In 701 BC, Sennacherib’s army invaded Judah and arrived at the gates of Jerusalem, but abruptly departed without taking the city. This incident is better attested in extrabiblical evidence than any other Old Testament event: archaeological evidence of the invasion abounds and numerous Assyrian inscriptions and iconography, and even textual sources within Judah, evidence this event. As such, the invasion of Judah in 701 provides us with a test-case for what extrabiblical evidence can and cannot tell us, for how biblical and extrabiblical evidence interrelate, and for how the preservation and distribution of evidence determines what we can know. We will examine some of the evidence for the invasion of Judah in 701 BC with particular focus on how to make use of historical evidence rigorously.
