Alexander's ascent, via Griffin or Griffin-Vulture

In Haazinu, we read of the eagle bearing its young on its pinions (wings):

יא כְּנֶשֶׁר יָעִיר קִנּוֹ, עַל-גּוֹזָלָיו יְרַחֵף; {ס} יִפְרֹשׂ כְּנָפָיו יִקָּחֵהוּ, יִשָּׂאֵהוּ עַל-אֶבְרָתוֹ.

11 As an eagle that stirreth up her nest, hovereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her pinions--

and while it is meant allegorically, ain mikra yotzei miydei peshuto, and the mashal needs to make sense and be true before we get to the nimshal. Some connect it to the pasuk in parshat Yitro, in Shemot 19:4:

ד אַתֶּם רְאִיתֶם, אֲשֶׁר עָשִׂיתִי לְמִצְרָיִם; וָאֶשָּׂא אֶתְכֶם עַל-כַּנְפֵי נְשָׁרִים, וָאָבִא אֶתְכֶם אֵלָי.

4 Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles' wings, and brought you unto Myself.

and again, this is meant to be allegorical, though there presumably should be some actual physical observable phenomenon of nesharim bearing things (such as young) on their wings, as a basis for this. And see Rashi and midrashim on this.

Could an eagle, or perhaps griffin-vulture, be big enough to lift a man, if we wanted to take the allegorical as absolutely literal? We wouldn't really expect birds so big.

Yet there is a giant, man-killing eagle, thought until just recently to be legendary, which survived until about 500 years ago, at which point it became extinct:

New research has confirmed that a giant man-eating bird long spoken of in legends actually existed.

And the Haast eagle was even bigger and more deadly than first thought, fulfilling the same role as the killer lions of Africa.

Each creature had a wingspan of three metres and weighed almost 20kg, making more than twice the size of the largest eagle that survives today.

"It was certainly capable of swooping down and taking a child," Paul Scofield, of Canterbury University in New Zealand, said.

This is not precisely the same as bearing a fully grown person on its wings, but it brings it more into the realm of imagined possibility. (Though there may well be scientific reasons that birds, including eagles and vultures, cannot get so large.)

I bring all this up because there is a Yerushalmi which seems to have a man riding on the back of a nesher, which is probably a griffin vulture.

Yerushalmi Avodah Zarah 18b reads:

א"ר יונה אלכסנדרוס מוקדון כד בעא מיסק לעיל והוה סלק וסלק סלק עד שראה את העולם ככדור ואת הים כקערה בגין כן ציירין לה בכדורא בידה. ויצורינה קערה בידה.

Thus, according to Rabbi Yonah, when Alexander the Macedonian {the Great} wanted, he ascended up, until he saw the world like a ball and the sea like a plate. Because of this they depict him with a sphere in his hand, and a plate {/discus} in his hand.

So why do I say that Alexander ascended upon a nesher? Where does it state that in the Yerushalmi?! All it said was אלכסנדרוס מוקדון כד בעא מיסק לעיל והוה סלק וסלק סלק, but it did not mention the method by which he ascended! To answer, I got this from Pnei Moshe on the daf, who said that Alexander went up by nesher.

Pnei Moshe writes that he did something, and say on the nesher to raise himself above and to see the face of the earth, as it written in their Chronicles.

Thus, admittedly the Yerushalmi does not mention a nesher. But he recognizes that this maamar Chazal is likely citing Greek legend, and so he turns to Greek legend -- or perhaps if he believes it to be true and historical, Greek history -- and discovers that Alexander's ascent was by nesher.

But if we look at Greek legend, it does not seem to be an eagle or griffin-vulture by which Alexander ascends. Rather, it appears to be by griffin:

One legend involving griffins is the Ascension of Alexander the great. According to this story, Alexander captured a pair of griffins and, having starved them for three days, hitched them to his throne and, teasing them with chunks of roast beef held above their heads on lances, flew heavenward for seven days. Alexander would've stolen a peek at God Himself if an angel had not asked him why he wanted to see the things of heaven when he did not yet understand the things of earth. Chastised for his presumptuousness, Alexander flew back to earth. Representations of Alexander's ascension were placed in French and Italian cathedrals during the 12th century.

This is a fairly popular tale, and an old one. This museum website puts the emergence of the legend to 200 BCE, well before this statement in the Yerushalmi was written:

200 BC

Emergence of the legend of Alexander, in which Alexander of Macedonia flew in the company of some half-starved griffins to the end of the world. This theme turns up frequently (on exhibit in the Museum).

And here is an article (8+ MB PDF) tracing the history of this story as well as artwork about it. One interesting variant has a king using similar hunks of meat to make two griffins (or else eagles) carry his throne up high. (The picture to the right has Alexander using these hunks of meat.) Compare to the griffins on King Shlomo's throne, which brought him up.

If so, why does Pnei Moshe say nesher? Maybe he saw (or thought he saw) a variant of the popular legend, maybe he considers nesher an adequate translation of griffin, or perhaps he is rewriting it to be more plausible -- even though a human being lifted in this way by two eagles is not very plausible to me.

Aside from simply being an interesting Yerushalmi, or at least Pnei Moshe, if it refers to griffins or even to eagles lifting Alexander up, or even if it merely refers to a popular Greek legend, there might be some interesting things we can deduce about this Yerushalmi if we bring in eagles or griffin-vultures or griffins.

Specifically, this famous Yerushalmi shows a belief within Chazal in a round earth. There is, of course, another gemara in Bavli Chagiga, which strongly implies a flat earth. Did they intend this Yerushalmi literally, or is it an allegory? Even if literal, does it reflect Greek beliefs or Chazal's beliefs? Or both?

The whole point in the Yerushalmi of citing this legend is that those under Alexander's rule consider the world to be under Alexander's dominion -- though the continuation of the Yerushalmi challenges them on the accuracy of that statement. If the whole point is dominion, then the Yerushalmi does not necessarily have to actually maintain that Alexander ascended on high. Rather, they just need to believe that the Greeks believed that. And if the Greeks believed this, we can understand the statues with the ball or plate in hand to have a specific meaning. And if is only the Greeks who believe this, this is no absolute evidence that "Chazal" believed in a spherical earth -- especially as there are certain other gemaras which seem to contradict this. Of course, sources in Bavli and Yerushalmi can readily contradict one another, because Chazal are not monolithic.

But even before getting to that point, I have to wonder whether Chazal really believed the Greek legends about Alexander's ascent on high, literally. While it is nice that Chazal get some contemporary science right, it would be a shame if they believed it because they believed in some implausible nonsense about Alexander riding up to the heavens on eagles or griffins.

Given that he ascended upon a nesher, and a nesher is often a symbol of power (king of the birds, much like the lion as the king of the beasts), and given that a griffin is a combination of two kingly beasts (griffin-vulture/eagle + lion) all of this might be a further allegory for Alexander's dominion. Even if allegory, of course, details of what he saw might be based on scientific knowledge of the world. And so if he would see the world, they would describe the world as a sphere.

In sum, this is an interesting Yerushalmi not just for its references to a spherical earth. Pnei Moshe's suggestion is bold, in that he is willing to fill in details from Greek legends. His suggestion seems quite plausible, given the history of this story. And I wonder whether even as Greek legend, the griffin was intended allegorically.

Rabbi Slifkin discusses griffins in his Sacred Monsters. While he does not address this Yerushalmi in particular, he does discuss some of the royal aspects of the griffin in the context of certain midrashim.