WEBVTT

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 I want to welcome you to our new Sunday School series, The Empire Next Door, on the Assyrians,

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 the Babylonians, and the Persians.

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 And I want to introduce John Belt.

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 He's a PhD candidate in the Assyriology program at Yale.

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 He does cuneiform, all those clay tablets and stuff like that.

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 His dissertation is on a Mesopotamian underworld deity, whom he's looking at.

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 So he's going to be presenting, and I'd like to open in prayer, and then we'll get started.

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 Father in heaven, we want to thank you for this opportunity to study the world of your word.

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 We pray that, Lord, as we learn about the peoples and the empires who coexisting with your chosen people of Israel,

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 that we would grow in knowledge of you and of your works, of your promises, of your grace and your mercy, God.

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 We pray that you'd give words to John.

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 We pray that you'd open our ears.

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 And, Lord, we pray that we would flourish and grow in this time together.

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 And we ask this in the name of Jesus.

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 Amen.

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 Amen.

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 All right.

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 Good morning, everybody.

00:01:07.420 --> 00:01:07.980
 Good morning.

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 I hope everybody's doing well.

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 This room is so white.

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 It's very bright.

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 I love it.

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 Okay.

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 So I wanted to focus a little bit, obviously, on the thing that I study, because that seems sort of self-obvious.

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 But in part because this is one of those things that, you know, we read the Bible, and in particular the Old Testament or the Hebrew Bible,

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 and we very frequently run into all these different people groups like the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Hittites, the Moabites, all these different people groups.

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 And you're like, I didn't learn this in history class.

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 I don't know who these people are.

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 Right?

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 You get to the New Testament.

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 We know what Rome is.

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 Right?

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 Maybe we did a little class on Rome or something.

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 You know, Julius Caesar gets stabbed at the Ides of March.

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 Right?

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 But we don't really learn too much about these particular people groups.

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 So it becomes a lot harder sometimes when we're reading the Old Testament to really get a sense of what's going on?

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 What does this world look like exactly?

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 And so what I want to do over these couple weeks that we're sort of going through stuff together is to kind of give a bit of a picture of at least a couple of these people groups,

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 some of the ones that I'm the most familiar with at any rate.

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 So we're going to look this week at Assyria.

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 And next week we will look at Babylonia.

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 And then after Easter we'll take a look at Persia.

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 They're all three of them sort of big superpowers of the geopolitical scene at that time.

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 And so they're going to be sort of a window for us into getting a better sense of what the world looks like historically at that time period.

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 And hopefully this will provide a little bit of a framework then that we can then go and sort of add more stuff to it.

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 All right.

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 So where I want to start with just a little bit of, again, sort of framework kind of stuff.

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 How are we going to think about this a little bit?

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 And the biblical text obviously is very much centered on Israel and Judah and very much concerned with what happens in their history and what God does in their,

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 in the events of their history.

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 But what we often miss is that they're actually fairly smaller nations within the larger sort of geopolitical picture.

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 So it's sort of like when we read the Bible we might get the idea that like,

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 especially when you're reading about like David and Solomon,

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 that, you know, ancient Israel is sort of like,

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 maybe they're like the U.S. of their day or at least the Great Britain of their day.

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 It's a little bit different than that.

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 But there's more sort of like larger empires on either side of them.

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 So you have Egypt, for example, which we know from pyramids and mummies and all kinds of fun stuff like that.

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 And then there's the areas that I focus on more here in Mesopotamia,

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 such as Assyria, Babylonia, all these big empires.

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 And they're really the superpowers of the day, right?

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 These are your Americas and your Chinas and your Russias a little bit.

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 Like these are the superpowers, right?

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 And the Israelites are very much sort of smaller states sort of stuck in between them, right?

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 So this is something I think is, I want to start here because I think this is something that's really worth keeping in mind

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 as we go through some of this stuff because it's very easy to read about, for example,

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 the glory days of Solomon in 1 Kings and think like, oh my goodness, this guy, it's like, it's a superpower.

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 They've got, you know, all this stuff that they're doing and so forth.

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 But it's sort of, it's more on a relative scale.

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 Solomon was, had a much more of a golden age compared relative to what they were used to.

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 So he had maybe more attention from superpowers than the others did,

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 but it wasn't necessarily counted among them.

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 So another thing I want to focus on in terms of framework is just the geographic significance of where Israel and Judah are.

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 So this is a famous map from, I actually forget where that's from, but it's from some European, I think it's German.

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 It's German.

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 Yeah.

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 Okay.

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 Yeah.

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 That's something in German.

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 It's from some German manuscript.

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 But it's a map of the world, which has the three, or at least the, the Eastern hemisphere,

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 which has sort of Europe, Asia, Africa, and then Jerusalem is right in the middle.

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 And so it's very stylized, right?

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 It looks like a little bit of like a, like a three leaf clover or something,

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 but, but it is, it does very much represent what we have here where, um, can everybody see the screen?

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 Okay.

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 Okay.

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 Okay.

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 Okay.

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 Good.

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 Um, Israel and Judah very much function as sort of sitting on this land bridge that is sort of sits between,

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 again, Europe is up here, up here, Asia is over here, Africa is right here.

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 And a number of international sort of trade routes and highways run through that area.

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 So they're small countries, they're not superpowers, but the big superpowers are highly interested

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 in what's going on there, um, and in who gets to control the comings and goings that go through

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 that area.

00:07:03.740 --> 00:07:09.700
 So that's often why there's international interest in where Israel and Judah are.

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 Um, even though they themselves are not necessarily big superpowers.

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 So those are just some things I want to sort of set the stage with.

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 I know this is like highly complicated iron age geopolitics for a Sunday morning, but, uh,

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 I think it's a good place to start there.

00:07:28.439 --> 00:07:35.200
 Um, the other thing I'm going to just also sort of say as, as a bit of framework is that,

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 um, the, the, the place where I'm focused, because we're focusing on Assyria,

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 Babylonia and Persia.

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 In terms of the historical narrative of the Hebrew Bible, we're going to be focused on

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 parts that are closer to the end of it, right?

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 There's, we could focus further back on some different things like the Exodus and we could

00:07:53.900 --> 00:07:54.500
 talk about Egypt.

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 We could talk about Canaanites with the conquest of Canaan.

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 Um, there's a lot of things we, we, we could talk about in this series.

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 Um, but I've, I've chosen to focus on the sort of the divided kingdom period after the reign

00:08:09.379 --> 00:08:12.079
 of Solomon and sort of moving from there.

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 Part of the reason for that is simply because that lets me work on these three big empires.

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 And part of that is also because that's when we have the most historical sources that help

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 us locate Israel and Judah relative to these empires, right?

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 We have, we have earlier references, but to be able to construct more of a historical narrative,

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 we have more sources from this period.

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 So I thought I'd focus there.

00:08:37.919 --> 00:08:38.319
 Okay.

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 That's enough frameworking and caveats and so forth.

00:08:42.319 --> 00:08:43.919
 Let's, let's get into it.

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 So like I said, I want to start first with Assyria, which some people have called the

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 first world empire.

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 Depends on how you define a world empire, but sure.

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 Um, and I want to start Assyrian history with the late bronze age, which I know everyone

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 is familiar with.

00:09:03.639 --> 00:09:11.519
 Um, this is again, sort of an arbitrary starting point, but we're going to start here around

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 the time of, we'll go back to here a sec.

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 Around the time of sort of the, the, the, the exodus, the conquest and the period of the

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 judges, that's the late bronze age.

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 Um, and this is a period that was characterized, um, by a sort of what some historians have called

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 like a league of great powers.

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 Um, think of like Europe before world war one a little bit, right?

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 You have all these sort of, these big sort of, uh, colonial superpowers that kind of,

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 they have alliances with each other and they have these very uneasy relationships with each

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 other.

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 And they often fight proxy wars by getting like little kingdoms that they're, you know, that

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 they have control over to fight each other, this kind of thing.

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 And the, the, the main players on that stage are Egypt, Babylonia, Assyria, uh, Mitanni and

00:10:04.799 --> 00:10:05.220
 Hati.

00:10:06.279 --> 00:10:08.059
 Hati being the place where the Hittites come from.

00:10:08.059 --> 00:10:16.599
 Um, and around 1200 BC, you don't really have to remember this because around 1200 BC, which

00:10:16.599 --> 00:10:19.059
 is before we start, this league begins to break up.

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 And we could do a whole section on why that happens, but we're not going to.

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 Um, some of these states go into sort of a decline.

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 They, they're sort of, they're sort of reduced in their power.

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 Um, and other ones are, other ones completely dissolve, right?

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 So Hati, for example, just dissolves.

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 That's not a, it's not a state anymore.

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 Um, Egypt survives.

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 Babylonia and Assyria survive.

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 Mitanni doesn't make it either.

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 So with the, with the decline of some of these greater powers, that begins to let, if we go

00:11:01.580 --> 00:11:05.620
 back to, oops, if we go back to here, with the decline of these greater powers, these

00:11:05.620 --> 00:11:08.179
 guys aren't hitting the gym so much, right?

00:11:08.220 --> 00:11:08.779
 They're getting a little weak.

00:11:08.960 --> 00:11:12.639
 That gives a little bit more space for this guy to get to the, to the gym, right?

00:11:13.139 --> 00:11:14.419
 To get to the exercise equipment.

00:11:14.419 --> 00:11:19.419
 So with the, with the decline of these powers, and again, this is happening around the time

00:11:19.419 --> 00:11:23.919
 of the conquest, the judges, and into sort of the, the early monarchy period.

00:11:23.919 --> 00:11:30.899
 So Saul and David, and part of the reason that they have sort of room to operate without

00:11:30.899 --> 00:11:35.639
 having too much trouble from some of these larger empires is simply, is because of this

00:11:35.639 --> 00:11:38.399
 fact, because that this larger system has kind of broken down.

00:11:38.399 --> 00:11:46.579
 Um, and so smaller states like, uh, the Davidic kingdom in Israel have more room to, to function

00:11:46.579 --> 00:11:49.379
 without larger powers trying to sort of muscle in on their territory.

00:11:53.480 --> 00:12:00.019
 Um, but where this connects with, with our first superpower, Assyria, is that like the

00:12:00.019 --> 00:12:02.939
 others, Assyria kind of goes into a bit of a decline.

00:12:02.940 --> 00:12:08.060
 Um, and they have some difficulties for a while.

00:12:08.140 --> 00:12:14.060
 They have a lot of trouble with Aramean nomadic invaders and stuff like that.

00:12:14.820 --> 00:12:19.640
 Um, but they also end up becoming the first of these larger powers to really get their feet

00:12:19.640 --> 00:12:20.340
 under them again.

00:12:20.340 --> 00:12:31.500
 And so by about the, by about the 900s, uh, so this is again, around the time of like,

00:12:33.580 --> 00:12:37.379
 around the sort of David Solomon a little bit, maybe after that time getting into

00:12:37.379 --> 00:12:39.440
 Rehoboam a little bit.

00:12:40.160 --> 00:12:46.560
 Um, Assyria gets its feet under it again and starts to, they figure that they should probably

00:12:46.559 --> 00:12:50.439
 try to reclaim all the territory that they have, that they used to have several hundred

00:12:50.439 --> 00:12:51.659
 years ago that they don't have anymore.

00:12:52.959 --> 00:12:59.939
 And so they, um, begin sort of what, what some historians have returned, like their sort

00:12:59.939 --> 00:13:02.319
 of reconquest, right?

00:13:02.500 --> 00:13:08.039
 Um, like in Spanish historiography, if you know the term like Reconquista for when the,

00:13:08.039 --> 00:13:14.399
 um, the Spanish tried to go through and, and take back a lot of the Iberian peninsula

00:13:14.399 --> 00:13:19.620
 from, um, who they, people they saw, that they, they saw as, as Muslim invaders, right?

00:13:20.299 --> 00:13:26.600
 Um, my, my advisor has termed this the Assyrian Reconquista because he thought that was clever.

00:13:27.699 --> 00:13:39.699
 Um, so this is where, let's go blank screen.

00:13:43.000 --> 00:13:43.519
 Hmm.

00:13:44.399 --> 00:13:45.199
 That's unusual.

00:13:52.480 --> 00:13:53.199
 Oh, you know what?

00:13:53.199 --> 00:13:53.799
 I don't have internet.

00:13:53.980 --> 00:13:54.439
 That's why.

00:14:01.179 --> 00:14:03.360
 I don't remember the guest password.

00:14:03.620 --> 00:14:03.899
 Okay.

00:14:03.899 --> 00:14:07.279
 Oh, is anyone who's in Hawaii?

00:14:07.279 --> 00:14:17.039
 Uh, what about, uh, 630 state?

00:14:17.279 --> 00:14:20.379
 Yeah, yeah, 630 state, try 630 state.

00:14:20.639 --> 00:14:21.079
 No space?

00:14:21.079 --> 00:14:21.579
 No space?

00:14:21.579 --> 00:14:22.980
 No space?

00:14:22.980 --> 00:14:23.679
 No space?

00:14:24.079 --> 00:14:24.579
 No space?

00:14:24.579 --> 00:14:27.360
 The guy with no money, memory remembers the password.

00:14:27.360 --> 00:14:28.159
 630 state?

00:14:28.159 --> 00:14:29.159
 630 state?

00:14:29.159 --> 00:14:32.159
 S-T-A-T-E.

00:14:32.159 --> 00:14:32.659
 Yeah.

00:14:32.659 --> 00:14:33.159
 Sure.

00:14:33.159 --> 00:14:42.179
 Oh, it works.

00:14:42.360 --> 00:14:42.559
 Okay.

00:14:42.959 --> 00:14:43.120
 Okay.

00:14:43.299 --> 00:14:43.579
 Excellent.

00:14:43.839 --> 00:14:44.179
 All right.

00:14:44.959 --> 00:14:45.639
 Good memory.

00:14:45.959 --> 00:14:46.120
 Yeah.

00:14:46.120 --> 00:14:48.799
 Okay.

00:14:49.039 --> 00:14:49.779
 Sorry about that, everybody.

00:14:49.779 --> 00:14:56.100
 There it is.

00:14:56.360 --> 00:14:56.879
 Yay.

00:14:58.059 --> 00:14:59.199
 Now we've got the rest of the slides.

00:14:59.200 --> 00:14:59.640
 Okay.

00:14:59.640 --> 00:14:59.759
 Okay.

00:14:59.759 --> 00:15:00.200
 Okay.

00:15:00.200 --> 00:15:00.840
 Okay.

00:15:00.840 --> 00:15:01.259
 That's good.

00:15:02.259 --> 00:15:03.259
 Ah, that's better.

00:15:03.500 --> 00:15:03.720
 Okay.

00:15:04.520 --> 00:15:11.940
 So what I want to do is try to divide Assyrian history up into sort of three periods.

00:15:12.360 --> 00:15:14.180
 And again, this is all really schematic.

00:15:14.520 --> 00:15:22.200
 This is not, um, we could, people could, people have taught whole courses on just this.

00:15:22.200 --> 00:15:28.700
 Um, so, and I don't want to, you know, have to have you write a research paper or take a

00:15:28.700 --> 00:15:29.240
 test or anything.

00:15:29.240 --> 00:15:30.400
 So we're going to stick to the basics.

00:15:31.360 --> 00:15:37.080
 Um, and so I want to divide Assyrian history in the history of this Assyrian empire into

00:15:37.080 --> 00:15:39.000
 sort of three stages.

00:15:40.420 --> 00:15:44.560
 So the first is this initial sort of reconquest period.

00:15:45.660 --> 00:15:47.720
 Um, also, sorry, something I should have said earlier.

00:15:48.720 --> 00:15:52.080
 Um, what I'm going to, what we're going to try to, what I'm going to try to do is

00:15:52.080 --> 00:15:55.780
 talk a little bit about Assyrian history and a little bit about Assyrian culture, and then

00:15:55.780 --> 00:15:59.900
 we'll focus a lot more on sort of specific areas where it connects with the biblical text.

00:16:01.600 --> 00:16:03.500
 So I should have started with that.

00:16:06.120 --> 00:16:10.200
 Um, so we have the first period, which is the, the reconquest.

00:16:11.280 --> 00:16:17.200
 We then have, um, sorry, which I should focus on here.

00:16:17.920 --> 00:16:21.759
 Um, they sort of begin in this Assyrian heartland.

00:16:22.639 --> 00:16:26.200
 Which is sort of, again, the, the area that they have been sort of restricted to after

00:16:26.200 --> 00:16:30.259
 the downfall of these sort of greater, the sort of league of great powers.

00:16:31.340 --> 00:16:36.180
 And they begin pushing particularly westward to try to get to the Mediterranean Sea to control

00:16:36.180 --> 00:16:36.720
 the coast.

00:16:37.440 --> 00:16:38.940
 There's lots of good trade ports there.

00:16:38.940 --> 00:16:43.260
 Um, and also pushing south into Babylonia.

00:16:46.260 --> 00:16:52.900
 Um, two of the most prolific and, and ruthless Assyrian kings of that, that initial reconquest

00:16:52.900 --> 00:16:57.120
 phase were Asher Nasser Paul II and Shalmaneser III.

00:16:57.120 --> 00:16:59.700
 Um, I won't expect you to remember those names.

00:16:59.820 --> 00:17:00.659
 That's, that's okay.

00:17:01.659 --> 00:17:03.460
 Um, again, there's, there's no quiz.

00:17:05.259 --> 00:17:07.059
 Um, they have lots of fun names.

00:17:07.140 --> 00:17:09.059
 We're going to get a lot of fun names in this series.

00:17:09.059 --> 00:17:16.639
 Um, we then get, after the reign of Shalmaneser III, we get a period that we call sort of the

00:17:16.639 --> 00:17:20.759
 intermediate period of the, of the strong governors, it's sometimes called.

00:17:20.759 --> 00:17:25.640
 Um, because, um, a lot of governors of some of these different Assyrian provinces that

00:17:25.640 --> 00:17:30.819
 were now created as they were taking more territory, these governors begin to act fairly

00:17:30.819 --> 00:17:31.440
 independently.

00:17:32.599 --> 00:17:39.039
 Um, and so the, the king himself has less power, uh, and can't do as much as many of the things

00:17:39.039 --> 00:17:40.019
 as he wants to do.

00:17:41.599 --> 00:17:46.619
 Um, and so we call that period the period of the strong governors, where again, they're not,

00:17:46.680 --> 00:17:47.700
 they're not doing a whole lot.

00:17:47.700 --> 00:17:49.819
 They're kind of just sitting with the territory they have.

00:17:50.759 --> 00:17:57.019
 Um, and then the final period is what I've termed the imperial supernova.

00:17:57.799 --> 00:18:05.379
 And this is essentially beginning with, um, one particular king, Tiglat-Pileser III, um,

00:18:05.539 --> 00:18:11.539
 who decides that he's tired of these strong governors and basically, uh, puts in a number

00:18:11.539 --> 00:18:14.259
 of different sort of administrative reforms that really limit their power.

00:18:14.759 --> 00:18:18.680
 So one of the things that he does is he takes the provinces that they had and he divides them.

00:18:18.680 --> 00:18:20.920
 Um, so he says, oh, you've got this huge territory.

00:18:21.259 --> 00:18:24.799
 Well, now that's actually three provinces and you're only a governor of one of them.

00:18:25.160 --> 00:18:26.620
 And you're going to be two more governors.

00:18:26.720 --> 00:18:28.480
 So you have a lot less individual power.

00:18:28.480 --> 00:18:40.960
 Um, so, and he also campaigned extensively into, uh, into Syria and down here towards, and

00:18:40.960 --> 00:18:43.900
 we'll get into where he actually interacts with the biblical text in a little bit.

00:18:45.900 --> 00:18:51.200
 Um, and he also becomes the first Assyrian king who conquers southern Mesopotamia here,

00:18:51.299 --> 00:18:56.240
 which we'll get to later, Babylonia, um, and declares himself not only the king of Assyria,

00:18:56.240 --> 00:18:57.680
 but the king of Babylonia as well.

00:19:00.259 --> 00:19:09.099
 Uh, another king in this imperial supernova that we want to pay attention to is Sennacherib,

00:19:09.599 --> 00:19:11.420
 whose name we might also know from the Bible.

00:19:12.799 --> 00:19:21.079
 Um, he launches a number of different campaigns into Babylonia because even though he was nominally

00:19:21.079 --> 00:19:25.039
 the king of Babylonia as well as Assyria, the Babylonians didn't think he was king of

00:19:25.039 --> 00:19:25.539
 Babylonia.

00:19:26.599 --> 00:19:30.480
 And the Assyrians will have a hard time controlling Babylonia throughout their history.

00:19:30.480 --> 00:19:41.139
 Um, and Sennacherib eventually sacks the city of Babylon, which he, many people were not

00:19:41.139 --> 00:19:45.039
 okay with, not just the Babylonians, but there were also Assyrian factions that didn't like

00:19:45.039 --> 00:19:45.619
 that he did that.

00:19:46.980 --> 00:19:52.220
 His son Esarhaddon, uh, becomes the first Assyrian king who launches campaigns into Egypt.

00:19:53.940 --> 00:19:57.980
 Uh, it doesn't seem like he really was, I have it on this map that he's sort of, that they

00:19:57.980 --> 00:20:02.440
 are controlling Egypt, but at this point Esarhaddon's campaigns seem to be more like raids.

00:20:03.379 --> 00:20:06.519
 Because Egypt was a very wealthy area and they figured they could go in, steal a bunch of

00:20:06.519 --> 00:20:07.319
 stuff and get out.

00:20:08.319 --> 00:20:10.619
 Um, and also it's very difficult to cross the Sinai Desert.

00:20:10.619 --> 00:20:13.539
 So the logistics of that campaign was difficult.

00:20:13.699 --> 00:20:14.539
 So it was more of a raid.

00:20:16.279 --> 00:20:21.859
 Uh, Esarhaddon also rebuilt the city of Babylon after his father Sennacherib had destroyed it.

00:20:23.639 --> 00:20:29.879
 Um, and then his son, Ashurbanipal, who was the last great king of Assyria, um, is mostly

00:20:29.879 --> 00:20:33.599
 remembered for creating a giant library in the, in the capital city of Nineveh.

00:20:33.599 --> 00:20:41.439
 Um, and it was the discovery of the, the ruins of that library, uh, in the mid-1800s that

00:20:41.439 --> 00:20:44.679
 really gave birth to, to my field, Assyriology.

00:20:45.219 --> 00:20:49.059
 Because that was the first major text group that we had that people said, hey, we should

00:20:49.059 --> 00:20:49.859
 try to read these things.

00:20:52.139 --> 00:20:56.219
 Um, and then the end of the Assyrian empire, which we'll also touch on a little bit next

00:20:56.219 --> 00:21:02.019
 week when we talk about Babylonia, uh, is that after a number of several centuries of

00:21:02.019 --> 00:21:08.059
 suffering under the yoke of the Assyrians, um, the Babylonians down here, am I the slide

00:21:08.059 --> 00:21:08.400
 of this?

00:21:09.759 --> 00:21:10.000
 No?

00:21:10.079 --> 00:21:10.240
 Okay.

00:21:10.319 --> 00:21:10.579
 Hold on.

00:21:11.319 --> 00:21:13.119
 Um, you know what?

00:21:13.139 --> 00:21:13.700
 I'm going to do this way.

00:21:16.119 --> 00:21:18.000
 I'll show you a little bit of my map from next time.

00:21:18.299 --> 00:21:21.099
 This is the map of the, the, the end of Assyria.

00:21:22.039 --> 00:21:28.720
 The Babylonians, um, who again are just sick and tired of the Assyrians continually trying

00:21:28.720 --> 00:21:31.779
 to take over them and, and keep them in their empire.

00:21:32.240 --> 00:21:36.059
 They team up with another group called the Medes who live up here in the Zagros Mountains

00:21:36.059 --> 00:21:37.200
 in what is today Iran.

00:21:38.140 --> 00:21:44.460
 And the two of them, um, launch a series of campaigns during a, during a particular period

00:21:44.460 --> 00:21:52.799
 where Assyria was rather weak and, um, managed to destroy most of the capital cities in the

00:21:52.799 --> 00:21:53.619
 Assyrian heartland.

00:21:54.879 --> 00:22:02.259
 Um, and we'll then talk about how Babylonia takes over from the Assyrians next week.

00:22:02.859 --> 00:22:03.700
 Sneak preview.

00:22:06.200 --> 00:22:08.039
 So that's the end of the Assyrian empire.

00:22:12.859 --> 00:22:15.579
 Oh, those were the kings that I just mentioned.

00:22:15.919 --> 00:22:16.759
 I should have showed that slide.

00:22:16.759 --> 00:22:22.700
 And this is a picture of an Assyrian king from a, uh, palace wall carving.

00:22:24.339 --> 00:22:28.879
 John, we have, there are some Assyrian, am I right in saying there's some Assyrian, uh,

00:22:28.879 --> 00:22:30.400
 things on display at the Yale Art Gallery?

00:22:30.680 --> 00:22:31.359
 Or is that that one?

00:22:31.640 --> 00:22:31.940
 Yes.

00:22:32.480 --> 00:22:39.039
 So there are, um, if you go to the Yale Art Gallery and you go to the, the ancient art section

00:22:39.039 --> 00:22:45.740
 off to the right there when you first go in, um, they have some wall carvings similar

00:22:45.740 --> 00:22:46.119
 to this.

00:22:46.119 --> 00:22:50.359
 I thought I had a picture of them and I was going to have those up there so that you could

00:22:50.359 --> 00:22:56.119
 see what you should go look for at the UOG, but, um, I didn't have a good picture of the

00:22:56.119 --> 00:22:56.519
 whole thing.

00:22:56.759 --> 00:23:03.279
 So, um, they have, actually those, those are wall reliefs from the palace of Assyrian

00:23:03.279 --> 00:23:11.139
 Assyrian, who was one of the, those first kings in the reconquest phase that I mentioned.

00:23:11.140 --> 00:23:20.600
 So I want to talk a little bit about, that's sort of a quick framework of Assyrian history,

00:23:20.980 --> 00:23:22.780
 very, very brief summary of it.

00:23:23.400 --> 00:23:25.040
 Again, you can read whole books on the topic.

00:23:25.900 --> 00:23:28.960
 Um, I'm going to talk a little bit about their, their culture now.

00:23:28.960 --> 00:23:34.920
 Um, and there's some fun pictures that we can look at, like me being scared of this giant

00:23:34.920 --> 00:23:35.420
 stone bull.

00:23:36.799 --> 00:23:39.400
 Uh, this is in, um, Chicago, by the way.

00:23:40.660 --> 00:23:42.559
 That's the, that's not where the palace was built.

00:23:42.640 --> 00:23:43.799
 That's where they have the stone.

00:23:43.799 --> 00:23:45.879
 The Assyrians didn't conquer Chicago.

00:23:46.319 --> 00:23:47.240
 I'm going to make that clear.

00:23:48.299 --> 00:23:48.399
 Yeah.

00:23:49.519 --> 00:23:50.259
 We don't think.

00:23:51.539 --> 00:23:58.200
 So because of their sort of the, the, their very expansion, focus on expansion and their

00:23:58.200 --> 00:24:01.440
 very expansionistic nature, the Assyrians had a very powerful military.

00:24:01.619 --> 00:24:02.740
 They were very militaristic.

00:24:03.500 --> 00:24:10.240
 Um, my advisor who is, is German has described them as the Prussians of, of the ancient Near

00:24:10.240 --> 00:24:10.519
 East.

00:24:10.519 --> 00:24:22.160
 Um, so they were not only known for their militarism, but for their, their cruelty.

00:24:22.400 --> 00:24:29.960
 I mean, a lot of, um, different civilizations and states in, in the, in the ancient world

00:24:29.960 --> 00:24:32.119
 were not necessarily known for being nice people.

00:24:32.799 --> 00:24:38.460
 Uh, you can find all kinds of stories of cities being sacked and things like that.

00:24:38.460 --> 00:24:44.100
 But, um, the Assyrians really made sort of, they were really proud about just how cruel

00:24:44.100 --> 00:24:46.240
 and ruthless they were in some, in some senses.

00:24:46.799 --> 00:24:53.259
 Uh, so for example, um, Asher Nasserpal, who's, um, again, reliefs are here at the Uwag and,

00:24:53.299 --> 00:24:58.019
 um, um, was one of these kings of the, the, the Reconquista phase.

00:24:58.160 --> 00:25:06.019
 He has a, when he was sort of marching through his campaigns through this area right here, um,

00:25:06.019 --> 00:25:09.879
 he has a lengthy inscription describing that in which he basically goes through and is

00:25:09.879 --> 00:25:14.720
 like, and then we took this city and I took all the captured soldiers and I skinned them

00:25:14.720 --> 00:25:20.139
 and I took all the governors and I impaled them and I rounded up all the young men and

00:25:20.139 --> 00:25:21.579
 women and I burned them alive.

00:25:21.579 --> 00:25:23.439
 And he does this city by city.

00:25:24.839 --> 00:25:26.980
 Um, not a very nice guy.

00:25:28.259 --> 00:25:34.199
 Um, and again, this is, this is just something that the Assyrians were particularly known for.

00:25:34.200 --> 00:25:40.860
 And in some ways, uh, it seems that it was, they weren't just, I'm not going to say they

00:25:40.860 --> 00:25:45.480
 were particularly, you know, mean, brutish people, but it was something that they did

00:25:45.480 --> 00:25:48.220
 intentionally as a form of psychological warfare.

00:25:49.080 --> 00:25:55.080
 They figured that, uh, you could keep a place conquered if you scared them a lot.

00:25:55.940 --> 00:25:58.220
 And so they would do a lot of terrible things.

00:25:58.220 --> 00:26:06.000
 Uh, well, one thing I'll, I'll say again too about their, their sort of conquest and reconquest,

00:26:06.000 --> 00:26:13.559
 um, thing is they, when they began their, what they viewed as a reconquest, a lot of the places

00:26:13.559 --> 00:26:17.519
 that they were reconquering were places that never really thought that they were part of

00:26:17.519 --> 00:26:17.900
 Assyria.

00:26:18.779 --> 00:26:21.400
 So they would go into a place and say, you guys are rebels.

00:26:21.680 --> 00:26:23.819
 You're not submitting to the king of Assyria.

00:26:23.819 --> 00:26:29.619
 And those places would say, but like, we're an independent nation state.

00:26:30.619 --> 00:26:32.859
 Um, we're not part of Assyria.

00:26:34.319 --> 00:26:37.980
 And the Assyrians would say, well, you guys are rebels and we're going to treat you like

00:26:37.980 --> 00:26:39.720
 rebels because you won't submit.

00:26:40.539 --> 00:26:49.819
 And so there was, um, uh, a bit of sort of a propaganda game going on there where the Assyrians

00:26:49.819 --> 00:26:56.379
 tried to style everything as a, they tried to style it a bit as a defensive war, uh, in

00:26:56.379 --> 00:26:58.960
 the sense that they were, all they were doing is just, they're just putting down rebels.

00:26:59.139 --> 00:26:59.679
 That's all they are.

00:26:59.740 --> 00:27:01.179
 And these people, they, they rebelled.

00:27:01.500 --> 00:27:02.439
 What do you mean they rebelled?

00:27:02.539 --> 00:27:03.679
 Well, they wouldn't pay me tribute.

00:27:04.799 --> 00:27:05.539
 Oh, okay.

00:27:07.539 --> 00:27:12.720
 Um, so when you read their inscriptions, they, they focus very much on this fact.

00:27:12.720 --> 00:27:18.620
 Um, or what they see as a fact that these people are, are not just living their lives

00:27:18.620 --> 00:27:20.980
 and that they're coming in as an outside force.

00:27:21.079 --> 00:27:26.299
 They are simply, they're simply invoking the rule that's always been there or trying to

00:27:26.299 --> 00:27:27.559
 restore the rule that's always been there.

00:27:29.140 --> 00:27:37.299
 One of the other sort of, um, things that they would do, uh, as a, as a sort of part of

00:27:37.299 --> 00:27:43.740
 this sort of calculated frightfulness, as one historian called it, was, uh, a policy

00:27:43.740 --> 00:27:51.119
 of mutual, what we call mutual deportation, which is, um, if they conquered people in

00:27:51.119 --> 00:27:55.339
 this area, they would grab a whole bunch of people from that area and they would take

00:27:55.339 --> 00:27:57.619
 them to this area and they would settle them there.

00:27:58.019 --> 00:28:01.519
 And if they fought people here, they would grab a bunch of people from there and move

00:28:01.519 --> 00:28:01.960
 them up there.

00:28:03.200 --> 00:28:07.079
 And what that did was it basically, it broke up the ability for people to be able to

00:28:07.079 --> 00:28:11.319
 stage any kind of resistance because they just lost a whole bunch of their own people.

00:28:11.539 --> 00:28:15.279
 And those people who'd been taken away were moved to a place that was no longer home for

00:28:15.279 --> 00:28:15.419
 them.

00:28:15.460 --> 00:28:16.759
 They didn't have home field advantage.

00:28:18.099 --> 00:28:25.839
 Uh, and historians debate about just how extensive this shift of demographics was because they did

00:28:25.839 --> 00:28:35.059
 this all over the near East, moving people around from one place to another to sort of make

00:28:35.059 --> 00:28:36.079
 it easier to rule them.

00:28:36.079 --> 00:28:42.159
 Um, um, okay.

00:28:42.440 --> 00:28:50.039
 So, one of the other things is that, um, since they were conquering a lot of this territory

00:28:50.039 --> 00:28:54.139
 and what they really wanted from this territory was tribute and taxes.

00:28:55.359 --> 00:29:00.519
 Um, and they would take all this wealth, they would move it to the center, to the, to their

00:29:00.519 --> 00:29:02.619
 heartland, to their capital cities.

00:29:02.920 --> 00:29:08.379
 And they, they tended to use it for, um, well, the wealth was put at the disposal of the king,

00:29:08.379 --> 00:29:11.940
 right, who then made sure that, like, all his supporters got paid.

00:29:12.200 --> 00:29:20.500
 And they also used it to build, um, really mind-bogglingly cool palaces, um, with giant,

00:29:20.680 --> 00:29:23.019
 scary stone bulls in.

00:29:23.019 --> 00:29:29.039
 Um, this is from, like I said, this is in Chicago now, but it's from Sargon II's palace.

00:29:30.639 --> 00:29:38.559
 Um, and yeah, I mean, they had palaces full of artwork like this and statues like this.

00:29:38.680 --> 00:29:45.079
 And this, again, was, they used the wealth that they got from people to build these kind of things.

00:29:45.079 --> 00:29:48.720
 And then they, in turn, used that as a further tool of empire.

00:29:48.720 --> 00:29:54.779
 So when you send a delegation to the Assyrians and you have to walk through a palace that

00:29:54.779 --> 00:30:00.299
 has things like that in it, or these, these, this is from the, these are from the Louvre,

00:30:00.299 --> 00:30:02.200
 um, in Paris.

00:30:02.279 --> 00:30:05.960
 And this is me trying to imitate this guy holding a lion cub.

00:30:07.059 --> 00:30:10.140
 Um, I didn't have a cat, so I just held my bag like that.

00:30:10.140 --> 00:30:20.860
 So, um, it would have been, um, a pretty awe-inspiring place.

00:30:21.420 --> 00:30:25.120
 And, uh, some of the, I don't have any good pictures of them, unfortunately,

00:30:25.200 --> 00:30:30.060
 but some of the wall reliefs that were in these palaces were of conquests themselves.

00:30:30.220 --> 00:30:35.300
 So they would be like, here is a depiction of us when we conquered that one city,

00:30:35.299 --> 00:30:36.779
 and then we killed everyone inside.

00:30:37.919 --> 00:30:44.980
 And if you're an emissary from another country, that would make you think twice about supporting

00:30:44.980 --> 00:30:48.879
 a rebellion, or you'd go back to your home country and say, hey, I just saw depictions

00:30:48.879 --> 00:30:52.539
 of all the things they do to the people who don't pay tribute, so we'd better make sure

00:30:52.539 --> 00:30:53.980
 we have our tribute ready for next year.

00:30:55.419 --> 00:30:59.779
 So this was all, again, part of this sort of calculated frightfulness as a way of,

00:31:00.139 --> 00:31:01.440
 as a method of wealth extraction.

00:31:01.440 --> 00:31:08.820
 The Assyrian kings, uh, themselves were, as you can imagine, highly autocratic.

00:31:09.820 --> 00:31:15.880
 Uh, the king himself was viewed as the high priest of the Assyrian chief deity, Ashur.

00:31:17.180 --> 00:31:22.860
 Uh, and in his inscriptions, uh, described about himself, where he talks about his campaigns,

00:31:23.279 --> 00:31:29.400
 he's often, they often would portray themselves as a sort of, like, idealized superman.

00:31:29.400 --> 00:31:34.900
 Right, so the Assyrian king will talk about, you know, I went into this mountainous territory,

00:31:34.900 --> 00:31:39.640
 uh, with my armies, and the rest of the army started lagging behind because the territory

00:31:39.640 --> 00:31:44.220
 was difficult, but me and my bodyguards, we went on ahead, and we met the enemy before

00:31:44.220 --> 00:31:47.540
 the rest of the army got there, and we put them to flight, and the rest of the army showed

00:31:47.540 --> 00:31:50.040
 up just as the battle was over, and this kind of thing.

00:31:50.600 --> 00:31:54.880
 Um, they really liked to try to convince you that they were the one who had single-handedly

00:31:54.880 --> 00:31:55.740
 done everything.

00:31:55.740 --> 00:32:03.740
 It was very much sort of a, a strongman kind of, um, aesthetic that they, they sort of,

00:32:04.320 --> 00:32:08.520
 uh, uh, strove for.

00:32:11.040 --> 00:32:14.820
 Um, I talked a little bit about some of these wall reliefs already.

00:32:14.819 --> 00:32:22.279
 Um, there's four different Assyrian capital cities.

00:32:23.000 --> 00:32:28.659
 Um, their city of Ashur, which is also the name of their deity, and Ashur is also the

00:32:28.659 --> 00:32:34.980
 word we get Assyria from, so Ashur is the name of the country, and it's the name of their

00:32:34.980 --> 00:32:36.299
 city, and it's the name of their god.

00:32:36.299 --> 00:32:43.059
 Um, so that was their sort of main capital for a while, and throughout Assyrian history,

00:32:43.200 --> 00:32:44.419
 it was sort of their religious capital.

00:32:44.559 --> 00:32:47.460
 It was where their deity, Ashur, was centered.

00:32:48.779 --> 00:32:55.220
 Um, Ashur Nasapal II moved the capital to a place called Kalhu, um, which shows up in

00:32:55.220 --> 00:32:57.399
 the, in the Bible as Kalach in a couple places.

00:32:58.180 --> 00:33:02.440
 Sargon II built a capital city that he called Fort Sargon because he was a little fool of himself.

00:33:02.440 --> 00:33:10.980
 And then, um, Sennacherib moved the capital to Nineveh, which we also know from the Bible.

00:33:13.120 --> 00:33:17.000
 Um, okay, so let's move on to some biblical connections.

00:33:19.380 --> 00:33:26.400
 Um, there's a ton of places where all these different empires will show up in, in the biblical

00:33:26.400 --> 00:33:26.799
 world.

00:33:26.799 --> 00:33:32.819
 What I wanted to do, um, for each one is kind of just give some good places to start.

00:33:32.940 --> 00:33:37.659
 Where does this, where, where, how does what we just talked about line up with anything that's

00:33:37.659 --> 00:33:38.039
 in the Bible?

00:33:39.319 --> 00:33:47.519
 Um, and sort of going through chronologically, um, Shalmaneser III, who was one of these kings

00:33:47.519 --> 00:33:51.779
 of the, oops, of the reconquest here.

00:33:51.779 --> 00:33:58.259
 Um, the last king that really sort of expands in the, in the reconquest before they get to

00:33:58.259 --> 00:33:59.279
 the period of strong governors.

00:34:00.039 --> 00:34:09.940
 When he's marching through a campaign around this area here in North Syria, um, we have,

00:34:09.940 --> 00:34:17.840
 uh, an account in some inscription, in an inscription, uh, of a coalition of different smaller states,

00:34:17.840 --> 00:34:22.440
 uh, including, um, an Aramean state centered in Damascus.

00:34:23.220 --> 00:34:26.860
 And, uh, King Ahab of Israel shows up there.

00:34:27.640 --> 00:34:31.760
 Um, and they formed a coalition against the Assyrians, and they actually seem to have beaten

00:34:31.760 --> 00:34:32.100
 them.

00:34:33.260 --> 00:34:39.900
 So, Shalmaneser III's advance was stopped, um, by this coalition.

00:34:40.100 --> 00:34:41.579
 And the coalition broke up soon afterwards.

00:34:41.680 --> 00:34:42.700
 They all started fighting with each other.

00:34:42.699 --> 00:34:46.279
 But what's interesting is this episode doesn't, doesn't show up in the Bible.

00:34:47.419 --> 00:34:55.980
 Um, so, um, what was I going to say on that?

00:35:01.059 --> 00:35:01.419
 Yeah.

00:35:01.579 --> 00:35:04.599
 So it's a reminder that there's a lot more things going on than what we have preserved

00:35:04.599 --> 00:35:05.799
 in the biblical text as well.

00:35:05.800 --> 00:35:14.680
 Um, but it's also interesting to think about this king that we know, um, uh, occurs in

00:35:14.680 --> 00:35:22.340
 the Bible and is the guy that, you know, Elijah is yelling at all the time that, um, he went

00:35:22.340 --> 00:35:23.440
 to war against the Assyrians.

00:35:25.440 --> 00:35:28.539
 Uh, a little bit later, some things we do have attested in the Bible.

00:35:29.019 --> 00:35:34.900
 Um, our old friend Tiglap Pileser, the one who divided up the power of these strong governors

00:35:34.900 --> 00:35:37.639
 so that he had more rule as an autocratic king.

00:35:38.639 --> 00:35:49.059
 Um, he, um, ends up coming down and annexing the Galilee, which was the northern part of the

00:35:49.059 --> 00:35:50.019
 northern kingdom of Israel.

00:35:51.059 --> 00:35:57.039
 Um, and at the time he also destroyed Damascus, uh, because the Aramean state in Damascus and

00:35:57.039 --> 00:35:58.740
 the northern kingdom of Israel were allies.

00:35:58.739 --> 00:36:03.279
 So he did that.

00:36:03.419 --> 00:36:11.399
 And at that time, um, King Ahaz of Judah sort of, uh, started sending Tiglap Pileser tribute

00:36:11.399 --> 00:36:13.839
 to keep him from sending a campaign there.

00:36:14.979 --> 00:36:18.159
 Um, and we know this again in, in second Kings, it talks about this.

00:36:19.799 --> 00:36:20.399
 Um.

00:36:20.400 --> 00:36:31.760
 Um, the Assyrians just finished, finished destroying the northern kingdom of Israel in

00:36:31.760 --> 00:36:35.639
 721, which we have recorded in, in second Kings as well.

00:36:36.880 --> 00:36:41.599
 So we get this sort of effect where, well, let's go on to Sennacherib first.

00:36:41.599 --> 00:36:49.900
 So, about 20 years later, our old friend Sennacherib, who moved the capital to Nineveh and destroyed

00:36:49.900 --> 00:36:54.860
 Babylon, uh, comes down to Jerusalem and attempts to besiege it.

00:36:55.000 --> 00:37:00.579
 And we have a rather lengthy account of that in second Kings and, um, in which he doesn't

00:37:00.579 --> 00:37:04.199
 manage to take the city because his army is destroyed.

00:37:05.079 --> 00:37:10.579
 Uh, and we have in his own inscriptions, he also recounts this, this campaign, although

00:37:10.579 --> 00:37:15.079
 he neglects to mention anything bad happening to his army.

00:37:16.139 --> 00:37:20.380
 He talks about all the cities that he conquered on the way, and then he got to Jerusalem and

00:37:20.380 --> 00:37:26.099
 he surrounded the city and Hezekiah was trapped in the city like a bird in a cage, and then

00:37:26.099 --> 00:37:26.500
 he left.

00:37:28.860 --> 00:37:30.000
 Think of that what you will.

00:37:32.000 --> 00:37:34.420
 Um, so we get this picture.

00:37:34.980 --> 00:37:40.559
 One thing I like to talk about in, in, before we hit these last two is that we, we get this,

00:37:40.579 --> 00:37:47.159
 this image a little bit, as, as, as the history progresses and as we read through the book

00:37:47.159 --> 00:37:56.420
 of Kings, we get, you can see the, the Assyrians sort of progressing, right?

00:37:56.539 --> 00:38:02.440
 Again, Kings starts with the reign of Solomon and things are great and Solomon is super smart

00:38:02.440 --> 00:38:07.619
 and all these different countries like send gifts and emissaries and things to him.

00:38:09.019 --> 00:38:14.079
 And, as things go on, the Israelites fight amongst themselves and you get a civil war.

00:38:14.960 --> 00:38:16.280
 And Israel and Judah split.

00:38:18.099 --> 00:38:22.380
 And then they get more and more wars with people like the Arameans and the Edomites and

00:38:22.380 --> 00:38:23.800
 different people in this area here.

00:38:23.800 --> 00:38:30.039
 And slowly, slowly, slowly, slowly, you start to hear something on the horizon.

00:38:31.580 --> 00:38:36.019
 And in the text, you can kind of see it as they get closer and closer and closer.

00:38:37.460 --> 00:38:43.340
 And I was going to say by the end of the book, they're there, but by the end of the book,

00:38:43.420 --> 00:38:44.860
 it's the Babylonians who are there.

00:38:44.860 --> 00:38:51.800
 So, I think this is, this is helpful for us in a way, too, that helps us sort of see some,

00:38:51.900 --> 00:38:55.640
 some of the, the structure of what's happening in, in the book of Kings.

00:38:56.940 --> 00:38:59.760
 And the last two things I'll hit and then we'll move on to Q&A.

00:39:02.900 --> 00:39:08.880
 Is that the, the Assyrians also show up in a number of prophetic works.

00:39:08.880 --> 00:39:17.820
 So, the fairly short prophetic book of Nahum consists almost entirely of oracles that celebrate

00:39:17.820 --> 00:39:18.840
 Assyria's demise.

00:39:19.660 --> 00:39:25.840
 So, after it falls to the Babylonians and the Medes, Nahum, like a lot of people around

00:39:25.840 --> 00:39:27.880
 the Near East, was very, very happy about that.

00:39:29.960 --> 00:39:36.200
 And describes it as God's judgment on the Assyrians for all the cruelty that they inflicted

00:39:36.200 --> 00:39:37.000
 on people.

00:39:38.880 --> 00:39:44.099
 And, um, then of course we have Jonah, who is called to deliver a message to Nineveh,

00:39:44.660 --> 00:39:45.780
 one of the Assyria's capitals.

00:39:46.740 --> 00:39:50.740
 And, um, and we all know that, you know, Jonah didn't want to go there.

00:39:51.579 --> 00:39:56.320
 Uh, and it's, um, not hard to understand why.

00:39:57.880 --> 00:40:02.200
 Especially when their kings are bragging about the things they do to their enemies, and God

00:40:02.200 --> 00:40:05.220
 tells him to go and preach a message of mercy to them.

00:40:05.219 --> 00:40:12.439
 Um, um, I, I can't say I wouldn't have done the same thing, to be honest.

00:40:12.440 --> 00:40:20.820
 Um, okay, so this is, I know this has been kind of a pretty quick sort of breeze through

00:40:20.820 --> 00:40:25.480
 a lot of history and a lot of pictures of funny stone bulls and things.

00:40:26.179 --> 00:40:33.220
 Um, but does anybody have any questions or, or, yeah?

00:40:33.219 --> 00:40:34.079
 Yeah, in the back.

00:40:34.619 --> 00:40:37.379
 Where does, why was Manasseh in the middle of this?

00:40:37.659 --> 00:40:39.099
 Which king was he dealing with?

00:40:39.259 --> 00:40:39.539
 Yeah.

00:40:40.239 --> 00:40:47.559
 So, Manasseh was, um, let's see.

00:40:48.459 --> 00:40:51.519
 So, Manasseh was the son of Hezekiah, right?

00:40:51.980 --> 00:40:56.219
 And Hezekiah is the one who interacts with Sennacherib during his campaign.

00:40:56.219 --> 00:41:06.419
 And so, um, Manasseh was, was king during part of Sennacherib's reign and part of Eserhaddon's

00:41:06.419 --> 00:41:07.139
 reign, I believe.

00:41:08.399 --> 00:41:12.699
 And he, we have, we actually have records from both, I think, at least Eserhaddon and maybe

00:41:12.699 --> 00:41:16.980
 Sennacherib, I can't remember now, but, um, of Manasseh sending them tribute.

00:41:19.299 --> 00:41:19.779
 Yeah.

00:41:19.780 --> 00:41:24.060
 Could you go to the map that you have of Syria and Babylon?

00:41:24.980 --> 00:41:25.740
 Yeah, that one there.

00:41:25.980 --> 00:41:27.900
 Could you point out where Nineveh is?

00:41:28.360 --> 00:41:28.640
 Sure.

00:41:29.440 --> 00:41:31.440
 So, Nineveh is, like, right in here.

00:41:31.720 --> 00:41:39.480
 Okay, now, the question I have for you is, as we know, Jonah was swallowed by a large fish.

00:41:39.680 --> 00:41:39.840
 Mm-hmm.

00:41:39.840 --> 00:41:43.700
 And the fish, you know, vomited him out onto the shore.

00:41:44.160 --> 00:41:44.420
 Mm-hmm.

00:41:44.420 --> 00:41:50.099
 That's very north of any shore that I can see.

00:41:50.519 --> 00:41:50.639
 Yeah.

00:41:50.639 --> 00:41:51.820
 So, could you explain that?

00:41:51.920 --> 00:41:53.340
 I always wondered about that.

00:41:53.500 --> 00:41:53.740
 Yeah.

00:41:53.980 --> 00:41:57.360
 So, one of the things that I think is really interesting with, with the book of Jonah is

00:41:57.360 --> 00:42:05.619
 that it takes a very sort of international and, like, um, a very sort of global view of

00:42:05.619 --> 00:42:06.099
 things, right?

00:42:06.159 --> 00:42:11.200
 Like, so he's living here in Israel and God says, go to Nineveh, which is over there.

00:42:11.199 --> 00:42:11.279
 Right?

00:42:11.480 --> 00:42:12.239
 And then he says, no.

00:42:12.339 --> 00:42:15.219
 And he gets on a ship and he's going to Tarshish, which is out here somewhere, right?

00:42:16.059 --> 00:42:20.559
 And, and, and these are just, these, these happen in, in, in, like, a matter of sentences,

00:42:20.559 --> 00:42:21.119
 right?

00:42:21.119 --> 00:42:23.819
 It's like one sentence he's here, one sentence he's on a ship headed this way.

00:42:24.319 --> 00:42:24.599
 Right?

00:42:24.859 --> 00:42:28.399
 And then he gets in the water and he's in the fish and then the fish spits him up on land.

00:42:28.399 --> 00:42:30.919
 And then all of a sudden, boom, a sentence later, he's in Nineveh.

00:42:30.920 --> 00:42:34.800
 And this is, one of the things that I think the book of Jonah does well is it sort of,

00:42:35.460 --> 00:42:44.539
 um, it, it presents things as sort of, um, um, moving very quickly across great geographic

00:42:44.539 --> 00:42:45.019
 distances.

00:42:45.300 --> 00:42:49.200
 It's, I, I'm trying to think of it like another, sort of like a, like a, another like literary

00:42:49.200 --> 00:42:49.800
 example.

00:42:50.380 --> 00:42:52.599
 Maybe like the red line in Indiana Jones.

00:42:53.139 --> 00:42:54.340
 Yeah, exactly.

00:42:54.440 --> 00:42:55.559
 That's a great way to describe it.

00:42:55.559 --> 00:42:59.320
 It's like the, the red line in the Indiana Jones movies where you get, you know, there's

00:42:59.320 --> 00:43:01.420
 a map and there's the red line showing where they're going.

00:43:01.600 --> 00:43:06.800
 And there's like, you know, this sort of, um, semi-translucent airplane in the background,

00:43:07.000 --> 00:43:08.820
 you know, so you know that they're traveling.

00:43:09.320 --> 00:43:09.980
 So you're right.

00:43:10.019 --> 00:43:11.720
 Like Nineveh is very far from the shore.

00:43:12.620 --> 00:43:17.240
 Um, but the, the book of Jonah is very quickly having him travel that distance.

00:43:17.700 --> 00:43:18.100
 Right?

00:43:18.120 --> 00:43:22.120
 And I think it's part of the effect that the book is trying to have, which is this just

00:43:22.119 --> 00:43:31.299
 with how big the world is, how small in some senses it is as well.

00:43:32.000 --> 00:43:38.579
 And the fact that, um, you're getting a little bit of, maybe a bit of sort of a God's eye

00:43:38.579 --> 00:43:42.819
 perspective in that where, you know, God has no problem appointing it.

00:43:42.900 --> 00:43:49.099
 Like Jonah thinks he can run away from God, but God appoints the fish to swallow him, to

00:43:49.099 --> 00:43:53.980
 spit him back up, God's watching him in Nineveh, God's watching him when he's in Israel, it

00:43:53.980 --> 00:43:54.360
 doesn't matter.

00:43:55.199 --> 00:43:57.360
 And so it, it, it makes it much smaller.

00:43:57.440 --> 00:44:00.099
 You know, again, you, you can compare it, you can, you can contrast it a little bit with,

00:44:00.279 --> 00:44:05.920
 you know, the much greater sense of distance that you get in say, like in, in the patriarchal

00:44:05.920 --> 00:44:09.279
 narratives in Genesis where we'll have like Jacob traveling somewhere and it's like, and

00:44:09.279 --> 00:44:13.259
 then he walked and he's camped here and he slept on a rock and had a dream of angels.

00:44:13.259 --> 00:44:15.519
 And then he got up and walked some more.

00:44:15.519 --> 00:44:21.039
 And we, we, we get all of the, all of the traveling there, which we don't get in Jonah.

00:44:21.360 --> 00:44:25.519
 So it's quite a trip to how many miles would it be from the shore to the river?

00:44:27.119 --> 00:44:32.500
 Um, I don't actually know.

00:44:32.820 --> 00:44:39.860
 Um, I would, I would think that that would take a good, I don't know, week, two, it depends

00:44:39.860 --> 00:44:45.199
 how much you travel and, and using what, but probably a good week or more.

00:44:45.519 --> 00:44:49.119
 Um, yeah, John.

00:44:50.599 --> 00:44:57.059
 Do, do, do we have a sense as to what made them so militarily successful?

00:44:57.199 --> 00:45:03.159
 Was it particular military technology that, that, that they had the advantage of?

00:45:03.480 --> 00:45:05.699
 Was it administrative prowess?

00:45:05.699 --> 00:45:11.719
 So they were able to do the logistics, were, were, you know, superior tactics or, or some

00:45:11.719 --> 00:45:13.719
 sort of strategic, uh, insight.

00:45:13.899 --> 00:45:21.539
 Do we, uh, what, what gave the Assyrians seemingly the upper hand over, over their, their surrounding

00:45:21.539 --> 00:45:21.980
 neighbors?

00:45:22.779 --> 00:45:22.960
 Yeah.

00:45:22.960 --> 00:45:26.340
 So I, I think there's a, there's a, there's a couple things that go into that.

00:45:26.400 --> 00:45:31.740
 One of them is, um, like I said, we had, part of the reason I, so part of the reason I started

00:45:31.740 --> 00:45:36.340
 with the late bronze age is that these are all big superpowers.

00:45:36.340 --> 00:45:51.000
 Assyria happens to be the first one of them that kind of gets things moving again, right?

00:45:51.039 --> 00:45:55.059
 So it's sort of like you have a bunch of people running in a race, right?

00:45:55.059 --> 00:45:57.199
 And they all trip and fall at the same time.

00:45:57.739 --> 00:46:00.639
 And Assyria is the first one that gets back on its feet and starts running again.

00:46:01.000 --> 00:46:05.719
 So even though Babylonia is also a strong runner, they're still on the ground trying to get up.

00:46:06.820 --> 00:46:09.440
 And since Assyria was the first one to get up and start running again, they've also

00:46:09.440 --> 00:46:12.179
 kicking Babylonia to keep them from getting up as fast.

00:46:13.980 --> 00:46:15.980
 So, so there's, there's, there's that.

00:46:16.799 --> 00:46:22.119
 Um, they were also able to field a very, they were able to field a professional army,

00:46:22.119 --> 00:46:27.500
 um, which a lot of places could, a lot of, you know, we think of armies as being very

00:46:27.500 --> 00:46:27.960
 professional.

00:46:28.139 --> 00:46:31.119
 Armies were often conscript in the ancient world.

00:46:31.639 --> 00:46:35.859
 Um, it took a lot of resources to fund a professional army and the Assyrians did that.

00:46:36.219 --> 00:46:39.799
 Part of the reason they wanted tribute, then they had more money to spend on their army.

00:46:41.019 --> 00:46:48.119
 Um, and administratively as well, they also developed a lot of administrative, um, capabilities

00:46:48.119 --> 00:46:52.199
 and logistical capabilities that allowed them to be able to do things.

00:46:52.259 --> 00:46:56.980
 They also developed, um, pretty advanced siege warfare.

00:46:57.639 --> 00:47:02.619
 So we have in some of these wall carvings where they're attacking a city, you know, we

00:47:02.619 --> 00:47:05.539
 see these big siege engines that they've built and they're coming up and they're knocking

00:47:05.539 --> 00:47:11.039
 down parts of walls and they've got, you know, guys climbing up and trying to get over

00:47:11.039 --> 00:47:15.619
 the, over the walls from these siege towers and stuff and stuff that we don't often think

00:47:15.619 --> 00:47:16.819
 about until the medieval period.

00:47:16.820 --> 00:47:18.780
 Where was the wheel invented?

00:47:19.220 --> 00:47:21.200
 Wasn't it in Babylon or in Syria?

00:47:21.420 --> 00:47:27.440
 That would be, um, well, so it would be this geographic area, um, but a long time before

00:47:27.440 --> 00:47:27.740
 this.

00:47:28.100 --> 00:47:28.660
 A long time?

00:47:28.680 --> 00:47:28.860
 Yeah.

00:47:29.860 --> 00:47:33.760
 Um, weren't the Assyrians the first ones to use iron weapons?

00:47:34.880 --> 00:47:39.420
 Yeah, so, um, that also may have played a role in it.

00:47:39.420 --> 00:47:47.280
 They, so this was around the time that iron begins to replace bronze and they may have

00:47:47.280 --> 00:47:51.980
 been the ones who, maybe not the first people to use it, but certainly the first people to

00:47:51.980 --> 00:47:56.220
 really sort of say like, hey, let's make sure everybody's got iron weapons and everybody's

00:47:56.220 --> 00:47:58.539
 got iron armor in our military.

00:47:59.019 --> 00:47:59.420
 Right?

00:47:59.420 --> 00:48:05.400
 So they're, they're the first ones to really, yeah, it's, it's sort of like the machine gun

00:48:05.400 --> 00:48:06.440
 around World War I.

00:48:06.800 --> 00:48:07.200
 Right?

00:48:07.240 --> 00:48:09.039
 Like people had been like, hey, look, this is cool.

00:48:09.119 --> 00:48:10.880
 You can make a gun that shoots lots of bullets.

00:48:11.300 --> 00:48:11.680
 Right?

00:48:11.679 --> 00:48:17.819
 But if you have a certain army that really manages to integrate that into its, into its

00:48:17.819 --> 00:48:20.859
 military structure, that's, that's what you need.

00:48:21.179 --> 00:48:22.759
 And the Assyrians were able to do that.

00:48:25.359 --> 00:48:26.179
 Yeah, Tom.

00:48:26.419 --> 00:48:33.119
 I've always been fascinated by the kind of failed invasion of Judah or conquering of Jerusalem.

00:48:33.119 --> 00:48:39.339
 And I just note that in the Bible, the Bible talks about a lot of miracles, but there's

00:48:39.339 --> 00:48:43.819
 not a lot that are like a lot of miracles that are like geopolitical miracles where it's

00:48:43.819 --> 00:48:45.420
 this international kind of event.

00:48:45.900 --> 00:48:47.239
 And that's one of them.

00:48:47.420 --> 00:48:52.119
 And it's fascinating to me that, you know, the emperor of Assyria is coming down at his

00:48:52.119 --> 00:48:56.059
 inscription and he's killing everybody, skinning people, you know, all that horrible stuff

00:48:56.059 --> 00:49:02.319
 and then doesn't do it to Jerusalem in, according to his own inscription, which, which seems

00:49:02.320 --> 00:49:04.160
 to match up with the biblical account.

00:49:04.420 --> 00:49:12.580
 And I was wondering what a Syrian scholar suggests as to why this, why it failed.

00:49:12.760 --> 00:49:13.860
 Like, what are the reasons?

00:49:13.960 --> 00:49:16.440
 I mean, the Bible says God sent an angel and killed a bunch of people.

00:49:17.019 --> 00:49:21.240
 And that, I guess, from a biblical point of view, could angels take different forms?

00:49:21.400 --> 00:49:23.039
 You know, who knows what's actually going on there?

00:49:23.320 --> 00:49:26.200
 But what do scholars tend to suggest?

00:49:26.200 --> 00:49:27.160
 What do you think?

00:49:28.080 --> 00:49:28.200
 Yeah.

00:49:28.519 --> 00:49:28.840
 Yeah.

00:49:28.940 --> 00:49:31.160
 So there's a number of different things that have been suggested.

00:49:32.320 --> 00:49:39.220
 Um, sticking closer to the sort of angel struck everybody dead, um, would be something

00:49:39.220 --> 00:49:39.800
 like a plague.

00:49:40.640 --> 00:49:41.039
 Right.

00:49:41.059 --> 00:49:44.519
 Which I think also, why couldn't an angel take the form of a plague?

00:49:44.660 --> 00:49:44.800
 Right.

00:49:44.860 --> 00:49:45.720
 You know, this is very common.

00:49:46.380 --> 00:49:50.360
 Armies that are besieging cities, like throughout history, like disease is a problem.

00:49:50.720 --> 00:49:51.080
 Right.

00:49:51.740 --> 00:49:56.019
 Um, so plague is one possibility that people look at.

00:49:56.019 --> 00:50:03.699
 Um, some people have suggested, some historians have suggested as well that you could have had

00:50:03.699 --> 00:50:05.079
 an army coming up from Egypt.

00:50:06.300 --> 00:50:08.320
 I don't buy that one personally.

00:50:09.079 --> 00:50:20.039
 Um, historically much, you know, um, some people have suggested that, um, there may have

00:50:20.039 --> 00:50:26.639
 been some problems going on at home and Sennacherib had to leave, but it would seem to me that,

00:50:26.639 --> 00:50:32.139
 because they'd done that before and they were able to always leave some remaining contingent

00:50:32.139 --> 00:50:33.139
 to continue a siege.

00:50:35.099 --> 00:50:36.579
 So why didn't they do it there?

00:50:37.259 --> 00:50:40.159
 Um, there's a number of different theories.

00:50:40.159 --> 00:50:47.719
 Some people think that, um, Hezekiah was able to pay Sennacherib because it does seem that,

00:50:48.239 --> 00:50:54.960
 um, so the, the, there is a spot in Kings where, where Hezekiah pays Sennacherib a bunch

00:50:54.960 --> 00:51:00.259
 of tribute and it matches up surprisingly well with what Sennacherib says he got in tribute

00:51:00.259 --> 00:51:03.440
 from Hezekiah, um, after the fact.

00:51:03.500 --> 00:51:09.379
 And so some people think that that may have happened after the siege and that Hezekiah got

00:51:09.380 --> 00:51:09.920
 him to go away.

00:51:10.619 --> 00:51:14.940
 But a vengeful, that, I also don't like that one because Sennacherib seems like such a vengeful

00:51:14.940 --> 00:51:15.160
 guy.

00:51:15.220 --> 00:51:16.019
 I don't think he would care.

00:51:17.700 --> 00:51:25.000
 Um, so there's a number of, I'm, I'm in the, speaking as a historian, I'm in the camp of

00:51:25.000 --> 00:51:26.220
 people who says something happened.

00:51:27.480 --> 00:51:29.400
 Something, something happened to the army.

00:51:30.720 --> 00:51:31.079
 Um.

00:51:31.660 --> 00:51:37.200
 But the, uh, you mentioned plague and I'm reminded of the plagues of Egypt and how, and at least

00:51:37.199 --> 00:51:43.619
 especially the final plague, an angel or some supernatural being carried that out, whatever

00:51:43.619 --> 00:51:44.379
 it was.

00:51:44.939 --> 00:51:46.480
 But anyway, that's interesting.

00:51:46.599 --> 00:51:47.019
 It's fascinating.

00:51:47.379 --> 00:51:47.500
 Yeah.

00:51:48.799 --> 00:51:50.219
 We had another question over here.

00:51:50.339 --> 00:51:50.699
 I think somewhere.

00:51:50.919 --> 00:51:54.679
 This is sort of, I don't know, maybe ignorance.

00:51:55.159 --> 00:51:58.299
 Can you, can you say what the countries are today?

00:51:58.439 --> 00:51:59.899
 I know they can split up.

00:52:00.139 --> 00:52:00.419
 Sure.

00:52:00.420 --> 00:52:04.059
 You know, dividing up and so on.

00:52:04.059 --> 00:52:04.220
 Yeah.

00:52:04.940 --> 00:52:08.220
 So, Egypt is still Egypt, right?

00:52:08.780 --> 00:52:13.220
 Um, where Israel and Judah are is currently where Israel and Palestine are today.

00:52:14.260 --> 00:52:15.940
 Uh, Syria is right here.

00:52:16.280 --> 00:52:17.820
 Not Assyria, just Syria.

00:52:18.180 --> 00:52:18.280
 Yeah.

00:52:18.900 --> 00:52:23.760
 And then here we have Iraq, Iran, Turkey.

00:52:24.460 --> 00:52:27.019
 Those are sort of the main, the main ones.

00:52:27.019 --> 00:52:33.039
 And the northern part, uh, the northern part, what is that?

00:52:33.320 --> 00:52:33.639
 In here?

00:52:34.139 --> 00:52:34.420
 Yeah.

00:52:34.599 --> 00:52:35.559
 This is Turkey today.

00:52:36.320 --> 00:52:38.579
 The other part, over to the right part.

00:52:38.579 --> 00:52:39.159
 Oh, furthermore.

00:52:39.420 --> 00:52:39.719
 There.

00:52:40.400 --> 00:52:43.219
 Um, Turkey and then up into Armenia and Azerbaijan.

00:52:46.500 --> 00:52:46.980
 Azerbaijan.

00:52:49.199 --> 00:52:54.579
 This might be out of the, out of the period, but when, when does Partha come into it?

00:52:54.820 --> 00:52:55.320
 When does?

00:52:55.739 --> 00:52:56.179
 Partha.

00:52:56.179 --> 00:52:56.579
 Parthia.

00:52:56.679 --> 00:52:57.079
 Parthia.

00:52:57.679 --> 00:52:59.299
 Um, not till a bit later.

00:52:59.779 --> 00:53:00.019
 Yeah.

00:53:00.139 --> 00:53:06.259
 So, we're gonna, we're gonna hit, um, this, this series could be a lot longer.

00:53:06.339 --> 00:53:09.539
 We're gonna do Assyria, Babylonia, and the Achaemenid Persians.

00:53:10.139 --> 00:53:11.419
 We could keep it going.

00:53:11.519 --> 00:53:14.779
 We could do Alexander the Great and his successor states.

00:53:15.259 --> 00:53:20.859
 And then after that, you get Rome on this side of the Near East and Parthia on this side.

00:53:21.239 --> 00:53:21.559
 Okay.

00:53:22.519 --> 00:53:24.059
 And we could keep going with that.

00:53:24.059 --> 00:53:24.119
 Yeah.

00:53:24.859 --> 00:53:25.519
 If we wanted to.

00:53:26.179 --> 00:53:26.659
 Okay.

00:53:27.919 --> 00:53:28.359
 Yeah.

00:53:28.679 --> 00:53:30.719
 Who was the king during Jonah time?

00:53:31.799 --> 00:53:34.099
 Um, we're not entirely certain.

00:53:34.719 --> 00:53:37.839
 It doesn't, it doesn't say anywhere in the book of Jonah.

00:53:37.840 --> 00:53:44.440
 Jonah is mentioned in the book of Kings, but we also don't know exactly when he would have

00:53:44.440 --> 00:53:50.160
 gone, like in terms of specific year, that he would have gone to Nineveh.

00:53:50.159 --> 00:53:55.699
 Uh, and during this, so he, he is probably in this intermediate period of strong governors.

00:53:55.699 --> 00:54:00.539
 That's, I think if I remember correctly, that's around the time that he's mentioned in the book of Kings.

00:54:00.539 --> 00:54:06.420
 And the, the Kings in that era also rule for shorter periods of time.

00:54:06.420 --> 00:54:08.680
 So we're not quite sure.

00:54:08.680 --> 00:54:27.840
 That makes me think of a discussion I had with a friend one time, like, is there evidence for, like, a change in Assyrian policy after the supposed, well, the Bible says that Nineveh repented and like, as a whole city.

00:54:27.840 --> 00:54:41.440
 Um, none that I know of at any rate.

00:54:42.519 --> 00:54:48.680
 Um, also how long did Nineveh stick around as a city after that?

00:54:48.679 --> 00:54:57.119
 Well, down until the, this, cause this is, this is probably all happening before the Imperial Supernova.

00:54:57.379 --> 00:54:58.019
 Right.

00:54:58.139 --> 00:55:03.019
 So Nineveh is there until the Medes sack it.

00:55:04.859 --> 00:55:05.379
 So.

00:55:07.379 --> 00:55:08.619
 Yeah, Tom, you had another question.

00:55:08.619 --> 00:55:20.239
 How many different resources of information on, um, these different, um, empires do we have?

00:55:20.319 --> 00:55:25.059
 Because those that do the conquering write the history a lot of times.

00:55:25.480 --> 00:55:36.619
 So how, how do we, how can, how can we know what the, what, what the right perspective, what any, what the various perspectives, or we'll put it that way.

00:55:36.619 --> 00:55:36.940
 Right.

00:55:36.940 --> 00:55:36.980
 Right.

00:55:37.400 --> 00:55:45.559
 So this is, um, well, first of all, this reminded me too, I wanted to show, this is a copy of one of Sennacherib's inscriptions.

00:55:46.139 --> 00:55:50.539
 Um, I think this is the, the text where he mentions his campaign to Jerusalem.

00:55:52.000 --> 00:55:55.440
 Um, so we, we do have a lot of texts.

00:55:56.119 --> 00:55:59.599
 Um, some of them are written from the Assyrian point of view.

00:55:59.760 --> 00:56:03.139
 Some of them are Babylonian texts written from the Babylonians point of view.

00:56:04.019 --> 00:56:06.679
 Um, one of the things that also makes this time period,

00:56:06.940 --> 00:56:07.920
 really interesting.

00:56:07.920 --> 00:56:14.500
 And part of the reason I, I like this particular period of, of near Eastern history is that we're still in this ancient world,

00:56:14.500 --> 00:56:19.300
 but because of things like the Bible, we're also getting a different perspective.

00:56:19.300 --> 00:56:31.300
 So we, aside from the Babylonians, we don't get a lot of perspective from the peoples who were sort of suffering these Assyrian conquests.

00:56:31.300 --> 00:56:38.019
 But because we have the biblical texts and we have accounts from the book of Kings and we have Nahum being really,

00:56:38.260 --> 00:56:41.180
 really happy about the Assyrians being destroyed.

00:56:41.700 --> 00:56:42.100
 Right.

00:56:42.660 --> 00:56:52.400
 Um, we're getting a little bit of the sense of, of how these people, how the, how the people who were on the other end of the Assyrian spears,

00:56:52.400 --> 00:57:00.260
 basically, um, what they thought about things, how they felt about, how they tried to sort of navigate that world.

00:57:01.539 --> 00:57:06.340
 So we have that, but this is, I mean, this is something ultimately that you have in, in a lot of historical periods.

00:57:06.340 --> 00:57:07.140
 Right.

00:57:07.240 --> 00:57:13.860
 Is, you know, oftentimes you have the sources of the winners and less so from the people who aren't the winners.

00:57:14.000 --> 00:57:14.140
 Yeah.

00:57:15.680 --> 00:57:17.140
 There's another question in here somewhere.

00:57:17.600 --> 00:57:17.780
 Yeah.

00:57:17.860 --> 00:57:18.160
 Back there.

00:57:18.539 --> 00:57:23.840
 You described a wave, you described the Assyrians as a wave kind of slowly coming south.

00:57:24.660 --> 00:57:31.680
 Uh, and I know you said that there was a 20 year gap interval between the destruction of Northern Israel and the siege of Judah.

00:57:32.019 --> 00:57:35.100
 But like, is there like overall, how long did that wave take?

00:57:35.099 --> 00:57:41.900
 Like, is this like from maybe the time when they, when the Judeans might first have heard that they might be under threat?

00:57:42.279 --> 00:57:42.480
 Yeah.

00:57:43.039 --> 00:57:47.179
 So it takes a, it takes a while.

00:57:47.460 --> 00:57:54.960
 I, I would, I would, I would call that wave sort of like a, an arc that you can see throughout the whole book of Kings.

00:57:56.159 --> 00:58:03.360
 Um, it's, it's something that, uh, it sort of, it happens bit by bit, right?

00:58:03.360 --> 00:58:06.640
 You sort of, you hear that they're sort of out there, right?

00:58:06.680 --> 00:58:09.599
 Again, Ahab heard enough about them that he joined a coalition against them.

00:58:10.480 --> 00:58:10.860
 Right.

00:58:10.980 --> 00:58:12.780
 And this is, this is 853.

00:58:13.380 --> 00:58:13.760
 Right.

00:58:13.820 --> 00:58:17.880
 So that's 150 years before Sennacherib actually makes it to the gates of Jerusalem.

00:58:17.880 --> 00:58:22.480
 So this is a very slow wave, but it's definitely happening.

00:58:22.820 --> 00:58:37.940
 And even some of the earlier prophetic texts like Amos, for example, um, Amos preaches a lot of judgment on the Northern kingdom for the way that they treat the poor and the, the oppressed and the marginalized in their society.

00:58:37.940 --> 00:58:45.980
 Um, and he doesn't come out and say like, if you don't do this, the Assyrians specifically are going to come in and take you over.

00:58:46.139 --> 00:58:50.639
 But he does seem to say like, something is going to happen.

00:58:51.340 --> 00:59:02.440
 Like God is not going to stand for this and we are not going to be able to, like, we are going to, to suffer if we do not, um, take care of each other.

00:59:02.440 --> 00:59:02.760
 Okay.

00:59:03.000 --> 00:59:09.700
 So there does seem to be, even from the sort of earlier prophetic corpus, this idea that like there's danger on the horizon.

00:59:12.460 --> 00:59:15.079
 The history is always written by the victor, right?

00:59:15.220 --> 00:59:23.679
 I mean, uh, and I guess the Bible to a certain extent, uh, is some history in the Bible, uh, especially in the Old Testament.

00:59:23.679 --> 00:59:31.360
 Um, we have different powers in this area, all writing about, uh, what has happened.

00:59:31.360 --> 00:59:40.840
 Um, based on reviewing the different powers and different history written by the different powers, how accurate would you say is the history in the Bible?

00:59:42.640 --> 00:59:58.460
 Um, so we do get a lot of things where, like, part of the reason I bring up Sennacherib and his siege of Jerusalem is that that is one of these rare examples where we have a biblical text

00:59:58.460 --> 01:00:02.840
 and a non-biblical contemporary text talking about the same historical event.

01:00:03.139 --> 01:00:07.079
 But there are a lot of things where we only have one text talking about them.

01:00:08.240 --> 01:00:18.900
 Um, in general, I would say the, the, the biblical narrative, um, tracks pretty well with what we find.

01:00:18.900 --> 01:00:23.400
 Um, there's details that we can quibble about.

01:00:24.440 --> 01:00:29.220
 But, in general, it's pretty good.

01:00:29.219 --> 01:00:47.379
 John, would you also say that, well, I mean, you mentioned this, but one of the issues is, like, I deal with this, uh, in early Christian history, too, is that so frequently, like, we have one voice speaking, telling us something, and then, and then whenever we have multiple voices, they don't always, they don't agree with each other.

01:00:47.380 --> 01:00:59.940
 And so you have to, it's just like, if you, if you read some very, you know, kind of, like, propaganda today about one issue, and then the same issue from another perspective, you get these different, and you've got to figure out, okay, what's going on?

01:01:00.019 --> 01:01:03.340
 And, um, I, I think we can trust the, the biblical record.

01:01:03.340 --> 01:01:09.820
 But the, teasing out, like, the Sinatra thing is a great example of that, where you have these different perspectives.

01:01:10.559 --> 01:01:11.940
 Maybe that, you can make them agree.

01:01:12.120 --> 01:01:14.019
 I mean, you can make them completely agree.

01:01:14.220 --> 01:01:23.000
 Or you can say, well, maybe, maybe the external record is, is a propaganda version, and the biblical record is more accurate.

01:01:23.059 --> 01:01:27.400
 Or maybe we can, we actually can reinterpret what the Bible is saying here, based on this other evidence.

01:01:27.400 --> 01:01:27.800
 Mm-hmm.

01:01:27.960 --> 01:01:34.360
 So instead of an angel with a big sword, maybe it's talking about a plague that the angel is initiating, like, happened in Egypt.

01:01:34.840 --> 01:01:35.039
 Yeah.

01:01:35.460 --> 01:01:38.059
 And I'll say, too, to, so I agree with that 100%.

01:01:38.059 --> 01:01:46.260
 And we'll say, to come back to this question, too, I think it also, it does depend on, um, it also depends on what part of the biblical corpus we're looking at.

01:01:46.519 --> 01:01:46.920
 Right?

01:01:47.019 --> 01:01:48.639
 Like, the Psalms, for example.

01:01:48.700 --> 01:01:49.420
 The Psalms are poetry.

01:01:49.700 --> 01:01:52.420
 So are the Psalms historically accurate?

01:01:52.539 --> 01:01:53.360
 Well, they're, they're poetry.

01:01:53.360 --> 01:02:04.840
 So, unless a, unless a, unless a poet, unless a poem is claiming to be, like, a poetic rendering of history, then it's hard to, to judge it on that, on that basis.

01:02:05.200 --> 01:02:17.039
 But in terms of the, the corpus we're looking at here, of looking at kings specifically, um, then I'd say, I would say, yeah, it's, it's pretty good.

01:02:17.039 --> 01:02:35.159
 Um, there's definitely, like, like, like Tom said, there's, there's things we can, places where we can sort of say, like, there's something that's more complicated that's going on here, there's something that, um, or there's sort of like, well, here the sources are at odds, and as a historian, I don't know what to do with them.

01:02:36.099 --> 01:02:38.940
 Um, but in general, I'd say it's pretty good.

01:02:38.940 --> 01:02:42.200
 I have a question.

01:02:42.200 --> 01:02:54.159
 Um, I, I don't know if it relates to the different time periods that you're talking about, but how did most people record, on what did they record the history on?

01:02:54.260 --> 01:03:03.599
 Like, I know there's papyrus written in the, you know, papyrus and pots, and what, what, what did they use to record their history on most of the time?

01:03:03.599 --> 01:03:16.099
 Yeah, so part of the reason that we have so many sources from the Assyrians and the Babylonians and some of these groups is that they wrote, um, in this cuneiform script on clay.

01:03:16.420 --> 01:03:22.339
 This is, they would impress this in clay, and then an object like this, they would then fire it in a kiln, right?

01:03:22.380 --> 01:03:27.259
 So that's, that's as, that's as hard as your coffee mug at home, right?

01:03:27.420 --> 01:03:30.920
 So you bury that in the ground for 3,000 years, you can dig it up.

01:03:30.920 --> 01:03:32.219
 It's still there, right?

01:03:32.400 --> 01:03:33.400
 You're going to see it, yeah.

01:03:33.599 --> 01:03:41.239
 Um, whereas if, if you write on papyrus or parchment or things like that or some form of paper, that doesn't last as well unless it's a really dry climate.

01:03:41.799 --> 01:03:58.940
 So part of the reason, for example, that, like, the Dead Sea Scrolls were found in those caves in Qumran is because that is one very, one tiny part of that area in, in Israel that is incredibly dry.

01:03:58.940 --> 01:03:59.940
 Wow.

01:03:59.940 --> 01:04:11.940
 And so if you, people could well have hidden, um, scrolls in caves all over the country, but only there would they survive relatively intact for 2,000 years.

01:04:12.039 --> 01:04:12.820
 Because of the climate.

01:04:12.980 --> 01:04:13.760
 Because of the climate, yeah.

01:04:13.760 --> 01:04:13.800
 Yeah.

01:04:14.160 --> 01:04:30.260
 So one of the things that will happen, and we'll get to this when we get to the Persians, is that they begin to move away from writing records in cuneiform to writing in Aramaic inked on, on some form of parchment or papyrus or paper.

01:04:30.260 --> 01:04:31.260
 Mm-hmm.

01:04:31.260 --> 01:04:36.140
 And so all of a sudden our historical records start to drop off a little bit.

01:04:36.280 --> 01:04:40.080
 And it's not that people weren't writing, it's that the writing medium didn't survive.

01:04:40.080 --> 01:04:40.260
 Mm-hmm.

01:04:40.260 --> 01:04:40.700
 Mm-hmm.

01:04:41.140 --> 01:04:52.040
 And so, and we also have this problem, too, when looking at the ancient Israelites, because they probably wrote a lot, if they wrote historical records, they would have written them on something like papyrus as well.

01:04:52.940 --> 01:04:54.020
 But we don't have that.

01:04:54.540 --> 01:04:54.800
 Right?

01:04:54.800 --> 01:05:08.140
 And so we have a lot more contemporary sources from cultures like this, um, whereas we don't have, you know, an early copy of Deuteronomy, for example, because it just wouldn't have survived.

01:05:08.139 --> 01:05:10.139
 Hmm?

01:05:12.139 --> 01:05:14.920
 Did the Assyrians write about their gods?

01:05:15.519 --> 01:05:15.980
 Oh, yes.

01:05:15.980 --> 01:05:30.799
 And was there anything about their theology that made it, you know, just apart from a competing god that's a foreign god that is the god of that king that made them particularly offensive to the Israelites?

01:05:31.279 --> 01:05:35.259
 I mean, you have that sort of direct head-to-head conflict.

01:05:35.519 --> 01:05:35.719
 Yeah.

01:05:35.719 --> 01:05:35.779
 Yeah.

01:05:36.419 --> 01:05:39.939
 So this is our god, that's their god, but how are they different?

01:05:40.259 --> 01:05:40.480
 Yeah.

01:05:40.799 --> 01:05:43.739
 So they were, they were a polytheistic society.

01:05:43.739 --> 01:06:06.539
 They had, um, one of the things with polytheism, and particularly as it, as we find it in Mesopotamia, is that you, you often get this case where you have, um, people will worship a bunch of gods, but sometimes a particular area or a particular city has a chief god or one particular god that's associated with it.

01:06:06.539 --> 01:06:09.659
 So for the Assyrians, it was the god Ashur.

01:06:10.759 --> 01:06:15.639
 And Ashur was, again, sort of associated with their city itself and with their state itself.

01:06:15.639 --> 01:06:18.359
 But they worshipped a whole bunch of other different deities as well.

01:06:19.559 --> 01:06:29.379
 And, um, one of the interesting things is it doesn't seem that they, they didn't go into a place and say, you guys all need to start worshipping Ashur.

01:06:29.380 --> 01:06:31.960
 They would let people keep their local religions.

01:06:33.039 --> 01:06:53.180
 Um, but they did, and, and one of the other things that they did actually was they would go into a place and part of their, their campaign of psychological warfare and propaganda was to say, when they were winning, they would say, see, your gods want us to conquer you.

01:06:53.179 --> 01:07:16.039
 In fact, if you, in, in the book of Kings, there's a, an Assyrian official right before the siege of Jerusalem who comes up to the walls of Jerusalem and speaks to Hezekiah's officials and says, like, okay, don't let Hezekiah tell you that your god, Yahweh, wants to protect your city because we're winning.

01:07:16.219 --> 01:07:17.699
 Clearly he's on our side.

01:07:18.039 --> 01:07:19.980
 Clearly he wants us to take you over.

01:07:19.980 --> 01:07:25.659
 So they would, they would say things like that as well.

01:07:26.460 --> 01:07:31.740
 Was that kind of related to the king considering himself to be the chief high priest?

01:07:32.480 --> 01:07:44.460
 Like maybe not only of Ashur, but of, uh, did he consider himself the high priest of other gods of all the nations or maybe at least in the propaganda?

01:07:45.619 --> 01:07:47.519
 Maybe in a propagandistic sense.

01:07:47.519 --> 01:07:52.900
 Yes. It's more so that they, they thought that, so Ashur was like, they believed was the chief god.

01:07:53.739 --> 01:07:59.119
 Right. And so if Ashur is the chief god, well, naturally every, all the other gods are subordinate to him.

01:07:59.119 --> 01:08:05.119
 Um, and so he'll, of course, talk to that god and say, well, you know, I think my people should take over your city.

01:08:05.179 --> 01:08:07.400
 And that god will say, yeah, of course, Ashur, that's a great idea.

01:08:07.400 --> 01:08:11.920
 Yeah. And then that, you know, um, Ashur will tell the king and the king will go do that.

01:08:11.920 --> 01:08:22.420
 But it does also, because the king is so highly connected to the, the god Ashur as the sort of the, the high priest of Ashur.

01:08:22.420 --> 01:08:31.539
 Or it also means that that, that king has, like, um, an incredible amount of autocratic power.

01:08:31.800 --> 01:08:39.779
 Because it's not, he's not just, not just the head of the state, but the head of all of the, the sort of religion as well.

01:08:39.960 --> 01:08:44.560
 And those things, um, hard to, harder to disentangle sometimes in the ancient world.

01:08:44.560 --> 01:08:47.660
 But, um, yeah.

01:08:47.840 --> 01:08:49.620
 Makes for a convenient appeal to empire.

01:08:50.120 --> 01:08:50.900
 Yeah, exactly.

01:08:51.039 --> 01:09:00.460
 In fact, so one of the, in the, the, um, one of the texts that describes, uh, an Assyrian coronation, for example,

01:09:00.460 --> 01:09:04.240
 one of the things that the king had to swear to do was to expand the boundaries of Ashur.

01:09:07.120 --> 01:09:11.380
 In all three senses, the, the city, the state, and the, and the god.

01:09:14.560 --> 01:09:15.820
 Yeah, Tom.

01:09:15.840 --> 01:09:24.120
 I just have a comment about Jonah, uh, that I, I think with this class and things like this helps me to grow in my faith.

01:09:24.120 --> 01:09:27.160
 Is, you know, you hear the story of Jonah as a kid, and it's about the whale.

01:09:27.440 --> 01:09:31.120
 And then, and then you read it, and you're like, well, it's really about, like, this missionary.

01:09:31.500 --> 01:09:38.580
 But then, you learn stuff like this, and you think, God is calling Jonah to this city that is horrific.

01:09:38.740 --> 01:09:40.340
 That is torturing and murdering people.

01:09:40.740 --> 01:09:41.800
 And God loves them.

01:09:41.800 --> 01:09:44.800
 And he wants Jonah to risk his life to go there.

01:09:45.619 --> 01:09:47.619
 And Jonah doesn't want to do it.

01:09:47.779 --> 01:09:47.900
 Yeah.

01:09:48.020 --> 01:09:49.420
 And God's having mercy on everybody.

01:09:49.500 --> 01:09:50.360
 He's having mercy on Jonah.

01:09:50.480 --> 01:09:52.180
 He's having mercy on this city.

01:09:52.480 --> 01:09:54.079
 Jonah's a sinner, too.

01:09:54.199 --> 01:09:56.000
 I mean, he doesn't want to do what God wants.

01:09:56.000 --> 01:10:06.820
 And it's about, and you, you get this beautiful picture of God's mercy that, for me at least, was, I realized this by learning stuff like we're learning in class today.

01:10:06.819 --> 01:10:07.259
 Yeah.

01:10:07.259 --> 01:10:07.399
 Yeah.

01:10:07.759 --> 01:10:10.139
 I think, I love the book of Jonah.

01:10:10.420 --> 01:10:22.739
 It's one of the things that I think, you know, he's a reluctant prophet, but he's also, he's an ironically good prophet.

01:10:22.739 --> 01:10:41.079
 Because, you know, I mean, you look at a career like Jeremiah, who gives these, like, long speeches to people, like, telling them, like, telling his own Judean, you know, fellow, his own fellow Judeans, like, guys, we've got to, like, get our act together.

01:10:41.079 --> 01:10:47.819
 And they throw him in a well, you know, like, nobody listens to him, you know.

01:10:48.819 --> 01:11:08.800
 Jonah, like, doesn't do what God tells him to do, tries to run away, and ends up, like, ends up preaching to the sailors on the ship who instantaneously become, like, switch their, you know, deity allegiance to Yahweh.

01:11:08.800 --> 01:11:14.800
 And then he goes to Nineveh, and he's, like, 40 days or the city's going to be overturned.

01:11:15.900 --> 01:11:21.560
 And boom, instantaneously, everybody, the people, the king, the animals, everybody repents, you know.

01:11:21.779 --> 01:11:24.020
 And then he's grumpy about it, you know.

01:11:24.020 --> 01:11:33.540
 And the way that the book ends, so first of all, he's also kind of, like, a bit of, like, an inversion of what we usually get from prophets.

01:11:34.300 --> 01:11:43.940
 But then on top of that, like, the ending of the book is so incredibly poignant where, like, Jonah's, you know, throwing a temper tantrum about his shade vine that has died.

01:11:43.939 --> 01:11:49.579
 And God's, like, you care more about this vine than you do about this city that has all these people and animals in it.

01:11:49.619 --> 01:11:54.460
 And essentially what, where the book of Jonah sort of leaves the reader is essentially to say,

01:11:55.819 --> 01:12:09.479
 if God called you to, if God called you to show mercy on your greatest enemy, you wouldn't do it, would you?

01:12:09.479 --> 01:12:13.559
 That's kind of where the book of Jonah leaves us.

01:12:13.719 --> 01:12:19.859
 It's sort of, it's dripping in satire, and it just kind of sticks us with that.

01:12:24.559 --> 01:12:25.179
 All right.

01:12:26.239 --> 01:12:28.179
 I have kept us for a very long time.

01:12:28.339 --> 01:12:35.039
 I'm willing to stay around and chat more, but I also understand there's service going on, and people have to pick up kids and whatnot.

01:12:35.359 --> 01:12:37.079
 So thanks for sticking around.

01:12:37.079 --> 01:12:38.459
 Next week we'll do Babylonia.

01:12:39.479 --> 01:12:41.219
 And like I said, I'll be here for a little bit, so.

01:12:41.519 --> 01:12:41.879
 Thank you.

01:12:41.879 --> 01:12:41.939
 Thank you.

01:12:41.939 --> 01:12:41.959
 Thank you.

01:12:42.959 --> 01:12:43.439
 Thank you.

01:12:43.899 --> 01:12:44.319
 Thank you.

01:12:44.319 --> 01:12:44.979
 Thank you.

01:12:44.979 --> 01:12:45.399
 Thank you.

01:12:47.579 --> 01:12:48.399
 Thank you.