Iran (2)

Ok, I'll admit it: I'm a nerd. This video I saw the other night piqued my interest in several ways. One thing that always gets me is old stuff. Now, Iran, historically, is also known as Persia. Going further back it's also known as part of Mesopotamia. Also known as the Cradle of Civilization. AKA, the beginning of human civilization. Which I happen to think is pretty damn cool.

So, Rick Steves is touring 5 or 6 cities in Iran and filming his encounters with the inhabitants in each place. Two of the towns are built around magnificent palaces and/or mosques with are part of the empire's long history. Those are fascinating. But the coolest place he went to was completely uninhabited. It was a town called Persepolis. Actually, it wasn't so much a town, as it was the Palace of the King of Persia.



You can see that it covered quite a bit of ground. Those columns are wood. And their over 40 feet tall. And those don't appear to do something, they used to support giant spanning cedar beams which then in turn held up the roof. And those beams would have been carried there from someplace else, Lebanon perhaps? Carried. Not driven on a semi-truck. Dude.

Anyways, Steves was talking about the history of this palace. Darius, King of Persia ruled from here about 500BC. That's 2,500 years ago. For you bible historians, that's also the time that the Hebrew nation of Israel was conquered and carried off into a period of exile by (see above).

So, I guess what I was marveling at as Rick Steves wandered around the floor plan of Persepolis, was that we have no problem accepting that Darius, King of Persia existed, and presided over one of the greatest cultures in the history of human civilization. But if Darius, or his son Xerxes, or his grandson, Artaxerxes, walked among these collonades, history tells us that Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah very well may also have walked these stones. That gives me a little bit of perspective.

I suppose it's no different than going to Jerusalem, and walking the streets that Jesus, Peter, and Paul would have walked. Except that it's another 5 or 6 hundred years earlier in history. Except that people contest the life and records of Jesus constantly. Steves didn't even mention the prophets. Didn't even come up. I don't fault him for it. I only mention it because I personally find it to be such an incredibly mind-boggling piece of trivia, and it affirms in my mind what I have already taken to be true: that the God of the Bible has been working through a long history, delicately putting each piece in place to bring about a specific goal. A goal to save not to destroy. A goal to repair and not to destroy. A plan to prosper...and not to harm.

How do I fit into that plan? If the plan is so delicately made that it requires pieces to be moved on a daily basis for such a long, long time (as I understand long)? I mean Daniel was my age, or younger. And he probably didn't see himself as an icon of Jewish history. And yet history has borne him out as unforgettable to the ages. How amazing...does anyone understand that life is so far from futile?