On to Part 3 of the story of the Bible. If you haven’t read up to here, check out the first two chapters, below. I’m still on track to finish in 5 posts. Really.
Part 1
Part 2
When we left off, the Israelites had invaded the Land of Milk and Honey and set up shop with no leader but God. They had figured that the rules he’d given them would keep them in line, and the Judges appointed by God took care of any little problems that arose.
After about 350 years, the Israelites started looking for a leader. God wasn’t spending much face time with his chosen flock, and with conflict raging with their neighboring countries, the Israelites began to want a leader amongst themselves.
God heard this and understood, even though it pissed him off. After all, the flock didn’t seem to have much “faith” in him as leader – disconcerting, given his goal of training these humans to be the special ones who really got him.
So, God asked one of his prophets (Samuel) to officiate a sort of vote for king, and the Israelites chose Saul. Saul was popular, but not quite ready for the responsibility of a heading a religious government. He wasn’t even very partial to God, and was kind of a dick, when it came down to it.
Although he did a fairly decent job leading his people in defending their borders, it wasn’t long before Saul figured he was all the leader the Israelites needed, and he decided to ditch the whole paying respect to God thing. So, God got personally involved and chose an obedient and smart guy, David, to be the next king.
What followed was an operatic-in-scope epic civil war between David and Saul, consisting of war, deception, drama, and love worth any other three books. Seriously, someone should make a movie of this stuff – there’s great material there. It’s the Sopranos of the Bible.
Suffice it to say, David came out on top and became the shining example of a king who led his people both on their own level, and as an example of an obedient subject of God. He did screw up a few times, but took his punishments like a man.
Amongst David’s greatest achievements, he had a son, Solomon. Solomon was really, really smart. His intelligence made him massively popular. God was pretty happy at that point, so he had Solomon build a temple – a place to put the Ark and be focal point for his humans to remember to keep following God’s rules for paying proper respect. It seemed God’s plan was coming together.
Unfortunately, Solomon eventually deteriorated into loving his own power, too. He was quite satisfied with himself and forgot about paying respects to God. God basically stood at a distance, arms folded, shaking his head.
After Solomon, a series of other kings followed over about 200 years. Civil war broke out amongst the Israelites, and the country broke into two (Israel in the north, Judah in the south, including Jerusalem, the former capital of both). Generally, they all got worse and worse at behaving properly. Concerned with their own issues, they forgot the major point – pay respect to God, who is, after all, totally badass and the reason they were all there.
God continued to stand by and watch. He covered his face with his hand. All that work, down the shitter again.
But then, God came up with a plan. All the other humans, who God had let do as they pleased without him, had become fairly aggressive. Why not let them attack his special flock? Then, he’d take back the ones who managed to make it through the experience and still come back to him (that temple seemed like a good beacon to watch!).
Start musical montage (covering about 700 years)…
The Assyrian Empire (covered Iraq, Turkey, Syria, Jordan, Israel, and Egypt) attacked the northern kingdom, Israel, carting off most of the Israelites (let’s switch to “Jews” now – I’m sick of mistyping Israel as Isreal), who ended up in slavery.
Then the Babylonian Empire got powerful and conquered the Assyrian Empire (same territory, further down into Saudi Arabia). The Babylonians, led by Nebuchadnezzar, pummeled Judah until it, too, fell. They burned Jerusalem to the ground, including the Temple, and they carted off those Jews into slavery, too.
In the meantime, God whispered to prophets, like Elijah, saying that those who made it through this were in for a treat – some level of redemption from all their troubles.
Next, Cyrus the Great led the Persian Empire to take over the Babylonian Empire. (They came out of Iran, but took the rest, including into Greece – I’ll get to that in a second). Cyrus allowed the Jews under his control to go back to Israel/Judah (the “Holy Land”). Those that returned built a new Temple and continued to pay their respects to eternally-badass God.
Here’s where the movie 300 comes in. When the Persians tried to conquer Greece, they weren’t as successful as they had hoped. At the Battle of Thermopylae, Leonidas and his boys held off the Persians long enough for the Greek culture to evacuate Athens before the Persians invaded there, too.
As a result, the Greeks became a united nation and eventually, led by Alexander the Great, conquered the known world (every territory discussed so far and more), including the lands inhabited by the Jews.
Quickly after Alexander’s death, his empire started to weaken, and it eventually fell to the Roman Empire, which controlled the Holy Land up through the time of Jesus.
And oh, what a turn the story takes from there. Next time, I’ll start with commentary on the years of foreign occupation of the Holy Land, including the treatment of the Jews and God’s thoughts about the whole thing. Then, I’ll spend a disproportionately large time on J-Dawg, because the Bible does, and that’s the story I’m telling.
No comments:
Post a Comment