The Bible Archives : Proslogion

Archaeological Confirmation of Joshua’s Altar at Ebal?

X-ray tomographic reconstruction of the artifact discussed in the article. (image from the scientific paper linked below)

NOTE: Here is a good analysis of this find. It looks like the claims are not very well-founded.

Last year, a team of archaeologists led by Dr. Scott Stripling of the Bible Seminary in Texas announced that they had found the oldest example of Hebrew writing, and it contained the word “Yahweh,” the divine name for God that was used by the Israelites. If true, this would show that the Israelites were literate long before many historians think they were. In addition, it would provide strong evidence for the historical accuracy of an event reported in Joshua 8:30-35. Unfortunately, the team revealed their discovery through social media instead of in a scientific peer-reviewed journal. As a result, I was hesitant to discuss the discovery when I first learned about it, despite how exciting it is. Well, the team has now published a paper in a peer-reviewed journal, and I have to say that while I find the discovery intriguing, I am not nearly as excited about it as I was initially.

The discovery was made when the archaeologists were searching through material that had been discarded more than thirty years ago during the excavation of ancient altars on Mount Ebal. In sifting through that rubble, they found an object that was about the size of a postage stamp. When cleaned, the object was recognized as a small lead tablet. Since lead is soft, it was often used as a surface upon which to scratch words. The material found around the tablet was consistent with the older of the two altars that had been excavated, and that altar is thought to be from a time consistent with the book of Joshua. Thus, it could be the one that Joshua built on Mount Ebal as described in Joshua 8:30-35.

The tablet is folded and could not be opened without damaging it. However, the authors used X-ray computed tomography to look inside. At a certain depth within the tablet, they got the image shown on the left at the top of this article. Since the tablet had been deformed, they used a computer to virtually “flatten” the tablet. That produced the image on the right.

What do you see in those two images? I see a lot of dimples, but there are clearly some scratches that seem to form shapes, one of which looks like a stick figure of a person. The authors indicate that this is what they see:

The authors’ sketch of what they think is on the lead tablet (drawing from the scientific paper linked above; note that each X-ray image shown above is a mirror image, so this drawing reverses the image shown on the right)

I don’t see much of that, but then again, I haven’t been studying the raw X-ray images in detail. It’s possible that if I spent enough time with all the images they have, I might see everything they see. However, their own note towards the end of the scientific paper indicates that one author sees more letters than the other authors.

So…assuming the things drawn above really are on the tablet, what does it say? According to the authors, it says:

You are cursed by the god yhw, cursed.

You will die, cursed—cursed, you will surely die.

Cursed you are by yhw—cursed.

This, of course, would be consistent with the account in Joshua 8:30-35, since verse 34 says:

Then afterward he read all the words of the Law, the blessing and the curse, according to everything that is written in the Book of the Law.

While this is a potentially very exciting discovery, the scientific paper leaves me skeptical. Apparently, I am not the only one.

Whether or not this tablet ends up being what the authors think it is, I have no doubt that the events in the book of Joshua happened in just the way they are reported. However, it is always nice when archaeology confirms the Biblical record.

How Well Do You Know The Bible?

May 1940 British troops line up on the beach at Dunkirk to await evacuation. (click for credit)

NOTE: According to a historian I respect a great deal, the beginning of this article (in brackets and italics) is not correct. Apparently, the first mention of the message “But if not” seems to be from sources that occur in the 1990s. Thus, the phrase “But if not” as it relates to Dunkirk is almost certainly an urban legend that fooled me. I am keeping the post up, because I do think the last four paragraphs are important. However, I have also added this to the Christian Myths category so that people might find out that this oft-repeated story is not verifiable.

[You are a high-ranking officer in an army that is at war. You receive a three-word message from a large contingent of your soldiers who you know are about to face the enemy:

But if not

Would that mean anything to you? Fortunately, it meant something to British commanders in World War II. In 1940, more than 350,000 Allied soldiers were trapped at Dunkirk, and the German forces were on their way. The soldiers stood no chance of defeating the enemy, and an officer wanted to communicate the situation to his superiors in London. However, he didn’t want to give away any vital information. As a result, he sent those three words. They spoke volumes…to anyone who knows the Bible well.

They are the first words of Daniel 3:18, which contains the response Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego gave to King Nebuchadnezzar when the King threatened to throw them in the furnace if they didn’t worship the golden image that he had constructed in Babylon:

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, answered and said to the king, O Nebuchadnezzar, we are not careful to answer thee in this matter. If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king. But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up. (Daniel 3:16-18, KJV)

Those three words became a rallying cry that caused a rag-tag group of fishermen, pleasure boaters, merchant mariners, and yacht racers to sail to the shores of Dunkirk and evacuate the trapped soldiers. In the end, they saved more than 338,000 of the soldiers in what is commonly known as The Miracle of Dunkirk. A 2017 film tells the story, albeit without the three words that inspired the entire event.

Now think about that for a moment. The officer who sent the message knew the Bible well enough to recall the passage, and he expected the commanders in London to know the Bible well enough to recognize the passage and realize what it meant. Fortunately, they did.] Do you think they would today? Almost certainly not, because most Christians today don’t really know the Bible.

I recall sitting at a lunch with a well-known politician, a group of Christian homeschooled seniors, and their parents. One senior was telling the politician that he wasn’t concerned about attending a secular university, because he knew the Lord would protect him. The politician smiled and said, “The paw of the lion and the paw of the bear, huh?” All the seniors and all their parents looked at the politician with blank stares. There was an uncomfortable silence, and I had to tell them what he meant. It’s a quote from 1 Samuel 17:37, in which David tells Saul that he is not afraid of Goliath: “The Lord who saved me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear, He will save me from the hand of this Philistine.” (NASB)

I am sure the parents of these seniors spent a lot of time discussing the Bible in their homeschools. They probably even read books on having a “Biblical Worldview.” Nevertheless, none of them recognized what I would consider to be a very important passage from the Old Testament. Why? I can’t give you a definitive answer, but I can at least say this: Far too many Christian homeschools study books about having a “Biblical Worldview” but don’t spend enough time studying the Bible itself. In my opinion, there is only one way to have a Biblical Worldview, and that is to know the Bible so well that you can quote large sections of it from memory and recognize phrases like “But if not” and “the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear.”

After all, having a Biblical worldview means evaluating everything you encounter through the lens of the Bible. If you don’t know what the Bible says, you won’t be able to use it as a lens! So if you want a Biblical worldview, don’t read books that tell you how to have one. Don’t attend talks that tell you what it is. Spend that time studying the Bible so well that you know it backward and forward. That’s the first step in developing a Biblical worldview.

New Archaeological Find Supports the Biblical Account of Gideon

Dutch painter Pieter Aertsen’s imagining of Gideon tearing down the altar to Baal

In the sixth chapter of the book of Judges, we read that the children of Israel were being oppressed by the Midianites. A young man named Gideon was harvesting wheat and trying to hide from the Midianites when an angel of the Lord visited him and told him that he could save the children of Israel. As a first step, Gideon had to tear down the altar to Baal that his fellow Israelites had constructed. Gideon did as the angel commanded, and when the people heard what he had done, they wanted to execute him. His father (Joash) stopped the execution with some simple logic:

But Joash said to all who stood against him, “Will you contend for Baal, or will you save him? Whoever will contend for him shall be put to death by morning. If he is a god, let him contend for himself, since someone has torn down his altar!” Therefore on that day he named Gideon Jerubbaal, that is to say, “Let Baal contend against him,” because he had torn down his altar.

Gideon went on to lead a small army of untrained men against the Midianites, saving the children of Israel from them. The Gideons International, an organization of which I am a member, takes their name from this inspiring Biblical account.

Recently, archaeologists have uncovered evidence that supports one detail of this account. While digging in a small site 3 km west of the large archaeological site/Israeli National Park called Tel Lachish, they uncovered pottery fragments that are thought to have been made in the late twelfth or early eleventh century BC, which is the same time period in which Gideon’s story happened.

While the pottery is far from complete, the recovered pieces contain a painted inscription that reads, “Yrb‘l,” which means Jerubba‘al, the name Joash gave his son. In discussing their find in the context of other relevant finds, the archaeologists say:

The chronological correlation between the biblical tradition and ancient Judean inscriptions indicates that the biblical text preserves authentic Judean onomastic traditions.

In other words, this find and others indicate that the names mentioned in the Bible are not fictional. They are real names that were used in the relevant geographic and historical settings.

Possible Physical Evidence of the Prophet Isaiah

King Hezekiah on his sickbed, as described in 2 Kings 20:1-11 (click for credit)

In 2 Kings 18-20, Isaiah 36-39, and 2 Chronicles 29-32, the Bible discusses the reign of King Hezekiah, who had several interactions with the prophet Isaiah. For example, the woodcutting shown above depicts 2 Kings 20:1-11. The king is dying, but the Lord hears his prayer and Isaiah tells him he will be healed. The King asks for a sign, and Isaiah causes a shadow to move in the direction opposite of the direction the sun would make it move.

Several extraBiblical references to King Hezekiah have been found, including a bulla (clay seal impression) bearing the phrase, “Belonging to Hezekiah, (son of) Ahaz, king of Judah.” However, there are no known extraBiblical references to the prophet Isaiah, at least not until now. While it is by no means certain, there is good archaeological evidence that a bulla from the prophet Isaiah has been found in the same area.

As discussed in Biblical Archaeology Review, Eilat Mazar (who also discovered King Hezekiah’s bulla) reports finding several other bullae in the same excavation. One bulla, found only 10 feet from King Hezekiah’s bulla, might very well belong to the prophet Isaiah. As Mazar writes:

Alongside the bullae of Hezekiah and the Bes family, 22 additional bullae with Hebrew names were found. Among these is the bulla of “Yesha‘yah[u] Nvy[?].” The obvious initial translation, as surprising as it might seem, suggests that this belonged to the prophet Isaiah.

It would make sense to find a bulla from Isaiah in the same excavation as bullae from King Hezekiah, but the conclusion is not ironclad. The name is pretty clear, but the last part, “Nvy[?],” is not. According to Mazar, the last part should signify the word “prophet,” but only if there is an aleph (’) at the end (where she put “[?]”). As she says:

Whether or not the aleph was added at the end of the lower register is speculative, as meticulous examinations of that damaged part of the bulla could not identify any remnants of additional letters.

So this bulla might just belong to a person named Isaiah who was not a prophet. However, given the archaeological context of the find, as well as the damaged nature of the artifact, there is at least a strong possibility that it represents the first extraBiblical evidence for the prophet Isaiah.

More Archaeological Evidence Supporting Scripture

An aerial view of Khirbat Qeiyafa, which is most likely the Biblical city of Shaaraim. (click for credit) — An aerial view of Khirbat Qeiyafa, which is most likely the Biblical city of Shaaraim.
(click for credit)

It has become fashionable among many Biblical scholars to doubt the historical veracity of the Old Testament. In particular, whereas the Old Testament characterizes Israel at the time of King David as a large empire with active trading over long distances, some popular Biblical scholars characterize it as a simple, agrarian society. In addition, while the Old Testament speaks of King David as a civilized king who ruled over an impressive empire, these same scholars claim that he was more of a tribal war chief. National Geographic, for example, describes how Dr. Israel Finkelstein, an archaeologist at Tel Aviv University, characterizes Israel and its king:

During David’s time, as Finkelstein casts it, Jerusalem was little more than a “hill-country village,” David himself a raggedy upstart akin to Pancho Villa, and his legion of followers more like “500 people with sticks in their hands shouting and cursing and spitting — not the stuff of great armies of chariots described in the text.”

Like many of today’s scholarly ideas, Finkelstein’s view is completely at odds with the scientific evidence, but that rarely stands in the way of a popular ideas, especially among those who study the Bible!

More than three years ago, I wrote about excavations taking place at a city called Khirbat Qeiyafa. The city has been dated to the 11th-century BC, and in that article, I discuss the fact that it contains a palace that the archaeologists think might have belonged to King David. Whether or not the palace belonged to David, the remains of the city clearly indicate a sophisticated kingdom like the Old Testament describes, and the archaeological evidence found in the excavation indicates that it was most certainly an Israelite city.

New archaeological evidence from that excavation goes further in debunking views like those of Finkelstein and adds even more evidence for the historical veracity of the Old Testament. Interestingly enough, this new evidence was first discovered by an amateur!

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Reflections on the Ark Encounter

A view of the Ark Encounter (click for a larger image)

Yesterday, I toured the Answers in Genesis Ark Encounter with my wife and a friend. I wanted to visit the encounter as soon as it opened, but because of trips to Italy and China, yesterday was the first opportunity we had. I didn’t know what to expect, so I went in with an open mind.

I originally thought the Ark Encounter would be like the Creation Museum, with a parking lot close to the entryway. I was wrong. When we parked and got out of the car, we could see the ark, but it was a long way off. A building in the parking lot served as a “bus terminal,” where we were picked up and taken to the Ark itself.

When we got off the bus, my first thought was, “Wow. That’s big.” I have seen many models of the Ark over the years, and they all attempt to give you an idea of how big it was, usually by having scale models of trucks or elephants beside it. However, there is simply no substitute for seeing the massive structure built to its actual dimensions! Answers in Genesis bills the Ark as the largest timber-framed structure in the world, and I can believe that. ^*

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Gospel of Jesus’ Wife Is a Fake

The papyrus fragment that is now known as 'The Gospel of Jesus' Wife.' (click for credit) — The papyrus fragment that is now known as ‘The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife.’ (click for credit)

I am in China right now, and I have been here for almost two weeks. However, internet access is sporadic (at best), which is why I haven’t added any articles recently. Things are a bit better today, though, so I thought I would share my thoughts on a story I recently ran across.

On September 18th, 2012 at the International Congress of Coptic Studies in Rome, Dr. Karen L. King announced the existence of an astounding 4-cm by 8-cm papyrus fragment. It contained what she thought was a 4th-century Coptic translation of a gospel that she suggested had probably been written in the late second century AD. While the discovery of any ancient papyrus that has writing on it is interesting, this particular fragment was especially interesting because it contained the following phrase:

Jesus said to them, ‘My wife…”

As a result, this papyrus fragment came to be known as “The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife.”

In a peer-reviewed paper that was later published in the Harvard Theological Review, Dr. King presented the results of several tests that had been done on the papyrus fragment. Those tests led her to conclude that it was from the 8th century AD and was not a forgery. In the same issue of the journal, however, another scholar wrote an article concluding that the papyrus was a forgery. The Vatican weighed in as well, dismissing the fragment as a “clumsy forgery.”

Since then, there has been a lot of discussion about the papyrus fragment, and a website was set up to provide all of the latest information about it. Based on subsequent tests done on the fragment and its ink, Dr. King became so convinced that the fragment is authentic that she told Time:

I’m basically hoping that we can move past the issue of forgery to questions about the significance of this fragment for the history of Christianity, for thinking about questions like, ‘Why does Jesus being married, or not, even matter? Why is it that people had such an incredible reaction to this?’

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Going Back to College (Again)

Thermodynamics is the study of the relationships and conversions between heat and other forms of energy. (click for credit)

Nearly two years ago, I announced that I was going to teach a one-semester course at Anderson University. It’s one of the few Christian Universities that I am willing to teach at, because it doesn’t have a long list of doctrinal beliefs to which you have to agree. Instead, it seems to understand that the quest for truth is important and cannot be hindered by one specific interpretation of the Scriptures that has been developed by fallible people. Instead, if we are to learn the truth, we must honestly search the Scriptures, honestly study God’s creation, and honestly explore the various ideas that have emerged throughout the history of Christendom.

It was the first time in 19 years that I had taught a complete, semester-long college course, and I posted a few articles about my experience. I had a great time, and I decided that I wanted to do it again at some point in the future. Because I had some book deadlines with which to contend, however, I couldn’t do that right away. Now that my book deadlines have slowed down a bit, I have decided to go back to the college classroom once again.

This fall, I will be teaching thermodynamics at Anderson University. It is an upper-level course, typically taken by juniors. I use some aspects of thermodynamics in my research as a nuclear chemist, and it is actually one of my favorite topics to teach. As a result, I am really looking forward to it!

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Patterns of Evidence: Exodus

patterns_evidence

I don’t watch many documentaries. There are two main reasons. First, I think video is an inefficient way to learn. I can learn more quickly by reading, and I tend to remember what I read better than what I watch. In addition, it is hard to check references and confirm facts while watching a video. It is much easier to do so while reading.

The other reason is that documentaries are often incredibly biased. For example, I enjoyed Ben Stein’s documentary (Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed), but it was not objective in any way. It is clear that Stein had made up his mind before he made his film, and the film was shot in such a way as to present his view in the most positive light possible. While written sources of information can be just as biased, the video medium adds more opportunity to slant things because you can manipulate lighting, sound, etc., to make people who disagree with you look bad while at the same time, making the people who agree with you look really good.

Nevertheless, a very dear friend of mine (who is a historian) asked me to watch the documentary Patterns of Evidence: Exodus with her. I agreed, and overall, I am glad that I did. The movie is about director Tim Mahoney’s search for archaeological evidence concerning the Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt as discussed in the Old Testament. Many archaeologists say that such a search is fruitless, because there is no evidence that anything like the Exodus ever occurred in Egypt. Indeed, as historian Dr. Baruch Halpern says:

The actual evidence concerning the Exodus resembles the evidence for the unicorn.

However, if the Exodus occurred as discussed in the Bible, one would think there would be archaeological evidence for it. Since the historical accuracy of the Bible is important to Mahoney (and many Christians throughout the world), he decided to see if historians and archaeologists like Dr. Halpern are correct. As a result, he traveled around the world to interview archaeologists and historians to see what they thought and to look at the evidence for himself.

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More Archaeological Evidence That Supports The Bible

This bulla (a clay seal) and five others were found in a 10th-century BC village near what was the border between Judah and the land of the Philistines. The ruler in the photo is marked off in centimeters. (click for credit)

Back in the late 1980s and the early 1990s, it was fashionable among certain archaeologists to claim that Biblical characters such as King David never existed. However, archaeological finds like the Tel Dan Stele forced most of these archaeologists to admit that King David was, indeed, an actual historical figure.

But many of them still wanted to doubt the accuracy of the Biblical text. As a result, they grudgingly admitted that David really existed, but they claimed that the Old Testament “glorified” him. He wasn’t the king of a mighty kingdom, as depicted in the Bible. Instead, he was more of a tribal chieftain who commanded a rag-tag group of rural villagers. National Geographic, for example, describes how Dr. Israel Finkelstein, an archaeologist at Tel Aviv University, sees it:¹

During David’s time, as Finkelstein casts it, Jerusalem was little more than a “hill-country village,” David himself a raggedy upstart akin to Pancho Villa, and his legion of followers more like “500 people with sticks in their hands shouting and cursing and spitting—not the stuff of great armies of chariots described in the text.”

While this might be the fashionable view among certain archaeologists, the actual archaeological evidence speaks strongly against it. As I discussed more than a year ago, the excavations at a large city called Khirbat Qeiyafa have demonstrated that in the late 11th-century BC (David reigned in the early 10th century BC), Judah was already a thriving kingdom. Just recently, more archaeological evidence has surfaced to back up this view of ancient Judah.

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