[music]
I'm going on an adventure.
Unzip the archeology. Make it naked.
[music]
[MALE VOICE] This is an anthill.
Ants are what we call social insects.
They live in communities.
[SIMCHA] w*r and the Middle East.
The two seem almost synonymous.
Endless are the tales of Christians, Jews and Muslims...
...battling it out over what looks to many...
...like nothing more than a small strip of dry sand.
But long before all that,
there was a w*r like no other.
Some twenty-seven hundred years ago...
...the greatest army in the world, the Assyrian army,
marched out of what is today Iraq...
...and made it to Jerusalem. On its way...
...it devastated everyone and everything in its path.
Jerusalem was a relatively tiny city...
...that now found itself surrounded...
...by the greatest army in the world.
And then according to the Bible,...
...something incredible happened, something miraculous.
thousand Assyrians d*ed.
Mysteriously. Suddenly.
An angel of the Lord had k*lled them.
That's what the Bible has to say...
...but what does archaeology have to say about it.
Most people don't walk around thinking about the Assyrians.
maybe you're different.
Do, do you ever think about the Assyrians?
Ah, not really.
-Not really, right? -No.
But, something that happened with the Assyrians...
...totally affects your life, and let me explain.
They had Jerusalem surrounded.
Yes.
Then the Bible says there was a miracle.
The next morning, people wake up...
...there's nobody there. They left.
They ran away.
You want to know how that affects your life?
Yes.
Had they won, had they defeated Jerusalem...
...do you realize what would have happened?
There would have been no Judaism,
no Christianity, no Islam.
The whole world would be different.
We wouldn't be sitting around here...
...celebrating Hanukkah and Christmas.
Yes. -We'd be-
I don't know doing some Assyrian Pagan thing.
[SIMCHA] So what happened?
In order to unravel this mystery my journey begins in Israel.
Home of the only archaeology...
...that can shed light on what actually occurred.
Finding ancient archaeology is easy...
...compared to making it through the traffic,
and into the old city.
It's tried to get to it...
...that's, that's the trick.
And make it here and back.
[SIMCHA] After a miraculous parking job,
I meet with Dr. Gaby Barkay,
an expert on the Assyrian siege of Jerusalem.
Okay, I'm just trying to understand what's going on here.
Assyria is the big power of the time.
Correct.
The Assyrians are running out...
...pillaging and burning cities all around the country...
...and meanwhile...
.they're trying to get Jerusalem to surrender, yes?
It is true, cities of Judah were destroyed...
...according to Sennacherib. -Sennacherib?
Why couldn't they get simpler names these guys,
why do they have to get such complicated-
Because they were Assyrian.
[laughs] I see. So they had-
So they had Assyrian names.
In any case...
...the Assyrians arrive to Jerusalem.
-So they show up here?
They show up here and they built up their camp...
...in order to besiege the city of Jerusalem,
and the city of Jerusalem is awaiting serious trouble.
[MALE VOICE] Many ants may be k*lled.
It is a fight to the finish when two opposing soldiers meet.
Hard jaws against jaw with no quarter half.
And none given.
[SIMCHA] The Assyrians were led...
...by their sadistic King Sennacherib.
Today there are two artifacts...
...that confirm the Assyrian campaign against Judah.
The first is a relief carved in stone...
...depicting Sennacherib's siege...
...and destruction of Lachish.
Interestingly, tyrant Sennacherib's head is missing...
...from most of the murals that survive today.
The second significant artifact is Sennacherib's prism:
an inscription on a triangular tablet...
...which describes in Sennacharib's own words...
...how he treated his enemies.
[SIMCHA] I feel a strange...
...sense of victory eating a falafel with cucumbers.
Did you know that Sennacherib said...
...he was going to cut up his enemies like cucumbers?
That's what he said? -Yeah.
A cucumber?
Cool as a cucumber?
That never occurred to me until this moment.
[SIMCHA] Sennacherib, the king of Assyria...
...was also the self proclaimed king of the universe,
and like many men looking to take over the world,
his grand vision became a bit shortsighted.
[rapping] I'm Sennacherib, Sennacherib.
King. King ... the man.
The Assyrian.
I'm king of, king of, king of, king of the world.
[SIMCHA] But if Sennacherib's army...
...was that powerful, what exactly stopped him...
...from destroying Jerusalem?
Oh, I can, I can thread a needle.
I can go in this truck though a space...
...that is half as wide as the truck.
As it turns out, Jerusalem wasn't as weak...
...as the history books might suggest.
For a tiny kingdom, it did a pretty good job...
...of resisting Sennacherib's att*ck.
Carl Ehrlich is an archaeologist and historian.
I managed to get his take on the story.
So, Sennacherib comes in,
he decimates everything in his path.
He takes, he takes- -He's a k*lling machine.
The Assyrian empire is a k*lling machine.
It's one of the ghastliest w*r machines of the ancient world.
That being said that stiff-necked people,
these Judeans, did offer resistance.
[SIMCCHA] The Judeans were led by King Hezekiah,
who after consulting the prophet Isaiah...
...decided to stand up to the Assyrians.
Although he wasn't much of a m*llitary man,
Hezekiah is now ranked with David and Solomon...
...as one of the greatest Kings to have ever ruled Jerusalem.
Hezekiah got prepared, Jerusalem was well fortified,
well re-enforced for withstanding a long siege.
This is crazy.
If you're an Assyrian and say this little,
little people with this little city suddenly think...
...they can take on the whole empire, this is nuts, right?
I wouldn't say that.
If you're an Assyrian I'm saying.
They're surrounding Jerusalem.
It doesn't look good.
It does not look good at all.
The Bible said something miraculous happened.
Some supernatural extraordinary event...
...that took place in Jerusalem...
...while the Assyrians were besieging Jerusalem.
Now what was it, what was it?
[SIMCHA] This is what the Bible says:
"and the angel of the Lord went out...
...and put to death thousand men in the Assyrian camp...
...when the people got up the next morning,
there were dead bodies everywhere.
So Sennacherib, King of Assyria,
broke camp and withdrew.
He returned to Nineveh and stayed there."
The Bible mentions even the number...
... thousand people were found k*lled there.
The Lord's angel comes at night...
...and smites thousand Assyrians.
Yeah, I think the number is over-exaggerated.
You think it's only thousand?
I don't know, I don't know.
I wasn't there.
But the number does not convince one...
...to be a historical figure.
What would you think it is?
I don't know.
So the story about the Lord's angel...
...it is for those who would believe the miraculous nature.
You think it's a heavenly intervention too...
...if some guy had your house surrounded...
...and they were about to get you and suddenly...
...they had you know, stomach cramps,
and they ran away on their motorcycles-
Listen, I witnessed the days w*r in Jerusalem here...
...and I believe in miracles.
believe in heavenly intervention and it's okay with me.
Yes Chief.
Make yourself invisible! -Oh, I almost forgot.
[SIMCHA] In our modern world...
...the miracle theory has lost its power.
For most scholars, the angel of God has been replaced...
...by a number of other theories that...
...often fail to explain what happened to that many soldiers.
We have an extra biblical source,
Herodotus, a Greek historian,
who tells us that on the way from Egypt...
...he says, the army was att*cked by desert mice.
Herodotus said an army of mice defeated the Assyrians?
Yeah, who ate up all the m*llitary equipment...
...and the leather components of the m*llitary equipment...
...and neutralized the Assyrian army.
Like the nutcracker suite?
Uh, yeah.
[SIMCHA] Another theory asserts...
...that a plague broke out...
...and ravaged the Assyrian army.
[MALE VOICE] But the enemy in this case...
...is not big soldiers.
This invading army...
...is so tiny that it can be seen only through a microscope.
Its soldiers are the germs of communicable disease.
[SIMCHA] But the idea that an army of mice,
or even a plague, k*lled thousand Assyrian soldiers...
...doesn't wash with Henry Aubin,
a Montreal newspaper reporter.
met with him in Toronto to talk about his controversial book:
The Rescue of Jerusalem.
We know that the epidemic theory is, is nonsense.
We know others-
But, why do we know that?
Because [A] why wouldn't the Hebrews...
...have been afflicted by this, as well as the Assyrians.
We know that the, the Bible says...
that God did intervene by way of epidemic in other situations,
for example a most famous one is Passover...
...why would the Bible not say that disease was the cause...
...in at Jerusalem.
[SIMCHA] While trying to find...
...adventure stories to read to his adopted African son,
Aubin became discouraged...
...by the lack of black heroes in popular history.
There were no comparable books on African historical heroes.
So my wife suggested,
why don't you look on books for adults on African history...
...and try to draw from those books some bedtime stories.
[SIMCHA] He eventually came across...
...the th dynasty of Pharaohs when a Nubian Kushite Prince,
an African Prince, named Taharka ruled ancient Egypt.
It's here that Aubin stumbled across...
...what he thinks is the only plausible explanation...
...for what really happened at the gates of Jerusalem.
[SIMCHA] Montreal reporter Henry Aubin...
...has uncovered strong evidence that an African Kushite army...
...intervened in the siege of BC,
scaring off the Assyrians,
and saving Jerusalem from destruction.
He tells me the strongest support for his theory...
...comes from the Bible.
The Bible is probably the best source.
t's the deliverance in Jerusalem is described...
...in three different book:
nd Chronicles, nd Kings and the book of Isaiah.
Two of those three accounts describe the advance of...
.the Kushites trying to liberate Jerusalem from the siege...
...and then the Kushites vanish from the scene.
And it's an angel of the Lord who slays exactly ,.
[SIMCHA] But Aubin's Kushite theory is new and controversial.
-The Bible is not meant to be history,
it's a theological representation...
of historical events and it is meant to show us...
...the power of the Almighty...
...within the history of the Israelites.
[SIMCHA] Aubin believes that to account for...
...the glory of God's miraculous intervention,
chapters of theological text were at some point...
...inserted into the Bible. By simply...
...removing these later additions,
the Kushite intervention becomes clear.
So if you take out these verses,
what you have is Taharka is advancing,
the next verse Sennacherib the Assyrian emperor says:
"oh let's withdraw on the double."
If you ignore the theological insertion...
...then you have the Kushites cause and effect.
Assyrians hear the report of Taharka's advancing army,
next sentence, they leave.
They left, they ran away, why did they do it?
Good question.
One theory is by a Canadian guy...
...is that an African army was...
...coming to the rescue of Jerusalem.
Yes.
And this black African army rescued Jerusalem...
...just by starting to march.
The Assyrians got scared ran away,
and you know Jerusalem and the entire Western civilization...
...was saved by this one African Prince.
Yes. -Interesting?
Very interesting. Yes.
What do you think of Aubin's, Henry Aubin's theory.
I think he ultimately came to conclusion...
...that it was the Kushite intervention in and of itself...
...that saved Jerusalem.
The Hebrews were not passive recipients...
...of this help from the Kushites.
The Hebrews did some heroism themselves.
[A] They held out.
They knew the Kushites were coming cause they were allies,
and they held out against the siege for as long as they could.
And they also helped themselves by digging this very...
...ambitious water works to carry water...
...under the city of Jerusalem.
Hezekiah's tunnel.
[SIMCHA] The remains of Hezekiah's tunnel...
...are located in the West Bank...
...in a fairly bad neighbourhood.
But we brought along our own security.
So hopefully we won't have any problems.
Can I make it in there?
You'll see it's a miracle because...
...the car is bigger than the space.
Now let's see how badly I scratched the car.
Yeah, yeah, you're okay.
[SIMCHA] It's here, at the Gihon Spring,
just outside the city walls...
...that Jerusalem located it's only source of water.
When King Hezekiah found out...
...that the Assyrians were advancing,
he had to act fast. So he completed a tunnel,
one thousand seven hundred and fifty meters long...
...that gave the people of Jerusalem...
...secret access to the water.
Water, outside of the city of Jerusalem...
...had to brought into the city of Jerusalem.
So while the Assyrians were dying of thirst up above,
the city of Jerusalem had all the water it needed.
How did he do it?
They coordinated teams of engineers,
some digging from the outside,
some digging from the inside, and they did...
...what often people digging tunnels today can't do...
...they met somewhere in the middle.
So basically, you read in the Bible something,
and you come over here and you dig,
and there's actual archaeological corroboration...
...of the Biblical story.
This is one of the best examples for that.
You have the story here, coming alive,
emerging out of the rocks of Jerusalem.
This place, the spring of Gihon is a key point to...
...understanding the political and m*llitary problems...
...of King Hezekiah.
Just think about the King,
standing here thinking to himself...
...how the Assyrians would divert the water...
...or poison the water and how the people...
...inside the city of Jerusalem during the siege,
would die of thirst.
I think the Assyrians,
the Assyrians are coming again.
No, it's the Israelite army,
it's okay. We're saved.
[SIMCHA] What's going on is that we're stuck...
...in a very bad area of the West Bank here...
...and our security guys have locked us out of the car.
[SIMCHA] Hezekiah's tunnel...
is real archaeological evidence of the siege of Jerusalem.
But it still doesn't explain what happened to...
... thousand Assyrian soldiers. If the...
...Kushites did have something to do with Jerusalem's rescue,
why does all the popular scholarship ignore them?
Why don't the history books even mention...
...the possibility of this African intervention?
[SIMCHA] Henry Aubin thinks...
...the reason this Kushite army has been excluded from...
...popular Biblical scholarship has less to do with history...
...and more to do with prejudice.
Why are the Kushites expunged from this account?
The reason would have been when...
...the chosen people are divinely rescued...
...it really has to be by the divinity.
By, by Yahweh himself, so Yahweh intervenes directly.
It can't be though a human agent.
That would be the primary reason.
So you're saying the Kushites rescued Jerusalem...
but the Bible says God did it.
Yes.
[SIMCHA] Aubin thinks that the reason scholars haven't...
...gone with the Kushite intervention theory...
...stems from racism and it's affect on biblical academia...
....ever since European colonialism...
...reached it's height in the th century.
-Society today has this view of Africa as being...
...incapable of pulling off any such feat.
Assyria had such a huge army,
I mean it was seen as invincible at that time.
How could an African army repel such a force?
Its boggles the mind.
We think of Africa as grass huts and drums,
we don't see it for what it was.
[SIMCHA]Aubin says this bias against Africans is a...
...relatively recent development in Biblical scholarship.
At the time that the Bible was written,
this racism didn't exist.
In fact the Kushites were highly regarded...
...and mentioned quite often in the Bible...
...in a very positive light.
-During the flight from Egypt to the Promised Land,
Moses marries a Kushite woman...
...in Isaiah chapter verse .
You have the Kushites being capable...
...of coming to Jerusalem to worship Yahweh,
worshipping God, the God of the Hebrews.
[SIMCHA] The Kushites are actually the most praised...
...of all foreign peoples mentioned in the Bible.
He makes a strong case that the idea that at a time.
When really the Assyrians were crushing everybody...
...right, left and center,
A Hebrew, African alliance seems to...
...thwart the greatest m*llitary might.
That there's good reason why in a very biased atmosphere...
...of a couple of centuries of biased scholarships...
...that would be ignored.
I think he does a great job there...
...in showing that scholarship is not as unbiased as all that.
And that it's quite possible...
...that the Kushites and the Kushite advance...
...played an important role,
but I don't think that even with his arguments...
...that that is the sole factor.
Do we know how successful they were?
Do we know what the extent of their intervention here was?
Are we able to claim unequivocally...
..that there were Kushite armies that moved into the region?
No we aren't.
We're here in the realm of speculation.
It's quite possible...
...but it doesn't necessarily have to be the way it was.
Couldn't it be a combination?
Here they are.
They're having a tough go at the siege.
A plague breaks out.
And then, Sennacherib wakes up in the morning,
and not only does he have a shortage of water,
tough Judeans that are totally religiously crazy...
...and think God is going to save them.
And he's got a plague in his camp on top of it.
And then he gets word that these...
...Nubians are marching toward him.
Couldn't it be a combination...
...of exactly what the Bible says?
Look, in every match-making,
in every marriage, and in every divorce,
there is not one reason...
...which brings that couple together...
...and not one single reason which causes them to get apart.
In life, it is usually a combination of reasons.
[SIMCHA] So what happened?
Well, on one level, we know what happened.
Jerusalem was saved.
And because Jerusalem was saved,
so was Judaism.
nd that allowed for Christianity to be born and Islam to be born.
So what saved Jerusalem?
Well maybe it was a plague, maybe it was an army of rats,
maybe it was the thr*at of the incoming Kushites...
...that made the Assyrians run away.
But whatever happened,
the ancients wouldn't have differentiated...
...and wouldn't have cared.
They would have seen it as a miracle.
01x03 - Jerusalem & The Black Prince
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Show examines biblical stories and tries to find proof for them by exploring the Holy Land looking for archaeological evidence, personal inferences, deductions, and interviews with scholars and experts.
Show examines biblical stories and tries to find proof for them by exploring the Holy Land looking for archaeological evidence, personal inferences, deductions, and interviews with scholars and experts.