Hello Bible Adventurists!
I saw some Old Testament news on the internet last week that was about Hezekiah and Sennacherib, the very stuff we read this week.
https://www.theblaze.com/news/archaeolo ... m-assyrian
An archeologist has found where Sennacherib’s forces camped out as they prepared to lay siege to Lachish and Jerusalem, validating the account in the Bible, or at least partially. The author of the article, and maybe the archeologist, did not find any evidence of the Lord’s angel killing 185,000 Assyrian soldiers. Instead, he referred to an Assyrian record that indicated Hezekiah paid tribute to Sennacherib, so the Assyrians left Hezekiah as a vassal. This supposedly refutes the “angel of death” event in 2 Kings 19:35. (as a safety tip, never challenge the Angel of Death or his boss).
It amazes me how hard people work to try to disprove the Word of God. These are smart people and have spent serious time and effort on this investigation and article. People who have never adventured in the Bible will use this article to justify willful disbelief in the Bible. I just flipped back one page to 2 Kings 18:14 and we see Hezekiah paying tribute. That is consistent with the Assyrian record. We then see Sennacherib reneging on the deal and sending the Rabshakeh (top Assyrian military guy) to Jerusalem after the fall of Lachish. This is when the Assyrians challenge the God of Israel, saying He is no different than the idols of neighboring nations. This is where my safety tip would have been handy. The supernatural destruction of an entire army is a difficult thing to wrap your head around, and something that certainly turned Sennacherib’s world upside down. He immediately went home to Nineveh and sought help from his pagan idol when his sons assassinated him (maybe they were embarrassed that he lost an army). No one in Assyria wrote about the 185,000 dead. Most people are reluctant to openly discuss supernatural experiences. I doubt Sennacherib told his scribes to put that in his official record of accomplishments. I doubt Sennacherib lived long enough to even figure it out.
My real point in all of this is that archeology has always confirmed the accounts in the Bible. Many Bible stories, especially conversations, were not recorded and cannot be archaeologically validated. Of the things that were recorded, the Bible is proven accurate.
Thanks for joining me on this adventure,
Tom
p.s. Safety tip #2: Never show all your stuff to Babylonian envoys!