Hi everyone, in this video we are going to look at biblical archeology. That is, we’re going to look at some findings from archeology that are relevant for the Bible. This is going to be by no means comprehensive. There simply is too much of too much of stuff that has been found in archeology, which is relevant to the Bible. But we will only be touching upon a few significant finds.


Places in the Bible
So first, let’s look at the places that are important for biblical archeology. The Old Testament of the Bible is based in Israel. So that is an obviously important place. The people of ancient Israel wrote on scrolls made of animal skin. So, this is a material that does not last very long. In addition to this, the people of Israel abstain from making portraits and sculptures of people. So, in that sense, we don’t have so much so many artifacts, but there are a lot of other artifacts that have been found. The people of Israel use a relative system of dating, that is, they would say that this particular event took place during the fifth year of the reign of a particular king, then they would say, Okay, this king rule for 25 years, and then he was followed by the next king who ruled for 29 years, and so on and so forth.

So, they have a relative system of dating, not an absolute one, which can directly correlate to our system of AD and BC. Now, although the people of Israel do not have any stone monuments on which they have written things, they have books, there is, of course, the Bible which has a wealth of historical information. Josephus was a Jewish historian who has written a lot about the world of the Bible. There is also another ancient Jewish book called The Book of Jasher. So, there is a lot that we know about the history of ancient Israel from these records. The Egyptians used writing in the form of pictures, which is called hieroglyphics, and they did it on stone. There was a monument called the Rosetta Stone, which narrated certain things in multiple languages. So that enabled archaeologists to decipher the Egyptian's hieroglyphic language.

These are the names of some of the archaeologists who got Egyptian archeology started. Pierre Francois and Jean F Champollion. And the Egyptians did not follow a system of dating their kings and events, neither relative nor absolute. So just looking at the Egyptian records, just taking the facts as they are, it is difficult to assign dates to events in Egypt. Some of the things that kings write about themselves in Egypt have to be taken with a pinch of salt. Because there is a tendency to show off, there is a tendency to report one’s victories and to sweep defeats under the carpet or sweep any disgraceful event under the carpet. So that has to be taken into account while interpreting the archaeological narratives from Egypt.

Another important place which is relevant for biblical history, and archaeology is Assyria and Babylon. These are all nearby places in Iraq. The Assyrians wrote using cuneiform inscriptions that is a particular type of script, and they wrote on clay tablets. So, it’s interesting that different places have different materials. The ancient Israelites wrote on skin, the Egyptians on stone, and the Babylonians on clay tablets. So, the Assyrian language was deciphered by Sir Henry Rawlinson and these people kept excellent records not only of events, but they also kept chronological information. They had a dating system, which is not only a relative that is in terms of the kings of Assyria, but they also recorded astronomical events, and today we are able to work out during which year these astronomical events took place, and thus the Assyrian dating system is absolute.

They gave a lot of importance to writing history, art and culture. In fact, one of the patrons of art and literature and history was a king and Emperor called Ashurbanipal. So, a lot of documents have been recovered from his library. And some of these things have a bearing on biblical texts, and they corroborate some of the things written in the Bible. So, we are going to look at a few, just a handful of archaeological finds, and how they match with what is written in the Bible. Assyrian kings and Babylonian kings are also prone to showing off. They will exaggerate their achievements or their victories, and they will downplay their failures.


Gilgamesh - Noah’s Flood
There’s a very ancient document called the Gilgamesh Epic. And it dates to nearly 4000 years ago, it was discovered near Nineveh. Nineveh is an ancient city mentioned in the Bible. It used to be the capital of Assyria, and it’s near the modern city of Mosul, which is shown in the background. So many copies of this document were found. It’s a very long story. It’s a long conversation between two people called Gilgamesh and Utnapishtim. Now we’re going to look at a small extract from this epic. So, there’s a narration of an incident, it says that there’s a certain God who decided to bring a great flood on the earth. And one of the gods leaked the news to Utnapishtim, who is the protagonist here, and the God told him to make an ark and make every creature to embark on it.

And then he goes on to say that his children provided him with pitch to cover the ark. And then all the animals went into the ship, then the rain came, there was thunder and lightning, and so on and so forth. Eventually, the gods started panicking. And then they stopped the rain. And this man sends out a raven, she did not return to him. Then he says, I put out a dove, and she returned because she could not find any place to rest her feet. And then he says, he came out of the ark, he released all the animals, he sacrificed offerings. And he says that the gods were very pleased with his offerings, they were attracted to the sweet savour, and then they decided that they would not punish humans again with a flood. So that’s one narrative in this Gilgamesh Epic.

And why is this important from a biblical point of view, it is very similar to be account in the Book of Genesis about the worldwide flood that God sent on the world during the time of Noah. In fact, flood legends like these have been found from all across the world. And it’s too much of a coincidence for all the cultures and so many tribes from the world to just invent a similar story, which is similar in so many details. The more plausible explanation is that there was an event like this, and different tribes recollected this event. Perhaps they lost some of their memory, they must have embellished some of the details, but the kernel of truth remains. So, the Gilgamesh epic substantiates the biblical record, that there was a worldwide flood around 4000 or 4500 years ago.


Black Obelisk Of Nineveh - King Jehu
This is one of the many artifacts discovered. And anyway, it’s a Black Obelisk, and it’s now in the British Museum. Now, one of the panels shows a king bowing down before another king and offering tribute. So on the left side, we have people standing on the right side, there are subordinates offering tribute.

Now, if you look at the inscriptions that are there, the inscription say that Jehu king of Israel is offering tribute to emperor Shalmaneser third of Assyria. Now, this is important from a biblical point of view because the Bible mentions Jehu as one of the kings of Israel. It mentions the Emperor of Assyria. It mentions that the Bible says that during this time, the Assyrian empire was expanding. The Assyrians were becoming powerful, and they were troubling Israel. So, as I said earlier, the ancient Jews did not make sculptures and portraits of their kings. So this panel shows the face of king Jehu. So he’s the only ancient Israelite, whom we know by name, and also by face.


Taylor Prism - Hezekiah Vs Sennacherib Battle
This is the Taylor Prism . It’s named after Colonel Taylor who discovered it in Nineveh, that’s in Assyria. And there’s a duplicate another version, an identical copy of this prism, which is also been found. Now, what is the text of this press of this prism? It says, as to Hezekiah, the Jew, he did not submit to my yoke. And this author goes on to say how he laid siege to the cities of Hezekiah, this Jewish king, and all the victory that he had. And then he says, I made him a prisoner in Jerusalem, his royal residence, he was like a bird in a cage. And then this author goes on to say how he besieged the city and took away so many things from his country to Kuwait territory, exacted tribute the amounts of tribute are also mentioned, including 30 talents of gold, and so on and so forth.

And the author assigned his name beneath, it says Sennacherib King of the Universe and of Assyria. Now, the Bible mentions both King Hezekiah king of Judah, that is in Israel, and also Sennacherib emperor of Assyria. The Bible mentions that Sennacherib invaded Judah, he conquered the cities of Judah, he besieged Jerusalem, he extracted tribute out of Hezekiah. So, many of the things that Sennacherib claims that he did, the Bible records that he did exactly these things. Now, one of the things that is missing in this boastful account, is the mention of conquering Jerusalem. If Sennacherib was able to do so much, the obvious question is, why did he not conquer Jerusalem? And why did he not take Hezekiah as a prisoner of war. As I said, the ancient kings like to show off.

They would boast about their victories, but if something unpleasant happened to them, then they would not mention it. Now, if you look at the Bible, the Bible substantiates all these things that Sennacherib is saying, but the Bible also mentions that God intervened in answer to Hezekiah as prayer. The angel of God destroyed the army of Assyria, and so the king had to return to his homeland. Now, you don’t expect him to write all these things in his boastful record, but then he fails to mention the conquest of Jerusalem. So this Taylor Prism substantiates the historical accounts regarding King Hezekiah and emperor Sennacherib, that are there in the Books of Kings and Chronicles of the Bible, and also the prophet Isaiah.


Lachish's Reliefs - Siege At Lachish
There is a city in Judah in southern Israel called Lachish and there there there are remains of the siege, the siege arrangements that the Assyrians made. And then in Assyria, these Lachish reliefs were found, that is engravings which describe the siege and the conquest of Lachish, that is one of the towns of Judah. Now in this panel, you can see there are Assyrian soldiers, and they are leading Israelis, ancient Israelis as captives to Assyria. So this is exactly what the Bible records it says that Sennacherib, King of Assyria, sent a delegation to Jerusalem while he was laying siege against Lachish. His whole army was with him at Lachish. So these Lachish reliefs, and the remains that are there in Lachish they substantiate the biblical account of the history of that time.


Siloam inscription - Hezekiah’s water tunnel
This is a cave or even say a tunnel through which water flows. It’s sourced from a spring which is called the Gihon Spring. And in this tunnel was found this inscription, which is called the Ceylon inscription. It is named after a pool called Ceylon in Jerusalem. So, the tunnel is named after King Hezekiah. And this inscription, the text of the inscription says as follows, this is the story of the tunnel while the action were against each other. And while three cubits were left to cut, the voice of a man call to his counterpart. So, what the inscription is trying to say is that the workers were constructing the tunnel from either end. And then they managed to do their tunnelling accurately so that they were able to meet somewhere in the middle.

So, they didn’t go off track, but they were able to meet; the tunnel was constructed, and the water was taken from the Gihon Spring to the pool of Ceylon. Now, the Bible records that when King Hezekiah saw that King Sennacherib of Assyria was going to invade the land, he consulted with his officials to stop the fountains and brooks outside the city of Jerusalem. So they gathered the people and did it. Why should the king of Assyria come and find much water, they said. So the Bible records King Hezekiah doing this project. And now we find an inscription which marks the completion of the project, and today the tunnel is standard sites that pilgrims and tourists will visit in Israel. So again, these artifacts again prove the authenticity of the biblical account of the Chronicles.


Seals of Gedaliah & Jucal
A little after the time of, of Hezekiah the First Temple was nearing its end, it would be a few years before the Babylonian Empire would destroy the temple in Jerusalem. There have been some seals that have been found from that time. The seals are inscribed with the people who own the seal. The people who use the seal; Jucal the son of Shelemiah and Gedaliah the son of Pashur. Now in the Bible, in the book of Jeremiah, these people are mentioned. It says, then Shephatiah the son of Mattan, and Gedaliah the son of Pashur, and Jucal the son of Shelemiah, Pashur the son of Malchiah, heard the words that Jeremiah had spoken unto all the people.

They didn’t like what Jeremiah spoke, and they imprisoned him, and they wanted to kill him, actually, they managed to put him in prison. So, these are actually villains in the biblical narrative. But anyway, their seals have been found in Jerusalem, by Dr. Eilat Masar, who’s one of the archaeologists working in Jerusalem, even at this point of time. And so, these seals substantiate what the Bible says about the time shortly before the destruction of the first temple.


Egypt - Joseph & Exodus story
The Bible has something to say about Egypt, but it’s a land of mysteries. Because the Bible mentions various interactions that the people of Israel had with the pharaohs, the kings of, of Egypt, but then on most occasions, the pharaoh is not named in the Bible. And so we are left guessing as to who the kings are of Egypt, who appeared in the Bible. There’s one thing called Shishak, which is named. Here, we must note that the standard secular chronology disagrees with the Bible. That is, when the Bible says something about Egypt, you look at what the standard secular chronology has to say, and there seems to be a mismatch. Now, this mismatch does not exist for later events. It exists only for ancient events, that is, events before 600 BC.

But then there is a strange pattern that we see in the Egyptian archaeological records. Although it does not match with the Bible, if you fast-forward the Egyptian chronology by about five centuries; in other words, if you assume that the Egyptian standard chronology is wrong by about five centuries, and you’ll fast-forward the kings and pharaohs that are there, then suddenly there seems to be a correlation with what the Bible is saying. So, it is likely that the standard chronology is wrong, and the chronology needs to be revised. Some authors have revised this chronology, and although they are a minority, their chronology shows a lot of correlation between events written in the Bible, and the artifacts that are found in Egypt. Now, this is the 12th dynastic in Egypt.

Now, according to the standard chronology, these people would have been ruling in around 2400 BC, that would be even before the time of Abraham in the Bible. But if we fast-forward then to by around five centuries, you come to 1900 BC. There’s a king called Senusret 1, the second king of the 12th dynasty. Now, according to the Egyptian records, this king had an assistant and treasurer called Mentuhotep, and he had unusual pause, a lot has written about this man, and the special powers that he had. So apparently the same post was not there in the offices of other pharaohs, only this particular Pharaoh had this powerful right-hand man. And strangely enough, the Bible mentions that there was a character called Joseph, who rose to power in Egypt. Joseph was from Israel. So, he was a man of God. And he was taken to Egypt, and there he rose to power, and he became second in command to the king.

So, there is a correlation between what we find here and what the Bible says. There’s even a canal in Egypt called Joseph’s canal. And this is the undated translation of a hieroglyphic text. Now, this text is a bit late, but it might have been a copy of something which was written earlier. It says, I was in mourning on my throne, because Hapy that is the Nile river goddess had failed to come for seven years. And then it goes on to describe famine like conditions. And this correlates with something that the Bible says. There was a seven-year famine in Egypt. God brought about a famine of seven years. This followed seven years of plenty. So what this Egyptian text is saying, agrees with what is mentioned in the Bible. One of the ironies of Egypt is that the ancient pyramids are superior to the later pyramids.

So, in the 12th dynasty, the third pharaoh, his name is Amenemhet the second. His pyramid is not well-preserved. The fourth pharaoh’s name is Senoswret the second, and he has the pyramid of mud bricks. Again, not very well-preserved. Now, the area in which these were constructed was an Oasis. Now the Bible says that when Joseph’s brothers came to Egypt, the pharaoh gave them the best of the land to live in, which was an Oasis. And there they lived, but they multiplied, and they became more and more powerful, and then the Egyptians became scared of them, and so they enslaved them. So that’s what the Bible says. And the Egyptians made the Israelites build cities, treasure cities and, and monuments for the pharaohs. So that’s what the Bible says.

Now, there is evidence that there was a city called Kahun there and the workers in that city were of Semitic origin. That is, they were not Egyptians, but they were from the area of Canaan, that is the modern land of Israel. Dr. Rosalie David, who’s from the Manchester Museum, she writes like this, it is apparent that the Asiatics were present in the town in large numbers, they were probably from the Syria-Canaan area. The reason for their presence in Egypt remains unclear. So, Dr. David says she does not know why these people were there. Well, the Bible mentions that they came to Egypt during the time of the famine, and then they remained in Egypt, and eventually they got enslaved in Egypt. One of the Pharaohs of this dynasty had a lot of building activity near Kahun, but he was also an unpleasant or an aggressive character, that seems evident from his writings.

So he speaks about how he is a proactive person, an aggressive person who speaks and acts. I am one who is aggressive in order to seize, he says, impatient to succeed. So he seems to be of an oppressive character. And the Bible says that during this time, there was a pharaoh who oppressed Israel severely so the people of Israel, they cried out to their God. Now, this Pharaoh, the next pharaoh, he did not have any sons and this is his pyramid. You can see his pyramid is mostly spoiled. But his pyramid is made with bricks, and it’s with brick held with straw. And this is interesting because the Bible says that the people of Israel were making monuments with bricks, and the bricks were built with straw. And the Bible records the, the conflict between the people, the Israelite workers, and they are Egyptian masters about the straw being provided and so on. And in this in this pyramid, there are different parts with varying amounts of straw used.

So it seems like at some time, there was enough straw, and it was used properly. At other times, there was less of straw shortage of straw, and therefore, the bricks were not properly filled with straw. Now, the Bible says that the Egyptians stopped providing the Israelites with straw, they had to get their own straw. So what we see on the ground matches with what the Bible says. This king had a daughter. The daughter also did not have any sons. And so there was no one to succeed her, and so Dynasty 12 ended with her. The Bible records that the daughter of Pharaoh did not have a child, and she saw Moses who was one of the prominent characters in the Bible, she saw him abandoned or left in an ark in a small Ark, near the River Nile, and she adopted him as her son.

The Bible also says that Moses later left Egypt, and then he was able to return because being his adversaries, the people whom he knew and had gotten into trouble with in Egypt, were no longer there. So that fits with the fact that Dynasty 12 ends with this queen Sobekneferu. The first major king of Dynasty 13 is Neferhotep 1. The circumstances of his death are not known; his army has not been found. Dr. Rosalie David writes that around his time that is, during Dynasty 13 after the end of Dynasty 12, the town of Kahun was abandoned. It is evident that the completion of the king's pyramid was not the reason why the town’s inhabitants suddenly left the town, and they left many of their tools and possession their departure was evidently sudden, and on premeditated.

So, this is what an archaeologist says when she looks at the record there. But nobody knows why these people left suddenly. Well, if you read the Bible, you get an answer. The Bible says that this is the time when God liberated them. So, they left suddenly; they left behind many of their possessions in Egypt. This is a box where baby’s bones were found. The Bible also says that the Egyptians tried to kill the babies of the Israelites. And these are some of the tools that were left behind. So, these artifacts from Egypt correlate very well with what the Bible says. It’s just that the chronology does not match with the Bible. But looking at the evidence, it seems far more likely that the standard chronology is wrong. If you revise the chronology, then a lot of things make sense in the light of the Bible.


Nabonidus Cylinder & Chronicles - Daniel’s Historicity
Now shift from Egypt all the way to Iraq. The Bible says that the people of Israel were taken captive to Babylon. And one of the people of Israel named Daniel rose to prominence. And he was in the palace there. And Daniel writes about those times. One of the incidents he mentions is a feast that Belshazzar, the king of Babylon, made for his courtiers. Now, looking at the background of Babylon. Looking at the background that is there around this event, it seems that this was a confidence building measure, because the enemy armies were encroaching, and they were approaching the city of Babylon. Now while the party was going on, the Bible says that a hand appeared and started writing on the wall, and the king offered a reward to anyone who will interpret it. And one of the elements in the reward was that he will be the third in the kingdom.

Now Daniel records that that very night, Belshazzar was slain. And Darius the Mede took over Babylon. So, which means that the people of Medea invaded the city, and they captured it, and they killed King Belshazzar. Now around to around 1 or 200 years later, there were Greek historians who visited Babylon and Persia, and they documented the history of this region. Now, the controversy is that no historian that is no Greek historian mentions Belshazzar. Now Herodotus says that Nabonidus was the last king of Babylon, and he was not killed when the empire fell. So, this is the complaint that skeptics have, or at least they had about the book of Daniel. What Daniel wrote; doesn’t seem to match with what the Greek historians write? Now, according to the Bible, Daniel wrote around 550 BC, during the sixth century BC. Daniel contains a lot of prophecies about the next three or four centuries. And since skeptics do not believe that it’s possible to have predictions about the future to get fulfilled accurately, they try to explain the book of Daniel by saying that it must have been written by somebody after the so-called prophetic predictions were fulfilled.

That is, it must have been written by somebody in the first or second century BC, whereas the Greek historians were recording this history in the fourth century BC around the time of Alexander the Great. So that’s the controversy about Daniel and Belshazzar. There was no sign of Belshazzar at all. But then, in 1853, there was a cylinder found in Babylon called the Nabonidus Cylinder. It was written by Nabonidus, who the Greek historian said was the last king of Babylon. And among the things that he writes, he mentions Belshazzar, my firstborn son, offspring of my heart. So, this is interesting. The Bible mentions Belshazzar. The Greek historians did not mention him. The skeptic said that the Bible is therefore wrong. But here we have this ancient artifact in which Belshazzar is mentioned. And later on, the Nabonidus chronicle was also discovered in which Nabonidus, the last emperor of Babylon, writes about the end of his empire.

And he says, I the king was in the city of Tema; (that is some other place away from the capital) so my son and his courtiers and army were in Babylon, when Cyrus attacked the Babylonian army at Opis where I was, and then eventually the people of Babylonia revolted, and the troops of Cyrus entered Babylon without battle. So, he says that there was a revolt, his subjects revolted against him and that’s why he lost the war. As I said, nobody likes to admit defeat. But the point which is relevant for the Bible is that this king Nabodinus was the father; he was the actual king of Babylon, but the son was evidently ruling along with him. That’s why his son, Belshazzar, could only promise the person who interpreted the writing to be the third in the kingdom, not the second in the kingdom. So, the father was away in another city. He was facing the Persian army; the son was at Babylon. He was facing the Median army, but both father and son lost their battles. And that’s how the Babylonian Empire fell. So, in that way, this empire came to an end. So, our point here is that archaeological discoveries eventually substantiate the final.


Jesus’s Death & Resurrection
Our next stop is in Jerusalem. In the New Testament book of Hebrews, it says that Jesus suffered outside the city. This is a place outside the Old City of Jerusalem. Today it comes within the Jerusalem urban area, and it’s called the Garden Tomb. In the Gospel of Mark, it’s written that they brought him to a place called Golgotha that is the skull and crucified him there. Now, look at this mountain, I don’t know whether it looks like a skull to you. You can see there are two eyes, two holes which look like eyes and certain features there. So, this vaguely looks like a skull. Of course, a lot of erosion has taken place over the years. This is a close-up view of the mountain. So here you can see the eyes of the skull. And the other features are mostly worn out. This is a photo from around 150 years back. So here the features are visible a little more prominently.

So, this place was called Golgotha, the place of a skull. Now this is the place which the Bible records where Jesus was crucified. Now in the Gospel of John, it says that after at the place where he was crucified, there was a garden which had a new sepulchre, and they laid him there. Now walking distance at a walking distance from Golgotha there is this place, which is a garden today. But the important thing is that there are evidences that this was a garden in ancient times, for example, a cistern is there, which was evidently used to water the plants, then a wine press was there. In Israel, grapes were grown, and wine was produced. So, it would be common for a garden to have a wine press. So, these are evidences that there was a garden in ancient times at the same spot. So, you have this hillock, which looks like a skull, and you have a garden nearby.

The Gospel of John says that there was a sepulchre there. And indeed, you find that there is a Sepulchre there. Now, this is a photo from 1950, in which you can see that there is a ridge near the entrance to the Sepulchre. There is a ridge here, a pathway. And the Gospel of Matthew says that after Jesus was crucified and entombed in the sepulchre, they rolled a large stone over its entrance. Now, that fits with this ridge that is there here, this path which would have been occupied by the stone. There are even shear marks that might have been produced, when the nails that held the stone in place were removed. The Bible says that eventually the stone was rolled away. And so, the stone is not there now. So, you have the hill, like a skull, you have the garden, and you also have this sepulchre.

So, you have different things that are mentioned in the bible matching with what we see today. So, this is a modern picture of this sepulchre. This area is now called the Garden Tomb. And it’s frequented by visitors from all over the world. So, this is a view inside the sepulcher; there is a place for three bodies to be kept and only one of those is properly done that is fully constructed. And this fits with the narrative in the gospels that Jesus was laid in a tomb where no one was laid before. So, this Garden Tomb, which is in Jerusalem, also substantiates the account of the Bible, that Jesus Christ was crucified at a place called a skull, just outside Jerusalem and near that place, there was a garden, there was a sepulchre in the garden, and he was buried there.


Conclusion
So, we hope you enjoyed watching these artifacts, bring the Bible to life. These artifacts, give us more background information about the Bible and help us to understand it better, and they also authenticate the Bible. The Bible is not just myth, it is history, and it is substantiated by historical records and by archaeological artifacts. And we hope that this information will help you to put your trust in the Bible and benefit from it. Thank you very much.