Dear Bible Challenge readers,

Whether it was serendipity, or the sick sense of humor of a Biblically literate University Registrar, the Intro to Hebrew Bible class was numbered OT 721... 721 BCE (Before the Common Era, formerly BC...a courtesy to our Jewish brothers and sisters, among others) ...721 BCE is the year that the Northern Kingdom/Ephraim/Israel/Samaria fell to the Assyrians, the people of Israel deported to "Halah, in Gozan on the Habor River and in the towns of the Medes." "What year did the Assyrians conquer the Northern Kingdom" was one question we would have to try very hard to get incorrect on a quiz. (The upper level class about the Exile and Restoration was OT 587.... 587 BCE being the year the Southern Kingdom/Judah fell to the Babylonians... but I get ahead of myself...)

In our reading from 2 Kings today we hear the view of the Deuteronomistic Historian all over again: these hideously bad things happened because the kings of Israel walked in the ways of Jeroboam, worshiping the foreign gods and not being true to The Lord who brought them out of slavery in Egypt.  

We hear also how the Assyrians managed the people they conquered:  they rearranged them and resettled them in each other's lands of origin.  We hear also that the Lord expected the new residents of the Promised Land to follow his precepts...or get eaten by lions... and so the Assyrians sent along a priest to teach them what to do... And so we have the seeds of the people we would later know as the Samaritans, who were not ethnic Jews, but who worshiped the Lord, but then, not in Jerusalem...

We are nearing the end of Acts, and the adventure that was Paul's ministry. Note how Luke gets the gentile leaders off the hook, again, when "Agrippa said to Festus, "This man could have been set free if he had not appealed to Caesar."" And so Paul will be off on his last earthly voyage, to Rome... but it will be a wild ride...

Thank you, as ever, for being on this journey.

Paige+