ausewitz's theory of states and war can be reduced to three ideas which he defines, unfortunately for Christians, as a "remarkable trinity&qu

e of the objectives Clausewitz believed necessary for total victory were achieved.In summary, these brief examples of principles of war at the strategic and tactical level illustrate that foundational lessons of military art and science can be gleaned from a careful reading of the pages of the Old Testament. My admonishment to all scholars who write, teach, and conduct research on military affairs, including myself, is for us not to overlook the valuable and important lessons that can be learned from the pages of the Bible. The Bible is not only a book with moral and theological stories, it is about real people, and is a reliable history written in a cultural mileu that enhances our understanding of civilizations thousands of years ago. Valuable lessons about the principles and foundations of politics, military strategy and tactics, economics, ethics, and many other academic disciplines can be gleaned from a study of its pages. Such lessons are as applicable today as they were thousands of years ago. To consider only "recent" history and consider Biblical history as unreliable is narrow-minded and wrong, and scholars do so at their own risk. Recommended Resources for Further Study Bible and SpadeCD-ROM NIV ArchaeologicalStudy Bible FootnotesBarton Whaley comes to the same conclusion and argues that the contemporary Israeli Army and its commanders consciously draw military inspiration, wisdom and lore from the Bible, and the Old Testament teaches its share of stratagems of war (1969: 81).See also my letter to the editor, and his response, on pp. 7-8 of the same edition.BibliographyFerrill, A. 1985The Origins of War: From the Stone Age to Alexander the Great. London: Thames and Hudson. Gabriel, R., and Getz, K.S. 1991From Sumer to Rome: The Military Capabilities of Ancient Armies. New York: Greenwood. Gichon, M. 1985The West Bank: The Geostrategic and Historical Aspects. In The West Bank: Line of Defense, ed. Aryeh Shalev. New York: Praeger. Lemonick, M.D. 1995Are the Bible's Stories True? Time, December 18: 62-69. Malamat, A. 1979Conquest of Canaan: Israelite Conduct of War According to Biblical Tradition.



Cultural Change and the Confusion of Language in Ancient Sumer
This article was published in the Winter 2004 issue of Bible and Spade.One of the primary areas of the Near East where civilization began is the Tigris-Euphrates river valley, comprising portions of modern Syria and Iraq. This region, the fertile valley between the two rivers, has been known since the times of the ancient Greeks as Mesopotamia, literally “the land between the rivers.” This area of course was the home of many peoples familiar to us from general ancient history and the Old Testament, such as the Assyrians and Babylonians. Before these peoples a group known as the Sumerians, the creators of classic Mesopotamian culture, inhabited the southern part of the valley. How and when did civilization start in this region? In order to at least partially answer this question, we will need to examine both written and archaeological source material. The earliest of that archaeological material comes from cultures in the valley that did not as yet know the art of writing.Archaeological EvidenceIn looking at archaeological material from these early cultures, we must make several preliminary observations. First, we should remember that people sharing the same basic culture tend to produce similar and in some cases identical material objects. This trend is particularly apparent with pottery, the basic food and drink storage medium of ancient times. This trend is very helpful to the archaeologist. If he or she is digging in a ruined city and finds a certain style and color of pottery, this pottery can be compared to pottery found elsewhere. Connections can thus be established between the two sites sharing pottery styles. [Ed: These are known as parallels.]Such conclusions must of course be supported by other material finds, but such similarities can show how a particular culture spread over a geographical area.This leads to a second introductory observation. When archaeologists discover a particular culture, it is often given a name by modern scholars. Without written material, we have no idea what the people of that culture called themselves. This name is normally the modern Arabic place name of the site where the culture was discovered. It should never be thought that the “type-site” (the site which gives the culture its name) was necessarily the most important city of the culture, or the place where the culture began. It is simply the first place where modern humans have found an example of that particular culture.Finally, a word about dates. The best way to establish dates is to have written documents, and even then establishing chronology can be a complex and difficult business. For many periods of modern history we have such rich written material that basic dates are not a problem. We know beyond doubt, for example, that Hitler became Chancellor of Germany in 1933, that Lincoln was killed in 1865, and that the Emperor Augustus died in AD 14. But, when we deal with ancient Near Eastern history, precise dates can be more problematical. This is most true of the periods we call prehistory; the time beRosetta Stone Japanese