See Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

Those brought up with the Bible narrative are super impressed with that account of the angel halting 185,000 Assyrian troops in their tracks. How could they not be? The unstoppable Assyrians toppled one city after another, sweeping in from the north, but after a long siege, they were stopped at Jerusalem. Literally, they were stopped dead. Sennacherib boasts of his conquests—these kings were invariably braggarts. Their scribes had no choice but to corroborate their boasts, upping the numbers along the way to keep their bosses happy. So here he is, after knocking over one city after another, describing his encounter with Jerusalem:

“As to Hezekiah, the Jew, he did not submit to my yoke, I laid siege to 46 of his strong cities, walled forts and to the countless small villages in their vicinity, and conquered (them) by means of well-stamped (earth-)ramps, and battering-rams brought (thus) near (to the walls) (combined with) the attack by foot soldiers, (using) mines, breaches as well as sapper work. I drove out (of them) 200,150 people, young and old, male and female, horses, mules, donkeys, camels, big and small cattle beyond counting, and considered (them) booty. Himself [Hezekiah] I made a prisoner in Jerusalem, his royal residence, like a bird in a cage. . . . His towns which I had plundered, I took away from his country and gave them (over) to Mitinti, king of Ashdod, Padi, king of Ekron, and Sillibel, king of Gaza. . . . Hezekiah himself . . . did send me, later, to Nineveh, my lordly city, together with 30 talents of gold, 800 talents of silver, precious stones, antimony, large cuts of red stone, couches (inlaid) with ivory, nimedu -chairs (inlaid) with ivory, elephant-hides, ebony-wood, boxwood (and) all kinds of valuable treasures, his (own) daughters, concubines, male and female musicians. In order to deliver the tribute and to do obeisance as a slave he sent his (personal) messenger.” —Sennacherib Prism, per Ancient Near Eastern Texts, p. 288. [Bolding mine]

Oh, yeah? How come he didn’t conquer Hezekiah like he did everyone else? Why just let him off with a promise to pay if he was such a tough guy? The Bible record says that payment was paid before, not after, the siege began, whereas Sennacherib says just the opposite. This inverted order of events “looks like a screen to cover up something which he does not wish to mention,” says Funk and Wagnalls New Standard Bible Dictionary of 1936 (p. 829). Those who believe the Bible account say it is the angel he’s trying to covering up. But the secular historians today are inclined to say, ‘Nah, it was probably just a plague.’ That’s what Jean-Pierre Isbouts says in his 2022 lecture series, History and Archeology of the Bible.

The modern believer may take the Bible narrative as history, but the modern sociologist, anthropologist, archaeologist, historian, philosopher, theologian, psychologist—you name it—does not. The Bible narrative is but a source to them, and a source that doesn’t mean much unless it is validated by one of those ‘superior’ human fields of study. “We have our own maps and geodetic survey plans, of course, but where the Bible and the maps are at odds, we opt for The Book,”  said Dr. Ze’ev Shremer in 1967. Today, you can all but hear the modernists say, ‘We use pages of The Book to wrap our lunch sandwiches in.’

Who were the Bible writers, the scribes, the prophets, according to all those who track human activity? They were merely devout men trying to interpret the political events of the day into religious terms. Should it not be the other way around, that world events be interpreted through spirituality? It is that way with Jehovah’s Witnesses today and many other sets of believers. It was also that way with the Bible writers themselves, who come across just as ‘insular’ to world politics of the day as Witnesses do now. Unless some development of politics substantially impacted the people of God in those Bible times, the Old Testament, and later the New Testament writers, seem to know little about it. They kept track of their own cause—the furtherance of God’s purpose—not the ever-changing twists of what they regarded as that children’s game, ‘King of the Mountain.’ As far as they were concerned, the rise and fall of human powers was just such a game, barely worth writing down unless it somehow interfered with that greater purpose.

“Look! The nations are like a drop from a bucket, And as the film of dust on the scales they are regarded,” writes Isaiah. (40:15) Why waste your time chronicling drops and film? the Bible writers would have supposed, and so they didn’t do it. As though speaking for them all, Paul says, “We keep our eyes, not on the things seen, but on the things unseen. For the things seen are temporary, but the things unseen are everlasting.” No wonder the Bible writings seem insular to those who drink the drops and walk the film. They are tracking entire different things.

Always, among today’s educated, it is taken for granted that the struggles between nations are the realities to watch. Never for one moment is it speculated that these nations might be playing second fiddle to a greater cause. Theology is not a study of God. It is a study of man, so it is hardly surprising that it is human institutions they chronicle, and God‘s institutions only so far as they play ball with those of humans.

to be continued here

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