amazing discoveries that unlock the bible: a visual experience by douglas connelly, excerpt

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amazingdiscove ies

that unlockthe

Bible

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O T H E R T I T L E S A V A I L A B L E I N T H I S S E R I E S

Incredible Mysteries of the BibleStephen M. MillerISBN-13 : 978-0 -310 -25594-9ISBN-10: 0 -310 -25594-5

How We Got the BibleClinton E. ArnoldISBN-13 : 978-0-310 -25306-8ISBN-10: 0 -310 -25306-3




amazingdiscove ies

that unlockthe

BibleA V I S U A L E X P E R I E N C E

Douglas Connelly



Amazing Discoveries That Unlock the BibleCopyright © 2008 by Douglas Connelly

Requests for information should be addressed to:

Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49530

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Connelly, Douglas, 1949 – Amazing discoveries that unlock the Bible : a visual experience / Douglas Connelly. p. cm. — (Zondervan visual reference series) ISBN-13: 978-0-310-25799-8 ISBN-10: 0-310-25799-9 1. Bible—Antiquities 2. Middle East—Antiquities 3. Middle East—Civilization. 4. Europe—Antiquites. 5. Europe—Civilization. I. Title.BS621.C625 2007220.9’3 — dc22 2007000424

This edition printed on acid-free paper.

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible: New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Interna-tional Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.

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All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means — electronic, mechani-cal, photocopy, recording, or any other — except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Digging Up the Bible . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Do These Discoveries Prove the Bible Is True? . . . 8

The Babylonian Flood Story . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Royal Treasures of Ur . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Ebla: Living Like a Canaanite. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Pharaoh Hardened His Heart. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

Out of Egypt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

The Hebrews Are Coming! (Amarna Letters) . . . 20

Jericho’s Walls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

No Other Gods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Hunting for Hittites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

Mythic King or Man of God? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

Finding the Philistines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

Solomon’s Temple . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

The Lost Ark . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

Solomon’s Cities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

The Moabite Stone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

A Buried City . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

Authorized Access Only . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

The City No One Could Find . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

Snapshot of an Old Testament King . . . . . . . . . . . 46

War with Assyria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

Northern Kingdom Destroyed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

Hezekiah’s Tunnel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

Sennacherib’s Prism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

Lachish Letters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

Mistaken About Daniel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

Prophecy Fulfi lled! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

Cliffside Carving . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62

Herod: Murderer, Dreamer, King. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

Herod’s Temple . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66

Jews Only . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68

The Jesus Boat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70

The Bible Jesus Read . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72

Pontius Pilate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74

Crucifi xion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76

Everyday Treasures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78

Famous Faces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80

Bone Boxes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82

Peter’s House . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84

Sightseeing in Corinth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86

Touring Ephesus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88

Paul in Trouble . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90



6

^ THE PLACE overlooking the Sea of Galilee where Jesus delivered the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5 – 7).

The events of the Bible took place in history — in real places with real people. But the nations, armies, and rulers of the Bible along with the musicians, carpenters, and school teach-ers passed off the scene long ago. What was their world like?

Archaeology helps us reconstruct the biblical world. The study of ancient things (which is what the word archaeol-ogy means) involves knowledge of history, geography, lan-guage, money, warfare, biology, ceramics, and even medicine. Scholars may sift carefully through the ruins of a city or a burial site or even a garbage dump. They use highly sophis-ticated methods of excavation, soil analysis, carbon dating, and photography. It’s a very detailed, diffi cult job! But once in a while, the diggers and discoverers come upon an object or building or piece of writing so startling, so amazing that it makes all the hard work seem like nothing.

In this book, we will look at some of the most amazing discoveries about the Bible ever made — and we will see how those discoveries unlock God’s Word. It’s a journey you won’t forget!

Digging Up the Bible

# BUST OF AUGUSTUS CAESAR, ruler of the Roman Empire when Jesus was born.

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7

! A SCROLL of the Psalms found among the Dead Sea Scrolls.

$ GOLDEN BOWL from the Canaanite city of Ugarit.

@ A snapshot in stone of the Persian

king, Xerxes, the royal husband of Esther.

Xerxes ruled a a vast empire that stretched from India to Ethiopia.



8

Do These Discoveries Prove

the Bible Is True?

# THE SEAL READS, “Belonging to Jehoahaz, son of the king,” and pictures a fi ghting rooster. Scholars aren’t sure who Jehoahaz was — probably a lesser son of one of Israel’s kings.

! A carved ivory box found at Megiddo.

Inscriptions on ancient memo-rial stones and long forgotten coins will never “prove” or “disprove” the Bible. Even if every historical fact was prov-en beyond question, the heart of the Bible’s message must be accepted by faith. The discov-eries of archaeology help us in other ways.

Archaeological discoveries demonstrate the accuracy of the biblical writers. As new

documents are found or as new artifacts are uncovered, the reliability of the biblical record is confi rmed over and over.

Evidence from the ancient world helps us better understand the cultural and historical context of the Bible. We learn how people lived and worked and thought. We can enter into their world and understand God’s message more clearly.

Archaeology helps us unravel some of the riddles of the Bible. Political or historical questions are often resolved by

examining related documents or surprising discoveries from the biblical world.

The people of the Bible come alive in our thinking. When we see the ankle of a crucifi ed man or the prison where Paul was in chains or an object from Herod’s magnifi cent temple, the biblical accounts take on new life.

Archaeology affi rms our confi dence in the Bible’s truthful-ness but, in the end, we trust in the living God as the source of truth, not in some relic from the past.

! An image of the Caananite god, Baal.

guth, not in.



9

SLAVE TAGThis Roman slave tag was attached to an iron collar and asks that the slave be returned to his owner. Runaway slaves (like Onesimus in Paul’s letter to Philemon) were routinely collared to prevent further escape attempts. Persistent runaways were branded on the foreheads—an F for fugitivus (fugitive).

@ Carefully sifting through the dirt, destruction, and debris of an ancient site requires patience and tedious labor. Every signifi cant artifact is photographed, catalogued, and meticulously preserved for further study.

@ A JAR in which the Dead Sea Scrolls were stored. The dry climate around the Dead Sea preserved the leather scrolls for more than 2,000 years.

9

climate around the Dead Sea preserved the leather scrolls formore than 2,000 years.

@ A JAR in which the Dead Sea Scrolls were stored. The dry climate around the Dead Sea

S

@ Csitepho



10

You’ve heard the story of Noah and the ark since you were a child, but what if you found another fl ood story from another culture and in an ancient language? George Smith, a British explorer and lan-guage specialist, found just such a story — and it caused a worldwide sensation. Smith was in the British Museum sifting through clay tablets recovered from the library of the Assyrian king, Ashurbanipal, when he came across an incredible passage. He found himself translating a fl ood story very much like

the biblical account of Noah and the fl ood. He was so excited that he raised money to return to Nineveh in order to fi nd the rest of the tablets — and amazingly

he did!The Babylonian fl ood story is told on the eleventh tablet of a

much longer poem called the Epic of Gilgamesh. You can read the whole poem online or checked out from your local li-brary. Gilgamesh apparently was a real king in the ancient land of Sumer (2700 – 2500 BC). Legends grew up around this heroic king and eventually the story became one of the culture’s great epics. Does this Babylonian epic give

us a better account of the fl ood than the Bible? No way! The Babylonian version is simply a corrupted memory of

the actual fl ood, and that account is preserved accurately in Genesis 6 – 9.

The Babylonian

Flood Story

! Michelangelo’s depiction of the fl ood on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome.

& SEVENTH-CENTURY BC TABLET in which Utnaphishtim, the Babylonian “Noah,” and his wife tell Gilgamesh about their experience in the great deluge.

p gthe biblical account of

to return to Ninhe did!

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11

$ The mountains of Ararat where the Bible says Noah’s ark eventually came to rest — and where explorers have searched ever since for remains of a wooden ark.

& A STONE DEPICTION OF GILGAMESH, the heroic king of Uruk in the land of the Sumerians. Gilgamesh learned the fl ood story as he traveled through the underworld and talked with the survivors of that long ago catastrophe.

CAPTION Text

AMAZING FLOOD STORIESThe Babylonian fl ood story is not the only account of that event outside the Bible. More than 200 fl ood legends have been found in cultures all over the world. In the ancient Greek legend, the heroes Deucalion and his wife Pyrrha entered the ark and the god Zeus sent nine days of such torrential rain that it carved out the present-day Greek pen-insula. The Toltec Indians of ancient Mexico believed that a fl ood destroyed the world 1,716 years after its creation. Only a few people escaped in a closed wooden chest.

The legends are so numerous and from such diverse cultures that they could not have been simply copied from each other. Further-more, the legends were recorded long before missionaries brought any knowledge of the biblical account of the fl ood to these cultures. James Perloff makes some startling comparisons: In 95 percent of the more than two hundred fl ood legends, the fl ood was worldwide; in 88 percent a certain family was chosen to survive; in 70 percent survival was by means of a boat or raft; in 67 percent animals were also saved; in 66 percent the fl ood was due to human sin and wickedness; and in 57 percent the boat came to rest on a mountain.*

! Deucalion and Pyyrah are warned by Zeus to escape the coming fl ood.

Damascus

Jerusalem

Haran Nineveh

Mari

Babylon

Ur Uruk

E G Y P T A R A B I A

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Mt. Ararat

Euphrates R .

Ti gris R

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Me d i t e r r a n e a n S e a

Pe r s i a n Gu l f

C a s p i a n S e a

Re d S e a

B l a c k S e a



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