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Megiddo: The Real / Historical "Armageddon"

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NOTE: Initial posts copied to seed this new thread came from:
Archaeological & Other Scientific Findings Vs. Religious Texts
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Meggido AKA Armageddon.

In the Bible, it says something like "The kings of the world shall watch the final battle between good and evil from Armageddon". I can't remember exactly.

Anywho, Meggido is Armageddon. One is an ancient name, the other is a Greek or Roman version of it.

Archeologists have found Meggido. It does exist. It is near Gaza IIRC.

It also turns out that it is smack-dab in the middle of a cross-roads for four major routes. If you wanted to move around that area a few millenia ago, you HAD to go through Meggido.

Turns out, around 1469 BC, Tuthmosis III went on a rampage through that area. He managed to get Nubia under Egyptian rule, as well as Meggido and 349 other cities! He attacked the Syrians for 18 straight summers!

Tuthmosis III kicked the Holy Land's ass!

So did a bunch of other people. Meggido was often rebuilt.

Now, during this time, there were Israelites in Egypt. IIRC (and if the info I was told was correct), the Jews fled Egypt around 13xx BC. After the conquering of Meggido.

We also known that the Israelites took on some Egyptian customs and aspects. Moses is NOT a Jewish name. It is Egyptian.

So if we add it up, we can reasonably assume that the legend of Armageddon most likely springs out of the stories of utter destruction that arose form the constant attacks on Meggido as well as the Egyptian legends of their conquest (Pharoh's tended to GREATLY exagerate their battles....much like politicians today...).

That is the kind of things archeologist look for when working on biblical sites.

They find the site, and by looking at it and other histories they can find out why the bible says some of the things it does.

In the case of Meggido, history shows that numerous battles took place there. Some of HUGE scope. Actually they took place BELOW Meggido. Meggido is on a hill. The defenders and attackers fought on the plain beneath it.

And people looked out at the battle FROM Meggido.

All the bible is saying is that when the final battle takes place, you will be able to see it from Meggido.

Which in the ancient world they lived in would have made sense.
 
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Megiddo was also a strategic choke point for anyone trying to invade Egypt or repel an invasion from there. The history of the ancient near east in the first two millenia BCE revolved round the interaction of the two super-powers Egypt and whoever was ruling mesopotamia at the time. Israel/Judah was the buffer zone in the middle so they tended to get a thumping by whichever power was in the ascendent at the time. It was therefore a potent symbol to use to describe a future eschatalogical event.
 
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This Live Science reference article provides an overview of Megiddo / Armageddon, the bases for its association with apocalyptic battles, and what archaeology has revealed about its past.
Welcome to Armageddon: Meet the city behind the biblical story

Reference article: Facts about Armageddon, the ancient city otherwise known as Megiddo.

Megiddo is an archaeological site that was inhabited between roughly 7000 B.C. and 300 B.C. Numerous battles were fought near Megiddo during that time, and the Book of Revelation, which refers to the site as Armageddon, prophesied that a final battle at the end of time would take place there.

"Megiddo is mentioned a dozen times in the Hebrew Bible, and in a multitude of other ancient texts, but it is especially well-known as the setting in the New Testament for the penultimate battle between the forces of good and the forces of evil," wrote Eric Cline, a professor of classical and Near Eastern languages and civilizations at George Washington University, in his book "Digging up Armageddon: The Search for the Lost City of Solomon" (Princeton University Press, 2020). ...

The name Armageddon comes from the Hebrew word "Har Megiddo," which means the "mountain of Megiddo," according to Cline. "By the Middle Ages, multiple nationalities, languages, and centuries had added an 'n' and dropped the 'h', transforming Har Megiddo to Harmageddon and thence to Armageddon," Cline wrote. ...

Today, visitors to the site will see that much of it is a "tell" (also spelled tel) , or a mound made from the remains that humans have left behind over thousands of years.

"Within the mound itself, we now know, are the remains of at least 20 ancient cities, built one on top of another," Cline wrote. "There have actually been numerous Armageddons at the ancient site of Megiddo already, as one civilization, group or political entity gave way to another over the millennia — one world ending and another beginning." ...

Megiddo was a place worth fighting over because the site is located at the crossroads of the Jezreel Valley, an important, strategic location that overlooked several trade routes, wrote archaeologist and The University of Iowa religious studies professor Robert Cargill, in his book "The Cities that Built the Bible" (HarperOne, 2016).

"The valley was extremely important to the ancient world, because whoever controlled Megiddo controlled the trade route between Egypt, Europe and Mesopotamia," Cargill wrote. "These preferred trade routes and the epic battles fought to secure — and tax — them have shaped the history of the Holy Land and are the reason that Megiddo has the reputation it does as a famous battlefield."

In the Book of Revelation, "Megiddo was identified as the location of the end of the world because it had been the epicenter of armed conflict throughout Israel's history," Cargill explained. ...
FULL STORY: https://www.livescience.com/megiddo-armageddon.html
 
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