RESCUE OF JERUSALEM-C

Beschreibung:

At the turn of the eighth century B.C., a mighty Assyrian army entered
Judah and fought its way to the very gates of Jerusalem, poised, the
prophet Isaiah warned, to "smash the city as easily as someone hurling a
clay pot against the wall." But the assault never came; instead, the
Assyrian army turned and fled, an event that has been called the
Deliverance of Jerusalem. Whereas biblical accounts attribute the
Assyrian retreat to divine intervention, journalist Henry Aubin offers
an explanation that is miraculous in its own light: the siege was broken
by the arrival of an army from Kushite Egypt--an army, that is, made up
of black Africans. These Kushites figured in historical texts, Aubin
continues, until the late 19th century, when racist scholars expunged
them from the record--a process that, Aubin observes, coincided with the
European conquest and colonization of Africa. The Kushite intervention
assured the survival of the Hebrew people, Aubin asserts, and it
deserves to be acknowledged anew. Well-written and carefully developed,
Aubin's argument will doubtless excite discussion.