Archeology and the Bible

Introduction

Be with you this afternoon, and I’m encouraged by your presence. Good to see each one of you. It was mentioned this morning that Greg trained with us, worked with us for a summer. That almost didn’t happen. When Brother Harkrider called in the spring of 2010, he said, We’ve got a very promising young man here. His name is Greg Klein. And he said, I’m trying to orchestrate events so that he can work with an older preacher. We need an older man for him to work with and to train and help develop. So I almost said, Well, what are you calling me for? I thought you said an older preacher. But I’m sure glad things worked out. And I just, you know, I overlooked that. And I guess, you know, some of us are in denial, but I I still don’t think of myself as that.

But anyway, that that almost didn’t happen.

It does happen, doesn’t it?

The Bible is the inspired word of God. And it is true. And it doesn’t need extra-biblical outside sources. As some sort of crutch to prop it up, such that we could not believe in the Bible except for other sources that uh that prove the Bible. We mentioned this morning that the scriptures are inspired of God. And it would be a fair statement to say, well, just because the Bible says it’s inspired, that doesn’t make it inspired. That would be a fair statement to say, but the starting point is it does claim to be the inspired word of God. And then from there you examine the text itself, and what you find is there is no way to explain this book, apart from the fact that it is the inspired word of God.

In Psalm 119, verse 89, forever, O Lord, is your word established in heaven. You’ve seen perhaps or heard of the bumper sticker. It’s been some years ago since that one was out.

And then someone else said, Well, that’s that’s pretty good as far as it goes, but an even better one would be God said it, that settles it. Because whether I believe it or not, if God said it, that settles it. And so if that’s true, if if the Bible stands alone as truth on its own merit as being the Word of God, then is it legitimate to study the role of archaeology and its relation to the Bible? And of course I believe that it is. From the standpoint that what archaeology can do is to illustrate, to illuminate. When there are records, historical records that mention the same event or the same persons that are mentioned in the Bible, that is very significant. And it and it does again provide even more evidence that yes, this is historical.

It is not fiction. And so there’s such a wealth of historical data, monuments, inscriptions, coins, seals, stela, ossuaries, other artifacts that relate to and corroborate the biblical record. And so oftentimes there’s a direct point of intersection, and that always makes it interesting. But sometimes it’s just the background and setting of information that is at the same period you read about in the Bible that does show, yes, this is this is compatible with what the Bible says. It does show that this is what you would expect, because that’s what the Bible says for that period of time. The expositor’s Bible commentary makes this point. Though the Bible is not a history book as such, the acts of God with men are dealt with in a particular geographical setting and a specific historical context.

1. The Patriarchal Period: Nuzi Tablets and Real Places

And that is true. So with that in mind, what I want to do is a little bit frustrating. Because I have literally thousands of photos from not only the land of Israel, but various Bible lands, places, and those artifacts I was just talking about. And so for this period of time I’ve selected just a relatively few of the hundreds of things that we could be talking about. But what I want to do is, I think to follow in a progressive and kind of logical order. I want to start with a patriarchal period, and then just kind of work our way down as time permits to the time of Christ. And so when we go back to the days of the patriarchs, one thing, one source that is of significance here is that of the newsy tablets.

Now, this is one I photographed in the Harvard Museum at Baltimore. These are not displayed just in every museum. But these are important finds. This is a part of a collection written in Akkadian caneiform that was found in the Mesopotamian city of Nuzi. And in the book, Old Testament Parallels, written by Matthew and Benjamin, this point is made. The Nuzi archives provide some of the best social scientific evidence for the political, economic, and legal practices in the stories of Abraham and Sarah, and of Jacob, Leah, and Rachel, and in the book of Genesis. The similarities between these two cultures may be due to the widespread distribution of Hurrian peoples throughout the ancient Near East. But the point is there’s a wealth of information for that patriarchal period.

In other words, when you look at what the tablets say, they talk about a time when, if a man could not have a child, that there would be arrangements made of a surrogate. And so, like when Abraham marries Hager, this kind of thing is dealt with in the Nuzi tablets as not being uncommon during this Bible period. Another thing it points out is that the household gods, such as in Laban’s house, the Teraphim, that this was equivalent to a deed, that whoever held those household gods that it was like having the deed to the property. It was proof of ownership of the property. And you know, when you think about that, Jacob and Rachel, one reason they’re willing to just go and leave, go with Jacob and leave the country of Haran, is they said, our fathers just dealt with us like property.

They did not appreciate the way he had treated them, and they said he’s just squandered our inheritance. And so Rachel takes those household gods. And you wonder, well, why did she do that? Was this so that she could worship them? Well, there may have been some of that idolatry, you know. Uh we’re not ruling that out. But also, again, the the newsy tablet showed the relationship of this and the property, this showing ownership of the property. So it’s things like that. That whereas these tablets do not mention, for example, Abraham, the patriarch by name, it’s not that. And yet it does deal with uh the social kind of climate and culture that is reflected in the scriptures. So therefore it is related in in that way.

And speaking of Abraham and going to one of the places that Abraham lived, were able to go to Beersheba, which came to be Israel’s most southernmost city, uh Israel’s uh border to the south. And so the town grew up there where Abraham settled, and you can see from looking here, here we’re looking kind of to the south, and you can you can see that this can be very dry. This is uh this is in the area known as the Negev, the south, but it’s it’s uh from here on down can be very dry. I’ve also seen this area when it is green, and I’ve seen shepherds with their flocks right here as well. But again, we’re able to go to the place that that the patriarchs lived.

Abraham lived here, Isaac lived here. This is where Jacob lived. And so Beersheba, uh again, real places. I I tell the folks back home, I tell the little children I was talking about this morning. I’ll say, Boys and girls, when you read in the Bible about a place, it’s a real place. And those people were real people, and the things that says happened really happened just as it says. You know, the burial place for the patriarchs was at Hebron. And it’s a little bit problematic to get to go to Hebron. I’ve been there one time. I don’t know that I’ll get to go back. But at Hebron, you can still see the location of the cave of Macpelah. Now, what Herod the Great did was to build this structure, this monument over the cave.

And the interesting thing about this is that he uses the same kind of masonry that he used in building the temple. But the difference is the temple was destroyed. Remember, Jesus said not one stone will be left upon another that will not be cast down. But interestingly, this architecture of Herod, this building by Herod, is still left intact. And so he was a politician. This is the same one that would build temples for emperor worship. And yet he renovated the temple at Jerusalem for the Jews. And what better way to honor the Jews than to honor their patriarchs? And so the location of the burial site is where he built this magnificent structure covering the cave. And so again, archaeologists are helpful in terms of identifying places that are mentioned in the scripture so that we can see this and visualize in our mind what that place would have looked like.

2. The Time of the Conquest: Jericho and Shechem

Of course, you know sometimes you have to look beyond a building that is there, but again, you can go to Hebron and you can look around and see the environs just like Abraham would have seen so far as the hills and valleys. And so we we come on down from the time of Abraham and think in terms of the, I’m going to drop on down to the time of the of the conquest. And you’re able to go to see Jericho. A lot of excavation has been done at Jericho. And what you’re looking at in the lower portion here of the photo, this right here, these section is that of the supporting wall, not the not the not the main wall, but this the supporting wall on the outside here that uh again, sun-baked bricks that have fallen down that many believe would date back to the time of Joshua.

A lot of excavation has been done there. Once the conquest took place, once the conquest began, I should say, they left off right after going here to Joshua, to to Jericho, and then going from there to Ai and Bethel and defeating the Canaanites there, then they went north to this spot right here. This is this is Shechem. And this is a fascinating location right here. Now, this today is in the west bank of Israel, and very few tour groups will actually go here. But what you’re looking at right here in the middle of the photo, that is the town of Shechem that has been excavated. Now, do you remember in Genesis chapter 12? Do you have your Bibles? In Genesis chapter 12, you will notice at verse 7 that this is when God gives Abraham the land promise.

In verse 2 and 3, he’s given the nation promise and spiritual blessing promise. And usually we say nation promise, land uh we’ll say nation promise, land promise, and spiritual blessing promise in that order. But here, and that’s usually the way it’s given, but here it’s the land promise that’s mentioned last. And significantly in verse 6 of Genesis 12, that’s when he arrives in Canaan from Upper Mesopotamia, making his way down, and if you’ll notice it says that he came to Shechem. And so what you’re able to do is to say here in the center of this photo that this is where Abraham was when God first gave that land promise. He was standing right here. And those buildings weren’t there, but he could look around and he could see the hills.

He could see over here to your right, he could see Mount Ebel. And over here he could see Mount Gerizim. And here he was somewhere right here in the middle when God said, unto your seed, unto your descendants, I will give this land. But now I’m backing up when the promise was given, realizing now we’re talking about the conquest. And so in chapter 6, Joshua’s taken, chapter 7, you have Ai and Badel, and then in chapter 8, they make their way on up, they make their way on up to this location. Because in Deuteronomy 27, God had said, When you come into the land, six tribes are to go to Mount Ebel. Six tribes are to go to Mount Gerizim. This is the mount of cursing.

This is the mount of blessing. And down below were to be the Levites. And they’re to read all the words of the law, the blessings and curses, blessings for obedience, the curses if you violate the law, and all the people are to answer and say, Amen. Now the significance is here you have 601,730 men of war, plus their wives and their children. And so here they are to take the land. But they’re not just taking the land. They have assembled in the very place that God gave the land promise. And they’re receiving the land on the basis that we will keep the words of the law. We will be obedient. We’re binding ourselves in covenant relationship with you to keep the words of the law. And so this is what was done there in Joshua chapter 8.

And there at Mount Ebel, an altar was built, twelve stones were set up, plastered, the words of the law written there, so this was very significant. So we’re able to see, both by excavations that have been done at Shechem, plus just identifying the terrain in the mountains, for this to make sense. By the way, when Brother J.W. McGarvey made his well-known trip to the Bible lands, including Israel, but lots of other places, he did an experiment. He got to this point, and he had someone on the slope of Mount Evil, someone in the slope of Mount Gerizim, and someone uh here at Shechem to read or to speak. I forget if they were reading the scripture or what, but they were speaking, and he said, Yes, on both sides you could hear them.

Now, again, we don’t have to read that to know that it’s true. And yet, when you when you can go to an area like that, when when you can replicate, duplicate the kind of thing that was done, it is faith building, isn’t it? And so uh again, that is significant. By the way, when you come to something like this, there’s just a lot of things you can say. For example, in Joshua 24, when Joshua knew that uh he was going the way of all the earth. And he assembled the people and gave that farewell speech, and really it’s enjoining them to choose this day whom you will serve. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. But the text says, at beginning in Joshua 24 at verse 1 and following, that they assembled at Shechem.

And by the way, when you take, when you’re when you’re standing here, if you were to turn around, like if we were looking this way but we were just to turn around, you can see from here Jacob’s well, which is one of the most well attested sites in the Bible land, as being authentic, as being the very spot where Jesus would have been. And in John chapter 4, when that woman was talking to Jesus and she said, Our fathers say that in this mountain you are to worship, what she’s talking about is in that intertestamental period, the Samaritans had made Mount Gerizim their holy mountain. They had built a temple there which was destroyed by John Hyrcanus, but even after the destruction of the temple, the Samaritans still regarded Mount Gerizim as as the holy spot, the holy place where God’s name would dwell and so you see it even has New Testament places like this will embrace sometimes Old Testament history Bible passages, but it’s a we’re in the same area in John 4.

3. The Hittites: The Bible Was Right All Along

And that’s exactly where she was pointing out talking about when she said this mountain you Jews say Jerusalem and of course Jesus set her straight on that in that wonderful teaching session that he had with her. So again those are some things in in the period of the conquest but another thing our brother was just mentioning a while ago that oftentimes people will scoff at the Bible and doubt its historicity and then it turns out yes this has this this was true all along and there’s no better example of that than the Hittite civilization. It used to be fashionable in scholarly circles to ridicule the Bible because of its so many references to the Hittites. There are more than 40 references to the Hittites. But there was this was a civilization that had entirely disappeared without a trace.

There had been up until 1906, there had been no extra-biblical evidence of this civilization. So here you’ve got the Bible just keeps mentioning Hittites, but no documents, nothing identified, no inscriptions until 1906. And Hugo Winkler discovered evidence of the Hittite Empire in that year, and excavations have continued. And now it’s possible to do doctoral work in Hittite studies. There’s so much information that is available. This is the area that the of the Hittite Empire, it was really an empire. And it is over much of what is today Turkey and Syria and reaching on down toward the land of Israel, and you can see taking in upper Mesopotamia there. The center of power, let me suggest to you, is defined by the Hallas River, and in particular, Hattushas was the capital.

And let me show you. This is the Hallis River. And again, with the Hittite Empire, this is quite important. Abraham bought the cave and the field of Machpilah from Ephron the Hittite. The land of the Hittites was to be given to Israel. Joshua, the first chapter. You remember David’s loyal soldier was Uriah the Hittite. Over and over they’re mentioned. And so in the days of Solomon, he exported horses that he imported from Egypt. And Solomon was the middleman and exported these to the Hittites. And so that was a revenue producer for Israel. But again, you can go and you can visit the area where the Hittite civilization has been excavated, and you can see here we’re pointing our way to Hattushus. And you can go through the lion gate there.

Well, other countries did too, but the Hittites, they really liked lions. You know, in their uh the the gates and uh just just so many times you’ll see uh I’ve seen lots of carvings of lions. Bogas Kali is the modern name of Hattushus. But you can go through the gates, and here’s what you see. This this was the this was the capital city, and it has been excavated. This site here, this is uh the great temple of Hattushus. And what I’m saying is the Bible was right all along. All those times when it was mentioned in the Hittites, it was right all along. And I’m not saying that we have to wait till some archaeologist makes a discovery like this before we believe the Bible. You know that that’s not what I’m saying.

And yet, when discoveries like this are made, it does show yes, the Bible was right. And these people that were scoffing at the Bible, they were the ones that were ignorant, not the ones that believe the Bible. They want to act like we’re ignorant, we’re superstitious, you know, we’re a bunch of bumpkins. You know what a bumpkin is, don’t you? And and so, but they are so cultured and they are so sophisticated. Well, that’s just not true. They when you scoff at the Bible and uh esteem yourself to be sophisticated. Well, it’s like Romans 1 speaks of those who thought themselves to be wise and they became fools. And so it’s it’s never wise to mock at the word of God. But let me just show you just a few, a few examples of some of the artifacts from the Hittites.

This Hittite gate relief. See, a lot of times what they will do is a discovery will be considered so important that instead of leaving it on the site where it might be subject to vandalism or thievery, there’s a great deal of black marketing for archaeology where somebody will take it and sell it to a collector for his own private collection. And so what happens is a country given permission to excavate a site will then take that back to their location and it’ll be housed in a museum. And so Turkey has done a lot of excavation in these areas, which of course are in Turkey, and Istanbul has a great museum there, more than one museum, but the archaeological museum shows such uh uh Hittite reliefs as this, and here’s another one of those several Hittite lions.

And at Ankara, which is today the capital of Turkey, there is uh the world’s best known collection of Hittite artifacts. And so if you ever get an opportunity to go, that that also is worth seeing another thing, by the way, about these folks that again only in recent times have they been unearthed. But the the oldest treaty, the oldest parity treaty between two nations is between the Hittites and the Egyptians. And what happened there was a battle that took place in Kadish, Kaddish on the Arontes River, Kaddish of Syria. And you can see Hittites and Egyptians, and so they’re clashing there, and they fought. This was Ramesses II was the Egyptian king, and they fought till it’s a standoff. Neither side could win. And so they made a treaty.

4. The House of David and Gezer

And it was posted here in Turkey, in the Hittite territory. And also a copy was made at the temple at Karnak, the temple of Amman at Karnak in Egypt. And so this is some of the some of the translation some of the information about that. In fact, there is there’s even some of the translation where where they’re agreeing, you know, to treat each other as brothers, and even saying if somebody else attacks my brother, then I will go to his rescue and we’ll bring our chariots and we’ll kill those guys that are invading. So that really was the thing that was worked out. That’s the oldest treaty known to exist. But it’s between the Hittites and the Egyptians. Just fascinating. Now, in the March and April issue of Biblical Archaeology Review, there was an article entitled Archaeology Confirms 50 Real People in the Bible.

Some of these are more well known, some are less well known, but the first one in the list was King David. And reference was made to the Tel Dan Stila found at Dan. It was found in 1993. Now, 1993 is not that long ago in terms of history. I mean, that would be considered a pretty recent discovery. But the thing is, until 1993, there was nothing that made reference to David as king or his kingdom outside of the Bible. You know what people were doing. Well, just like with the Hittites. There’s no such thing as King David. There’s no such thing as a kingdom of David at this point. You know, that’s that’s some of that stuff that’s made up, and so uh that’s not historical.

And so what happened is that this was discovered in 1993, and it mentions it mentions David, King David, it mentions the house of David, and it mentions also Israel. And this is not something that an Israelite posted, by the way. This was the king of Syria that’s posting a stele that he has won a battle over Israel and Judah. So that’s that’s what uh that’s what the stele does. By the way, before I leave that, this the significance of this photo, in case you’re wondering, this is where the stele was discovered. I d uh uh uh uh some of you have been to the Bible lands. I I know the the Hark writers have, and uh probably some others have that I don’t know. But if you if you’ve got to go to the high place at Dan, where this is as you’re making your way to the high place, this is a plaza area just before you enter where the Israelite gate was.

And it was in this plaza area, actually right about right along in here, somewhere right along in there, like so, that the that this stele was was discovered. And as I say, it’s it’s really after the time of David. It’s it’s considerably after the time of David. It’s it’s it’s in the time we would call the intertestamental period. Um and uh the that article in the uh that I referred to says it’s written in the ninth century B. C. Aramaic, part of a victory steley commissioned by a non-Israelite king mentioning his victory over the house of Israel, or the king of Israel, and the house of David. And then he went on to say whether or not the foreign king’s claim to victory was true, it is clear that a century after he had died, David was still remembered as the founder of a dynasty.

Now, I will tell you that people don’t usually put up these steleies when they if they lose a battle. It’s a victory stele. Many believe that what this is referring to is the Ben Hadad. Ben means son or son of. Hadad was the king of Syria, so that’s why in the Bible you have more than one Ben Hadad. But this was erected by a Syrian king, and many tie this in with 1 Kings 15. If that’s the case, the king at this time would be Baeshah of Israel and Asa of Judah. That’s again what many would believe would best fit that situation. So that stele, the inscription that is in fragment form, and the part that mentions about the house of David has been highlighted there in white.

This is in the Israel Museum today, by the way. And incidentally, a sidebar, until 2012, you could not take photos in the Israel Museum. You could go in and look, but you couldn’t take photos. So this is a photo I took just this past October, a year ago, that you’re seeing here. So this is mentioning three countries, Syria or Aram, and Israel and Judah, and again, specifying the house of David. Well, let me show you something else that archaeology can do. When you think in terms of places such as Gezer, Gezer is mentioned as one of the cities. When you come to the book of Judges, and you look at the first couple of chapters, what do you do with that? You know, when it starts mentioning one tribe after another, they didn’t keep this city, they didn’t keep that city, they didn’t keep this city.

Just be honest, what do you do with that? Do you say, well, let’s pass on to chapter three, where we can get on to Athniel, and uh get on to, you know, we’ll pick up with Ehud and Shamgar. You know, let’s let’s let’s move on, get on into the judges. But the thing is, what those chapters are doing, they’re mentioning cities, and Gezer is one of them. By the way, don’t say Geezer. Geezer is an old man. You you what you want to do is say Ghazar. But in the description, in the listing of those cities, what you find is those would be places that are of great strategic importance. For example, it mentions Beit Shan. Passes in all four directions, went through Beit Shan. Major intersection.

It mentions Megedo was not retained. The Via Moris, the major international highway, went right through Meghetto. Very strategic city. They didn’t keep that. It says they didn’t keep Acho, they didn’t keep Oksiv. Well, those are northern ports, seaports. They didn’t keep those. And it mentions Dor. That was a seaport. And so here’s a country that borders on the Mediterranean Sea, and then it tells us later that Dan lost all of its inheritance. Well, that’s where Joppa was, where their original inheritance was. And so really what you have is it starts mentioning these places, and it turns out these are very strategic cities, ports, fortress cities guarding passes, guarding the entrance to the south, to the north, and it put Israel at a great disadvantage. So it’s going to show you how because they didn’t follow through and do what God said, it really set them up for failure.

Gezzer is one of those. And so it doesn’t, it’s not kept by Israel, it’s not retained by Israel until the days of Solomon. And what happened is Pharaoh in 1 Kings chapter 3 conquered Gezer, and he gave it to Solomon as dowry, as Solomon was given Pharaoh’s daughter as wife. So Gezer is mentioned in that connection. And then Solomon made this one of his fortress cities. Gezer, Hotzor, or Hazar, and Megiddo, fortress cities. And so from a distance you look, and this, again, this is in the south, and this is Gezer mentioned in the scriptures. This is this is that city that was kind of a fortress city to the south. It guards the entrance to the south. And so in the days of Solomon, it became Israel’s territory, really for the first time.

Have you ever wondered? Well, how do they, you know, when you when you can see that here is a tell, here’s a place that was occupied, you find pottery everywhere, you find evidence of occupation, but how do you know which place this was? And here again, the role of archaeology is important in this. It is, is a uh, it is here at Gezer that a number of boundary stones have been discovered. The first one of these was discovered in 1873. And interestingly, more recently in 2012, another one was discovered, and that made 13 boundary stones. And so here you have these boundary stones that have the name Gezer. It’s kind of like today when you go to a town. Hansville is between Birmingham and Huntsville. We live in Hansville.

But when you approach our big city, you will see a city limit sign, identifying Hansville. And whatever direction you come from, you know, it’s you know, Hansville, city limits. And this served like that. It’s marking, these boundary stones are marking off the boundary of the city, the city limit signs, so to speak. And so, again, that’s that’s an important role for archaeology. And again, more excavation has been done. And Solomon had a blueprint that he liked. This six-chambered gate is found in three, those three places mentioned in the Bible as fortress cities. Gezer, right here, Hatzor, Hazar, and Megiddo all have this same six-chambered gate. It is characteristic of Solomon’s building fortress cities that he would make this kind of fortress, this very strong structure. And this is identified in many circles as Solomonic construction, Solomonic gates.

5. Sargon, the Silver Amulet and the Dead Sea Scrolls

And so again, cities were selected because of their location, whether uh at the point of entrance into the territory or maybe on the highway, on a major pass, and so Gezer is important in that way. Well, in your Bible, in Isaiah chapter 20 and verse 1, there’s a text that says, In the year that the commander came to Ashdod, when Sargon the king of Assyria sent him, and he fought against Ashdod and captured it. Now, Isaiah, Isaiah chapter 20. Isaiah began his work, Isaiah chapter 6, in the day that uh King Isaiah died. And I know what you’re thinking. King Isaiah, King Isaiah died, Uzziah died in the year 740 B.C. That is what you were thinking, right? Died 740 B.C. So Isaiah’s prophesying between 740 and about 690.

So in that period of time, the great oppressive power is that of Assyria. And so here’s a passage that mentions the king of Assyria sent his commander and took Ashdod. Now Ashdod is, you know, that’s a Philistine city. And so we go down to the south to the coastal region of Israel, and there he’s gone that far down south, and he’s taken Ashdod. Do you know what skeptics would say? They would say, listen, we know the Assyrian kings. We have a list of all the Assyrian kings, and there was no king named Sargon. So the Bible just made that up. That is that is fiction. This they ridicule that. There’s no such thing as King Sargon. And yet, his capital city has been excavated. It’s a site just northeast of Nineveh, which was Dur, Sharakim, which is modern Khorsabad.

It was built in the year 717 BC. And the treasuries, the artifacts that have been unearthed there, have made Sargon one of the most famous of all the Assyrian kings. It was the Chicago Oriental Institute that excavated that city, and they have a lot of the treasures there in Chicago. And this what you’re looking at here, this winged bull is depicting Sargon, King Sargon II, the one mentioned in the scripture, and it is 14 feet high. The Bible was right all along. When it said Sargon, the Bible was right. This is one I photographed in the Semitic Museum at Harvard. But again, this is another steleia of Sargon II and Adstanbul. They have an altar that is showing here with the information sign, the placard sign, gives the translation that this is dedicated to his God, which is Sabiti, but it’s by Sargon II, and then you have the scholarly consensus of the date that this was done, and again, in his capital city.

By the way, in the throne room, you you have these reliefs that are there, and in the front part here with his hand lifted, this also is depicting King Sargon. So if you were a guest and you came to see this king mentioned in Isaiah 20 and verse 1, you you would have seen this visitors that came in to see him. If they were fortunate enough to do that, they would see these impressive reliefs. That’s kind of a blow-up of that. But again, that’s showing Sargon, you know, with an upraised hand there. Um bricks. You know, sometimes uh, you know, in Hollywood, you’ve got bricks with the uh the hands of stars and and and their names on it and stuff like that. And and when it when a king would would build something, or it was built at his command, oftentimes his name is imprinted in some of the bricks as uh uh dedication to him.

And this is an inscribed brick again uh at his city of Sharakin, modern Korsabad. And this is a nine-sided prism commemorating his founding of his capital city. And so again, I say the Bible was right all along. So that’s in the divided kingdom period. Let me show you something else, just before the period of the captivity that is quite significant. This scroll made of silver was found in Jerusalem in the year 1979. And let me show you where it was found. It was found in uh cave 24, chamber 25 at Catefinn. And uh what it turns out is that when this was unrolled, this silver amulet contains the high priestly prayer of Numbers chapter six. And this was worn about somebody’s neck, this passage of scripture.

But scholars have dated this to the period when the Solomonic temple was still standing. It predates the captivity. And the significance of that is that until the discovery of this, again, what skeptics were saying is, like I said this morning, that the Pentateuch was not even written until the time of the captivity. And here we have uh what we know is a time before the captivity where someone is making a copy of that passage found in Numbers chapter six. And so here again, it is it is uh illuminating, it is enlightening. It is it it’s it’s uh it it does, while our faith doesn’t depend upon that, it certainly does help us in our understanding, and we see that evidence is there that does correlate to the accuracy of the scripture.

By the way, there were two amulets, and this is another one that again mentions the name of Yahweh and imploring blessings upon the wearer of this. But when we pass on, again, you can see I’m just touching the hem of the garment with time periods, and when we pass on to the time of the intertestamental period, what you have is the writing of numerous books of the Bible in this area, which is Qumran on the Dead Sea, the northwestern shore of the Dead Sea, and in 1947, these scrolls in the Dead Sea caves there were discovered. Cave number four, which is right here. Can you see that? It’s where most of the manuscripts were found. But in the total collection, every book of the Old Testament except for the book of Esther was represented, mostly in fragment form, but in some cases, such as with Isaiah, uh pretty well a complete scroll of Isaiah was found.

Now, until these were discovered, we were relying upon manuscripts, copies that were, say, a thousand years or so AD. And yet with this discovery, it takes us back a thousand years or so earlier than the oldest manuscripts we had. And what happened is nobody says we’ve got to make a new translation. What we see is that these people making copies were sure careful. And it just confirmed the accuracy of what we already had. I remember more than 40 years ago studying archaeology under Dr. and brother James Hodges, and he said the main value of the Dead Sea Scrolls is in the realm of apologetics. No new translation had to be found. And so you can see in Jerusalem at the shrine of the book, which is a museum, and the top of that is designed to look like the jars that the cave that the uh scrolls were found in in the caves.

But inside there is the is the collection of the Dead Sea Scrolls. At Bethlehem, there is this is not a replica, this is one of the actual jars found in the caves. And the son of the owner of this allowed me to photograph that. But jars just like this had had copies, copy after copy of those scrolls. So here again, when you talk about archaeology and the Bible, uh those discoveries there in the Essene community of Qumran, uh that’s that has to be one of the most important discoveries ever made. But we’re just a couple of things here going to mention about in the New Testament time, and uh then we’ll have to stop. Not because I’m out of material, but because of constraints of time.

6. New Testament Time: The Middle Wall of Separation

In fact, there’s a couple of passages I want to just take a moment to look at with you. Turn with me to Acts chapter 21. In Acts chapter 21, where we’re at here is where Paul has just come back from that third journey. He’s now arrived in Jerusalem, and a lot of important things were happening then. That’s the collection for the saints with the various messengers from churches that they they were the same trip they were on for that. But where we take up here in Acts 21, Paul is in the temple complex, and there were some Jews from Asia seeing him in the temple, and they stirred up the crowd. This is in verse 27 of Acts 21, and laid hands on him. Now look at verse 28 with me, crying out, Men of Israel, help.

This is the man who teaches all men everywhere against the people, the law, and this place. Furthermore, he also brought Greeks into the temple and has defiled this holy place. For when they had previously seen Prophemus, the Ephesian with him in the city, whom they supposed that Paul had brought into the temple. Well, what you have here is just the way people suppose things. In fact, what you have is a lot of supposition and a lot of distortion, like everything they said that Paul is teaching against the people, the law, and this place, the temple. Was Paul doing that? Well, no, he wasn’t. Just like Jesus said, he didn’t come to destroy the law and the prophets, but to fulfill. And Paul was showing the proper fulfillment of Scripture and the role of these things in the plan of God.

So all this is distortion, but it’s just outright false when they said he’s brought a Gentile into the temple. Now, what that’s talking about, the temple complex is what we need to think of. In the sanctuary itself, where there’s the most the holy place and the most holy place behind the veil, no Jew could go in there except the priest, and the most holy place, only the high priest on the day of atonement. So when it talks about the temple, it’s not talking about people going in there, but the temple complex, you know, the court areas leading up to that place where the altar was, and then on inside where the priest would minister. Now, Gentiles could go to a certain point, but then all the way around there was a wall, and it wasn’t a high wall.

You could you could get over it, but it was to clearly show a boundary. And every so often there were these limestone tablets inscribed in Greek, and some in Greek and Latin, some were bilingual, and they were forbidding a Gentile to go beyond that point. Now, see, this helps us to understand what Acts 21 is saying. That they supposedly had brought a Gentile into this place. He’s gone beyond where that marker there says not to go, but he hadn’t. By the way, that’s a fragment that’s in the Israel Museum. In the Istanbul Museum, there is there is a complete unbroken tablet that would have been at the Herodian temple. In other words, no doubt Paul would have seen this one or those just like it. They were there for him to see.

It was there in the days of Jesus. And the translation is, as we have down here below, that no foreigner is to go beyond the balustrade and the plaza of the temple zone. Whoever is caught doing so will have himself to blame for his death, which will follow.

It means anybody that’s not a Jew. And so for that one exception, they were permitted to put someone to death. And these signs were posted all the way around. Now let me show you how that enlightens us with another passage. In Ephesians chapter 2, in Ephesians chapter 2, the text is talking about the death of Jesus. He himself is our peace, verse 14, who has made both one, that’s Jew and Gentile. And the text says, and has broken down the middle wall of separation. Jesus broke down the middle wall of separation. Now there’s no distinction between Jew and Gentile. There used to be, there used to be signs like this. Gentiles can’t cross. They’re separated. Here’s a wall of partition. Don’t go on the other side of the wall.

He says Jesus broke down the middle wall of partition. The middle wall of separation, having abolished in his flesh the enmity, that is the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so as to create in himself one new man from the two, thus making peace. Look at verse 16. And that he might reconcile them both, that is Jew and Gentile, to God in one body through the cross, having put to death the enmity. So isn’t that wonderful that in God’s plan, Jews and Gentiles are reconciled to God. Where are the reconciled? They’re in one body. They’re reconciled to God, they’re reconciled to each other, in one body through the cross. But he says, what that did was to break down the middle wall of partition. And what he’s talking about, that metaphor, that the word picture that he’s talking about, is in fact that wall that no Gentile could cross.

And so here we are with a fragment, here we are with a whole the whole sign that that is exactly what these passages in Acts and in Ephesians are talking about. Doesn’t that shed light on those passages of scripture? Now, quickly, you will remember that the high priest that before whom Jesus was put on trial, his name was Caiaphas. Caiaphas was a very wealthy person. And what has been found in Jerusalem is the burial tomb of Caiaphas and the ossuaries for his family that were buried there. You know, in the funerary customs of Bible times, you know you know what a sarcophagus is. It’s more like a looks like a coffin. Sarcophagus, the Greek word sarx is the word for flesh. And sarcophagus is really the concept of flesh eater.

The idea being that when the body is put in the sarcophagus, sometimes they would actually put lime on it to hasten the removal of the flesh, so that eventually you’re going to just be left with bones. And see, then they would take the bones out of the sarcophagus and put it in a bone box, which is what an ossuary is. And an ossuary is a lot smaller. It only has to be as long as the longest bone.

Until the year 1961, outside of the Bible, there were no inscriptions. Now, there would have been references like at Josephus, perhaps and others, but no inscriptions with Pilate’s name on it. 1961, an Italian archaeologist was on a dig in Caesarea Maritima, and he found this inscription. And what this is, it’s uh you can see some of it has been chiseled away because they were actually using it in the theater. Can you imagine that? They were recycling this stone with Pilate’s name on it, you know, to uh to be used in the theater, which is right there uh nearby where we are right here. We’re right on the coast. Tiberium is a temple. And what this inscription is about is he is dedicating a Tiberium to the divine Augustus, to Caesar Augustus.

Conclusion

And it has his name on it, uh Pontus Pilate, as the prefect here of Judea. So this is a replica that’s actually right there at Caesarea. The original is this right here that is now housed in the Israel Museum. So, again, that’s just a sampling. These are just a few of the places and of the artifacts from literally hundreds that could be utilized to show that um what we have is not just a stone here and there. What we have is a whole avalanche of evidence. There is so much there that uh that again will illustrate and illuminate and uh uh uh corroborate biblical testimony. That to me it is just it is just fascinating. And so this is one reason I enjoy traveling to the Bible lands and taking people to the Bible lands to do on-site study and to equip them so that they can make use of these tools in their own teaching and show others those kinds of things that will fortify our faith.

We have every reason for believing in the integrity of the scriptures. And there’s no reason ever to doubt the word of God. So I appreciate your being here. You can tell I enjoy this sort of thing, but I believe you’re here because you’re interested as well, and I appreciate that. The song of invitation has been selected. Has it been announced? Have we given the number or the name of it?

Okay. That answered that.

Are you convinced that what we’re talking about is real, that God is real, that Jesus is real, that these are matters of importance that you don’t want to put on the back burner. If you’re not yet a child of God, though this lesson has not been primarily to teach about the plan of salvation, indirectly it is because, again, uh, we’re talking about reasons for believing, evidences for our faith.

We want to do that. Let us assist you as together we stand and sing.