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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with his father, Benzion, during a memorial ceremony for Yoni Netanyahu at Mount Herzl military cemetery, Jerusalem, 2007 (photo credit: Michal Fattal/Flash90)

Yonathan Netanyahu –

Yoni, Bibi and Iddo Netanyahu (Courtesy Netanyahu family)

——

———

The Republican-controlled House of Representatives invited me to address a joint session of Congress on July 10, 1996, and I was received warmly on both sides of the aisle.

GREAT SPEECH

https://www.c-span.org/video/?73411-1/israel-prime-minister-speech#!

SPEECH

If I could only get the Knesset to vote like this.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice-President, members of Congress,

This is not the first time that a Prime Minister of Israel addresses a joint meeting of Congress. My immediate predecessor, Shimon Peres, addressed this body — and before him, the late Yitzhak Rabin, who was tragically cut down by a despicable, savage assassin. We are grateful that Israeli democracy has proved resilient enough to overcome this barbaric act, but we shall always carry with us the pain of this tragedy.

I recognize, Mr. Speaker, that the great honor you have bestowed on me is not personal. It is a tribute to the unshakable fact that the unique relationship between Israel and the United States transcends politics and parties, governments and diplomacy. It is a relationship between two peoples who share a total commitment to the spirit of democracy, and infinite dedication to freedom.

We have a common vision of how societies should be governed, of how civilization should be advanced. We both believe in eternal values, we both believe in the Almighty. We both follow traditions hallowed by time and experience.

We admire America not only for its dynamism, and for its power, and for its wealth. We admire America for its moral force. As Jews and as Israelis, we are proud that this moral force is derived from the Bible and the precepts of morality that the Jewish people have given the world.

Of course, Israel and the United States also have common interests. But our bonds go well beyond such interests. In the 19th century, citizens of all free states viewed France as the great guardian of liberty. In the 20th century, every free person looks to America as the champion of freedom.

Yesterday my wife and I spent a very moving hour at Arlington Cemetery, and we saw there the evidence of the price you paid for that freedom — in the lives of your best and brightest young men. And it’s a toll that is exacted from you — from all of us, but from you, these very days.

I think it was the terrible misfortune of the Jewish people that, in the first half of this century, the United States had not yet assumed its pivotal role in the world. And it has been our great fortune that, in the second half of this century, with the miraculous renewal of Jewish nationhood, the United States became the preeminent power in the world.

You, the people of America, offered the fledgling Jewish state succor and support. You stood by us time and time again, against the forces of tyranny and totalitarianism. I know that I speak for every Israeli and every Jew throughout the world when I say to you today: Thank you, people of America.

Perhaps our most demanding joint effort has been the endless quest to achieve peace and stability for Israel and its Arab neighbors. American presidents have joined successive Israeli governments in an untiring effort to attain this peace.

The first historic breakthrough was led by Prime Minister Begin and Presidents Carter and Sadat at Camp David. The most recent success was our pact with Jordan under the auspices of President Clinton. These efforts, I believe, are clear proof of our intentions and our direction. We want peace. We want peace with all our neighbors. We have no quarrel with them which cannot be resolved by peaceful means. Nor, I must say, do we have a quarrel with Islam. We reject the thesis of an inevitable clash of civilizations. We do not subscribe to the idea that Islam has replaced Communism as the new rival of the West, because our conflict is specific. It is with those militant fanatics who pervert the central tenets of a great faith towards violence and world domination. Our hand is stretched in peace to all who would grasp it. We don’t care about their religion. We don’t care about their national identity. We don’t care about their ideological belief. We care about peace, and our hand is stretched out to peace.

Every Israeli wants peace. I don’t think there is a people who has yearned, prayed and sacrificed more for peace than we have. There is not a family in Israel that has not suffered the unbearable agony of war and, directly or indirectly, the excruciating, ever-lasting pain of grief. The mandate we have received from the people of Israel is to continue the search for an end to wars and an end to grief. I promise you: We are going to live up to this mandate. We will continue the quest for peace, and, to this end, we are ready to resume negotiations with the Palestinian Authority on the implementation of our Interim Agreement.

I want to say something about agreements. Some of you speak Latin, or at least studied Latin. Pacta sunt servanta — we believe agreements are made to be kept. This is our policy, and we expect the Palestinian side to abide by its commitments. On this basis, we will be prepared to begin final status negotiations as well. We are ready to engage Syria and Lebanon in meaningful negotiations. We seek to broaden the circle of peace to the whole Arab world and the rest of the countries of the Middle East.

But I want to make it clear that we want a peace that will last. We must have a peace based on security for all. We cannot, and I might say we dare not, forget that more men, women and children have lost their lives to terrorist attacks in the last three years, than in the entire previous decade.

I know that the representatives of the United States sitting here, the people of the United States, are now becoming tragically familiar with this experience. You’ve experienced it in places as far afield as New York’s World Trade Center, and most recently in Dhahran. And I notice also the recent torching of Afro-American churches in America, which, I must tell you, strike a familiar, chilling note among Jews.

But I want to try and put the Israeli experience in perspective. One has to imagine, to do so, such attacks occurring time and time again in every city and in every corner of this great country.

So, what we are saying here today is as simple as it is elementary. Peace means the absence of violence. Peace means not fearing for your children every time they board a bus. Peace means walking the streets of your town without the fearful shriek of Katyusha rockets overhead.

We just visited with the wife of a friend of mine, the deputy-mayor of Kiryat Shmona, who was walking the streets of Kiryat Shmona when the fearful shriek of a rocket over her head burned her car, nearly burned her, and she was miraculously saved and she is alive and she is getting better. But peace means that this doesn’t happen, because peace without personal safety is a contradiction in terms. It is a hoax. It will not stand.

What we are facing in the Middle East today is a broad front of terror throughout the area. Its common goal is to remove any Western, and primarily any American, presence in the Middle East. It seeks to break our will, to shatter our resolve, to make us yield.

I believe the terrorists must understand that we will not yield, however grave and fearful the challenge. Neither Israel nor any other democracy, and certainly not the United States, must ever bend to terrorism. We must fight it resolutely, endlessly, tirelessly, we must fight it together, until we remove this malignancy from the face of the earth.

For too long, the standards of peace used throughout the world have not been applied to the Middle East. Violence and despotism have been excused and not challenged. Respect for human freedoms has not been on the agenda. It’s been on the agenda everywhere else. Everywhere else: in Latin America, in the former Soviet Union, in South Africa, and that effort has been led by successive American administrations and by this house.

I think it’s time to demand a peace based on norms and standards. It is not enough to talk about peace in abstraction. We must talk about the content of peace. It is time, I believe, for a code of conduct for building a lasting Middle East peace.

Such a peace must be based on three pillars, the three pillars of peace.

Security is the first pillar. There is no substitute for it. To succeed, the quest for peace must be accompanied by a quest for security.

Demanding an end to terrorist attacks as a prerequisite for peace does not give the terrorists veto power over the peace process. Because nearly all of the terrorist acts directed against us are perpetrated by known organizations whose activities can be curbed, if not altogether stopped, by our negotiating partners.

This means that our negotiating partners, and indeed all the regimes of the region, must make a strategic choice — either follow the option of terror as an instrument of policy, of diplomacy, or follow the option of peace. They cannot have it both ways.

This choice means that the Palestinian Authority must live up to the obligations it has solemnly undertaken to prevent terrorist attacks against Israel. This choice also means that Syria must cease its policy of enabling proxy attacks against Israeli cities, and undertake to eliminate threats from Hezbollah and other Syrian-based groups. This means that the fight against terror cannot be episodic. It cannot be conditional. It cannot be whimsical. It cannot be optional. It must become the mainstay of a relationship of trust between Israel and its Arab partners.

The second pillar of peace is reciprocity. This means an unshakable commitment to the peaceful resolution of disputes, including the border disputes between Israel and its neighbors.

The signing of a peace treaty should be the beginning of a relationship of reciprocal respect, recognition and the fulfillment of mutual obligations. It should not trigger round after round of hostile diplomacy. Peace should not be the pursuit of war by other means. A peace without pacification, a peace without normalization, a peace in which Israel is repeatedly brought under attack, is not a true peace.

Reciprocity means that every line in every agreement turns into a sinew of reconciliation. Reciprocity means that an agreement must be kept by both sides. Reciprocity is the glue of mutual commitments, that upholds agreements. This is the second pillar of peace.

The third pillar of lasting peace is democracy and human rights. I am not revealing a secret to the members of this chamber, when I say that modern democracies do not initiate aggression. This has been the central lesson of the twentieth century. States that respect the human rights of their citizens are not likely to provoke hostile action against their neighbors. No one knows better than the United States, the world’s greatest democracy, that the best guarantor against military adventurism is accountable, democratic government.

The world has witnessed the bitter results of policies without standards in the case of Saddam Hussein. Unless we want more Saddams to rise, we must apply the standards of democracy and human rights in the Middle East. I believe that every Muslim and every Christian and every Jew in the region is entitled to nothing less. I don’t think we should accept the idea that the Middle East is the latest, or the last, isolated sanctuary that will be democracy-free for all time except for the presence of Israel.

I realize that this is a process. It may be a long-term process. But I think we should begin it. It is time for the states of the Middle East to put the issues of human rights and democratization on their agenda. Democratization means accepting a free press and the right of a legal opposition to organize and express itself. It’s very important for the opposition to be able to express itself, Mr. Speaker. I’ve just learned and will accord that same right, as you know. This is democracy. To be able to disagree, to express our disagreements, and sometimes to agree after disagreements. It means tolerance. And it means an inherent shift away from aggression toward the recognition of the mutual right to differ.

I’ll admit, the Middle East as a whole has not yet effected this basic shift — this change from autocracy to democracy. But this does not mean that we cannot have peace in this region, peace with non-democratic regimes. I believe we can. It’s a fact that we’ve had such peace arrangements.

But such peace arrangements, as we can now arrive at, can only be characterized as a defensible peace, in which we must retain assets essential to the defense of our country and sufficient to deter aggression.

Until this democratization becomes a mainstay of the region, the proper course for the democratic world, led by the United States, is to strengthen the only democracy in the Middle East, Israel, and to encourage moves to pluralism and greater freedom in the Arab world.

I want to make something clear. We do not want peace merely in our time. We want peace for all time. To the members of “Peace Now“: we do not just want peace now. We want peace now, and later, we want peace for generations. There is no divide. That desire is heartfelt. It should be a point of unity, not of disunity.

This is why we must make the pursuit of human rights and democracy a cornerstone of our quest.

These, then, are the three pillars of peace — peace, reciprocity and the strengthening of democracy.

I believe that a peace based on these three pillars can be advanced. Yet I, ladies and gentlemen, would be remiss if I did not refer to a major challenge facing all of us.

I have touched on the problem of the Middle East that is largely undemocratic, and part of it is strongly anti-democratic. Specifically, it is being radicalized and terrorized by a number of unreconstructed dictatorships whose governmental creed is based on tyranny and intimidation.

The most dangerous of these regimes is Iran, that has wed a cruel despotism to a fanatic militancy. If this regime, or its despotic neighbor Iraq, were to acquire nuclear weapons, this could presage catastrophic consequences, not only for my country, and not only for the Middle East, but for all mankind.

I believe the international community must reinvigorate its efforts to isolate these regimes, and prevent them from acquiring atomic power. The United States and Israel have been at the forefront of this effort, but we can and must do much more. Europe and the countries of Asia must be made to understand that it is folly, nothing short of folly, to pursue short-time material gain while creating a long-term existential danger for all of us.

Only the United States can lead this vital international effort to stop the nuclearization of terrorist states. But the deadline for attaining this goal is getting extremely close.

In our own generation, we have witnessed how the United States averted, by its wisdom, tenacity, and determination, the dangerous expansion of a totalitarian superpower equipped with nuclear weapons. The policy it used for that purpose was deterrence. Now, we see the rise of a similar threat — similar, and in many ways more dangerous — against which deterrence by itself may not be sufficient. Deterrence must now be reinforced with prevention — immediate and effective prevention.

We are confident that America, once again, will not fail to take the lead in protecting our free civilization from this ultimate horror. But, ladies and gentlemen, time is running out. We have to act — responsibly, in a united front, internationally. This is not a slogan. This is not over-dramatization. This is the life of our children and our grandchildren. And I believe there is no greater, more noble, more responsible force than the united front of democracy, led by the world’s greatest democracy, the United States. We can overcome this challenge. We can beat it successfully.

Let me now say a word about a subject that has been on your mind and ours, and that subject is the city of Jerusalem.

Countless words have been written about that city on the hill, which represents the universal hope for justice and peace. I live in that city on the hill. And in my boyhood, I knew that city, when it was divided into enemy camps, with coils of barbed wire stretched through its heart.

Since 1967, under Israeli sovereignty, united Jerusalem has, for the first time in two thousand years, become the city of peace. For the first time, the holy places have been open to worshippers from all three great faiths. For the first time, no group in the city or among its pilgrims has been persecuted or denied free expression. For the first time, a single sovereign authority has afforded security and protection to members of every nationality who sought to come to pray there.

There have been efforts to re-divide this city by those who claim that peace can come through division — that it can be secured through multiple sovereignties, multiple laws and multiple police forces.

This is a groundless and dangerous assumption, which impels me to declare today: There will never be such a re-division of Jerusalem.

Never.

We shall not allow a Berlin Wall to be erected inside Jerusalem. We will not drive out anyone, but neither shall we be driven out of any quarter, any neighborhood, any street of our eternal capital.

Finally, permit me briefly to remark on our future economic relationship. The United States has given Israel — how can I tell it to this body? The United States has given Israel, apart from political and military support, munificent and magnificent assistance in the economic sphere. With America’s help, Israel has grown to be a powerful, modern state. I believe that we can now say that Israel has reached childhood’s end, that it has matured enough to begin approaching a state of self-reliance.

We are committed to turning Israel’s economy into a free market of goods and ideas, which is the only way to bring ourselves to true economic independence. This means free enterprise, privatization, open capital markets, an end to cartels, lower taxes, deregulation. You know, there’s not a Hebrew word for deregulation. By the time this term of office in Israel is over, there will be a Hebrew word for deregulation.

But may I say something that unites all of us across the political divide: I’m committed to reducing the size of government, and I’m quoting Speaker Gingrich, quoting President Clinton, saying that the era of big government is over. It’s over in Israel too.

I believe that a market economy is the only way to effectively absorb immigrants and realize the dream of the ages — the ingathering of the Jewish exiles. To succeed, we must uphold the market economy as the imperative of the future. It’s a crucial pre-requisite for the building of the promised land.

We are deeply grateful for all we have received from the United States, for all that we have received from this chamber, from this body. But I believe there can be no greater tribute to America’s long-standing economic aid to Israel than for us to be able to say: We are going to achieve economic independence. We are going to do it. In the next four years, we will begin the long-term process of gradually reducing the level of your generous economic assistance to Israel. I am convinced that our economic policies will lay the foundation for total self-reliance and great economic strength.

In our Hebrew Scriptures, which spread from Jerusalem to all of mankind, there is a verse: “God will give strength to His people; God will bless His people with peace.” This is the original, inspired source for the truth that peace derives from strength.

In the coming years, we intend to strengthen the Jewish people in its land. We intend to build an Israel of reciprocal dialogue and peace with each and every one of our neighbors. We will not uproot anyone, nor shall we be uprooted. We shall insist on the right of Jews to live anywhere in the Land, just as we insist on this right for Jews in any other place in the world. We will build an Israel of self-reliance. We will build an Israel with an undivided and indivisible city of hope at its heart. We will build a peace founded on justice and strength, and amity for all men and women of good will.

And I know the American people will join us in making every effort to make our dream a reality, as I know the American people will join us in prayer: “God will give strength to His people; God will bless His people with peace.”

Thank you very much.

END OF SPEECH

https://thefederalist.com/2023/10/13/no-one

IMAGE CREDITKING 5 SEATTLE/YOUTUBE

When universities began hiring unrepentant terrorists and Marxist revolutionaries as professors, they had to know where this would all lead.

Students and administrators at top universities — along with Black Lives Matter, the Democratic Socialists of America, and practically the entire radical left industrial complex — have shocked Americans by supporting terrorists who massacred more than 1,200 Jews last weekend. No one should be surprised, however.

As we have long pointed out, DEI, CRT, BLM, ESG, etc. — the radical left’s unsavory alphabet soup — are Marxist groups or concepts dedicated to societal destruction, not reform.

Their leaders were clear about this. They said it. Elite institutions handed the keys to society to them for many reasons — fear, white guilt for crimes they never committed, a period of collective hysteria following George Floyd, careerism, etc. But they can’t now claim to have been misled.

“Critical Race Theory recognizes that revolutionizing a culture begins with the radical assessment of it,” said Derrick Bell, the godfather of Critical Race Theory. Alicia Garza, founder of Black Lives Matter, was clear that her goal was “dismantling the organizing principle of this society.”

Most of the student groups’ statements have quoted the 1960 revolutionary Frantz Fanon, by name or by words. Fanon described “decolonization” as “quite simply the replacing of a certain ‘species’ of men by another ‘species’ of men.”

Larry Summers, former cabinet secretary, may now say he’s never felt more alienated from Harvard, the university he once led as president because 31 student organizations issued a statement condemning Israel — not the terrorists — for the slaughter. But what did people think the radicals meant?

As Students for Justice in Palestine at UVA succinctly put it on Instagram, “decolonization is not a metaphor.” Or, as Joseph Stalin is often quoted, “you have to break some eggs to make an omelet.”

Except now it is finally dawning on many Americans that they sent their own children to campuses to be indoctrinated into the amoral acceptance of the rape of Jewish women, the beheading of babies, the savaging of grandmothers, the slaughter of entire families, the abduction of children.

They accept this depravity because they have been told by school administrators that Israel, like the U.S., is a “settler state,” a place that was colonized. Like the U.S., the descendants of the settlers must now give the country back to the original inhabitants. Practically every campus today has a sign that indicates from which tribe the land was originally “stolen.”

Never mind that Jews preceded Arabs and have continuously lived in the land they are alleged to have colonized. And never mind that those tribes from which campus land was allegedly stolen themselves took that land from another people who preceded them.

Instead, the radical left is pushing their narrative about colonization, justifying unlimited moral crimes with indifference to historical facts. Derron Borders, director of DEI at Cornell, wrote on Instagram that, “When you hear about Israel this morning and the resistance being launched by Palestinians, remember against all odds Palestinians are fighting for life, dignity, and freedom — alongside others doing the same — against settle colonization, imperialism, capitalism, white supremacy, which the United States is the model.”

The day Hamas began its orgiastic killing spree, Borders wrote “F–k your fake outrage at Palestine when you’ve literally been silent about the violence perpetuated by Israel against Palestine every day.”

Cornell parents were so outraged that Cornell now says that Borders is on “administrative leave.”But again, what did they think BLM, DEI, CRT, etc. meant?

Elite institutions began handing the keys to the likes of Derron Borders a long time ago. When universities began hiring unrepentant terrorists and Marxist revolutionaries, like Bill Ayers and Angela Davis, as their professors they had to know where this would all lead.

They produce students who excel at storming Jewish student events with chants about freeing Palestine “from the river to the sea,” by which they mean a genocide of the Jews.

But those students tend to lack other socially useful skills and behaviors that would make them employable. Only universities seem eager to welcome campus radicals by hiring them as DEI staff or admitting them to graduate programs where they can be trained as the next generation of faculty fomenting more campus radicalism.

This long march through our institutions has culminated in universities that are unwilling or unable to adhere to norms of decent morality, let alone rigorous scholarship.

All of this took decades to develop and was perfectly foreseeable as it unfolded. Now, even if these radical ideologies begin to recede as a result of their excesses, fixing universities will take years, if not decades.

We can begin by defunding the ones who refuse to police the behavior of their faculty, staff, and students when they engage in unscholarly and monstrous behavior. Academic freedom does not require that we donate or appropriate public funds to the arsonists setting decent society on fire.

Firing Derron Borders and eliminating the DEI bureaucracy he heads would be a good start.

Mike Gonzalez is a Senior Fellow at The Heritage Foundation. Jay P. Greene is a Senior Research Fellow in Heritage’s Center for Education Policy.

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by Thomas S. McCall, Th.D.

Dr. Thomas McCall, the Senior Theologian of our ministry, has written many articles for the Levitt Letter. He holds a Th.M. in Old Testament studies and a Th.D. in Semitic languages and Old Testament. He has served as Zola’s co-author, mentor, pastor, and friend for nearly 30 years.

This article appeared originally in the September 1996 Levitt Letter.

Page Contents

• Introduction
• Accepts What Can Be Proven
• Minimalists and Maximalists
• Historians Fight Battle of Joshua
• Hazor and Joshua
• Archives in Hazor?

Introduction

Recent discoveries at Hazor in northern Israel may go a long way toward proving to the world the accuracy of the biblical account of Joshua’s conquest of Canaan.

Most evangelical Christians are amazed to learn how the majority of modern archaeologist/historians approach the history of ancient Israel. They do not accept the record of events in the Bible as factual. From their point of view, there was no Davidic dynasty. In fact, there was no King David, no Joshua, and no Moses. They tell us there was no exodus from Egypt under Moses, no conquest of the land under Joshua, and all of the events described in the Pentateuch and the book of Joshua were imaginative stories that were written after the Babylonian captivity. For these historians, David and his exploits were also just further inventions by Jewish mythologists who felt a need to create national heroes apart from accurate history. They think that Moses, Joshua and David in Israel’s ancient writings are not true historical persons, but are rather the equivalent of Hercules in Greek mythology.

Modern Archaeology Accepts Only What Can Be Proven

In effect, most modern historians assume from the start that the Bible is not historically accurate. They will only accept as authentic history what may be seen in the excavations of archaeology. As far as they are concerned, if they cannot find evidence of a historic event or person in the mounds of the ancient civilizations that they have uncovered, then that person or event never existed. They think it is unscientific to conduct archaeology otherwise, and that it is beneath the dignity of science to try to “prove the Bible” through archaeological discoveries.

Thus, these scholars have developed a “history” of Israel and the Bible lands that bears little resemblance to the history written in the Scriptures. One critical discrepancy is that they do not believe that there ever was a massive Jewish army under Joshua that crossed the Jordan and conquered the land of Canaan in a great sweep during a few years’ time. Instead, the modern historians have constructed a scenario in which the Jews never had such an army, but rather slipped into Canaan in nomadic fashion and gradually took over the country through population growth during a period of centuries. A recent Jerusalem Post article concerning the ancient site of Hazor illustrates these two competing views of the early history of Israel:

An archive would shed light on the highly developed Canaanite civilization which the primitive Israelites overwhelmed — whether by the sword, as the Bible tells us, or by slow infiltration, which has become the scholarly consensus in recent years.

Not all archaeologists agree with the scholarly consensus. During the hundred or so years of the development of archaeological science, there have been several Christians and Jews who have approached their work from a biblical perspective. They accept the basic historical framework of the Bible and endeavor to place whatever discoveries are made within that general structure, rather than try to impose some new framework upon the evidence.

The Minimalists and the Maximalists

This has resulted in two approaches to archaeology in Bible lands: the majority minimalist view, which accepts only the minimal amount of biblical material as authentic history; and the minority maximalist view, which accepts most, if not all, of the Bible as accurate in its historical references.

Gradually over the years, the minimalists have grudgingly had to accept more and more of the Bible as accurate, since every new archaeological find has tended to substantiate the biblical account. The great discoveries of the Herodian structures in Jerusalem and Caesarea, for instance, and the Dead Sea Scrolls at Qumran, have demonstrated even to the greatest skeptic the authenticity of many of the New Testament descriptions of the Second Temple era.

In more recent times, excavations in Jerusalem and Megiddo (to name just a couple) have uncovered strong evidence concerning the First Temple period, and discoveries in Syria and Egypt have confirmed many of the conditions described in the patriarchal era of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. In the last few years, stunning evidence has come to light that establishes the historicity of King David and his royal dynasty. The “House of David” stone that was discovered in Dan (and which was featured in our TV series of the same name), proves to all but a few diehard minimalists that there really was a King David who founded a long-lasting dynasty in Jerusalem.

The Historians Fight the Battle of Joshua

The remaining historical battleground is the crucial period spanning the Exodus from Egypt, the Joshua conquest, and the time of the Judges. The maximalists accept all of the above as history but have not been able to produce much evidence to support this view. The minimalists do think that the book of Judges is somewhat historical. They actually believe that it is an alternative, and more correct, description of how the Jewish people came to possess the land of Canaan, rather than the account presented in the book of Joshua. One problem with this theory is that the Scriptures indicate that the period of the Judges was about 400 years (1400–1000 B.C.), while the minimalists try to compress this entire period into about 250 years (1250–1000 B.C).

At any rate, very little evidence has come to light in Israel regarding this segment of time. I think the main reason for this is that under Joshua, Israel destroyed most of the Canaanite cities and did not occupy them. The Israelis were agricultural people and for the most part spread out into the countryside. They did not try to rebuild the old Canaanite cities until after the monarchies of Judah and Israel were established. Thus, there is a gap in time between the evidence for the Canaanite occupation of some of these cities and the later Israeli occupation.

Hazor and Joshua

This brings us to Hazor, one of the main Canaanite cities in the far north of the land that Joshua conquered. It is located by the fertile, well-watered area of the Huleh Valley, about nine miles north of the Sea of Galilee and fifteen miles south of Dan. Jabin was the King of the city-state of Hazor at the time of Joshua, and he dominated the entire area of northern Canaan. King Jabin organized a huge resistance to the army of Joshua:

“And it came to pass, when Jabin, king of Hazor, had heard those things, that he sent to … the kings that were on the north … and they went out, they and all their hosts with them, many people, even as the sand that is upon the seashore in multitude, with horses and chariots very many. And when all these kings were met together, they came and pitched together at the waters of Merom, to fight against Israel.” (Josh. 11:1–5)

This organized resistance was not successful, however, and Joshua’s army, empowered by the Lord, was able to defeat King Jabin: “and he burned Hazor with fire” (Josh. 11:11). Archaeologists have been excavating the tel (archaeological site) of Hazor for several decades, but only recently have they located the palace of the king. The building is marked by its great size (about 90 feet x 120 feet), and a layer of charred wood suggests that there was a parquet-type floor in the palace that was burned, probably when Joshua destroyed the city.

The Possibility of Archives in Hazor

The Israeli archaeologist in charge, Amnon Ben-Tor, has discovered several clay-tablet inscriptions in Hazor. He is on the verge of excavating the royal palace, where he hopes to find archives, as indicated in a recent AP story:

Hebrew University professor Amnon Ben-Tor, head of the excavation, said Monday that the tablets and other evidence point to the existence of two royal archives at the site in as-yet unexcavated palace rooms.

The discovery of such archives would be unprecedented in the Holy Land and would provide a wealth of information about life in the Canaanite period.

They have not yet found or penetrated the archives, but hope to do so in the next season. What gives the workers optimism is the fact that archives have been discovered in the palaces of similar ancient cities in the Middle East that have been excavated. In a Jerusalem Post article, Ben-Tor explains this correlation between the palace at Hazor and the palaces found in other ancient cities:

The map Amnon Ben-Tor held in one hand was that of the royal palace of Hatzor being excavated around him. His other hand gripped the map of a palace excavated elsewhere in the Middle East.

“The buildings are identical,” he said, pointing out the similarity of room layout to a visiting colleague and a journalist last week. One of the rooms of the other palace was marked with a star. “That’s where they found their archive,” he said. The equivalent room in the Hatzor palace lay just a few meters from him, still unexcavated.

The clay inscriptions already discovered in Hazor prove that the city being excavated is, indeed, Hazor. They also show the political and economic commerce that existed between Hazor and the other major cities of Canaan and Mesopotamia, such as Mari.

Up to this point, the discovery of archives and inscriptions has been rare in Israel, so if the archaeologists do find a trove of inscriptions in Hazor, it will truly be a breakthrough. The more of this kind of discovery that comes to light, the harder it will be for the world to deny the historicity of the Joshua invasion of Canaan in particular, and the truthfulness of the Bible in general.

Copyright © 1996 Zola Levitt Ministries, Inc., a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization. All rights reserved. Brief passages may be quoted in reviews or other article. For all other use, please get our written approval.

Is the Bible historically accurate? Here are some of the posts I have done in the past on the subject: 1. The Babylonian Chronicle, of Nebuchadnezzars Siege of Jerusalem, 2. Hezekiah’s Siloam Tunnel Inscription. 3. Taylor Prism (Sennacherib Hexagonal Prism), 4. Biblical Cities Attested Archaeologically. 5. The Discovery of the Hittites, 6.Shishak Smiting His Captives, 7. Moabite Stone, 8. Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III, 9A Verification of places in Gospel of John and Book of Acts., 9B Discovery of Ebla Tablets. 10. Cyrus Cylinder, 11. Puru “The lot of Yahali” 9th Century B.C.E., 12. The Uzziah Tablet Inscription, 13. The Pilate Inscription, 14. Caiaphas Ossuary, 14 B Pontius Pilate Part 2, 14c. Three greatest American Archaeologists moved to accept Bible’s accuracy through archaeology., 

The Bible and Archaeology – Is the Bible from God? (Kyle Butt 42 min)

Related posts:

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Gideon/GPO)

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In this handout photo provided by the Israeli Government Press Office, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets former U.S. President Bill Clinton, on November 8, 2010 in New York City. | Getty

Bill Clinton with former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in 2000; Donald Trump with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on March 25. Photo illustration by Slate. Photos by Thomas Coex/AFP/Getty Images; Drew Angerer/Getty Images.

Zack Beauchamp is a senior correspondent at Vox, where he covers ideology and challenges to democracy, both at home and abroad. Before coming to Vox in 2014, he edited TP Ideas, a section of Think Progress devoted to the ideas shaping our political world.

Then opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu greets US President George W. Bush in the Knesset.

Vice President Joe Biden meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the annual General Assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America in New Orleans on Nov. 7, 2010. | Gerald Herbert/AP Photo

BIBI THOUGHT PRESIDENT LIKED HIM PERSONALLY BUT LATER EVENTS MADE HIM POSSIBLY DOUBT THAT

Back during our first visit to Washington, Vice President Al Gore held a big reception for us, attended mostly by leaders of the American Jewish community. “Bibi,” Gore announced to the guests, “I’ve done some research on you. I found that on your high school soccer team you played left forward,” he said, eliciting a burst of laughter. “That’s right, Al,” I retorted, “but I always kicked to the right!” More laughter. While I was briefing congressional leaders, Clinton invited Sara to a tour of the Oval Office. Throughout his meetings with me he appeared cordial and friendly. I later learned that he took offense at some of the things I said or the way I said them at our joint public appearances. He felt I wasn’t deferential enough. “Who’s the f-ing leader of the free world?” he is said to have complained to his aides. I certainly didn’t want to offend the president and in retrospect I wouldn’t change the substance of anything I said. But I may have overreacted in my tone to the White House campaign of political pressure that preceded and accompanied the visit.

https://thefederalist.com/2023/10/13/squad-members-were-boosting-hamas-long-before-it-beheaded-babies/

IMAGE CREDITCAIR GLA/YOUTUBE

Congress has turned a blind eye to the far left’s dangerous and inappropriate partnerships with Hamas front organizations.

In the wake of a brutal terrorist attack on Israel, members of the ultra left-wing “Squad” in the U.S. House released public statements calling for a “ceasefire” in Israel, after terrorists went door-to-door on Oct. 7 indiscriminately murdering families and collecting hostages. Statements from the Congress members, many of whom have pandered to pro-Hamas groups in the U.S., effectively deny Israel’s right to defend itself and suggest that the atrocities are part of a larger tit-for-tat “cycle of violence.”

In other words, Israel had it coming, and it should lay down and “de-escalate” in the face of a terrorist invasion by land, air, and sea — even as Israeli hostages are paradednaked and bleeding through the streets of Gaza.

Such callous expressions represent the latest and most heinous in a series of statements and political maneuvers from the far-left wing of the Democrat Party, which has sought for years to single out and demonize the Jewish state of Israel. The same outspoken leftists have patronized radical anti-Israel groups, showing favor to Islamist organizations identified in U.S. courts as possible fronts for Hamas.

Reps. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., Ayanna Presley, D-Mass., Cori Bush, D-Mo., and Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., each published press releases and personal statements in response to the early morning raid by Hamas terrorists that took the livesof more than 1,200 Israelis, including 25 Americans, and resulted in more than 3,000 wounded. In each case, their comments began with empty platitudes for the violence experienced on both sides, before they turned to casting blame on Israel and justifying Hamas violence.

Perhaps the most damning statements came from Omar and Tlaib, who share the privilege of being America’s first Muslim women elected to Congress. Tlaib, who is of Palestinian heritage, said Sunday that a peaceful solution “must include lifting the blockade, ending the occupation and dismantling the apartheid system that creates the suffocating, dehumanizing conditions that can lead to resistance.”

Anti-Israel “activists” and militants alike often use the term “resistance” to describe violent activity aimed at their perceived oppressors, from throwing stones to targeting civilians in suicide bombings.

“The failure to recognize the violent reality of living under siege, occupation, and apartheid makes no one safer,” Tlaib wrote, pushing a theory that Israeli civilians invited the atrocities experienced on Oct. 7.

In a lengthy social media thread, Omar declared, “Palestinians have few recourses for justice and accountability,” suggesting that the massacre of innocents was an acceptable course of action. She pointed to “lifelong psychological and physical trauma” experienced by Palestinians,” whom she claimed live under “occupation and systemic apartheid.”

Although Israel maintains external control of Gaza, the military occupation ended in 2005. The following year, Palestinians elected Hamas, a hardline terrorist government that fired thousands of rockets at Israeli population centers and launched countless terrorist attacks in Jewish towns and cities.

Along with her colleagues, Omar warnedagainst perpetuating “a cycle of violence,” an offensive cliche that implies Saturday’s intentional attack on innocent civilians was a morally equivalent answer to past Israeli military operations, equal in scale to the ferocious savagery exhibited by Hamas.

In reality, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) take great pains to avoid civilian casualties, following strict rules of engagement and punishing negligence. Conversely, Hamas uses human shields, fires rockets from launch sites in schoolyards and hospitals, and tunnels underneath residential neighborhoods.

Omar, Tlaib, and Bush each called for ending vital U.S. military aid to Israel at a time when it needs the funding more than ever. Since Israel’s founding, the U.S. has provided more than $270 billion in assistance so that its closest Middle Eastern ally maintains a military advantage over its Arab neighbors, which have collectively invaded Israel multiple times in recent history.

Reactions to this week’s killings from Pressley and Bowman were only slightly more restrained. Pressley, who has accusedIsrael of “oppression and apartheid,” called for “an immediate ceasefire and de-escalation,” while Bowman focused on ending “the blockade of Gaza.”

Anti-Israel commentary from House progressives earned immediate bipartisan condemnation. One of several moderate Democrats to condemn their colleagues’ anti-Israel statements, Rep. Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., balked at calls to cut off funding to Israel.

“It sickens me that while Israelis clean the blood of their family members … they believe Congress should strip U.S. funding to our democratic ally and allow innocent civilians to suffer,” Gottheimer told Axios.

Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., said Omar was “out of [her] mind and unfit to serve in the House of Representatives,” for accusing Israel of “a war crime” and calling to cut military aid to Israel. “This is why you [Omar] were removed from the Foreign Affairs Committee,” Lawler demurred.

For too long, House Democrats have tolerated efforts to vilify and demean Israel for the benefit of Hamas. More alarmingly, Congress has turned a blind eye to the far left’s dangerous and inappropriate partnerships with Hamas front organizations.

From supporting anti-Israel boycotts and opposing Israel’s admission in the Visa Waiver Program, to rejecting funding of Israel’s life-saving missile defense system and referring to Israel’s founding as a “catastrophe,” Squad members have relentlessly pushed to demonize and weaken the Jewish state through legislation.

By pushing anti-Israel legislation, radical leftist legislators are pandering to an unlikely constituency: America’s pro-Hamas lobby. Organizations such as the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) publicly endorse Squad-sponsored bills and statements critical of Israel.

In return, Omar and Tlaib are regulars on the CAIR speaking circuit, despite the Islamist group’s documented links to Hamas. In a July 1, 2009, ruling, Judge Jorge Solis determined, “The Government has produced ample evidence to establish the associations of CAIR … with Hamas.”

The judge’s ruling came after CAIR was listedas an “unindicted co-conspirator” in a terror finance trial involving Hamas. In 2009, Ghassan Elashi, a senior CAIR official, was sentenced in the same case to 65 years in prison for funneling millions of dollars to Hamas.

Despite the courtroom evidence, the opinions of federal judges and prosecutors, and warnings from federal law enforcement, Omar and Tlaib continue to champion CAIR, appearing at the groups’ fundraisers and holding legislative meetings.

Their patronage provides the Hamas lobby with an alarming foothold in U.S. Congress. When American Congress members react in such a way to the savage execution of children and elderly, and the subsequent desecration of their corpses, it only encourages Hamas and other jihadists to repeat these reprehensible acts.

This is a quick summary of the Bible’s reliability by a famous and well-respected former atheist. Please check out his website (http://www.leestrobel.com) for hundreds of FREE high quality videos investigating the critical aspects of our faith.

Todd Tyszka
www.toddtyszka.com

The Bible and Archaeology – Is the Bible from God? (Kyle Butt 42 min)

You want some evidence that indicates that the Bible is true? Here is a good place to start and that is taking a closer look at the archaeology of the Old Testament times. Is the Bible historically accurate? Here are some of the posts I have done in the past on the subject: 1. The Babylonian Chronicle, of Nebuchadnezzars Siege of Jerusalem, 2. Hezekiah’s Siloam Tunnel Inscription. 3. Taylor Prism (Sennacherib Hexagonal Prism), 4. Biblical Cities Attested Archaeologically. 5. The Discovery of the Hittites, 6.Shishak Smiting His Captives, 7. Moabite Stone, 8. Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III, 9A Verification of places in Gospel of John and Book of Acts., 9B Discovery of Ebla Tablets. 10. Cyrus Cylinder, 11. Puru “The lot of Yahali” 9th Century B.C.E., 12. The Uzziah Tablet Inscription, 13. The Pilate Inscription, 14. Caiaphas Ossuary, 14 B Pontius Pilate Part 2, 14c. Three greatest American Archaeologists moved to accept Bible’s accuracy through archaeology., 

On April 19, 2011 on the Arkansas Blog an entry of mine got this response from a person under the user name of “Norma Bates”:

My favorite “fake” “unconfirmed” quotes are those beginning with “Jesus said,” followed by anything enclosed in quotation marks, since the earliest gospel was written between 70 and 117 years after his supposed death and there were no eye-or-ear-witnesses to any of it.

But no matter. That’s what “faith” is all about. Unquestioning acceptance of hearsay as fact. And viciously attacking all who won’t play along with that pretense.

I responded with this:

I wanted you to know that the gospels were all finished before 100 AD. Patrick Zukeran of Probe Ministries reports:

The Rylands Papyri that was found in Egypt that contains a fragment of John, and dates to A.D. 130. From this fragment we can conclude that John was completed well before A.D. 130 because, not only did the gospel have to be written, it had to be hand copied and make its way down from Greece to Egypt. Since the vast majority of scholars agree that John is the last gospel written, we can affirm its first century date along with the other three with greater assurance.

A final piece of evidence comes from the Dead Sea Scrolls Cave 7. Jose Callahan discovered a fragment of the Gospel of Mark and dated it to have been written in A.D. 50. He also discovered fragments of Acts and other epistles and dated them to have been written slightly after A.D. 50 (Norman Geisler, Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics, (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Books, 2002), 530.)

I also earlier mentioned on another post about William Ramsey’s findings concerning the historical accuracy of the Book of Luke.  Of course, two of the most amazing finds are the Ossuary of Caiaphas and the Pilate Inscription. Both were very instrumental during the original Easter week.

Ossuary of Caiaphas

Did this ossuary contain the bones of Caiaphas, high priest during the time of Jesus?

This beautifully decorated ossuary found in the ruins of Jerusalem, contained the bones of Caiaphas, the first century AD. high priest during the time of Jesus.

On the side (as seen above) and the back of the ossuary is inscribed Caiaphas’ name (“Yosef bar Caifa”).

(see Matt 26:3, 57; Luke 3:2; John 11:49; 18:13-14, 24, 28; Acts 4:6; Josephus, Ant. 23.25, 39). It was a custom in ancient Israel to store the bones of the dead in ossuaries. They gathered the bones about a year after burial.

Caiaphas, who’s name means “searcher” was appointed high priest (after Simon ben Camith) by the procurator Valerius Gratus, under Tiberius, 18 A.D.. He continued in office from A.D. 26 to 37, when the proconsul Vitellius deposed him. He was the president of the Jewish council (Sanhedrim) which condemned the Lord Jesus to death, Caiaphas declaring Him guilty of blasphemy.

Caiaphas was the official high priest during the ministry and trial of Jesus (Matt 26:3, 57; Luke 3:2; John 11:49; 18:13, 14, 24, 28; Acts 4:6).

It was Caiaphas who, unknowingly, made the incredible prophecy concerning God’s plan of sacrificing Jesus for the sins of the nation and even the whole world:

John 11:47-54 “Then the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered a council and said, “What shall we do? For this Man works many signs. If we let Him alone like this, everyone will believe in Him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and nation.” And one of them, Caiaphas, being high priest that year, said to them, “You know nothing at all, nor do you consider that it is expedient for us that one man should die for the people, and not that the whole nation should perish.” Now this he did not say on his own authority; but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the nation, and not for that nation only, but also that He would gather together in one the children of God who were scattered abroad. Then, from that day on, they plotted to put Him to death.”

Matthew 26:3-5 “Then assembled together the chief priests, and the scribes, and the elders of the people, unto the palace of the high priest, who was called Caiaphas, And consulted that they might take Jesus by subtilty, and kill him. But they said, Not on the feast day, lest there be an uproar among the people.”

Matt 26:57-68 And those who had laid hold of Jesus led Him away to Caiaphas the high priest, where the scribes and the elders were assembled. But Peter followed Him at a distance to the high priest’s courtyard. And he went in and sat with the servants to see the end. Now the chief priests, the elders, and all the council sought false testimony against Jesus to put Him to death, but found none. Even though many false witnesses came forward, they found none. But at last two false witnesses came forward and said, “This fellow said, ‘I am able to destroy the temple of God and to build it in three days.’ ” And the high priest arose and said to Him, “Do You answer nothing? What is it these men testify against You?” But Jesus kept silent. And the high priest answered and said to Him, “I put You under oath by the living God: Tell us if You are the Christ, the Son of God!” Jesus said to him, “It is as you said. Nevertheless, I say to you, hereafter you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Power, and coming on the clouds of heaven.” Then the high priest tore his clothes, saying, “He has spoken blasphemy! What further need do we have of witnesses? Look, now you have heard His blasphemy! What do you think?” They answered and said, “He is deserving of death.” Then they spat in His face and beat Him; and others struck Him with the palms of their hands, saying, “Prophesy to us, Christ! Who is the one who struck You?”

John 18:19-24 “The high priest then asked Jesus about His disciples and His doctrine. Jesus answered him, “I spoke openly to the world. I always taught in synagogues and in the temple, where the Jews always meet, and in secret I have said nothing. Why do you ask Me? Ask those who have heard Me what I said to them. Indeed they know what I said.” And when He had said these things, one of the officers who stood by struck Jesus with the palm of his hand, saying, “Do You answer the high priest like that?” Jesus answered him, “If I have spoken evil, bear witness of the evil; but if well, why do you strike Me?” Then Annas sent Him bound to Caiaphas the high priest.”

The Jewish High Priests from 200 B.C to the Reign of Herod the Great

1. Simon II the Just, 220-190 B.C.
2. Onias III, 190-174 B.C.
3. Jason/Jeshua,175-172 B.C.
4. Menelaus, 172-162 B.C.
5. Alcimus, 162-156 B.C.
6. Jonathan, 153-142 B.C.
7. Simon, 142-135 B.C.
8. John Hyrcanus I, 134-104 B.C.
9. Aristobulus I, 104-103 B.C.
10. Alexander Jannaeus, 103-76 B.C.
11. Hyrcanus II, 76-67 B.C.
12. Aristobulus II, 67-63 B.C.
13. Hyrcanus II, 63-40 B.C.
14. Antigonus, 40-37 B.C.

The Jewish High Priests from Herod the Great to the Destruction of Jerusalem

15. Ananel, 37-36 B.C. (Appointed by Herod the Great)
16. Aristobulus III, 35 B.C.
17. Jesus, son of Phiabi, ? -22 B.C.
18. Simon, son of Boethus, 22-5 B.C.
19. Matthias, son of Theophilus, 5-4 B.C.
20. Joseph, son of Elam, 5 B.C.
21. Joezer, son of Boethus, 4 B.C.
22. Eleazar, son of Boethus, 4-1 B.C. – (Appointed by Herod Archelaus)
23. Jesus, son of Sie, 1 – 6 A.D.
24. Annas, 6-15 A.D. (Appointed by Quirinius)
25. Ishmael, son of Phiabi I, 15-16 A.D. (Appointed by Valerius Gratus)
26. Eleazar, son of Annas, 16-17 A.D.
27. Simon, son of Kamithos, 17-18 A.D.
28. Joseph Caiaphas, 18-37 AD.
29. Jonathan, son of Annas, 37 A.D. (Appointed by Vitellius)
30. Theophilus, son of Annas, 37-41 A.D.
31. Simon Kantheras, son of Boethus, 41-43 A.D. (Appointed by Herod Agrippa I)
32. Matthias, son of Annas, 43-44 A.D.
33. Elionaius, son of Kantheras, 44-45 A.D.
34. Joseph, son of Kami, 45-47 A.D. (Appointed by Herod of Chalcis)
35. Ananias, son of Nebedaius, 47-55 A.D.
36. Ishmael, son of Phiabi III, 55-61 A.D. (Appointed by Herod Agrippa II)
37. Joseph Qabi, son of Simon, 61-62 A.D.
38. Ananus, son of Ananus, 62 A.D.
39. Jesus, son of Damnaius, 62-65 A.D.
40. Joshua, son of Gamal iel, 63-65 A.D.
41. Matthias, son of Theophilus, 65-67 A.D.
42. Phinnias, son of Samuel, 67-70 A.D. (Appointed by The People)

Some dates cannot be known for certain.

I went to see the movie “The Conspirator” the other night and I really enjoyed it. Since then I have been digging up facts about the trial and the people involved in the trial.

The southern widow’s Maryland house was a crucial stop on the escape route for assassin John Wilkes Booth the night he shot the president.

Rick Warner’s review of “The Conspirator” is below:

As she mounted the gallows on a broiling summer day in 1865, Mary Surratt was shaded from the sun by an umbrella. She and three men, all convicted of conspiring to kill President Abraham Lincoln, were about to be hanged in a prison courtyard in Washington, D.C.

The umbrella is one of many fascinating details in Robert Redford’s “The Conspirator,” which focuses on the trial of the first woman executed by the U.S. federal government.

Director Redford and screenwriter James Solomon deserve credit for making a historical drama that largely sticks to the facts. The depiction of Surratt’s trial by a military tribunal is based on Solomon’s exhaustive research into the court transcripts and other written accounts of the trial.

Accuracy, however, doesn’t always produce a stirring story. “The Conspirator,” which is being released on the 146th anniversary of Lincoln’s death, is a talky, often ponderous film that’s better suited to the History Channel than your local multiplex.

The movie offers a sympathetic portrayal of Surratt, a widow who owned the Washington boarding house where John Wilkes Booth and his fellow conspirators plotted to kill Lincoln, Vice President Andrew Johnson and Secretary of State William Seward.

The case against Surratt was relatively weak, mostly based on her son John’s involvement with Booth and the fact that the conspirators met under her roof. She denied knowing anything about the Lincoln plot and refused to turn against her son, who fled the country after the assassination. But the military court — Gitmo analogies are sure to be made — wanted a swift, sure resolution.

Ford’s Theatre

Surratt is played with quiet dignity by Robin Wright, looking as stern as a Sunday school teacher. The other central character is her unlikely attorney, Frederick Aiken (a bearded, studious James McAvoy), a Union war hero who reluctantly agreed to defend a Southern sympathizer accused of plotting to kill the president.

Redford quickly sets the stage with cross-cut scenes of Booth shooting Lincoln at Ford’s Theatre, co-conspirator Lewis Powell savagely stabbing Seward in his bed (he survived) and their partner George Atzerodt getting drunk and failing to carry out his assignment to murder Johnson. The momentum stalls during the courtroom scenes, which are robotically enacted like a 19th- century version of “Law & Order.”

The period costumes and setting (the film was shot in Savannah, Georgia) are first rate, and Redford gets solid supporting performances from Tom Wilkinson and Evan Rachel Wood.

“The Conspirator,” from Roadside Attractions, opened yesterday across the U.S. Rating: **1/2

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Kos_data on Twitter: “Trump on the phone with @netanyahu after the 🇽🇰 – 🇷🇸 meeting “…between you and the Palestinians was peanuts compared… These guys [Kosovo & Serbia] fought for years and

201907201330005075_Netanyahu-becomes-Israels-longestserving-PM_

Kusher and Netanyahu at an earlier meeting last August. Photo: Israeli Prime Ministry/Handout/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

BIBI  BELIEVED PEACE THROUGH STRENGTH IS PAST TENSE IN USA with PRESIDENT OBAMA TAKING OVER!!

The Russian military was in Syria to shore up the Assad regime and protect Russian assets in Syria, such as the strategic Russian naval base in Latakia. That was a fact we could do little to change. But Putin shared with us and the United States a desire to prevent chemical weapons from falling into the hands of Islamic terrorists who posed a threat to Russia, too.

“Why don’t you get the Russians with your approval to take out the chemical stockpiles from Syria?” I suggested to the president. “We would back that decision.” This is in fact what transpired in the coming months, though some materials for chemical weapons were still left in Syria.

Yet, despite these positive results, the lingering effect of Obama’s last-minute turn to Congress was the impression that red lines can be crossed with impunity and that Obama would not employ America’s massive airpower even when the situation warranted it. I should have expected this.

The second important and telling exchange between Obama and me during his visit to Israel happened in private, and gave me a heads-up on how he viewed the use of American power. The day after the intimate dinner at the prime minister’s residence we met at a King David Hotel suite overlooking the Old City of Jerusalem. I argued again for an American strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities. America could still stop Iran from developing atomic bombs that would endanger America, Israel and the peace of the entire world. An American action now would give an enormous boost to the standing of the US and its president.

Obama’s response floored me and Itzik Molcho, who sat beside me. “Bibi,” he said, “Nobody likes Goliath. I don’t want to be an eight-hundred-pound gorilla strutting on the world stage. For too long we acted that way. We need to lead in a different way.”I was stunned. In the Middle East as I knew it, with Iran racing to nuclear weapons, and with the shifting geopolitical balance toward Asia, I would want to be a 1,200-pound gorilla, not an 800-pound one.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2023/10/the-hamas-attack-changes-everything/amp/

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The Hamas Attack Changes Everything

By ELLIOTT ABRAMS

October 7, 2023 4:02 PM

Israel now faces extremely difficult choices.

One can see other motives. This attack shows the world and shows Palestinians that Hamas is strong, while the Palestinian Authority and PLO are weak. And it shows Iran the same thing, perhaps giving hope to Hamas leaders that Iran will give them even more support.

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The Bible and Archaeology (4/5)

I have been amazed at the prophecies in the Bible that have been fulfilled in history, and also many of the historical details in the Bible have been confirmed by archaeology too. ( I have put a list below of several posts I have made in the past about this.) One of the most amazing is the prediction that the Jews would be brought back and settle in Jerusalem again. Another prophecy in Psalms 22 describes messiah dying on a cross  almost 1000 years before the Romans came up with this type of punishment.  One of the top 10 posts on this concerns the city of Tyre.  John MacArthur went through every detail of the prophecy concerning Tyre and how history shows the Bible prophecy was correct.

Below is an article on the Dead Sea Scrolls and it talks some about the dating of the Book of Daniel.

The Dead Sea Scrolls and Biblical Integrity

Bible believers often are confronted with the charge that the Bible is filled with mistakes. These alleged mistakes can be placed into two major categories: (1) apparent internal inconsistencies among revealed data; and (2) scribal mistakes in the underlying manuscripts themselves. The former category involves those situations in which there are apparent discrepancies between biblical texts regarding a specific event, person, place, etc. [For a treatment of such difficulties see Archer, 1982; Geisler and Brooks, 1989, pp. 163-178]. The latter category involves a much more fundamental concern—the integrity of the underlying documents of our English translations. Some charge that the Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek manuscripts, having been copied and recopied by hand over many years, contain a plethora of scribal errors that have altered significantly the information presented in the original documents. As such, we cannot be confident that our English translations reflect the information initially penned by biblical writers. However, the materials discovered at Qumran, commonly called the Dead Sea Scrolls, have provided impressive evidence for both the integrity of the Hebrew and Aramaic manuscripts of the Old Testament and the authenticity of the books themselves.

DATE OF THE MATERIALS

When the scrolls first were discovered in 1947, scholars disputed their dates of composition. Scholars now generally agree that although some materials are earlier, the Qumran materials date primarily to the Hasmonean (152-63 B.C.) and early Roman periods (63 B.C.-A.D. 68). Several strands of evidence corroborate these conclusions. First, archaeological evidence from the ruins of the Qumran community supports these dates. After six major seasons of excavations, archaeologists have identified three specific phases of occupation at the ancient center of Qumran. Coinage discovered in the first stratum dates from the reign of Antiochus VII Sidetes (138-129 B.C.). Such artifacts also indicate that the architecture associated with the second occupational phase dates no later than the time of Alexander Jannaeus (103-76 B.C.). Also reflected in the material remains of the site is the destruction of its buildings in the earthquake reported by the first-century Jewish historian, Josephus (Antiquities of the Jews, 15.5.2). Apparently, this natural disaster occurred around 31 B.C. a position that prompted the occupants to abandon the site for an indeterminate time. Upon reoccupation of the area—the third phase—the buildings were repaired and rebuilt precisely on the previous plan of the old communal complex. The community flourished until the Romans, under the military direction of Vespasian, occupied the site by force (see Cross, 1992, pp. 21-22). Such evidence is consistent with the second century B.C. to first-century A.D. dates for the scrolls.

The second strand of evidence is that the generally accepted dates for the scrolls are corroborated by palaeographical considerations. Palaeography is the study of ancient writing and, more specifically, the shape and style of letters. Characteristic of ancient languages, the manner in which Hebrew and Aramaic letters were written changed over a period of time. The trained eye can determine, within certain boundaries, the time frame of a document based upon the shape of its letters. This is the method by which scholars determine the date of a text on palaeographical grounds. According to this technique, the scripts at Qumran belong to three periods of palaeographical development: (1) a small group of biblical texts whose archaic style reflects the period between about 250-150 B.C.; (2) a large cache of manuscripts, both biblical and non-biblical, that is consistent with a writing style common to the Hasmonean period (c. 150-30 B.C.); and (3) a similarly large number of texts that evinces a writing style characteristic of the Herodian period (30 B.C.-A.D. 70). This linguistic information also is consistent with the commonly accepted dates of the Qumran materials.

Finally, as an aside, the carbon-14 tests done on both the cloth in which certain scrolls were wrapped, and the scrolls themselves, generally correspond to the palaeographic dates. There are, however, some considerable differences. Due to the inexact nature of carbon-14 dating techniques (see Major, 1993), and the possibility of chemical contamination, scholars place greater confidence in the historically corroborated palaeographic dates (see Shanks, 1991, 17[6]:72). At any rate, the archaeological and linguistic data provide scholars with reasonable confidence that the scrolls date from 250 B.C. to A.D. 70.

THE IMPORTANCE OF THE SCROLLS

While the importance of these documents is multifaceted, one of their principle contributions to biblical studies is in the area of textual criticism. This is the field of study in which scholars attempt to recreate the original content of a biblical text as closely as possible. Such work is legitimate and necessary since we possess only copies (apographs), not the original manuscripts (autographs) of Scripture. The Dead Sea Scrolls are of particular value in this regard for at least two reasons: (1) every book of the traditional Hebrew canon, except Esther, is represented (to some degree) among the materials at Qumran (Collins, 1992, 2:89); and (2) they have provided textual critics with ancient manuscripts against which they can compare the accepted text for accuracy of content.

THE SCROLLS AND THE MASORETIC TEXT

This second point is of particular importance since, prior to the discovery of the Qumran manuscripts, the earliest extant Old Testament texts were those known as the Masoretic Text (MT), which dated from about A.D. 980. The MT is the result of editorial work performed by Jewish scribes known as the Masoretes. The scribes’ designation was derived from the Hebrew word masora, which refers collectively to the notes entered on the top, bottom, and side margins of the MT manuscripts to safeguard traditional transmission. Hence, the Masoretes, as their name suggests, were the scribal preservers of the masora (Roberts, 1962, 3:295). From the fifth to the ninth century A.D., the Masoretes labored to introduce both these marginal notes and vowel points to the consonantal text—primarily to conserve correct pronunciation and spelling (see Seow, 1987, pp. 8-9).

Critical scholars questioned the accuracy of the MT, which formed the basis of our English versions of the Old Testament, since there was such a large chronological gap between it and the autographs. Because of this uncertainty, scholars often “corrected” the text with considerable freedom. Qumran, however, has provided remains of an early Masoretic edition predating the Christian era on which the traditional MT is based. A comparison of the MT to this earlier text revealed the remarkable accuracy with which scribes copied the sacred texts. Accordingly, the integrity of the Hebrew Bible was confirmed, which generally has heightened its respect among scholars and drastically reduced textual alteration.

Most of the biblical manuscripts found at Qumran belong to the MT tradition or family. This is especially true of the Pentateuch and some of the Prophets. The well-preserved Isaiah scroll from Cave 1 illustrates the tender care with which these sacred texts were copied. Since about 1700 years separated Isaiah in the MT from its original source, textual critics assumed that centuries of copying and recopying this book must have introduced scribal errors into the document that obscured the original message of the author.

The Isaiah scrolls found at Qumran closed that gap to within 500 years of the original manuscript. Interestingly, when scholars compared the MT of Isaiah to the Isaiah scroll of Qumran, the correspondence was astounding. The texts from Qumran proved to be word-for-word identical to our standard Hebrew Bible in more than 95 percent of the text. The 5 percent of variation consisted primarily of obvious slips of the pen and spelling alterations (Archer, 1974, p. 25). Further, there were no major doctrinal differences between the accepted and Qumran texts (see Table 1 below). This forcibly demonstrated the accuracy with which scribes copied sacred texts, and bolstered our confidence in the Bible’s textual integrity (see Yamauchi, 1972, p. 130). The Dead Sea Scrolls have increased our confidence that faithful scribal transcription substantially has preserved the original content of Isaiah.

TABLE 1. QUMRAN VS. THE MASORETES
______________________________________
Of the 166 Hebrew words in Isaiah 53, only
seventeen letters in Dead Sea Scroll 1QIs^b
differ from the Masoretic Text (Geisler and
Nix, 1986, p. 382).

10 letters = spelling differences

4 letters = stylistic changes

3 letters = added word for “light” (vs. 11)
______________________________________
17 letters = no affect on biblical teaching

CRITICAL SCHOLARSHIP, DANIEL, AND THE SCROLLS

The Qumran materials similarly have substantiated the textual integrity and authenticity of Daniel. Critical scholarship, as in the case of most all books of the Old Testament, has attempted to dismantle the authenticity of the book of Daniel. The message of the book claims to have originated during the Babylonian exile, from the first deportation of the Jews into captivity (606 B.C.; Daniel 1:1-2) to the ascension of the Persian Empire to world dominance (c. 536 B.C.; Daniel 10:1). This date, however, has been questioned and generally dismissed by critical scholars who date the final composition of the book to the second century B.C. Specifically, it is argued that the tales in chapters 1-6 as they appear in their present form can be no earlier than the Hellenistic age (c. 332 B.C.). Also, the four-kingdom outline, explicitly stated in chapter 2, allegedly requires a date after the rise of the Grecian Empire. Further, these scholars argue that since there is no explicit reference to Antiochus Epiphanes IV (175-164 B.C.), a Seleucid king clearly under prophetic consideration in chapter 11, a date in the late third or early second century B.C. is most likely (see Collins, 1992a, 2:31; Whitehorne, 1992, 1:270).

The apparent reason for this conclusion among critical scholars is the predictive nature of the book of Daniel. It speaks precisely of events that transpired several hundred years removed from the period in which it claims to have been composed. Since the guiding principles of the historical-critical method preclude a transcendent God’s intervening in human affairs (see Brantley, 1994), the idea of inspired predictive prophecy is dismissed a priori from the realm of possibility. Accordingly, Daniel could not have spoken with such precision about events so remote from his day. Therefore, critical scholars conclude that the book was written actually as a historical record of events during the Maccabean period, but couched in apocalyptic or prophetic language. Such conclusions clearly deny that this book was the authentic composition of a Daniel who lived in the sixth century B.C., that the Bible affirms.

The Dead Sea Scrolls have lifted their voice in this controversy. Due to the amount of Daniel fragments found in various caves near Qumran, it appears that this prophetic book was one of the most treasured by that community. Perhaps the popularity of Daniel was due to the fact that the people of Qumran lived during the anxious period in which many of these prophecies actually were being fulfilled. For whatever reason, Daniel was peculiarly safeguarded to the extent that we have at our disposal parts of all chapters of Daniel, except chapters 9 and 12. However, one manuscript (4QDan^c; 4 = Cave 4; Q = Qumran; Dan^c = one of the Daniel fragments arbitrarily designated “c” for clarification), published in November 1989, has been dated to the late second century B.C. (see Hasel, 1992, 5[2]:47). Two other major documents (4QDan^b, 4QDan^a) have been published since 1987, and contribute to scholarly analysis of Daniel. These recently released fragments have direct bearing on the integrity and authenticity of the book of Daniel.

INTEGRITY OF THE TEXT

As in the case of Isaiah, before Qumran there were no extant manuscripts of Daniel that dated earlier than the late tenth century A.D. Accordingly, scholars cast suspicion on the integrity of Daniel’s text. Also, as with Isaiah, this skepticism about the credibility of Daniel’s contents prompted scholars to take great freedom in adjusting the Hebrew text. One reason for this suspicion is the seemingly arbitrary appearance of Aramaic sections within the book. Some scholars had assumed from this linguistic shift that Daniel was written initially in Aramaic, and then some portions were translated into Hebrew. Further, a comparison of the Septuagint translation (Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible) with the MT revealed tremendous disparity in length and content between the two texts. Due to these and other considerations, critical scholars assigned little value to the MT rendition of Daniel.

Once again, however, the findings at Qumran have confirmed the integrity of Daniel’s text. Gerhard Hasel listed several strands of evidence from the Daniel fragments found at Qumran that support the integrity of the MT (see 1992, 5[2]:50). First, for the most part, the Dead Sea Scroll manuscripts of Daniel are very consistent in content among themselves, containing very few variants. Second, the Qumran fragments conform very closely to the MT overall, with only a few rare variants in the former that side with the Septuagint version. Third, the transitions from Hebrew to Aramaic are preserved in the Qumran fragments. Based on such overwhelming data, it is evident that the MT is a well-preserved rendition of Daniel. In short, Qumran assures us that we can be reasonably confident that the Daniel text on which our English translations are based is one of integrity. Practically speaking, this means that we have at our disposal, through faithful translations of the original, the truth God revealed to Daniel centuries ago.

DATE OF THE BOOK

The Daniel fragments found at Qumran also speak to the issue of Daniel’s authenticity. As mentioned earlier, conventional scholarship generally places the final composition of Daniel during the second century B.C. Yet, the book claims to have been written by a Daniel who lived in the sixth century B.C. However, the Dead Sea fragments of Daniel present compelling evidence for the earlier, biblical date of this book.

The relatively copious remains of Daniel indicate the importance of this book to the Qumran community. Further, there are clear indications that this book was considered “canonical” for the community, which meant it was recognized as an authoritative book on a par with other biblical books (e.g., Deuteronomy, Kings, Isaiah, Psalms). The canonicity of Daniel at Qumran is indicated, not only by the prolific fragments, but by the manner in which it is referenced in other materials. One fragment employs the quotation, “which was written in the book of Daniel the prophet.” This phrase, similar to Jesus’ reference to “Daniel the prophet” (Matthew 24:15), was a formula typically applied to quotations from canonical Scripture at Qumran (see Hasel, 1992, 5[2]:51).

The canonical status of Daniel at Qumran is important to the date and authenticity of the book. If, as critical scholars allege, Daniel reached its final form around 160 B.C., how could it have attained canonical status at Qumran in a mere five or six decades? While we do not know exactly how long it took for a book to reach such authoritative status, it appears that more time is needed for this development (see Bruce, 1988, pp. 27-42). Interestingly, even before the most recent publication of Daniel fragments, R.K. Harrison recognized that the canonical status of Daniel at Qumran militated against its being a composition of the Maccabean era, and served as confirmation of its authenticity (1969, p. 1126-1127).

Although Harrison made this observation in 1969, over three decades before the large cache of Cave 4 documents was made available to the general and scholarly public, no new evidence has refuted it. On the contrary, the newly released texts from Qumran have confirmed this conclusion. The canonical acceptance of Daniel at Qumran indicates the antiquity of the book’s composition—certainly much earlier than the Maccabean period. Hence, the most recent publications of Daniel manuscripts offer confirmation of Daniel’s authenticity; it was written when the Bible says it was written.

A final contribution from Qumran to the biblically claimed date for Daniel’s composition comes from linguistic considerations. Though, as we mentioned earlier, critical scholars argue that the Aramaic sections in Daniel indicate a second-century B.C. date of composition, the Qumran materials suggest otherwise. In fact, a comparison of the documents at Qumran with Daniel demonstrates that the Aramaic in Daniel is a much earlier composition than the second-century B.C. Such a comparison further demonstrates that Daniel was written in a region different from that of Judea. For example, the Genesis Apocryphon found in Cave 1 is a second-century B.C. document written in Aramaic—the same period during which critical scholars argue that Daniel was composed. If the critical date for Daniel’s composition were correct, it should reflect the same linguistic characteristics of the Genesis Apocryphon. Yet, the Aramaic of these two books is markedly dissimilar.

The Genesis Apocryphon, for example, tends to place the verb toward the beginning of the clause, whereas Daniel tends to defer the verb to a later position in the clause. Due to such considerations, linguists suggest that Daniel reflects an Eastern type Aramaic, which is more flexible with word order, and exhibits scarcely any Western characteristics at all. In each significant category of linguistic comparison (i.e., morphology, grammar, syntax, vocabulary), the Genesis Apocryphon (admittedly written in the second century B.C.) reflects a much later style than the language of Daniel (Archer, 1980, 136:143; cf. Yamauchi, 1980). Interestingly, the same is true when the Hebrew of Daniel is compared with the Hebrew preserved in the Qumran sectarian documents (i.e., those texts composed by the Qumran community reflecting their peculiar societal laws and religious customs). From such linguistic considerations provided by Qumran, Daniel hardly could have been written by a Jewish patriot in Judea during the early second-century B.C., as the critics charge.

CONCLUSION

There are, of course, critical scholars who, despite the evidence, continue to argue against the authenticity of Daniel and other biblical books. Yet, the Qumran texts have provided compelling evidence that buttresses our faith in the integrity of the manuscripts on which our translations are based. It is now up to Bible believers to allow these texts to direct our attention to divine concerns and become the people God intends us to be.

REFERENCES

Archer, Gleason, Jr. (1974), A Survey of Old Testament Introduction (Chicago, IL: Moody).

Archer, Gleason, Jr. (1980), “Modern Rationalism and the Book of Daniel,” Bibliotheca Sacra, 136:129-147, April-June.

Archer, Gleason, Jr. (1982), Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker).

Brantley, Garry K. (1994), “Biblical Miracles: Fact or Fiction?,” Reason and Revelation, 14:33-38, May.

Bruce, F.F. (1988), The Canon of Scriptures (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press).

Collins, John J. (1992a), “Daniel, Book of,” The Anchor Bible Dictionary, ed. David Noel Freedman (New York: Doubleday), 2:29-37.

Collins, John J. (1992b), “Dead Sea Scrolls,” The Anchor Bible Dictionary, ed. David Noel Freedman (New York: Doubleday), 2:85-101.

Cross, Frank Moore (1992), “The Historical Context of the Scrolls,” Understanding the Dead Sea Scrolls, ed. Hershel Shanks (New York: Random House).

Geisler, Norman and Ronald Brooks (1989), When Skeptics Ask (Wheaton, IL: Victor).

Geisler, Norman and William Nix (1986), A General Intorduction to the Bible (Chicago, IL: Moody).

Harrison, R.K. (1969), Introduction to the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans).

Hasel, Gerhard (1992), “New Light on the Book of Daniel from the Dead Sea Scrolls,” Archaeology and Biblical Research, 5[2]:45-53, Spring.

Josephus, “Antiquities of the Jews,” The Life and Works of Flavius Josephus, (Chicago, IL: John C. Winston; translated by William Whiston).

Major, Trevor (1993), “Dating in Archaeology: Radiocarbon and Tree-Ring Dating,” Reason and Revelation, 13:73-77, October.

Roberts, B.J. (1962), “Masora,” The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible (Nashville, TN: Abingdon), 3:295.

Seow, C.L. (1987), A Grammar for Biblical Hebrew (Nashville, TN: Abingdon).

Shanks, Hershel (1991), “Carbon-14 Tests Substantiate Scroll Dates,” Biblical Archaeology Review, 17[6]:72, November/December.

Whitehorne, John (1992), “Antiochus,” The Anchor Bible Dictionary, ed. David Noel Freedman (New York: Doubleday), 1:269-272.

Yamauchi, Edwin (1972), The Stones and the Scriptures: An Evangelical Perspective (New York: Lippincott).

Yamauchi, Edwin (1980), “The Archaeological Background of Daniel,” Bibliotheca Sacra, 137:3-16, January-March.

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Related posts:

Is the Bible historically accurate? Here are some of the posts I have done in the past on the subject:

1. The Babylonian Chronicle
of Nebuchadnezzars Siege of Jerusalem

This clay tablet is a Babylonian chronicle recording events from 605-594BC. It was first translated in 1956 and is now in the British Museum. The cuneiform text on this clay tablet tells, among other things, 3 main events: 1. The Battle of Carchemish (famous battle for world supremacy where Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon defeated Pharoah Necho of Egypt, 605 BC.), 2. The accession to the throne of Nebuchadnezzar II, the Chaldean, and 3. The capture of Jerusalem on the 16th of March, 598 BC.

2. Hezekiah’s Siloam Tunnel Inscription.

King Hezekiah of Judah ruled from 721 to 686 BC. Fearing a siege by the Assyrian king, Sennacherib, Hezekiah preserved Jerusalem’s water supply by cutting a tunnel through 1,750 feet of solid rock from the Gihon Spring to the Pool of Siloam inside the city walls (2 Kings 20; 2 Chron. 32). At the Siloam end of the tunnel, an inscription, presently in the archaeological museum at Istanbul, Turkey, celebrates this remarkable accomplishment.

3. Taylor Prism (Sennacherib Hexagonal Prism)

It contains the victories of Sennacherib himself, the Assyrian king who had besieged Jerusalem in 701 BC during the reign of king Hezekiah, it never mentions any defeats. On the prism Sennacherib boasts that he shut up “Hezekiah the Judahite” within Jerusalem his own royal city “like a caged bird.” This prism is among the three accounts discovered so far which have been left by the Assyrian king Sennacherib of his campaign against Israel and Judah.

4. Biblical Cities Attested Archaeologically.

In addition to Jericho, places such as Haran, Hazor, Dan, Megiddo, Shechem, Samaria, Shiloh, Gezer, Gibeah, Beth Shemesh, Beth Shean, Beersheba, Lachish, and many other urban sites have been excavated, quite apart from such larger and obvious locations as Jerusalem or Babylon. Such geographical markers are extremely significant in demonstrating that fact, not fantasy, is intended in the Old Testament historical narratives;

5. The Discovery of the Hittites

Most doubting scholars back then said that the Hittites were just a “mythical people that are only mentioned in the Bible.” Some skeptics pointed to the fact that the Bible pictures the Hittites as a very big nation that was worthy of being coalition partners with Egypt (II Kings 7:6), and these bible critics would assert that surely we would have found records of this great nation of Hittites.  The ironic thing is that when the Hittite nation was discovered, a vast amount of Hittite documents were found. Among those documents was the treaty between Ramesses II and the Hittite King.

6.Shishak Smiting His Captives

The Bible mentions that Shishak marched his troops into the land of Judah and plundered a host of cities including Jerusalem,  this has been confirmed by archaeologists. Shishak’s own record of his campaign is inscribed on the south wall of the Great Temple of Amon at Karnak in Egypt. In his campaign he presents 156 cities of Judea to his god Amon.

7. Moabite Stone

The Moabite Stone also known as the Mesha Stele is an interesting story. The Bible says in 2 Kings 3:5 that Mesha the king of Moab stopped paying tribute to Israel and rebelled and fought against Israel and later he recorded this event. This record from Mesha has been discovered.

8. Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III

The tribute of Jehu, son of Omri, silver, gold, bowls of gold, chalices of gold, cups of gold, vases of gold, lead, a sceptre for the king, and spear-shafts, I have received.”

View from the dome of the Capitol!9A Verification of places in Gospel of John and Book of Acts.

Sir William Ramsay, famed archaeologist, began a study of Asia Minor with little regard for the book of Acts. He later wrote:

I found myself brought into contact with the Book of Acts as an authority for the topography, antiquities and society of Asia Minor. It was gradually borne upon me that in various details the narrative showed marvelous truth.

9B Discovery of Ebla Tablets. When I think of discoveries like the Ebla Tablets that verify  names like Adam, Eve, Ishmael, David and Saul were in common usage when the Bible said they were, it makes me think of what amazing confirmation that is of the historical accuracy of the Bible.

10. Cyrus Cylinder

There is a well preserved cylinder seal in the Yale University Library from Cyrus which contains his commands to resettle the captive nations.

11. Puru “The lot of Yahali” 9th Century B.C.E.

This cube is inscribed with the name and titles of Yahali and a prayer: “In his year assigned to him by lot (puru) may the harvest of the land of Assyria prosper and thrive, in front of the gods Assur and Adad may his lot (puru) fall.”  It provides a prototype (the only one ever recovered) for the lots (purim) cast by Haman to fix a date for the destruction of the Jews of the Persian Empire, ostensibly in the fifth century B.C.E. (Esther 3:7; cf. 9:26).

12. The Uzziah Tablet Inscription

The Bible mentions Uzziah or Azariah as the king of the southern kingdom of Judah in 2 Kings 15. The Uzziah Tablet Inscription is a stone tablet (35 cm high x 34 cm wide x 6 cm deep) with letters inscribed in ancient Hebrew text with an Aramaic style of writing, which dates to around 30-70 AD. The text reveals the burial site of Uzziah of Judah, who died in 747 BC.

13. The Pilate Inscription

The Pilate Inscription is the only known occurrence of the name Pontius Pilate in any ancient inscription. Visitors to the Caesarea theater today see a replica, the original is in the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. There have been a few bronze coins found that were struck form 29-32 AD by Pontius Pilate

14. Caiaphas Ossuary

This beautifully decorated ossuary found in the ruins of Jerusalem, contained the bones of Caiaphas, the first century AD. high priest during the time of Jesus.

14 B Pontius Pilate Part 2      

In June 1961 Italian archaeologists led by Dr. Frova were excavating an ancient Roman amphitheatre near Caesarea-on-the-Sea (Maritima) and uncovered this interesting limestone block. On the face is a monumental inscription which is part of a larger dedication to Tiberius Caesar which clearly says that it was from “Pontius Pilate, Prefect of Judea.”

14c. Three greatest American Archaeologists moved to accept Bible’s accuracy through archaeology.

Despite their liberal training, it was archaeological research that bolstered their confidence in the biblical text:Albright said of himself, “I must admit that I tried to be rational and empirical in my approach [but] we all have presuppositions of a philosophical order.” The same statement could be applied as easily to Gleuck and Wright, for all three were deeply imbued with the theological perceptions which infused their work.

________

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with his father, Benzion, during a memorial ceremony for Yoni Netanyahu at Mount Herzl military cemetery, Jerusalem, 2007 (photo credit: Michal Fattal/Flash90)

Yonathan Netanyahu –

Obama administration didn’t understand that BIBI was looking out for the security of Israel first and foremost!!!!

“And now it falls on my shoulders as the prime minister of Israel at a time of extraordinary instability and uncertainty in the Middle East to work with you to fashion a peace that will ensure Israel’s security and will not jeopardize its survival. Mr. President, history will not give the Jewish people another chance.” Obama remained aloof but his staff was furious.

Rahm Emanuel was no longer chief of staff but William Daley, who took over, was standing behind Dermer and squeezed his shoulder. “Does your boss always lecture people in their office?” he whispered angrily to Ron. “Only when they kick his country in their teeth,” Ron replied.

My Oval Office remarks were given on Friday, May 20, and the following Monday I met with Vice President Biden in the Roosevelt Room of the White House. “We’re a proud country,” he said sternly. “And no one, but no one, has the right to humiliate the president of the United States.” I explained that no humiliation was intended. I had merely clarified the elements critical for Israel’s survival. “To you, Joe, it’s an important matter,” I said. “To us it’s a matter of life and death.” Biden lightened up. “That reminds me of the story of the chicken and the pig,” he said. “The chicken suggested to the pig that they please the farmer by preparing a breakfast of bacon and eggs for him. The pig objects, saying to the chicken, ‘For you it’s a contribution, for me it’s a lifetime commitment.’ ” Our delegation burst out laughing.

Notwithstanding his frustration with my “lecture,” Obama pulled back somewhat on his 1967 borders formula after my speech, saying that any final peace settlement between Israel and the Palestinians would have to take into account “developments on the ground,” a clear nod that the Jewish settlement blocs would stay in place in his envisioned plan. When I spoke to AIPAC I said, “Israel is not what’s wrong in the Middle East, Israel is what’s right in the Middle East.” I repeated this theme the next day in my second speech to a joint meeting of Congress.

Yoni, Bibi and Iddo Netanyahu (Courtesy Netanyahu family)

Blinken deletes social media post calling for Israel-Hamas ‘cease-fire’

State Department said nine Americans have been killed so far in the attacks by Hamas

By Pilar Arias Fox News

“The Biden Administration is showing its true colors. Once Israel indicated it was going on offense into Gaza, Blinken encourage a cease-fire,” Rep. Mike Waltz, R-Fla., tweeted in response with a screenshot of the now-deleted post.

NETANYAHU TELLS BIDEN ‘WE HAVE TO GO IN’ TO GAZA FOLLOWING HAMAS ATTACKS: REPORT

“Anyone demanding Israel not ‘escalate’ or calling for a ‘cease-fire’ is either out of touch with this unfortunate reality or sympathizes with Hamas,” Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., tweeted.

“It seems that US Secretary of State #Blinken deleted yesterday’s tweet where he ‘encouraged’ Hamas-supporting Turkey arranging a cease-fire between Hamas and Israel. Are there any actual adults in charge in Foggy Bottom? #IsraelUnderAttack,” retired U.S. diplomat Alberto Miguel Fernandez said.

The State Department said nine Americans have been killed so far in the attacks by Hamas, which began on Saturday.

Fox News Digital reached out to the State Departmentregarding Blinken’s tweet, but they did not go on record with a comment.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., also responded to the violence in Israel with a call for a cease-fire.

“Today is devastating for all those seeking a lasting peace and respect for human rights in Israel and Palestine. I condemn Hamas’ attack in the strongest possible terms. No child and family should ever endure this kind of violence and fear, and this violence will not solve the ongoing oppression and occupation in the region. An immediate ceasefire and de-escalation is needed urgently to save lives,” a statement released Saturday on X said.

LIVE UPDATES: HAMAS ATTACKS ON ISRAEL 

Israeli firefighters extinguish fire at a site struck by a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip in Ashkelon, Israel, on Monday. (AP/Tsafrir Abayov)

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Israeli media is reporting Monday that at least 800 Israelis have been killed, while the Palestinian Ministry of Health is reporting more than 550 deaths in the Gaza Strip.

Fox News’ Greg Norman contributed to this report. 

______

Lots of evidence points to the Bible being historically accurate, for instance, King David existed!!

House of David Inscription

The current issue of Biblical Archaeology Review has an article entitled, “Archaeology Confirms 50 Real People in the Bible,” by Lawrence Mykytiuk. The first in his list is King David, whose name was found in the Tel Dan Stela, found in Tel Dan in July, 1993. Mykytiuk writes:

According to the Bible, David ruled in the tenth century B.C.E., using the traditional chronology. Until 1993, however, the personal name David had never appeared in the archaeological record, let alone a reference to King David. That led some scholars to doubt his very existence. According to this speculation David was either a shadowy, perhaps mythical, ancestor or a literary creation of later Biblical authors and editors. In 1993, however, the now-famous Tel Dan inscription was found in an excavation led by Avraham Biran. Actually, it was the team’s surveyor, Gila Cook, who noticed the inscription on a basalt stone in secondary use in the lower part of a wall. Written in ninth-century B.C.E. Aramaic, it was part of a victory stele commissioned by a non-Israelite king mentioning his victory over “the king of Israel” and the “House of David.” ^{[See BAR 20:02, Mar-Apr 1994]} Whether or not the foreign king’s claim to victory was true, it is clear that a century after he had died, David was still remembered as the founder of a dynasty.

This past October I had the occasion to photograph this important stela, which is housed in the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.Gary Byers suggests that the stela “most likely memorializes the victory of Hazael, king of Aram, over Joram, king of Israel, and Ahaziah, king of Judah, at Ramoth Gilead recorded in 2 Kings 8:28–29″ (Bible and Spade 16:4, p. 121).For more information on the House of David see Ferrell Jenkins’ post illustrating Isaiah 7 here.

____________

The Bible and Archaeology (1/5)

The Bible maintains several characteristics that prove it is from God. One of those is the fact that the Bible is accurate in every one of its details. The field of archaeology brings to light this amazing accuracy and Kyle Butt does a great job of showing that in this film series he did on “The Bible and Archaeology.”

_________________________-

Is the Bible historically accurate? Here are some of the posts I have done in the past on the subject:

1. The Babylonian Chronicle
of Nebuchadnezzars Siege of Jerusalem

This clay tablet is a Babylonian chronicle recording events from 605-594BC. It was first translated in 1956 and is now in the British Museum. The cuneiform text on this clay tablet tells, among other things, 3 main events: 1. The Battle of Carchemish (famous battle for world supremacy where Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon defeated Pharoah Necho of Egypt, 605 BC.), 2. The accession to the throne of Nebuchadnezzar II, the Chaldean, and 3. The capture of Jerusalem on the 16th of March, 598 BC.

2. Hezekiah’s Siloam Tunnel Inscription.

King Hezekiah of Judah ruled from 721 to 686 BC. Fearing a siege by the Assyrian king, Sennacherib, Hezekiah preserved Jerusalem’s water supply by cutting a tunnel through 1,750 feet of solid rock from the Gihon Spring to the Pool of Siloam inside the city walls (2 Kings 20; 2 Chron. 32). At the Siloam end of the tunnel, an inscription, presently in the archaeological museum at Istanbul, Turkey, celebrates this remarkable accomplishment.

3. Taylor Prism (Sennacherib Hexagonal Prism)

It contains the victories of Sennacherib himself, the Assyrian king who had besieged Jerusalem in 701 BC during the reign of king Hezekiah, it never mentions any defeats. On the prism Sennacherib boasts that he shut up “Hezekiah the Judahite” within Jerusalem his own royal city “like a caged bird.” This prism is among the three accounts discovered so far which have been left by the Assyrian king Sennacherib of his campaign against Israel and Judah.

4. Biblical Cities Attested Archaeologically.

In addition to Jericho, places such as Haran, Hazor, Dan, Megiddo, Shechem, Samaria, Shiloh, Gezer, Gibeah, Beth Shemesh, Beth Shean, Beersheba, Lachish, and many other urban sites have been excavated, quite apart from such larger and obvious locations as Jerusalem or Babylon. Such geographical markers are extremely significant in demonstrating that fact, not fantasy, is intended in the Old Testament historical narratives;

5. The Discovery of the Hittites

Most doubting scholars back then said that the Hittites were just a “mythical people that are only mentioned in the Bible.” Some skeptics pointed to the fact that the Bible pictures the Hittites as a very big nation that was worthy of being coalition partners with Egypt (II Kings 7:6), and these bible critics would assert that surely we would have found records of this great nation of Hittites.  The ironic thing is that when the Hittite nation was discovered, a vast amount of Hittite documents were found. Among those documents was the treaty between Ramesses II and the Hittite King.

6.Shishak Smiting His Captives

The Bible mentions that Shishak marched his troops into the land of Judah and plundered a host of cities including Jerusalem,  this has been confirmed by archaeologists. Shishak’s own record of his campaign is inscribed on the south wall of the Great Temple of Amon at Karnak in Egypt. In his campaign he presents 156 cities of Judea to his god Amon.

7. Moabite Stone

The Moabite Stone also known as the Mesha Stele is an interesting story. The Bible says in 2 Kings 3:5 that Mesha the king of Moab stopped paying tribute to Israel and rebelled and fought against Israel and later he recorded this event. This record from Mesha has been discovered.

8. Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III

The tribute of Jehu, son of Omri, silver, gold, bowls of gold, chalices of gold, cups of gold, vases of gold, lead, a sceptre for the king, and spear-shafts, I have received.”

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The Bible and Archaeology (2/5)

9A Verification of places in Gospel of John and Book of Acts.

Sir William Ramsay, famed archaeologist, began a study of Asia Minor with little regard for the book of Acts. He later wrote:

I found myself brought into contact with the Book of Acts as an authority for the topography, antiquities and society of Asia Minor. It was gradually borne upon me that in various details the narrative showed marvelous truth.

9B Discovery of Ebla Tablets. When I think of discoveries like the Ebla Tablets that verify  names like Adam, Eve, Ishmael, David and Saul were in common usage when the Bible said they were, it makes me think of what amazing confirmation that is of the historical accuracy of the Bible.

10. Cyrus Cylinder

There is a well preserved cylinder seal in the Yale University Library from Cyrus which contains his commands to resettle the captive nations.

11. Puru “The lot of Yahali” 9th Century B.C.E.

This cube is inscribed with the name and titles of Yahali and a prayer: “In his year assigned to him by lot (puru) may the harvest of the land of Assyria prosper and thrive, in front of the gods Assur and Adad may his lot (puru) fall.”  It provides a prototype (the only one ever recovered) for the lots (purim) cast by Haman to fix a date for the destruction of the Jews of the Persian Empire, ostensibly in the fifth century B.C.E. (Esther 3:7; cf. 9:26).

12. The Uzziah Tablet Inscription

The Bible mentions Uzziah or Azariah as the king of the southern kingdom of Judah in 2 Kings 15. The Uzziah Tablet Inscription is a stone tablet (35 cm high x 34 cm wide x 6 cm deep) with letters inscribed in ancient Hebrew text with an Aramaic style of writing, which dates to around 30-70 AD. The text reveals the burial site of Uzziah of Judah, who died in 747 BC.

13. The Pilate Inscription

The Pilate Inscription is the only known occurrence of the name Pontius Pilate in any ancient inscription. Visitors to the Caesarea theater today see a replica, the original is in the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. There have been a few bronze coins found that were struck form 29-32 AD by Pontius Pilate

14. Caiaphas Ossuary

This beautifully decorated ossuary found in the ruins of Jerusalem, contained the bones of Caiaphas, the first century AD. high priest during the time of Jesus.

14 B Pontius Pilate Part 2      

In June 1961 Italian archaeologists led by Dr. Frova were excavating an ancient Roman amphitheatre near Caesarea-on-the-Sea (Maritima) and uncovered this interesting limestone block. On the face is a monumental inscription which is part of a larger dedication to Tiberius Caesar which clearly says that it was from “Pontius Pilate, Prefect of Judea.”

14c. Three greatest American Archaeologists moved to accept Bible’s accuracy through archaeology.

Despite their liberal training, it was archaeological research that bolstered their confidence in the biblical text:Albright said of himself, “I must admit that I tried to be rational and empirical in my approach [but] we all have presuppositions of a philosophical order.” The same statement could be applied as easily to Gleuck and Wright, for all three were deeply imbued with the theological perceptions which infused their work.

The Bible and Archaeology (3/5)

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