Wednesday, April 24, 2024

It is the 24th of April 2024. Welcome to the Christian History Almanac, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org; I’m Dan van Voorhis.

Today’s show is taking us to the remote Hakkari region of southern Turkey near both the borders of modern Iraq and Iran- some of the roughest terrain on the planet and recently home to Kurds who use the rough and rocky territory as a natural barrier against their enemies.

But we head back to the 19th century when this was all part of the vast Ottoman Empire and the land then known as Persia. For centuries before this, the land had been unexplored and rumored to be the home of various ancient tribes, some perhaps connected to ancient Christians or Jews who had likewise used the mountains to protect themselves from the invading Muslims.

And this takes us to the life and story of Asahel Grant, a young doctor from Oneida Country in upstate New York. Grant, who studied medicine had attended a missions conference near his Utica practice held by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. He became convinced that he could serve as a missionary doctor in the Middle East, having heard the story of the so-called Nestorian Christians in the remote parts of the Ottoman Empire.

The year is 1835 and this is the golden age of Protestant Missions, the age of David Livingston when Christian missionaries to far off places were portrayed in books as half apostle Paul, half Indiana Jones. The Gospel was reaching parts unknown and this was, rightly celebrated and it also came with apocalyptic expectations.

Asahel Grant, his wife Judith, and their daughters landed in Urmia in 1835, in modern Iran. Through the use of then-modern medicine, Asahel was able to gain the favor of local officials by curing illnesses and performing minor surgeries. By 1839, Asahel was granted passage into the Hakkari mountains to meet the Christians, whom he called “Nestorian”, to help fortify them in what he saw was the spiritual regeneration of the Middle and Far East.

His reports from amongst these people formed the narrative part of his bestselling book, The Nestorians; or, The lost tribes: containing evidence of their identity; an account of their manners, customs, and ceremonies; together with sketches of travel in ancient Assyria, Armenia, Media, and Mesopotamia; and illustrations of Scripture prophecy.

Their real work was in building schools, preaching, and convincing other medical professionals and missionaries to come to the region, but it was the book that made him famous.

If you aren’t familiar with the oeuvre of “Lost Tribes” theories, they are the collection of ideas surrounding the ten lost tribes of Israel. Those are the tribes of the Northern Kingdom that were taken into captivity by the Assyrians in 722 BC. After the subsequent Babylonian captivity of the other two tribes, the Jewish people were invited, under the Persians, to move back to their native lands. But the first ten tribes never did, leaving open the question of what became of them. The most probable and simple answer is that they were assimilated into whatever cultures they lived amongst, but stories have been told of them moving to Ethiopia, to Great Britain, and to Southern Africa. The idea is that these “lost tribes” will eventually be “found” and move back to the Holy Lands to usher in the second coming.

Grant believed that these “Nestorian” Christians were the descendants of the lost tribes and thus, in the excitement of 19th-century progress and exploration, would help usher in the End Times. As for them being called “Nestorian,” these Christians were descendants of the original Churches of the East that broke from the West in the 5th century after the council of Ephesus in 431. With the growth and spread of Islam, they were cut off from the West, and only the fiercest, or those in unconquerable territory, remained. Thus, in the Hakkari region, these “Nestorians” lived a warrior-like existence, and their “bishop” looked more like a warlord than a Holy man.

This, in part, is what made Grant’s stories so popular- not only were they tinged with apocalyptic speculation, but they also included dangerous travels and near escapes. Unfortunately for Grant, it was not invading armies that were his scourge, but rather disease. He lost his wife, Judith, and their two daughters in quick succession. Amidst fighting, he would remove himself to Mosul, where he tended to refugees and contracted typhus. Asahel Grant would die on this, the 24th of April in 1844, at the age of 36. Famous for his theories and exploits, the schools and churches he and his wife set up would have a lasting legacy in the region still famously beset by its surrounding powers- most recently ISIS.

The last word for today is from the daily lectionary from the book of Micah written around the time of the first exile in the 8th century:

Who is a God like you,
    who pardons sin and forgives the transgression

    of the remnant of his inheritance?


You do not stay angry forever

    but delight to show mercy.

You will again have compassion on us;

    you will tread our sins underfoot

    and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea.

You will be faithful to Jacob,

    and show love to Abraham,

as you pledged on oath to our ancestors

    in days long ago.

This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 24th of April 2024, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org.

The show is produced by a man whose favorite tribe is called Quest- he is Christopher Gillespie.

The show is written and read by a man just reminded that Gilligan’s crew did try to fix the whole in episode 8, season 1, they were unsuccessful. I’m Dan van Voorhis.

You can catch us here every day- and remember that the rumors of grace, forgiveness, and the redemption of all things are true…. Everything is going to be ok.