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The Devil’s War Against
Biblical Archaeology
2008
We are living in “End Times.” In
2 Timothy 3:1-9 the Apostle Paul warned of the perilous
conditions during these last days. As our newsletter banner
The Bible for Our Times suggests, Christians would
especially need the Bible to sustain their faith during these
perilous and deceptive End Times.
The Devil knows how vital the
Bible is to Christians. Evolution and other secular theories are
his tools to discredit the Bible as a book of myths and
fables—not the inspired Word of God. However, the historical
accuracy of the Bible has been vindicated by Biblical
archaeology.
To Satan’s dismay, archaeology
has confirmed the reality of Adam and Eve, Noah’s flood, etc.
Now he is subtly targeting Jesus as the Christ by questioning
King David. For over a century secular and agnostic
scholars have denied the existence of King David by relegating
Old Testament accounts about him to the status of mythology.
Why? From one perspective, King David is the second most
important person in Scripture. Jesus is called “the Son
[descendent] of David” fourteen times in the four Gospel
accounts.
Only the son or descendent of
David could be the Christ or Messiah. Revelation 5:5. If Satan
could prove King David never existed, then the New Testament
claim of Jesus being the Messiah or Christ would be false. We
would still be lost in our sins and the New Testament would be
discredited as valid Scripture.
The seriousness of the devil’s
ploy is reflected in the Biblical Archaeology Review,
July/August 1994, p. 55: “I am not the only scholar,” remarks
Philip Davies, “who suspects that the figure of David is about
historical as King Arthur.” Such deniers cast doubt on the
reliability of the Biblical record and undermine the faith of
Christians.
Palestinians Join the Fray
Historically, it is to the
Palestinians advantage to make David a legend. Therefore, they
call the “City of David” the “Village of Silwan,” which is
predominately Arab. But…in 1882 a Yemenite Jewish community
settled on a vacant stretch of land in the City of David. They
were attacked in the 1929 Arab riot and forced to flee during
the 1936-1939 Arab persecutions. The Arabs, now called
Palestinians, confiscated these Jewish homes and changed the
name City of David to the Village of Silwan.
Since the 1990s several Israeli
organizations have been buying Arab homes from the Palestinian
squatters at exorbitant prices. Thus far, over 50 Jewish
families have moved into Silwan under heavy security. Now 60% of
the homes in Silwan are Jewish owned, including the area bought
by Baron de Rothschild in the early 1900s. In time more Jews
will be living in Silwan than Palestinians.
Meanwhile, 160 feet beneath the
Palestinian homes in Silwan, a group of tourists are “bellowing
out the theme song from the Indiana Jones’ movies” as
they wade through Hezekiah’s Tunnel in knee-deep water. What’s
happening?
Consider these quotations from
The Associated Press, 2/10/08.
“Underneath the homes and ragged
streets of the Palestinian neighborhood of Silwan lie the
remnants of a glorious Jewish past: coins, seals, a road that
led to the Biblical Temple and a water tunnel hewn by a Judean
king 2,700 years ago.
“The Old Testament
books of Kings and Chronicles recount the tunnel’s origins:
Hezekiah, king of Judea, dug it to channel water inside the city
walls ahead of a siege by Assyrian armies.
“Measuring 1,750 feet
long—about a third of a mile—the tunnel was dug around 700 B.C.
by two [Jewish] teams that started from each end and met in the
middle, an engineering feat brought to life by their chisel
marks, still visible on the walls, and recounted in an
inscription they mounted on the wall.
“But archaeology is
hard-wired into the politics of modern-day Arab-Israeli strife,
and new digs to unearth more of this past are cutting to the
heart of the charged argument over who owns the Holy City today.
“Israel says it’s
reconnecting with its ancient heritage. Palestinians contend
that archaeology is a political weapon to undermine their
own links to Jerusalem.
“The City of David
shows us the history and archaeology of Jerusalem since the day
it was founded. Jerusalem’s [Jewish] foundations are here,” said
archaeologist Eli Shukrun, standing near the entrance to another
tunnel—a long, dank-smelling Roman-era sewer through which Jews
fled Jerusalem as it was torched by Rome’s legions in 70 A.D.
“The dig regularly yields
important and colorful finds such as 2,500-year-old pins used to
hold robes [of priests] closed, and seals stamped with the names
of Yehochal ben Shlemiyahu and Gemaryahu ben Shafan, two figures
mentioned in the biblical book of Jeremiah.”
The AP article also quoted an
archaeologist expressing a negative view. It is not a
coincidence that agnostics and secular archaeologists holding
the King David mythology tend to be pro-Palestinian in the
Israeli/Palestinian conflict.
King David Was for Real
In 1993 archaeologists
discovered the names of David and Israel in an inscription
carved in stone only 100 years after David’s death. The
Biblical Archaeology Review, March/April 1994, p. 26,
reports:
“It’s not often that an
archaeological find makes the front page of the New York
Times (to say nothing of Time magazine). But that is
what happened last summer at Tel Dan, a beautiful mound in
northern Galilee.
“There Avraham Biran and his
team of archaeologists found a remarkable inscription from the
ninth century BCE that referred both to the ‘house of David’ and
to the ‘king of Israel.’ This is the first time that the name
David had been found in any ancient inscription outside the
Bible.”
Later another scholar found the
name “house of David” in the inscriptions of the famous Moabite
Stone, dated about 100 years after David’s reign. It has been
observed that it is hard to understand how David’s name could
appear in [ancient] historical records if he were nothing but a
legend.
Seals from the time of the
Biblical Kings David and Solomon.
In honor of Jerusalem Day 2007,
archaeologists revealed a number of seals from the time of the
Biblical Kings David and Solomon. The seals, along with other
recently uncovered artifacts, were displayed for the first time
marking forty years since the liberation and unification of
Jerusalem by the modern State of Israel.
These artifacts reveal that the
City of David, ancient Jerusalem, was a commercial and trading
center during David’s and Solomon’s reigns—even postal system.
Agnostic scholars claim if there was a City of David in that
time frame it was a “Sleepy Hollow.” How wrong they are!
King David’s Palace
For decades and despite much
effort by scholars and archaeologists, the location of King
David’s palace has remained a mystery. But recent discoveries by
the eminent archaeologist, Dr. Eilat Mazar, the granddaughter of
the renowned archaeologist, the late Prof. Benjamin Mazar, has
unveiled convincing evidence that pinpoints its exact location.
The eminent archaeologist,
Dr. Eilat Mazar
In 2004 the writer had a meeting
with Dr. Eilat Mazar concerning the extensive destruction of
Jewish antiquities by the Palestinians on the Temple Mount. At
that time she said she “knew the location of King David’s
palace.” Why was she so certain? Her most noted saying was “I
excavate with the Bible in one hand.” Then in 2005 she found
King David’s palace exactly where she Biblically expected.
Thrilling—Bible history was again vindicated!
King Hiram of the Phoenicians
offered to build King David a palace fit for an emperor (2
Samuel 5:11; 1 Chronicles 14:1). Just as Biblically described,
Mazar found the trademark of Phoenician builders—cedars of
Lebanon and their distinct style of stone masonry.
Mazar said, “One of the reasons
researchers were at a loss in finding this important place was
they assumed that King David built his home in the safest, best
protected part of the city, inside the [former] Jebusite city
walls.” However, this was not the case.
“One of the main clues in
finding King David’s palace,” says Mazar, “was surprisingly from
the Bible itself.” [2 Samuel 5:17 states that] “When the
Philistines heard that David had been anointed king over Israel,
they went up in full force to search for him, but David heard
about it and went down [from his palace] to the citadel.”
The Philistines suffered defeat
by King David’s forces. How? The Bible is careful to indicate
that the palace was located above the citadel or walled city of
ancient Jerusalem. Mazar observed, “The Bible would not have
said ‘went down’ unless David indeed did go from his
palace, down the slopes of the Ophel mountain, to the
citadel. Consequently, his palace must have been located north
of the city, not in the center of it.”
The Philistine invasion took
place after the completion of David’s new palace, but before the
northern fortifications were sufficiently finished. Therefore,
King David, who was already living in his new residence, which
was not yet strong enough to withstand a major assault from the
north, regrouped south of his palace in the old Jebusite
fortress city, the ancient Jerusalem, that he had previously
captured.
This Biblical account of King
David’s war with the Philistines proved to Dr. Mazar that
David’s palace was north of the ancient walled city of
Jerusalem. As Mazar viewed the grandiose complexity of this
early Israelite building, that marked it an unprecedented
monumental edifice, Mazar exclaimed, “This can only be King
David’s
royal palace.”
She observed, “This area was not
only available but also desirable. It was protected on the south
by the citadel and the old city, and on the east and west by the
deep slopes of the Kidron and Tyropoeon valleys.” Later, 1
Samuel 5:9 tells of the construction of formidable
fortifications which were completed to the north by David’s
heir, King Solomon.
Dr. Mazar Makes Another
Remarkable Find
Iran’s President Ahmadinejad may
want to see Israel wiped off the map, but an archaeological
discovery announced by Dr. Eilat Mazar marks an event recorded
in the Bible when his country, at that time called Persia,
literally helped put the Jewish people back on the map I n their
own land. She discovered remnants of the 5th century
BC wall built by Nehemiah as recorded in the book of Nehemiah.
The Persians conquered the
Babylonian Empire that destroyed Jerusalem in 606 BC taking most
of the Jews captive into what is now modern Iraq. Nehemiah
received permission from the Persian King Artaxerxes to rebuild
the walls of Jerusalem. Until 2007 archaeological evidence for
Nehemiah’s project has been lacking.
In 2007 Mazar was working on an
emergency project to shore up remains of a tower long believed
to date from the “Hasmonean period, 142-137 BCE,” that was in
danger of collapsing. But she found the tower had actually been
built much earlier than the Hasmonean period. “The
pottery dating placed it at the time the Bible says Nehemiah was
building it. The Bible accounts mention the Tower of the
Hundred, the Tower of Hananeel, the Tower of the Ovens, and an
unnamed tower ‘projecting from the upper house of the king from
the guard.” Nehemiah 3:25 (NAS) places this unnamed tower in the
same Biblical vicinity of Mazar’s dig. Amazing! Mazar’s Biblical
detective work is precise.
Anson Rainey, professor of
ancient Near Eastern cultures, cautions against believing that
the accounts of David and other biblical characters are but
legends. “As
someone who studies ancient inscriptions in the original, I have
a responsibility to warn the lay audience that the new fad, the
‘deconstructionist
school,’…
is merely a circle of dilettantes. Their view that nothing in
Biblical tradition is earlier than the Persian period [540-330
B.C.], especially their denial of the existence of a United
Monarchy, is a figment of their vain imagination. The name
‘House
of David’
in the Tel Dan and Mesha [Moabite Stone] inscriptions sounds the
death knell to their specious conceit. Biblical scholarship and
instruction should completely ignore the
‘deconstructionist
school.’
They have nothing to teach us.”
Biblical Archaeology
Review,
November/December 1994, p. 47.
In other words, don’t be
deceived by the devil’s attempt to discredit Jesus by portraying
him as the son or descendent of a legend. |
