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General discussion

The Kingdom of Kush (mentioned in the Bible)

Jun 18, 2007 11:42PM PDT
Archaeologists Recovering Lost Kingdom on the Nile.

>> On the periphery of history in antiquity, there was a land known as Kush. Overshadowed by Egypt, to the north, it was a place of uncharted breadth and depth far up the Nile, a mystery verging on myth. One thing the Egyptians did know and recorded ? Kush had gold.

Scholars have come to learn that there was more to the culture of Kush than was previously suspected. From deciphered Egyptian documents and modern archaeological research, it is now known that for five centuries in the second millennium B.C., the kingdom of Kush flourished with the political and military prowess to maintain some control over a wide territory in Africa. <<

-- Dave K, Speakeasy Moderator
click here to email semods4@yahoo.com

The opinions expressed above are my own,
and do not necessarily reflect those of CNET!

Discussion is locked

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Brief but useful link; thanks.
Jun 19, 2007 6:34AM PDT

I like history and the bible, and this story has both.

Some of that information isn't that new, though:
Though Cushites were to be found in Arabia, the name Cush as used in the Bible in most cases clearly refers to a region in Africa, and where the relationship is obvious, translators simply render "Cush" as "Ethiopia." It is regularly associated with Egypt (Isa 20:3-5; 43:3; Jer 46:7-9) and also with Libya. (2Ch 12:2, 3; Da 11:43; Na 3:9) Isaiah 11:11 presents the ancient geographic designations for the regional divisions running southward from the Nile Delta: "Egypt" (or "Mizraim," here, Lower Egypt), "Pathros" (Upper Egypt), and "Cush" (Nubia-Ethiopia). Ezekiel 29:10 speaks of the devastation of Egypt "from Migdol to Syene and to the boundary of Ethiopia [Cush]." Thus, Cush or ancient Ethiopia appears to have been beyond Syene (modern Aswan) and, according to archaeological evidence, continued S perhaps as far as modern Khartoum. Cush thus embraced a more extensive and generally more southern area than that included in present-day Ethiopia. "The rivers of Ethiopia [Cush]" are suggested to have been the Blue and White Nile rivers, which have their junction at Khartoum, and also the Atbara River, which joins the Nile S of the fifth cataract.-Zep 3:10.

Excerpt from "Cush 2.", Insight on the Scriptures, 1988, a Watchtower publication. The full article shows quite an overlap of your link and what was known as far back as 1959 (a cite in the Insight article). The big difference is that the secular information has the usual apology about 'we had no idea that [blank] was so important then". Our view: ... Ivory, ebony, gold, precious stones, iron, and aromatics were products of the land, and Biblical mention is made of "the merchants of Ethiopia" (Isa 45:14) and "the topaz of Cush."-Job 28:19.
Later History. Cush, or Ethiopia, had come under Egyptian domination by about the time of the Exodus of Israel from Egypt, and it continued thus for some 500 years. A viceroy administering this domain under the Egyptian Pharaoh was known by the title "King's Son of Kush ...


The article in Insight's predecessor, Aid to Bible Understanding. 1969; 1971, is virtually the same.

BTW, the first mention of Cush is at Gen 2:13. Just after that is the true First [and only] Commandment: 'Don't touch that tree!' Later, Adam and Eve said 'Our view of that command is that it's out-of-date; we have later information.' Rest is history. (Later they were banned from SE - sorry, from the Garden - for their independent thinking. Nowadays, of course, we're used to charting our own course independent of outmoded books, with the results you see around you.)

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First [and only] Commandment?
Jun 19, 2007 1:13PM PDT

i thought that would be in gen 1:3

Wink

.,

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Good one. :-)
Jun 19, 2007 2:10PM PDT

Which gives me an opening to say, there's not much light in the world these days.

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(NT) Touche! ;-)
Jun 19, 2007 8:33PM PDT
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Dave, it's always fascinated me...
Jun 19, 2007 9:09AM PDT

...that the more the scientists explore, the more the Bible is found to be true (Draw your own conclusions...).

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So Schliemann's discovery of Troy shows the Iliad
Jun 19, 2007 12:41PM PDT

to be inspired truth, Paul? There's obviously much truth and oral history behind the Bible -- the question is whether that gives it more cachet than the Epic of Gilgamesh, or even the Rig Veda (if you're not familiar with that one, it's a millennia-old Sanskrit epic that describes poetically what sounds for all the world like a nuclear war, with the gods hurling lightning bolts at each other, and where they landed arose huge luminous clouds, and nothing grew there for hundreds of years!) Personally, I think there's a reasonably good chance that humankind may have come this far once before and blown himself almost to kingdom come (and literally back to the Stone Age) -- but that's a view that only von D