Can you believe the Bible? And does it really matter? How can you be sure that the Bible is all it's cracked up to be? Join David Curry, a pastor, author and worldwide traveler, as he shares his knowledge of many biblical places throughout the Middle East. He will take you on a journey through numerous archaeological finds that prove the validity of the biblical narrative, showing that you can believe what many have rejected. Welcome to the biblical wonders in the Middle East.
Here is your host, Pastor David Curry. I'm glad you've joined our program today. The first one we're going to deal with is Persia.
You know, the Persian kings were very wealthy and they ruled much of the world from 538 BC to about 330 BC. So that is 330 years before Christ. The Persians were a great kingdom.
Several of their illustrious kings are mentioned in the Bible. My first visit of many visits to the Bible wonders of the Middle East commenced with a visit to Persia. It's known as Iran today.
I travelled at that time with another pastor. This was during the final days of the last shah, Muhammad Riza Pavlevi. In fact we saw him in a motor car in Tehran, the capital.
The people were all out with flags to fly as he was going by. He was not really a popular shah, though he was much more so than his cruel father. One of the first places we visited was the Malley bank.
You go down steps to a basement inside the bank and when you come to the bottom there are big stainless steel doors. They're about 300 mm or 1ft thick. If anybody broke a glass window in the bank or tried to steal any of the jewels, the doors would automatically close down.
The crown jewels were fabulous beautiful diamonds. In fact some of the largest diamonds in the world. Rubies and many other precious stones.
These are adorning crowns, necklaces for queens, bracelets, swords and sheaves studded with diamonds and rubies. Just beautiful to look at. I was amazed at how much there was there.
But of course the Persian kingdom is a very old kingdom and goes for over 2500 years out on the streets. There is one thing entirely different from Australia, the fact that butchers displayed their meats out on the streets where the flies and dust and so on can gather on them. But I discovered this wasn't only in Iran, but all over the Middle East.
Not far away from the Merli Bank and the crown Jewels, is what is known as the Galestan Palace. It's a very beautiful palace adorned with exotic furniture. And I noticed there that there were presents from Napoleon, Queen Victoria, Kaiser William and many others.
The famous diamond and ruby studded peacock throne is also in that palace. Of course today it's a museum. Nobody lives there anymore.
About 500 km from Tehran in the Zagros mountains, is what is known as the Bahistan rock. It is probably 100 meters up a cliff from the road and was chiseled out of the hard rock around about 450 years before Christ. So this inscription is very old.
It was written in three languages babylonian, Elamite and the Old Persian. These were in Cuneiform writing, and until Sir Henry Rollinson was able to decipher them, nobody could read cuneiform writing. But it does help us to understand the extent of the Persian empire with these three languages.
It describes the victories of Darius the Great, also mentioned in the Bible. Sir Henry Rawlinson saw this and started to work on translations. And then there was a big problem between the British and the Iran governments.
But he was able to come back again, and this time he took impressions of the whole inscription. And with several other people he was able to decipher the whole of the inscription. His work has enabled archaeologists to also translate other cuneiform writings throughout the Middle East.
And in another program we'll talk about more of those. Well, we had to leave Tehran early in the morning to catch a plane to the beautiful city of Isfahan. When we booked in at the Airways counter, we were told that the plane had already gone and there were no more until the next morning.
Why, this is the time that we had in our ticket. Ah, yes, but we've changed to the summer timetable. Well, what time does the plane leave in summer? It leaves at 730, and we were there well before 730, but they said it's still gone.
And while we were talking to them, six men dealing with oil from Texas came up and said, when is our plane leaving? They had already put their luggage on the plane, but the plane had left. And with only one plane a day, we couldn't really stop in Tehran. We had to go.
And so we decided to take a bus journey. And believe it or not, the Airways paid for our bus journey, about $13. I suppose there were some advantages in this in that we could see more of the Persian countryside.
When we came into Hisfahan the next day, it was a very beautiful place and some of the most beautiful mosques in the world are here. And there's one called Masjid Shah Mosque. It had beautiful tile work on it.
In fact, I took a number of pictures of this glistening tile work. Inside there's a great dome. In fact, the Persians were known for these large domes, some of the largest freestanding domes in the world.
And in this big dome of the Shah Mosque, you can clap your hands inside and it echoes around the dome something like seven times. Ispahan is also known for the place where people are taught how to make Persian carpets. I tried to purchase a carpet.
I thought, I'd like to take one home to my wife. Just a small one. I couldn't afford a big one, but maybe about a meter by half a meter.
And I went into a shop with so many carpets in it, and I inquired how much the carpet that I wanted would be, and they said, oh, this is $200. Well, $200 back there was a lot of money, so I decided not to go and get that one. But I remembered seeing a second hand carpet shop down the road.
I went down there, found the shop again, and I saw a similar carpet to the one that I liked back in the new carpet shop. I said, Them, how much is this carpet? They said it's $400. I said, $400.
I've just seen a new one for $200. Or they said, you don't understand Persian carpets. The older these carpets are, the more expensive they become.
$400. It's still there, as far as I know, in the shop. Our hotel in this pahan cost only 600 riles for the two of us.
That's about two Australian dollars each. That night we caught the plane to Shiraz, the southernmost city of Persia. We arrived at about 11:00, and by the time we got into bed, it was about 01:00 in the morning.
At 04:00 A.m., prayers were being said, and there was a car just outside our window with large speakers on it. At 04:00 a.m.
Can you imagine bursting out with the prayers to Muhammad? Well, about 06:00, we caught a taxi to the Valley of the Kings. We had a few kilometers to go, and it was a very good road. But on the way, we saw some families with donkeys loaded with Persian carpets and tents.
We came to the Valley of the Kings. And this is a great cliff face with a number of tombs that you can see quite easily. The first tomb that we came to was that of Darius the Great.
And in front of the tomb down near the road, was a wall, and on this wall was a relief with Darius on a horseback. Darius is mentioned a number of times in the Bible. In Ezra six, he made a decree for the Jews to go back to Israel.
In fact, it was the first of three decrees mentioned in Ezra. Nearby is the tomb of Ahasuerus. You may recall that Ahasuerus was famous in the story of Queen Esther the Book.
Also in the Bible with her name, ahesuerus was in a drunken feast with his lords. And during this time he called in his beautiful wife Bashtai, but she refused to come. And this caused a real dilemma for the Persians.
And they decided that she could no longer be the queen and that the King Ahazuerus could find a new bride from all the great country of Persia. Well, he liked this idea, and finally he chose Esther. And of course, she is well known for saving the Jews in her country, not among these tombs on the Valley of the Kings was the Cyrus the Great.
Why because several more miles we had to go to Parsagade. Pasagade was made the capital by Cyrus, the capital of the archimedean empire. That was about 550 years before Christ.
Well, he was a great builder and today Pasagadae is a herited site. It was built by Cyrus. And you go around and you can see what beautiful buildings that he built because many of them are almost silver complete.
But there's an interesting prophecy in Isaiah 44 28. Now I want you to notice that this prophecy was written at least 200 years before Cyrus was even born. And this is what it says who says of Cyrus, he is my shepherd and he shall perform all of my pleasure, saying to Jerusalem you shall be built, and to the temple your foundation shall be laid.
This in Isaiah was written, as I said before, at least 200 years before Cyrus. And it's been fulfilled. Exactly.
It's just one of those things that gives great confidence in God's word. But we will share many more amazing predictions in these presentations. The famous ruins of the summer palace of the kings of Persia is at Persepolis.
It was a very well preserved site that the final Shah of Persia, which we, whom we mentioned earlier, brought in a great celebration in the 2500th year reign of the Persians. Dignitaries from all over the world came to this place and of course they titivated the place up, made it look very beautiful and clean. And it still is.
It is near the valley of the kings of Persia and we could get our first and good view of the complex after climbing to the top of one of the tombs of the kings. And this one was Artaxerxes II. As we looked over, we could see the hall of a hundred columns, the reliefs of some of the kings, and the whole layout helped to make this a very worthwhile visit.
Well, late in the afternoon we got back to Shiraz and on the way we saw the tents were put up by the families we had passed in the morning. And the floor of those tents were the carpets. It's amazing how they use these very expensive carpets on the dirt floors.
The marketplace in Shiraz is very old, but very well kept. You know, during your market, when you hear, particularly in the fish markets and vegetable markets, the noise of the battering of those who are trying to sell their goods, it's much quieter in the art areas and the carpet areas. And many of those Persian carpets were selling for thousands of dollars.
That's why I don't have one in my home today. The very next morning we traveled to Aberdan by Boeing seven two seven. It was Friday and everything was closed.
We hadn't realized how difficult it would be when we booked our passages, but here we were on Friday, and of course this is the holy day for the Muslims, but we needed to go across the Shattle Arab to Iraq. The Shattle Arab is the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. These large rivers have their source in the highlands of Armenia and then they travel down through Turkey, Iraq and then to the Persian Gulf.
Well, we had to find a small boat that would take us. And finally we found a captain who was willing to take us for about $3 across the Shattle Arab into Iraq. The whole of this area is covered with date palms.
Something like when you go to Greece and you see the whole area being covered by olives. Well, here most of the war that lasted for decades between Iran and Iraq was fought. I suppose one of the reasons was because of the many oil wells that are in the Shattle Arab.
I was just amazed at how many there were. Well, finally we arrived at the customs office for Iraq. There was nobody around, so I opened the door and there was a customs officer sleeping on a table.
I had to wake him up. He had a problem with our visas which at that time in Australia were stamped at the Egyptian consulate. After some arguing backwards and forth, he gave us the Iraqi stamp.
Well, we had to get from this customs place which was just opposite for Aberdan to get to Abazra. Well, there was one taxi there. It was an old Chev, and we arranged a price.
And into the taxi we got. We hadn't gone very long when it stopped and the taxi driver asked us to get out and push it. We did this, and after a while it started.
A little while later, it stopped again. We pushed again, and the third time it stopped. I got out with the driver and he put up the bonnet.
And I tell you, I've never seen so much wire holding an engine together. There was number eight wire and all the other wires in between holding various parts of the engine. Well, then we drove on and on one side of the road it was desert.
On the other side there were date palms and these were also surrounded by water canals. Of course, date palms need water and many of our dates in this country come from this part of the world. Well, we arrived eventually at Basra and we were going to be staying at a flat behind our church.
When we stopped, the driver of the car said he wanted more money because the trip had taken longer than he had anticipated and it would be fair if we gave him some more money. So I said to them, okay, you pay us for pushing the vehicle a number of times and we'll pay you the extra money. Well, he went away smiling.
We didn't have to pay any more money, and nor did he get any more money. The pastor of the church was there and he was ready to welcome us. And that night, my friend took a vesper service because we were worshipping on Sabbath.
And the following morning after Sabbath school, I took the service. There was no break between Sabbath school and church like we have in Australia or New Zealand or most other parts of the world. And there are a few visitors of the church from around Iraq.
Basra is a very hot place. It's one of the hottest cities in the world. And the bricks on the top of the church, a very well made church and a very nice looking church.
They were all crumpling because of the heat. Early in the morning before Sabbath school, we went down to the riverside and there were some of the Arab dows. These are the boats that they use for fishing and for carrying cargo up the Tigris or Rufrates rivers.
That evening, after sunset, we caught a train that would take us to Nazarene. Nazarene is about halfway between the Persian Gulf and the capital city, which is Baghdad. Nazarene also is the nearest station to Ur of the Chaldees.
This is where Abraham and Sarah lived, but were asked by God to uproot and relocate to the land of Israel. I have to tell you that the train trip was most unpleasant. It stopped often and like a vacuum cleaner, sucked in the dust every time it started up.
Soldiers carrying rifles and revolvers were inspecting the carriages and the people after each stop. So when they came through the carriages, they were surrounded by dust. You could hardly see them at times.
Sometimes when we stopped near a siding, there'd be camels which we could see in the moonlight of that night. One Arab in our carriage was coughing all night, so there was very little sleep for us. Maybe he had an early form of COVID-19.
About 06:00 in the morning, we arrived at Nazare and we took a taxi out to Ur. As we traveled, we could see the Ziggurats of Ur in the distance. Ur is mentioned several times in the Bible.
As mentioned earlier, this was the home to Abraham and Sarah before God called them to move and go to Haron and then on to Israel. I'd like to read with you Genesis 1131. And it says there and Terra took his son Abraham and his grandson Lot, the son of Haran, and his daughter in law Sarai, his son Abraham's wife.
And they went out with them from Ur, the Chaldees, to go to the land of Canaan, and they came to Haran and Dwelt there. Well, this was before they went on down to Israel. You know, it's very interesting that many biblical critics have thought that Abraham was a mythological person.
Even some of the Jews thought that he was just a mythological character. But many finds have confirmed Abraham as being a real person. Even in Ur of the Chaldeans, there's one house having an inscription with the name Abraham on it.
Now, we don't know whether that Abraham was the one in the Bible or not, but the fact was that Abraham was mentioned on it. And the inscription goes back to the time of Abraham. And in this inscription, it's dealing with a deal made with livestock, with a person, Abraham and another person of those times.
These finds certainly establish the credibility of the Bible. Well, what can be seen at Earth a day? At one place, you can go down a number of steps and you come to several tombs. And these were really of one queen called Queen al Shabaid.
When they dug into this place, they found priceless artifacts. And these today are in the British Museum and also in the Baghdad Museum, the archaeological Museum. One of the things that they found also were lots and lots of bones.
And they believed that the household who worked for the queen were all killed and buried when she died and was put in the tomb. Be pretty difficult belonging to the household of a king or queen back there, wouldn't it? They also discovered two story houses. And these houses had showers, they had baths in them.
And between the houses was a sewerage system which many cities would be very proud to have today. There were rubbish heaps, and these contained pottery. And pottery was very important for archaeologists because by through the pottery, they can determine how old various places are.
And so they can also, through this pottery, know that era of the Chaldees went back many, many years before Christ. Probably almost a thousand years before Christ. Well, the next day we were off to Baghdad.
And by the way, before I go there, I wanted just to take you back to the ziggurat of Ur. This ziggurat was like a pyramid. There were steps going up, and no doubt Abraham in his day would see the priests going up to worship the moon goddess to whom the ziggurat was made.
Well, as I said, we off to Baghdad the next day, and the businessman took us to a bank in his VW. I wanted to change money. He was very kind.
He said, did we want anything? And I said, I'd like to go to a bank to change a traveler's check. Well, would you believe it? It took a whole hour to cash a $10 traveler's check. Well, we were back to the bus stop and I thought it would have gone, but no, it waited for another hour till it was entirely filled up.
Only a small bus, but they had to fill it. But not only were there people inside, but they had sheep and roosters as well. Well, fortunately, the driver kept two seats for us in the front.
I was very grateful for that. And we stopped several times. The passengers would get out, put out their mats, and there they would bow towards Mecca.
Our next episode will take you into Baghdad and around Baghdad. Well, it's been great having you at the start of our journey into Biblical Wonders of the Middle East. We hope that you'll enjoy much more in our future presentations.
In the meantime, may God bless you and keep you. You've been listening to biblical wonders in the Middle East with Pastor David Curry. If you have any comments or questions, send an email to
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Au or call us within Australia on 024-973-3456. We'd love to hear from you. You've been listening to a production of Three ABN, Australia radio.
