Sargon

Science has often come to the aid of validating the Bible through archaeological digs over the past 200 years. Bute just what is an archaeologist? Howard Vos shares the following:

“To many, an archaeologist is a morbid creature who enjoys poking around ancient ruins to discover dead men’s bones, bits of pottery, weapons, or tools. Such an idea is far from the truth. Rather, he is something of a scientist, whether amateur or professional; and he interests himself in a study of dead things only as a means of learning about the life of an ancient people…His knowledge is acquired by systematic observation or study, and facts discovered are evaluated and classified into an organized body of information. Moreover, archaeology is a complete science because it seeks assistance from many other sciences.”1

“According to Robert Dick Wilson, the names of twenty-six foreign kings recorded in the Old Testament have been found on documents contemporary with the kings. In addition, the names of six kings of Israel and four of Judah have been located in Assyrian records.” This was from the 1926 publication of Wilson’s book, A Scientific Investigation of the Old Testament. Since then the number has grown to about fifty.2

Werner Keller provides us with an example of the evidence of one of those kings: “The French vice-consul in Mosul, Paul-Emile Botta, was an enthusiastic archaeologist. In 1843 he began to dig at Khorsabad on the Tigris and from the ruins of a 4,000-year-old capital proudly brought to light the first witness to the Bible: Sargon, the fabulous ruler of Assyria.”3 

(Isaiah 20:1) states: “In the year that the commander came to Ashdod, when Sargon the king of Assyria sent him and he fought against Ashdod and captured it.” Zeus, Hercules, Apollo, and Poseidon are all well-known names in Greek mythology. Each has a colorful past, but no reality. The kings of the Bible have an equally interesting past, but their reality is a fact of history. They were men of flesh and bones, not the product of ancient imagination as the Greek gods were.

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1 Howard F. Vos, Beginnings in Bible Archaeology (Chicago: Moody Press, 1978), p. 9.

2 Ibid., p. 66.

3 Werner Keller, The Bible as History (New York: Bantam Books, Inc., 1980), p. 10.