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Below is a very good interview of the Economist Dr. Barry Supple of Cambridge conducted by Dr. Alan Macfarlane. Dr. Supple was taught by Jack Fisher (1908-1988). Harold Joseph Laski ( 1893 – 1950). Wikipedia notes that Laski’s main political role came as a writer and lecturer on every topic of concern to the left, including socialism, capitalism, working conditions, eugenics, woman suffrage, imperialism, decolonisation, disarmament, human rights, worker education, and Zionism.
Picture of Barry Supple below:
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Barry Supple – Emeritus Professor of Economic History, University of Cambridge, and a former Director of the Leverhulme Trust |
Interview with Barry Supple, Part 1 of 2
Barry Supple interviewed by Alan Macfarlane 3rd July 2010.
All revenues are donated to the World Oral Literature Project: http://www.oralliterature.org/
For a full, higher quality, downloadable version, please see http://www.alanmacfarlane.com
Interview with Barry Supple, Part 2 of 2
On November 21, 2014 I received a letter from Nobel Laureate Harry Kroto and it said:
…Please click on this URL http://vimeo.com/26991975
and you will hear what far smarter people than I have to say on this matter. I agree with them.
Harry Kroto
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Dr. Harry Kroto is the 1996 Chemistry Nobel Prize Winner and he is seen the photo below:
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There are 3 videos in this series and they have statements by 150 academics and scientists and I hope to respond to all of them. Wikipedia notes Barry Emanuel Supple, CBE, FBA (born 27 October 1930, Hackney, London), is Emeritus Professor of Economic History, University of Cambridge, and a former Director of the Leverhulme Trust. He is the father of theatre and opera director Tim Supple.
The comments of Dr. Supple are found on the second video below in the 93rd clip and below I have the written transcript of his comments and my response.
50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God (Part 1)
Another 50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God (Part 2)
A Further 50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God (Part 3)
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I grew up at Bellevue Baptist Church under the leadership of our pastor Adrian Rogers and I read many books by the Evangelical Philosopher Francis Schaeffer and have had the opportunity to contact many of the evolutionists or humanistic academics that they have mentioned in their works. Many of these scholars have taken the time to respond back to me in the last 20 years and some of the names included are Ernest Mayr (1904-2005), George Wald (1906-1997), Carl Sagan (1934-1996), Robert Shapiro (1935-2011), Nicolaas Bloembergen (1920-), Brian Charlesworth (1945-), Francisco J. Ayala (1934-) Elliott Sober (1948-), Kevin Padian (1951-), Matt Cartmill (1943-) , Milton Fingerman (1928-), John J. Shea (1969-), , Michael A. Crawford (1938-), Paul Kurtz (1925-2012), Sol Gordon (1923-2008), Albert Ellis (1913-2007), Barbara Marie Tabler (1915-1996), Renate Vambery (1916-2005), Archie J. Bahm (1907-1996), Aron S “Gil” Martin ( 1910-1997), Matthew I. Spetter (1921-2012), H. J. Eysenck (1916-1997), Robert L. Erdmann (1929-2006), Mary Morain (1911-1999), Lloyd Morain (1917-2010), Warren Allen Smith (1921-), Bette Chambers (1930-), Gordon Stein (1941-1996) , Milton Friedman (1912-2006), John Hospers (1918-2011), Michael Martin (1932-).Harry Kroto (1939-), Marty E. Martin (1928-), Richard Rubenstein (1924-), James Terry McCollum (1936-), Edward O. WIlson (1929-), Lewis Wolpert (1929), Gerald Holton (1922-), Martin Rees (1942-), Roald Hoffmann (1937-), and Ray T. Cragun (1976-).
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Quite early on, encouraged by my father, I was sceptical, but never would have dreamt of not being Bar Mitzvahed because that is what happened in that community; the only Hebrew that I ever learned was in order to read the section of the law which was relevant to the timing of the ceremony; I never went to the synagogue again, and walked out of my brother’s Bar Mitzvah because I had a soccer match; over the years I have never dissociated myself from the Jewish background but never felt that I wanted to be identified as a religious Jew; the only times I have been back to a synagogue is for weddings.
10:43:17 An early memory that I have is of my mother falling off a roundabout on holiday somewhere, probably at Walton on the Naze; I think the reason that it is powerful is that at that time I had mixed feelings about it; I think she must have done something that I didn’t like because I was both anguished and slightly pleased about what I took to be a punishment; I have a memory, which is obviously not true, of her flying through the air; I can’t identify when that was but it would have been before the Second World War, probably about 1937-8; there is a haziness because I also have other memories; I do remember the time that I first learnt that death was inevitable because an aunt, a sibling of my mother’s, informed me; I must have been six or seven and was devastated by it and my parents were very upset, and they berated this aunt, Frances; that memory was quite strong, both because of the incident and seeing my parents’ reaction and defensiveness towards me; I have other memories, mostly concerned with this rather riotous family of siblings who lived together in the same house.
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SHOULD JEWS CONSIDER THE OLD TESTAMENT PROPHECIES AND THEIR ACCURACY?
As a Jew, Barry Supple of all people should know that following the Bible’s command to find the Messiah and worship him is the main instruction of the Old Testament, and I am going to make the case that the prophecies of the Old Testament should not be discarded and many of them have already been fulfilled in history. Let’s look at one of them.
HOW COULD A PROPHET IN THE OLD TESTAMENT PREDICT EVENTS THAT TOOK PLACE HUNDREDS OF YEARS LATER?
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. 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.
Many times it has been alleged that the author of the Book of Daniel was from a later period but how did a later author know these 5 HISTORICAL FACTS? How did he know [1] that Belshazzar was ruling during the last few years of the Babylonian Empire when the name “Belshazzar” was lost to history until 1853 when it was uncovered in the monuments? [2] The author also knew that the Babylonians executed individuals by casting them into fire, and that the Persians threw the condemned to the lions. [3] He knew the practice in the 6th Century was to mention first the Medes, then the Persians and not the other way around. [4] Plus he knew the laws made by Persian kings could not be revoked and [5] he knew that in the sixth century B.C., Susa was in the province of Elam (Dan. 8:2).
One of the top 10 posts on my blog on this next subject concerning Tyre. John MacArthur went through every detail of the prophecy concerning Tyre and how history shows the Bible prophecy was correct. Carl Sagan said he had taken a look at Old Testament prophecy and it did not impress him because it was too vague.
HOW CAN ANYONE SAY THAT THIS FOLLOWING PROPHECY CONCERNING TYRE IS “TOO VAGUE?”
Let’s look at some illustrations of this. Ezekiel chapter 26…Ezekiel chapter 26, I’m going to move rapidly so that we can cover a few of these prophecies. A lot of these I have some notes in the footnotes in the MacArthur Study Bible that will help fill out the things that I don’t have time to say. You can check those sources and others in the commentaries written on these various prophetic books. But for us, we’ll get a good idea of the amazing fulfillment of these prophecies. Ezekiel chapter 26 through chapter 28 and even some comments in chapter 9 are prophecies against a city named Tyre…T-y-r-e. These are prophecies against a city named Tyre. It is identified in the second verse, mentioned there Tyre, verse 2. Now the prophecies start in verse 3, “Behold, I am against you, O Tyre. I will bring up many nations against you as the sea brings up its waves, nation after nation after nation hitting against Tyre like waves hitting against the shore.” And here come the details. “They will destroy the walls of Tyre and break down her towers and I will scrape her debris from her and make her a bare rock. She will be a place for the spreading of nets in the midst of the sea for I have spoken, declares the Lord God, and she will become spoil for the nations.” Go down to verse 8. “He will slay your daughters on the mainland with the sword and He will make siege walls against you, cast up a mound against you and raise up a large shield against you.” Go down to verse 12, “They will make a spoil of your riches, a prey of your merchandise, break down your walls, destroy your pleasant houses, throw your stones and your timbers and your debris into the water.” Verse 14, “I will make you a bare rock. You will be a place for the spreading of nets. You will be built no more for I, the Lord, have spoken declares the Lord God.” Verse 21, “I shall bring terrors on you and you will be no more. Thou you will be sought, you will never be found again, declares the Lord God.”
Now the elements of this prophecy are really very, very detailed. The prophecy says the mainland city of Tyre will be destroyed. The prophecy says many nations will rise against Tyre, they’ll come successively, not all at once collectively together as one force but like waves, one after another. It says that the rubble of that city will be thrown into the water. It says that Tyre will become like a bare flat rock. It says that fishermen shall dry their nets there. It says Tyre will never be rebuilt again. And there are even other details that I read you about casting a siege and breaking down the walls of that place.
Now you have to understand that when Ezekiel makes this prophecy, you’re not talking about some small town here. You’re talking about one of the greatest cities in the ancient world, the great Phoenician seaport of Tyre and the Phoenicians were one of the most advanced civilizations in ancient times and they were the sailors. They were the ones who sailed the Mediterranean. They were the great traders of the world, the greatest sailors in the world history, the greatest navigators in ancient times. They were the foremost explorers of their day and they were therefore great colonizers.
You find a ruler named Hiram I who controlled the Phoenician world, Phoenicia. This city under his reign, this city of Tyre was fortified with a wall, according to history, 150 feet high, fifteen feet thick. It had a very capable fleet. It was flourishing when Joshua led Israel into the promised land. In fact, Hiram began his reign eight years before Solomon, overlapping David’s reign. David sought help from Hiram when David wanted to build his palace and he got artisans and cedars from Hiram to help with the palace. Hiram later aided Solomon when Solomon set out to build the temple by sending cedars down, the cedars of Lebanon.
But this prophecy was given that this great city would be destroyed with all this detail laid out. Three years after the prophecy…three years…Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, laid a siege against the city of Tyre. It lasted from 585 to 573, thirteen years of siege against this city. Finally after thirteen years of being surrounded by the forces of Babylon and Nebuchadnezzar and having their supplies cut off, they finally surrendered to the terms and the first part of the prophecy was fulfilled because Nebuchadnezzar immediately broke down all the walls and broke down all the towers, verse 4, destroying the walls, breaking down all the towers. That made the city indefensible. That was not an unusual thing for conquerors to do, but you can imagine it was a serious enterprise. It doesn’t mean you have to break down the entire wall, but you had to render it ineffective by putting massive holes in it at the appropriate places.
Upon arriving, however, he was shocked to find no spoils which was a great disappointment to a conqueror because the people had used their superb fleet to remove everything of value far away, at least far enough away to an island about a half mile off shore. They had just continually over those years been shuttling everything of value off shore. By the way, in the twenty-ninth chapter of Ezekiel verses 17 to 20, Ezekiel says that the Babylonians would get no plunder and they did not get any plunder. So the mainland city was destroyed, it was flattened, it was nothing but rubble, basically. The island city then flourished a half mile off shore. It remained a powerful city, by the way, for 250 years. That was the new city of Tyre.
While during those 250 years the timbers and the stones remained in ruins on the shore for that whole duration. All the prophecy then was not fulfilled, only a portion of it was fulfilled. In the ordinary course of events, those ruins would have become a tell, t-e-l-l, a mound, such as archaeologists find and dig into as the wind-swept dirts cover over the centuries, they bury the rubble of the city. And surely when parts of the wall fell, eventually all the wall fell and normally would have been buried under a tell to be discovered long time later by archaeologists. No one, no one at all would go to the monumental effort of throwing all that debris into the water, but that is exactly what this Scripture says. Verse 12, “They will break down the walls, destroy the pleasant houses, throw your stones and your timbers and your debris into the water.” Why would anybody do that? Why would you cart down debris and throw it into the water? Well for 250 years nobody did that, it wasn’t fulfilled. Then along came Alexander the Great. Alexander the Great, at this time, is age 24, he is bent on conquering the world. He has come on his way east. He has an infantry we are told that numbers about 33 thousand men and he has about 15 thousand in his calvary and he is on his way to establish his great world empire. He has just defeated the Persians under Darius III at the battle of Isis in the year 333. He is on his march now to the east and toward Egypt. He wants to conquer the great Egyptian society. In order to get to Egypt, he has to make a bend around the eastern part of the Mediterranean and come down the coast. He comes in to Phoenicia which is now the land of Israel, basically. He calls on the Phoenician cities to open their gates to him and to supply him all the supplies that he needs. And, of course, the first place that he stops as he starts south is that northernmost place called Tyre. He sent word to the Tyrenians of what he wanted and they sent word back and said, “We’re not giving you anything.”
And so, Alexander was upset. And you don’t want to get Alexander the Great upset. It’s amazing the lengths that that man would go to achieve the satisfaction of his own agenda. He had no fleet, he had no ships. How in the world was he going to get what he needed from Tyre which was a half mile off shore? Answer? He saw all the debris that had been lying there for 250 years and to make a long story short, he built a causeway all the way to the island…at least two thousand feet long. And we are told by historians and we can see it because it’s still there in part today, at least 200 feet wide across the strait separating the old and the new. Arian, the Greek historian, has written in his book, History of Alexander in India how this was accomplished. And he gives all kinds of fascinating details.
Tyre had become fortified like Alcatraz, surrounded by powerful walls that went right down to the edge of the sea. Really a very impregnable place. So Alexander knew that if he was going to conquer them, he couldn’t just go pull up to the wall in ships, he could build ships relatively…that was a relative possibility, but he could only get up to a wall he couldn’t get across, so he decided that he would need to build a land peninsula and move massive machines that were very tall with flip-down bridges that he could set on the top of the wall to walk right in to the city. The work went well at first, until the water started getting deeper and deeper and as the water got deeper, the project moved slower and all the people in Tyre stood on the wall and threw boulders at his army, trying to build their causeway.
They stopped the work in order to protect their lives, this only made him more angry. And so he decided that he would build a great shield called a tortoise, for obvious reasons, and that he would hold up the shield. You remember in the passage that I just read you, there is reference made that there would be raised up, in verse 8, a large shield against you. You find that in history. They actually tried to shield the workers from the stones that were being thrown on them. Meanwhile, Alexander’s engineers were on the shore building monster towers called Heliopolis…Heliopolis, a hundred and sixty-feet high, twenty stories high. And they held at the top light artillery and men. Highest towers, by the way, ever used in the history of war. High above the city walls, they would just roll them across the causeway when it was finished, drop down the cause…the bridge and march into the city. They were basically resisted and resisted and resisted, raids from the people of Tyre, everything they could do to stop them, it all was for not. In the end, even using some ships that he acquired, he collected the navies from all the local places he could go. He got help from places like Sidon and Biblis(?) and Rhodes and Malous(?) and Lycia and Macedon and Cyprus and he got enough ships to move out into the deep water and continue his building.
Seven months it took him, seven months. At the end of seven months, these monstrous towers rolled across that causeway, flipped down the bridges, went into the city. Eight thousand were slain in the battle, seven thousand were executed military style, thirty thousand were sold as slaves to replenish the treasuries of Alexander. Philip Myer the historian says, “Alexander the Great reduced Tyre to ruins in 332, or 333 B.C. She recovered in a measure but never to the place she previously held in the world. The once great city is now as bare…writes this historian…as the top of a rock and is a place where fishermen dry their nets.”
By the way, that island city was repopulated and later restored…destroyed by the Muslims, 1281. The Muslims came, conquering in the name of Allah. But the main city has never been rebuilt and that is consistent with verse 21, “You will never be found again,” declares the Lord God. There’s a little village out there on that island. It’s in the news in modern times. There’s a place where the Israelis have retaliated against refugee camps in past years. Jerusalem has been rebuilt, just for information sake, seventeen times…seventeen times. Twenty-five centuries ago a Jewish prophet in exile in Babylon was told by God that the city of Tyre would never be rebuilt, and it never has. Today you can’t even find a ruin on that site.
And frankly, that’s astounding to me because the location is staggeringly beautiful, one of the most beautiful spots along the Mediterranean. There’s a fresh water spring there that has been measured some years ago that produces a flow of ten million gallons of water a day, enough for a large city. Never been rebuilt. Some mathematicians got a hold of this prophecy, took all of the little parts of this prophecy, put them all together and said, “The probability that this could all happen by chance is one in seventy-five million.” That’s probably conservative. Amos weighed in on the destruction of Tyre. Turn to Amos chapter 1 verse 9, “Thus says the Lord, for three transgressions of Tyre and for four, I will not revoke its punishment because they delivered up an entire population to Edom and did not remember the covenant of brotherhood, so I will send fire upon the wall of Tyre and it will consume her citadels.” And we know historically that Tyre was literally burned by the missiles of Nebuchadnezzar. In the original attack, Tyre was burned by missiles, fiery arrows fired by the forces of Nebuchadnezzar in the thirteen-year siege.
This is an amazing Scripture until you understand that God wrote this and God told the prophet what the prophet never could have known because God knows exactly what’s going to happen because God is in charge of exactly what’s going to happen. In the ninth chapter of Zechariah there is more against Tyre, verse 2, there is a word of the Lord against this land, Tyre and Sidon. And then in verse 3, “Tyre build herself a fortress, piled up silver like dust and gold like the mire of the streets,” and that was because the Phoenicians out of Tyre were doing this trade all over the Mediterranean area. Also they were trading with the east because the goods coming from the east would come through there to go to the Mediterranean. They were trading with the south, people coming up from Egypt and those coming down from the north, so that they were very, very wealthy. “Behold…says verse 4…the Lord will dispossess her, cast her wealth into the sea. She will be consumed with fire.” Again Zechariah noted what was true in the raid or the siege of Nebuchadnezzar that the city was set on fire. Other cities in Phoenicia that became later known as Philistine cities, Ashkelon, Gaza, Ekron, these cities also, including Ashdod in verse 6, would be a part of the prophecy as well.
Going further down the course…the coast, it’s Gaza, Ekron, Ashkelon, Ashdod, they’re all going to be captured. They all were captured. And of the five great cities, the only one left out of the prophecy because it was a little bit inland was the city of Gath…the city of Gath.
Josephus, the great historian, records for us in immense detail, and you can read Josephus’ history how all these components came to pass. The success of Alexander’s evasion of Syria and Palestine in the fourth century is known history in all its detail. He absorbed Syria. Tyre was obliterated. Her commerce destroyed to the amazement of her neighbors. Interestingly enough, not only was Gath spared in all of this, but another city was spared, the city of Sidon…Sidon did not share the same fate as Tyre.
Let’s go back to the twenty-eighth chapter of Ezekiel and look at the city of Sidon. Twin cities, twenty miles north of Tyre is the city in ancient times called Sidon. Now apparently Sidon was the center of Baal worship, the worship of Ashteroth and Tammuz, the capital city, you could say, of idolatry. It had been founded and back in Genesis 10 by one of the sons of Canaan, Genesis chapter 10 verse 15. Now look at 28:22 and let’s just see what the Bible says is going to happen to Sidon. Now it says, “The Lord God, behold, I am against you, O Sidon. I shall be glorified in your midst. Then they will know that I am the Lord when I execute judgments in her and I shall manifest My holiness in her, for I shall send pestilence to her and blood to her streets and the wounded shall fall in her midst by the sword upon her on every side, then they will know that I am the Lord.”
Three things to point out…blood in the streets, swords everywhere and no ultimate destruction. Unlike Tyre, there’s no statement that this city would not survive and today you can go there and find Sidon flourishing as the seaport city of Saida. But you won’t find Tyre.
In 351 B.C. the city was ruled by Persia and it revolted and the Persian army besieged it, 351 B.C. When all hope of saving the city was gone, forty thousand citizens chose rather to die than submit to Persian vengeance. So what they did? They shut themselves up in their houses, set their houses on fire and died in the flames. It was a horrific way to die. But the city was rebuilt again and again and again and re-conquered again and again. Floyd Hamilton says, “Blood has flowed in the streets over and over but the city stayed in existence and stands today as a monument to fulfilled prophecy. It was taken three times by the Crusaders, three times by the Muslims, all by the sword. In 1840 it was bombarded by the combined fleets of England, France and Turkey. No human eye could have seen how in the future this city would be in a bloodbath induced by swords, but would never be extinct when one twenty miles down the coast would be extinct.” But we aren’t surprised because God knows the truth. One writer says, “No well accredited prophecy is found in any other book or even oral tradition now existing or that has ever been existing in the world.” You can’t find in any religious book in the world a well-attested and accurate fulfilled prophecy. The Bible is always exactly correct about everything.
Maybe I have time for one more. Ezekiel chapter 30, since we’re having such a great time doing this. This one, chapter 30, Ezekiel chapter 30, let’s go down to verse 13. And this is Egypt, not Tennessee, just for some of you. “Thus says the Lord God, I will also destroy the idols and make the images cease from Memphis and there will no longer be a prince in the land of Egypt and I will put fear in the land of Egypt, I will make Pathros desolate, set a fire in Zoan, and execute judgments on Thebes and I will pour out My wrath on Sin…with an upper case S, proper name…the stronghold of Egypt and I will also cut off the multitude of Thebes…”now we could stop at that point.
What does this say? It says about Memphis that the idols in Memphis will be destroyed. That’s unmistakable. “I will destroy the idols and make the images cease from Memphis.” It says Thebes will be destroyed, judgments will be executed on Thebes and the multitude will be cut off. That means they will be killed. Thebes destroyed and its population killed. And then that most interesting statement, “That there will no longer be…in verse 13…a prince in the land of Egypt.” No more native ruler in Egypt.
Now let’s start with Memphis. It was a very ancient and a very important place for the origins of religious worship in Egypt. It was regarded as a very sacred place because of its original religious beginning. It was the capital of what was called middle Egypt and it was the stronghold of religion and therefore the stronghold of idols. And God said it would be destroyed and its idols in particular would be destroyed. And that is exactly what happened to Memphis. The historian Herodotus records that Cambyses did that and he did that by first attacking the city called Sin, verse 15, the stronghold of Egypt, verse 15, “I’ll pour out My wrath on Sin, the stronghold of Egypt.” It was called Pelusium, the Greek term for it. It was the key to Egypt. It was the stronghold, and if you could break through at that point, you could conquer. Herodotus says that’s where Cambyses came in and launched his attach which was successful.
Now the Egyptians were hopeless idolaters. In fact, they mummified cats. They mummified cats…you know about the holy cows in India, well they had holy cats and holy dogs and particularly cats were of interest to them because they had a cat goddess, Ugastet…Ugastet, the cat goddess and all the cats and they were all urchin cats, not domesticated cats. They all were basically the protectors of her honor, so they mummified cats when they died.
Well, Cambyses was pretty shrewd. They also worshiped dogs and so when he launched his attack against Pelusium, he launched it with a whole bunch of cats and dogs. And his army came following the cats and following the dogs. And because the animals were held to be so sacred in Egypt so that no Egyptian would use any weapon against those animals, he came in and won his victory. He slew Apis, the sacred cow and he began to destroy the idols and destroyed them all in Memphis. Memphis disappeared. It began at this point to disappear, its idols disappeared with it. Today archaeologists don’t know where Memphis was. Likely it was the second largest city in Egypt and they can’t find it.
I’ve been there, to that site, on one of my trips to Egypt. And I was absolutely fascinated to hear from the guide that there in that region although they do not know exactly where the city was, there in that region they have discovered ancient statutes buried face down in the sand that they date before Moses and after. And they find these statues with the face buried in the sand and the back rotted out. The Bible said that the idols of Memphis would be struck down, history says that’s exactly what happened.
Then there were to be judgments on Thebes, according to verse 14. Cambyses, this Persian, invaded Egypt, brought destruction on Thebes, burning their temples, destroying all their statutes, but Thebes recovered for a while. Second blow came a century before Christ, 89 B.C. A siege was laid on Thebes for three years and when Thebes fell on that time in 89 B.C., it fell into complete oblivion. It was flattened, nothing left, fulfilling prophecy. Its people were killed, never returned. And again it was an amazing city. History says 66 feet was the height of the wall and 24 feet was the width.
When the Bible says something is going to happen, it’s exactly what happens…exactly what happens. God judged that land from the top to the bottom, from Sin all the way to Thebes, top to bottom, and destroyed its idols.
The final prediction was that there would no longer be a prince in the land of Egypt. That would be the son of an Egyptian king. That has been fulfilled. From 350 B.C. and on Egypt has never had an Egyptian as a ruler. The famous rulers that you think about, Sadat, Abdulnasser, familiar names, neither of them was an Egyptian. They’ll never have an Egyptian ruler, Scripture is accurate about that.
Well there are many more such prophecies but I will save them for next time. Fascinating, isn’t it? The Word of God stands. Believe me, the critics would love to dismantle the Scripture on the basis of these things, but they cannot do that. History confirms the truthfulness of the Word of God. Let’s pray.
What a blessing and an encouragement it is to our hearts, Lord, to see the Word of God be vindicated by history. Amazing things to think about, but why would we be surprised, this is Your truth and You are God and You are omniscient and You cannot err. We thank You that Your Word has stood the test of scrutiny through the centuries and it still stands firm, accurate. And if it can be trusted in these things, it can be trusted in all that it affirms and declares and teaches and commands and prophesies. And indeed, what You have said will happen has happened and what You have said is yet to happen will happen, just as surely, just as precisely, just as accurately. Your character is at stake and You are the God of truth who knows all things, even the end from the beginning and You can tell us about the things that have not yet happened. We thank You that Your Word is so trustworthy. We trust it spiritually and believing it place our life and our eternity in Your hands, and we do it with joy and confidence because Your Word is true. And we thank You from the depths of our being for giving us this truth, in Christ’s name. Amen.
The Bible and Archaeology – Is the Bible from God? (Kyle Butt 42 min)
Dr. Wolpert, 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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FRANCIS SCHAEFFER ANALYZES ART AND CULTURE Part 35 Robert M. Pirsig (Feature on artist Kerry James Marshall)
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Richard Dawkins, the famous evolutionary biologist, author and avid atheist, once said, “Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence.” Is that true? Does Christianity call us to scorn or reject reason and evidence in an effort to have a faith that pleases God? Here at PleaseConvinceMe.com, we’re making every effort to demonstrate the relationship between faith, reason and evidence. Our site is filled with evidence that demonstrates the truth of Christianity, because the Christian faith is grounded in reason and evidence.
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