“In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib king king of Assyrian all the fortified towns of Judah and captured them. Then Hezekiah king of sent this message to the king of Assyria at Lachish, ‘I have been at fault. Call off the attack, and I will submit to whatever you impose on me.’ The king of Assyria exacted three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold from Hezekiah king of Judah, and gave him all the silver in the Temple of Yahweh, and in the palace treasury. At which time Hezekiah stripped the facing from the leaves and jambs of the Temple of Yahweh, which an earlier king had put on, and gave it to the king of Assyria”—2 Kings 18:13-15 NJB

Prior to the 1800’s there were no extant artifacts of Assyria, its capital Nineveh, and its kings. Critics claimed the Bible’s mention of these were fiction, and the Bible was wrong.

“God will always be true even if no human being can be relied on”—Romans 3:4 NJB

In 1850 12 stone slabs were discovered in Sennacherib’s palace in Nineveh. The reliefs on these slabs were originally a single, continuous work, measuring 8 feet (2.4 m) tall by 80 feet (24.4 m) long, which wrapped around the room. They depict Sennacherib’s victory over the fortified town of Lachish in Judah.

The “story” begins on the far left, with the Assyrian vanguard carrying spears and shielding screens to protect the archers and sling-throwers behind them. The viewer gets the impression of a large body of troops moving in a dense wave over the terrain. Next we see the storming of the citadel, with siege engines climbing ramps to the city gate. The defending men of Judah hurl down stones and firebrands, while the Assyrians dowse their battering rams with water. Captives are led out of the first captured tower with three people from Judah impaled on stakes. Two more rows of captives (men, women and children) are led out of the defeated city. They are brought before Sen­nacherib to acknowledge him as their new sovereign before being deported to Assyria.

When these reliefs were originally dis­played in the palace room, foreign emis­saries and dignitaries awaiting an audience with the king would have been impressed not only by the magnitude of the artwork itself but also by the magnificent strength of the Assyrian war machine. Having viewed the fate of Lachish, visitors from other vassal states would presumably have been reluc­tant themselves to rebel.

These reliefs are some of the many archaeological evidences of the authenticity of God’s Word, the Bible. This stands in stark contrast to other “sacred” works such as The Book of Mormon and The Quran, which have no evidences of their authenticity.  “God will always be true even if no human can be relied on” (Romans 3:4 NJB). 

Although critics have tried and are still trying all the more so, to “prove” the Bible wrong, the fact is that:

“All flesh is like grass, and all its glory like the flower of the field; the grass withers, and the flower wilts; but the word of the Lord remains forever”—1 Peter 1:24,25 NAB

The Bible, God’s word, always wins!