I would say the main thing we went over today in class was the badassness of the Assyrian Empire. Basically Judah and Israel split up. Israel was more powerful. But both weren't major players in the whole Middle East so they tried to align themselves with the other guys, like Chris Bosh and um, how about Pau Gasol. (No one ever gives Pau or KG or Ray Allen shit for taking second fiddle and sacrificing for the potential of winning. And ya, I know Pau was traded but he went from Alpha Dog in Memphis to second fiddle in LA.) So, Israel gets buddy buddy with Assyria and Judah gets with Syria. Yes note the difference. The do this to protect themselves from the other major players like Egypt and just because you want to be allies with powerful people, just like today.
So 8th century Assyria is a big deal. They have all the fertile crescent which includes modern day Israel, Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq. They eventually conquer the northern ten tribes of Israel and those are the lost tribes. The Assyrians were pretty brutal with their treatment. They made public displays, artwork, and really tried to tell people "Hey don't mess with us." So Israel is conquered in 721 BCE by Sennacherib, I think. Then Sennacherib conquers Judah, along with some other places but doesn't sack Jerusalem because Jerusalem isn't really worth sacking. But Jerusalem starts growing. People flee from the North to Jerusalem. Farmers and small town folks come to Jerusalem for protection, because Jerusalem is a walled city and out in the country you have no protection. As a result Jerusalem grows from 8,00 to 40,000, a 400% increase in the 8th century. Thats a lot of people. It also becomes a bigger deal in terms of its power in Judah. It went from being 6% of Judah's population to 30% of the population.
This presents its own problems, just like all cities that undergo change. There is a conflict between rural and urban people. Cosmopolitans from the North and more traditional people from Judah. Changing family structure. New Religious movements. None of this is unique to Jerusalem. Dallas, LA, San Antonio, any city that has changes with its population, size, politics, demographics will undergo change in other areas, as well as social tension. People often dislike immigrants for no other reason than they are foreigners. It happens throughout history. Xenophobia is everywhere.
So, as Jerusalem is changing Hezekiah, the king of Jerusalem, decides he must fortify the city because it is becoming a bigger target for Assyria. So he builds the "Broad Wall' around the city. You can go to Jerusalem and walk through the old city and see where this wall was. It is marked on the ground. He also builds food storages to help withstand a siege. And then there is also Hezekiah's tunnel which helped pump water from the Gihon for the rest of the city. I asked the Professor today where they got all the water to support these people. What I meant was how did the Gihon, which we said could support 2,500 people, support about 40,000 people. Does digging a tunnel produce more water or does it simply make the water more moveable? Did they bring water from the North? Dig wells? I don't know.
Anyways, I'm done for this class. Hope you enjoyed this blog. I really enjoyed this class. It focused more on history and less on the bible and were also getting more into solid, proven history which I enjoy more.
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