The Bible In the News: The Royal Treatment

011

What do Sargon II, Nebuchadnezzar II and Cyrus the Great have in common? They all ruled ancient kingdoms (Assyria, Babylonia and Persia, respectively), appear in the Hebrew Bible, and—for our purposes—figure in popular culture as reflected in newspapers throughout the world.

Alas, none of them receives the “royal treatment” they were used to in their day. But, all and all, given the fact that they died more than 2,500 years ago, they’re not doing so badly.

Since Sargon, king of Assyria, is the oldest, we’ll look at his press references first. Well-enough known to be the namesake of some early chess-playing software (see, for instance, a Washington Post story dated December 7, 1978), Sargon II also merited mention by the British chief rabbi Jonathan Sacks (in a column in the London Times) as a successful ruler who “conquered many nations with strange tongues and incompatible speech and caused them all to accept a single voice.” And what other ancient monarch could be pictured as someone “who leapt from rock to rock like an ibex, then sat down on a rock and had a cold drink” (London’s Daily Telegraph)?

Alas, modern media do not allow Sargon to rest on such a lofty perch. A correspondent for the Irish Times speaks of the “famous winged bulls of King Sargon II [and similar artifacts that declared the monarch to be] lord of land, master of the skies, eternal emperor of the oceans …now forgotten everywhere but in the bright and sunlit rooms of the Louvre.”

The far better known but hardly revered (reviled is more like it!) Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar starts off with a popular culture advantage: As mentioned in an earlier column, he was one of the ancient monarchs who unknowingly bequeathed his name to large amounts of liquid (in his case, the equivalent of 20 bottles of champagne).

Here is part of an account from the Weekend Australian that features one of the best-known women in today’s world: Kate, the duchess of Cambridge. In christening a new ship, she “smashed a 15-litre Nebuchadnezzar of celebratory champagne against the ship’s hull.” A waste of good liquor, some might say, but all for a good cause.

Like other ancient monarchs, Nebuchadnezzar II has seen his ups and downs in today’s popular culture, but his ultimate indignity comes as a result of the research of Oxford scholar Stephanie Dalley, who snatches away one of his greatest achievements and one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, the so-called Hanging Gardens of Babylon. Dalley “thinks the engineering feat was achieved by Assyrian king Sennacherib [at Nineveh] in the seventh century B.C., not by Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II around 100 years later” (the Daily Mirror).

Cyrus the Great certainly deserves better. After all, he is spoken of as God’s anointed (Isaiah 45:1). Things start off very well indeed for him, as reported in the International Herald Tribune: “An ancient clay cylinder smaller than an American football journeys to the United States with a message of tolerance …This, of course, is the Cyrus Cylinder, which says that …Cyrus captured Babylon without a fight [and] repatriated deported people [including the Jews] living in Babylonian exile …It has been widely interpreted as the decree of an enlightened ruler.” This Persian monarch couldn’t have asked for better coverage even if his own press agent had written the story—which, in a way, is just what happened!

However, to paraphrase the ancient historian Herodotus (as it happens, in a section of his work devoted to Croesus): Count no one happy until you see how he/she fares at the hands of a sportswriter. Cyrus passes even this arduous test: “Ancient Babylon fell more swiftly to Cyrus the Persian, but the fall from grace has been far more painful for the Caribbean [West Indies cricket] team” (as reported in London’s Guardian). Cricket, the Caribbean, and Croesus—what more could Cyrus want?

What do Sargon II, Nebuchadnezzar II and Cyrus the Great have in common? They all ruled ancient kingdoms (Assyria, Babylonia and Persia, respectively), appear in the Hebrew Bible, and—for our purposes—figure in popular culture as reflected in newspapers throughout the world. Alas, none of them receives the “royal treatment” they were used to in their day. But, all and all, given the fact that they died more than 2,500 years ago, they’re not doing so badly. Since Sargon, king of Assyria, is the oldest, we’ll look at his press references first. Well-enough known to be the namesake of some […]