Persian Culture

On to the Persian culture. The Persian culture is special in its impact because it was the Persians who said to the Jews, hey, you can go back to Jerusalem. You can go back to Israel. You can rebuild your temple and we'll give you some money to help do it. And just because you'll have some expenses, we'll give you some extra money on top of that.

Just phenomenal after the way the Babylonians and the Assyrians treated them, and we'll see why. There's a special reason why, and it may be a little surprising. Anyway, let's take a look at it. Remember Assyria had expanded its empire over the centuries to eventually swallow up, but not include, Judah. The Babylonians, oh boy, now I did it. Let's see.

The Babylonians went from Babylon to the south and moved north to capture Nineveh and eventually take out the Assyrians and lo and behold here's the Babylonian Empire and then from the east come the Persians along with help from the Medes, which was the next people to the north and the mountainous area to the north. Along they come, and they take out the Babylonians and expand the empire vastly.

Much farther to the west, all the way into Greece, much farther to the east, all the way to the edge of what is now India, the Indus River Valley. So you've got all that area there. They also extended well into the Egyptian empire and even expanded beyond what the Assyrians even touched. So they went quite a bit farther. Babylon is a relevant place, but Susa, Persepolis, and Pasargadae are some of the relevant cities.

And we'll see those in a minute. You've got a color special handout That includes this and some other maps that we'll be referring to later on. Okay, just so you're aware that that's there Now here's the way it goes Now you've got the center of power moving from Nineveh where the Assyrians were then into Babylon and now to the east here to the Persians now what's going to happen next? Where's the next center of power going to be from?

From Greece to the west. So this is something interesting. The center of power initially shifted to the east and all of a sudden flipped to the west and then even farther to the west. So that's something that's kind of a vast change and then eventually roamed off the map there. So you see some real changes start to take place here over the centuries.

You have this in your appendix from earlier on, and just to point out, it's the very last chapter of 2 Chronicles. Excuse me, 2 Chronicles 10, the very last little bit there is where it describes the Persians coming in. And you also see it's this part of the Old Testament from the end of the captivity in Babylon all the way to the end of the Old Testament. The Old Testament closes with the Jews under the power of Persia. So then you go from Persia then into the period between the Testaments that Craig talked on, right? So this is the last empire that you see enclosing, if you will, the Old Testament.

All right. And then you'll see the Old Testament prophet Daniel. There's one particularly involved, the latter part of Daniel, that involves the Persian Empire. And it's called post-exilic prophets. Don't let that strange title confuse you. It just means the ones after the exile.

And those include Zechariah, Haggai, and Malachi. Haggai's message to the Jews, because they kind of halted in getting the temple built, is basically encourage them to get the temple built. And the one who was governor, who was named in Haggai, was one of the lineage of Jesus. OK, now this is also a chart we've seen before, so it's just the end of that from return back to Israel to close the Old Testament is what's included here. OK, now, so here's the Persian Empire. This is the one that goes into the Between the Testaments time.

And I have apologies to Nietzsche. I'm not sure why we need to apologize to Nietzsche. Anyway, Thus Spoke Zarathustra is one of Nietzsche's titles. If any of you are interested in history of philosophy or something like that, you may recognize it. The reason I picked that is because the Avesta is the holy book of the religion known as Zoroastrianism in our Western culture. Zarathustra was the so-called prophet. of Zoroastrianism.

And that is the change in religion, because remember the Assyrians were just nasty, right? What did they do to people? They scrambled them around. The Babylonians were also nasty. And instead of scrambling people around, they said, if we don't trust you and we think we need to, we're going to take you and bring you where we can keep an eye on you and brainwash you to think Babylonian. Okay? Different, very different religion here. And it's because of this impact of this fellow Zarathustra, whose historical origins are still a matter of debate. Nonetheless, here's what it came to.

They said that Ahura Mazda is the supreme god who is helped by benevolent acts of the adherents and the worship of fire. Remember, this is why Daniel's friends would be thrown under the Babylonians to the fire. But they wouldn't throw Daniel under the Persian Empire. to the fire, they'd throw them instead to the lions, because they didn't care about lions, but they worshipped fire, and you didn't want to do anything that would be a sacrilege like throw them into fire.

Okay, here is the big difference, and it's not on the screen, so you might want to take note. One of the basic precepts of Zoroastrianism is that it's the most reprehensible thing possible to take somebody from the land that they're from and move them somewhere else.

Isn't that amazing? I mean, we think of what are some of the main things of Christianity and we'd recite, you know, Christ died and to them, one of the things that they would recite as one of their primary tenets of their religion was you don't move people from the place that they came from.

How about that? So, the Babylonians moving people, guess what they thought of that? They thought that was horrible! I mean, how could you be worse? To them that was, to use an equivalent term, to them that was satanic. They thought that was awful because they had an opposite being to their God and moving somebody from the country where they were from was one of the basic things you do not do.

So the Persians, they came in October 9th, one year, the very next year, began initiating proclamations. Go back to where you came from and we'll even help pay for it. Okay? Big difference. And it's a change of religion and a change of empire. Here you look at it and you say, well that isn't even the religion of the Old Testament. No, but God used it to impact the Jews, to send them back to the land. Okay.

Now, so this was one of the key things there. Now, Just to put it in our modern context, here's Pasir Garda and Persepolis. And then Susa, which is right off to the edge there. Susa is right near Basra. Remember hearing about that during the Iran-Iraq war? Not too far from Basra is where Susa is located. So those were kind of the capital city areas of Persia. And they would relocate it at different times. Susa is the name that you'll read in the Book of Esther. It'll be called Shushan. The Hebrews would pronounce things a little differently, but that's the place it is.

Okay. Now, here's Persepolis. There's actually a fair amount of it left, and so they've done quite a bit of excavation, and that's fairly orderly, even. This is Pasargadae, and this is the tomb of Cyrus. He is the one who said, go back. Go back to your country. Go back to your land. will restore you to the place where you should be and will even help you pay for it. And then this is an aerial photo of Susa. It's in black and white. One of the reasons I show the aerial photo is that this was the capital where Esther was Queen.

But interestingly enough, they've had problems in doing some of the excavation during the first Gulf War Some of Saddam's troops, shooting in the wrong place or something, they went and shot at it. So it kind of blew up a few things. It makes it a little tough to excavate when it's all blown to smithereens.

So, at any rate, interesting little piece of history there. Here are some of the foundations that are there. Some of them are in pretty good shape. pretty well assembled, even after all the centuries. And here's some of the wall relief and some of the painting. Some of the color has come off, but you can get the idea of what's being communicated there. And see this little hole in the foundation? As they dug down there, they found a tablet. And the translation of that tablet you've got on page four, the backside of your second sheet.

So you can read that at your leisure. That's the statement of, here's how I built it, and he tells where the different parts of the building came from. I got this wood here, and I got this gem here, and this gold here. And he basically gives the short story of how this place was built. So anyway, you've got that. You can read that if you have a chance to do so. So it started with that little hole, that little opening. All right, there it is, and I won't go through it now.

Now, we mentioned before a comparison between Babylon and Persia. Babylon worshipped lions and Persia worshipped fire. That's again a part of their worship of Ahura Mazda. Strange name, anyway. Then, they punished with fire in Daniel chapter 3, because that's a Babylonian thing to do, but punished with lions in Daniel chapter 6.

And finally, we pointed out in the last comparison, the ruler could change his decisions under the Babylonian empire's laws. The Persian empire, the ruler could not change the laws. That was, again, a change that came with the culture. It is a mindset. You don't go in and change laws. Well, you make a law, boy, it better stay, as opposed to the Babylonian mindset, the ruler doing anything he wants. Interesting. It's the idea that the principle matters enough that even the ruler can't change the principle. If he's going to make something law, it sticks. So that's why the ruler couldn't pull Daniel out of the lion's den, even though he wanted to. We went through this step here, and we'll carry it one step further.

Egypt needed to capture for slaves and defense, but they weren't really interested in just building this massive empire. The Assyrians wanted to relocate people, and that's why they had the Samaritans at a later point in time. And Babylonians wanted to keep people under their nose that they didn't trust and that they wanted to make sure were brainwashed as Babylonian. And finally, for Persia, Something different.

Imagine, where are the Jews here as this transition into the Persian culture takes place? Where are the Jews located? They're in Babylon, right? They're along the river. Think about it. They didn't just spend 60, 70 years in tents. What did they do? They built houses, or they moved into houses that were there. So they'd kind of gotten themselves established.

And now, the Persian ruler comes in and says, you can go home. He didn't force people home. That's another interesting thing, and again, it was comparatively merciful. He didn't force people home, but they said, if you wish to go home, please do, and we'll even help you.

It's a real different culture. But the Jews were situated here, which, keep that in mind when you look at some of the subsequent slides. The Persians would support present culture, but require payment, certainly they wanted taxes to pay for things. But they supported the present culture, even returning people, which is real, real different. We looked at that reason why about 50,000 of the, you know, maybe a couple million Jews went back, most of them stayed.

Why? That's where they built a home. That's where they'd gotten accustomed to being there. Their move to Babylon was forced. Their move back was not. So only those who really wanted to went back, at least initially. Okay. Here's kind of the historical timeline. You've got a chart like this. And rather than keeping reproducing the chart, I keep using the same chart, but so you can track it once you've located it on page two. In 538 here, Cyrus decrees return of the Jews. That was the year after They had come in and taken over from the Babylonians. The takeover of the Babylonians was recorded in Daniel chapter 5. Remember, that's where he says, that is, weighed, weighed, and found wanting. And Daniel tells them what this means. It's the finger of God writing on the wall. The handwriting on the wall is our terminology or phrase that we've developed from that.

So now, the very next year, 538 BC, is when Cyrus comes in and says, the Jews, whoever wish to, may return, and I will help pay for the process, plus give you some extra spending money on top of that. So here's the Cyrus cylinder. The cylinder has been found. It is not the one that explicitly mentions the Jews, but is a similar kind of command. We've got a portion of it And we'll look at here, Isaiah 44, 28, written over a century before, says that this fellow Cyrus will send them back. How about that? Referring to the walls in the temple. Here are the contents of the Cyrus Cylinder. It's not all of them, but it's a good portion of them. And you've got it there, I won't read through it.

But it tells of other countries. other peoples, other places that had similar kinds of restoration commands. So the contents of what you see recorded in scripture is exactly parallel to this kind of statement and just consistent with the rest of what we know of the Zoroastrian belief that the Persians brought in. This quote from Ezra. is the quote that tells about Cyrus saying, OK, you Jews, you can go back and here's your particular specifics and accommodations. Here's how we'll support you. Here's the funding that we'll help give you, et cetera.

OK, so here's the first return from exile to rebuild the temple. Here's roughly 50,000 Jews saying, yeah, we'll volunteer to go back. We'll go back there. And with the support of the Persian Empire, that's exactly what they did. head right back to Jerusalem. Now, they came from Babylon, the order came from the capital to the east there, and then the other major cities.

Okay, the Temple in Jerusalem is completed in 515. So they're working on this thing. Okay. Good morning. Hey, feel free to grab the handout so you don't miss that. and there's two underneath if you want to catch up on some prior weeks. So here's the temple in Jerusalem completed. It's amazing, it records that when they got the temple completed there were simultaneously cheers and boo-hoo's because the people who had seen the prior temple cried and the people who hadn't cheered. So at the same time you have this mixed response to the temple being completed and presented to the people there.

Ahasuerus, one of the things you'll encounter is that the Hebrew, especially our anglicized version of it, pronunciation of the names is different. For example, Susa, you'll see in the Bible as Shushan. Ahasuerus, we have as Xerxes. Again, because in different languages you have difficulty pronouncing things, so it comes across differently.

It's just that we're accustomed to things being a little more updated, but the very earliest versions of the manuals, for example, for Toyotas, talked about adjusting the blakes. And the reason it did it, that's the way the Japanese folks take the R over into our language, and it's adjust the blakes, not the brakes. So, anyway, it's that kind of thing. It's the inability to pronounce it exactly the way they say things, and so they carry it over into something similar.

Close enough, right? So Ahasuerus would be otherwise Xerxes. Some Jew of that time to pronounce Xerxes and it would come out Ahasuerus. So, anyway. Okay. Now, here's a Xerxes tablet. And so here's Xerxes records and it's fairly well preserved. You see that they can, you know, it's not all chipped up and busted or anything else. Fairly well preserved. And so this guy's a real fella, you know, real history, real time. And it was best they can put the pieces together.

It was probably after some major losses to the Greeks that Xerxes came back and Esther was made queen of Persia. Okay. So you put that in the sequence there. Now, not too long after that, in historical comparison, Ezra goes... Oh boy, I did it again. I'm going to fix this thing. There we go.

Esther and Mordecai in Susa. Susa was the capital that you see recorded there at that point in time. is centered around there. The entire empire is involved. If you're familiar with the account, Haman, who was anti-Semitic against the Jews, was seeking to have them all done in. So you see this kind of dramatic interaction involving Esther and Mordecai. The Jewish Feast of Purim is based on this event. It's interesting, the Jews, no matter what happens, they have a feast, you know. Hey, let's eat about it. Okay. All right.

And then, so here's Ezra. Ezra, after that, goes to Jerusalem, and he leaves from Babylon. And it's interesting, as you see this, you see things happening in Susa, things happening in Persepolis, and, you know, Pasargidae, and you see departures from Babylon. So, one of the things that happens is in the Persian Empire, the biblical accounts, things come from different places because the Jews are starting to get scattered and as they reassemble towards Israel and Jerusalem, they have to come from different places to do so. Okay, so here's Ezra who is going back again with, even though it's a later king, support based on the perspective, the mindset of the Persians, which is if those people want to go back to where they came from, by all means, They should do it, if they believe in Zoroastrianism at all, they're going to support that, because that would be a basic thing. Okay? Now, finally, Nehemiah goes to Jerusalem there in 444. Real easy number to remember, right? Remember 4? Nehemiah? You got it. 444. All right? 4BC, Nehemiah goes back to Jerusalem. He goes, not from Babylon, but from Susa. And the reason we mention that, he became the king's cup bearer, not to us. You know, we've got titles, you know, cup bearer, what kind of official is that? It's more than a guy sits there and holds a cup.

It typically had to do with, you know, this is making sure the king's food is safe and it's sort of a secret confidant. It's somebody the king trusts. Okay? So it's a position of much more authority and trust than the name would seem to carry. But anyway, Nehemiah was kind of lamenting. He says, I have in my heart a desire to go back. And the king says, well, by all means. Not only are you my trusted friend, but I most certainly in my heart of hearts believe that you should go back there if that's where you came from. So Nehemiah was sent back with the blessings of the king to go back and rebuild the walls. the temple had been rebuilt, but there's still no wall back around because that had been torn down as well.

So here is the wall. Now the dark line that you see, that's the modern wall. What we have there circled in red there for a portion of it in dashed lines, that's portions of the wall of Nehemiah that they've been able to trace. Here's the remaining section of the old wall, probably from Nehemiah's time. And you can see how they constructed it there. Here's an aerial view of the temple. And this would have areas where the archaeologists, as they're digging, would find portions of the old wall from Nehemiah.

This is from 1979. Tragically enough, the Muslims have gone into some of these areas recently with just big bulldozers and hauled stuff, archaeological stuff, off to the dump. I mean, it's just been horrible. Nonetheless, they were able to excavate some portions of it.

Here's the Wailing Wall. See that portion off to the east there? So there's the Wailing Wall where you see even people gathered in the air photo. And this would be the Temple Mount area to the north end. And that area now has the Dome of the Rock, which is a Moslem building.

By the way, the rock has a indentation in it. that is set down into the rock. The rock is built into the ground. It's a big massive rock. And the dimensions of that indentation fit the dimensions of the Ark of the Covenant. Interesting. So the very dome of the rock may be preserving the rock that gives evidence that this was indeed a rock that was there holding the Ark of the Covenant. Interesting.

And then finally on the lower end, what you see in the bottom half is the excavations of the old city of David. These are portions that, as they've excavated down, they've found portions that belong to the time of David, even certain parts of the structure from when David was king over Jerusalem. And it would be along the kind of the eastern part there where Nehemiah's wall would still be evident in certain portions of it. All right. Here's something interesting, and you have this on your handout as well on page three.

And if you think about it, let's think about these different empires. You've got these different empires that the Jews have had an involvement with at each stage. And here's Egypt. Think of this, that the Lord saw fit to have at least one, if not more, Jews that had either a high-level position or the people responding and respecting, responding to and respecting in that pagan kingdom. Joseph, for example, was at one time second in command in Egypt. So here would be the first instance. Assyria, Jonah, reluctant though he was, he thought, good heavens, what on earth? I'm going to go and tell these people to repent and if they do, God will be merciful. That's the last thing I want, right?

But that's what happened, and it's interesting now that even you go into Nineveh, and as we mentioned in previous weeks, Nebi Yunus is considered the tomb of Jonah. Because it's a holy site, they won't let anybody excavate, so we can never confirm it. But even to today, it's called the tomb of Jonah. And it's even written of in the Koran. Very interesting. Yunus is the name in the Koran, just so you're aware of it.

Now, in Babylon you had Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. And I've used their Babylonian names because that's what is usually called out. But all those four had positions, and especially Daniel, in the Babylonian Empire. And then when you get into the Persian Empire, Daniel is transferred in and given a position of relative authority there. and Esther and Mordecai, and Nehemiah being the cupbearer.

So it's real interesting. You've got a series here of Jews who would be subjugated peoples, and yet the Lord had them have a prominent place in each one of these empires. Look at an interesting comparison. Joseph and Daniel, each of them having a position of fairly high level authority given in the empire. Can you see any other comparisons between one group and the other? You see any others that I missed here? Similarities between how they interacted? I lose you on that one?

One of the things that would be interesting here Daniel spoke out in the Persian Empire and was put into the lion's den. In the Babylonian Empire, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were put into the fiery furnace. Joseph stood his ground with Potiphar's wife and where did he end up? In a prison.

So it was interesting, you had several of them even though they had prominent positions at one point in time were either put in prison or put in for punishment and the punishment didn't work. Isn't that interesting? Anyway, interesting thing to think about that the Lord will bring these nations to bring discipline upon the Jews and at the same time at key moments place a Jew in a prominent position or a position of regard and respect among the people. Really interesting how the Lord works that way. Now, not only is there impact from the Persian Empire on the Old Testament, there's impact on the New Testament. We got any questions so far?

Okay, nobody's baffled, or at least they haven't said anything. Alright, our word paradise is from a Greek word which came to them from the Persians. Interesting, the interactions between the Greeks and the Persians. Paradesios in the Greek was originally a Persian word which meant pleasure garden and Luke 23 43 is one here's Jesus he's speaking to the thief on the cross and here's the first place for the word shows up here's Jesus he says to him that is the thief on the cross truly I say to you today you shall be with me in paradise what does Jesus mean we're going to go to a garden We're going to go to a park?

Probably not. He's meaning, today you will be with me in paradise, meaning you'll be with me in heaven. Interesting. He uses that word, the word that has a borrowing from the Persian language. It also shows up in 2 Corinthians 12 where Paul says, I was caught up into paradise. And finally, it shows up in the promises to the churches in Revelation, promising the believers a place in paradise. Interesting. So we have three different New Testament authors using the word, but only those three times does the word show up. But it's a Persian borrowed word. Here's another one.

Matthew 2, in a couple of months we'll see frequent reference to this. Matthew 2, 1 through 16, we read five times about some men called in the Greek, the Magoi. And in English we call them the wise men or the Magi. And what happened is Herodotus, the Greek historian, went over to the area around the old Persian Empire and talked to some of the people there. And there was a group of priests out of these people, the Medes. These were the ones who helped the Persians out of the north. And he said, what do you call those people? And they said, something like Magoi. And so he wrote that down. And that's the word that Luke uses to describe the wise men who come from the east. Again, it's a Persian borrow word that's been brought over into the Greek, apparently by Herodotus. And then Luke uses that same word.

I got something scrambled here, pardon me. The word paradesios shows up 28 times in the Greek Old Testament. I got a couple of slides scrambled, so my apologies. It was translated by the Jewish scholars in Alexandria about 250 BC. A review of those contexts indicates that the word typically refers to an earthly garden. So here's something interesting.

The Old Testament, and remember, here's after the Persians are gone, they're using the word. in the Greek Empire, okay? And here in the Greek translation of the Old Testament, translated about 250 BC, they're using this word paradesios about 28 times. But it appears, and I've gone through most of those contexts, not every single one. Most of the time, it appears, and it may be all, I just haven't looked at them all.

It appears to be just an earthly garden or park. But by the time it comes to the New Testament, all three times it's a reference to heaven. Isn't that interesting? So the word had kind of changed its use from an earthly garden or park to the New Testament usage where those three times that it's used, it appears in each case to be heaven. A reference to heaven. Okay. More Persian leaking through.

Matthew 541, this is called traditionally the Sermon on the Mount. Here's Jesus talking to the Jews. And where Jesus is speaking to the Jews, he says, whoever forces you to go one mile, go with him too. You've heard that? We have extra phrases in our English language. We'll talk about going the extra mile. And even people who aren't biblically minded will talk about going the extra mile, or at least understand what you mean. And that's where it comes from.

But here's the original source of it, this word milion, which sounds like our word million, but it isn't that, is a thousand paces of a Roman soldier, and they legally defined that 4854 feet, 4854 feet. So they said, okay, Roman soldier, a thousand paces. So that's how they would count off, you know, go with him a mile. How do you know what a mile is? All right, I got your stuff, soldier, let's count, okay? Because he could take them for a thousand paces. And then he'd say, okay, here it is. I'm done. I've done my legal obligation. And the Roman soldier couldn't force him to carry it any further. Okay?

Now, is there an application of that in the New Testament? Yes. What happened when Jesus could not carry his cross? Did the Roman soldiers carry it? No. Who carried it? Simon of Cyrene, right? application of this law. The Roman soldiers could say, hey, I don't want to carry that thing. It's all bloody and messy. You, you're carrying it. See that? So that's an application of this law in the Roman Empire.

And Jesus says, if he asked you to take whatever it is, and so the Roman soldier, whether it was a cross, whether it was his equipment, anything, he could force you to take it a mile. Jesus says, take it to a thousand paces. which also, by the way, is a possible clue as to how far away it was from where Jesus was originally sentenced to the cross. So a Roman soldier could require anyone to carry that burden. That practice was initially a Persian practice, because the Persians had royal mail. If you want anything else delivered, deliver it yourself. But if you want something that the king wants delivered, The people who were doing that could force other people to carry things for a certain distance. And so the Romans say, it's not a bad idea. And they picked it up and carried it as well. Real interesting.

Now, the main impacts of the Persian culture, and I don't have this on your handout, so you might want to make note of that, to provide for the return of Jews to their own land and for the reconstruction of Jerusalem's temple and walls, as we read at the end of the Old Testament. So this is a big impact from the Persian culture and a tremendous shift from what we saw from the Assyrians and the Babylonians. A huge shift to send them back to their land, not just eventually or later, but within the year of the time they conquered, the edict went out, just like that Cyrus cylinder we saw. That same kind of edict went out to the Jews. Go back to your land if you wish, and we'll even pay for it. to get things, not only a temple, but the walls reconstructed, and then to provide for words and practices which would remain into the New Testament era, coming to us via the Greek New Testament.

So I've given you some samples. The truth is there's a whole bunch of words and practices that come through, even though the Persians had been taken out of the picture. several centuries before, still by the New Testament era. You see those words continuing on, you see the practices continuing on, even though the Persians were gone as an empire well before the time of the New Testament. Okay, now, questions? Thoughts? Contemplations? Yes. Alexander the Great. Alexander the Great basically took over pretty much the same territory as the Persians. Okay, I don't have it on this map set.

The Parthians were kind of a follow-on group that You know, here's the Greeks. The Greeks came in and took over the Persian Empire. Well, the Greek Empire started to come apart right after Alexander died. And eventually the eastern portion of that empire was still held eventually by the Parthians. The Romans came and took up through Israel and Syria and in that area, but they didn't go farther east.

And so the Parthians Took the area from the eastern part of the Roman Empire over to India basically and they also carried on Zoroastrianism Okay, so and by the way, there's still Zoroastrian Believers around About 30,000 some odd in Iran still so it's a minority even even with the all the Islamic persecution that they endured for some time.

There's still some of them around. And there's even in some of the major cities, you know, Zoroastrian groups that still get together and whatnot. So they're still in existence. The Islamic invasions basically really pushed them out. But they continued on and continued to have influence in the Parthians. continued on with Zoroastrianism and the same idea. You don't transplant people. It's the same idea that the Persians had. They were a follow-on group. There was one more follow-on group that existed for about 200 or 300 years until the Muslims finally came into power.

Then after that, there were still Zoroastrians, but no more Zoroastrian slash Persian type empire or even a kingdom. Okay. Parthians, by the way, we're going to touch upon the Parthians when we get into the other cultures portion, because while they're not explicitly mentioned in the New Testament by name, there are several places where they crop up in terms of their influence.

One of the reasons we have Herod the Great in the New Testament is because the Romans 40 BC the Parthians came in and even captured Jerusalem. The Romans a few years later pushed them back out and they said, Herod, you're going to hold these guys out. It's your job. And they figured Herod was nasty enough he could do it, and he was. So never again did the Parthians come back into that territory as the Parthians.

All right, other questions? Yes, some more. Yeah, people of northern Iraq. Yeah, what's real interesting is they revere the tomb of Jonah and also Daniel's tomb. Those two places are holy sites. And the one in the tomb of Jonah is not so much, but the one of Daniel is even one where you go there and there's hotels and bed and breakfast around the place so they can accommodate people coming to visit the tomb of Daniel. Now, you ask the question, do they know why they revere these sites? I think some of it has quite likely developed a lot of mythology.

For example, the references in the Koran involve a certain amount of things that have been developed later. The Koran wasn't written until centuries after the New Testament was completed. And so it's evident a lot of time has gone on. And so you see some of that mythology showing up.

And I'm sure there's more of the same thing. Nonetheless, the mythology is based on a reality, and that's what you'll find true of a lot of myths. There's a reality from which the mythology develops, but there is a reality needed to start it, for it to begin, and that appears to be reflected even in the writings of the people there. So, yes, they have an understanding. It's probably a warped one. But nonetheless, it's based on something that's true.

And the biblical account, I believe, is the true account of what took place. Yeah. Other thoughts and questions? Yes. Here's the deal. That rock is supposedly the rock that Abraham offered Isaac. Okay. However, the Koran has it as Abraham offered Ishmael on that rock.

But then that whole account would have taken, because the Koran was written centuries after the New Testament, roughly six centuries. So the Koran has gotten a much later account. What would have been the case in the New Testament years, there is the temple. And this rock would have been in that temple area. And we don't have proof, but the circumstantial evidence seems to point to that that rock had been preserved through the times of when this didn't mean anything to the, okay, now we've got a temple on it, a Jewish temple, to now we've got the Dome of the Rock. And so the rock stays, what's built around it changes.

Okay? Yeah. All right, Dave. It's a massive piece of rock that I don't know if any like ultrasonic studies have been done or radar studies, subsurface radar. No, it does not appear to be anything that was moved in. It's massive. I haven't shown it here. Let me pull it next week. It's hard to get pictures inside because they don't let people just go in casually, but somebody managed to get some pictures and get them out. And so I can show you what I'm talking about.

But the rock appears to be massive, whether it's bedrock, I don't know, but a huge rock to the point where that's something that seems to have been there since the original building of the Dome of the Rock, and quite likely before, and not something either Nebuchadnezzar or the Romans moved. Yes. Oh, no, this is massive. Yes, this is a massive rock. You'll see it when I show you pictures.

This isn't something you're going to pick up. It would fit into the indentation, the kind of squarish indentation that is in the rock. It would be a jump of logic to say that's where it fit, that I don't want to go there, but just be careful. It would fit, so circumstantially it would point towards that's a possibility or a likelihood. Yeah, other questions? Yes. Oh, I love those questions. Go ahead.

Muhammad, real strange background, he married a wealthy lady, but also seemed to have his roots in sort of caravan looting. He robbed caravans and things of that sort, so kind of a scuzzy background. But anyway, he then had this experience where an angel, interesting, compare that to Galatians 1, an angel Gabriel gave him these revelations and By these revelations he wrote the Quran which was just the recitations, okay? And the Hadith is also a supplemental book. We hear less about but that's also valuable to them as well, so the Quran and the Hadith and He ended up taking a military approach, and the Koran has quotes in it. For example, it says of you and I, we're called people of the book.

It says of the Christians, fight them at every turn. Battle them whenever you can. I'm paraphrasing, but that's the basic message. And of course, that's what they're doing. They read that, and they say, well, of course I should fly airplanes into the Twin Towers.

And at any rate, Muhammad eventually started gaining some political military power as he carried this out. And upon his death, they sent military expeditions into all three continents. Indonesia now is mostly a Muslim nation and is way over to the east. It's a big country, 150 million people plus. Indonesia is mostly Muslim now because of that military invasion. North Africa has a lot of Muslim influence.

As a matter of fact, even now, areas that are formerly Christian, the Christians are being profusely persecuted, left and right. Last I heard, some places like 200 attacks a year, I mean with war planes and tanks and that kind of stuff on the Christians, defenseless Christians.

And then in Europe, Mohamed died 632 AD. By 732, the Europeans finally turned them around at Tours France. Charles Martel, Martel means hammer, Charles the Hammer, said, Christian Europe, good. Muslim Europe, bad. That was his campaign slogan. And they finally turned around the Muslim invasion in Tours France 100 years to the year after Mohammed's death.

Up until then, they just kept sweeping. You know, you've got the... What's the group that does the children's hospitals but has these little fezzes and all that? The Shriners? Yeah. I mean, they have these little red fezzes. You know why they have the red fezzes? That's because the Muslims went into Carthage And they killed tens of thousands of Christians and dipped their hats in the Christians' blood. So the Shriners are wearing monuments, if you will, to the death of Christians as they walk around in these decorations.

Interesting. It was a huge impact, and it impacts us even today. We look at it like, hey, we're supposed to go in and win this battle in Iraq in a year. Hey, that's not the perspective they've got. They say this is a centuries-long battle. Their intent is to wipe us out.

That's exactly what the Quran tells them to do. About 15% of the Islamic population is fundamentalist. Interesting. Christianity probably has some similar proportions. The rest of them have liberalized it so that they interpret it differently. But if you read it literally, it says, kill all the Christians and Jews. Kill them. And that's how the original Muslims understood it. And that's why they went out with the swords. Slaughter them. They'll either convert or die. Take your choice. You have two seconds. Maybe less. And that's the way they did it. Did I answer your question? That was quite an answer. Okay. Alright. Other questions? Yeah. Yeah.

Well, okay. To the east you get Indonesia. Then they head into North Africa, and of course you've got, you know, the countries on the north band are all Islamic. Right now they're going through the counties of Nigeria, and the northern part's Islamic, and they're just moving south. And, you know, hey, you're Christian? You know, you're dead. And that's the approach that they're taking, just military takeover. They've done Sudan and Ethiopia.

The Christians are on the south end. The Christians are being amazingly solid and valiant, but they're being slaughtered left and right. And especially pastors are targeted. You're a pastor, you're dead meat. Sometimes there's only one pastor for dozens of churches. So it can be a tough time. And that's where they're doing the, you know, the government will go in and do attacks on the Christians, come in with war planes and just strafe the Christian villages and that kind of thing.

It's a tough time. To us, the battle is a tough thing over there back in New York where this happened. It's a horrible thing. You can watch the movies now if you want and see it again. It's horrible. But it's happening every day in parts of the world. Except that there's no Twin Towers.

The Muslims have taken over the government. And so the Christians are largely in the South, and they'll just go into a village that's Christian and just strafe them. And they'll come in with tanks, and they'll surround the village, and they'll say, who's your pastor? They kill the pastor, and they kill the men, they marry off the women to Muslim husbands, and then they sell the children into slavery. And that's what they're doing to the Christians. You know, Sudan and Ethiopia has a similar kind of thing going on.

So it's a sad story. But again, this all stems back, this Bible history stuff is not irrelevant stuff at all. We are fighting that battle today. And people who do not understand the long, long history of this thing are going to make the wrong choices. They're going to make the wrong vote. Because they don't understand what's happening.

This isn't something you look at, hey, let's get this licked in a year and after that it'll just be a nuisance, right? No. This is something you better be ready to fight for centuries, fight hard, fight to the death, because they want you deader than a doornail. You're either going to be Muslim or you're going to be horse meat. You're going to be dead. That's the way they see it.

Okay? Anyway, other questions, thoughts? Dave? Yes. Nietzsche wrote a book called Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Nietzsche was the one who kind of championed the idea that God is dead. He was a philosopher of German background and writing many decades ago. But that's where the title came from for one of his books, Thus Spoke Zarathustra. I was drawing from his title.

Because that's where Zoroastrianism came from, Zarathustra, with some debatable origins. They estimate his origins from anywhere from 600 B.C. to about 2200 B.C., which would have made him a contemporary of Abraham. So the origins are that uncertain that they're still debating it. And you'll find people arguing for 600, 1500, and 2200. So you choose.

Anyway, that's without going into Nietzsche's philosophy, that's the quick intro. I just borrowed from his book title. Because he wrote Zarathustra is credited with the Avesta, which is the Zoroastrians name for their holy book. And he's the one that is credited for the religion that the Persians came in with that caused them to immediately say, Jews, go back home if you want. Not force them back home, but if you would like, you most certainly may, and here's some money to help you.

Which is very different from what the prior two empires did. Okay? Are we done? Are you done with me? Alright, let's break. Lord, thank you. We just see through the sweeping movements of history Certainly, the tragedy of man and man's condition is well evident, and yet we also see your hand and see you working mercifully and redemptively, and we see your sovereignty in it too. We thank you for this time and for the truths that you have laid before us. In Jesus' name, Amen.