Validation is a good thing

Archaeology has been an interesting topic for me, and I hate to admit publicly that it started way back during the first Raiders of the Lost Ark movie. Yes, I know archaeology isn’t like that in real life, but I found the artifacts and the history that went with them incredibly interesting.

That may be where I found a love for exploring abandoned places. But I digress.

I know it's not real life, but archaeology is fascinating (photo from imdb.com)

I came across an article about archaeological finds that seem to be proving the Bible is truly a historical book and not a made-up collection of stories. Let me start with the most surprising fact I found in a couple of sources during my research. Secular archaeologists are actually using the Bible for clues on where artifacts and historic sites might be buried. I almost fell off my chair when I read that.

That’s some significant validation, don’t you think?

Here’s one of the more recently-found archaeological sites that correspond to the Bible. Did you know they found the Pool of Siloam in 2004? That’s the pool where Jesus healed the blind man in the Book of John.

The website List Verse Dot Com says the Siloam Pool has always been one of Christianity’s more sacred sites, although its exact location was unclear for a long time. However, the precise location was confirmed in 2004 when construction workers were trying to fix a water pipe south of Jerusalem’s Temple Mount. They found several ancient steps and part of a very large pool that dated back to the age when Jesus walked the Earth, known as the Second Temple Age.

Have you heard of the Dead Sea Scrolls? It was back in 1947 when the world saw one of its greatest archaeological finds of the 20th century. A young shepherd boy discovered the scrolls in caves along the northwestern shore of the Dead Sea. There were thousands of pieces of parchment that were put back together over many years. The scrolls covered the entire Bible except for the Book of Esther.

While most of the scrolls didn’t contain complete books of the OT, Crossway.org says there was a complete scroll containing the Book of Isaiah. What’s interesting to me is the differences are very minimal between the OT texts of the Dead Sea Scrolls and various editions of the Hebrew texts produced a thousand years later and still used today. The meaning of the texts themselves is not affected by these minimal differences, either.

The Dead Sea Scrolls, one of the most significant Biblical finds (Photo from the Israel Museum)

It looks like Biblical archaeology took off back in 1846. That’s when archaeologists dug up an Assyrian obelisk (a tall, four-sided, narrow tapering monument that ends in a pyramid-like shape at the top) in northern Iraq. It referred to Jehu, a ninth-century BC Hebrew King, and this was the first time an archaeological find corroborated what was in the Bible.

In a Newsweek article, author Eric Metaxas said the trend of archaeology confirming the Bible continued so consistently that in 1959, Rabbi Dr. Nelson Glueck declared that “no archaeological find has ever controverted a Biblical reference.” And the evidence keeps coming.

In 1961, an inscription was found bearing the name “Pilate,” which was the earliest known reference to him outside of the New Testament.

In 1968, a first-century home in Capernaum (where Jesus lived during His ministry) was identified as belonging to the Apostle Peter.

In 1990, an ossuary (burial box for human bones) was found bearing the inscription and bones of Caiaphas, the high priest who pushed for the execution of Jesus.

In 1993 a stele (a stone or wooden slab erected as a monument) was found mentioning “the House of David,” yanking the king out of the realm of myth (lots of scholars evidently don’t believe King David was real) and into the historical record.

That’s seven archaeological finds that confirm the stories found in the Bible as historically accurate. However, there are so many more that I just don’t have space to write about them all. In fact, the sheer number is a little overwhelming (information overload?), so I would highly recommend looking into it yourself.

It’s exciting to find out that the Bible is historically accurate! That gives me more hope as the world continue to spin out of control, and I hope it does for you too! I skipped ahead to the end of the book (Revelation) and we win in the end!