This is a compilation of the 24-part series presented in the Good Newsmagazine over the past several years. This document is only available as an

electronic file. It is not available in print or hard-copy at this time.

The Bible andArchaeologySections 1–12

The Bible andArchaeologySections 1–12

Article Reprint Series on The Bible and ArchaeologyThe Good News (ISSN: 1086-9514) is published bimonthly by the UnitedChurch of God, an International Association, 5405 DuPont Circle, Suite A,Milford, OH 45150. © 2002 United Church of God, an International Asso-

ciation. Printed in U.S.A. All rights reserved. Reproduction in any formwithout written permission is prohibited. Periodicals Postage paid at

Milford, Ohio 45150, and at additional mailing offices.

Publisher: United Church of God, an International AssociationManaging editor: Scott Ashley Writer-researchers: Jerold Aust,

Roger Foster, Melvin Rhodes, Tom Robinson, John Ross SchroederCopy editor: Dixon Cartwright Art director: Shaun Venish

Editorial reviewers: John Bald, Bruce Gore, Paul Kieffer, GraemmeMarshall, Richard Thompson, David Treybig, Lyle Welty, Dean WilsonUnited Church of God Council of Elders: Gary Antion, Aaron Dean,

Robert Dick, Roy Holladay (chairman), John Jewell, Clyde Kilough, Victor Kubik, Les McCullough (church president), Mario Seiglie,

Richard Thompson, Leon Walker, Donald Ward

Free subscription: Call (513) 576-9796, visit our Web site at www.gnmagazine.org, or write to The Good News, United Church of God,P.O. Box 541027, Cincinnati, OH 45254-1027, or the office nearest youfrom the list below. The Good News is sent free to all who request it. Yoursubscription is provided by the voluntary contributions of members ofthe United Church of God, an International Association, and others. Dona-tions are gratefully accepted and are tax-deductible in the United States.Those who choose to voluntarily support this worldwide work are wel-comed as coworkers in this effort to proclaim the true gospel to all nations.

Personal contact: The United Church of God has congregations andministers throughout the United States and many other countries. Tocontact a minister or to find locations and times of services, contact ouroffice nearest you or access our Web site at www.ucg.org.

Scriptural references in The Good News are from the New King JamesVersion (© 1988 Thomas Nelson, Inc., publishers) unless otherwise noted.

International addresses: Australia: United Church of God–Australia GPO Box 535, Brisbane, Qld. 4001, Australia Phone: 07 55 202 111 Free call: 1800 356 202 Fax: 07 55 202 122Web site address: www.ucg.org.au E-mail: info@ucg.org.auBahamas: United Church of God, P.O. Box N8873, Nassau, Bahamas Phone: (242) 324-3169 Fax: (242) 364-5566British Isles: United Church of GodP.O. Box 705, Watford, Herts, WD19 6FZ, EnglandPhone: 020-8386-8467 Fax: 01257-453978Web site address: www.goodnews.org.ukCanada: United Church of God–Canada Box 144, Station D, Etobicoke, ON M9A 4X1, CanadaPhone: (905) 876-9966, (800) 338-7779 Fax: (905) 876-0569 Web site address: www.ucg.caFiji: United Church of God, P.O. Box 10577, Nadi Airport, Fiji Phone: 723-678French-speaking areas: Église de Dieu Unie–FranceB.P. 51254, 45002 Orléans Cedex 1, FranceGermany: Vereinte Kirche Gottes/Gute NachrichtenPostfach 30 15 09, D-53195 Bonn, GermanyPhone: 0228-9454636 Fax: 0228-9454637Italy: La Buona Notizia, Chiesa di Dio UnitaCasella Postale 187, 24100 Bergamo, ItalyPhone and fax: 0039-035-582140Web site address: www.labuonanotizia.orgE-mail: redazione@labuonanotizia.orgMauritius: P.O. Box 53, Quatre Bornes, MauritiusE-mail: mauritius@ucg.orgNetherlands: P.O. Box 93, 2800 AB Gouda, NetherlandsNew Zealand: United Church of God P.O. Box 22, Auckland 1015, New Zealand Phone: Toll-free 0508-463-763 Philippines: P.O. Box 81840, DCCPO, 8000 Davao City, PhilippinesPhone: 82 241-0150 Web site address: www.ucg.org.phScandinavia: Guds Forenade Kyrka Mailbox 144, 111 73 Stockholm, Sweden Phone: +44 20 8386-8467 Fax: +44 1257 453978 South Africa: United Church of God, Southern Africa P.O. Box 2209, Beacon Bay, East London 5205Phone and Fax: 043 748-1694 E-mail: rsa@ucg.orgWeb site address: www.ucgrsa.orgSpanish-speaking areas: Iglesia de Dios Unida P.O. Box 541027, Cincinnati, OH 45254-1027, U.S.A. Phone: (513) 576-9796 Fax (513) 576-9795Tonga: United Church of God–Tonga, P.O. Box 127, Nuku‘alofa, Tonga

Canada Post Publications Mail Agreement Number 1487140.Address changes: POSTMASTER—Send address changes to The Good News, Box 541027, Cincinnati, OH 45254-1027.

Can You Believe the Bible?

William Ramsay didn’t set out to prove the Bible’s accuracy. Infact, the young Oxford graduate and budding scholar set sail in1879 from England for Asia Minor convinced that, based on his

university studies, the New Testament—and the book of Acts in particular—was largely a hoax. After all, his professors had taught him that the Bible hadbeen written much later than it claimed to be, so its stories had been fabri-cated long after the fact and weren’t to be taken seriously.

The focus of his work was ancient Roman culture. But the more he duginto it, literally and figuratively, the more he came to see that the myriad oftiny details in the book of Acts—place names, topography, officials’ titles,administrative boundaries, customs and even specific structures—fit per-fectly with newly discovered historical and archaeological finds. He wasgradually convinced that, to use his own words, “in various details the narra-tive showed marvelous truth.”

Contrary to all his earlier education, he was forced to conclude that Luke,the author of Acts, was “a historian of the first rank” and that “not merely arehis statements of fact trustworthy; he is possessed of the true historic sense. . . This author should be placed along with the very greatest of historians.”

In an outstanding academic career Ramsay was honored with doctoratesfrom nine universities and eventually knighted for his contributions to mod-ern scholarship. He shocked the academic world when in one of his bookshe announced that, because of the incontrovertible evidence he had discov-ered for the truthfulness of the Bible, he had become a Christian. Several ofhis works on New Testament history are considered classics.

When confronted with the evidence of years of travel and study, SirWilliam Ramsay learned what many others before him and since have beenforced to acknowledge: When we objectively examine the evidence for theBible’s accuracy and veracity, the only conclusion we can reach is that theBible is true.

The evidence from archaeology is only one proof of Scripture’s accuracy,and that’s the focus of this series of articles. We offer you a sampling of theevidence that’s available—documentation showing that details of the people,places and events described in the Bible, many of them mentioned only inpassing, have been verified by archaeologists and historians. Many excellentbooks have been published in recent years that verify the dependability ofScripture, and no doubt more will follow as new discoveries come to light.

What are the implications of this for you? All the evidence in the worlddoes us no good if we are not willing to believe the Bible enough to put it to the ultimate test—that of doing what it tells us to do.

James, the half brother of Jesus, reminds us that mere belief is notenough, because even the demons believe. Instead he tells us we must putour beliefs into action if we are to please God (James 2:19-26).

In The Good News we regularly offer articles such as those in this issue to help build your faith. But be sure that you don’t neglect the articles thatshow you how to put your faith and belief into action. God is interested tosee how you respond to the truth He makes known to you. Ultimately that isthe far more important test.

—Scott Ashley

24 The Good News

tell you that if these shouldkeep silent, the stones wouldimmediately cry out,” saidJesus (Luke 19:40). He wasreferring to what would hap-

pen if His disciples did not bear testi-mony of Him.

The original disciples aren’t aroundto provide their eyewitness accounts of Jesus Christ, but we do have theinspired Word of God, which they,along with many others, wrote.

Significantly enough, we also havethe testimony of stones that really canbear witness to the veracity and inspi-ration of God’s Word. The physicalevidence unearthed by present-day scientists can and does speak to usthrough biblical archaeology.

Archae, which comes from theGreek, means “ancient,” and ology,which comes from the Greek logia,means “science.” Archaeology, then, isthe scientific study of ancient things.

Unearthing the origins of archaeology

Englishman Flinders Petrie is gen-erally considered the individual whoput archaeological methodology on ascientific footing. He is credited withtransforming archaeology from a trea-sure hunt into a disciplined search forinformation about the past. It was notuntil the 19th century that scientificmethods were rigorously applied toexcavations of historical sites.

A curious fact of history is that theperson who indirectly contributed tothis process was not a scientist but theFrench emperor and conquerorNapoleon Bonaparte. During his con-quests of Europe and the Middle East,Napoleon arrived in Egypt in the late1700s hoping to build the Suez Canaland drastically reduce the navigation

time for the trade route from France toIndia. In Egypt, before a battle in thevicinity of the famous pyramids ofGizeh, he told his soldiers, “Forty cen-turies are looking down upon youfrom these pyramids.”

His inquisitive mind led him tostudy the Egyptian culture and try todecipher strange drawings he saw inthe ancient monuments. For that pur-pose, he brought along 175 Frenchscholars and researchers, and togetherthey set up an institute in Egypt tostudy the writings and ancient relicsof the area.

The deciphering of the Egyptianhieroglyphics (a word meaningpriestly or sacred writings) can beattributed mostly to a young scientistof that time, Jean François Champol-lion. Accurate translations were madepossible largely by the discovery in1799 of a large black basalt rock byFrench soldiers at the town of Rosetta.Later to be known as the RosettaStone, it bore a trilingual inscription inOld Egyptian hieroglyphic, demotic (alater, simplified form of Egyptianhieroglyphics) and Greek. With thisstone as a key, Champollion in 1822could finally decipher the ancienthieroglyphics.

The deciphering of the Egyptianhieroglyphics brought the culture ofthe Pharaohs to light, and the educatedclasses of Europe gained insight intothis fascinating subject. Soon, manyamateur archaeologists were on theirway to fame and fortune, finding fabu-lous monuments and other treasures.Museums throughout Europe andAmerica vied with each other to housethese marvelous finds. The treasure-laden tomb of Tutankhamen, discov-ered in 1922, was one of the most

How Archaeology Confirms the Biblical Record

b y M a r i o S e i g l i e

How Archaeology Confirms the Biblical Record

I“

Scholars have queued up to

ridicule the biblical accounts

as mere myth. A tug of war

continues between scoffers and believers

in the inspirationand accuracy of

the Bible.

May 1996 25

spectacular. Many early archaeologistswould be honored for their efforts andwould become a part of history in theirown right.

Deciphering ancient writingElsewhere in the region, strange

writings on monuments and otherobjects were waiting to be deciphered.

Curious scratches, resemblingbird footprints, were found onthousands of hardened claytablets. Initially, some scien-tists thought they were deco-rations rather than writing.Since the marks had appar-ently been made with awedgelike knife in soft clay,the experts called themcuneiform, or letterformsmade by cunei, Latin for“wedges.”

The credit for the deciphering ofcuneiform would go mostly to an agentof the British government, Henry C.Rawlinson, stationed in Persia. Hebegan a systematic study of cuneiformwriting found on the Behistun Rockinscription, sometimes known as the“Rosetta Stone of cuneiform.”

Thousands of years earlier, Darius the

Great, king of Persia, had on the face ofthis 1,700-foot cliff overlooking a valleyengraved an account of his exploits. Theinscription appeared in three scripts:Persian, Elamite and Babylonian in thecuneiform style of writing.

Over a period of two years, Rawlin-son traveled to the site and made theperilous climb, dangling from a ropewhile painstakingly transcribing theinscription. By 1847, he had deci-phered cuneiform writing, openingunderstanding of Babylonian cultureand history to theworld. Forhis

efforts, Rawlinson received a knight-hood from Queen Victoria in 1855.

Digging up forgotten citiesAnother young British subject,

Austen Henry Layard, drew inspirationfrom such discoveries and the fame it

had brought men like Champollion andRawlinson. Layard began digging inIraq, home of the Assyrian and Baby-lonian empires thousands of yearsbefore. He unearthed great cities mentioned in the Bible, including theancient Assyrian capital, Nineveh, andCalah. Many of his finds, includingenormous winged bulls and otherimportant Babylonian and Assyrianartifacts, made their way to the BritishMuseum. He, too, was knighted byQueen Victoria.

Not to be outdone by theFrench and British, Germanarchaeologists also began theirquest for riches and fame. Onesuch explorer, Heinrich Schlie-mann, began searching for thelegendary city of Troy,described by the ancient

Greek poet Homer.Believing Homer’s sagasto be pure imagination,

contemporariesridiculed Schlie-mann’s efforts, think-ing him to be on afanciful search. But,incredibly enough,heeding the descrip-tions in Homer’sIliad and those byother Greek writers,Schliemann beganto excavate. In1871, he found theremains of the

ancient city of Troy. Following in the

footsteps of these dash-ing adventurers came the

patient archaeologists whowould study and classify these

discoveries in a systematic way, giv-ing birth to the scientific methodologyof field archaeology.

The age of skepticismUnfortunately, the zeal for fame and

treasure of many of these early archae-ologists also led to unfounded claimsof the discoveries of biblical sites.Some of these claims, such as the sup-posed discovery of King Solomon’smines and David’s tomb, were later

Jean François Champolliondeciphered Egyptian hieroglyph-ics, which opened the door tounderstanding the culture ofancient Egypt.

The Rosetta Stone, with its trilingualinscription, was key to understandingEgyptian hieroglyphics.

Phot

os c

ourt

esy

Bett

man

n A

rchi

ve

26 The Good News

proved false. Seeds of doubt began tobe planted regarding the accuracy ofthe biblical account.

The 20th century inherited the skep-ticism of the preceding hundred years.Charles Darwin and others, espousingtheories of evolution, had positedexplanations for the origin and devel-opment of living creatures apart from a divine Creator. Such notions encour-aged a questioning of the historicityof the Bible.

Also strong in Europe was thethinking inspired by Karl Marx,who in an economic, materialisticinterpretation of history, dis-counted God and miracles.Many scholars ridiculed the bib-lical accounts as myth. The Biblebecame fair game for higher crit-icism; a tugging match ensuedbetween believers in the inspira-tion and accuracy of the Bibleand scoffers.

Biblical and theologicalscholars of the day declared theBible was more recent in originthan it claimed; some arguedthe people of the OldTestament did not even knowhow to read and write. Somescholars concluded that most ofthe Old Testament was littlemore than myth.

Authors Norman Geisler andPaul Feinberg observe: “Perhapsthe best example of those whohold the ‘reason over revelation’view are known as ‘liberals’ or ‘highercritics.’ Roughly speaking, this refersto a theological movement that sprungfrom the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century European thought. It wasinfluenced by Spinoza, Kant, andHegel, who concluded by human rea-son that parts or all of the Bible arenot a revelation from God. Otherhigher critics have included men suchas Jean Astruc (1684-1766) and JuliusWellhausen (1844-1918).

“In contrast to the historic, orthodoxview that the Bible is the Word of God,liberals believe that the Bible merelycontains the Word of God. When theyapply the canons of human reason or

modern scholarship to the Bible theyfeel that some parts of it are ‘contradic-tory,’ and others are simply myths orfables. Some Old Testament stories arerejected by these critics because theevents seemed to be ‘immoral’”(Introduction to Philosophy, aChristian Perspective, 1980, p. 261).

Rejecting the divine inspiration ofthe Bible, archaeologists from liberal

biblical institutes allowed

themselves to be influenced by the ageof skepticism in theology. Consciouslyor unconsciously, they became biasedagainst the biblical account.

Skeptical of fall of JerichoAn example of such bias surfaced

recently in the matter of dating the fallof Jericho. According to the biblicalrecord, Jericho was destroyed by theIsraelites under Joshua when theybegan their conquest of the promisedland. However, excavations of the siteof Jericho led some—most notably,renowned British archaeologist

Kathleen Kenyon—to reject the bibli-cal version.

In Biblical Archaeology Review,archaeologist Bryant Wood explainsthe earlier antibiblical view: “Thearchaeological evidence conflicted with the Biblical account—indeed,disproved it. Based on [archaeologistKathleen] Kenyon’s conclusions,Jericho has become the parade exampleof the difficulties encountered inattempting to correlate the findings of

archaeology with the Biblicalaccount of a military conquestof Canaan. Scholars by andlarge have written off theBiblical record as so muchfolklore and religious rhetoric.And this is where the matterhas stood for the past 25 years”(Bryant Wood, BiblicalArchaeology Review, March-April, 1990, p. 49).

Evidence reexamined Yet a reevaluation of Ken-

yon’s work showed that herconclusions challenging biblicalchronology were suspect, whilethe biblical account gained thestrongest supporting evidence.Wood observes that Kenyon’s“thoroughgoing excavationmethods and detailed reportingof her findings, however, did notcarry over into her analyticalwork. When the evidence is criti-cally examined there is no basisfor her contention that City IV

[the level of the city that was thoughtto correspond to Joshua’s time] wasdestroyed . . . in the mid-16th centuryB.C.E. [before the Christian era]”(ibid., p. 57).

Time magazine added the following:“Over the past three decades, the con-sensus has gone against the biblicalversion [of the fall of Jericho]. The lateBritish archaeologist Kathleen Kenyonestablished in the 1950s that while theancient city was indeed destroyed, ithappened around 1550 B.C., some 150years before Joshua could have shownup. But archaeologist Bryant Wood . . .claims that Kenyon was wrong. Basedon a re-evaluation of her research,

Sir Henry C. Rawlinson decipheredcuneiform, the style of writing used inthe ancient Babylonian empire.

Phot

o co

urte

sy B

ettm

ann

Arc

hive

Wood says that the city’s walls couldhave come tumbling down at just theright time to match the biblical account. . . Says Wood: ‘It looks to me asthough the biblical stories are correct’(Time, March 5, 1990, p. 43).

And so, the lively debate regardingthe Bible’s accuracy continues betweenconservative and liberal archaeologists.

Discoveries verify biblical accountsAs the 20th century has progressed,

several archaeological finds verifying

the biblical record have come to light.In the early 1900s, German excavatorsunder Robert Koldewey mapped theancient capital of Babylon and foundthat it closely corresponded to the bib-

Continued on page 41

What can we say about the relationship betweenthe Bible and archaeology? An illustration canhelp. Let us imagine two jigsaw puzzles. The

first is the Bible, put together under the inspiration ofGod Himself. The pieces fit together perfectly. As God’sWord says, “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God,and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correc-tion, for instruction in righteousness, that the man ofGod may be complete, thoroughly equipped for everygood work” (2 Timothy 3:16, 17, emphasis added).

This first puzzle’s primary purpose is to reveal notscience and history per se but the record of God’s deal-ings with humankind. Much of this revelation is knowl-edge that cannot be examined under a microscope orperceived through our senses. It is knowledge revealedby God.

Throughout the Bible, a common theme is God’s par-ticipation in human history. Whether it be the creationaccount, His dealings with Israel or the early NewTestament Church, God is central.

Much of this information is not the kind that archae-ology can discover through the study of ancient remains.Yet God’s inspired account of His interaction with living,breathing people is inserted into writings about thephysical surroundings of those people. Such informationis genuine and true, since God “cannot lie” (Titus 1:2).

Limits of archaeologyThe physical evidence can be likened to a second

jigsaw puzzle, one based on scientific evidence andthat is valuable to our faith by its ability to confirmthe veracity of the biblical accounts.

The second jigsaw puzzle concerns how archaeologyand related disciplines can reveal physical evidence con-cerning biblical history. The picture presented is partial;not all archaeological evidence has survived. Conclusionsderived from archaeological discoveries are necessarilyuncertain. Like a puzzle, pieces can be initially misplaced.As new discoveries are made or better interpretationsare offered, the position of some pieces can shift. Manypieces are faded and worn, making placement difficult.

Dating of biblical sites is based primarily on survivingpottery, with its distinctive styles associated with specifichistorical periods. What remains is an incomplete pic-ture of the past. As archaeologist Paul W. Lapp com-

mented, “Palestinian archaeology may be past infancybut has hardly gotten beyond childhood.” Archaeologyis a developing and imperfect science.

Some archaeologists estimate that only one thou-sandth of the original artifacts have survived. Some5,000 sites are known to scientists in Palestine, and onlyabout 350 have been excavated. Of these, fewer than 2 percent have been extensively excavated. All conclu-sions, then, are based on small amounts of evidence.

Significant portions of the Bible now corroboratedHow should the relative scarcity of evidence affect

our Christian beliefs? Our faith should not be based onpossession of all the material and historical evidence.Definitive analysis is not a prerequisite for determiningwhether or not the Bible is historically accurate and true.

In spite of the relatively small amount of materialthat has been excavated and analyzed, considerableevidence confirming the biblical account is available.More is being uncovered all the time. Significant por-tions of the Old Testament historical record have nowbeen corroborated by archaeology.

Bryant Wood notes the consensus of archaeologistson the following point: “The purpose of Biblical archae-ology is to enhance our comprehension of the Bible,and so its greatest achievement, in my view, has beenthe extraordinary illumination of the . . . time of theIsraelite monarchy” (Biblical Archaeology Review, May-June, 1995, p. 33).

From c. 1000 B.C. through the New Testamentperiod, the archaeological evidence is strong. Beforethat time, it is sparse. This is quite natural, consideringthe circumstances. As Wood explains: “Exploring thatpre-history [before 1000 B.C.] is challenging: It requirestracing the archaeological record of a pastoral commu-nity, rather than an agrarian-based political entity thatbuilt cities and made contacts with surroundingnations” (ibid., p. 35).

We will never possess all the physical evidence. Most has been destroyed by time and wear. We cannotreproduce miracles, nor can God’s presence be exam-ined and confirmed in a laboratory. Faith will always bebased primarily on spiritual discernment and trust inGod’s Word. GN

—Mario Seiglie

May 1996 27

TWO JIGSAW PUZZLES, TWO PURPOSES

28 The Good News

lical description. Egyptian history andculture generally matched the biblicalaccounts.

The archaeologist’s spade hasuncovered evidence of other ancientpeoples mentioned in Scripture. Onesuch example is the Hittite kingdom,mentioned only in the Bible, whichhad been dismissed by many critics as mythological. As Gleason Archermentions: “The references [in theBible] to the Hittites were treatedwith incredulity and condemned asmere fiction on the part of lateauthors of the Torah” (A Survey ofOld Testament Introduction, 1974, p.165). Yet, excavations in Syria andTurkey revealed many Hittite monu-ments and documents. These discov-eries proved the Hittites to have beena mighty nation, with an empireextending from Asia Minor to parts of Israel.

Also important was the discovery ofthe Dead Sea Scrolls, written in ancientHebrew script. The scrolls were foundin caves near the Dead Sea in 1947.Some of them are books of the OldTestament written more than 100 yearsbefore Christ’s time. Nevertheless,questions raised by earlier critics aboutthe Bible’s authenticity have shaken thefaith of many.

Added dimension in understandingThe International Standard Bible

Encyclopedia explains: “There werenineteenth-century scholars who wereconvinced that Abraham, Isaac, Jacob,and perhaps even Moses were simplyimaginary creations of later Israeliteauthors. But archaeology has put thesepersons in a real world. As a result, ascholar such as J[ohn] Bright, afterdevoting thirty-six pages to the subject,can write, ‘the Bible’s picture of thepatriarchs is deeply rooted in history’. . . Archaeology supplies means forunderstanding many of the biblical situations[;] it adds the dimension ofreality to pictures that otherwise wouldbe strange and somewhat unreal, andtherefore it provides an element ofcredibility. While the person of faithdoes not ask for proof, he does want to

feel that his faith is reasonable and notmere fantasy. Archaeology, by supply-ing him with material remains frombiblical times and places, and by inter-preting these data, provides a contextof reality for the biblical story and rea-sonability for biblical faith” (1979,Vol. 1, p. 244).

Archaeological discoveries in Egyptand Iraq have been valuable in con-firming the biblical account. However,much evidence still remains beneath

the surface. Much of the territory ofthe biblical kingdoms of Israel andJudah remains to be archaeologicallyexplored.

Not until the end of World War I,when some of this area came underBritish control, did prolonged scientificsurveys and excavations begin.

After the Balfour Declaration in1917, Jews began to arrive in Pales-tine; the British, Americans and otherswere joined in digs by Jews in theirancestral homelands. Today there aresome 300 sizable excavations under-way in Israel, an extraordinary numberfor a country only 200 miles long and60 miles wide.

Archaeology makes a believerThe abundance of archaeological

evidence in support of the Bible canstrengthen faith, and in some cases ithas greatly contributed to giving birthto belief where none existed before.

An example of physical evidencebuilding one’s faith is the life ofEnglishman William M. Ramsay(1851-1939). Born in the lap of lux-ury, Ramsay was dutifully raised as anonbeliever by his atheist parents. Hegraduated from Oxford Universitywith a doctorate in philosophy andbecame a professor at the Universityof Aberdeen.

Determined to undermine the histor-ical accuracy of the Bible, he studiedarchaeology with the aim of disprov-ing the biblical account. Once readywith the necessary scientific tools andlearning, he traveled to Palestine andfocused on the book of Acts, which hefully expected to refute as nothingmore than myth.

After a quarter-century of work,Ramsay was awestruck by the accu-racy of the book of Acts. In his questto refute the Bible, Ramsay discov-ered many facts which confirmed itsaccuracy.

He had to concede that Luke’saccount of the events and settingrecorded in the narrative were exacteven in the smallest detail. Far fromattacking the biblical account, Ramsayproduced a book, St. Paul, the Travel-ler and Roman Citizen, which sup-ported it.

Eventually, William Ramsay shookthe intellectual world by writing that hehad converted to Christianity. Ironi-cally, this man who set out to refute the Bible, found himself accepting theBible as God’s Word because of hisexplorations and discoveries. For hiscontribution to biblical knowledge withhis many books, he was knighted also.

The study of archaeology can helpfortify faith. It allows us to take a fasci-nating journey back in time to studythe stones and artifacts that bear mutebut compelling witness to the truth ofScripture.

What else has been found? Futurearticles in The Good News willdescribe discoveries that parallel andilluminate the biblical account. GN

ArchaeologyContinued from page 27

An atheist who set out to refutethe Bible found

himself acceptingthe Bible as God’sWord because ofhis archaeological

discoveries.

century ago Charles Darwinadvanced an alternative to the

biblical account of creation.About the same time, Karl Marx made use of thetheory of materialism, which stated that matterhas always existed and doesn’t need a Creator.This provided his followers with an alternative tobelief in God. Then literary criticism focused itssights on the Bible and slowly began to attempt totear it to pieces. Literary critics claimed that the

Bible is filled with myths and is of much morerecent origin than the Bible itself claims to be.

As one scholar explains, man began to think ofhimself, rather than God, as the center of the uni-verse. “The idea of evolution had captured thethinking of that day, and was thought to furnishthe best key to the understanding of history aswell as of nature. Religion was discussed fromthe standpoint ofits subjective bene-fits to man. Allpossibility of spe-cial revelationfrom a personalGod was dis-counted, and thereligious side ofman was to beexplained by a natural process . . .They concluded that Israel’s reli-gion must have developed along similar lines”(A. Noordtzy, Bibliotheca Sacra, Vol. 98-99, pp.388-390, 1940-41).

When the 20th century dawned, the tide of crit-icism eroded belief in the literal truth of the bibli-cal accounts. Then came a series of remarkable

archaeological discoveries. Archaeology began inthe 19th century but came to full force in the 20th.Critics of the historical accuracy of the Bible wereconfronted with physical evidence attesting to thetruthfulness of certain accounts.

As author John Elder comments, the study ofarchaeology had much to do with tipping thescales, in many people’s minds, back in the favorof biblical credibility. “Little by little, one cityafter another, one civilization after another, oneculture after another, whose memories wereenshrined only in the Bible, were restored to theirproper places in ancient history by the studies ofthe archaeologists . . . Nowhere has archaeologicaldiscovery refuted the Bible as history” (Prophets,Idols and Diggers, 1960, p. 16).

In this article we take a look at some of theastounding discoveries of the last two centuriesand show how physical evidence confirms aspectsof the biblical record.

When Luke wrote the Gospel that bears hisname, he carefully laid out the evidence in favorof the historicity of Jesus Christ and His miracles,including His resurrection. He wanted his account

to meet the scrutiny of doubters. Luke said heintended to write “an orderly account” (Luke 1:1-4) so his readers could “know the certainty ofthose things in which you were instructed”(emphasis added throughout).

Luke then proceeded to augment his account

Archaeology and Genesis:What Does the Record Show?b y M a r i o S e i g l i eA

18 The Good News

Archaeologists excavating the site of ancient Sumerhave unearthed fascinating artifacts that depict some

of the events described in the book of Genesis.

Archaeology and Genesis:What Does the Record Show?

This seal, with its impression at right, is known as the Temptation Seal. DIscov-ered at the site of ancient Sumer, it depicts a serpent, woman, tree and man—allimportant elements in the account from Genesis of the temptation.

Phot

os c

ourt

esy

Briti

sh M

useu

m

with historical references mentioning, forexample, the contemporaneous rulers ofJudah and the emperor of the RomanEmpire (Luke 1:5; 2:1).

Because of the number of discoveries,we cannot examine all of the evidencehere. We will discuss, however, some ofthe principal finds that corroborate partsof the biblical record of Genesis.The Temptation Seal

Seals made use of some ofthe most ancient forms of writ-ing. They were used to certifydocuments, to show authorityand, on occasion, as amulets.The earliest seals were madeof clay impressed withmarkings or writing, andsome of them becamehardened with time orwere baked when firesswept through a city.Since they are made ofclay, they have survivedmuch longer than recordswritten on papyrus or parch-ment.

Archaeologists’dating of someseals has found them to be more than5,000 years old. They are among the fewsurviving materials that provide firm evi-dence of people’s beliefs at the dawn ofcivilization. Seals have been uncoveredthat confirm several biblical accounts,including some in Genesis.

The first chapters of the book of Gene-sis cover the creation of humans and thetemptation that induced Adam to sin.God had given Adam certain laws tokeep and explained the consequences ofdisobedience. “And the LORD God com-manded the man, saying, ‘Of every treeof the garden you may freely eat, but ofthe tree of the knowledge of good andevil you shall not eat, for in the day thatyou eat of it you shall surely die’ ” (Gen-esis 2:16-17).

Genesis depicts the tempter, Satan,influencing Eve and in turn her husband,Adam, to disobey their Creator. God hadtold Adam and Eve they would die if theyate of the tree. But the serpent said to Eve,“You will not surely die.” So Eve partook,found the fruit pleasant, then offered it to

her husband, “and he ate” (Genesis 3:1-6).Is this account only a myth? Many crit-

ics thought so. Yet archaeology hasunearthed, not in biblical Israel, but in thesite of the most ancient civilizationknown, Sumer, a seal depicting this verysequence of events described in the bookof Genesis. This find, known as the Temp-tation Seal, is in the British Museum. It

dates to the third millennium beforeChrist, some 5,000 years ago. This artifactshows a man and a woman viewing a tree,and behind the woman is a serpent. Theman and woman are both reaching forfruit of the tree.

The Genesis account of the temptationwas believed to be a fabrication by Jewishwriters, yet this graphic portrayal of eventsdescribed in Genesis existed thousands ofyears before critics believe the book ofGenesis was written. This artifact, one ofthe earliest surviving records, demonstratesthat humans knew the essentials of the

temptation incident, and not only from thebiblical account written in Genesis.The Adam and Eve seal

Another Sumerian seal, dated ca. 3500B.C. and now housed in the museum of theUniversity of Pennsylvania, shows eventsthat took place after the man and womanate the forbidden fruit. This seal depicts thenaked figures of a male and a female,

bowed in humiliation, being drivenout, followed by a serpent. This sealalso describes the story of the expul-sion from the Garden of Eden: “. . .Therefore the LORD God sent him[Adam] out of the garden of Eden to tillthe ground from which he was taken”

(Genesis 3:23). It is difficult to explain what the three

figures, engraved on a seal dating fromthe beginnings of human antiquity, aredoing if the artifact is not another depic-tion of the Genesis account.The flood epics

“And the waters prevailed exceed-ingly on the earth, and all the high hillsunder the whole heaven were covered. . . And all flesh died that moved on theearth” (Genesis 7:19, 21).

One of the most questioned accountsof the Bible is the flood of Noah’s time.

A century ago liberal critics considered itone of the most fanciful biblical myths. Yetmore than a century of archaeological dig-ging has revealed accounts of the flood inthe earliest of civilizations.

One of the most astounding finds is theGilgamesh Epic, recorded on clay tabletsthat were translated in 1872 by GeorgeSmith of the British Museum. The tabletsnarrate the flood account from the per-spective of the ancient Babylonians. Asimilar account was found on Sumeriantablets, which are the earliest writings yetdiscovered.

Which one is the more authenticaccount of the flood? That is easilyanswered. Professor Gleason Archer notesthat the differences in the Gilgamesh andGenesis narratives are too great to allowone to have been borrowed from the other.“The stark contrast between the passion-driven, quarrelsome, greedy gods of theBabylonian pantheon and the majesticholiness of Jehovah is most striking and

This clay tablet,inscribed in cuneiform, was recoveredfrom the ancient city of Nineveh. Itdescribes a flood that devastated theentire world—an account remarkablysimilar to the flood of Noah’s timedescribed in the book of Genesis.

September/October 1996 19

significant,” he writes. “Likewise the utterimplausibility of a cube-shaped ark andan inundation of the entire world by amere fourteen-day downpour [of the Gil-gamesh Epic] stand in opposition to theseaworthy dimensions and the gradualsinking of the waters in the Biblicalrecord” (A Survey of Old Testament Intro-duction, 1974, p. 211).

Clearly, the Gilgamesh Epic shows evi-dence of corruption.

These ancient tablets are by no meansthe only external corroboration of the bib-lical flood narrative. An enterprising histo-rian,Aaron Smith, is said to have patientlytallied all the flood stories he could find.He came across 80,000 works in 72 lan-guages about the deluge (Werner Keller,

The Bible as History, 1980, p. 38).Certainly if Noah’s flood were just a

local event affecting people in a limitedgeographic region, its impact would nothave been etched indelibly into the mindsof so many far-flung peoples.

One historian notes: “The Sumerians,Babylonians and Assyrians of Mesopota-mia might well be expected to cherish asimilar tradition to that of the Hebrews,since they lived so close to the presumedseat of antediluvian civilization . . . Butwhat shall we say of the legend of Manupreserved among the Hindus . . . or ofFah-he among the Chinese . . . or of Nu-uamong the Hawaiians; or of Tezpi amongthe Mexican Indians; or of Manabozho

among the Algonquins? . . . All of theseagree that all mankind was destroyed bya great flood (usually represented asworldwide) as a result of divine displea-sure at human sin, and that a single manwith his family or a very few friends sur-vived the catastrophe by means of a shipor raft or large canoe of some sort”(Archer, p. 209).The Tower of Babel

“Then they said to one another,‘Come, let us make bricks and bake themthoroughly.’They had brick for stone, andthey had asphalt for mortar. And they said,

‘Come, let us build ourselves a city, and atower whose top is in the heavens . . .’”(Genesis 11:3-4).

Many of us have heard about the Towerof Babel, but few know of the solid evi-dence behind the Bible account.

Excavations in Iraq at the beginning ofthis century revealed that an enormoustower had existed in Babylon at one time.Werner Keller writes: “In 1899 the Ger-man Oriental Society equipped a largeexpedition under the direction of Profes-sor Robert Koldewey, the architect, toexamine the famous ruined mound of‘Babil’on the Euphrates. The excava-tions, as it turned out, took longer thananywhere else. In eighteen years the most

famous metropolis of the ancient world,the royal seat of Nebuchadnezzar, wasbrought to light, and at the same time, oneof the Seven Wonders of the World, the‘Hanging Gardens’ . . . and ‘E-temen-an-ki,’ the legendary Tower of Babel . . .

“The bricklaying technique describedin the Bible at the building of the Towerof Babel corresponds with the findings ofthe archaeologists. As the investigationsconfirmed, actually only asphalted brickswere used in the construction, especiallyin the foundation. That was clearly neces-sary for the security of the structure in

accordance withbuilding regulations. . . Foundations andstonework weretherefore madewaterproof anddamp-proof with‘slime,’ i.e., asphalt. . . Seven stages,‘seven squares,’rose one above theother. A little tabletbelonging to anarchitect which wasfound in the templeexpressly mentionsthat length, breadthand height were

equal . . . The length ofthe sides at the base is

given as being rather more than 290 feet.The archaeologists measured it as 295feet. According to that the tower musthave been almost 300 feet high” (TheBible As History, 1980 edition, pp. 302,317-318).

This means the tower rose to the heightof a 20-story building.

Further research has revealed that theoriginal tower was destroyed, and on thesame site a similar tower was later built atthe time of Nebuchadnezzar.

D.J. Wiseman, professor of Assyriol-ogy, explains: “The tower was severelydamaged in the war of 652-648 B.C. butrestored again by Nebuchadrezzar II(605-562 B.C.). It was this building, part

20 The Good News

Excavations in Iraq at the beginning of this century revealedthat an enormous tower had existed in Babylon at one time.

This enormous mound, the remnant of a ziggurat similar to the destroyed Tower of Babel, was erected at Urin 2300 B.C. Close to this court archaeologists excavated a complete record of the building of the tower.

Phot

os c

ourt

esy

Bett

man

n A

rchi

ve

September/October 1996 21

of which was recovered by Koldewey in1899, which was described byHerodotus on his visit c. 460 B.C. . . .The base stage [of the later tower] mea-sured 90 by 90 m[eters] and was 33m[eters] high . . . The ziggurat [a sacredtower] at Babylon was demolished byXerxes in 472 B.C., and though Alexan-der cleared the rubble prior to its restora-

tion this was thwarted by his death. Thebricks were subsequently removed bythe local inhabitants, and today the siteof Etemenanki is a pit as deep as theoriginal construction was high” (NewBible Dictionary, 1982, p. 111).

Sacred towers were common inMesopotamia. So far, the ruins of 35 suchstructures have been found. The first wasthe one at Babel.

From this brief survey, we can see thelight that archaeology has shed on ques-tions about the veracity of the biblicalrecord. Although doubters will alwaysquestion the truthfulness of God’s Word,

fewer and fewer now doubt its historicalstatements.

Many other exciting archaeologicalfinds have helped confirm and shed lighton the book of Genesis, and these will beexamined in a future article. GN

In 1899 the German Oriental Society equipped a large expedition to examine thefamous ruined mound of “Babil” on the Euphrates. They brought to light thelegendary Tower of Babel. This artist’s rendition is from a copper engraving.

n the September-October issue,The Good News examined several

archaeological finds that illumi-nate portions of the book of Genesis. In thisissue we continue our exploration of discoveriesthat verify the accuracy of other aspects of theGenesis account, beginning with the biblicalpatriarch Abraham.

Abraham and the city of Ur“And Terah took his son Abram and his

grandson Lot, . . . and they went out with themfrom Ur of the Chaldeans to go to the land ofCanaan” (Genesis 11:31).

A century ago, German liberal critic TheodorNöldeke questioned the historical existence of

Abraham and of “Ur of the Chaldeans.” He, alongwith others, regarded the Genesis account of Abra-ham and his descendants as fictional. Yet this cen-tury has brought to light an enormous amount ofevidence to back the biblical record of Abraham.

In 1922 Leonard Woolley thoroughly exca-vated the city of Ur in southern Iraq and found it had been a thriving metropolis around 2000B.C., precisely the time of Abraham. Based onhis findings, Woolley even drew a map of thecity that showed its orderly boulevards and madeup blueprints of spacious dwellings with indoorbaths. Classrooms were excavated that yieldedschoolchildren’s tablets with lessons on gram-mar and arithmetic still visible. In addition, vari-ations on the name Abraham were found that

Archaeology and Genesis:What Does the Record Show?

18 The Good News

Althoughdoubters will

always scoff atthe truth of

God’s Word,fewer and fewer

now doubt theBible’s historical

basis.

Archaeology and Genesis:What Does the Record Show?

Phot

os c

ourt

esy

Orie

ntal

Inst

itute

of

Chi

cago

I

Demonstrating Egypt’s agricultural productivity, this carved relief from an Egyptian tomb depicts a rowof granaries in the center, with workers harvesting fruit, above, and baskets of grapes. When nearbyareas suffered drought and famine, abundant food supplies drew the ancient Israelites to settle in Egypt.

b y M a r i o S e i g l i e

image missing

November/December 1996 19

dated to a century or two after his death.The International Standard Encyclope-

dia, rejecting Nöldeke’s theory that Abra-ham was a mythical figure, concludes:“From the archaeological evidence it isapparent that Abraham was the product of an advanced culture, and was typical ofthe upper-class patriarch of his day: Hisactions are set against a well-authenticatedbackground of non-biblical material, mak-ing him a true son of his age who bore thesame name and traversed the same generalterritory, as well as living in the sametowns, as his contemporaries. He is inevery sense a genuine Middle Bronze Ageperson, and not a retrojection of laterIsraelite historical thought, as used to beimagined . . .” (Vol. 1, 1979, p. 17).

“Now there was a famine in the land,and Abram went down to Egypt to dwellthere, for the famine was severe in theland” (Genesis 12:10). “So they took theirlivestock and their goods, which they hadacquired in the land of Canaan, and wentto Egypt, Jacob and all his descendantswith him” (Genesis 46:6).

What did the biblical patriarchs and theirfamilies look like? The Bible speaks of thewealth of Abraham in cattle and sheep(Genesis 12:16). Later it talks about thebrothers’envy over the multicolored coatthat Jacob gave to Joseph (Genesis 37:3).

It tells about the sheep and goats that Jacobcleverly bred to avoid their being confis-cated by his father-in-law (Genesis 30:33-43). Mentioned are musical instrumentssuch as the harp (Genesis 31:27) andweapons such as the bow and arrow usedfor protection (Genesis 27:3). Were all theseonly fabrications and the product of fables?

At the turn of our century, several royaltombs were excavated 150 miles south ofCairo. There on one of the walls is a beau-tiful painting, later dated ca. 1900 B.C., ofSemites entering Egypt to sell their wares.Men, women and children are pictured,some with multicolored clothing. Theyhave harps, bows and arrows and spears.Accompanying them are goats and don-keys for food and conveyance. This paint-ing shows people of the same lineage asAbraham, Isaac and Jacob wearing theclothing, caring for the same type of ani-mals and using implements as describedin the Bible record. It is an impressive findthat backs the biblical description of thattime, even in minute detail.

Laban’s teraphimSome have puzzled over the biblical

story of Rachel’s desperate attempt tohide her father’s household gods, evenrisking her life to carry them with her. Weread in Genesis 31:

“Then Jacob rose and set his sons andhis wives on camels . . . Now Laban hadgone to shear his sheep, and Rachel hadstolen the household idols that were herfather’s . . . And Laban was told on thethird day that Jacob had fled. Then hetook his brethren with him and pursuedhim for seven days’ journey, and he over-took him in the mountains of Gilead . . .

“And Laban said to Jacob: ‘What haveyou done, that you have stolen away un-known to me, and carried away my daugh-ters . . .? And now you have surely gonebecause you greatly long for your father’shouse, but why did you steal my gods?’

“Then Jacob answered and said toLaban, ‘Because I was afraid, for I said,“Perhaps you would take your daughtersfrom me by force.” With whomever youfind your gods, do not let him live. In thepresence of our brethren, identify what I have of yours and take it with you.’

“For Jacob did not know that Rachelhad stolen them . . . Now Rachel hadtaken the household idols, put them in the camel’s saddle, and sat on them. AndLaban searched all about the tent but didnot find them. And she said to her father,‘Let it not displease my lord that I cannotrise before you, for the manner of womenis with me’” (verses 17-35).

Why were these “household gods” so

November/December 1996 19

These panels from a wall painting discovered in an Egyptiantomb at Beni-Hasan depict foreigners entering Egypt. Many ofthe ancient Israelites’ animals, tools, utensils and weapons

described in the Bible are shown in the paintings, including don-keys, goats, harps, spears, bows and arrows. This painting, almost4,000 years old, depicts life in the time of the biblical patriarchs.

image missing image missing

important? Archaeological evidencereveals the answer. Many of thesedomestic idols, called teraphim, havebeen found in the Middle East. In the1920s more than 20,000 tablets, nowcalled the Nuzi tablets, were discoveredin northern Iraq. They include muchinformation on law, commercial transac-tions and religion that has shed light onthe customs of Abraham’s time.

The teraphim are mentioned as house-hold gods that were used to determine theinheritance and titles of the sons of a fam-ily. Although scholars dispute how muchthe patriarchs were influenced by suchpractices, the biblical account fits this pic-ture well. Clearly, Rachel was worriedabout leaving these idols behind. Labancertainly thought they were of greatimportance and traveled with his othersons for several days to recover them.These actions on their part make sense if the teraphim were used to help his othersons confirm their rights of inheritance.

These idols were also used to bringgood luck and even for calling upon othergods. After another encounter with thetrue God, when Jacob found that Rachelhad stolen the idols, he had her get rid ofthem. “And Jacob said to his householdand to all who were with him, ‘Put awaythe foreign gods that are among you . . .’”(Genesis 35:2).

Again, the biblical account fits witharchaeological evidence of the customsof the people of that time.

Joseph in Egypt“Now Joseph had been taken down

to Egypt” (Genesis 39:1).Perhaps one can acknowledge that

these findings fit Abraham and his descen-dants in Mesopotamia and Canaan, but dothey confirm the abundant archaeologicalevidence of Egyptian life and culture?

The Bible tells of a young Joseph whowas sold into slavery and taken to Egypt as a young man. If this account is nothingmore than myth, surely the biblical storycould easily be refuted, since much more isknown of Egyptian history and culturethan of any other civilization of the MiddleEast of that time. The Egyptians left monu-ment after monument, their tombs withwalls full of pictures and writings of theirdaily lives. They inscribed in stone much

of their history. If the biblical story is false,it should not be difficult to expose it as afraud, since details in the account wouldsurely be discovered to be out of place.

Yet the biblical account fits. In EgyptJoseph ended up as a slave in an impor-tant official’s home. Potiphar’s wife triedto seduce Joseph. When he fled from her,he was falsely accused by her and throwninto prison. These elements all reflectEgyptian customs as described in themonuments—the abundance of Semiticslaves and stories of frivolous Egyptianwives. Says one encyclopedia: “Egyptiansources indicate that both in literature andin daily life some other Egyptian womenwere no better than Potiphar’s wife” (TheInternational Standard Bible Encyclope-dia, Vol. 2, p. 1128).

When God intervened and Joseph inter-preted Pharaoh’s dream (literature of thattime indicates that interpreting dreams wasa common practice), he was placed as sec-ond in command under Pharaoh.

The Egyptian ruler complimentedhim: “Inasmuch as God has shown youall this, there is no one as discerning andwise as you. You shall be over my house,and all my people shall be ruled accord-ing to your word; only in regard to thethrone will I be greater than you.’AndPharaoh said to Joseph, ‘See, I have setyou over all the land of Egypt.’ThenPharaoh took his signet ring off his handand put it on Joseph’s hand; and heclothed him in garments of fine linen andput a gold chain around his neck. And hehad him ride in the second chariot whichhe had; and they cried out before him,‘Bow the knee!’So he set him over allthe land of Egypt” (Genesis 41:39-43).

In one of the walls in a royal Egyptiantomb is a beautiful engraving of theinvestiture ceremony for a new primeminister. The official is clothed in a whitelinen gown and wears a gold chainaround his neck. As Werner Keller main-tains: “Joseph’s elevation to be viceroy ofEgypt is reproduced in the Bible exactlyaccording to protocol. He is investedwith the insignia of his high office, hereceives the ring, Pharaoh’s seal, a costlylinen vestment, and a golden chain. Thisis exactly how Egyptian artists depict thissolemn ceremony on murals and reliefs.

As viceroy, Joseph rides in Pharaoh’s‘second chariot.’That could indicate the‘period of the Hyksos’at the earliest, forit is only during the period of the ‘rulersof the foreign lands’ . . . that the fast warchariot reached Egypt . . . Before their

day this had not been the practice on theNile. The ceremonial chariot harnessedto thoroughbred horses was in those daysthe Rolls-Royce of the governors. Thefirst chariot belonged to the ruler, the‘second chariot’was occupied by hischief minister” (The Bible as History,1980, p. 89).

From this brief survey we can see someof the light that archaeology has shed onthe biblical record. Although doubters willalways scoff at the truth of God’s Word—since God’s way of life and His laws arenot easy to keep—fewer and fewer nowdoubt the Bible’s historical basis.

Such discoveries continue to verify theinspiration of God’s Word. As Paul said:“All Scripture is given by inspiration ofGod, and is profitable for doctrine, forreproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God becomplete, thoroughly equipped for everygood work” (2 Timothy 3:16-17).

Future issues of The Good News willpresent more archaeological evidencethat confirms the Bible account. GN

20 The Good News

Illus

trat

ion

cour

tesy

Will

iam

Mor

row

& C

o.

20 The Good News

This illustration, from an Egyptian tomb carving, shows a dignitary beinginstalled into government office. A goldchain is being placed around his neck, anexact parallel of Joseph’s inaugurationdescribed in Genesis 41:41-42.

image missing

18 The Good News

Archaeology and the Book of Exodus: Exit From Egypt

b y M a r i o S e i g l i e

Archaeologistshave made

many significant discoveries that

make the book ofExodus and the

Israelites’ time inEgypt come alive.

Egyptian brick-making is depicted in this wall painting fromthe tomb of Egyptian nobleman Rekhmire from the mid-second

millennium B.C. The painting shows workmen gathering materi-als, forming bricks and carrying the finished bricks after drying.

n earlier issues, The Good News examinedseveral archaeological finds that illuminate

portions of the book of Genesis. In thisissue we continue our exploration of discoveriesthat illuminate the biblical accounts, focusing onExodus, the second book of the Bible.

Exodus in English derives from the Latin andmeans simply “to exit.” The book of Exodusdescribes the departure of the Israelites fromEgypt, an event distinguished by a mighty strug-gle between two unequal opponents. On the onehand was an oppressed nation of slaves and onthe other the most powerful nation in the MiddleEast, if not the world. Viewed strictly physically,the odds in this struggle between Israel andEgypt were stacked against the Israelites.

What has archaeology found that pertains tothe Exodus and the Israelites’ time in Egypt? Sci-entists have made several significant discoveries

that make this part of the Bible come alive.

Egyptian brick-making

In the book of Exodus we see the Egyptiansforcing the Israelites to build great cities forPharaoh: “Therefore they set taskmasters overthem to afflict them with their burdens. And theybuilt for Pharaoh supply cities, Pithom andRaamses” (Exodus 1:11).

Most of us know a little about the Egyptianpyramids, which were built of stone. But not allEgyptian pyramids were made of stone; brickwas the principal building material used in thecountry. The International Standard Bible Ency-clopedia notes that “throughout Egyptian historysun-dried brick was the chief building material.Stone was reserved for temples and other monu-mental constructions” (Vol. 1, p. 546).

Therefore the Egyptians needed millions of

I

Phot

o co

urte

sy M

etro

polit

an M

useu

m o

f A

rt

March/April 1997 19

bricks, and the Israelites labored long andhard to supply the demand. The Egyp-tians “made their lives bitter with hardbondage—in mortar, in brick, and in allmanner of service in the field” (Exodus1:14, emphasis added throughout).

When Moses and Aaron told Pharaohthat God wanted His people, theIsraelites, to stop working and observe areligious festival in the wilderness,Pharaoh was incensed. Instead of yield-ing, he increased the work load: “So thesame day Pharaoh commanded thetaskmasters of the people and their offi-cers, saying, ‘You shall no longer give thepeople straw to make brick as before. Letthem go and gather straw forthemselves’” (Exodus 5:6-7).

This cruel measure added to theIsraelites’already arduous tasks. The Israelite slaves had to head for thefields to gather straw to mix with themud.

The biblical detail about using straw inbrick-making is puzzling to some. How,they ask, could the addition of straw as aningredient make bricks stronger?

In Egypt the mud-straw combinationwas commonly used to strengthen build-ing blocks. It also prevented the bricksfrom cracking or losing shape. Moderninvestigators have run tests that show thatwhen straw is mixed with mud the result-ing bricks are three times as strong asthose made without straw. Fluids in thestraw release humic acid and harden thebricks (Gerald Vardaman, Archaeologyand the Living Word, 1966, p. 37). To thisday, after thousands of years, mud-brickmonuments still stand in Egypt.

The 10 plagues

Egyptology has illuminated our under-standing of the Bible’s description of theplagues that struck Egypt and led to theIsraelites’departure from that land.

The Egyptians were religious people.They had gods for everything and scrupu-lously tried to please them. They had 39principal gods, many of them depicted inEgyptian art with animal bodies or heads.In Egyptian temples, priests cared formany types of sacred animals that repre-sented deities.

In one respect the Israelites’ exodusout of Egypt was a confrontationbetween the true God,Yahweh, and thefalse gods of that land. It would removeany doubt in the Israelites’ minds as towho was the true God and which was thetrue religion. God had in mind not onlyto take His people from Egypt, but todiscourage worship of the supposedlypowerful Egyptian gods. He made thisclear when He told Moses: “For I willpass through the land of Egypt on thatnight, and will strike all the firstborn inthe land of Egypt, both man and beast;and against all the gods of Egypt I willexecute judgment: I am the LORD” (Exo-dus 12:12).

Later, in Numbers 33:4, we read that“on their gods the LORD had executedjudgments.” God directed each of the 10

plagues against the Egyptian gods thatostensibly held sway over an aspect ofnature. The plagues represented, collec-tively, a dramatic demonstration toIsraelite and Egyptian alike that the godswere false; they were powerless to cometo the aid of anyone who implored them.

An ancient Egyptian calendar revealsnumerous holidays dedicated to thegods—so many that it appears that notmany working days remained in the year.When Moses told Pharaoh that Israelwould leave for several days to celebratea feast to God, Pharaoh was indignant:“Who is the LORD, that I should obey Hisvoice to let Israel go? I do not know theLORD, nor will I let Israel go . . . Mosesand Aaron, why do you take the peoplefrom their work? Get back to your labor”(Exodus 5:2, 4).

Pharaoh apparently thought that theIsraelites enjoyed plenty of free time, sohe refused the petition. ObservingPharaoh’s recalcitrance, God acted.

Plagues against the deities

The first plague was aimed at the mostvenerable and valuable resource ofEgyptian civilization, the powerful NileRiver, along with the gods the Egyptiansassociated with it. Egypt’s food supplydepended on the flooding of the Nile, aswell as its annual deposits of silt toreplenish the fertility of the soil. Some-times, as in Joseph’s day, failure of theNile to overflow its banks would result ina famine. So the Egyptians prayed regu-larly to their gods for abundant water. Thefirst plague made the water undrinkableand rancid. The fish, a valuable source offood, perished.

The Egyptians counted on the Nilegoddess Hapi and the powerful Osiris toprotect the Nile. Nothing resulted fromthe clamor and prayers of the Egyptiansthat their gods would purify the Nile.Only when Moses and Aaron prayed tothe true God were the waters refreshed.Yet Pharaoh remained proud. Hebelieved a host of powerful gods werewaiting to do his bidding; indeed Pha-raoh himself was considered a god bymost Egyptians.

The second plague targeted one of the

March/April 1997 19

This statue ofthe Egyptian Nile god Hapi dates to about900 B.C. God’s first plague intended tofree the Israelites struck the mighty NileRiver, and their gods proved powerless toprotect the Egyptians.

Phot

o:Sc

ott

Ash

ley/

Briti

sh M

useu

m

creatures the Egyptians associated withthe Nile. Egyptians worshiped the frog inthe form of Heqt, whose statue bore thehead of a frog. This god was symbolic ofgood crops and blessings in the afterlife.Egyptians noticed that, when the Nilereached a certain level and overflowed,frogs abounded. Their presence was anomen of bountiful crops and control ofthe insect population. A low Nile withfew frogs meant a lack of silt, poor cropsand many insects.

Heqt, god of the frogs, supposedlycontrolled the frog population. Whenthe second plague produced too manyfrogs, it appeared to the Egyptians thatthe god who governed them had lostcontrol. No amount of prayers andincense altered the situation. Only whenthe true God intervened did the frogs dieand the crisis end.

The third and fourth plagues featuredanother favorite god of the Egyptians,Kheper, the scarab deity represented bybeetles and other insects. The image ofthe scarab god appeared frequently onamulets. “The cult to flies, and espe-cially of the beetles, was an importantpart of the ancient Egyptian religion”(Jamieson, Fausset and Brown,Exegetical Commentary of the Bible,Vol. 1, p. 67). “Various types of bee-tles were venerated in Egypt; amongthem the dung beetle [which] became theemblem of resurrection and continualexistence . . .” (The Interpreter’s Dictio-nary of the Bible, Vol. 4, p. 258).

When a swarm of lice or gnats (or pos-sibly mosquitoes) and horseflies stung thepopulace, the court magicians asked theinsect god to control them, but to no avail.Only when Pharaoh pleaded with Mosesto ask the God of Israel to remove thepests did the plague abate.

Sacred bull

The next plague affected cattle,which the Egyptians considered to beunder the control of Apis, the bull god,and Hathor, the cowlike mother god-dess. The bull was considered sacred.When the bull in a temple died, it wasmummified and buried with great pomp.The fifth plague struck at this mode ofworship. “So the LORD did this thing on

the next day, and all the livestock ofEgypt died; but of the livestock of thechildren of Israel, not one of them died”(Exodus 9:6). No amount of paganprayer could alter the outcome.

Next came a plague of boils, whichthe Egyptians thought they could cure byresorting to their god of medicine,Imhotep, a legendary Egyptian physicianwho came to be worshiped. They alsorevered Thoth, the god of magic andhealing. But again in this case the boilsdid not go away. Even worse, the courtmagicians who besought these entitieswere themselves covered with the pesti-lence: “And the magicians could notstand before Moses because of the boils,for the boils were on the magicians and on all the Egyptians” (verse 11).

Again, Pharaoh and other Egyptianspleaded with Moses that God would takeaway the problem. God’s power toremove this plague served as a witnessnot only to the Egyptians and theIsraelites, but to the rest of the world.God told Pharaoh: “But indeed for thispurpose I have raised you up, that I mayshow My power in you, and that Myname may be declared in all the earth”(verse 16). This witness remains with ustoday through the Bible account.

The seventh and eighth plagues struckEgypt’s crops. First, a horrible hailstormhit the harvest, then a horde of locustscompleted the destruction. The crops

were supposed to be guarded by Seth, theharvest god, and it was up to Nut, the skygoddess, to prevent weather disasters. Yetthe pleas of the Egyptians fell on deafears. Pharaoh was running out of gods toprotect his people.

God strikes the mightiest

The final two plagues were directed atthe two mightiest gods of the Egyptians,Ra the chief god, represented by the sun,and Pharaoh himself.

Egyptians believed Ra to be the sourceof life, bringing light and heat to the earth.The ninth plague brought three days of nosunlight. The darkness was so “thick,”says Scripture, that even lamps could notdispel the blackness. “So Moses stretchedout his hand toward heaven, and there wasthick darkness in all the land of Egyptthree days. They did not see one another;nor did anyone rise from his place forthree days. But all the children of Israelhad light in their dwellings” (Exodus10:22-23).

In spite of the prayers and supplica-tions the Egyptians must have offeredup to Ra, the sun god did nothing.

The final god in dire need of hum-bling was Pharaoh himself, who sup-

posedly descended from the god Ra.Pharaoh’s patron gods were Osiris, the

judge of the dead, and Horus, the god oflight. Egyptian worship of the Pharaohsfound expression in the construction fortheir leaders of great pyramids as tombs.The 10th plague struck even the offspringof the Egyptians’man-god.

Pharaoh himself was powerless tostop the death of his firstborn son, whowas next in line to sit worthy of Egyp-tians’worship. “And it came to pass atmidnight that the LORD struck all thefirstborn in the land of Egypt, from thefirstborn of Pharaoh who sat on histhrone to the firstborn of the captive whowas in the dungeon, and all the firstbornof the livestock” (Exodus 12:29). Withhis gods impotent and humiliated,mighty Pharaoh finally relented, and theExodus of the children of Israel began.

Future issues of The Good News willpresent more archaeological evidencethat illuminates the historical account ofthe book of Exodus. GN

20 The Good News

Phot

o: S

cott

Ash

ley/

Briti

sh M

useu

m

20 The Good News

This enormous Egyptian stone scarab,some four feet long and three feet high,illustrates the Egyptian fascination withand worship of beetles and other insects.At the time of the Exodus, the third andfourth plagues were directed against theEgyptian deity thought to control insects.

Archaeology and the Book of Exodus: Exit From Egypt

b y M a r i o S e i g l i e

n earlier issues, The Good News examinedarchaeological finds that illuminate portions

of the books of Genesis and Exodus. In thisissue we continue our exploration of discoveriesthat help us understand other aspects of the Exo-dus account, beginning with the incident of theIsraelites’worship of the golden calf.

The golden calf

After crossing the Red Sea (see “The Red Seaor the Reed Sea?,” p. 24), the Israelites madetheir way to Mount Sinai. The account of Israel’sappropriation of a golden calf to worship was

long questioned by secular scholars. They notedthat bull-worship was common in both Egyptand Canaan, but not calf-worship. However, in1991 a silver statue of a calf was found in anexcavation of ancient Ashkelon on Israel’s coast.Authorities dated this calf to more than 100years before the Exodus.

When Aaron shouted to the people, “This isyour god, O Israel, that brought you out of theland of Egypt!” (Exodus 32:4), he knew wellhow popular calf-worship was. Four centurieslater, almost the same words were uttered byKing Jeroboam when he made two golden

calves and told the people, “Here are your gods,O Israel, which brought you up from the land ofEgypt!” (1 Kings 12:28). In Biblical Archaeol-ogy Review, an extensive article on the discoveryof the silver calf notes: “The Golden Calf wor-shipped at the foot of Mt. Sinai by impatientIsraelites (Exodus 32) may have resembled thisstatuette” (March-April 1991, p. 1).

The eating of quail

During their wilderness years the Israelitescomplained to God that they had only manna to eat: “Now the mixed multitude who wereamong them yielded to intense craving; so thechildren of Israel also wept again and said:‘Who will give us meat to eat? We rememberthe fish which we ate freely in Egypt, thecucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions,and the garlic; but now our whole being is driedup; there is nothing at all except this mannabefore our eyes!’” (Numbers 11:4-6).

This list represents one of the 10 major mur-murings of the Israelites against God and Moses(Numbers 14:22). God decided to give the peoplewhat they asked for: “Therefore the LORD willgive you meat, and you shall eat. You shall eat, notone day, nor two days, nor five days, nor ten days,nor twenty days, but for a whole month, until itcomes out of your nostrils and becomes loath-some to you, because you have despised the LORD

who is among you, and have wept before Him,saying, ‘Why did we ever come up out ofEgypt?’” (Numbers 11:18-20).

The next day, quail descended on the Israelitecamp to a depth of 12 inches. These fowl werecommon in biblical times and remain so in theMiddle East. They are migratory birds that fly at the end of the European summer to the Sinaipeninsula, where they remain for six months.

“The old world quail . . . a small, mottled browngame bird about 18 cm. (7 in.) long, is the onlymember of the [pheasant] subfamily . . . that ismigratory. The routes of migration run from south-ern Europe, along the eastern Mediterranean coast,

I

Phot

o co

urte

sy H

arva

rd U

nive

rsity

Dep

t. o

f A

rcha

eolo

gy a

nd S

emiti

c La

ngua

ges

M

ap b

y Sh

aun

Veni

shThis silver statue of a calf,

excavated from the siteof ancient Ashkelon,

dates to more than a cen-tury before the Exodus.

This find proved that calf-worship was practiced at

the time of the Exodus,contrary to the opinions

of some critics.

18 The Good News

May/June 1997 19

through the Sinai Peninsula, to Arabia orWest Africa. The quails travel southward inthe late summer and northward in earlyspring (the time of the Israelite exodus fromEgypt) . . . As recently as the early decadesof the 20th cent[ury], migrating quails werekilled by Egyptians at the rate of two mil-lion annually; in 1920 a kill of three millionwas recorded” (The International StandardBible Encyclopedia, Eerdmans, GrandRapids, 1988,Vol. 4, pp. 4-5).

The miracle of God was to bringthese quail to the Israelite camp anddeposit them in huge numbers in thatprecise location.

Evidence of the prophet Balaam

When the Israelites began their finaljourney to the Promised Land, they passedthrough the land of the Ammonites close toMoabite territory. They needed passage

through this area to enter Canaan by wayof Jericho. But King Balak of the Moabitesrefused to let the Israelites enter peacefully.He resorted to a known pagan prophet ofthe times, Balaam, to prevent them fromentering his land.

“Then he sent messengers to Balaamthe son of Beor at Pethor, which is near theRiver [Euphrates] in the land of the sons ofhis people, to call him, saying: ‘Look, apeople has come from Egypt. See, theycover the face of the earth, and are settlingnext to me! Therefore please come at once,curse this people for me, for they are toomighty for me’” (Numbers 22:5).

Apparently, Balaam’s renown was suchthat a Moabite king would pay a consider-able sum for his services. In 1967 archae-ologists digging up the remains of DeirAlla, an ancient Ammonite city on the eastbank of the Jordan, found an inscription

that mentioned Balaam, the son of Beor.The 16 lines of an incomplete inscriptionon a wall turned out to be part of one ofBalaam’s prophecies, in language similarto that is recorded in Numbers.

The Bible describes God’s censure ofBalaam. One night God forbade him tocurse the Israelites. Disappointed, he toldMoabite messengers he could not helpthem. “So Balaam rose in the morning andsaid to the princes of Balak, ‘Go back toyour land, for the LORD has refused to giveme permission to go with you’” (verse 13).

Later God forced Balaam to prophesyof Israel’s blessings and victories. “Thenhe took up his oracle and said: ‘The utter-ance of Balaam the son of Beor . . . whohears the words of God, who sees thevision of the Almighty, who falls down,with eyes wide open: How lovely are yourtents, O Jacob! . . . God brings him out ofEgypt; he has strength like a wild ox; heshall consume the nations, his enemies; heshall break their bones and pierce themwith arrows’” (Numbers 24:3-8).

Shortly after these events Balaam,greedy for money (2 Peter 2:15), helpedthe Moabites induce Israel to sin. Not sur-prisingly, he perished after the defeat of theMoabites and Midianites (Numbers 31:8).

The restored text discovered in DeirAlla reads: “Inscription of Balaam, sonof Beor, the man who was a seer of thegods. Lo, the gods came to him at nightand spoke to him. According to thesewords, and they said to Balaam, son ofBeor thus: ‘There has appeared the lastflame, a fire of chastisement hasappeared!’And Balaam arose the nextday and he could not eat and he weptintensely. And his people came to himand said to Balaam, son of Beor: ‘Whydo you fast and why do you weep?’Andhe said to them: ‘Sit down! I shall showyou how great is the calamity! Andcome, see the deeds of the gods! . . .’”

These words are strikingly similar indetail to the biblical account. Apparentlythe memory of what happened to this seerremained in the memory of the Ammon-ites and was recorded in their version.

Archaeologist Andre Lemaire, whopieced together the incomplete script,wrote: “. . . The inscription from Deir Alla,

Scholars advocate various routes for the Exodus and offer different interpretationsof the biblical account of the parting of the Red Sea. Regardless of their views, theRed Sea miracle was so astounding that it left a permanent mark on Israel’s history.

May/June 1997 19

dated to about the middle of the eighthcentury B.C. and written on the wall ofwhat may have been some kind of reli-gious teaching center, is very likely theearliest extant example of a prophetictext. The principal personage in the DeirAlla text is the seer Balaam, son of Beor,well known to us from the stories inNumbers” (Biblical Archaeology Review,September-October 1985, p. 39).

Here we have another biblical figurewho cannot be dismissed as myth.

The route from Egypt

Another source of scholarly contro-versy concerns the route the Israelitestook to enter the Promised Land. “TheBible is very specific in its list of placesalong the final stage of the Exodus routetaken by the Israelites on their way to the

Promised Land. Yet it is this very speci-ficity that has made it vulnerable to criti-cism from some scholars. Many of theplaces in question, they say, did not existwhen the Exodus is said to haveoccurred” (Biblical Archaeology Review,September-October 1994, p. 5).

Yet three lists showing the very routethe Israelites took to enter Canaan havebeen found in Egyptian monuments.

Numbers 33:45-49 describes theIsraelites passing through Ijim, DibonGad,Almon Diblathaim, Nebo,Abel andfinally the Jordan. The route the Egyptianstook to supervise this area, which theyruled for many centuries, includes eightplaces, of which six appear in the same

sequence mentioned primarily in Num-bers 33: Melah, Ijim, Heres-Hareseth(mentioned only in Judges 8:13), Dibon,Abel and the Jordan.

Charles Krahmalkov, a professor ofancient Near Eastern languages, speaks of the accuracy of the biblical account:“In short, the Biblical story of the inva-sion of Transjordan that set the stage forthe conquest of all Palestine is toldagainst a background that is historicallyaccurate. The Israelite invasion routedescribed in Numbers 33:45b-50 was infact an official, heavily trafficked Egypt-ian road . . .” (Biblical ArchaeologyReview, September-October 1994, p. 58).

Thus, archaeology, notwithstandingscholarly criticism, confirms another partof biblical history. GN

20 The Good News20 The Good News

For many years scholars have dis-agreed over the identity of the seathe Israelites crossed and thus the

site of the drowning of Pharaoh’s army.Three routes for the Exodus have beenproposed and continue to be debated.

Some believe that the Israelites’ pathtook them north to the coast and thatthe “sea” they crossed was part of LakeSirbonis, an arm or bay of the Mediter-ranean, after the crossing of which theyturned south into the Sinai Peninsula.

Others have adopted the idea thatthe Israelites took a central route andcrossed a shallow lake north of the RedSea called the Reed Sea. The term inHebrew is yam suph. Yam means “sea,”and suph is generally thought to mean“reeds,” “rushes” or possibly “sea-weed.” That is why some versions ofthe Bible call it “the Sea of Reeds” or“Reed Sea” instead of the Red Sea. (SeeExodus 15:4 in the Revised StandardVersion, New American Bible andJerusalem Bible.)

Some scholars prefer the translation“Reed Sea,” noting that lakes north ofthe Red Sea are abundant with reeds.They usually designate one of theseshallow bodies of water as the site ofthe Israelite crossing but say that theEgyptians, with their heavy chariots, gotbogged down and somehow drowned.

Other scholars prefer a southernroute, pointing to evidence that theyfeel demonstrates that yam suph maymean “sea at the end of the world,” assome conceive it to have been. Says the-ology professor Bernard F. Batto: “Whatwe call the Red Sea . . . was regarded bythe ancients as the sea at the end of theworld. Interestingly enough, the Greeksapplied the name Red Sea not only toour Red Sea but also to the IndianOcean and, later when they discoveredit, even to the Persian Gulf . . . Yam supcame to refer to the Red Sea becauselike other ancient peoples, the Israelitesdid not distinguish the Red Sea from

oceans further to the south. To theirway of thinking, the Red Sea—the yamsup—was the sea at the end of theearth” (Biblical Archaeology Review,July-August 1984, p. 59).

In other biblical references, yam suphmeans Red Sea or its arms, the Gulf ofSuez and Gulf of Aqaba. In 1 Kings 9:26we read: “King Solomon also built afleet of ships at Ezion Geber, which isnear Elath on the shore of the Red Sea[yam suph], in the land of Edom.” If thiswere a marshy lake close to Egypt, thiswould certainly be a strange place forSolomon to build his great fleet. Butgeographers know Elath is a port at thenorthernmost end of the Gulf of Aqaba.

Notice also Numbers 33, which men-tions the stops the Israelites made inthe wilderness of the Sinai. After cross-ing “the sea,” they camped in Marah,then Elim. And “they moved from Elimand camped by the Red Sea [yamsuph]” (verse 10). How could they havecrossed a “sea of reeds” and, aftermany days of travel, still camped bythat same “sea of reeds”? No body ofwater in the region except the Red Seawould have been large enough for theIsraelites to have traveled so long andstill be close to its coast. Other refer-ences that support the Red Sea areNumbers 21:4 and Jeremiah 49:21.

Which route did the Israelites take,and at what point did they cross thesea? We cannot know for sure. How-ever, one author of several works onbiblical history offers this perspective:“The crossing of Israel . . . cannot beexplained as a wading through aswamp. It required a mighty act of God,an act so significant both in scope andmeaning that forever after in Israel’shistory it was the paradigm againstwhich all of his redemptive and savingwork was measured” (Eugene Merrill,Kingdom of Priests, Baker Book House,Grand Rapids, 1987, p. 66). GN

—Mario Seiglie

THE RED SEA OR THE REED SEA?

COMBINED EGYPTIAN BIBLICAL

ROUTE ROUTE

(Yamm) ha-Melach Melah (means “salt,”

or the Dead Sea)Iyyin Yyyim

Heres/Hareseth Heres/HaresethAqrabat

Dibon-Qarho DibonIktanuAbel Abel-shittim

Jordan Jordan(Source: Biblical Archaeology Review,September-October 1994, pp. 57-59).

Archaeology and the Book of Joshua: The Conquest

b y M a r i o S e i g l i e

n earlier issues The Good News examinedarchaeological finds that illuminate portions

of the biblical books of Genesis, Exodus,Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. In

this issue we continue that series, focusing on thebook of Joshua, which chronicles Israel’sentrance into the Promised Land.

After wandering in the desert for 40 years, theIsraelites were finally permitted to cross the Jor-dan River and enter the Promised Land. Moseswas about to die, and God instructed him:“Behold, the days approach when you must die;call Joshua, and present yourselves in the taber-nacle of meeting, that I may inaugurate him”(Deuteronomy 31:14). Shortly afterwards,Joshua was named as the new leader, and Mosesdied on top of Mount Nebo (Deuteronomy 34:1,5). Thus begins the story of the Israelite conquestof Canaan.

Debated dates at Jericho

“Now Jericho was securely shut up because of the children of Israel; none went out, and nonecame in” (Joshua 6:1).

The first city the Israelites faced was Jericho.According to the archaeological evidence, it isone of the oldest settlements in the world. Howaccurate is the biblical description of Jericho’sdestruction?

The question spurred a lively debate through-out this century after several major excavations of the city took place.

The first extensive dig employing moderntechniques was conducted by British archaeolo-gist John Garstang in the 1930s. After six years of excavations he reported:

“In a word, in all material details and in datethe fall of Jericho took place as described in theBiblical narrative. Our demonstration is limited,however, to material observations: the walls fell,shaken apparently by earthquake, and the citywas destroyed by fire, about 1400 B.C.” (“Jerichoand the Biblical Story,” Wonders of the Past,Wise, New York, 1937, p. 1222).

In the 1950s Garstang’s conclusion wasrejected by another British archaeologist, Kath-leen Kenyon. She placed the destruction of thisstage of the city 150 years earlier than Joshua’stime and believed that no 15th-century city existedfor him to conquer. This argument lent support tomany scholars who dismissed the biblical story asa myth. Archaeologist and pottery expert BryantWood observed: “Scholars by and large [had]written off the Biblical record as so much folkloreand religious rhetoric. And this is where the matterhas stood for the past 25 years” (Biblical Archae-ology Review, March-April 1990, p. 49).

Evidence examined and evaluated

Unfortunately, Kathleen Kenyon died beforeher work could be published, making carefulevaluation of her reports difficult. Fifteen yearslater her findings were published, and the task fellto Bryant Wood to methodically review them.

After studying her work and taking intoaccount new discoveries, his startling conclusionwas that Kenyon had been completely wrong onher date of the fall of Jericho. He found a directcorrelation between the archaeological evidenceand the biblical account.

What led to such a turnabout?First was the use of a tool not available in

Kenyon’s days—radioactive dating. When apiece of charcoal from the burned city wasexamined by carbon-14 testing—generally reli-able for materials up to 4,000 years old—it yielded the date of 1410 B.C., almost preciselythe time of the conquest and burning of Jerichoas determined from biblical chronology.(According to 1 Kings 6:1, Solomon’s templewas inaugurated 480 years after the Exodus,which would place this event at approximately1443 B.C. After 40 years in the wilderness, theIsraelites would have entered the Promised Landaround 1403 B.C.)

Concerning the evidence that the city wasincinerated, Kenyon found a layer of ash andburnt debris a yard thick in this level of the city.

I

18 The Good News

How accurateis the biblicaldescription of

Jericho’s destruc-tion? The question

spurred a livelydebate throughout

this century afterseveral major

excavations of thecity took place.

May/June 1997 19

“The destruction was complete,” shereported. “Walls and floors were black-ened or reddened by fire . . . In mostrooms the fallen debris was heavily burnt. . .” (“Excavations at Jericho,” PalestinianExploration Quarterly, 1955, p. 370).

This description of the devastation fitsthe biblical account of the fate of the city:Israel “burned the city and all that was init with fire” (Joshua 6:24).

Moreover, evidence included threeEgyptian scarabs—beetle-shapedamulets— discovered in a cemeteryinside the city. These bore the names ofthree pharaohs who ruled from 1500 tothe 1380s B.C. Such dates clearly contra-dict Kenyon’s belief that the city hadbeen abandoned around 1550 B.C.

Biblical details confirmed

A third type of evidence was theunusual amount of stored grain found inthe ruins of Jericho. “The most abundantitem found in the destruction apart frompottery,” says Wood, “was grain . . . In herlimited excavation area, Kenyon recov-ered six bushels of grain in one season!This is unique in the annals of Palestinianarchaeology. The presence of these grainstores in the destroyed city is entirely consistent with the Biblical account. Thecity did not fall as a result of a starvationsiege, as was so common in ancienttimes. Instead, the Bible tells us, Jerichowas destroyed after but seven days(Joshua 6:15, 20).

“Successful attackers normally plun-dered valuable grain once they captured acity. This of course would be inconsistentwith the grain found here. But in the caseof Jericho the Israelites were told that ‘thecity and all that is within it shall bedevoted to the Lord for destruction,’andwere commanded, ‘Keep yourselves fromthe things devoted to destruction’ (Joshua9:17-18). So the Israelites were forbiddento take any plunder from Jericho. Thiscould explain why so much grain was leftto burn when [the city] met its end” (Bib-lical Archaeology Review, March-April1990, p. 56).

Finally, the type of pottery found con-firmed the traditional date of the conquest,since some bore a style that appeared only

during the period of 1450-1400 B.C. Woodconcludes: “Despite my disagreementswith Kenyon’s major conclusion, I never-theless applaud her for her careful andpainstaking field work . . . Her thorough-going excavation methods and detailedreporting of her findings, however, did not carry over into her analytical work.

“When the evidence is critically exam-ined there is no basis for her contention thatCity IV [the level corresponding to a vio-lent destruction and burning of the city]was destroyed by the Hyksos or Egyptians

in the mid-16th century B.C.E. The pottery,stratigraphic considerations, scarab dataand a Carbon-14 date all point to a destruc-tion of the city around the end of LateBronze I, about 1400 B.C.E. Garstang’soriginal date for this event appears to be thecorrect one!” (ibid., p. 57).

When Time magazine published anarticle about these new conclusions onJericho, the evidence appeared so con-vincing that Time writers remarked,“Score one for the Bible” (Michael D.Lemonick, Time, March 5, 1990, p. 43).

Unusual remains discovered

“Now Joshua built an altar to theLORD God of Israel in Mount Ebal, asMoses the servant of the LORD had com-manded the children of Israel, as it iswritten in the Book of the Law of Moses:‘an altar of whole stones over which noman has wielded an iron tool.’And theyoffered on it burnt offerings to the LORD,

and sacrificed peace offerings” (Joshua8:30-31).

The barren region of Mount Ebal hadlain undisturbed for centuries. In 1982 ateam of archaeologists began to scratch itssurface. This was in the West Bank areaand had not been explored until 1967,when Israel occupied the territory.

Adam Zertal, an Israeli archaeologist,supervised the excavation of a strangemound found on top of Mount Ebal.Slowly, after months of work, the sitebegan to yield its secrets.

It was a rectangular structure made oflarge, uncut stones with a ramp leading tothe center. It was quite a massive forma-tion, 28 feet by 24 feet and 9 feet tall.Inside the construction was a fill of ashes,rocks, dirt, potsherds and animal bones.More than 4,000 animal bones were foundand sent to a laboratory for analysis.

At first Zertal thought the structure hadbeen a farmhouse, but it had no doors andno floor. All the houses in that period hadfloors, even if only of compressed earth.

From nearby Jerusalem came theanalysis of the animal bones. Almost all of them were from bulls, sheep andgoats, precisely the animals prescribedfor sacrifice in the book of Leviticus.None of the bones came from typicalfarm animals that the Bible defines asunclean—horses, donkeys, pigs, dogsand cats. After further examination,this did not look like the remains of a

Illus

trat

ion

by S

haun

Ven

ish

July/August 1997 19

Continued on page 29

An artist’s rendering shows the stone structure discovered on Mount Ebal as itmight have appeared in the time of Joshua. Its excavators believe the central plat-form was Joshua’s altar, to which priests ascended via the ramp in the center.

20 The Good News

farmhouse at all. What could it be?Based on four more years of excava-

tions, Zertal finally completed the pictureof the structure. The resulting illustrationbore a striking resemblance to the biblicalspecifications of an altar.

As per God’s instruction, the stoneramp did not have steps: “And if youmake Me an altar of stone, you shall notbuild it of hewn stone; for if you use yourtool on it, you have profaned it. Nor shallyou go up by steps to My altar, that yournakedness may not be exposed on it”(Exodus 20:25-26). This was a precautionso the priest’s tunic would not expose hislegs as he ascended the altar.

Also, the Bible describes an altar withfour surrounding walls and completelyfilled with earth and rocks. On top of thisfill a fire could be lighted for the sacrifice.This is precisely what was found.

Around this altar Zertal discovered a small wall that apparently served todefine a perimeter of an area for manypeople to congregate. He concluded thatthis area was a prototype of an Israeliteworship center with an altar and an open-air meeting place. He thinks this could be the altar built by Joshua at Mount Ebal(Biblical Archaeological Review,January-February 1986).

On God’s instructions Moses had said:“Therefore it shall be, when you havecrossed over the Jordan, that on MountEbal you shall set up these stones, which Icommand you today, and you shall white-wash them with lime. And there you shallbuild an altar to the LORD your God, analtar of stones; you shall not use an irontool on them. You shall build with wholestones the altar of the LORD your God,and offer burnt offerings on it to the LORD

your God. You shall offer peace offerings,and shall eat there, and rejoice before theLORD your God” (Deuteronomy 27:4-7).

Therefore, there is strong evidence thatGod’s orders were solemnly carried outby Joshua. An altar at Mount Ebal wasbuilt with the unusual specifications ofuncut stones and a ramp instead of steps.At this site only remains of animals bibli-cally approved for sacrifice were found.

Future issues of The Good News willexamine other archaeological finds thatconfirm and illuminate biblical history. GN

July/August 1997 20

ArchaeologyContinued from page 23

b y M a r i o S e i g l i e

revious issues of The Good News haveexamined archaeological finds that illuminate

sections of the five biblical books of Mosesand the book of Joshua. In this issue we focus on a tumultuous time in ancient Israel’s history, the eracovered by the book of Judges.

Judges begins by describing the settlement ofthe Israelite tribes in Canaan. The aged Joshua distributes the territory among the tribes. A shortwhile later he dies at the age of 110 (Judges 2:8).Then comes a period during which faithful elderswho had lived over from Joshua’s time governedIsrael. When they died, no leader immediately suc-ceeded them. A dangerous political void existed.

Many among the younger generation, born inthe land of Canaan, had largely forgotten the mira-cles accomplished during Moses’and Joshua’stime. “When all that generation had been gatheredto their fathers, another generation arose after themwho did not know the LORD nor the work whichHe had done for Israel” (Judges 2:10).

The new generation found itself surrounded bymany Canaanites who adhered to their own popu-lar religion. Instead of eliminating this foreigninfluence, as God had commanded, in manyinstances the Israelites simply coexisted with thoseholding false beliefs. God had warned them whatwould occur if this situation were allowed to con-tinue: “Then the Angel of the LORD came up fromGilgal to Bochim, and said: ‘I led you up fromEgypt and brought you to the land of which I swore to your fathers; and I said, “I will neverbreak My covenant with you. And you shall makeno covenant with the inhabitants of this land; youshall tear down their altars.” But you have notobeyed My voice. Why have you done this? There-fore I also said, “I will not drive them before you;but they shall be thorns in your side, and their godsshall be a snare to you”’” (Judges 2:1-3).

During this period of more than 300 years, Godperiodically raised up judges—we find at least 12of them described in the biblical account—to res-cue and rule over Israel as the Israelites struggledwith indigenous peoples over control of the land.Judges ruled simultaneously with each other invarious regions of Israel. The surviving Canaanitesfrequently attacked and reconquered territory takenby the Israelites.

What does the archaeological evidence revealabout this time?

A change in cultures

The extensive scientific evidence points to a gradual change from a Canaanite building-and-pottery culture to a less-advanced Israelite cul-tural style.

Charles Fensham, a professor of Semitic lan-guages, argues that “archaeology has shown that[around] 1200 B.C. certain cities in Palestine weredemolished. A flowering culture of Late Bronze[Canaanite] was obliterated. The new develop-ments . . . were of a lower culture than the preced-ing. The break is thus obvious and points toseminomadic groups in process of settling down.This evidence is clearly to be connected with the

18 The Good News

During this periodof more than 300

years, God period-ically raised up

judges to rescueand rule over

Israel as theIsraelites struggled

with indigenouspeoples over con-

trol of the land.

Archaeology and the Book of Judges

P

The religion of the Canaanites held great appeal for the early Israelites.Shown are a statuette of Baal, left, the weather god, and a fertility figurine.The Baal figure apparently originally held a lightning bolt in its hand. Ph

otos

cou

rtes

y Ri

char

d C

leav

e

May/June 1997 19

invading Israelite tribes” (The Interna-tional Standard Bible Encyclopedia,Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, 1982,Vol. II,p. 1158).

This is consistent with the biblicalrecord, which shows that the Israelites,initially slaves in Egypt and culturallyimpoverished, at first simply took over theexisting Canaanite cities as they conqueredthem. God had told them, “So it shall be,when the LORD your God brings you intothe land of which He swore to your fathers,to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give yoularge and beautiful cities which you did notbuild, houses full of all good things, whichyou did not fill, hewn-out wells which youdid not dig, vineyards and olive treeswhich you did not plant—when you haveeaten and are full—then beware, lest youforget the LORD who brought you out ofthe land of Egypt, from the house ofbondage” (Deuteronomy 6:10-12).

Gradual replacement

The book of Judges indicates that thiscultural change was gradual. “And it cameto pass, when Israel was strong, that theyput the Canaanites under tribute, but did notcompletely drive them out” (Judges 1:28).The Canaanite culture survived for manyyears until the Israelites finally replaced it.

“The Israelites had lived in Egypt asenslaved [people], and then spent 40 yearsas seminomads before entering Canaan;this makes it unlikely that they brought a distinctive material culture into Canaan. . . At the end of the Late Bronze Age and the start of the Iron Age, around 1200B.C., a major change occurred in settle-ment patterns [in Canaan] . . . While wedo not believe the new settlements markthe arrival of the Israelites, we are stillhappy to call them ‘Israelite’settlements.This is because, in our view, the Israeliteshad been in the land for some two cen-turies by 1200 B.C. and were thereforeinvolved in the changes that took place at that time” (John Bimson and DavidLivingston, “Redating the Exodus,” Bibli-cal Archaeological Review, September-October 1987, pp. 52-53).

Here, then, is additional evidencefrom archaeology that appears to con-firm the biblical account. It shows a

gradual supplanting of Canaanite cultureby Israelite settlers.

Worship of Baal and Asherah

After Joshua’s generation had died out,“the children of Israel did evil in the sightof the LORD, and served the Baals, andthey forsook the LORD God of theirfathers, who had brought them out of theland of Egypt; and they followed othergods from among the gods of the peoplewho were all around them, and theybowed down to them; and they provokedthe LORD to anger. They forsook the LORD

and served Baal and the Ashtoreths”(Judges 2:11-13).

Why the seemingly irresistible ten-dency for the Israelites to worship Baalover Yahweh? Again, archaeology sheds

much light on the Canaanite religion andhelps us understand the deadly allure theindigenous religious practices held forthe Israelites.

In 1929 excavations began in RasShamra (the ancient port town of Ugarit) in northern Lebanon. This work continues.The remains of a palace discovered in thefirst year of excavation yielded a librarycontaining hundreds of ancient documentsthat provided a wealth of informationabout the Canaanite religion. What didthese tablets reveal? “The texts show thedegrading results of the worship of thesedeities; with their emphasis on war, sacredprostitution, sensuous love and the conse-quent social degradation” (The New BibleDictionary, Tyndale House Publishers,1982, p. 1230).

September/October 1997 19

The First Mention of Israel During most of the last century, many liberal critics believed the history of Israel

as recorded in the Old Testament was little more than the fabrication of later Jewsfrom around the sixth century B.C. For instance, they believed there was no solidevidence of Israel being a nation at the time of the events described in the bibli-cal book of Judges.

Yet, in 1896, British archaeologist Sir Flinders Petrie found evidence of Israel’sexistence as far back as 1200 B.C., precisely the time of the events in Judges. In theruins of an Egyptian temple, he discovered a monument that narrated the militaryvictories of Merneptah, an Egyptian pharaoh. In this beautifully carved pillar, datedaround 1207 B.C., the monarch mentions the nation of Israel.

For this reason the monument, technically termed a stele, is called “the IsraelStele.” It can be seen in the Cairo Museum. On it Merneptah recorded his victoriesin Canaan and mentioned Israel as one of his vanquished enemies. This wouldplace the battle during the time of the judges of Israel, when Israel was continu-ally being attacked and invaded by nearby peoples and then liberated by thejudges God chose and used to deliver His people.

In the last two lines of the text, the stele mentions four of Merneptah’sdefeated foes in Canaan: “Ashkelon has been overcome. Gezer has been cap-tured. Yanoam was made non-existent. Israel is laid waste, [and] his seed is not.”

The reign of Merneptah is dated around 1212-1202 B.C. By recording his victoryover Israel, Merneptah shows that during this time the Israelites were already inpossession of the central portion of the land.

Of the other places mentioned on the monument, Ashkelon was one of thecoastal cities of the recently arrived Philistines. Gezer and Yanoam were in thelowlands, still under the possession of the Canaanites. As recorded in the Bible,Gezer was not conquered by the Israelites under Joshua. “Nor did Ephraim driveout the Canaanites who dwelt in Gezer among them” (Judges 1:29). ThusMerneptah’s statement corroborates that this city was not in Israelite territory.

The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia sums up the findings: “AmongMerneptah’s conquests in Syria-Palestine is Ysr’r (Egyptian for Y´sr’l), clearly rec-ognizable as ‘Israel’ . . . Thus the Israel Stele provides a terminus ad quem [limitfrom which to date] for the presence of the Israelites in Palestine . . .” (Eerdman’s,Grand Rapids, 1986, Vol. 3, p. 324).

—Mario Seiglie

20 The Good News

Forbidden worship

The pagan religion was enticing to theIsraelites for two primary reasons. First, itwas not as morally demanding as the bib-lical religion. Second, the Israelites fellvictim to a superstitious respect for thegods that supposedly controlled the landof the Canaanites.

“The Canaanite religion was com-pletely different from the Israelite. So far,no evidence has been found in Canaaniteculture of a series of rules of conduct simi-lar to the Ten Commandments . . . It was agreat temptation for the Israelite invadersto respect the existing gods of the landwhich were regarded as being responsiblefor the country’s fertility. In addition, theworship of these gods was much lessdemanding than the rigid Israelite lawsand rituals. Consequently, many of God’speople yielded to this temptation. Theresult was a gradual moral decline of thenation” (The Lion Encyclopedia of theBible, Lion Publishers, 1983, p. 153).

Recognizing the great danger to fledg-ling Israel, God insisted that His peopledestroy every aspect of the degeneratenative religion. “According to the doingsof the land of Egypt, where you dwelt,you shall not do; and according to thedoings of the land of Canaan, where I ambringing you, you shall not do; nor shallyou walk in their ordinances. You shallobserve my judgments and keep My ordi-nances, to walk in them: I am the LORD

your God” (Leviticus 18:3-4).“And you shall not let any of your

descendants pass through the fire [be sac-rificed] to Molech . . . You shall not liewith a male as with a woman. It is anabomination . . . Do not defile yourselveswith any of these things; for by all thesethe nations are defiled, which I am castingout before you. For the land is defiled;therefore I visit the punishment of its iniq-uity upon it, and the land vomits out itsinhabitants” (verses 21-25).

Sexual perversion as religion

The corruption found expression ingrotesque cultic sexual practices. “Thepagan world of the ancient Near Eastworshipped and deified sex.” So inter-twined were sex and religion that “theterm ‘holy ones’[was used] for its cult

prostitutes” (Interpreter’s One-VolumeCommentary on the Bible, AbingdonPress, 1971, p. 79).

Although the details are crude, theyreveal why biblical proscriptions againstthe Canaanite perversions are so perva-sive. “[A] ritual involved a dramatizationof the myth . . . [and] centered in sexualactivity since the rainfall attributed to Baalwas thought to . . . fertilize and impregnatethe earth with life just as he impregnatedAsherah, the goddess of fertility, in themyth. Canaanite religion, then, wasgrossly sensual and even perverse becauseit required the services of both male andfemale cultic prostitutes as the principalactors in the drama.

“Unlike the requirement in Israel, therewas no one central sanctuary. Baal couldbe worshipped wherever there was a placeespecially visited by the numinous pres-ence of the gods. These places were origi-nally on hills (hence, ‘high place’) butlater could be found in valleys or evenwithin the cities and towns” (Eugene Merrill, Kingdom of Priests, Baker BookHouse, 1987, pp. 160-161).

Infants sacrificed to Molech

Included in these Canaanite practiceswas child sacrifice, described in the Bibleas having children to “pass through the fireto Molech” (Jeremiah 32:35). The RasShamra tablets also mention the god Molech. Some unrighteous kings in Israelinstituted the practice of sacrificing infantsto Molech. God, through the prophet Jere-miah, denounced this ghastly ritual. “Forthe children of Judah have done evil in Mysight,” and “they have built the high placesof Tophet [related to Molech worship] . . .to burn their sons and their daughters in thefire, which I did not command, nor did itcome into My heart” (Jeremiah 7:30-31).

In the ancient Phoenician city ofCarthage—part of the Canaanite cul-ture—some 20,000 urns containing theremains of sacrificed children were found.The archaeologists at the site apprise usthat “the Carthaginian Tophet is the largestof these Phoenician sites and indeed is thelargest cemetery of sacrificed humans everdiscovered. Child sacrifice took placethere almost continuously for a period ofnearly 600 years” (Lawrence Stager and

Samuel Wolff, Biblical ArchaeologicalReview, January-February 1984, p. 32).

Kleitarchos, a Greek from the thirdcentury B.C., described this sacrifice asthe heating up of a bronze statue with out-stretched arms. Infants placed into thesered-hot arms quickly perished.

Struggle for a nation’s heartObviously, God did not want the Israel-

ites to destroy their own offspring. Whenrighteous kings such as Josiah ascendedthe throne, they obeyed God and abolishedthe practice. “And he defiled Topheth,which is in the Valley of the Son of Hin-nom [in Jerusalem], that no man mightmake his son or his daughter pass throughthe fire to Molech” (2 Kings 23:10).

Some might think the prophets wereoverly harsh in condemning the Canaanitereligion. Yet now, with detailed evidenceof Canaanite practices found by archaeol-ogists in this century, it is clear why theprophets were uncompromising.

“The prophets and chroniclers tendedto be thought of as men who, in their zealfor Yahweh and their anger against foreignreligions, had probably gone too far,”writes one author. “This objection wasleveled at the Bible right up to the presentday . . . With us it is accepted as a matterof course that every half civilized commu-nity controls the morality of its citizens.But in Canaan in those days the cult ofsensuality was regarded as the worship of the gods, men and women prostitutesranked as ‘sacred’to the followers of thereligion, the rewards for their ‘services’went into the temple treasuries as ‘offer-ings for the god.’

“The last thing the prophets andchroniclers did was to exaggerate. Howwell founded their harsh words were hasonly become fully understood since thegreat discoveries of Ras Shamra . . .What temptation for a simple shepherdfolk, what perilous enticement! . . . With-out its stern moral law, without its faith in one God, without the commandingfigures of its prophets, Israel would neverhave been able to survive this strugglewith the Baals, with the religions of thefertility goddesses, with the Asherim andthe high places” (Werner Keller, TheBible as History, Bantam Books, New

Continued on page 29

York, 1980, pp. 286, 289).Thus the periodic backsliding of Israel

into Baal worship described in the book ofJudges is a realistic depiction. The descrip-tion draws support from the archaeologicalfinds that document the struggle for thesoul of Israel. God persevered in sendingHis messengers to warn His people of thedangers of Baalism. An apt description ofthis struggle was penned by Nehemiah:

“And they took strong cities and a richland, and possessed houses full of allgoods, cisterns already dug, vineyards,olive groves, and fruit trees in abundance.So they ate and were filled and grew fat,and delighted themselves in Your greatgoodness. Nevertheless they were disobe-dient and rebelled against You, cast Yourlaw behind their backs and killed Yourprophets, who testified against them toturn them to Yourself; and they workedgreat provocations.

“Therefore You delivered them into thehand of their enemies, who oppressedthem; and in the time of their trouble,when they cried to You,You heard fromheaven; and according to Your abundantmercies You gave them deliverers [judges]who saved them from the hand of theirenemies. But after they had rest, they againdid evil before You. Therefore You leftthem in the hand of their enemies . . . Yetwhen they returned and cried out to You,You heard from heaven; and many timesYou delivered them according to Your mercies” (Nehemiah 9:25-28).

A nation’s early years

The book of Judges is not just documen-tation of ancient victories and heroic acts. Itrepresents a realistic description of a fledg-ling nation that began to assimilate the per-verse culture of its defeated foes. The bookcandidly reveals Israel’s struggle—notalways successful—against the barbaricCanaanite religion. It explains Israel’s fre-quent relapses and resultant humiliatingdefeats at the hands of its enemies. Throughit all one constant factor shows through:God, who is concerned about the moral andspiritual life of His people.

Future issues of The Good News willexamine additional archaeological findsthat confirm and help us understand thebiblical record. GN

ArchaeologyContinued from page 26

September/October 1997 21

King David’s Reign: A Nation United

b y M a r i o S e i g l i e

n earlier issues The Good News has exam-ined archaeological discoveries that confirm

and help us better understand the biblicalaccounts in the five books of Moses and Israel’shistory as recorded in Joshua and Judges. In thisissue we focus on the beginning of the Israelitemonarchy, the time of King David. The Bible dis-cusses this period in the books of 1 and 2 Samueland 1 Chronicles.

When the period described in the book ofJudges ended, a new age arrived with the kings ofIsrael, an era lasting more than 400 years. (It cameto a tragic close with the kingdoms of Israel andJudah both being taken into captivity and exile.)

The monarchy lacked an auspicious beginning.God eventually rejected Saul, the first king,because of his continual disobedience. David, theson of Jesse, replaced Saul.

David’s reign began the golden age of Israel.This powerful king wisely governed the tribes of Israel, forging them into a unified nation. God blessed this obedient and multitalentedman. David was not only a valiant soldier, but a great military strategist, able administrator,

diplomat, composer and musician.Under David’s inspired leadership, Israel soon

became powerful, extending its northern frontiersto the River Euphrates and its southern borders tothe Red Sea. “And David defeated Hadadezerking of Zobah as far as Hamath, as he went toestablish his power by the River Euphrates . . . So David reigned over all Israel, and administeredjudgment and justice to all his people” (1 Chroni-cles 18:3, 14).

After centuries of Israelite struggle against the Canaanites and Philistines, it was David whofinally triumphed decisively over Israel’s ene-mies. The ensuing peace freed the Israelites tomake full use of the formidable natural resourcesof the area. This liberty produced great prosperity.From their humble beginning as a slave people,then as pastoral tribes, they ascended to greatheights. David transformed Israel into a highlyorganized state that would later leave a lastingmark on Western civilization.

“The reign of David,” comments one authority,“marks—politically speaking—Israel’s goldenage. A power vacuum in both Egypt and Meso-potamia made it possible for the tribes that hadentered Canaan under Joshua a few centuries earlier to become a mighty nation . . . David wasking of an area extending from the Red Sea to theEuphrates” (The International Standard BibleEncyclopedia, Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, 1982,Vol. II, p. 915).

With the flourishing of the material culture ofIsrael comes enough physical evidence of Israelit-ish presence to be confirmed by archaeology.

“The purpose of Biblical archaeology,”explains archaeologist Bryant Wood, “is toenhance our comprehension of the Bible, and soits greatest achievement, in my view, has been theextraordinary illumination of . . . the time of theIsraelite monarchy, c. 1000-586 B.C.E. . . .[whereas] exploring that prehistory [the pre-monarchic age] is challenging: It requires tracingthe archaeological record of a pastoral commu-nity, rather than an agrarian-based political entity

I

18 The Good News

Secular historiansonce questionedthe historicity of

King David.However, recent

archaeological discoveries confirm

the evidence for his existence

and reign.

Fragments of an inscription recovered at the siteof biblical Dan prove that David was a historicalfigure. The inscription refers to the “house ofDavid,” the dynasty founded by King David.

[as in David’s time] that built cities andmade contacts with surrounding nations”(Biblical Archaeology Review, May-June1995, pp. 33, 35).

Jerusalem as Israel’s new capital

David was originally headquartered inHebron, in southern Judah, but now, withall 13 tribes accepting his rulership, heneeded a central base from which to gov-ern. An ideal place was on the northernborder of Judah, the city of Jebus, alsocalled Jerusalem, but it was in the handsof the Jebusites, a remnant Canaanitetribe that had heavily fortified the city.“And David and all Israel went toJerusalem, which is Jebus, where theJebusites were, the inhabitants of theland” (1 Chronicles 11:4).

A few centuries earlier, Joshua hadattempted to conquer the city of Jebus buthad failed. “As for the Jebusites, the inhab-itants of Jerusalem, the children of Judahcould not drive them out; but the Jebusitesdwell with the children of Judah atJerusalem to this day” (Joshua 15:63).

After Joshua’s death the Israelitesbriefly conquered Jerusalem. “Now the children of Judah fought againstJerusalem and took it; they struck it withthe edge of the sword and set the city onfire” (Judges 1:8). Yet the surviving inhab-itants soon rebuilt the city. From thatmoment they successfully resistedIsraelite attacks until the time of David.“But the children of Benjamin did notdrive out the Jebusites who inhabitedJerusalem; so the Jebusites dwell with thechildren of Benjamin in Jerusalem to thisday” (Judges 1:21).

The city was built on a mount in themidst of a large valley in the Judeanmountains. It seemed impenetrable.When the Jebusites noticed David andhis men were ready to attack them, theymocked their feeble efforts. “And theking and his men went to Jerusalemagainst the Jebusites, the inhabitants ofthe land, who spoke to David, saying,‘You shall not come in here; but the blind and the lame will repel you,’ . . .”(2 Samuel 5:6).

Yet David did not attempt a frontalattack on the fortress. Instead, he found

the Achilles’heel of the Jebusite defenses,a hidden water shaft that wound its wayup into the city. Such a shaft for transport-ing water was a common feature of manyfortified cities of that time. “As was char-acteristic of all the great walled cities of Canaan,” notes Eugene Merrill,“Jerusalem had a vertical water shaft con-necting with a tunnel leading to an under-ground water supply outside the walls. Asnecessary as these systems were for the

survival of a city under siege, they alsoconstituted a major weakness in that theyprovided access into the city for anyonewho could find the entrance” (Kingdom of Priests, Baker Book House Co., GrandRapids, 1987, p. 236).

When David discovered the entrance,he realized it was a way to secretly enter thecity and open its gates. “Whoever climbsup by way of the water shaft and defeats theJebusites,” he told his men, “shall be chiefPh

oto

by Z

ev R

adov

an,

illus

trat

ion

cour

tesy

Rea

der’s

Dig

est

An artist’s rendering shows Jerusalem as it may have appeared when David made it hiscapital. The city is connected by a narrow ridge to Mount Moriah, future site of the tem-ple, in the background. Eventually the ridge was expanded and the entire area wascalled Mount Zion. At lower right, a procession bearing the ark enters the city.

January/February 1998 19

and captain” (2 Samuel 5:8).In 1 Chronicles 11:6-7 we find who

gained the honor: “And Joab the son ofZeruiah went up first, and became chief.Then David dwelt in the stronghold;therefore they called it the City of David.”

More than a century ago Charles War-ren, a British officer, found a water shaftin Jerusalem with features similar to thosedescribed in the Bible account. CharlesPfeiffer, a professor of ancient literature,explains the significance of the discovery.“The capture of Jerusalem by David is ofinterest to archaeologists,” he wrote,“since he used a strategy which involvedthe Gihon Spring, on the eastern slope ofMount Zion . . . Joab went up first andwas rewarded by becoming commanderof David’s army . . .

“This tunnel has been identified withWarren’s Shaft. The shaft was dugthrough the limestone above the GihonSpring all the way up to the surface, a dis-tance of 24 meters . . . The discovery of a

Jebusite wall farther down the slopetoward the Gihon Spring increases thepossibility that Joab could have secretlyentered the city . . . through Warren’sShaft” (The Biblical World: A Dictionaryof Biblical Archaeology, 1966, BakerBook House, Grand Rapids, p. 373).

King David’s Jerusalem

After David conquered the Jebusitefortress, it became known as the City ofDavid. As his reign prospered he soonbegan building to extend the city. “ThenDavid dwelt in the stronghold, and calledit the City of David. And David built allaround from the Millo and inward. SoDavid went on and became great, and theLORD God of hosts was with him”(2 Samuel 5:9-10).

The mount on which the Jebusitefortress stood was called Mount Zion.“Nevertheless David took the strongholdof Zion (that is, the City of David)” (verse7). Close by, to the north, was a hill called

Mount Moriah, which David bought fromOrnan the Jebusite.

“Therefore, the angel of the LORD

commanded Gad to say to David thatDavid should go and erect an altar to theLORD on the threshing floor of Ornan theJebusite . . . So David gave Ornan sixhundred shekels of gold by weight for theplace. And David built there an altar tothe LORD, and offered burnt offerings andpeace offerings, and called on the LORD;and He answered him from heaven by fireon the altar of burnt offering” (1 Chroni-cles 21:18, 25-26).

Eventually David moved the taberna-cle and the ark of the covenant to thisarea, and later King Solomon built hismagnificent temple on Mount Moriah.“Now Solomon began to build the houseof the LORD at Jerusalem on MountMoriah, where the LORD had appeared tohis father David, at the place that Davidhad prepared on the threshing floor of

20 The Good News

Continued on page 29

n 1956 another remarkable discovery was made that pro-vides additional evidence of the authenticity of the biblicalaccounts of David’s days.Before David had secured leadership over all the tribes of

Israel, Abner, who had been Saul’s general, served one of

Saul’s sons. Abner brought his army to fight David’s army, ledby Joab. Abner’s and Joab’s troops met beside a famous watersupply of that day called the pool of Gibeon.

“And Joab the son of Zeruiah, and the servants of David,went out and met them by the pool of Gibeon. So they satdown, one on one side of the pool and the other on the other

side of the pool. Then Abner said to Joab, ‘Let the young mennow arise and compete before us.’ And Joab said, ‘Let themarise.’ So they arose and went over by number, twelve fromBenjamin, followers of Ishbosheth the son of Saul, and twelvefrom the servants of David. And each one grasped his oppo-nent by the head and thrust his sword in his opponent’s side;so they fell down together. Therefore that place was calledthe Field of Sharp Swords, which is in Gibeon. So there was avery fierce battle that day, and Abner and the men of Israelwere beaten before the servants of David” (2 Samuel 2:13-17).

James Pritchard conducted an exploration of this site from1956 to 1962. He discovered 31 jar handles bearing theHebrew name Gibeon, which confirmed the site. Early in hissearch archaeologist Pritchard located a round water shaft, 37feet in diameter, that led to a pool used by the city. This shaft,comments Biblical Archaeology Review, “was cut into thelimestone bedrock to a depth of over 82 feet. Also cut into thelimestone are a staircase and railing, which wind down to alevel floor about halfway to the bottom of the shaft. Fromthere, the stairs drop straight down another 45 feet—to thelevel of the water table” (May-June 1995, p. 43).

In the same issue archaeologist Bryant Wood concludes: “Alarge pool at Gibeon is no doubt the pool where the forces ofIsrael’s second king, David, fought under Joab against theforces of Saul’s son Ishbosheth under Abner” (p. 33).

This find was listed by Biblical Archaeology Review as oneof the top 10 discoveries in biblical archaeology. It reveals yetanother example of the accuracy of even the incidental detailsof the biblical account.

—Mario Seiglie

The Battle at the Pool of Gibeon

The Pool of Gibeon was a massive 37-foot diameter shaft cutinto solid rock to reach the water table 82 feet below.

I

20 The Good News

Phot

o co

urte

sy R

icha

rd C

leav

e

Ornan the Jebusite” (2 Chronicles 3:1).In Solomon’s time the Israelites finally

completed an earthwork that filled the areabetween the two mounts, making themone. The whole area was then calledMount Zion and was no more known asMoriah. “With the establishment of theark first in the Jebusite fortress and then inthe newly built temple,” according to onesource, “Zion became known as thesacred dwelling place of Israel’s Lord, theOne ‘who dwells in Zion’(Ps. 9:11)” (TheInternational Standard Bible Encyclope-dia, 1982, Vol. 4, p. 1198).

Eventually Zion would be used notonly to denote the temple area, but as asymbol for Jerusalem, its inhabitants and,finally, the people of God.

Confirmation of David’s existence

Some historians and critics have ques-tioned the existence of King David andhave relegated Old Testament accountsabout him to the status of mythology. “I am not the only scholar,” remarks PhilipDavies, “who suspects that the figure ofKing David is about as historical as KingArthur” (Biblical Archaeology Review,July-August 1994, p. 55). Such professorscast doubt on the reliability of the biblicalrecord and undermine the faith of others.They also rarely acknowledge the manydiscoveries that have corroborated the biblical account.

For instance, in 1993 archaeologistsdiscovered the names of David and Israelin an inscription carved in stone only 100years after David’s death. Reports Bibli-cal Archaeology Review: “It’s not oftenthat an archaeological find makes thefront page of the New York Times (to saynothing of Time magazine). But that iswhat happened last summer to a discov-ery at Tel Dan, a beautiful mound innorthern Galilee, at the foot of MountHermon beside one of the headwaters of the Jordan River.

“There Avraham Biran and his team of archaeologists found a remarkableinscription from the ninth century B.C.E.that refers both to the ‘House of David’and to the ‘King of Israel.’This is the firsttime that the name David has been foundin any ancient inscription outside theBible” (Biblical Archaeological Review,

March-April 1994, p. 26). More and moreextrabiblical evidence involving Biblenames and places is being discovered asthe years go by. The skeptics are gradu-ally having to retreat.

Later another scholar found the name“House of David” in the inscriptions ofthe famous Moabite Stone, also called theMesha stela, dated to the ninth centuryB.C., about 100 years after David’s reign.It is hard to understand how David’s namecould appear in historical records if hewere nothing but a later literary creation.

Anson Rainey, professor of ancientNear Eastern cultures, cautions theunwary about believing that the accountsof David and other biblical characters arebut legends. “As someone who studiesancient inscriptions in the original, I havea responsibility to warn the lay audiencethat the new fad, the ‘deconstructionistschool,’ . . . is merely a circle of dilet-tantes. Their view that nothing in Biblicaltradition is earlier than the Persian period[540-330 B.C.], especially their denial ofthe existence of a United Monarchy, is a figment of their vain imagination. Thename ‘House of David’ in the Tel Dan andMesha inscriptions sounds the death knellto their specious conceit. Biblical scholar-ship and instruction should completelyignore the ‘deconstructionist school.’They have nothing to teach us” (BiblicalArchaeology Review, November-December 1994, p. 47).

Although some critics will not admit asmuch, the accumulating physical evidenceconfirms rather than denies what is writtenin God’s Word. But, for those who havefaith in what God has said in the Bible, itis not necessary to find material remains to corroborate these accounts. The apostlePaul boldly affirms that God “cannot lie”(Titus 1:2).

However, in some cases physical evi-dence of the events and people describedin the Scriptures has survived the ravagesof time and serves as a witness to Hisfaithfulness. This comforts and consolesus in our faith, as Paul wrote, “for what-ever things were written before were writ-ten for our learning, that we through thepatience and comfort of the Scripturesmight have hope” (Romans 15:4).

The Good News will continue to exam-ine archaeological finds that verify theaccuracy of the Bible and help us betterunderstand the biblical record. GN

ArchaeologyContinued from page 24

January/February 1998 21

King Solomon’s Reign: Israel’s Golden Years

b y M a r i o S e i g l i e

n earlier issues The Good News has discussedvarious archaeological finds that illuminate and

verify the biblical record. In this issue, wefocus on the reign of Solomon, successor of Davidas king of Israel.

Once David had consolidated the Israeliteempire, under the guidance of God he chose his sonSolomon to be his successor. The reign of this youngman became truly legendary. Under Solomon’s ruleIsrael reached the pinnacle of wealth and power.Tragically, the glory of Solomon’s kingdom barelyoutlasted his own lifetime.

What has archaeology revealed about KingSolomon’s reign in the 10th century B.C.? Remark-ably, there is much evidence to corroborate the bibli-cal account.

Unusual period of peace

What does the Bible say about the wider interna-tional condition during Solomon’s time? God hadtold David: “Behold, a son shall be born to you, whoshall be a man of rest; and I will give him rest fromall his enemies all around. His name shall beSolomon [meaning ‘peaceful’], for I will give peace

and quietness to Israel in his days” (1 Chronicles22:9, emphasis added throughout).

Was this a time of peace in Israel? What do thearchaeological records show? From contemporaryEgyptian,Assyrian and Babylonian inscriptions, wefind these once-powerful kingdoms afflicted by mili-tary weakness.

Assyria was occupied with constant battles againstthe Arameans. Internal strife over dynastic disputesfurther weakened the kingdom. “These Assyrian pre-occupations,” states Donald Wiseman, professor ofAssyriology, “left David and Solomon free to extendtheir own territory into south Syria. The intrudersfrom the Syrian desert impoverished Assyria underthe aged Ashurnasirpal I . . .” (The International Stan-dard Bible Encyclopedia, Eerdmans, Grand Rapids,1979,Vol. 1, p. 334). Meanwhile, the Assyrians heldthe Babylonians in check, blocking any Chaldeanintrusion into Israelite territory.

On Israel’s southern flank, the Egyptians werealso experiencing a general decline. Commentingon the beginning of this long period of weakness,one authority observes: “After the empire [of theprevious centuries], Egypt never regained her for-mer dominance in the eastern Mediterranean world. . . In large part this foreign weakness arose fromdomestic weakness. Egypt kept breaking up intosmaller states . . . From the time of Samuel to thefall of the kingdom of Israel, Egypt was normallyin a state of divided weakness” (The Interpreter’sDictionary of the Bible, Abingdon, Nashville,1962,Vol. 2, p. 52).

This international backdrop is faithfullyreflected in the biblical account. In fact, the weakpriestly dynasty ruling Egypt made great conces-sions to Solomon because of his increasing powerand influence.

Opinion among scholars is divided over whichpharaoh was Solomon’s contemporary. EugeneMerrill believes it was Siamun. “. . . Siamun soonrealized that Solomon was to be ruler of a kingdomwhich would rival or even exceed his own in powerand influence. He therefore decided it was to his bestadvantage to cultivate amicable relations with the

I

18 The Good News

What has archaeol-ogy revealed about

King Solomon’sreign in the 10th

century B.C.?Remarkably, there is much evidence to corroborate thebiblical account.

This aerial view of excavations at Hazor showsconstruction from Solomon’s time. The same construction methods for the city gate were dis-covered at Hazor as at Megiddo and Gezer, con-firming the account that Solomon constructedfortifications at these three cities (1 Kings 9:15).

young monarch, even to the extent of recog-nizing him as an equal. That this is the caseis clear from his willingness to provide hisown daughter as a wife for Solomon, a con-cession almost without parallel in Egyptianhistory since it was a candid admission tothe world of Egypt’s weakness and concilia-tion. Normally Egyptian kings took foreignprincesses but did not give up their owndaughters to foreign kings” (Kingdom ofPriests, Baker, Grand Rapids, 1987, p. 292.Compare to David Rohl, A Test of Time:The Bible—From Myth to History,ArrowBooks, London, 1996, pp. 173-185).

It is clear from the history of the neighboring countries that an unusual era of peace enveloped Israel, enablingSolomon to greatly develop and enrich hisnation through many profitable commer-cial alliances.

Prosperous alliance with Phoenicia

Not only did Solomon lack foreign enemies, he found a powerful ally in KingHiram, a faithful friend of his father, David.

“Now Hiram king of Tyre sent his ser-vants to Solomon, because he heard thatthey had anointed him king in place of hisfather, for Hiram had always loved David. . . So the LORD gave Solomon wisdom, asHe had promised him; and there was peacebetween Hiram and Solomon, and the twoof them made a treaty together” (1 Kings5:1, 12).

Regarding this treaty, a thousand yearslater the Jewish historian Josephus notedthat copies of this alliance could be read inthe public archives in Tyre. “The copies ofthese epistles,” writes Josephus, “remain atthis day, and are preserved not only in ourbooks, but among the Tyrians also; inso-much that if any one would know the certainty about them, he may desire of thekeepers of the public records of Tyre toshew him them, and he will find what isthere set down to agree with what we havesaid” (Antiquities of the Jews, Book VIII,Chapter II, Section 7).

In Solomon’s day, the Israelites were just beginning to clearly define their ownculture. To initiate such vast projects as thetemple (see G. Ernest Wright, “TheStevens’Reconstruction of the SolomonicTemple,” Biblical Archaeologist, Vol. 18,

1955, pp. 41-44), fortified towns and mar-itime trade, Solomon could have found nomore enterprising a people to help than the Phoenicians.

One author explains, “Solomon was athoroughly progressive ruler. He had a flairfor exploiting foreign brains and foreignskill and turning them to his own advantage.That was the secret, otherwise scarcelyunderstandable, of how the [nation] . . .developed by leaps and bounds into a firstclass economic organism. Here also was tobe found the secret of his wealth which theBible emphasises. Solomon imported smelt-ing technicians from Phoenicia. Huram . . . ,

a craftsman from Tyre, was entrusted withthe casting of the Temple furnishings (1 Kings 7:13, 14). In Ezion-GeberSolomon founded an important enterprisefor overseas trade . . . The Phoenicians hadbehind them practical experience accumu-lated over many centuries. Solomon there-fore sent to Tyre for specialists for hisdockyards and sailors for his ships: ‘AndHiram sent in the navy his servants, ship-men that had knowledge of the sea . . .’(1 Kings 9:27)” (Werner Keller, The BibleAs History, Bantam, New York, 1980, pp.211-212. On Ezion-Geber, see Gary D.Pratico, “Where Is Ezion-Geber?”, BiblicalPh

oto

cour

tesy

Ric

hard

Cle

ave,

illu

stra

tion

cour

tesy

Rea

der’s

Dig

est

March/April 1998 19

20 The Good News

Archaeology Review, September/October1986, pp. 24-35; Alexander Flinder, “Is ThisSolomon’s Seaport?”, Biblical ArchaeologyReview, July/August 1989, pp. 31-42).

Archaeologists who have studied theremains of Solomon’s time clearly see thePhoenician influence which the Bible,instead of hiding the facts, candidly admits.“Where the Israelites replaced Canaanitetowns, the quality of housing was notice-ably poorer,” says The New Bible Dictio-nary, “though standards improved rapidly in the days of David and Solomon, partlythrough Phoenician influence . . . The

commonest-type house . . . has becomeknown generally as the four-room house,which appears to be an original Israeliteconcept” (Inter-Varsity Press, DownersGrove, Illinois, 1982, p. 490).

Great construction projects

Throughout Israel, Solomon fortified thegreat cities: “And this is the reason for thelabor force which King Solomon raised: tobuild the house of the LORD, his own house,the Millo, the wall of Jerusalem, Hazor,Megiddo, and Gezer” (1 Kings 9:15).

Regarding Jerusalem, as long as the

Temple Mount is disputed between Arabsand Jews, no excavations are permitted inthe immediate area where Solomon’s tem-ple existed. But the Bible mentions threeother cities that Solomon expanded and fortified. Does any archaeological evidencesupport the biblical record?

The first city mentioned is Hazor, anorthern Israelite habitation that was lost intime until a century ago. The first extensiveexcavations were done under the directionof archaeologist Yigael Yadin in the 1950s.He writes about Hazor, “What I’m about tosay may sound like something out of a

detective story, but it’s true. Our great guidewas the Bible. As an archaeologist, I can’timagine anything more exciting than towork with the Bible in one hand and a spadein the other. This was the real secret of ourdiscovery of the Solomonic period” (Hazor,Random House, New York, 1975, p. 187).

Yadin found the elaborate and sturdymain gate and part of the wall, whicharchaeologists now call the Solomonic styleof architecture. Eventually, he found thesame Solomonic-type gate in all three of the cities mentioned in the Bible.

In the most recent excavation of

Megiddo in 1993, archaeologists IsraelFinkelstein and David Ussishkin report,“The grandeur of Solomon’s Megiddo isclearly evident in the archaeological finds at Megiddo—in large palaces, with fine,smooth-faced ashlar masonry and in elabo-rate decorative stonework” (“Back toMegiddo,” Biblical Archaeology Review,January/February 1994, p. 36).

Archaeologist Bryant Wood sums up thediscoveries: “Probably the most famous ofthe architectural finds related to the king-dom period are the early tenth-century‘Solomonic gates’at Megiddo, Hazor andGezer, built by David’s son Solomon . . .”(“Scholars Speak Out,” Biblical Archaeol-ogy Review, May/June 1995, p. 34). So thebiblical account accords nicely with thearchaeological evidence.

Enter the queen of Sheba

One of the most colorful accounts aboutSolomon is relegated to myth by somescholars. It concerns the visit of the queenof Sheba.

“Now when the queen of Sheba heard ofthe fame of Solomon concerning the nameof the LORD, she came to test him with hardquestions. She came to Jerusalem with avery great retinue, with camels that borespices, very much gold, and precious stones;and when she came to Solomon, she spokewith him about all that was in her heart. SoSolomon answered all her questions; therewas nothing so difficult for the king that hecould not explain it to her . . .

“Then she said to the king: ‘It was a truereport which I heard in my own land aboutyour words and your wisdom. However Idid not believe the words until I came andsaw with my own eyes; and indeed the halfwas not told me. Your wisdom and prosper-ity exceed the fame of which I heard. Happyare your men and happy are these your ser-vants, who stand continually before you andhear your wisdom! Blessed be the LORD

your God . . .’Then she gave the king onehundred and twenty talents of gold, spicesin great quantity, and precious stones. Therenever again came such abundance of spicesas the queen of Sheba gave to KingSolomon” (1 Kings 10:1-10).

This story has been the inspiration formany paintings and movies, but does it have

An artist’s rendering depicts Solomon’s mag-nificent temple, constructed on a hill aboveJerusalem (inset) as a permanent home forthe ark of the covenant. The ark rested in theHoly of Holies, a room at the rear of the tem-ple. Before the temple were an altar and ahuge bronze basin used for cleansing rituals.

March/April 1998 21

historical backing? Where was the kingdomof Sheba? Until this century, the sands oftime very probably covered up much of thisgreat kingdom of the past.

Yet it was well known by some of theclassical Greek and Roman writers. “Inhappy Arabia,” wrote Dionysius the Greekin A.D. 90, “you can always smell the sweetperfume of marvelous spices, whether it beincense or wonderful myrrh. Its inhabitantshave great flocks of sheep in the meadows,and birds fly in from distant isles bringingleaves of pure cinnamon.”

Another Greek historian, Diodorus (100 B.C.), writes: “These people surpass in riches and luxuries not only their Arabneighbors, but also the rest of the world.They drink out of cups made of gold and silver . . . The Sabeans enjoy this luxurybecause they are convinced that richeswhich come from the earth are the favor ofthe gods and should be shown to others.”

The Roman Emperor Augustus actuallysent an army of 10,000 men to southernArabia to plunder this wealth. But the with-ering desert and frequent plagues decimatedthe army before they could arrive in the capital. They never fulfilled their mission.

Scholars generally agree that the king-dom of Sheba is located in the southernend of the Arabian Peninsula, now calledYemen. The area is quite isolated and deso-late now, but this has not always been thecase. “The most prominent of the Arabstates . . . during the first half of the 1st millennium B.C.,” comments The NewBible Dictionary, “Sheba was ruled bymukarribs, priest-kings, who supervisedboth the political affairs and the polytheis-tic worship of the sun, moon and star gods.Explorations [in 1950-1953] . . . foundsome outstanding examples of Sabean artand architecture, especially the temple ofthe moon-god at Marib, the capital, whichdates from the 7th century B.C. . . .”(p. 1087).

Until this century, this area of Yemen waslargely off-limits to archaeologists. Now,up to 4,000 inscriptions of this ancient king-dom have come to light, confirming that oneof the four nations in the area was calledSheba and that the population of at least oneof its cities totaled a million.

This part of the world was not always

dry and barren. Itonce had abundantwater which irri-gated the preciousspice crops. Thetwo most popularspices grown werefrankincense (aresin of incense)and myrrh. The fra-grant perfume offrankincense wasused in temples andhomes of the rich toask favors from thegods. Myrrh was an indispensable oilused as a beauty aidto keep the skinsmooth and soft,and was also used to embalm the dead.The Magi gavethese two valuablespices to the infantJesus as gifts fit fora newborn king(Matthew 2:11).

The evidence ofabundant water inSheba comes fromthe remains of a hugedam found in thearea, and explainshow it could becalled “Happy Arabia” by the ancients.

“A gigantic dam blocked the riverAdhanat in Sheba,” writes Dr. Keller,“collecting the rainfall from a wide area.The water was then led off in canals forirrigation purposes, which was what gavethe land its fertility. Remains of this techni-cal marvel in the shape of walls over 60feet high still defy the sand-dunes of thedesert. Just as Holland is in modern timesthe Land of Tulips, so Sheba was then theLand of Spices, one vast fairy-like scentedgarden of the costliest spices in the world.In the midst of it lay the capital, which wascalled Marib. That was until 542 B.C.—then the dam burst. The importunate desertcrept over the fertile lands and destroyedthem” (The Bible As History, p. 225). Thisis the present state of most of the country.

It has lost much of its fertility due to lackof water.

There is much to explore in this area ofancient Sheba, and it is still a dangerousplace to go, but much scientific progress hasbeen made. Investigations continue up to thepresent time. What the famed archaeologistW.F. Albright remarked about these excava-tions in 1953 still holds true: “They are inprocess of revolutionizing our knowledge of Southern Arabia’s cultural history andchronology. Up to now the results to handdemonstrate the political and cultural pri-macy of Sheba in the first centuries after1000 B.C.” (Keller, p. 227).

As time goes by, more archaeologicalevidence continues to indicate thatSolomon’s reign was actually as magnifi-cent as the Bible faithfully records. GN

Solomon’s territories stretched from the Red Sea in the south tothe Euphrates River in the north. It encompassed most of modernIsrael and parts of present-day Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.

Map

by

Shau

n Ve

nish

, ill

ustr

atio

n co

urte

sy R

eade

r’s D

iges

t

T U R K E Y

E G Y P T

I R A Q

S A U D I

A R A B I A

S Y R I A

JO

R

DA

N

L EB

AN

ON

C Y P R US

IS

RA

EL

DamascusBeirut

Tyre

AmmanJerusalem

M e d i t e r r an

ea

n

S e a

R e dS e a

Solomon’sKingdomSolomon’sKingdom

EuphratesRiver

The Early Kings of Israel:A Kingdom Divided

b y M a r i o S e i g l i e

ecent issues of The Good News have cov-ered some of the archaeological evidence

that confirms and clarifies the biblicalrecord from Genesis through Solomon’s kingdom.We continue the story with the breakup of Israel,looking first at the archaeological evidence for thenorthern 10 tribes of Israel and their rulers. Later wewill direct our attention to the nation of Judah, whichoutlived the kingdom of Israel by more than a century.

After Solomon’s tragic apostasy as a ruler, Godremoved the blessings of national unity from thetribes of Israel. He had told Jeroboam, the future kingof the northern 10 tribes of Israel: “Behold, I will tearthe kingdom out of the hand of Solomon and willgive ten tribes to you (but he shall have one tribe forthe sake of My servant David, and for the sake ofJerusalem . . .), because they have forsaken Me, andworshiped Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians . . .and have not walked in My ways to do what is rightin My eyes and keep My statutes and My judgments,as did his father David” (1 Kings 11:31-33).

Around 930 B.C. the united kingdom wasdivided, with Jeroboam governing the northern 10tribes and Rehoboam, Solomon’s son, governing thetwo southern ones, Judah and Benjamin. (As priests,a good portion of the tribe of Levi eventually eitherresettled in or remained with the southern kingdom.)As both of their wicked reigns came to an end—andaccording to God’s prophecies of punishment for disobedience—ominous clouds began to appear overIsrael’s northern horizon. Assyria began to awaken asa powerful enemy in that region.

Eugene Merrill suggests: “Perceptive observers ofthe world scene could already discern by 900 [B.C.]the stirrings of the Assyrian giant. Though it wouldbe almost fifty years before they fell beneath its heel,the little kingdoms of the west could hear it coming”(Kingdom of Priests, Baker Book House, GrandRapids, 1996, p. 336).

Once Israel came under Assyria’s expandingimperial reach, archaeological evidence attesting toIsrael’s historical evidence increases. Not only werethe Assyrians meticulous recorders of their political,economic and religious life; they also developed an

exquisite stone-carving technique, called bas-relief,which records their lives and accomplishments onnumerous palace walls.

In the 19th century British archaeologists exca-vated many of Assyria’s principal cities. Nineveh, oneof several capitals during the history of the empire,has been extensively explored. Archaeologists haveeven found in one of those capitals a vast library ofcuneiform tablets that belonged to one of Assyria’sfinal kings,Ashurbanipal (ca. 669-627 B.C.).

With this wealth of information about Assyrianhistory, it would be natural to expect some mentionof the long relationship between Israel and Assyria,as well as the final Assyrian victory over the northerntribes. This is precisely what has been found.

Omri, king of the house of Israel

After Jeroboam’s short-lived dynasty came to anend around 905 B.C., the next dynasty of importancewas founded by Omri (881-870 B.C.). He is men-tioned in Assyrian monuments for his militaryexploits and his establishment of Samaria, a vastfortress city that became the capital for the northerntribes. Because of his impressive military and politi-cal achievements and Omri’s line of powerful suc-cessors, the Assyrians would refer to Israel as “theland of Omri” even long after the Omride dynastyhad ceased to exist.

“The reputation of Omri won by his achieve-ments,” says The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible,“is evidenced by the fact that for over a century afterhis death, Samaria was called in the Assyrian records‘House of Omri’and the land of Israel the ‘land ofOmri’” (Abingdon Press, Nashville, 1962, p. 601).

Not only is King Omri mentioned in Assyrianrecords, but he is named on a monument made byone of Israel’s eastern neighbors, the Moabites.

The Moabite Stone

More than a century ago an Arab chieftainshowed an Anglican missionary a beautiful blackmonument that had been discovered at Dibon, east of the Jordan River, the region of ancient Moab. Thisdiscovery triggered fierce competition among the

18 The Good News

With this wealth ofinformation aboutAssyrian history, itwould be natural

to expect somemention of the

long relationshipbetween Israel and Assyria, as

well as the finalAssyrian victory

over the northerntribes. This is pre-

cisely what hasbeen found.

R

Western nations, which sought to acquirethis Moabite Stone (also called the MeshaStela), dated to the ninth century B.C. Whathas survived of the monument is foundtoday in the Louvre museum in Paris. Themonument itself is a record of how KingMesha of Moab rebelled against and finallyrolled back Israelite domination of Moabestablished by King Omri and perpetuatedby his son Ahab.

At the beginning of the reign of Omri’sgrandson, Jehoram, the Moabites sensedopportunity and rebelled. They were suc-cessful in gaining independence.

The first few lines of the text record the king’s boast: “I am Mesha, son ofKemosh[it], king of Mesha, the Dibonite.My father ruled over Moab for 30 years, andI ruled after my father . . . Omri (was) kingof Israel, and he oppressed Moab many days. . . And his son succeeded him, and he toosaid: ‘I will oppress Moab’. . . And Omri hadtaken possession of the land . . . and he dweltin it in his days and the sum of the days ofhis sons: 40 years; but [the god] Kamoshrestored it in my days” (translated by AndreLemaire, Biblical Archaeology Review,May-June 1994, p. 33).

Here we find confirmation by Israel’senemies of what is recorded in the biblicalnarrative. The Bible documents the Moab-ite rebellion and subsequent independence,but adds what king Mesha failed to explain:that he won the Moabites’ independenceonly after he had sacrificed his son to theirpagan god.

The Bible even relates the pivotal storyof that battle in the rebellion. “Now Meshaking of Moab was a sheepbreeder, and heregularly paid the king of Israel [referringfirst to Omri, then to Ahab and now to hisgrandson Jehoram] one hundred thousandlambs and the wool of one hundred thou-sand rams. But it happened that when Ahabdied, that the king of Moab rebelled againstthe king of Israel . . .

“And when the king of Moab saw that thebattle was too fierce for him, he took withhim seven hundred men who drew swords,to break through to the king of Edom [hisally], but they could not. Then he took hiseldest son who would have reigned in hisplace, and offered him as a burnt offeringupon the wall; and there was great indigna-

tion against Israel. So they departed fromhim and returned to their own land” (2 Kings3:26-27, emphasis added throughout).

King Mesha did triumph, but (perhapsunderstandably) in the Moabite stone herefrains from any mention of the costly pricehe paid for independence.

Some critics have doubted the biblicalaccount of King Mesha’s human sacrifice,since it seemed far-fetched that a king would

offer up his own son and successor to the throne. Yet in 1978 a tablet from the Syrian city of Ugarit mentions just this type of sacri-fice during war. The text said: “O Baal, driveaway the force from our gates, the aggressorfrom our walls . . . A firstborn, Baal, we shallsacrifice, a child we shall fulfill.”

Baruch Margalit, associate professor ofBible at Haifa University in Israel, explainswhat was meant in the biblical text by Israelhaving been “indignant” with Mesha’s sacrifice of his son. “The word denotes thepsychological breakdown or trauma thataffected the Israelite forces when theybeheld the sign of human sacrifice atop thewalls of Kir-Hareseth. The author of the

Ugaritic text apparently anticipated this reac-tion of mass hysteria when he confidentlypredicted the withdrawal of the attackingforce . . . It follows that Mesha’s sacrifice ofhis son, rather than unprecedented, was infact an integral, if seldom implemented, partof an age-old Canaanite tradition of sacralwarfare” (Biblical Archaeology Review,November-December 1986, p. 63).

Ahab’s clash with the Assyrians

Not only did the Assyrians have greatrespect for King Omri. They also had high regard for his son Ahab, who was askilled and powerful military leader. TheBible, however, is not so much concernedwith Ahab’s military exploits as with hisestablishment of Baal worship in Israelafter he married the Phoenician king’sdaughter Jezebel.

States The International Standard BibleEncyclopedia: “Ahab followed a wise policyin defense, entering into alliance withPhoenicia, Judah, and even his erstwhileenemies the Arameans. On the other hand,he fell under the influence of his fanaticalpagan queen Jezebel, who led him to wor-ship Baal as Yahweh’s peer, and conse-quently to introduce such horrors as tyranny(1 K[ings] 21), religious persecution (18:4),and human sacrifice (16:34)” (Eerdmans,Grand Rapids, 1979,Vol. 1, p. 75, “Ahab”).

Although the Bible is quite critical ofAhab’s morality, it does acknowledge hismilitary prowess and that he defeated theArameans and Syrians several times (1 Kings 20:1-30). The Assyrians also recorda major battle with Ahab and a coalition ofother neighboring states. Although they dealtAhab’s confederation heavy losses, the battledid temporarily halt the Assyrian advance tothe west.

“Ahab is mentioned in the MonolithInscription of Shalmaneser III (858-824B.C.), which tells the story of the great battleShalmaneser fought at Qarqar against anAramean-Israelite coalition . . . Ahab alone issaid to have contributed two thousand chari-ots and ten thousand foot soldiers. Ten lesserkings who took part made important contri-butions in infantry and cavalry” (ibid., p. 76).

King Ahab’s house of ivory

Archaeologists haven’t found only Assyr-Z. R

adov

an,

Jeru

sale

m

The Moabite Stone records the Moab-ites’ rebellion against three kings ofIsrael—Omri, Ahab and Jehoram—described in 2 Kings 3:26-27.

July/August 1998 19

Phot

os c

ourt

esy

trus

tees

of

the

Briti

sh M

useu

m

20 The Good News

ian evidence for the existence of King Ahab.While excavating Samaria they have foundindications of another biblical descriptionconnected to Ahab’s reign—his house ofivory. The Bible says of Ahab, “Now the restof the acts of Ahab, and all that he did, theivory house which he built and all the citiesthat he built, are they not written in the bookof the chronicles of the kings of Israel?”(2 Kings 22:39).

Herschel Shanks, editor of BiblicalArchaeology Review, writes: “An importantivory find from the Iron Age comes fromAhab’s capital in Samaria where over 500ivory fragments were found . . . The Biblespeaks of Ahab’s ‘house of ivory’(1 Kings22:39). Does this refer to the paneling of thewalls or to the furnishings? To put the matterdifferently, did the ivory fragments found atSamaria decorate the walls of the building orthe furniture? There is some evidence fromNimrud that a room in an Assyrian palacewas, in fact, paneled with ivory veneer. Wasthis the case at Samaria? On the basis of theevidence at hand, it is difficult to tell.

“Whether paneling for the wall or decora-tion for furniture, the houses of ivory—based on a highly sophisticated Phoenicianivory industry—were for the Hebrewprophets symbols of social oppression andinjustice; the ‘ivory houses’[mentioned inAmos 3.15] were also evidence of participa-tion in the barbarous pagan practices andheathen worship of Phoenicia. Based on thearchaeological evidence, the prophets knewwhat they were talking about” (BiblicalArchaeology Review, September-October1985, p. 46).

Jehu kneels before an Assyrian king

Because of the wicked rule of the “houseof Omri,” God sentenced Ahab, Jezebel andtheir descendants to death. He would use ageneral of the Israelite army, Jehu, to accom-plish most of these sentences. God told theprophet Elijah: “Go, return on your way tothe Wilderness of Damascus; and when youarrive, anoint Hazael as king over Syria. Alsoyou shall anoint Jehu the son of Nimshi asking over Israel. And Elisha . . . you shallanoint as prophet in your place. It shall bethat whoever escapes the sword of Hazael,Jehu will kill; and whoever escapes thesword of Jehu, Elisha will kill” (1 Kings19:15-17). God would not allow the enor-mously wicked acts of the House of Omri to go unpunished.

Jehu eventually killed not only Jezebel,but all of Ahab’s children, in effect extermi-nating the dynasty of Omri. Although Jehubecame God’s rod of retribution, he failedto purge Israel of all ves-tiges of false religion.

“Thus Jehudestroyed Baal fromIsrael. HoweverJehu did not turnaway from the sinsof Jeroboam theson of Nebat, whohad made Israelsin, that is, fromthe golden calvesthat were at Betheland Dan. And theLORD said to Jehu,

‘Because you have done well in doing whatis right in My sight, and have done to thehouse of Ahab all that was in My heart,your sons shall sit on the throne of Israel tothe fourth generation.’But Jehu took noheed to walk in the law of the LORD God ofIsrael with all his heart; for he did not departfrom the sins of Jeroboam, who had madeIsrael sin. In those days the LORD began tocut off parts of Israel; and Hazael conqueredthem in all the territory of Israel . . .”(2 Kings 10:28-32).

During the spiritual decline of JehuAssyria again began directly to threatenIsrael. Soon Israel was paying Assyria tribute—protection money—to spare itself warfare and invasion. The Assyrians carvedan impressive monument, called the BlackObelisk, to the achievements of King Shal-maneser III. The monument includesdetailed panels portraying King Jehu (or hisemissary) bringing tribute to the Assyrianking. This elaborate illustration is the earli-

est known depiction of an Israelite (king or commoner).

This famous monument of the ninthcentury B.C., now prominently dis-played in the British Museum in Lon-don, was discovered in 1846 in theAssyrian city of Nimrud. It includesscenes depicting the tribute given tothe king and the bearers of that trib-ute. On one side, in the second scenefrom the top, the inscription reads,“Tribute of Iaua [Jehu], son of Omri.Silver, gold, a golden bowl, a goldenbeaker, golden goblets, pitchers ofgold, tin, staves for the hand of theking, [and] javelins, I [Shalmaneser]received from him” (BiblicalArchaeology Review, January-February 1995, p. 26).

The scene is startling. Therebefore the Assyrian king is eitherJehu himself or one of his chiefrepresentatives kneeling in sub-mission. The monument, includ-ing not only his name but hispicture, is remarkable evidence ofthis biblical king.

This series in The Good Newswill continue covering archaeo-logical discoveries relating to thelater kings of Israel. GN

The Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III records Assyria’s dominationof its neighbors. Included among the scenes of the tributebrought to Shalmaneser is the Israelite king Jehu (or his repre-sentative) bowing before the Assyrian monarch.

The Later Kings of Israel:A Kingdom’s Downfall

b y M a r i o S e i g l i e

he July-August issue of The Good News pre-sented archaeological evidence that confirmsand clarifies the biblical record of the early

kings of the northern 10 tribes of Israel after thedeath of Solomon. We continue the story with thelater kings and downfall of the kingdom.

We come to the final stages of the northern king-dom (Israel) as a nation. Jehu’s downfall came atthe halfway mark of Israel’s 19 kings and, tragi-cally, the kings who followed him would all refuseto repent and turn to the true God. Meanwhile,Judah remained more faithful to God and continuedfor more than a century after the fall of the northern10 tribes of Israel. Much archaeological evidencevalidates the account of Israel’s final years.

Another King Jeroboam

Jehu’s great-grandson, Jeroboam II, although evil,was an able military leader. Eugene Merrill explains

that through hispolitical leader-ship “Jeroboamwas able not onlyto recover the ter-ritories of Israelproper whichhad fallen overthe years toDamascus, but tobring all of southAram and theTransjordan backunder Israelitehegemony (2 Kings 14:25-28)” (A Kingdomof Priests, 1987,p. 374).At the begin-ning of the 20thcentury, theGerman Orien-tal Societymounted an

extensive archaeological dig of Megiddo, the siteof an important northern-kingdom stronghold. The excavations produced a beautiful agate sealdepicting a roaring lion. The Hebrew inscriptionread, “Belonging to Shema, servant of Jeroboam.”From the dating of the city level, certain archaeol-ogists proposed the king referred to was JeroboamII (791-751 B.C.).

It is not uncommon for seals to appear in excava-tions in the Middle East. Bible commentatorWilliam Barclay explains: “It was not the signature[as we use today], but the seal that authenticated. Incommercial and political documents it was the seal,imprinted with the signet ring, which made the doc-ument valid; it was the seal which authenticated awill; it was the seal on the mouth of a sack or a cratethat guaranteed the contents. Seals were made ofpottery, metal or jewels. In the British Museumthere are seals of most of the Assyrian kings. Theseal was fixed on clay and the clay attached to thedocument” (Daily Study Bible Commentary, BibleExplorer, Epiphany Software, San Jose, Calif.).

Since seals were durable and vital for politicaland commercial transactions, they were producedin abundance for the upper classes of society. Aswe see in this series, several seals have been foundthat include the names of monarchs mentioned inthe Bible.

Collapse of a dynasty

Meanwhile, true to God’s prediction, Jehu’sdynasty lasted only “to the fourth generation”(2 Kings 10:30). Jeroboam II was of Jehu’s thirdgeneration. His son, Zechariah, the fourth succes-sor, was assassinated during his first year as king.From then on, because of ever-increasing evils on a national scale, Israel could no longer count onGod’s protection. The nation plunged headlong intoa free fall of lawlessness and disregard for God.

“In the thirty-eighth year of Azariah king ofJudah, Zechariah the son of Jeroboam reigned overIsrael in Samaria six months. And he did evil in thesight of the LORD, as his fathers had done; he didnot depart from the sins of Jeroboam the son of

18 The Good News

King Tiglath-Pileser strengthened the Assyrian empire,making it an early superpower. After ascending thethrone, he expanded his empire by attacking and invading smaller nearby kingdoms—including Israel.

T

Nebat, who had made Israel sin. Then Shal-lum the son of Jabesh conspired againsthim, and struck and killed him in front ofthe people; and he reigned in his place . . .This was the word of the LORD which Hespoke to Jehu, saying, ‘Your sons shall siton the throne of Israel to the fourth genera-tion. And so it was’”(2 Kings 15:8-12).

So, after almost 90 years, Jehu’s dynastycame to a violent end. From then on, assas-sinations and political instability would bethe rule until the final collapse of the north-ern kingdom. This military and politicalweakness would make the Israelites in thenorth an easy prey for the resurgent Assyr-ian Empire.

It is sad to reflect on how this once-mighty kingdom, which had halted theAssyrian war machine a century earlier,could muster hardly any resistance (exceptduring the reign of Jeroboam II). Accordingto an Assyrian inscription, King Ahab hadcontributed “two thousand chariots and tenthousand foot soldiers” to form a successfulmilitary coalition to stop the Assyrian

advance. A century later, when theAssyrian menace appeared again, thenorthern Israelite armies were reducedto “fifty horsemen, ten chariots, andten thousand foot soldiers; for theking of Syria had destroyed them”(2 Kings 13:7).Shallum, the assassin of KingAzariah, lasted only a month on thethrone before he, too, was murdered.“Shallum the son of Jabesh becameking . . . and he reigned a full monthin Samaria. For Menahem the son ofGadi went up from Tirzah, came toSamaria, and struck Shallum the sonof Jabesh in Samaria and killed him;and he reigned in his place” (2 Kings15:13-15).

Assyria gains control

Menahem reigned for 10 years butcould not resist the advancing Assyr-ian army. To avoid outright conquest,

he began paying the Assyrians tribute. “Andhe did evil in the sight of the LORD . . . Pul[Tiglath-pileser] king of Assyria cameagainst the land; and Menahem gave Pul athousand talents of silver, that his handmight be with him to strengthen the king-dom under his control . . . So the king ofAssyria turned back, and did not stay therein the land” (2 Kings 15:18-20).

The Assyrians, who meticulously

recorded their kings’ triumphs, mentionedthe tribute money given by King Menahem.The annals show the amazing accuracy of the biblical account. “The out-standing event of Menahem’s reign,” notesThe Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible,“was the supremacy of Assyrian power inthe West. This is confirmed in detail fromAssyrian sources . . . When Tiglath-pileserIII of Assyrian took the throne of Babylonin 729, he assumed the name Pulu [Pul inthe Bible] . . . In his annals Tiglath-pileserrecords the receiving of tribute from vari-ous nations of the West—Menahem ofSamaria, Rezin of Damascus, Hiram ofTyre, etc. A fragmentary text adds furtherdetails about Menahem. ‘He was over-whelmed like a snowstorm and fled like abird, alone, and bowed to the feet of hisconqueror, who returned him to his placeand imposed tribute upon him’” (Vol. III,1962, p. 348).

Menahem’s son, Pekahiah, ruled foronly two years before he was murdered byPekah. Once on the throne, Pekah rebelledagainst the Assyrians and refused to paytribute money. “With Pekahiah out of theway,” Eugene Merrill writes, “Pekah pro-claimed himself king and immediatelybroke the treaty with Assyria which Mena-hem had made. He no doubt felt safe indoing so because Tiglath-pileser was stilldetained elsewhere with matters of imperial

Phot

os c

ourt

esy

trus

tees

of

the

Briti

sh M

useu

m

The Assyrians were a terrifying force as they attacked nearby kingdoms. In thisAssyrian carving depicting the capture of a walled city, an archer at right shootsarrows while protected by a shiled-bearer. In front of them a wheeled batteringram gouges holes in the city walls. Above the ram are three defenders who havebeen impaled.At left, Assyrian infantry storm the walls using scaling ladders.

September/October 1998 19

The conqueror of Israel, King Sargon ofAssyria, receives a report from Tartan,his commander in chief. The Assyriansrecorded their conquests in exquisitecarved reliefs such as this, excavated atan ancient Assyrian capital city.

Phot

os c

ourt

esy

trus

tees

of

the

Briti

sh M

useu

m

20 The Good News

responsibility . . . Whatever Pekah’s objec-tive, he was doomed to disappointment forwithin six years (by 734) Tiglath-pileserreturned to the west and quickly began toannex vast areas of Syria and Palestine,especially in Galilee and the Transjordan”(Merrill, p. 396).

Tiglath-pileser’s invasion

The Bible records the story of the inva-sion of Tiglath-pileser in 2 Kings 15:29-30:“In the days of Pekah king of Israel,Tiglath-Pileser king of Assyria came andtook Ijon . . . Hazor, Gilead, and Galilee, allthe land of Naphtali; and he carried themcaptive to Assyria. Then Hoshea the son ofElah led a conspiracy against Pekah . . . andkilled him; so he reigned in his place . . .”

The biblical account is corroborated in an Assyrian victory stela, or inscribed, com-memorative stone (also spelled “stele”), ofPulu ( Tiglath-pileser). The Assyrian kingboasts, “The House of Omri [Israel] . . . all of its inhabitants and goods, I took toAssyria. They overthrew their king Pekahand I installed Hoshea as their king. I received from them ten talents of gold,a thousand talents of silver as tribute and I deported them to Assyria” (ArchaeologicalBible Commentary, 1984, p. 133).

This began a 15-year period duringwhich the northern Israelites were forciblydeported from their homeland to Assyrianterritory. Few would remain in the landwhen the Assyrians were through.

Amos, one of the prophets of that time,revealed what God would allow to happen

to the northern tribes. “Thus says the LORD:‘As a shepherd takes from the mouth of alion two legs or a piece of an ear, so shallthe children of Israel be taken out whodwell in Samaria’” (Amos 3:12).

The conquest of Samaria

The Assyrian records again confirm thebiblical account, although they show a biasthat is absent in Scripture. We see a markedcontrast between the boisterous claims ofthe Assyrian kings—who never admitted to losing any battles—and the biblical nar-rative, which is frank and honest about theirkings’moral lapses and sins and theirresulting defeats.

Writing for Biblical ArchaeologyReview, Erika Bleibtreu observes: “Accord-ing to the narrative representation on thesereliefs, the Assyrians never lost a battle.Indeed, no Assyrian soldier is ever shownwounded or killed. The benevolence of thegods is always bestowed on the Assyrianking and his troops. Like the official writtenrecords, the scenes and figures are selectedand arranged to record the king’s heroicdeeds and to describe him as ‘beloved ofthe gods’” (January-February 1991, p. 57).

What a stark contrast with the biblicalaccount of the defeat and downfall of Israel,also known as Samaria. “Now the king ofAssyria went throughout all the land, andwent up to Samaria and besieged it forthree years. In the ninth year of Hoshea, theking of Assyria took Samaria and carriedIsrael away to Assyria, and placed them inHalah and by the Habor, the River of

Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes. Forso it was that the children of Israel hadsinned against the LORD their God . . . andthey had feared other gods, and had walkedin the statutes of the nations whom theLORD had cast out from before the childrenof Israel . . .” (2 Kings 17:5-8).

The Assyrian records also mention theconquest of Samaria by King ShalmaneserV, Tiglath-pileser’s son. But this king diedunexpectedly during the siege of Samaria,and his son, Sargon II, completed the job.

In 1843 Paul Emil Botta uncovered theruins of Sargon´s palace, where a wall reliefcalled “The Display Inscription” recordsSargon’s victory over Samaria. In it Sargonboasted: “At the beginning of my rule, inmy first year of reign, I besieged and con-quered Samaria . . . I led away into captivity27,290 people who lived there . . . I causedothers to take their portion. People of thelands, prisoners my hand had captured, Isettled there. My officials I placed overthem as governors.”

Reasons for Israel’s downfall

The Bible states some of the reasons forthe Israelites’ removal: They “caused theirsons and daughters to pass through the fire,practiced witchcraft and soothsaying, andsold themselves to do evil . . . Therefore the LORD was very angry with Israel, andremoved them from His sight; there wasnone left but the tribe of Judah alone”(2 Kings 17:17-18).

Years later, after Judah likewise fell intoContinued on page 31

The sad fate of peoples conquered by Assyria is graphicallyshown in these carvings. In the panel above, scribes (upper cen-ter) record the plunder as livestock are driven away. The town’ssurviving inhabitants are carried away in ox-carts to an unknown

land and uncertain future. Assyrian king Tiglath-Pileser boastedof such onnquests, “All the people and their goods I carried off to Assyria.” In the panel at right, the battle rages around anothertown as its defeated defenders begin the long walk into exile.

captivity, God gave through the prophetEzekiel additional reasons for the destruc-tion and exile of both nations. “Her priestshave violated My law and profaned Myholy things; they have not distinguishedbetween the holy and unholy, nor have theymade known the difference between theunclean and the clean; and they have hiddentheir eyes from My Sabbaths, so that I amprofaned among them” (Ezekiel 22:26).

The prophecy compares the priests towild beasts: “Her princes in her midst arelike wolves tearing the prey, to shed blood,to destroy people, and to get dishonest gain.Her prophets plastered them with untem-pered mortar, seeing false visions, anddivining lies for them, saying, ‘Thus saysthe Lord GOD,’when the LORD had not spoken” (verse 28).

“The people of the land have usedoppressions, committed robbery, and mis-treated the poor and needy; and they wrong-fully oppress the stranger. So I sought for aman among them who would make a wall,and stand in the gap before Me on behalf ofthe land, that I should not destroy it; but Ifound no one. Therefore I have poured outMy indignation on them; I have consumedthem with the fire of My wrath; and I haverecompensed their deeds on their ownheads,” says the Lord GOD” (verses 29-31).

Epilogue: Where did Israel go?What happened to the Israelites after

they were deported into Assyria? Most people think the 10 northern tribes of Israelhave disappeared forever. They are oftenreferred to as “the lost 10 tribes.” The schol-arly consensus is that these people wereeither assimilated by gentile nations or simply died out altogether.

But what does God’s Word have to sayabout their fate? Through the prophets, Goddepicts them as wandering until His willand plan could be brought to completion.The prophet Amos said: “Behold, the eyesof the Lord GOD are on the sinful kingdom,and I will destroy it from the face of theearth; yet I will not utterly destroy the houseof Jacob, says the LORD. For surely I willcommand, and will sift the house of Israelamong all nations, as grain is sifted in asieve; yet not the smallest grain shall fall tothe ground” (Amos 9:8-9, emphasis addedthroughout).

According to Amos’s prophecy, the

descendants of these Israelites were fated to wander among the nations until they fulfilled their destiny. God would knowexactly where they would be found, for theywould not disappear as a people, and Hepromised not to forget them.

God also prophesied: “Yet the number ofthe children of Israel shall be as the sand ofthe sea, which cannot be measured or num-bered. And it shall come to pass in the placewhere it was said to them, ‘You are not Mypeople,’ there it shall be said to them, ‘Youare sons of the living God.’Then the chil-dren of Judah and the children of Israelshall be gathered together, and appoint forthemselves one head; and they shall comeup out of the land. For great will be the dayof Jezreel [at the time of Christ’s coming]!”(Hosea 1:10-11).

God’s plans include the “lost 10 tribes”of Israel as well as Judah, the descendants ofthe southern kingdom of Judah who includemodern-day Jews. After Christ returns toearth, say many biblical prophecies, He willgather their descendants and bring themback to their ancestral homeland.

Isaiah prophesied of a second exodus ofthese peoples from the house of Israel andthe house of Judah: “And in that day thereshall be a Root of Jesse [Jesus Christ], whoshall stand as a banner to the people; for theGentiles shall seek Him, and His restingplace shall be glorious. It shall come topass in that day that the LORD shall set Hishand again the second time to recover theremnant of His people . . . and will assem-ble the outcasts of Israel and gather togetherthe dispersed of Judah . . . There will be ahighway for the remnant of His peoplewho will be left from Assyria, as it was forIsrael in the day that he came up from theland of Egypt” (Isaiah 11:10-16).

Many other Bible prophecies describeGod’s plan for these 10 tribes of Israel. TheUnited Church of God, an InternationalAssociation, is preparing a booklet on themodern-day identity of their descendants. If you would like to be placed on a mailinglist to receive this booklet when it is com-pleted, be sure to write to the office in yourcountry (or the country nearest you) onpage 2 of this issue. Also, be sure to requestthe booklets Is the Bible True? and How toUnderstand the Bible.

In the next installment, we will examinewhat archaeology tells us about the nationof Judah, which outlived the kingdom ofIsrael by more than a century. GN

ArchaeologyContinued from page 9

The Early Kings of Judah:Miraculous Deliverance

b y M a r i o S e i g l i e

18 The Good News

Phot

os:

Z. R

adov

an,

Jeru

sale

m (

left

); co

urte

sy T

rust

ees

of t

he B

ritis

h M

useu

m

he last two editions of The Good News coveredthe history of the kings of Israel after the northern10 tribes broke ties with the kingdom of Judah,

comprised of two tribes in the south. We now turn to see what archaeology has

revealed about the kings of Judahduring this time.

Around 720 B.C. the Assyri-ans conquered the northerntribes of Israel and expelledthem from their land. ButJudah, Israel’s sister nation in the south, miraculously sur-

vived the Assyrian invasion andcontinued for another 130 years.Although the people of Judah, too,

would later succumb to invasion—fromthe Babylonians—they managed to survive

their ordeal with their national identity intact, unliketheir kinsmen in the kingdom of Israel. After 70years of exile in Babylon, a remnant of Judahreturned to its former land. There descendants of this remnant would remain for another 600 yearsuntil the Romans finally expelled them. For nearly2,000 years the Jews would be dispersed around theworld. Finally, in this century, some of their descen-dants returned to the ancient land of Judah. Theynamed their nation Israel, although “Judah” wouldhave been more historically accurate.

What has archaeology revealed about theseresilient people from the southern kingdom? We pickup the fascinating story from the time of Ahaz, whobegan ruling in Judah some 200 years after the twoIsraelite kingdoms went their separate ways.

King Ahaz’s clay seal

“In the seventeenth year of Pekah the son ofRemaliah,Ahaz the son of Jotham, king of Judah,began to reign. Ahaz was twenty years old when he became king, and he reigned sixteen years inJerusalem; and he did not do what was right in thesight of the LORD his God, as his father David haddone” (2 Kings 16:1-2).

Ancient Near Eastern kings and other officials

stamped their documents with special seals. As aresult archaeologists have been able to identify theclay seals of two of the kings of Judah: Hezekiah andAhaz. The two seals belonging to Hezekiah are notwell preserved, but the one of King Ahaz of Judah isin beautiful condition. In 1996 archaeologists con-firmed its authenticity. Just as people today use signatures to validate documents such as checks andcontracts, in ancient times authorities stamped theirofficial documents with seals that were typicallycarved from semiprecious stones. Sometimes theseals were mounted on a ring, called a signet.

The most common material used for documents at that time was papyrus. “Papyrus documents wereclosed by rolling them and tying them with a string,”explains Tsvi Scheider, assistant librarian at HebrewUniversity’s Institute of Archaeology. “A lump of wetclay was then placed on the knot and stamped withthe seal . . . After the clay dried, the papyrus wasstored in an archive (see Jeremiah 32:10-14)” (Bibli-cal Archaeology Review, July-August 1991, p. 27).

The resulting clay imprint, or bulla, bore theseal’s impression. Although the papyrus, of organicmatter, would eventually disintegrate, the clay bullaeoften survived. Since Israel lay at the intersection ofthree great empires—Egypt,Assyria and Babylon—it experienced frequent wars. Conquering armiesoften burned enemy cities to the ground. Almosteverything would perish—except for some of theclay seals, which, when baked in such fires, turnedhard as pottery.

Thousands of years later, as they have conductedexcavations in such cities, archaeologists have some-times discovered the remains of royal archives. Occa-sionally they even stumble onto a cache of clay sealsthat reveal the exact spot where such official docu-ments were originally stored for safekeeping.

Robert Deutsch writes about Ahaz’s seal: “Theking whose seal is impressed in this well-preservedpiece of reddish-brown clay is King Ahaz of Judah,who ruled from 732 to 716 [B.C.] . . . This lump ofclay, called a bulla, was used to seal a papyrus docu-ment. We know this because the back of the bullastill bears the imprint of the texture of the papyrus

“Belonging toAhaz [son of] Yehotam[Jotham], king ofJudah,” reads theinscription pressed intothis lump of clay, called abulla. The clay originallysealed a papyrus scrollthat is long sincedecayed. Ahaz ruled the kingdom of Judahca. 734-715 B.C. A fin-gerprint, possibly that of the king himself, isvisible on the left edgein this magnified photograph.

T

November/December 1998 19

. . . On the left edge of the front of the bullais a fingerprint that may well be that of KingAhaz himself! . . .

“The seal contains not only the name of the king, but the name of his father, KingYehotam [Jotham]. In addition,Ahaz isspecifically identified as ‘king of Judah’. . .The Hebrew inscription, which is set onthree lines . . . , translates, ‘Belonging toAhaz (son of) Yehotam, King of Judah’. . .The Ahaz bulla has been examined by anumber of preeminent scholars . . . All agreethat the bulla is genuine” (Biblical Archaeo-logical Review, May-June 1998, pp. 54, 56).

Thus the existence of another biblicalking is verified through archaeology.

Sennacherib captures Lachish

Shortly after the fall of the northernIsraelite kingdom, the Assyrian king, Sen-nacherib, descended on Judah. His assaultcame around 700 B.C., during the reign ofAhaz’s successor, Hezekiah.

The Bible summarizes this invasion andHezekiah’s reaction. “And in the fourteenthyear of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fortifiedcities of Judah and took them. ThenHezekiah king of Judah sent to the king in Lachish, saying,‘I have donewrong;

turn away from me; whatever you impose on me I will pay’” (2 Kings 18:13-14).However, even though Hezekiah promisedto pay Sennacherib handsomely if he wouldspare Jerusalem, the Assyrian king decidedto conquer the city.

We not only have the biblical account of events, but also Assyrian records thatclosely parallel the Bible version.

A century and a half ago archaeologistHenry Austen Layard discovered theancient city of Nineveh and Sennacherib’spalace. There he found a graphic depictionof Sennacherib’s invasion of Judah carvedin a series of stone panels adorning the palatial walls.

Moshe Pearlman describes the find:“The gems of Sennacherib’s palace for bibli-cal scholars were a series of thirteen slabs ofwall reliefs depicting Sennacherib seatedupon a throne on a hill-slope before abesieged city amidst the landscape of whatwas evidently meant to be the land of Judah.The reliefs (which may be seen in the BritishMuseum) are clearly recognizable as a dramatic thirteen-part story in pictures ofSennacherib’s campaign in this southern Israelite kingdom . . . In a panel facing the

king is a cuneiform caption: ‘Sennacherib,king of the Universe, king of Assyria, satupon a throne and passed in review the bootytaken from the city of Lachish’” (Digging Upthe Bible, 1980, p. 96).

In effect, the biblical narrative is frozen in frames in Sennacherib’s wall depicting theconquest of the city of Lachish. The Bibleenlarges our view by adding an account ofthe letter sent at that time to Sennacheribfrom a desperate King Hezekiah. Judah’sking pleaded for forgiveness and offered anypayment to avoid Jerusalem’s destruction.

A careful study of the panels depictingthe taking of Lachish includes grisly details.“There sits the Assyrian monarch,” writesPearlman, “richly attired, observing his armyattacking a fortified city which is stoutlydefended. His battering rams are beingpushed up towards the walls over ramps, andare covered by archers, sling-throwers andspearmen to keep the defenders at bay. Inone panel prisoners are being impaled byAssyrian soldiers; in another they are beingflayed. Moving out of the city under guard isa long procession of captives, and carts ladenwith booty” (p. 96).

In the 20th century, archaeologists haveexcavated Lachish and corroborated the precision of the biblical and the Assyrianaccounts of the conquest. “The magnitude of Layard’s discovery was given an addeddimension some eighty years later whenexcavations unearthed the very stratum ofancient Lachish that was stormed by Sen-nacherib’s forces. Arrow-heads and sling-shots used by the Assyrians in that battlewere among the finds, and from the remainsof the shattered city it was possible to recon-struct the plan of its defensive fortifications.They virtually matched those depicted in thereliefs on Sennacherib’s palace walls. Thus,Lachish is a superb example of archaeologi-cal discovery joining ancient records in wordand picture to enrich the background of anepisode in the Bible” (p. 97).

These exquisitely detailed contemporaryfinds from Assyria, along with the excava-tions of Lachish, dramatically corroborateeach other and confirm the accuracy of thebiblical account.

The Prism of Sennacherib

The archaeological evidence of the

Sennacherib’s assault on Lachish is graphically shown in these carvings, discovered in the ruins of Sennacherib’s palace. It shows Assyrian troops advancing on ramps lead-ing to the city walls, from which the desperate defenders shoot arrows and hurl stonesand firebrands. At lower right, prisoners leave the city, passing impaled captives. To theleft of the prisoners, an Assyrian siege engine pounds away at a heavily defended tower.The Assyrian records and carvings and the Bible combine to tell a remarkable story.

20 The Good News

20 The Good News

Phot

os c

ourt

esy

Trus

tees

of

the

Briti

sh M

useu

m (

left

), Z.

Rad

ovan

, Je

rusa

lem

invasion does not end there. Another dis-covery sheds light on Sennacherib’s siegeof Jerusalem. In 1919 the Oriental Instituteof the University of Chicago purchased a15-inch clay cylinder, called the Prism ofSennacherib or the Taylor Prism. The artifact testifies of eight of Sennacherib’smilitary campaigns. Regarding the third,the narrator describes Sennacherib’s inva-sion of Judah and the subsequent siege of Jerusalem.

The account reads: “As to [Judah’s king]Hezekiah, the Jew, he did not submit to myyoke. I laid siege to forty-six of his strongcities, walled forts and to countless small vil-lages in their vicinity, and conquered themby means of well-stamped earth-ramps, andbattering-rams brought thus near to thewalls, combined with attack by foot soldiers. . . [Hezekiah] himself I made a prisoner inJerusalem, his royal residence, like a bird ina cage” (James Pritchard, The Ancient NearEast,Vol. 1, 1958, pp. 199-201).

Sennacherib boastfully begins hisdescription of the siege. His language leads the reader to expect that the Assyrianmonarch captured Jerusalem, just as he had taken 46 other strongholds during his campaign. But the account turns curiouslyquiet. Sennacherib ends the account bragging about the tribute money paid byHezekiah, a poor consolation prize. Sen-nacherib concludes: “Hezekiah himself,whom the terror-inspiring splendor of mylordship had overwhelmed, . . . did sendme, later, to Nineveh, my lordly city,together with talents of gold, . . . talents of silver . . . and all kinds of valuable trea-sures, his (own) daughters . . . In order todeliver the tribute and to do obeisance as a slave he sent his messenger” (p. 201).

What really happened? Although theAssyrian records are awkwardly silent, theBible completes the story: “And it came topass on a certain night that the angel of theLORD went out, and killed in the camp of theAssyrians one hundred and eighty-five thou-sand; and when people arose early in themorning, there were the corpses—all dead.So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed andwent away, returned home, and remained atNineveh” (2 Kings 19:35-36).

“The one city he sought to subdue, butfailed,” says Pearlman, “was Jerusalem, the

capital of Judah, where Hezekiah’s spirit of resistance was much strengthened by thetough advice of the prophet Isaiah [see Isaiah 36-37]. Doubtless he would havewished the centerpiece of his wall decora-

tions to have depicted the fall of Jerusalem.Instead, judging by the prominence givento Lachish, this must have been the scene of the fiercest fighting, and he evidentlyregarded its capture against stubborndefense as his most outstanding victory in this land”—instead of Jerusalem, whichescaped (Pritchard, p. 97).

The Assyrian report describes only thesiege of Jerusalem. Something incrediblemust have occurred for the mighty Assyri-ans, who had conquered many powerful

empires, to prevent the fall of Jerusalem.

A possible explanation

Sennacherib’s defeat is not only recordedin the Bible; the Greek historian Herodotusgives an account of Sennacherib’s humilia-tion in his History. He attributes the miracu-lous defeat to mice overrunning the campand wreaking great havoc. “An army offield-mice swarmed over their opponents in the night . . . [and] gnawed through theirquivers and their bows, and the handles oftheir shields, so that on the following daythey fled minus their arms and a great number fell” (Book 2:141).

The story about the mice might appear asfanciful myth. However, it might bear a ker-nel of truth. Josephus, a first-century Jewishhistorian, also mentions Sennacherib’sdefeat, explaining that it was caused by aplague. He cites an earlier historian who had written: “Now when Sennacherib wasreturning from his Egyptian war to Jeru-salem, he found his army . . . in danger [by a plague], for God had sent a pestilential dis-temper upon his army; and on the very firstnight of the siege, a hundred fourscore andfive thousand, with their captains and gener-als, were destroyed” (Antiquities of the Jews,Book X, Chapter I, Section 5).

Some speculate the mice may have beencarriers of the plague. If so, this would not be the only such historical example. Micecontributed to the spread of the black plaguein the Middle Ages and just as easily couldhave transported this deadly malady into theAssyrian camp. The Bible states simply thatthe destruction came from God and does notmention specifics.

Even the biblical description of the deathof Sennacherib is confirmed by discoveriesin ancient Assyrian archives. “Now it cameto pass, as he [Sennacherib] was worshipingin the temple of Nisroch his god, that hissons Adrammelech and Sharezer struck himdown with the sword; and they escaped intothe land of Ararat. Then Esarhaddon his sonreigned in his place” (2 Kings 19:37).

The Assyrian account of Sennacherib’sdeath is the same. The International Stan-dard Bible Encyclopedia explains: “Accord-ing to Esarhaddon’s records, his fatherSennacherib had named him over his broth-ers as successor. ‘To gain the kingship they

The Taylor Prism describes Sennacherib’smilitary campaigns, including an inva-sion of Judah. In its own curious way, this boastful account of the monarch’sexploits supports the biblical account ofan astounding miracle.

November/December 1998 21

slew Sennacherib their father,’” forcingEsarhaddon to hasten back from a militarycampaign to claim the throne (1988,Vol. 4,p. 396, “Sennacherib”). A parallel Babylon-ian account also mentions this assassination.

Thus we see confirmed even a tiny detailfrom the biblical account.

Hezekiah’s Siloam inscription

Another aspect of Sennacherib’s siege ofJerusalem is well worth noting. Assyrian tac-tics called for surrounding the targeted city,shutting the inhabitants off from any outsidesource of food and water to starve them intosubmission before a final and decisive directattack. While Sennacherib was busy plun-dering Judah’s other cities, Hezekiah began adesperate building project to provide the citya secure water source before the Assyrianscould lay siege to the capital.

“And when Hezekiah saw that Senna-cherib had come, and that his purpose was to make war against Jerusalem, he consultedwith his leaders and commanders to stop thewater from the springs which were outsidethe city; and they helped him” (2 Chronicles32:2-3). “. . . Hezekiah also stopped thewater outlet of Upper Gihon, and broughtthe water by tunnel to the west side of theCity of David” (verse 30).

Long after the Assyrian menace, this tun-nel lay forgotten and undisturbed for cen-turies. Then, in 1880, two Arab boys wereplaying near the Pool of Siloam in Jerusalemwhen one fell in. Swimming to the other sideof the small body of water, he came under a

rock overhang. There in the darkness henoticed a small passageway. After furtherinvestigation by the authorities, the biblicaltunnel of Hezekiah’s time was discoveredanew. In the tunnel they even discovered aninscription in Hebrew made by the workerscommemorating their amazing engineeringfeat during Hezekiah’s time.

It reads: “And this is the account of thebreakthrough. While the laborers were stillworking with their picks, each toward theother, and while there were still three cubitsto be broken through, the voice of each washeard calling to the other, because there wasa [split, crack or overlap] in the rock to thesouth and to the north. And at the moment of the breakthrough, the laborers struck eachtoward the other, pick against pick. Then the water flowed from the spring to the poolfor 1,200 cubits. And the height of the rockabove the heads of the laborers was 100cubits” (Biblical Archaeology Review, July-August 1994, p. 37).

The “Siloam Inscription,” as it came to becalled, resides in the Istanbul ArchaeologicalMuseum, taken there by Turkish authoritieswho ruled Jerusalem at the time. Israeliauthorities claim it as a national monumentand desire its return to Jerusalem.

The Bible vs. fables

All these accounts lead us to severalimportant conclusions.

• They call into question claims of criticsthat the Bible is merely a collection ofmyths, fables and other fiction. Extrabiblical

records, like those from Assyria, consistentlyconfirm the biblical accounts.

• These biblical narratives could nothave been written centuries after the fact asmany critics claim. The incidental detailspreserved in the Bible could have beenknown only by the people living during theevents described.

• Finally, a spiritual guiding force must be inspiring the biblical accounts, for theyalways seem to match what independentsources describe.

• The Bible narrative rings true. Unlikesecular accounts, which exaggerate theirheroes’accomplishments, the Bible standsas a believable report. It describes both thestrengths and weaknesses of its leading char-acters. Its truths are not exaggerated or dis-torted as is the obvious case with records leftby scribes and narrators with transparentnational interests or personal agendas.

Even if archaeology is an imperfect sci-ence incapable of providing all the answers,it continues to independently verify thetruthfulness of the biblical record.

In the next installment, we will continueour examination of archaeology and thekingdom of Judah. GN

King Hezekiah’s engineers performed a remarkable engineering feat, carving a longtunnel (right) through the limestone underneath Jerusalem to provide the city a securewater source in the face of an Assyrian invasion. This inscription records how workerstunneling from both ends met in the middle, completing the monumental task.

November/December 1998 21