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Top Ten Biblical Discoveries in Archaeology – #7 Hezekiah’s Tunnel

This post is a continuation of our Top Ten Biblical Discoveries in Archaeology series. To see the complete series please click here.

A Tough Time to be Alive

Our #7 biblically significant discovery in archaeology takes us back again to the time of the #10 discovery. If you haven’t read about the Assyrian Lachish Reliefs please click here to become more familiar with the events of 8th century BC Judah.

The year is 701BC. Sennacherib, the King of Assyria, has destroyed nearly every prominent town in the southern kingdom of Judah. Israel lies in ruins. Sennacherib thrusts the power of the Assyrian army toward the all-important city of Jerusalem. Jerusalem houses the God of the Jews. The defeat of Jerusalem would be a large strategic and symbolic victory.

The Assyrians employ the military strategy of the siege. The army surrounds the fortified walls of a city, cut off all water and food to the city, and then they wait. The term, “siege” derives from sedere, Latin for “to sit”. Attacking armies would wait weeks, months or even years. Assyria had recently besieged nearby Samaria, destroying it after waiting 3 years. As the people in the city grew sick and weak the healthy army would then advance to destroy the city. There are usually only three outcomes of a siege: survive by finding a way to get food and water, surrender or die.

Jerusalem faces certain ruin. Hezekiah, one of the few godly kings, encourages his people to trust in God. God will deliver them from Sennacherib. 2 Kings 18:7 tells us, “He rebelled against the king of Assyria and would not serve him.” In 2 Kings 18 we learn the Assyrian commander tells the people of Jerusalem, “Do not listen to Hezekiah, for he is misleading you when he says, ‘The Lord will deliver us.’ Has the god of any nation ever delivered his land from the hand of the kind of Assyria?” The Assyrians first try to convince the people of Jerusalem to overthrow Hezekiah.

The head Assyrian commander tells the people of Jerusalem, “Has my master sent me to speak these words to your master and to you, and not to the men sitting on the wall, who are doomed to with you to eat their own dung and to drink their own urine?” (2 Kings 18:27) If the people of Jerusalem don’t overthrow Hezekiah they, their wives and children will be forced to desperate measures just to stay alive.
The people of Jerusalem had a secret. They had been involved in one of the greatest engineering feats of the ancient world. It’s amazing what humans can accomplish when their backs are against the wall. The inhabitants of Jerusalem, facing certain death, found a secret way to get a constant source of water into Jerusalem. The Bible, in three areas, briefly mentions our #7 discovery:

“And the rest of the acts of Hezekiah, and all his might, and how he made a pool, and a conduit, and brought water into the city, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah?” 2 Kings 20:20

“And when Hezekiah saw that Sennacherib was come, and that he was purposed to fight against Jerusalem, He took counsel with his princes and his mighty men to stop the waters of the fountains which were without the city: and they did help him. So there was gathered much people together, who stopped all the fountains, and the brook that ran through the midst of the land, saying, Why should the kings of Assyria come, and find much water?” 2 Chronicles 32:2-4

“This same Hezekiah also stopped the upper watercourse of Gihon, and brought it straight down to the west side of the city of David. And Hezekiah prospered in all his works.” 2 Chronicles 32:30

Hezekiah trusted in the supernatural power of God to deliver him AND he also employed immense hard work and ingenuity to keep his people alive. The Bible tells us he hid the Jerusalem water supply from the Assyrians and brought it underground into Jerusalem. This is all we know from Scripture.

Discovery

In 1838 American biblical scholar Edward Robinson shook up the archaeological world by discovering Hezekiah’s Tunnel. The tunnel was far more spectacular than anyone could have imagined. Two other tunnels had been dug in Israel out of soft chalky rock. The tunnel in Hazor is 82 feet long. The tunnel in Megiddo is 262 feet long. Hezekiah’s tunnel, in comparison, was dug through solid bed rock. What is the length of his tunnel? 1,750 feet!

The tunnel provides a constant stream of water through the city of Jerusalem. The tunnel takes water from the Gihon Spring and empties out at a place called the Pool of Siloam. The tunnel, surprisingly, does not follow the most direct route from the spring to the pool. The tunnel travels in an s-shape. If the tunnel was straight it would have only needed to have been 1070 feet, or 40% shorter. While the tunnel is far underground (appx 131 feet underground), the slope of the tunnel is precise. The tunnel slopes at a steady 0.6% grade. Once inside the tunnel another surprise is apparent. The head room within the tunnel varies considerably. The tunnel is always about as wide as a man’s shoulders. At the beginning of the tunnel the head room is pretty tight causing people to have to walk through it a bit hunched over. The last 160 feet of the tunnel, however, the ceiling soars up to 17 feet tall.

Toward one end of the tunnel, amazingly, an ancient Hebrew inscription was found on the wall. The inscription commemorates the point when two teams, digging from each end, finally met in the middle. The inscription reads:

“[…when] (the tunnel) was driven through. And this was the way in which it was cut through: While […] (were) still […] axe(s), each man toward his fellow, and while there were still three cubits to be cut through, [there was heard] the voice of a man calling to his fellows, for there was an overlap in the rock on the right [and on the left]. And when the tunnel was driven through, the quarrymen hewed (the rock), each man toward his fellow, axe against axe; and the water flowed from the spring toward the reservoir for 1200 cubits, and the height of the rock above the head(s) of the quarrymen was 100 cubits.”

Scientists have used several techniques to confirm the 8th century date of the tunnel. Some, especially those who claim the Jewish people did not have a sovereign kingdom in Jerusalem, claim the tunnel must have been created substantially more recent than 2,700 years ago. Analysis of the ancient writing; Carbon 14 dating of the plant life disrupted by the tunnel; uranium-thorium dating of the stalactites and stalagmites that grew after completion of the tunnel have all supported a date of around 700BC, the date given in the Bible for these events.

Construction of the Tunnel

How was Hezekiah’s Tunnel constructed without modern day equipment? How could two teams 131 feet underground, without GPS, meet in the middle connecting the two tunnels? How were the workers and subsequent users of the tunnel able to breathe oxygen? Why was the tunnel S-shaped and not straight? How were the workers able to maintain a precise 0.6% grade slope underground for 1,750 feet? These questions, ultimately, remain a mystery.

Over the past 150 years many theories have been offered to explain all these questions. Room is not available in this post to go into all of the theories. The wonder of it all is that the tunnel stands today, undisputed, still carrying water from the Gihon Spring to the Pool of Siloam.

Visiting the Tunnel Today

If you ever get the chance to visit Jerusalem I highly recommend you take the time, walk down the steep hill from the temple mount and walk through Hezekiah’s Tunnel. Most famous archaeological discoveries are only observable behind the glass of a museum. Hezekiah’s Tunnel is the equivalent of an amusement park. Many tours to Israel, unfortunately, do not include in the itinerary a walk through the tunnel. Others make the tunnel an optional part of the trip. Yes, if you are claustrophobic you might not like some of the portions of the tunnel. Yes, your feet may become numb as you walk through the cold spring water. Remember what was on the line for the people constructing the tunnel. Be successful or your friends, your parents, your kids, your wife may all be dead soon. Step into Hezekiah’s day and walk through the tunnel with the absolute awe of people who trusted in God and worked their heart out.

Significance

Hezekiah’s Tunnel brings to living color an amazing engineering feat at a desperate time in the history of Jerusalem. If the tunnel was 10 feet long and 5 feet underground it would still be a valuable discovery. The grandeur of Hezekiah’s Tunnel propels it to the front of the line. Few significant artifacts exist from the 8th century BC. The interaction we can have today with Hezekiah’s Tunnel is stunning.

What do you think? Join the conversation by posting a comment to this post. Do you consider Hezekiah’s Tunnel one of the Top Ten discoveries?

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., 

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Top Ten Biblical Discoveries in Archaeology – #3 Jericho

This post is a continuation of our Top Ten Biblical Discoveries in Archaeology series. To see the complete series please click here.

The Biblical Account

1400 BC was an unusual time in history. Moses, about 40 years earlier, led a sea of people through the Red Sea. He was intent to lead them from Egypt straight to the Promised Land. The people, however, arrived a bit later than they were planning. The people leaving Egypt did not obey God as they should have (think golden calf) so forty years were spent traveling through a vast desert wasteland. During these 40 years God miraculously provided manna, meat, water and the Ten Commandments for the people to survive.

By 1400 BC the disobedient generation who fled Egypt had all died. The next generation was ready, with God paving the way, to conquer a land which had been promised to them more than 500 years beforehand. Moses takes them within sight of the Promised Land. He is told to climb Mount Nebo where he will die.

Joshua takes over command of the people. His first act is leading them all through a river; a challenging task for even a 21st century military commander. His strategy: just let the people in the front carrying the ark of God start walking into the water and it will naturally part allowing all the people to walk through on dry ground. The strategy works. His next challenge is conquering the heavily fortified ancient city of Jericho. His strategy is given to him by God in Joshua 6:3-5:

You shall march around the city, all the men of war going around the city once. Thus you shall do for six days. Seven priests shall bear seven trumpets of rams’ horns before the ark. On the seventh day you shall march around the city seven times, and the priests shall blow the trumpets. And when they make a long blast with the ram’s horn, when you hear the sound of the trumpet, then all the people shall shout with a great shout, and the wall of the city will fall down flat, and the people shall go up, everyone straight before him.

The men of Jericho laugh as they watch what can best be described as unconventional warfare tactics. The strategy, however, actually works! The plan is executed down to the smallest detail. After the final shout the walls of Jericho fall down. The city is burned. Jericho is conquered in one week. Truth appears to be stranger than fiction. The conquest of Canaan has just been inaugurated through a river stopping and a fortified city being defeated through the combination of marching, music and shouting. At least this is the history described in the Bible.

Can an intellectual person really embrace the biblical account of Jericho? The biblical account makes for a fanciful bedtime story, but can the Bible really be accurately communicating an historical event?

A Remarkable Dig

The archaeological world first turned their gaze toward Jericho beginning in the late 1800’s. The first documented excavation occurred in 1867 and 1868 by the famous British engineer Charles Warren. Warren was most interested in finding out whether the large earthen mound, known as Tell es-Sultan, is natural or man-made? Warren dug six vertical shafts to see what was inside the mound.

To everyone’s amazement he found, “As a general result on the completion of these excavations it may be said for a certainty that these mounds are artificial throughout, and that they probably are the remains of ancient castles. ” Amazing, it was now verified the contents of Tell es-Sultan are man-made. What lies underneath? Will anything ever be found that could shed light on the biblical story of Joshua?

The next major excavation on Tell es-Sultan was done by a team from Austria and Germany from 1907-1909 and then again in 1911. Their major contribution to our understanding of Jericho was discovering a revetment wall which they followed around most of the city. A revetment wall is a retaining wall which prevents erosion. Further walls were typically built on top of a revetment wall. Tell es-Sultan was already taking shape as the ancient walled city of Jericho.

John Garstang, a British archaeologist, was then the first person starting in 1930 to lead an excavation using more modern archaeological methods. He dug at Tell es-Sultan from 1930 to 1936. The two most notable discoveries by Garstang’s team was a collapsed city wall toward the top of the mound (built on top of a wall which was built on top of the revetment wall…yes, possibly 3 different vertical walls), and evidence of a thoroughly violent destruction of the city. Garstang dated, based on pottery found at the same depth, the city was destroyed around 1400 BC. In his own words he writes:

In a word, in all material details and in date the fall of Jericho took place as described in the Biblical narrative. Our demonstration is limited, however, to material observations: the walls fell, shaken apparently by earthquake, and the city was destroyed by fire, about 1400 B.C. These are the basic facts resulting from our investigations. The link with Joshua and the Israelites is only circumstantial but it seems to be solid and without a flaw.

Garstang’s conclusions brought a lot of controversy from some of his colleagues who questioned his speedy reporting and dating methods. Garstang asked an up-and-coming British archaeologist named Kathleen Kenyon to study his findings. Kenyon studied all previous findings from Jericho and then led her own excavations from 1952-1958. Her study of Jericho made her famous.

Garstang and Kenyon both discovered a lot of pottery and artifacts from Jericho. Kenyon identified 20 different architectural phases, with evidence that some of these phases lasted for long periods of time, Over the course of the 20 phases there were three major and 12 minor destructions. A fortification tower was rebuilt four times and repaired once, followed by habitation units that were rebuilt seven times. Amazing, Kenyon analyzed more than 20 different time periods of Jericho. There was one layer of history which most closely was in line with the time of the biblical account.

Kenyon describes the calamity she observed through the archaeological findings of the time period most closely related to the Bible:

The destruction was complete. Walls and floors were blackened or reddened by fire, and every room was filled with fallen bricks, timbers, and household utensils; in most rooms the fallen debris was heavily burnt, but the collapse of the walls of the eastern rooms seems to have taken place before they were affected by the fire.

One of Kenyon’s great discoveries from Jericho was the grain supply. Her team found many jars more than 3,000 years old which were all full of burned grain! Why is this so significant? The military strategy of the day was siege. An army would surround a city, cut off all food and water supply, and wait for the people to starve. A besieged city contains no food at the time of destruction. Additionally, if a city were to surrender before their food supply ran out they would intentionally destroy their remaining food supply knowing it would only feed their enemies.

Many of the jars were still sealed shut, so the city was full of food while it was being destroyed. The jars full of burned grain tell us two things: 1) the city had a full supply of food when it was burned; 2) the defeat of Jericho likely occurred at the beginning of harvest since the city was so well stocked at the time of attack.

Significance

All of these previous findings correlate with the biblical narrative:

• The city was strongly fortified (Joshua 2:5,7,15, 6:5,20).
• The attack occurred just after harvest time in the spring (Joshua 2:6, 3:15, 5:10).
• The inhabitants had no opportunity to flee with their food (Joshua 6:1).
• The siege was short (Joshua 6:15).
• The walls were leveled, possibly by an earthquake (Joshua 6:20).
• The city was not plundered (Joshua 6:17-18).
• The city was burned (Joshua 6:20)

Kenyon’s Analysis

Kenyon’s full multi-volume report of her excavation (you can buy it online for $1,500 – donations of her report to our ministry will not be rejected) was not published until after her death. Kenyon’s final analysis stated the city was destroyed in 1550 BC instead of 1400 BC. She ultimately disagreed with Garstang’s analysis. In her view, the Israelites come to a totally destroyed city in 1400 BC, not a well-fortified city. The biblical story could not have happened as described. Her dating of 1550 BC mainly came from the lack of an expensive type of pottery from Cyprus popular in 1400 BC. Because of Kenyon’s final analysis many scholars have written off the biblical account of Jericho as a mere fairy tale.

Recent Research

Recent scholars have revisited the archaeological reports. Kathleen Kenyon did a fantastic job documenting the excavation making thorough examination of her discoveries possible. Dr. Bryant G. Wood makes a strong case for the destruction of Jericho to be restored to Garstang’s date of 1400 BC. You can read Dr. Wood’s findings here: http://www.biblearchaeology.org/post/2008/05/Did-the-Israelites-Conquer-Jericho-A-New-Look-at-the-Archaeological-Evidence.aspxAmong other points, Dr. Wood observes Kenyon excavated in a poor residential part of Jericho. Kenyon should not have expected expensive pottery from Cyprus in a poor part of town. The common pottery she discovered does support a time of 1400 BC. I encourage you to read all of Dr. Wood’s analysis supporting a date of 1400 BC.

Archaeology can be Messy

Jericho is a perfect example of the potential messiness when you step into the world of archaeology. Some scholars interpret the archaeological evidence as a death-blow to the biblical account. Other equally capable scholars interpret the archaeological evidence to be in full support of every little detail mentioned in the book of Joshua. Ultimately it is up to you to study both sides and come to your own conclusion.

Please join the discussion by posting your thoughts in the comments section below.

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Top Ten Biblical Discoveries in Archaeology – #1 Dead Sea Scrolls

This post wraps up our Top Ten Biblical Discoveries in Archaeology series. To see the complete series please click here.

Old Testament Scribes

How accurate is the Old Testament we hold in our hands? It’s popular today to attack the accuracy of the Bible on the grounds of its lack of effective transmission. Popular authors claim the Bible we have today has simply been copied too many times, with too many textual errors, to be believed as the very words of God handed down to us over the millennia.

Free Video – Session 1 from the Church History Boot Camp

Every single copy of the Old Testament was hand copied up until the printing press came along in the 15th century AD. Imagine that, some of the books of the Old Testament were copied over and over for more than 3,000 years (traditional view of dating). Can a document copied so many times by hand truly be accurate today?

Tradition tells us the Hebrew people were meticulous copyists of Scripture. Scribes were so aware of their task they would go to great lengths to make sure their hand-written copy of Scripture was free from error. Hebrew scribes were bound to the following rules:

1. They could only use clean animal skins, both to write on, and even to bind manuscripts.
2. Each column of writing could have no less than forty-eight, and no more than sixty lines.
3. The ink must be black, and of a special recipe.
4. They must verbalize each word aloud while they were writing.
5. They must wipe the pen and wash their entire bodies every time before writing God’s name.
6. There must be a review within thirty days, and if as many as three pages required corrections, the entire manuscript had to be redone.
7. The letters, words, and paragraphs had to be counted, and the document became invalid if two letters touched each other. The middle paragraph, word and letter must correspond to those of the original document.
8. The documents could be stored only in sacred places (synagogues, etc.).

Silver Amulet Scroll and Nash Papyrus

With all the careful scribal work a shockingly few number of Old Testament ancient manuscripts exist until today. The silver amulet scroll is by far the oldest. The scroll was mentioned as #4 in this top ten series. The amulet scroll dates way back to 600 BC. This is fantastic but it is only a couple verses of the entire Bible. So we can get a feel for the accuracy of those couple verses but not be able to get a good representative sample for the entirety of Scripture.

The Nash Papyrus dates to around 200 BC. It’s also a wonderful discovery but similar to the amulet scroll it only contains a hand-full of verses. Gratefully those verses are the Ten Commandments, but nonetheless our only 2 manuscripts of the Old Testament from the BC era are a very small representation of the entire Old Testament canon.

Codex Aleppo

Codex Aleppo is the oldest entire Old Testament possessed by humanity. The manuscript dates to around 900AD. The priceless manuscript is indeed magnificent. When analyzing the more than 2.7 million writing details that make up the Old Testament, the manuscript appears to be very precise in its creation. Although we have such a beautiful manuscript, the elephant in the room is that this manuscript dates from 900AD. Many New Testament manuscripts are older than our oldest Old Testament manuscript. Most of the Old Testament was written over 1500 years before Codex Aleppo.

1946-47

The greatest biblically relevant archaeological discovery, made in the winter of 1946-47, would shake up the biblical and archaeological world. John C. Trever has done a good job reconstructing the story of the scrolls from several interviews with the Bedouin people.

Muhammed edh-Dhib, a 15 year old Bedouin living in Bethlehem, was with his cousin in the region of the Dead Sea. Jum’a Muhammad, the cousin of edh-Dhib, noticed some possible cave openings while out shepherding some goats. Edh-Dhib made it into a cave and discovered something that had been untouched for more than 2,200 years. He reached into a pot and retrieved some scrolls and showed them to Jum’a.

The impact of these scrolls were not readily apparent. The scrolls were taken back to the Bedouin camp to show the rest of the family. The Bedouin kept the scrolls hanging on a tent pole while they figured out what to do with them, periodically taking them out to show people.

The scrolls were first taken to a dealer named Ibrahim ‘ljha in Bethlehem. In one of those famous dumb moments of history ‘ljha returned them saying they were worthless. Undaunted, thankfully, the Bedouin went to a nearby market, where a Syrian Christian offered to buy them. A sheikh joined their conversation and suggested they take the scrolls to a part-time antiques dealer. The Bedouin left one scroll with the dealer and then sold three scrolls to another for the ridiculous sum of $29!

George Isha’ya, a member of the Syrian Orthodox Church, heard about the scrolls and contacted St. Mark’s Monastery in the hope of getting an appraisal, news of the find then reached Metropolitan bishop Athanasius Yeshue Samuel, better known as Mar Samuel.

After examining the scrolls and suspecting their astronomical worth, he expressed interest in purchasing them. Four scrolls found their way into his hands. More scrolls continued to arrive on the scene. By the end of 1948, nearly two years after their first discovery, scholars had yet to locate the source of the manuscripts.

What was all the fuss about? After careful analysis and scientific analysis at the University of California, Davis it was determined that a new era of Old Testament biblical manuscripts had arrived. We were witnessing what appeared to be the discovery of an entire library of Old Testament and ancient Jewish writings. How old were these books? Remember our oldest complete Old Testament had been 900AD. An entire scroll of Isaiah was found and dated to around 200BC! Can you believe that, in one discovery 1100 years of biblical hand-written copies were spanned.

Magnitude of the Discovery

Archaeologists were able to track down the origin of the first scrolls and together with the Bedouins ended up finding a total of 972 manuscripts from 11 different caves. All 11 caves are in the southeastern Dead Sea area of Israel. The area receives almost no rainfall making it a perfect climate for ancient manuscripts to last thousands of years without decomposing.

The scrolls contain verses from every Old Testament book except for one. Only about 1/3rd of the scrolls are biblical writings. 2/3rds of the manuscripts are not biblical but pertain to Jewish life at the time. Think of it as stumbling across the 1,000 volume library of a Christian with many books of the Bible but then all sorts of books about 21st century Christian life and thought. This is the equivalent of the Dead Sea Scroll discovery. Many of the non-biblical books discovered were not known to even exist!

The scrolls, for some insane reason, were put up for sale in the Wall Street Journal on June 1, 1954. They were purchased for $250,000 and brought to Jerusalem where they eventually became housed in a museum called the Shrine of the Book where they reside today when not circulating in museums around the world. The scrolls today are considered priceless. Just to purchase a replica facsimile copy of 3 of the scrolls currently will run you $60,000 (a donation of replica scrolls to Parchment & Pen will not be turned down).

Significance of the Discovery

The scrolls are still, after decades, a discovery still being digested. The 972 manuscripts have shed great light on the accuracy and complexity of the Old Testament. The Isaiah Scroll, in comparison to Codex Aleppo and other manuscripts, show that the message of the Old Testament has not been changed over millennia. More articles and books have been written about the Dead Sea Scrolls than any other archaeological discovery with biblical significance. The scrolls are shedding a great deal of light on the Jewish religious world of roughly 200BC-90AD. The scrolls are generally showing the modern-day Old Testament to be an extremely accurate representation of the original writers.

Work in Progress

Google has announced a new deal with the Israeli Antiquities Authority to photograph all of the scrolls in order to make high-resolution photos available to anyone online for free. The scrolls continue to amaze and delight us; where we once had only a couple fragments of the ancient Old Testament we now enjoy an abundant library.

Please join the discussion by posting your thoughts in the comments section below.

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Top Ten Biblical Discoveries in Archaeology – An Introduction

The Discipline of Archaeology fits nicely with the world of the Bible. At its root the word archaeology consists of two Greek words: ἀρχαῖος and -λογία Archaeos means, “Ancient” and “ology” is “the study of.” The word Archaeology lexically refers to the study of the ancients. Since the Bible is an ancient book it makes sense for Archaeology to have something to say regarding its claims.

Modern Archaeology developed in Europe in the 19th century. Since then the land of the Bible has been given a growing amount of attention. Why so much attention? The Bible is not only an ancient book, but a detailed historical document. The sixty-six books of the Bible consist of nearly 5,000 locations along with many people, events and cultural details…all of which can be analyzed through Archaeology.

Our Top Ten Discoveries will fall into three main categories.

1. Words of the Bible

Archaeological discoveries can either support or refute the words of the Bible. Has the exact wording of the Bible become corrupted over time? What has archaeology shown regarding the trustworthiness of each word of the Bible? Some of our top ten items will speak into this category.

2. Land of the Bible

Some discoveries will focus on the land of the Bible. Are the cities, rivers, mountains, geographic features mentioned in the Bible accurate? The Bible paints a detailed picture, is the picture accurate? What does our top ten list suggest?

3. World of the Bible

Some of our top ten discoveries will focus on the world of the Bible. Are the political, economic, agricultural and social details mentioned in the Bible accurate? Was a certain king from a certain land really the king at the date suggested from the biblical book? Some of our top ten Discoveries will speak into the accuracy of the World of the Bible.

What makes an archaeological discovery significant?

Primarily, there are two criteria.

The Impact of the Discovery

The first criterion is the impact of the discovery. How has the discovery contributed to our understanding of the Words of the Bible, the Land of the Bible or the World of the Bible? The impact of a discovery is certainly subjective. For this reason some people will disagree with my ranking of the top ten. Furthermore, there have been thousands of biblically significant discoveries. Making a top ten list will obviously mean all but 10 of those thousands of discoveries will be left out.

Provenance

The second criterion to make an archaeological discovery significant, in addition to impact, is provenance. Provenance is the trump card in archaeology. Provenance, from the French provenir, “to come from”, means the origin, or the source of something, or the history of the ownership or location of an object. If a discovery, no matter how amazing, has a questionable provenance it should be thrown in the garbage (not literally of course, but it should receive no attention). An item with questionable provenance deserves to be guilty until proven innocent. Christians can save themselves a lot of embarrassment by only being interested in discoveries with a reputable history. Provenance, not popularity, must be adhered to in deciding the significance of an archaeological discovery.

Stay away from these three types of people who dislike focusing on the provenance of a discovery:

The Photoshop Hack

The Photoshop Hack thinks he will save or destroy Christianity by his (or his 11-year old nephew’s) less than stellar Photoshop skills. The Photoshop Hack appeals to those who could care less about provenance. They don’t care about the trustworthiness of the story behind the supposed discovery; they’re primarily looking for fanciful evidence to prop up their shaky faith.

An email from a Photoshop Hack recently made its way into my inbox. A man claimed to have discovered a large human skeleton. The skeleton would prove to everyone the existence of giants like Goliath and the Anakim. You can believe in God now…because of my terrible Photoshop skills.

The Indiana Jones Wannabe

Stay away from the Indiana Jones Wannabe. This person is usually a weekend warrior. Why actually get a reputable degree in archaeology when you only need to buy a plane ticket, put on a leather hat and carry a whip?

This person will always be traveling to a secret place. They alone have the treasure map. If you really wanted to go where they went to confirm their discovery, they’d have to kill you after revealing their secret locale. They are always jumping over barbed-wired fences, eluding local law enforcement and making the greatest of all discoveries. The Indiana Jones Wannabe is more sophisticated than the Photoshop Hack, but the Wannabe can still be equally terrible at Photoshop.

The Wannabe does not like provenance. His word, video and photos should be sufficient. A reputable provenance, unfortunately, is the trump card for any discovery. Sorry Indiana. Scuba diving the Red Sea and secretly climbing Mt. Ararat looking for the ark seem to be favorite missions for the Wannabe. If you get an email from a Wannabe, hit delete not forward.

The Sophisticated Scoundrel

The Sophisticated Scoundrel is the hardest person to spot and the most dangerous of the three. The scoundrel is usually well connected, wealthy, and very knowledgeable in the world of ancient artifacts. Why does the scoundrel exist? The scoundrel loves money and/or fame. The scoundrel is content leading many people astray if it means a full bank account. The recently “discovered” James ossuary is a great example of the Sophisticated Scoundrel.

The scoundrel in this case is a man named Obed Golan. Golan took an already amazing find, a beautiful first century ossuary, and decided to make it infinitely more valuable. An ossuary is basically a small casket. Once a body had fully decomposed people would then take the bones and place them in an ossuary. On October 21, 2002 a press conference was called where it was revealed Golan had “discovered” an ossuary from the first century with the phrase, “James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus” etched on the side. The inscription was amazingly accurate first century Aramaic. The inscription had been weathered. An ossuary valued in the thousands of dollars was now valued in the millions. This would be the greatest New Testament archaeological discovery. The provenance was unknown. Remember, the proper response with an unknown provenance should be guilty until proven innocent.

Obed Golan became greedy and called another press conference in 2003 reporting another amazing inscription discovery regarding King Jehoash. In December 2004, he was indicted with four other defendants and accused of being at the center of an international antiquities forgery ring. Golan is currently the poster child for the Sophisticated Scoundrel.

Our forthcoming Top Ten discoveries are all items of significant impact AND provenance. We will discuss the provenance of every item and why it should be considered a great discovery. Let’s put on our khaki pants and dig in.

What do you consider to be the greatest biblical archeological discoveries?

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