Archeological proof of the Bible
For the past two hundred years, give or take a year, archaeological teams have scoured the Middle East and excavated numerous sites. These teams came, and are still coming from, America, England, France, Germany, and the Vatican. They came to either find proof of the Bible or, in some cases, tried to disprove the word of God. Thankfully the historians and archaeologists have confirmed the truth. God’s truth of the Bible, every bit of it is the truth! There have been countless discoveries over the years. In fact, too many for me to elaborate on all of them. But I will go over enough to make the point clear, historically.
The first book of the Bible is Genesis. So, We’ll start there and work through the rest of the Old Testament. We’ll look at places, people, and incidences that have been covered in a fog for thousands of years.
Kenneth Kitchen, an Egyptologist formally of the University of Liverpool in England, said that archaeology and the Bible match well in depicting the patriarchal stories.
Genesis 10:10-12 (NKJV)
10 (A)And the beginning of his kingdom was (B)Babel, Erech, Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. 11 From that land, he went (C)to Assyria and built Nineveh, Rehoboth Ir, Calah, 12 and Resen between Nineveh and Calah (that is the principal city).
These scriptures describe the travels of Cush and his family after the flood. These cities were unknown and considered fictional locations until a century ago when archaeologists uncovered them and positively identified them. The ancient walls were covered with inscriptions of the names of the cities and their founder.
Also, you shall anoint Jehu, the son of Nimshi as king over Israel. And Elisha, the son of Shaphat of Abel Meholah, you shall anoint as prophet in your place.
Calah was one of the mounds that were excavated by Austen Henry Layard of Britain, the young Assyriological pioneer, in 1845. He also uncovered three palaces during his excavations, revealing a great variety of inscriptions, statues, and sculptures. Among these was the famous Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III (859-824 B.C.). The panels on the obelisk depict the tribute that was brought to king Shalmaneser from various kings (tributaries), including an Israelite king, "Jehu, son of Omri," who is shown bowing before the Assyrian monarch (841 B.C.).
Gen 11: 31-32 “And Tereh toke his son Abram and his grandson Lot, the son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sara, his son Abrams wife, and they went out with them from Ur of the Chaldeans to go to the land of Canaan, and they came to Haran and dwelt there.”
Up until 1917, the city of Ur was unheard of outside of the Bible. But, during World War I, a British officer F. Campbell Thompson, who was an assistant at the British Museum before the war, struck camp in present-day Iraq. He noticed a heap of bricks around the camp. He recognized writing on the bricks that corresponded to writings on cylinders brought to the museum years before. After returning to England, he found the cylinders in the basement, set about deciphering them, and discovered the ancient city of Ur. After the war, in 1923, Sir Charles Woolly went to the area with a large excavation team and explored the area. The archaeologist discovered a bevy of artifacts that prove the mythical city of Ur was real and a very prosperous, wealthy city. Thus, Ur emerged from the shadows of the past as the capital of the Sumerians.
It is one of the oldest civilizations of Mesopotamia.
Genesis 7,
Then the (B)Lord said to Noah, (C)“Come into the ark, you and all your household, because I have seen that (D)you are righteous before Me in this generation. 2 You shall take with you seven each of every (E)clean animal, a male, and his female; (F)two each of animals that are unclean, a male and his female; 3 also seven each of birds of the air, male and female, to keep [a]the species alive on the face of all the earth. 4 For after (G)seven more days I will cause it to rain on the earth (H)forty days and forty nights, and I will [b]destroy from the face of the earth all living things that I have made.” 5 (I)And Noah did according to all that the Lord commanded him. 6 Noah was (J)six hundred years old when the floodwaters were on the earth.
In the chapter about Noah and the Ark, Sunday school children are taught the story regularly, but skeptics continue to discount it as a fable. Sir Charles Woolley added one of many proves that the flood really did happen.
He had his workers dig a shaft along the Tigris River. The layers of the dig started with the graves of the kings of Samaria. As they dug deeper, they found shards and vessels from an earlier civilization. Still further down, they found a ten-foot layer of clay with no artifacts from people at all but found unmistakable traces of marine organisms. He believed he found remnants of the flood, but to test his theory, he dug identical shafts in the area and went miles away from the original shaft, and came up with the same conclusion.
Noah’s flood really did happen. Stories of a massive flood have come from many civilizations around the world and collaborated by similar evidence. From Babylon to China to the Navajo to the Greeks, all have stories of a great flood. The most famous of which is the story of Gilgamesh in ancient Babylon. The stories are very similar but with different names of the characters. Skeptics try to use the story of Gilgamesh as proof that Noah’s story is a copy. It actually adds authenticity to the Noah account. If there was a flood in Babylon simultaneously, it adds strength to the Biblical story.
Genesis 7: 23 10 Now Ephron dwelt among the sons of Heth; and Ephron the Hittite answered Abraham in the presence of the sons of Heth, all who (H)entered at the gate of his city, saying, 11 (I)“No, my lord, hear me: I give you the field and the cave that is in it; I give it to you in the presence of the sons of my people. I give it to you. Bury your dead!”
Abraham reports that he buried his wife in a cave of Machpelah, who bought it from a Hittite.
There are forty-seven references to the Hittites in the Bible. However, ancient historians considered the place as a figment of the imagination of Bible writers.
In 1917, archaeologists uncovered the ruins of the city Hattusas, the capital of the Hittites. In addition, they discovered an extensive collection of historical records proving the existence of the Hittites and their empire.
Gen 12:10 Now there was a famine in the land, and Abram went down to Egypt to dwell there, for the famine was severe in the land.
In 1890 British expert Percy Newberry was assigned the task of excavating the tombs in the Valley of the Kings in the desert of Egypt. He discovered records showing that there was a famine at the time of the writing. As a result, “Sand dweller Semites” came to Egypt to escape it. “Sand dweller Semites was a derogatory name for Israelites was used by the Egyptians.
2 Kings3:4 2Now Mesha king of Moab was a sheep breeder, and he (D)regularly paid the king of Israel one hundred thousand (E)lambs and the wool of one hundred thousand rams. 5 But it happened, when (F)Ahab died, that the king of Moab rebelled against the king of Israel.
The Moabite Stone, a three-foot stone slab, tells us that Mesha, the king of Moab, rebelled against the Israelites as depicted in 2 Kings 3. Thus, confirming the history of the rebellion in 850 BC.
Numbers 6: 22-27.
A silver scroll dating to 600 BC quotes this passage showing that the scriptures predate this time. Critics of the Bible have tried to state that the book of Numbers was written much later than 600BC.
Numbers 22- 24
These verses and chapters cover the story of the pagan god Balaam. In 1967 tablets referring to Balaam, son of Beor, were inscribed with these scriptures.
Numbers 33:1 - 2 These are the journeys of the children of Israel, who went out of the land of Egypt by their armies under the (A)hand of Moses and Aaron. 2 Now Moses wrote down the starting points of their journeys at the command of the Lord. And these are their journeys according to their starting points:
Egyptian archeologists have discovered the maps that the Israelites used for their journey. The maps confirm the geography of the Exodus route of the Israelites.
1 Kings 6: 1 And it came to pass in the four hundred and [a]eightieth year after the children of Israel had come out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign over Israel, in the month of [b]Ziv, which is the second month, that he began to build the house of the Lord. 2 Now the house which King Solomon built for the Lord
Archaeologists discovered an inscription referencing “The House of Yahweh” and Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem
1 Kings 12: 19-20 19 So Israel has been in rebellion against the house of David to this day.
20 Now it came to pass when all Israel heard that Jeroboam had come back, they sent for him and called him to the congregation, and made him king over all Israel. There was none who followed the house of David, but the tribe of Judah only.
In 1993, an inscription was found at Tel Dan that referred to The House of David. Thus proving the existence of King David.
The Tel Dan stone.
1 Kings 12:20 20 Now it came to pass when all Israel heard that Jeroboam had come back, they sent for him and called him to the congregation, and made him king over all Israel. There was none who followed the house of David, but the tribe of Judah only.
A seal with the inscription, ‘Shems, servant of Jeroboam’ confirms the existence of that King.
1 Kings 14 and 2 Chronicles tells of Shishahs invasion of Judah. This victory was recorded in hieroglyphics on the temple of Amon in Thebes.
1 Kings 16: 23-24 23 In the thirty-first year of Asa king of Judah, Omri became king over Israel and reigned twelve years. Six years he reigned in Tirzah. 24 And he bought the hill of Samaria from Shemer for two talents of silver; then he built on the hill and called the name of the city which he built, Samaria,[a] after the name of Shemer, owner of the hill.
The royal building of Omri and Ahab were excavated in 1933 in Samaria, proving the existence of these kings.
2 Kings 15: 29, 29 In the days of Pekah king of Israel, [a]Tiglath-Pileser king of Assyria came and took Ijon, Abel Beth Maachah, Janoah, Kedesh, Hazor, Gilead, and Galilee, all the land of Naphtali; and he carried them captive to Assyria.
In 1852 cuneiform text was discovered that authenticates these scriptures. Stretching from modern Iraq to the Mediterranean Sea, the Assyrian empire was the largest in the world during the eighth and seventh centuries B.C. The Assyrian monarchs Tiglath-pileser, Shalmaneser, and Sennacherib, are well known from the Biblical accounts. Now artifacts from this vast empire may be seen in the exhibit Assyria to Iberia at the Dawn of the Classical Age at The Met in New York.
2 Chronicles 32: 3-4 3 he consulted with his leaders and [a]commanders to stop the water from the springs which were outside the city, and they helped him. 4 Thus many people gathered together who stopped all the springs and the brook that ran through the land, saying, “Why should the [b]kings of Assyria come and find much water?”
In 1880, a tablet was discovered describing the tunnel of Hezekiah.
2 Kings 24: 10-17 and 2 Chronicles 36: 9-10
A Babylonian tablet was found that gave the record of the invasion of King Nebuchadnezzar of Jerusalem.
2 Kings 24:17 17 Then the king of Babylon made Mattaniah, Jehoiachin’s[a] uncle, king in his place, and changed his name to Zedekiah.
In the second millennium BC, Joshua captured the strong Canaanite city of Lachish. It was later rebuilt and taken by the Assyrians. In 1930 archaeologists discovered 21 inscribed potsherds and ancient coins from that period that describe the siege and 2 that mention Jeremiah. Lachish Letters were also discovered that mentioned Zedekiah.
2 Chronicles 32:9 After this Sennacherib king of Assyria sent his servants to Jerusalem (but he and all the forces with him laid siege against Lachish), to Hezekiah king of Judah, and to all Judah who were in Jerusalem,
In the 1850s, during an excavation of Nineveh, capital of Assyria, a relief was found in Sennacherib's palace depicting the siege of Lachish precisely how the Bible describes it.
Ezra 1: 1-4 (see the scripture, it’s quite long)
A clay cylinder called the ‘Cyrus Cylinder’ was discovered that describes Cyrus’s decision to allow the captive Israeli’s to return to Judah and rebuild the temple in Jerusalem. The Cyrus Cylinder
Isaiah 30: 8 In 1947 the famous, ‘Dead Sea Scrolls’ were discovered. They included fragments of all the Old Testament books but also the entire text of Isaiah intact. Miraculously, when compared to the copies we use, the scrolls are a word for word copies of each other with very little variance. Proving once again the accuracy of God’s word.
4 Jeremiah 36: 4 Then Jeremiah called Baruch the son of Neriah; and Baruch wrote on a scroll of a book, [a]at the instruction of Jeremiah, all the words of the Lord which He had spoken to him.
In 1986 a seal was found dated to 587 BC and was inscribed; “Belonging to Baruch the son of Neriah” Baruch is defiantly the scribe of Jeremiah.
Jeremiah 43: 9-11 9 “Take large stones in your hand, and hide them in the sight of the men of Judah, in the [a]clay in the brick courtyard which is at the entrance to Pharaoh’s house in Tahpanhes; 10 and say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: “Behold, I will send and bring Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, My servant, and will set his throne above these stones that I have hidden. And he will spread his royal pavilion over them. 11 When he comes, he shall strike the land of Egypt and deliver to death those appointed for death, and to captivity those appointed for captivity, and to the sword those appointed for the sword.
The discovery of this pavement was made by Flinders Petrie in 1881.
Daniel 5: 1 Belshazzar the king made a great feast for a thousand of his lords and drank wine in the presence of the thousand.
Clay cylinders have been found bearing the name of Belshazzar.
Amos 1:1 The words of Amos, who was among the sheep breeders of Tekoa, which he saw concerning Israel in the days of Uzziah king of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel, two years before the earthquake.
The evidence of an earthquake on the day of Uzziah, king of Judah, has been found at Gezer and other locations.
Zephaniah 2: 13-15
13 And He will stretch out His hand against the north, Destroy Assyria, And make Nineveh a desolation, As dry as the wilderness. 14 The herds shall lie down in her midst, Every beast of the nation. Both the pelican and the bittern Shall lodge on the capitals of her pillars; Their voice shall sing in the windows; Desolation shall be at the threshold; For He will lay bare the cedar work. 15 This is the rejoicing city That dwelt securely, That said in her heart, “I am it, and there is none besides me.” How has she become a desolation, A place for beasts to lie down! Everyone who passes by her Shall hiss and shake his fist.
The fall of Nineveh is recorded on the tablets of Nabopolassar as the prophets predicted it would.
Daniel 5: 30-31 30 That very night, Belshazzar, king of the Chaldeans, was slain. 31 And Darius the Mede received the kingdom, being about sixty-two years old.
These verses recorded the fall of Babylon to the Medes and Persians and were substantiated by the Cyrus Cylinders.
Top of Form I’ve barely touched the beginning of the Archeological findings that substantiate the veracity of the Bible. God’s word is accurate! There is nothing like it in all the world. It is proven true through history, science, prophecy, and much more. Keep reading!!
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