Startling
Archaeological Discoveries
- From Grant R. Jeffrey's new book
“The Signature of God”
Can we trust the Bible? The answer
is an overwhelming YES! The reason for this confident statement is that for the
past one hundred and fifty years many brilliant scholars have conducted
detailed archeological examinations at thousands of sites throughout the Middle
East. The results of their discoveries have proven that the Bible is reliable
and accurate in every single area where its statements could be tested. In the
balance of this chapter I will share some of the wonderful archeological
discoveries that provide tremendous proof that the Bible is a true and accurate
record of past events in ancient Israel.
Throughout most of the last two thousand years, the majority of men living in
the western world have accepted the statements of the Scriptures as genuine.
However, beginning with the higher critical school of biblical critics in
Germany and England in the nineteenth century we have witnessed a progressive
abandonment of the historic faith in the Word of God. While European seminaries
gradually abandoned the authority of the Scriptures, North American seminaries
and Bible colleges still upheld the accuracy of the Bible to some degree. In
the 1960s most North American seminaries still accepted the basic records of
the Old and New Testaments as being historically true. However, in the
following decades there occurred a wholesale abandonment of belief in the
historical accuracy of the Bible. The attitudes behind these attacks on
biblical accuracy and authority were those of complete rejection of God's inspiration
of the Scriptures. In addition, many critics approach the Bible with an
attitude of outright denial of supernatural events, such as miracles, and
biblical prophecy. To these unbelieving critics, the presence of a miracle or
prophecy in a biblical text was absolute proof that it was not genuine. Critics
rejected the possibility of inspiration, miracles, and prophecy before they
began their examination of the evidence.
Despite the overwhelming success unbelieving critics have had in establishing
their unbelieving attitudes within the seminaries, textbooks, and popular
media, something strange began to occur. The new discoveries by archeologists
digging at sites in the Middle East continued to produce fascinating finds that
contradicted their attitudes. Every new discovery in Israel and the surrounding
nations provided tremendous confirmation of the accuracy of the Word of God in
incredible ways. As a result of these continuing discoveries, Dr. Nelson
Glueck, the most outstanding Jewish archeologist of this century, wrote in his
book, Rivers in the Desert, this fascinating statement. "It may be stated
categorically that no archaeological discovery has ever controverted a Biblical
reference. Scores of archaeological findings have been made which confirm in clear
outline or in exact detail historical statements in the Bible. And by the same
token, proper evaluation of Biblical descriptions has often led to amazing
discoveries. They form tesserae in the vast mosaic of the Bible's almost
incredibly correct historical memory" (Dr. Nelson Glueck, Rivers in the
Desert [New York, Grove, 1960], p. 31).
In confirmation of Dr. Glueck's statement, another respected scholar, Dr. J. O.
Kinnaman, declared: "Of the hundreds of thousands of artifacts found by
the archeologists, not one has ever been discovered that contradicts or denies
one word, phrase, clause, or sentence of the Bible, but always confirms and
verifies the facts of the biblical record." The well-known language
scholar, Dr. Robert Dick Wilson, formerly professor of Semitic philology at
Princeton Theological Seminary, made the following comment, "After
forty-five years of scholarly research in biblical textual studies and in
language study, I have come now to the conviction that no man knows enough to assail
the truthfulness of the Old Testament. When there is sufficient documentary
evidence to make an investigation, the statement of the Bible, in the original
text, has stood the test" (Dr. Robert Dick Wilson, Speaker's Source Book,
p. 391).
The Bible claims that it is the inspired and accurate Word of God. Therefore,
it is vital that we compare the Scriptural records against the archeological
discoveries uncovered at actual sites where many of the thrilling events of the
Bible actually occurred. The results of these detailed investigations are
available for anyone to examine. The archeological record provides overwhelming
confirmation of thousands of detailed statements and facts recorded in the
sacred Scriptures. Scholars have not found one single confirmed archeological
discovery that absolutely disproves a statement of the Scriptures. To the
contrary, as the evidence in The Signature of God reveals, the scholars have
discovered literally hundreds of objects, inscriptions, and sites that confirm
the accuracy of biblical statements in even unimportant areas. The most
important thing for believers in God is that these archeological proofs of
scriptural accuracy confirm the accuracy, the inspiration, and the authority of
the Word of God. No one should expect that archeology will be able to provide
detailed proof of such personal events like the sacrifice of Isaac by Abraham.
By their nature, it is unlikely that such events in the lives of private
individuals would ever leave any archeological evidence. Most personal events
recorded in the Bible would never have left evidence that could be discovered
thousands of years later. However, whenever the Bible dealt with the rise and
fall of kingdoms, cities, buildings, etc., the spade of the archeologist has
been able to discover wonderful confirmation of the truth of Holy Scripture.
Only fifty years ago many disbelieving scholars totally rejected the historical
accuracy of the Bible because they claimed that the Scriptures talked about
numerous kings and individuals that could not be confirmed from any other
historical or archeological records. Recent discoveries, however, have shown
that they should not have abandoned their faith in the Word of God so easily.
If they had only trusted in the truthfulness of the Bible or waited a little
longer they would have been rewarded with the recent archeological discoveries
that confirm many biblical details, events, and personalities. For example,
many scholars contemptuously reject the Bible's statements about King David.
Many textbooks used in universities and seminaries openly reject any historical
statements in the Scriptures about King David or Solomon. They believe that
David is a myth or literary fiction. Examples of this approach include the
books In Search of Ancient Israel, by Philip R. Davis, and the Early History of
the Israelite People, by Thomas L. Thompson. He wrote, "The existence of
the Bible's 'United Monarchy' during the tenth-century [B.C.] is . . .
impossible"ÿ(Thomas L. Thompson, Early History of the Israelite People,
[Brill: 1992]). These so-called "minimalist" scholars accept only the
minimum about the Bible, rejecting every biblical statement unless it can be
established by other non-biblical evidence.
This is a totally biased position and would be ridiculed in any other area of
study. Imagine a student of Plato's Greek philosophy that rejected outright any
statement by Plato himself, his followers, or any Greek philosophical writer in
later years who quoted him favorably. This is an absurd way to approach the study
of any subject. Yet many biblical scholars in the secular universities take
this "minimalist" approach today. The rational way to study ancient
history is to carefully examine every bit of evidence regarding a personality
or event from both those who support and those who oppose the particular
subject. The true scholar will then carefully weigh the evidence of all sources
and come to a balanced conclusion based on the facts.
The
House of David
Recent archeological investigations have demolished the position of those who
rejected the biblical account of Israel's kings such as King David. In 1993,
archeologists digging at Tel Dan in the Galilee in northern Israel found a
fragment of a stone inscription that clearly refers to the "house of David"ÿand
identifies David as the "king of Israel." This is the first
inscription outside the Bible that confirms the Bible's statement that David
was the king of Israel in the ninth century before Christ. Many Bible critics
who had rejected King David as a myth were upset to discover their position
could no longer be defended. Some critics suggested that the fragment was a
"fake." The following summer, two additional fragments of the
original inscription were found that provided scholars with the whole inscription,
confirming that it referred to David as king of Israel. Furthermore, another
scholar, Andre Lemaire from the College de France, discovered another ninth
century B.C. stone inscription created by King Mesha of Moab that also referred
to "the House of David." These incredible inscriptions, recorded a
century after David's death, confirm that David was king of Israel at the time
the Bible stated and that he established a dynasty, the "House of
David"ÿas the Scriptures said.
A stone inscription from Egypt confirms that Israel was established as a nation
in Canaan centuries before the reign of King David, just as the Bible claims.
The Merneptah Stela is a seven-and-a-half-foot-high stone inscription
discovered in the temple of Pharaoh Merneptah at Thebes in Egypt. Scholars
determined that Pharaoh Merneptah ruled Egypt from 1213 to 1203 B.C. and
confirmed that he launched an invasion into the area of the modern-day West
Bank in Canaan, defeating the Jewish inhabitants of the land. The second line
from the bottom of this inscriptions boasts, "Israel is laid waste; his
seed is not."
Critics of the Bible have claimed for decades that the Bible's statements in
Joshua about the conquest of the Promised Land in the centuries before the
monarchy of King David were pure fiction. Obviously, the king of Egypt would
not need to invade Canaan with an army unless the Jews had established a
significant presence on the frontiers of the Egyptian Empire. In light of this
new archeological evidence critics will be forced to relinquish their rejection
of the Bible's record of Israel's conquest as stated by Joshua. Critics claimed
that the books of Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles were recorded by Jews living in
Persia centuries after the events occurred. They suggest that such records
contain numerous errors and myths. However, the Bible claims these books were
written at the time of the events and that God's Holy Spirit inspired the
writers to correctly record the events. When you compare the Word of God to the
accuracy of the ancient historians such as Herodotus, you can quickly see that
most ancient histories were nothing more than creative fiction and records of
hearsay evidence without careful research or checking of facts. In stark
contrast, the Bible is extremely careful and accurate as to events, chronology,
sequence, and personalities.
In addition to the archeological evidence for King David, we now have
confirmation of other kings of Israel. The name of Omri, king of Israel, is
recorded on an inscription known as the Stela of King Mesha of Moab. In
addition, Omri's name appears on the rock inscriptions of three kings of
Assyria, the annals of both Tiglath-Pileser III and Sargon II, and the Black
Obelisk of King Shalmaneser III, who wrote, "I conquered . . . all of the
Land of Omri (Israel)." Other Assyrian inscriptions found in Nineveh
confirm the Bible's records about these kings of Israel: Ahab, Jehu, Joash,
Menehem, Pekah, and Hoshea. In addition, the names of many of the kings of the
southern kingdom of Judah are also recorded on inscriptions of the nations that
fought against the Jews. The inscriptions found by archeologists also confirm
the names of these kings of Judah: Ahaziah, Uzziah, Ahaz, Hezekiah, Manasseh,
and Jehoiachin. Scholars found ration records of the army of Nebuchadnezzar,
king of Babylon (606 to 562 B.C.) that state, "ten sila of oil to
Jehoiachin, king of Judah. . . ." Obviously, the fact that these foreign
nations listed the kings of Israel and Judah provides the strongest evidence
confirming the accuracy of the Word of God.
In 1846, the explorer Austen Henry Layard discovered an incredible Black
Obelisk in the ruins of Nimrud (present-day Iraq), the ancient capital of the
great Assyrian Empire that conquered the northern kingdom of Israel. This
six-and-a-half-feet-high Black Obelisk, a four-sided stone inscription,
recorded the conquest of the Assyrian King Shalmaneser II over numerous foreign
kingdoms including King Jehu of Israel (approximately 841 to 814 B.C.). A
detailed examination of the obelisk reveals King Jehu bowing down in obedience
to the Assyrian king. The obelisk refers to Jehu as the "son of Omri"
indicating their awareness that his dynasty traced back to Omri in confirmation
of the Book of Kings.
The
Walls of Jericho
During excavations of Jericho between 1930 and 1936, Professor John Garstang
found one of the most incredible confirmations of the biblical record about the
conquest of the Promised Land. The results were so amazing that he took the
precaution of preparing a written declaration of the archeological discovery,
signed by himself and two other members of his team. "As to the main fact,
then, there remains no doubt: the walls fell outwards so completely that the
attackers would be able to clamber up and over their ruins into the city."
This fact is important because the evidence from all other archeological digs
around ancient cities in the Middle East reveal that walls of cities always
fall inwards as invading armies push their way into a city. However, in the
account in Joshua 6:20, we read, "the wall fell down flat, so that the
people went up into the city every man straight ahead, and they took the
city." Only the supernatural power of God could have caused the walls to
fall outward as described in Joshua's account of the conquest of Jericho (John
Garstang, Joshua Judges, [London: Constable, 1931]).
Following the fall of East Jerusalem to the Jordanians in the 1948 War of
Independence, the Jordanian army dynamited Jewish synagogues and other
buildings in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem in the years following their
conquering of the Old City. Nevertheless, this wanton destruction over a
twenty-year period, until Jerusalem was liberated during the 1967 Six Day War,
created a unique archeological opportunity. When the Jews recaptured the Jewish
Quarter in 1967 they had to rebuild every building because of the Jordanian
destruction. However, this made it possible for Israeli archeologists to remove
the rubble built up over the last two thousand years and explore the bedrock of
this fascinating biblical city. This was a unique opportunity because the
existing modern buildings in most ancient cities prevent large archeological
exploration. In addition to numerous discoveries confirming the accuracy of
many passages in the Bible, the scholars, under the leadership of the
archeologist Nahman Avigad of Hebrew University, found the remains of the wall
of King Hezekiah built when the Assyrian army attacked Israel in 701 B.C. The
Bible tells us that King Hezekiah built the walls of Jerusalem to resist the
Assyrian armies: "And when Hezekiah saw that Sennacherib was come, and
that he was purposed to fight against Jerusalem, He took counsel with his
princes . . . they did help him. Also he strengthened himself, and built up all
the wall that was broken, and raised it up to the towers, and another wall
without" (2 Chronicles 32:2-5). The archeologists found that portions of
the wall actually cut through walls of recently built houses, indicating the
urgency of the defensive actions and the authority of the king. This is
confirmed in the Bible's own account, "And ye have numbered the houses of
Jerusalem, and the houses have ye broken down to fortify the wall" (Isaiah
22:10).
Dr. Millar Burrows, a professor at Yale University, studied the evidence that
indicates the historicity of Abraham and the other patriarchs of Israel as
recorded in Genesis. "Everything indicates that here we have an historical
individual. As noted above, he is not mentioned in any known archaeological
source, but his name appears in Babylonia as a personal name in the very period
to which he belongs" (Millar Burrows, What Mean These Stones?, [New York:
Meridian Books, 1956], pp. 258-259). Burrows wrote about the underlying reason
most scholars reject the authority of the Bible, "The excessive skepticism
of many liberal theologians stems not from a careful evaluation of the
available data, but from an enormous predisposition against the supernatural. .
. . On the whole, however, archaeological work has unquestionably strengthened
confidence in the reliability of the scriptural record."
The
Discovery of the Seals of Biblical Personalities
One of the most interesting discoveries in recent years was the finding of two
bull', or clay seals, that bear the impression of the actual seal used by Baruch,
the scribe of Jeremiah the prophet who transcribed the Book of Jeremiah. Both
bull' bear the inscription, "Belonging to Berekhyahu, son of Neriyahu, the
Scribe." One of these clay seals is on view in the Israel Museum in
Jerusalem. However, the second bull' was found in Jerusalem earlier in this
century and purchased by collector Shlomo Moussaieff of London who owns the
greatest private collection of ancient Jewish inscriptions in the world. This
second clay seal, bearing the same inscription, also reveals a fingerprint that
probably belonged to Baruch.
At the beginning of this century a fascinating seal was discovered in Israel
that bore an inscription of a beautiful lion and the words, "Belonging to
Shema servant of Jeroboam." This amazing find indicates that it belonged
to an official of King Jeroboam of Israel. Other seals have been discovered
confirming the biblical records about King Uzziah (777 to 736 B.C.) and King
Hezekiah (726 to 697 B.C.).
Another important seal found in Jerusalem dates from the seventh century before
Christ and is inscribed as follows: "Belonging to Abdi Servant of
Hoshea." This seal made of orange chalcedony, used to authenticate royal
documents for security, belonged to Abdi, a high official of King Hosea, the last
king of the northern kingdom of Israel before it was conquered by the Assyrian
Empire in 721 B.C. Another large seal on red limestone was found bearing the
inscription "Belonging to Asayahu, servant of the king"ÿtogether with
a galloping horse. The name "Asaiah" is a short form of the name
"Asayahu."ÿThis name occurs twice in the Old Testament in connection
with the title "servant of the king." In 2 Chronicles 34:20 we find
the name, "Asaiah a servant of the king's" and again in 2 Kings
22:12, "Asahiah a servant of the king's." It is possible that this
seal was owned by "Asaiah, the servant of the king" a high court
official who was sent by King Josiah to carefully examine the scroll of the
lost Book of Deuteronomy that was found in the Temple by the High Priest Hilkiah
in approximately 622 B.C.
Dr. Henry M. Morris concluded his in-depth study of the archeological evidence
concerning the Bible with these words. "Problems still exist, of course,
in the complete harmonization of archaeological material with the Bible, but
none so serious as not to bear real promise of imminent solution through
further investigation. It must be extremely significant that, in view of the
great mass of corroborative evidence regarding the Biblical history of these
periods, there exists today not one unquestionable find of archaeology that
proves the Bible to be in error at any point" (Henry M. Morris, The Bible
and Modern Science, [Chicago:ÿMoody Press, 1956]).
Explorers in Iraq in the last century found the ancient inscribed clay cylinder
bearing the actual decree of King Cyrus of Persia allowing the various captured
natives of many different nations to return freely to their ancient homelands.
It was the government policy of the preceding Babylonian Empire of King
Nebuchadnezzar to displace whole peoples such as the Jews and resettle them in
the far reaches of their empire. However, King Cyrus of Persia, a moderate and
God-fearing monarch, reversed the cruel Babylonian policy. Immediately after
conquering the Babylonian Empire, King Cyrus issued a decree allowing the Jews
to freely return to their homeland in Israel ending the seventy-year-long
captivity. The decree of King Cyrus began with these words, "I am Cyrus,
king of the world, great king." After describing his conquests and deeds,
the cylinder inscription reads, "I gathered all their former inhabitants
and returned to them their habitations." In this incredible discovery we
find the confirmation of one of the most astonishing events in the pages of
Scripture. "Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word
of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the Lord stirred up
the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, that he made a proclamation throughout all
his kingdom, and put it also in writing, saying, Thus saith Cyrus king of
Persia, The Lord God of heaven hath given me all the kingdoms of the earth; and
he hath charged me to build him an house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Who
is there among you of all his people? his God be with him, and let him go up to
Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and build the house of the Lord God of Israel, he
is the God, which is in Jerusalem" (Ezra 1:1-3).
The Archaeological Evidence of the New Testament
Obviously, the entire basis for the faith and hope of Christians depends on the
truthfulness of the historical records of the New Testament. Our hope for
heaven and salvation itself depends on the accuracy of the words of Jesus of
Nazareth and the apostles as recorded in the pages of the New Testament
manuscripts. It is significant that there is a relentless attack on the
reliability of the Gospels and the Epistles because those who hate the Bible
understand that if they can cause men to doubt the New Testament, then their
faith will be immeasurably weakened. Fortunately, the continued archeological
discoveries during the last century have provided an awesome amount of further
evidence that confirms the total reliability of the written documents that form
the foundation of the Christian faith.
The English scholar, William Ramsay, traveled as a young man to Asia Minor over
a century ago for the sole purpose of disproving the Bible's history as
described by Luke in his Gospel and in the Book of Acts. Ramsay and his
professors were convinced that the New Testament record must be terribly inaccurate.
He believed that Luke could not be correct in his history of Christ or in his
account about the growth of the Church during the first decades following
Christ. Dr. Ramsay began to dig in the ancient ruins of sites throughout Greece
and Asia Minor, searching for ancient names, boundary markers, and other
archeological finds that would conclusively prove that Luke had invented his
history of Christ and His Church. To his amazement and dismay, William Ramsay
discovered that the statements of the New Testament Scriptures were accurate in
the smallest detail. Finally, Dr. Ramsay was convinced by the overwhelming
evidence proving the Bible's accuracy. As a result, he accepted Jesus Christ as
His personal Savior. He became both a Christian and a great biblical scholar.
As a result of his conversion to belief in Jesus Christ, Sir William Ramsay's
books became classics in the study of the history of the New Testament. Another
great scholar, A. N. Sherwin-White, was a great classical historical scholar at
Oxford University who studied the extensive evidence for and against the
historical accuracy of the Book of Acts. Sherwin-White wrote his conclusion
after studying the evidence, "For Acts the confirmation of historicity is
overwhelming . . . any attempt to reject its basic historicity even in matters
of detail must now appear absurd" (Quoted by Rubel Shelley, Prepare To
Answer [Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1990]).
Dr. William F. Albright was unquestionably one of the world's most brilliant
biblical archeologists. In 1955 he wrote: "We can already say emphatically
that there is no longer any solid basis for dating any book of the New
Testament after circa A.D. 80." However, additional discoveries over the
next decade convinced him that all the books in the New Testament were written
"probably sometime between circa A.D. 50 and 75." Significantly,
Albright concluded that the writing of the New Testament within a few years of
the events it described made it almost impossible that errors or exaggeration
could have entered the text. He wrote that the duration between the events of
Christ's life and the writing was "too slight to permit any appreciable
corruption of the essential center and even of the specific wording of the
sayings of Jesus." In other words, Professor Albright, one of the greatest
minds in the field of archeology and ancient texts, concluded that the New
Testament records the truth about Jesus Christ and his statements.
Dr. John A. T. Robinson was a distinguished lecturer at Trinity College,
Cambridge and developed a reputation as a great scholar. Naturally, he accepted
the academic consensus universally held since 1900, that denied the disciples
and Paul wrote the New Testament and concluded that it was written up to a
hundred years after Christ. However, an article in Time magazine, March 21,
1977, reported that Robinson decided to personally investigate for himself the
arguments behind this scholarly consensus against the New Testament's
reliability because he realized that very little original research had been
completed in this field in this century. He was shocked to discover that much
of past scholarship against the New Testament was untenable because it was
based on a "tyranny of unexamined assumptions" and what he felt must
have been an "almost willful blindness." To the amazement of his
university colleagues, Robinson concluded that the apostles must have been the
genuine writers of the New Testament books in the years prior to A.D. 64. He
challenged other scholars to complete original research necessary to truly
examine the question fairly. As a result of such a new analysis Robinson
believed that it would necessitate "the rewriting of many introductions
to-and ultimately, theologies of-the New Testament." Robinson's book,
Redating the New Testament, published in 1976, suggests that Matthew's Gospel
was written as early as A.D. 40, within eight years of Christ.
