-
A Lost Empire That Embarrassed Bible CriticsThe Watchtower—1993 | June 1
-
-
THE Greek historian Diodorus Siculus lived 2,000 years ago. Nineveh, he claimed, was a quadrangular city; the four sides totaled 480 stadia in length. That is a circumference of 60 miles [96 km]! The Bible gives a similar picture, describing Nineveh as a great city “with a walking distance of three days.”—Jonah 3:3.
Bible critics of the 19th century refused to believe that an unknown city of the ancient world could have been that large. They also said that if Nineveh ever existed, it must have been part of an ancient civilization that preceded Babylon.
-
-
A Lost Empire That Embarrassed Bible CriticsThe Watchtower—1993 | June 1
-
-
Meanwhile, another archaeologist, Austen Henry Layard, started digging up ruins at a place called Nimrud about 26 miles [42 km] southwest of Khorsabad. The ruins proved to be Calah—one of the four Assyrian cities mentioned at Genesis 10:11. Then, in 1849, Layard unearthed ruins of a massive palace at a place called Kuyunjik, between Calah and Khorsabad. The palace proved to be part of Nineveh. Between Khorsabad and Calah lie the ruins of other settlements, including a mound called Karamles. “If we take the four great mounds of Nimrúd [Calah], Koyunjik [Nineveh], Khorsabad, and Karamles, as the corners of a square,” observed Layard, “it will be found that its four sides correspond pretty accurately with the 480 stadia or 60 miles of the geographer, which make the three days’ journey of the prophet [Jonah].”
Evidently, then, Jonah included all these settlements as one “great city,” calling them by the name of the city listed first at Genesis 10:11, namely, Nineveh. The same is done today. For example, there is a difference between the original city of London and its suburbs, which make up what is sometimes termed “Greater London.”
-