Sennacherib, IV Kings vs Prism

And it came to pass that night, that an angel of the Lord came, and slew in the camp of the Assyrians a hundred and eighty-five thousand. And when he arose early in the morning, he saw all the bodies of the dead And Sennacherib king of the Assyrians departing went away, and he returned and abode in Ninive And as he was worshipping in the temple of Nesroch his god, Adramelech and Sarasar his sons slew him with the sword, and they fled into the land of the Armenians, and Asarhaddon his son reigned in his stead
[4 Kings (2 Kings) 19:35-37]

FB: "The Sennacherib Prism, also referred to as the Taylor Prism"
https://www.facebook.com/groups/ancientsecrets/permalink/865282729066998/

Wiki cites this portion:

As for the king of Judah, Hezekiah, who had not submitted to my authority, I besieged and captured forty-six of his fortified cities, along with many smaller towns, taken in battle with my battering rams. ... I took as plunder 200,150 people, both small and great, male and female, along with a great number of animals including horses, mules, donkeys, camels, oxen, and sheep. As for Hezekiah, I shut him up like a caged bird in his royal city of Jerusalem. I then constructed a series of fortresses around him, and I did not allow anyone to come out of the city gates. His towns which I captured I gave to Mitinti, king of Ashdod; Padi, ruler of Ekron; and Silli-bel, king of Gaza.

DV

JL Sennacherib didn't siege Jerusalem and never lost 185,000. How so? Read his chronicles - next years he marched with his army to new wars.

JL

DV ,Sennacherib never had the opportunity to siege Jerusalem, his army was defeated by one angel before he had a chance! 2 Chronicles 32:21 provides the account. Isaiah 37:33-37 gives more details of the same account, verse 36:” And the angel of Jehovah proceeded to go forth and strike down a hundred and eighty- five thousand in the camp of the Assyrians. When the people rose up early in the morning, why ,there all of them were dead carcasses.” 2 Kings 19:35 provides a parallel account of the same event. Sennacherib was killed by his own son upon returning to Nineveh ,2 King 19: 36,37,Read it for yourself!

GA

JL : You are aware that the Bible is about 90% fiction/fantasy, aren't you?

First problem with the objection against the reliability of the Bible is, are we speaking of the same event, or were there two attacks?

Could Sennacherib have won round one not mentioned in the Bible and lost round two as per the Bible and not mentioned in his annals?

Second problem is presuming that secular rulers are honest and down to earth and just because Sennacherib was neither a Christian nor a Jew, that makes him a secular ruler. Rulers in this time, when writing of far-off exploits (far off from the capital) were capable of horrible bragging and lying to keep their populace (specifically in the capital) happy.

In politics and economics, a Potemkin village[a] is a construction (literal or figurative) whose purpose is to provide an external façade to a situation, to make people believe that the situation is better than it actually is.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potemkin_village

Pretty blatant example from Ancient Near East history is the Battle of Kadesh. Hittite and Egyptian rulers both claimed a decisive victory.

The battle is considered to have ended in a stalemate.

The wikipedian article Battle of Kadesh at this point cites Weir, William (2009). History's Greatest Lies. Fair Winds Press. In other words, it's modern scholars who conclude for a stalemate. Because they do not believe these ancient official accounts.

Third problem, as C. S. Lewis points out, Herodotus gives as general confirmation that Sennacherib suffered an inexplicable defeat, while giving an explanation that doesn't explain. C. S. Lewis comments* "mice don't behave that way" even if in poetry and fiction he went on to explore a vision of "what if they did?"

Fourth problem, DV seems to hail from the former East Bloc, which was quite as good at Potemkin villages as the previous Czarist régimes. I'm anonymising the names, but JL and GA both have English names, DV a Slavic one. In other words, the attacks on Biblical reliability are part of the Communist propaganda, and they are kind of a Potemkin village, as admitting the Bible was reliable could have entrained admitting Communism (in the political sense) was the Scarlet Beast.

Fifth problem, it is usually assumed that Assyrian chronology is fairly good, but it is not over the top to imagine a king could add years (for instance two after the campaign in Judah) in order to make his reign seem longer. Or in this case to make the situation of Hezechias in a cage seem longer. You see, they had no epoch, in the chronological sense. An epoch is an event you date from. Christians have dated Anno Mundi (before replacing it with BC) and with Anno Domini, creation and Christ serving as epochs. Greeks have dated since the Trojan War and then more systematically since the First Olympiad. Romans have dated since Rome founded the City. Egyptians and Babylonians had no such thing, and neither, I think, Hittites, Mycenaeans or Cretans of the Bronze age. He was free to lie, because no one was able to check against the number of the year.

On top of this, we do not know if he wrote it himself or it was written in his name.

On top of that, the cylinder is just six paragraphs long. And passionate brags at that.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
XXth LD after Pentecost
6.X.2024

* In Miracles, a Preliminary Study, if my memory serves right.