The Inside Assyria Discussion Forum #5

=> Flattering Us

Flattering Us
Posted by pancho (Guest) - Wednesday, January 9 2008, 21:28:37 (CET)
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One of the puzzles about Euro Christian support for the idea that Nestorians were direct descendants of the ancient Assyrians is how negatively the ancients were portrayed in the bible all those centuries before Layard dug in Iraq. Why would anyone be proud to be connected to such savage barbarians as the bible world believed the Assyrians to be? Why would Nestorians want it? Why would any Euros support it?

I think partly it’s an evangelical thing. Everyone knew that the ancient Assyrians and Babylonians had magnificent empires in their day. How flattering to Christian prophesy if the descendants of those people saw the “truth”…realizing that their god was a devil god and coming over to sweet Jesus. The value in the ancient heritage, to evangelicals, was the magnificent sacrifice it made on the altar of yahwe. One always brags about taming a ferocious lion…not a rabbit. It was a great big “plus” for evangelicals, Euros especially, to believe these humbled villagers were once the mighty and proud Assyrians of old…reduced to subsistence but LOVING it because now at least they were onto the TRUE religion. They would reject the idea that any Assyrians converted to Islam for they rated Islam as even worse then the Eastern Christian sects they sought to save.

The Nestorians were far more valuable if people believed they were direct descendants of those grand barbarians who’d gladly traded gilded chariots and palaces for humble churches and hovels…at the command of Jesus and for his sake. As plain old Christians they weren’t as dramatic an example of the “might of Jesus”.

We have a long history of being taken in by flattery from those we consider superior, which covers just about any Westerner who wears shoes. We saw how thrilled they were to believe we were the children of Ashurbanipal and took up the cry gladly…especially when we thought they might give us an “Assyria” as well.



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