Didn't see any biblio, so don't know how scholarly this is. It's a forum page, so type 'aphar' in Find box.
http://forum.net.hr/forums/p/209824/5980188.aspx
Concerning the Origin of Peoples
The Ancient Identity of Hungarians
The Hungarian-Hebrew Connexion
- An essay realized with the valuable contribution of the Hungarian scholar Hargita Csaba -
Preliminary remarks: Owing to the lack of conclusive evidences available until now, this research proposes likely hypotheses, not definitive solutions. The historic facts exposed here and the reasonable credit that may be bestowed on ancient myths allow the author to frame feasible hypotheses open to further discussion.
Excerpt:
Even in the Hebrew Scriptures the name "Israelite" is equalled with
"Jew", the term used by Persians in reference to the whole nation.
In the Book of Ezra, we find a list of peoples that were transferred to Israel by the Assyrians, whose ethnic denominations were unknown in
earlier Biblical records:
«Then wrote Rechum the chancellor, and Shimshai the scribe, and the
rest of their companions, the Dinaites, the Apharsathkites, the
Tarpelites, the Apharsi, the Arkevi, the Bavlites, the Shushankhites,
the Dehites, the Elamites, and the rest of the nations whom the great
and noble Asnappar brought over, and set in the city of Shomron, and
in the rest of the country beyond the River, and so forth» (Ezra
4:9,10).
Some of them are easily recognizable, while others belong to the
peoples that will play a relevant role in the post-Achæmenian era.
[For their geographic location, please see the map here. It has
been difficult for exegetes and scholars to identify some of these
peoples with certainty; nevertheless, from the Biblical text we can
find their identity in agreement with historic sources. For example,
the Apharsathkites (called Apharsakites in Ezra 5:6; 6:6) have often
been thought to be the same as the Apharsi or Apharsites, accidentally
mentioned twice, but from Aramaic and Persian records we can
acknowledge two different peoples corresponding with each of both
terms: the Aparni or Parni and the Pārs, that might roughly be
translated as "Parthians" and "Persians". Therefore, having
established that Apharsi is an alternative term for "Persian", the
exact identity of the Aparni requires a deeper research, which is what
we intend to do in this chapter. It is important in this people list
the mention of the Dehites, that are the same as the Dahae (Dahâ) of
the Persian accounts, as they were a Scythian tribe associated with
the Aparni in the foundation of the Parthian Empire.
(End of excerpt.)
