The Babylonian and Assyrian Christians

Anyone who has gone to church, read The Bible, or watched some TV ministers who preach the Bible and not pseudopsychology, have heard about the Babylonians especially and also of the Assyrians.

The ancient Babylonian and Assyrian empires were two superpowers of the Near East in the areas that are today parts of Turkey and Iraq. The Babylonians were situated mainly in what is now Iraq, while the Assyrian Empire was located in both areas. The Assyrians conquered the Israelite kingdom of Samaria in 721 BC. Nearly a century later the Assyrians were conquered by the Babylonians. The Babylonians went on to destroy what was left of the Israelite kingdom founded by David and Solomon. The kingdom of Judah was destroyed in 587 BC by the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar who had the entire population along with its' rulers deported and enslaved in Babylon.

The Babylonian and Assyrian empires were the two most feared empires of their day. Both were noted for their brutality. Both kingdoms were also notorious for their paganism. The prophet Jonah had such distaste for the Assyrians that when God sent him in a last ditched effort to get them to relinquish their idolatry and other gross practices, he flat refused to at first. The Assyrians of the time repented from their evil ways which held off their destruction for awhile from the Babylonians.

King Nebuchadnezzar was not only a great military leader of the Babylonians, he also had the vision of an architect. He was the builder of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. He intensely desired that the city of Babylon be made into the greatest city in the world. The Greek historian Herodotus wrote about the glory that was Babylon with its canals, waterways, magnificent buildings, and parks. The late President of Iraq Saddam Hussein admired the Babylonians so much that he had Babylon reconstructed and rebuilt the city's ruins.

Hundreds of years later, the Babylonians and Assyrians were some of first gentiles in the region to convert to Christianity. Today the Chaldean (or Babylonian), Assyrian, and Syriac Christians of Iraq are the descendants of the people who populated those ancient empires that are written about in the Old Testament. I also want to mention here that the Assyrians and the Syriacs are not related to the Syrian people. Neither group are Arabs. As I wrote about in my post on Friday, the communities of these Christians in Iraq are in danger of going extinct. The war has changed their situation for the worse. Riverbend who writes the blog Baghdad Burning and is exile with her family in Syria mentions briefly in this post a Christian family that lives in their apartment building. Many Christians have fled Iraq in the last few years.

Over time the ways and fortunes of people can change. In the centuries when the Babylonians and Assyrians did not or refused to know the one true God, who but God would have known that generations later, their children would be followers of Christ.

Today I found the video above which gives a brief history of the people and the culture of both groups.