser (745-727), the true founder of the Neo-Assyrian Empire.

The controversy, which was most heated from 1869 to 1887, may be considered over. In 1887, in fact, the Neo-Babylonian Chronicle was published in London by Pinches, whose col. I, 17-24 is parallel to the Neo-Babylonian Catalogue of Kings, col. IV 5-8: in it appears the name of Tiglath-Pileser (v.), to which in the Catalogue corresponds that of Pölu, assumed however only after the victory over Ukin-zér in 729, when he entered Babylon and at the new year of 728 "took the hands of Bel." He made himself king of Babylon according to all the necessary rites, but in order to avoid the susceptibilities of the rival city he contented himself with a merely personal union and with a distinction of names. Böhl, on the other hand, along with others, thinks that Pölu was his civil name, later changed to that of the great Tiglath-Pileser I when he usurped the throne of Assyria (745): this is not certain. With R. Thiele and others it may be said that I Chron. 5:26 rather confirms the identification of Tiglath-Pileser with P., since the verb "deported" is in the singular and given the explanatory force of the conjunction "waw": A. Vaccari translates in the same sense: "The God of Israel stirred up the spirit of Ful, king of Assur, that is, of Telgat-Falnasar..."; others think it is a gloss.

Bibliography7 works

BIBL.: R. Lepsius, Über den chronolog. Wort der asyyrischen Eponymen, Berlin 1869, p. 56 (he was the first to demonstrate the identification); E. Schrader, Die Kellinschriften und das Alte Testament, Leipzig 1872, pp. 124-34 (and in the other editions and works); F. Vigouroux, La Bible et les découvertes modernes, 6th ed., Paris 1896, pp. 497-509 (summary of the controversy); O. Hellmann, De chron. Librorum Regum, Rome 1914, pp. 560-62; F. M. T. Böhl, Janerbericht... ex oriente lux, 4 (1936), p. 264; A. Vaccari, La Sacra Bibbia..., III, Florence 1948, p. 35; R. Thiele, The mysterious numbers of the Hebrew Kings, Chicago 1951, pp. 75-77.

Pietro Nober

@incollection{ec9_phul, author = {Nober, Pietro}, title = {Phul}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {IX}, pages = {1316--1317}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1952}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/phul} }

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