Big Ideas · Introduction
The empire's library was closed to the public
Assyria's great library was reserved for a select few at court, who swore loyalty to the throne. When the city fell, no one carried its treasures to safety.
Knowledge locked in a palace dies with the palace.
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The empire that conquered Israel left a vast archive that lay forgotten for millennia. The writings of the people it conquered were copied, read, and argued over without interruption. That contrast is one of the Bible's most obvious, and least appreciated, distinctions.
Source: Why the Bible Began, pp. 6, 8
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