An archaeologist has apparently found Sennacherib’s 2,700-year-old camp outside of Jerusalem: Once again, the Bible proves to be an accurate record of the ancient world

One of the big lies in today’s world is that the Jews are white supremacist colonizers, while the people in Gaza and the West Bank are the region’s indigenous inhabitants. In fact, the contrary is true. Jews long predated Muslims in the region, as described in the Bible. Now, there’s more evidence that Isaiah, 2 Kings, and 2 Chronicles all accurately describe the Assyrian siege of Jerusalem 2,700 years ago.

During the reign of Hezekiah of Judah in Jerusalem and Sennacherib in Assyria, the mighty Assyrian kingdom attacked Jerusalem (around 701 BC). We know it happened because of a clay prism from Nineveh, Assyria’s one-time capital, describing a great victory there. However, we also know of it because of the Bible, which describes a huge Assyrian loss rather than a victory.

Here are the key points (for purposes of this post) from 2 Chronicles chapter 32. The story picks up after the prophet Isaiah told Hezekiah that he must have the kingdom clean up its act and live again by God’s word:

Image: The Exterminating Angel Vanquishing the Army of Sennacherib by Antonio Tempesta, 1613. National Gallery of Art.

Sennacherib king of Assyria came and invaded Judah. He laid siege to the fortified cities, intending to conquer them for himself.
When Hezekiah saw that Sennacherib had come to make war against Jerusalem, 3he consulted with his leaders and commanders about stopping up the waters of the springs outside the city, and they helped him carry it out.
[snip]
Then Hezekiah worked resolutely to rebuild all the broken sections of the wall and to raise up towers on it. He also built an outer wall and reinforced the supporting terraces of the City of David, and he produced an abundance of weapons and shields.

Stephen Compton, an archeologist, contends that he has found proof that the Assyrian army under Sennacherib besieged Jerusalem just as the Bible describes:

A peer-reviewed paper in the prestigious journal Near Eastern Archaeology reports the first-ever discoveries of ancient Assyrian military camps. Created circa 700 BC during military conquests across the Middle East, they mark the expansion of the Assyrian Empire, which became the prototype for the subsequent Persian, Greek, and Roman empires.
The initial discovery came from a scene carved into the stone walls of the Assyrian King Sennacherib’s palace commemorating his conquest of Lachish, a city to the south of Jerusalem. Matching the landscape in this image to features of the actual landscape (using early aerial photographs of Lachish prior to modern development) created a virtual map to the site of Sennacherib’s camp. This led to ruins similar in size and shape to the camp in Sennacherib’s relief. An archaeological survey of the site found no evidence of human habitation for 2600 years, followed by pottery sherds from the exact time of Sennacherib’s invasion of Lachish, after which it was again abandoned for centuries. Moreover, the ancient Arabic name for the ruins was Khirbet al Mudawwara, “The Ruins of the Camp of the Invading Ruler.”

The article has pictures of the stone panels in Sennacherib’s palace showing his military camp at Lachish, a 1940s photo of the landscape that matches the stone panels, 2,700-year-old ruins, and an early aerial photo of Jerusalem showing fortifications outside the city. These items all converge inexorably on the fact that the Bible accurately records the Assyrian siege, including the steps Hezekiah took to fortify Jerusalem.

One doesn’t have to believe in God to be awed by the Bible, whether as a profound moral treatise that provides an infallible guide for a thriving culture or as an accurate history covering the Ancient World up to the early years of the Roman Empire. This accuracy explains why the people in Gaza and the West Bank, whenever they stumble across ancient ruins, destroy them as quickly as possible, for they prove, irrefutably, the Jews’ ties to the land and the Muslim role as invader, destroyer, and colonizer of an ancient and continuous indigenous Jewish nation and culture.

If anyone here likes this sort of topic there is a print journal called Biblical Archaeology Review. I have a feeling it is just hanging on like most magazines and it serves a good purpose.

Father Mitch Pacwa (priest, gun right advocate and conservative Catholic radio and tv host) mentioned he subscribes, plus me. Never ran into anyone else.

They ran the story of that 82 year old scholar who was kidnapped by ISIS terrorists and tortured for days to reveal the locations of irreplaceable artifacts from mostly Christian and Jewish sites, and then killed. He had worked on uncovering historical data for over 50 years. The Muslims wanted to find them to destroy them with axes, hammers, explosives and jackhammers which they did.

Gone forever.

https://www.asor.org/news/2024/5/nea87.2-toc/

Pp. 110-120: “The Trail of Sennacherib’s Siege Camps,” by Stephen C. Compton

Images of military conquest on Sennacherib’s palace walls often featured his siege camps. By comparing the visual and textual references to these camps with the surroundings of the cities he besieged (on site and via aerial and satellite imagery, archaeological and historical data, and early maps and surveys), likely locations are proposed for Sennacherib’s royal camps. These sites are found to have all had the same name on early maps, Mudawwara, which, in Arabic in the Middle Ages, denoted the enormous tent that housed the sultan on military expeditions. (At times, this name was prefaced with Khirbet al, indicating the ancient stone ruins thereof.) Examining all occurrences of this toponym within Judah and Philistia reveals a distribution consistent with what is known of Sennacherib’s invasion route and of the cities besieged. It also resolves some long-standing questions and contributes to identifying the locations of the cities of Libnah and Nob.

First-Ever Discovery of Ancient Assyrian Military Camps Includes Biblical Site
By Stephen C. Compton
Tue, Jun 4, 2024
Popular Archaeology
https://popular-archaeology.com/article/first-ever-discovery-of-ancient-assyrian-military-camps-includes-biblical-site/

Book Notice - Exodus Lost by Stephen C. Compton
Monday, April 30, 2012
Stephen C. Compton’s important new 2011 book about Olmec origins
https://bookofmormonresources.blogspot.com/2012/04/book-notice-exodus-lost-by-stephen-c.html

I agree, and have asked this question for years . Since Islam, which “created” muslims as a thing did not begin until 612 AD, any Islamic claim to these lands is fanciful.
I call it recentism. A term which refers to a person or group of people who only go just far enough in history to justify their claims.

Mexico likes to make claims on lands in the US, because they controlled them before US, but never mention how they gained control of that land and who they took it from.

“American Indians” like to talk about stolen lands, but never talk about how they were warring, invading, killing, and enslaving other “indigenous “ people long before Europeans showed up.

The Lakota talk about stolen black hills, yet there are at least 7 documented changes of control of black hills before Europeans came.

If the taking of the black hills from the Lakota was wrong and the lands should be given back to the Lakota tribe, then they should be forced to give it back to those they took it from, and those give to who they took it from….

In a broader view, most countries and their borders are all relatively new

The Jews of all people on the earth can trace existing on the lands they now claim(actually much more than modern Israel ) longer than any other people I can think of, and yet their claims are challenged to put it nicely

Also the Dome of the Rock was created as a money making tourist attraction by a caliph to appease his restless court. The legend of Mohammad’s accession was begun to attract tourists.

But after awhile, the fun became boring, so the caliph moved the court back to the original capital in Amman, Jordan, leaving the small village to the Jewish goat herders who lived there.

As for Mohammad, he ascended in some long forgotten place when assassins caught up to him.

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