What could go wrong when invoking the legacy of Cyrus the Great?
I grew up going to private baptist elementary school and while my beliefs have evolved from the version of christian reconstructionism espoused there I don’t regret reading the bible from end to end as a part of our curriculum. America is an overwhelmingly Christian country, and while I would fundamentally oppose making the bible a part of school’s curriculum. Given the amount of times it’s used to justify policy stances or used in civic speech, understanding it gives one an edge in decoding political messages. One that’s been around ever since Trump started courting and successfully winning over evangelicals has been the idea that Trump, while imperfect, was being used by God for good ends.
Within both Jewish and Christian circles on particular historical and biblical figure brought up as an example of this is Cyrus the Great, King and founder of the Achaemenid Persian Empire. Cyrus was not a christian nor jewish but put forward policies that granted peoples displaced by prior empires to return to their indigenous lands which included the writers of parts of the bible. Cyrus was a new kind of ruler in an age where might made right and kings would justify their rule on the basis of being comically cruel and violent. Instead of constantly crushing rebellions the Persian empire focused on fostering loyalty through respect and understanding, which included respect and acceptance of differing cultures, languages, and religions. The cylinder of Cyrus, a cuneiform tablet detailing Cyrus’s acheivements and policies is considered by historians to be one of the earliest appeals to inherent human rights. Cyrus as a policy treated his subjects equally before the law and himself claimed to be under the same obligation to be just that the law required of his subjects. He’s a fascinating figure and his empire smacking down
Don’t do the King of Kings Dirty
For a ruler known for fairness, justice, and acceptance of diversity, Trump is a rather sad comparison. I had to dig around for news articles dating back to Trump’s first campaign to find stories on this topic but this claim still get’s trotted out today. But where Cyrus allowed for a right of return, Trump locked up Spanish speaking migrants on their way to “El Paso”. Where Cyrus made toleration of different religions public policy, Trump pushed what we himself called a “muslim ban”. Cyrus and the Achaemenid empire he founded emphasizied the rule of law, Trump begs for immunity from the law. Everything that made Cyrus “Great” is lacking in Trump as a leader.
Careful when digging for stories
The bible is a large and complicated book. It presents different perspectives and it’s contents include proverbs, narratives, poetry, and often conflicting historical commentary. Cherry picking Cyrus as a means of granting a single man special sacredness, more importantly ignores the larger theme of much of the books in the bible including the ones detailing ancient jewish history. God warns Samuel that kings will be a source of oppression when the jewish people ask for a king as recorded in the bible. The rest of the Old Testament is pretty much just dealing with the ramifications of that shift. Once we get to the teachings and life of Jesus, political temporal power is explicitly rejected instead the goal of Christ’s ministry is to buld a community that trancends MAGA or America itself. Kings come and pass into memory, and those who make cheap excuses for them will too. Just like the Holy Roman Empire.