A famous Assyrian prism is catalogued in one database under a designation naming the Taylor Prism, but the museum number on that record belongs to a different exemplar. What does this illustrate?

That a publication designation identifies a text, not an object

That the British Museum lost the object

That the inscription was never written

Which of these is the strongest reason a chronicle tablet is preferred to a royal inscription for dating an event?

It was written to keep track of reigns rather than to praise a king

Bible Trivia: Assyria and the Bible

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Bible Trivia: Assyria and the Bible — printable

Name: ______________________________ Date: ____________ Score: ______

1. Which kingdom did Assyria destroy in 722 BCE? Easy
1. A Moab
2. B Israel, the northern kingdom
3. C Judah
4. D Edom
2. Which Assyrian king besieged Jerusalem in 701 BCE? Easy
1. A Ashurbanipal
2. B Shalmaneser III
3. C Sennacherib
4. D Sargon II
3. Which prophet was sent to the Assyrian capital, Nineveh? Easy
1. A Amos
2. B Jonah
3. C Zephaniah
4. D Habakkuk
4. What was the capital of Assyria at the height of the empire? Easy
1. A Ashur
2. B Susa
3. C Babylon
4. D Nineveh
5. On the Black Obelisk, an Israelite king is shown bowing before Shalmaneser III. Which king? Medium
1. A Omri
2. B Ahab
3. C Jehu
4. D Hoshea
6. Which Assyrian record is the earliest external mention of a named king of Israel? Medium
1. A The Taylor Prism
2. B The Cyrus Cylinder
3. C The Black Obelisk
4. D The Kurkh Monolith
7. 2 Kings names the Assyrian king who took Samaria. Which one? Medium
1. A Shalmaneser V
2. B Sargon II
3. C Tiglath-pileser III
4. D Esarhaddon
8. The tribute figures for Hezekiah appear in both 2 Kings and Sennacherib's prism. Which figure matches? Medium
1. A The gold
2. B The silver
3. C Neither
4. D Both
9. Which Judaean city's siege by Assyria is carved in detail on palace reliefs from Nineveh? Medium
1. A Lachish
2. B Beersheba
3. C Jericho
4. D Hebron
10. Assyrian royal inscriptions almost never record which of the following? Hard
1. A Deportations
2. B Campaigns that failed
3. C Cities captured
4. D Tribute received
11. A famous Assyrian prism is catalogued in one database under a designation naming the Taylor Prism, but the museum number on that record belongs to a different exemplar. What does this illustrate? Hard
1. A That a publication designation identifies a text, not an object
2. B That the British Museum lost the object
3. C That the text is a forgery
4. D That the inscription was never written
12. Which of these is the strongest reason a chronicle tablet is preferred to a royal inscription for dating an event? Hard
1. A It was written in Hebrew
2. B It was written to keep track of reigns rather than to praise a king
3. C It is older
4. D It is longer

Answer key — teacher’s sheet

Print pages separately: hand out the worksheet, keep this one.

1. B — Israel, the northern kingdom

The northern kingdom, whose capital was Samaria. Judah survived another century and a third, until Babylon ended it in 587 BCE. Conflating the two is the single most common error in popular retellings.
2. C — Sennacherib

Sennacherib. His own account of the campaign survives on clay prisms and describes shutting Hezekiah up in Jerusalem — without claiming to have taken the city.
3. B — Jonah

Jonah. Nineveh appears in the Bible as both the object of a call to repentance in Jonah and the object of an oracle of destruction in Nahum — two books about one city, pointing in opposite directions.
4. D — Nineveh

Nineveh, on the Tigris opposite modern Mosul. Ashur was the older religious capital and gave the empire its name; Nineveh was the imperial capital from Sennacherib onward.
5. C — Jehu

Jehu. It is the only likely contemporary depiction of any Israelite king. The epigraph calls him a son of Omri, which the biblical account of his accession excludes — the usual explanation is that the Assyrians used the dynastic name for the territory.
6. D — The Kurkh Monolith

The Kurkh Monolith of Shalmaneser III, which lists the coalition that met Assyria at Qarqar in 853 BCE and names Ahab the Israelite among the contributors. The battle at Qarqar is not mentioned anywhere in the Bible.
7. A — Shalmaneser V

Shalmaneser. Sargon II's own inscriptions claim the conquest for himself, while a Babylonian chronicle credits Shalmaneser — so the biblical account agrees with the disinterested source and disagrees with the interested one.
8. A — The gold

The gold: thirty talents in both records. The silver does not match — three hundred talents in 2 Kings 18:14 against eight hundred on the prism. Popular treatments quote the agreement and skip the disagreement.
9. A — Lachish

Lachish. The relief sequence is the fullest surviving Assyrian depiction of a siege, and the site has been excavated, with the siege ramp and destruction layer in the ground. 2 Kings 18:14 has Hezekiah send his submission to the Assyrian king at Lachish.
10. B — Campaigns that failed

Failures. The genre exists to present a reign as the gods would wish to see it, and a campaign ending without conquest is reported as tribute — which counts as success. Reading the silence about capturing Jerusalem as a confession imports a modern expectation into a document written to be buried in a wall.
11. A — That a publication designation identifies a text, not an object

A royal inscription can survive on many prisms in several collections, and the copies differ. A designation names the edited text; only a museum number names the object. A citation that follows the designation without checking the museum number can land on the wrong exemplar.
12. B — It was written to keep track of reigns rather than to praise a king

Purpose. Chronicles are administrative records organised by regnal year, with no interest in glorifying anyone, and Babylonian regnal chronology is anchored by dated astronomical observations. That is what lets an event like the capture of Jerusalem in 597 BCE be given a day.

Every question, with the answer and the reason

The interactive module above runs in a sandbox of its own, which means its text is not part of this page. So here is the whole thing in full: all 12 questions, the options as they appear, the answer, and why that answer and not the one beside it. Nothing is held back to make you play first.

Easy

These turn on something stated outright in the text. If you have read the book, you have met the answer.

Which kingdom did Assyria destroy in 722 BCE?
- Moab
- Israel, the northern kingdom — correct
- Judah
- Edom
Answer: Israel, the northern kingdom
The northern kingdom, whose capital was Samaria. Judah survived another century and a third, until Babylon ended it in 587 BCE. Conflating the two is the single most common error in popular retellings.
Which Assyrian king besieged Jerusalem in 701 BCE?
- Ashurbanipal
- Shalmaneser III
- Sennacherib — correct
- Sargon II
Answer: Sennacherib
Sennacherib. His own account of the campaign survives on clay prisms and describes shutting Hezekiah up in Jerusalem — without claiming to have taken the city.
Which prophet was sent to the Assyrian capital, Nineveh?
- Amos
- Jonah — correct
- Zephaniah
- Habakkuk
Answer: Jonah
Jonah. Nineveh appears in the Bible as both the object of a call to repentance in Jonah and the object of an oracle of destruction in Nahum — two books about one city, pointing in opposite directions.
What was the capital of Assyria at the height of the empire?
- Ashur
- Susa
- Babylon
- Nineveh — correct
Answer: Nineveh
Nineveh, on the Tigris opposite modern Mosul. Ashur was the older religious capital and gave the empire its name; Nineveh was the imperial capital from Sennacherib onward.

Medium

These need a detail held in place — a name, a sequence, a number that only means something next to another number.

On the Black Obelisk, an Israelite king is shown bowing before Shalmaneser III. Which king?
- Omri
- Ahab
- Jehu — correct
- Hoshea
Answer: Jehu
Jehu. It is the only likely contemporary depiction of any Israelite king. The epigraph calls him a son of Omri, which the biblical account of his accession excludes — the usual explanation is that the Assyrians used the dynastic name for the territory.
Which Assyrian record is the earliest external mention of a named king of Israel?
- The Taylor Prism
- The Cyrus Cylinder
- The Black Obelisk
- The Kurkh Monolith — correct
Answer: The Kurkh Monolith
The Kurkh Monolith of Shalmaneser III, which lists the coalition that met Assyria at Qarqar in 853 BCE and names Ahab the Israelite among the contributors. The battle at Qarqar is not mentioned anywhere in the Bible.
2 Kings names the Assyrian king who took Samaria. Which one?
- Shalmaneser V — correct
- Sargon II
- Tiglath-pileser III
- Esarhaddon
Answer: Shalmaneser V
Shalmaneser. Sargon II's own inscriptions claim the conquest for himself, while a Babylonian chronicle credits Shalmaneser — so the biblical account agrees with the disinterested source and disagrees with the interested one.
The tribute figures for Hezekiah appear in both 2 Kings and Sennacherib's prism. Which figure matches?
- The gold — correct
- The silver
- Neither
- Both
Answer: The gold
The gold: thirty talents in both records. The silver does not match — three hundred talents in 2 Kings 18:14 against eight hundred on the prism. Popular treatments quote the agreement and skip the disagreement.
Which Judaean city's siege by Assyria is carved in detail on palace reliefs from Nineveh?
- Lachish — correct
- Beersheba
- Jericho
- Hebron
Answer: Lachish
Lachish. The relief sequence is the fullest surviving Assyrian depiction of a siege, and the site has been excavated, with the siege ramp and destruction layer in the ground. 2 Kings 18:14 has Hezekiah send his submission to the Assyrian king at Lachish.

Hard

These turn on what the evidence actually supports, which is not always what the story is remembered as saying.

Assyrian royal inscriptions almost never record which of the following?
- Deportations
- Campaigns that failed — correct
- Cities captured
- Tribute received
Answer: Campaigns that failed
Failures. The genre exists to present a reign as the gods would wish to see it, and a campaign ending without conquest is reported as tribute — which counts as success. Reading the silence about capturing Jerusalem as a confession imports a modern expectation into a document written to be buried in a wall.
A famous Assyrian prism is catalogued in one database under a designation naming the Taylor Prism, but the museum number on that record belongs to a different exemplar. What does this illustrate?
- That a publication designation identifies a text, not an object — correct
- That the British Museum lost the object
- That the text is a forgery
- That the inscription was never written
Answer: That a publication designation identifies a text, not an object
A royal inscription can survive on many prisms in several collections, and the copies differ. A designation names the edited text; only a museum number names the object. A citation that follows the designation without checking the museum number can land on the wrong exemplar.
Which of these is the strongest reason a chronicle tablet is preferred to a royal inscription for dating an event?
- It was written in Hebrew
- It was written to keep track of reigns rather than to praise a king — correct
- It is older
- It is longer
Answer: It was written to keep track of reigns rather than to praise a king
Purpose. Chronicles are administrative records organised by regnal year, with no interest in glorifying anyone, and Babylonian regnal chronology is anchored by dated astronomical observations. That is what lets an event like the capture of Jerusalem in 597 BCE be given a day.

What this quiz draws on

Books in play: 2 Kings, Isaiah, Jonah, Nahum. Each of those leads to what the book contains, who has been proposed as its author, and how it is dated.

Themes: Kings and empires.

Answers here are drawn from the biblical text and, where an external record bears on the question, from the artefact or publication that carries it. How this site reads a text and how this site is written set out the rules, so you can check the reasoning rather than take the answer on trust.