The Cities That Built the Bible

by Dr. Robert Cargill

  Ivory furniture inlay from Megiddo depicting naked, circumcised prisoners of Semitic origin being led before a king on his throne. Image courtesy Israel Museum.

  And then there is the massive underground water system, which is perhaps the most impressive engineering achievement at Megiddo. Megiddo had a problem: it was a massive city at the top of a large tell, but its main water source—a cave hiding a spring to the southwest of the tell—is outside the city wall. Were the city ever put under enemy siege, the residents of Megiddo would not be able to get to their water, and this would lead to defeat. So instead of going to the water, the residents would bring the water to Megiddo. To do this, a monumental tunneling project was undertaken at Megiddo.

  Engineers dug a 80-foot-deep vertical shaft from the top of the tell down to the bedrock. (Today, the vertical shaft is covered with modern steel steps and handrails, so that you can descend into the dark, dank belly of the mountain.)

  A view of graduate student Cale Staley descending into the subterranean water system at Tel Megiddo.

  Meanwhile, the engineers sealed the outside entrance to the spring’s cave with a massive stone that would hide it from enemies seeking to tamper with the water supply. Then, engineers dug a 230-foot-long tunnel from the bottom of the vertical shaft toward the spring. Engineers at a later date would renovate the tunnel, sloping it slightly back toward the center of the tell, so that water from the spring would bubble into the tunnel and gravity would transport the water along the tunnel back toward the bottom of the vertical shaft. In this manner, Megiddo residents wouldn’t have to descend what are now 187 steps down the vertical shaft or leave the city just to get water for dinner. Instead, they could just lower a jar at the end of a rope down into the cistern.

  THE BATTLES OF MEGIDDO

  Megiddo’s rich archaeological finds and engineering feats reveal its complex history as a cultural center as well as the site of many battles. As mentioned earlier, the most famous reference to Megiddo comes to us from the New Testament book of Revelation, where a great apocalyptic battle “on the great day of God the Almighty” is said to take place at Armageddon. Nearly every great battle in the land variously known over time as Cana‘an, Israel, Judah, or Palestine has been fought in or near Megiddo, which protects a main crossroads in the Yizre‘’el (Jezreel) Valley, a natural passageway connecting the inland route of the Via Maris (or “Way of the Sea”) to the Mediterranean, making it a coveted strategic location. Located at the intersection of three continents (Asia, Europe, and Africa), the valley was extremely important to the ancient world, because whoever controlled Megiddo controlled the trade route between Egypt, Europe, and Mesopotamia.3 These preferred trade routes and the epic battles fought to secure (and tax) them have shaped the history of the Holy Land and are the reason that Megiddo has the reputation it does as a famous battlefield.

  The battles fought at and near Megiddo have decided local, regional, and national boundaries for four millennia. In 1479 BCE, Tuthmoses III battled against an uprising involving a coalition of local Cana‘anite rulers in the Battle of Megiddo. The coalition was led by the King of Qadesh (in modern western Syria near the border with Lebanon) and included the king of Megiddo. Egypt’s victory is recorded in hieroglyphics on the walls of the Temple of Amun-Re at Karnak in Upper Egypt. This battle is the best known and best documented of the many battles that took place at Megiddo prior to the presence of Israelites in Cana‘an.

  ISRAELITE BATTLES IN MEGIDDO

  Once they were established in Israel, the Israelites recorded many other battles involving Megiddo. One such battle was between the Hebrew prophetess Deborah, working with Baraq son of ’Abino‘am from Qedesh in the tribal lands of Naftali, and King Yabin of Ḥaṣor, which is recorded in Judges 4–5. The story tells how the Israelites were led to a victory by a woman, even after she warned the Israelite leader, “The road on which you are going will not lead to your glory, for the LORD will sell Sisera into the hand of a woman” (4:9).

  The story of Deborah also contains one of my favorite biblical stories-within-a-story, which involves another heroine, Ya‘el, who (inexplicably) seduces the leader of King Yabin’s army, Sisera’, into falling asleep in his tent with her. (I say “inexplicably,” because the text never mentions any sexual advances on Ya‘el’s part. But c’mon, how else are you going to get the general of the enemy’s army to take you into his tent and fall asleep?) Of course, after Ya‘el gives Sisera’ a little milk (that’s what Judg. 4:19 says—go read it yourself!) and gets him to fall asleep, she gets up, grabs a nearby hammer, and drives a tent peg through Sisera’’s temple, staking his head to the ground. (You can insert your own innuendo-based pun here.) Keeping with the biblical theme of women using the tools that God gave them to achieve their goals (e.g., Esther, Tamar, Rebecca, Ruth), Deborah and Ya‘el led the Israelites to victory using what they had: prophecy and some hammering in the bedroom.

  Another great battle at Megiddo was the one that took place in 922 BCE when Pharaoh Hedjkheperre Setepenre Shoshenq I (r. 943–922 BCE) campaigned in the Holy Land. Evidence of this battle is found in an inscription at the Bubastite Portal gate at Karnak, located to the southeast side within the precinct of Amun-Re temple complex. Most scholars agree that Pharaoh Shoshenq is one and the same as the pharaoh Shishak mentioned in 1 Kings 14:25–28.

  According to 1 Kings 14:25, “In the fifth year of King Rehoboam, King Shishak of Egypt came up against Jerusalem.” Whether Shoshenq actually came up and battled against Jerusalem and looted the Temple or whether he simply bypassed Jerusalem and campaigned against the cities to the west and north of Jerusalem is still debated among archaeologists.4 This is because although Megiddo and several other strategically important cities are listed in an inscription on the walls of the temple in Karnak as cities conquered by Pharaoh Shoshenq, Jerusalem is not listed among them. The only reference to Shishak’s conquest against Jerusalem is found in 1 Kings 14:25 and its parallel in 2 Chronicles 12:2–12.5

  What we do know is that Shoshenq battled at Megiddo, which is corroborated not only by the inscription at Karnak, but perhaps also by a fragment of a stele discovered at Megiddo.6 So although there will be continued debate about whether Shoshenq went up to fight against Jerusalem, there is little doubt that he battled at Megiddo, as it was strategically important to his control over trade into and out of Egypt.

  The Israelite military hero Gid‘on (Gideon) is also said to have fought a battle against the Midianites and the ‘Amaleqites in the Jezreel Valley. Judges 6:33 says, “Then all the Midianites and the Amalekites and the people of the east came together, and crossing the Jordan they encamped in the Valley of Jezreel.” So once again, we have a claim that Megiddo was the scene of a battle for the economic and political life of ancient Israel. Judges 7 tells the famous story in which YHWH argues with Gideon (who is there called Yerubba‘al) that he has too many soldiers, puts Gideon and his army through a series of tests to whittle it down from twenty-two thousand to three hundred (the other “three hundred,” not the Spartan three hundred), and with them defeats the Midianites and the ‘Amaleqites.

  But not everything goes well for Israel at Megiddo. Israel’s first king, Saul, is said to have died near Megiddo:

  The next day, when the Philistines came to strip the dead, they found Saul and his three sons fallen on Mount Gilboa. They cut off his head, stripped off his armor, and sent messengers throughout the land of the Philistines to carry the good news to the houses of their idols and to the people. They put his armor in the temple of Astarte; and they fastened his body to the wall of Beth-shan. (1 Sam. 31:8–10)

  Mt. Gilboa is at the eastern end of the Jezreel Valley. It was here that the Bible says Saul and his sons, Jonathan, ’Abinadab, and Malki-shu‘a, all died (1 Sam. 31:2). Even if you interpret Saul’s death as the fulfillment of prophecy allowing David to ascend to the throne of Israel without having been the one to have killed Saul, the fact that Saul dies in the Jezreel Valley only augments the legend of Me
giddo as the place where all significant battles in Israel take place.

  In fact, this perception of Megiddo continues to snowball. King Jehoram of Israel is killed in the Jezreel Valley in a coup d’état by his general, Jehu’, who became king in his place (2 Kings 8:28–9:24). This same usurping Jehu’ then orders King ’Aḥazyah (Aḥaziah) of Judah to be shot, and Aḥaziah flees to Megiddo, where he dies (9:27). Jehu’ then orders that Queen ’Izebel (Jezebel) of Israel be tossed out of the palace window in Jezreel near Megiddo, where the horses trample her dead body (9:30–33). In fact, Megiddo’s bloody history and strategic importance became so well known throughout the region that it became the administrative center for the Assyrian-controlled province of Samaria under King Tiglath-pileser III from about 745 to 727 BCE.

  The final recorded biblical battle at Megiddo—the one that really cemented it as the place where all major battles take place—was the death of “faithful” King Josiah, recorded in 2 Kings 23:29–30 (almost as an afterthought) and retold and expanded (with a few theological apologies added) in 2 Chronicles 35:20–24. It is here at Megiddo that Josiah is said to have died in battle against Pharaoh Neko II in 609 BCE, resulting in the loss of what the Bible considers the last of the great kings of Judah.

  MEGIDDO IN REVELATION

  It is this history of warfare that took place in the valley below Megiddo that is responsible for so many sections of the Hebrew Bible in Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles, and it is with this history in mind that we can perhaps understand Megiddo’s most famous reference in the New Testament book of Revelation. It should come as no surprise that when John of Patmos wished to record his vision of a great apocalyptic battle between good and evil, he chose the location of Har Megiddo to symbolize this final apocalyptic battle: “And they assembled them at the place that in Hebrew is called Harmagedon” (Rev. 16:16). When we read the verses about the sixth angel’s “bowl of wrath,” the assembly of “the kings of the whole world” for battle on “the great day of God the Almighty” at “Harmagedon” (16:12–16) makes far more sense, once we understand that Har Megiddo was the obvious choice for a metaphor symbolizing a final apocalyptic battle.

  Every culture has its own Armageddon. For the Greeks, it was Thermopylae, the great last stand of King Leonidas’s three hundred Spartans during the Greco-Persian Wars, made famous by director Zack Snyder and, I’m told, my doppelgänger, Gerard Butler, in the movie 300. For the Native American tribes of the Lakota, northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho, it was the Battle of the Little Bighorn, commonly known today as “Custer’s Last Stand,” in which the combined Native American forces in eastern Montana Territory claimed an overwhelming victory over the U.S. 7th Cavalry Regiment during the Great Sioux War of 1876. For the colonists of the Texas Revolution, the metaphor might be “Remember the Alamo” and the famous battle fought there in 1836, when about two hundred Texan soldiers were killed by the Mexican army following a siege of the historic mission. And of course, Napoléon Bonaparte had his “Waterloo” in 1815, when the French army under his command was soundly defeated by the armies of the Seventh Coalition, thereby ending Napoléon’s reign as “Emperor of the French.”

  Ancient Jews understood the name “Har Megiddo” in the same way various groups throughout history understood the symbolic names Thermopylae, Little Bighorn, the Alamo, or Waterloo—as a great battle. Even modern battles perpetuate the legend of Megiddo as the mother of all battle sites. In fact, in 1918, British Field Marshal Edmund Henry Hynman Allenby was named 1st Viscount Allenby of Megiddo for his work leading the Egyptian Expeditionary Force (EEF) during the Sinai and Palestine Campaign. Think about that. He conquered Jerusalem, but he wanted the title of “Lord of Megiddo,” because at the end of the day, he was a soldier, and Megiddo is the place where the real battles are fought and won.

  THE LEGACY OF MEGIDDO

  To Jewish Christians in the first two centuries CE, Armageddon needed no explanation; they knew precisely what it meant. The reference to Megiddo in the book of Revelation meant that despite everything that was going on—the oppression, persecution, and hopelessness Christians were experiencing on earth—behind the scenes there was about to be one final battle at Har Megiddo, on the Great Day of God the Almighty, in which good would overcome evil, God would be victorious over the forces of Satan, and all would be made well. Indeed, this message that God would ultimately be victorious over death is the overarching theme of the New Testament, and Megiddo is the symbol of that great victory that inspired early Christians to write down the traditions of their faith and inspires all Christians since then to keep the faith until God returns.

  CHAPTER 6

  Athens

  We would not have Judaism as we know it without hellenization. Hellenization is the word used to describe the influence of Greek philosophy, religion, language, rhetoric, and culture on Judaism. Along with Mesopotamian, Cana‘anite, and Persian religious traditions, Greek religion and thought made Judaism what it is today, and Greek thought is rooted in Athens. Thus, Athens is of great importance to the Bible. Its thought and culture were spread, along with the Hellenistic empire of Alexander the Great, to the far reaches of the eastern Mediterranean, including the Holy Land, and subsequently inspired the philosophical vehicles that would transform and carry the Jewish and later Christian messages to the greater Western world.

  It was during the Hellenistic period (332–167 BCE) that Greek philosophy and religious thought most heavily influenced Judaism, splintering Jewish religion into various Jewish sects and expanding the traditional Jewish focus on righteousness in this world to include eternal life in the next. And when Christianity, which further incorporated Greek philosophy and religious thought, arose, it was well suited for adoption by other Western cultures—most importantly Rome—that were predisposed to accept systems of thought that were rooted in Athens. Therefore, Athens is a city that greatly influenced the Bible for both Jews and Christians, as it transformed how their religions were practiced.

  CLIMBING THE ACROPOLIS

  In many ways, the Acropolis of Athens is not ancient, but rather new and improved. The city of Athens, which is famous for all things ancient, needed many improvements to its infrastructure in preparation for the 2004 Summer Olympics. On a trip there last year, my wife, Roslyn, and I walked on a nearly freezing winter morning past the new Acropolis Museum, which opened in 2009. This is where the Elgin Marbles—the marble statuary taken from the Parthenon and other Acropolis buildings to London by Thomas Bruce, Seventh Earl of Elgin, between 1801 and 1805—will be housed if and when the British Museum ever repatriates the Acropolis artwork to Athens.1

  As we wound our way to the top of the Acropolis, I couldn’t help but think about how much the classical works of Greek literature, Greek history, Greek philosophy, and Greek religion all shaped what today we call “Western culture” and how all of that began here in the shadow of the Acropolis of Athens. The temples of this complex were both products of and the inspiration behind the thoughts and reflections upon our human experience in the world that propelled us intellectually to what we’ve become today. All of the debates in which we engage today about the existence and nature of God (or gods), fate and free will, ethics, politics, economics, emotions—all of it!—have already been conceived, discussed, wrestled with, and written down here. The very mountain that my wife and I were ascending symbolized the best of human civilization and intellectual development.

  The Parthenon atop the Acropolis of Athens.

  As we reached the top, we turned and looked out over the sprawling city of Athens, nestled between the Aegean Sea and us, and I exclaimed, “Wow! The pagan world was really amazing. It gave us so much!”

  Roslyn took one large step back away from me and looked toward the sky, awaiting the lightning bolt.

  I looked down to the foot of the Acropolis and saw another outcropping of rock: the Areopagus, the rock of Ares. My mind wandered to Acts 17 and Paul’s sermon there. As I blocked the biting cold of the
wind from my mind, I simultaneously felt small, and yet strangely proud. I felt small because I realized that Ecclesiastes 1:9 is correct: there truly is nothing new under the sun; every innovative, original, creative thought I had ever had had actually been thought before, and I was just the latest enlightened soul to think it. And yet I felt proud, because in a very real way I had just taken my rightful place in history as the latest in a long line of individuals who have stood on this very outcropping of rock and have been inspired to think great thoughts and do great deeds. In a very odd way, it was truly a religious experience (and I’m not saying that because several shrines to pagan gods were casting shadows on me). Rather, as I experienced the history of Athens, I became a part of it, and becoming part of the history of a special place or event is a life-changing experience that can inspire one to do wise, courageous, and amazing things. This is how travel inspires us. This is why I do what I do for a living.

  THE HISTORY OF ATHENS

  Athens is named after the Athena, virgin goddess of wisdom, courage, strength, justice, strategic warfare (as opposed to her brother, Ares, the bloodthirsty god of violent war), mathematics, arts, crafts, and Athenian culture in general. Athena is said to live atop Mt. Olympus, the tallest mountain in Greece. As we saw with the Ugaritic deities, who resided on top of a mountain, Mt. Ṣafon (Chapter 3), members of the Greek pantheon were said to dwell atop Mt. Olympus, overseen by Zeus, the king of the gods. Most important for us, because Athena is the patron deity of the city of Athens and the goddess of wisdom, law, and justice, she came to be worshipped as the patron deity of philosophy.