Reformed Churchmen

We are Confessional Calvinists and a Prayer Book Church-people. In 2012, we remembered the 350th anniversary of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer; also, we remembered the 450th anniversary of John Jewel's sober, scholarly, and Reformed "An Apology of the Church of England." In 2013, we remembered the publication of the "Heidelberg Catechism" and the influence of Reformed theologians in England, including Heinrich Bullinger's Decades. For 2014: Tyndale's NT translation. For 2015, John Roger, Rowland Taylor and Bishop John Hooper's martyrdom, burned at the stakes. Books of the month. December 2014: Alan Jacob's "Book of Common Prayer" at: http://www.amazon.com/Book-Common-Prayer-Biography-Religious/dp/0691154813/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1417814005&sr=8-1&keywords=jacobs+book+of+common+prayer. January 2015: A.F. Pollard's "Thomas Cranmer and the English Reformation: 1489-1556" at: http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Cranmer-English-Reformation-1489-1556/dp/1592448658/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1420055574&sr=8-1&keywords=A.F.+Pollard+Cranmer. February 2015: Jaspar Ridley's "Thomas Cranmer" at: http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Cranmer-Jasper-Ridley/dp/0198212879/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1422892154&sr=8-1&keywords=jasper+ridley+cranmer&pebp=1422892151110&peasin=198212879

Tuesday, December 2, 2014

December 612 B.C. Decline of Neo-Assyrian Empire


December 612 B.C.  Decline of Neo-Assyrian Empire


Ngo, Robin.  “The Decline of the Neo-Assyrian Empire.”  Biblical Archaeology.  13 Nov 2014. http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/ancient-cultures/ancient-near-eastern-world/the-decline-of-the-neo-assyrian-empire/.  Accessed 13 Nov 2014.

The Decline of the Neo-Assyrian Empire


Did overpopulation and drought contribute to its collapse?


sargon-khorsabad

Assyrian King Sargon II (721–705 B.C.E.), holding the staff of kingship and wearing the royal conical crown, meets with a court official.

The mighty Neo-Assyrian Empire, which came to control the lands between the Mediterranean Sea and the Zagros Mountains as well as Egypt and part of Anatolia, collapsed at the end of the seventh century B.C.E. It is traditionally believed that the empire began to disintegrate due to a series of military conflicts as well as civil unrest. The destruction of the Assyrian capital Nineveh by a coalition of Babylonian and Median invaders in 612 B.C.E. marked the fall of the empire. A new study published in the scientific journal Climatic Change argues that a population boom and drought—two factors that have thus far been underexplored—may have contributed to the rapid demise of what some scholars consider the world’s first true empire.

The study, led by Adam W. Schneider of the University of California, San Diego, and Selim F. Adalı of Koç University, uses recently published paleoclimate data from various parts of the Near East as well as textual and archaeological evidence to suggest that the region experienced an episode of severe drought in the second half of the seventh century B.C.E. The Assyrian heartland had undergone a population explosion during the late eighth and early seventh centuries, largely due to the forced resettlement of conquered peoples into the empire. The researchers suggest that the major population growth may have greatly hindered the state’s ability to withstand the drought that plagued the region in the latter part of the seventh century.

“We strongly suspect that any economic damage inflicted upon the Assyrian Empire by drought would have served as a key stimulus for the increasing unrest which was to characterize its final decades,” Schneider and Adalı wrote in their paper.

“At a more global level,” the researchers caution, “the fate of the Assyrian Empire also teaches modern societies about the consequences of prioritizing policies intended to maximize short-term economic and political benefit over those which favor long-term economic security and risk mitigation.”




 From Babylon to Baghdad: Ancient Iraq and the Modern West examines the relationship between ancient Iraq and the origins of modern Western society. This free eBook, a collection of articles written by authoritative scholars, details some of the ways in which ancient Near Eastern civilizations have impressed themselves on Western culture. It examines the evolving relationship that modern scholarship has with this part of the world, and chronicles the present-day fight to preserve Iraq’s cultural heritage. 



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