Archaeology and the Bible
Archaeology and the Bible THE discovery of ancient records, written on stone, clay, parchment, paper and wax carries us back to the very time when the Bible was written. It is as if Nebuchadnezzar, Cyrus, Rameses and others mentioned in the Bible should speak from the stillness of the tomb and confirm the accuracy and credibility of the Word of God. If our Holy Bible were destroyed we might restore every institution of Christianity and much of the Book itself from the findings of archaeology. The Code of Hammurabi.
During the months of December, 1901, and January, 1902, the great French archaeologist, M. de Morgan was making excavations in Susa, in Persia (the Shushan of Esther). He discovered a mass of black diorite eight feet high, six feet in circumference at the base and five feet at the top. Upon this monument are nearly 4,000 lines of inscriptions giving 248 laws formulated by Hammurabi, King of Babylon about 2250 B.C. He is the Amraphel of Genesis 14:1 who helped to capture Sodom and from whom Abraham wrested the spoils of battle. These laws were written in a very systematic way and show that courts and a high state of civilization existed in Babylon long before he was king. Skeptics once held that Moses could not have written the first books of the Old Testament because, they said, writing did not exist in his day. The finding of this monument shows a high state of civilization existing long before the days of Moses. There is some similarity between the laws of Moses and the laws of Hammurabi. The laws of Hammurabi, however, regard only the external act while the laws of Moses take into consideration the motives, thoughts and feelings back of every action. The laws of Moses deal with man’s relationship to God as well as to his fellowman. The laws of Hammurabi deal only with man’s relationship to man. The Tel el-Amarna Tablets. At the village of Tel el-Amarna on the Nile River about 175 miles south of Cairo, Egypt, a peasant woman found in 1887 three hundred tablets of baked clay. These tablets are now in the Louvre at Paris, France. Each tablet is covered with cuneiform inscription in the Babylonian language. They are a series of letters written about 1400 B.C. by the governors of Palestine, Phoenicia, Syria and Philistia and by the kings of Babylon and Assyria. Just as men file away important letters today for safe keeping, these letters, written in clay and baked into permanency, speak as a voice from the remote past--three thousand, five hundred years ago.
These tablets show that Palestine was a province of Egypt and had been for a long time a province of Babylon. They were written when the Hebrews were captives in Egypt and show that Palestine was in a greatly disturbed condition at the time. These letters refer to the Canaanites and to their enemies, the Hebrews. They refer to the city of Jerusalem which name was not until the finding of these tablets known to have been in use at that early date.
The Black Obelisk. In the British museum may be seen a famous monument of black marble which was cut in the reign of Shalmaneser II, King of Assyria 860-825 B.C. This stone is covered with a series of sculptured pictures showing men of many nations bringing tribute to Shalmaneser. Among them is a file of Jews who, the inscription says, came from Jehu the King of Israel (2 Kings 9, 10). This and many other monuments of Assyria describe the wars waged between Assyria and Syria and tell how Syria was a buffer state for Israel.
They show how the Assyrian defeat of Syria left Israel free to expand and thus explain many things in the history of the Northern Kingdom. The Moabite Stone. The Moabite Stone is a large slab of black basalt and is now in the Louvre at Paris. Found in ancient Moab just east of the Dead Sea, this stone was cut in the reign of Mesha, King of Moab, about 850 B.C. and is a tribute to Chemosh, the Moabite deity. It tells how Chemosh became angry with his people and allowed Omri, King of Israel, to conquer them and force them to pay tribute. It tells of the Moabites winning back their independence after the death of Ahab. The inscriptions from this stone read like a chapter from Kings. Reference is made to Jehovah, many details of the Bible are illustrated and the relations between Moab and Israel are correctly pictured.
Egyptian Discoveries.
Rameses II was the Pharaoh of the Egyptian bondage. His mummy has been found and every schoolboy has seen pictures of the great statue of him which lies in ancient Egypt. The city of Pithom has been discovered, the actual storehouses built by the Hebrew slaves have been found, the lower portions made of brick containing straw and the upper portions made of brick without straw. Meneptah II was the Pharaoh of the Exodus and his mummy has likewise been found. A hymn of victory addressed to him mentions Israel and the inscription tells of the death of his young son possibly in the last of the plagues. Other researches show the location of Goshen. The more the archaeologists dig in ancient Egypt, the stronger must our faith in the Old Testament become. The Oxyrhynchus Papyri.
These are very ancient manuscripts found about the close of the last century in a small mound near the Nile River in the Libyan desert of Egypt. Among them is a fragment of a book of sayings of Jesus evidently written about A.D. 150. These sayings are in the gospels of the Bible. Other manuscripts refer to many events which are also recorded in the Bible.
Record of the Hittites. The skeptics once claimed that no such nation as the Hittites ever existed since they were mentioned only in the Bible. Records of Egypt and Assyria have now been found which show that the Hittites for nearly seven centuries occupied northern Syria and southern Asia Minor and were one of the greatest nations on earth. Many ruins of Hittite buildings have been found, their rock carvings have been discovered and much of their hieroglyphic work is now being deciphered. What must be the chagrin of those who once insisted that no such nations ever existed and the joy of those who "by faith" accepted the account given in Holy Writ? Truly "the rocks and the stones cry out."
Other Discoveries. The ruins of Abraham’s birthplace, Ur of Chaldees, have been found. Portraits of the Canaanites whom Joshua fought have been found, as well as Shishak’s sculptured account of his campaign against Rehoboam. Those images bear the names of Gaza, Adullam, Adjallon, Gibeon, and Jerusalem. Tiglath-pileser’s record mentions Uzziah, Ahaz, Menahem, Pekah, Hosea and five kings of Judah and Israel. We have Sargon’s account of his capture of Samaria and Sennacharib’s history of his invasion of Palestine mentioning King Hezekiah. Manasseh is mentioned in an Assyrian list of tributaries. Belshazzar is mentioned in the Babylonian inscriptions as being the son of Nabonidus. The excavations of Susa, Persia, have confirmed the book of Esther. The city of Nineveh has been unearthed. Hundreds of other equally interesting discoveries have been made.
Conclusion.
These discoveries strengthen our faith. They help us to know that the writers of the Bible "spake with authority." In the wise providence of God, the spade of the archaeologist has confounded the skeptics.