The prophet Isaiah received the message from the Lord God of heaven and earth in the form of a question and an answer. God asked: “Who hath declared this from ancient time? who hath told it from that time? have not I the Lord? and there is no God else beside me; a just God and a Saviour; there is none beside me.” Isaiah 45:21. What God is trying to tell us is that He is the only one who knows the past from the eternity; He is the only one who really knows what is happening in our world today; and He is the only one who knows what the future will be from now through eternity.
All the knowledge that pertains to the human race and that is important for our salvation is recorded in the Bible. Ellen White wrote the following words in her book Education, page 173: “The Bible is the most ancient and the most comprehensive history that men possess. It came fresh from the fountain of eternal truth, and throughout the ages a divine hand has preserved its purity. It lights up the far-distant past, where human research in vain seeks to penetrate. In God’s word only do we behold the power that laid the foundations of the earth and that stretched out the heavens. Here only do we find an authentic account of the origin of nations. Here only is given a history of our race unsullied by human pride or prejudice.” Further, on page 178, she continues, “The history which the great I AM has marked out in His word, uniting link after link in the prophetic chain, from eternity in the past to eternity in the future, tells us where we are today in the procession of the ages, and what may be expected in the time to come. All that prophecy has foretold as coming to pass, until the present time, has been traced on the pages of history, and we may be assured that all which is yet to come will be fulfilled in its order.”
These are shocking statements for a skeptic. Yet they are true. Of course, God is never going to remove all doubt. There must be room for a man’s faith. However, God provides many solid facts that are designed to strengthen our faith in Him and His word. Biblical archaeology, even without trying to prove the Bible, is doing just that. I have selected a few of the latest and quite amazing discoveries that will strengthen your faith in God and His word. Please join me in the search of the archaeological discoveries:
Last summer, archaeologists discovered the one-square-foot fragment of a victory stone in northern Israel. This victory stone, from the 9th century b.c., was written in Aramaic and contains the first non-biblical reference to the dynasty of King David. Specifically, it refers to a battle that involved David’s great-great-grandson Asa, King of Judah (913–873 b.c.). King Asa, according to 2 Chronicles chapters 14–16, was one of Judah’s few kings who were faithful to God. He tried to rid the kingdom of idolatry and won many battles with the help of the Lord, including the great battle against a million-soldier-strong Ethiopian army.
In October 1975, Professor Nahman Avigad of the Hebrew University purchased four bullae (a bulla is a small lump of clay impressed with a seal bearing a person’s signature and it was attached to an ancient document). To these four bullae were eventually added over 250. All of them were dated back to Jeremiah’s time shortly before the Babylonian conquest of Jerusalem in 586 b.c.
Two of the seal impressions carry names found in the Bible. One of them has the name of Baruch, Jeremiah’s scribe (see chapter 36). Its literal translation reads as follows: “Belonging to Berekhyahu, son of Neriyahu the scribe.” Another bulla carries the name of King Jehoiakim’s son Yerahme’el, who was sent to arrest Baruch and Jeremiah (Jere-miah 36:26). Finally, the last seal impression was excavated by the late archaeologist Yigal Shiloh and it reads: “Belonging to Gemaryahu, son of Shaphan” (Jeremiah 36:10).
Two more names were discovered, not on the seal impressions, but on the seals themselves. One seal reads: “Belonging to Seriahu, son of Neriyahu.” Seriah was the brother of Baruch, Jeremiah’s scribe (Jeremiah 51:59–64). The second seal ring belonged to Hanan, son of Hilkiyahu the priest. This ring may have belonged to the son of the high priest Hilkiah who found a scroll of the law in the temple during the reign of King Josiah of Judah (639–609 b.c., 2 Kings 22:8).
Another recently discovered seal may have belonged to Jezebel, the wife of King Ahab of Israel (874–853 b.c.) and the daughter of Ethba’al, king of a major Phoenician city, Sidon. The seal is carved in the Phoenician style and below the heathen images there are four letters that in mirror image spell “yzbl”, Jezebel. They are written in mirror image form so that they will be read correctly when the seal is impressed in the clay.
In 1867, British Captain Charles Warren and Sergeant Britles discovered and explored the famous “Warren’s Shaft.” This shaft was a part of the water system that was dug during the reign of King Hezekiah of Judah. King Hezekiah dug the tunnel to improve the water supply of Jerusalem before the Assyrian siege of the city under Sennacherib (2 Kings 20:20; 2 Chronicles 32:2–4, 30). In 1880 boys that were playing inside the tunnel discovered the Siloam Inscription in the wall, 20 feet from the Siloam Pool. The Inscription reads: “. . . Breakthrough. And this was the account of the breakthrough. While the laborers were still working with their picks, each toward the other, and while there were still three cubits to be broken through, the voice of each was heard calling to the other, because there was a . . . in the rock to the south and to the north. And at the moment of the breakthrough, the laborers struck each toward the other, pick against pick. the water flowed from the spring to the pool for 1,200 cubits. And the height of the rock above the heads of the laborers was 100 cubits.”
This was an amazing engineering feat for those days (around 700 b.c.)—to start digging at the opposite ends of the tunnel and meet each other.
Underneath what is now a stretch of road in Jerusalem’s Peace Forest, to the south of the Golden Dome of the Rock mosque, workers accidentally uncovered an ancient burial cave. Inside the cave they discovered 12 ossuaries (bone boxes). These were used in the period roughly one hundred years before the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 a.d. The deceased was placed in a recess carved into the wall of a burial cave and after the flesh had decomposed, the bones were collected and placed in an ossuary-container made of decorated limestone. Inscriptions on the two of them carry the family name of the Caiaphas family and one of them may have held the remains of the high priest Caiaphas, who interrogated Jesus and handed Him over to the Roman Governor Pontius Pilate for the trial and final crucifixion (Matthew 26:57–68).
Archaeologists have uncovered a building that seems to be King Herod’s Praetorium in the seaside city of Caesarea. This building, called praetorium, includes a palace, administrative offices, a bath house, and number of courtyards. The building is significant because it was the apostle Paul’s prison for two years before he was sent to Rome. In Acts 23:35 we read that the governor Felix said: “I will hear you when your accusers also have come. And he commanded him (Paul) to be kept in Herod’s Praetorium” (NKJV).
These discoveries and many others speak of the accuracy of the Bible. The Word of God has never failed and it never will. Through His Word, nature, history, archaeological discoveries, and the changed lives of real people, God speaks to us and calls us back to Him. Will you not answer His call and come back to Him?