Archeology Proves the Bible True

Transcript

So it's some material I brought together a few years ago and have amended and added to it over the last few years. It's been some interesting new finds. But it's a subject, I think, near and dear to all our hearts. Anything that affirms the veracity of the scriptural record is always, you know, very encouraging. It's faith building. Now, the title is a little bit of a misnomer in the sense that, you know, it is maybe a bit of an overreach. Archaeology provides affirmation for the historic record of the scriptures. So events and people we read about, we have found many of them in amongst the rubble of ancient ruins in the form of inscriptions, physical evidence. And one thing that has been fortunately preserved are bullae, which were the seals individuals would carry to seal correspondence that they had written to prove that it was in fact from them. That's the famous whack seal. So these are the kinds of things we're going to be looking at tonight. And, you know, like everything relating to faith, in the end, we need to make a choice. So is there ever enough evidence to compel a person to believe we know from the scriptures that that's not the case? Because if you can watch the Red Sea get parted, you could walk through it. You can come out the other side and still manage to not believe, then I don't think this class is going to be particularly epiphanal. But it is interesting, and I think it's always worth a look. So the most of the material we're going to look at relates to the time of the kings and but also some other periods as well. One book I found quite interesting, and it's worth a read. It was actually written by a biblical scholar named William Deaver, who is now a professed atheist and nonbeliever. He grew up in a conservative Baptist church. But at least he retained enough respect for the Bible to acknowledge that the biblical record is consistent with what we know about the times when the Bible claims these events occurred. He wrote a book called What the Biblical Writers Knew and How They Knew It. So it's really interesting, and it's written by someone who is not in any way committed to the inspiration of the Bible. Unfortunate for him, but that's where he's at. Now, one thing that we mentioned briefly is that we're a little bit used to looking at evidence from archaeology, where there's just been some staggering discoveries over the years, one of which absolutely momentous was the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the affirmation of the Old Testament that that provided. I mean, it pushed back the Old Testament records by well over a millennia. Absolutely incredible. Before the modern era of archaeology got started, there was a massive amount of skepticism being generated by what was called the School of Higher Criticism. And it was a bunch of German scholars based at a university, I think it was in Tübingen in Germany in the mid-1800s. And they had decided to treat the Bible like any other literary text and to go through it with a fine-tooth comb, fine what they thought were discrepancies and editorial influences and duplicate records. And, you know, when could possibly some of these things have been written? And they basically speculate. They had no idea what they were talking about. And they consigned a lot of the biblical stories to mythology that included the stories about the Assyrian kings, about Sennacherib and Shalmaneser and Sargon and Nebuchadnezzar. They said, oh, these were just all mythologized narratives. And then as time went on and the cities of ancient Assyria and then Babylon were uncovered by European archaeologists, turned out these guys had pure guesswork. They decided, well, there was no direct evidence, hence it didn't exist. And there's a very good expression. The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence. And these guys made a fatal error by assuming that the absence of evidence proved that these things hadn't occurred. And that's not valid. Many of you might be familiar with this. This is a stark example of trying to put too much information on a slide. This is for some of you might realize this is one of the Bible inserts that were floating about many years ago. You're meant to glue this into your Bible. I think I did. At any rate, it's a series of timelines and it tries to synchronize all the different players that were in motion during the times of the divided kingdoms. So this is after Solomon begins with Jeroboam and Rehoboam. And you'll see the two thick bands, the yellow one are the kings of Israel, the green one of the kings of Judah. It kind of tracks them until those kingdoms ended. As we know, Hosea was the last king of Israel and they were taken into captivity by the Assyrians. Now there's an attempt to fit in all the prophets. And some of these prophets are mentioned quite briefly. There's a reference to Shimeiah in his relationship to Jeroboam, Iddu, and Rehoboam. That's in between the green and yellow line and there it actually kind of looks like a drawn up flag of Israel. And those are all the different prophets that minister. There's Elijah and Elisha. And then on it goes the time of Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, and then terminating with Malachi. So that's in the middle. And then the thin red lines represent two nations. The top red line are the kings of Assyria and then the other red line below it are the kings of Syria. And they were very much engaged with this part of the world, but not just them. Egypt was as well. Egypt continued to play a significant role right up until the end of the Assyrian Empire. And then they seemed to fade into the background. Actually, what is interesting about this period of time is that the Egyptians, who had been major players on the world scene for a long, long time, were beginning their long, slow decline. Egypt's ability to project power had been diminishing. And this, as you get into this era of the divided kingdom, Egypt begins to lose its grip on its ability to affect the course of events. And you might say its kind of last Hail Mary move was the Battle of Kerkomish, where the Egyptians came up to assist the Assyrians in fending off the Babylonians. And as you recall, that was the army that Josiah tried to interrupt, and he lost his life doing it. So during this period, you're looking at the slow decline of Egypt and the ascendancy of Assyria and Babylon. They grow more and more powerful, first the Assyrian and then it yields to the Babylonian. And why this is important is that it is generally acknowledged by scholars that the rise of the Assyrian Empire marks a watershed moment in human history. This was an empire based on organization and government, and you might say kind of the way they had it structured, their army, their diplomacy, the hegemony they established over this part of the world, was in some respects the beginnings of a different kind of history. And it was actually the beginning of our history, a history that continues to exist in our modern era. And it's no surprise that the players in the world today are still recognizable. So, you know, countries like Lebanon, Egypt, of course, is still around, Lebanon, Syria, still players, Assyria has morphed into Iraq, later we know Persia has morphed into Iran. Interestingly, the Kurds, we hear a lot about the Kurds. The Kurds are the ancient Medes. Their language is Median. So it's fascinating to recognize that ancient players don't go away. The names change, the players remain the same. I find that quite interesting. So this section we're going to look at in history, very much dominated by the Assyrian Empire. This map shows its steady growth over the course of a few centuries. And the Assyrian Empire that we're acquainted with through the Bible is actually called the Neo-Assyrian Empire, or the New Assyrian Empire. So as some of us might be aware, generally it's considered that the beginning of human civilization and all its advancements and technology and accomplishments is in Mesopotamia. It was the Sumerians in the south, the Akkadians in the north. The heartland of Akkadia was really the Assyrian Empire. The Sumerians, that was the heart of the Babylonian, future Babylonian Empire. And of course, it's famous to us because of the existence of the city Ur, which was discovered by Sir Leonard Woolley many years ago. And he uncovered some incredible finds, the advancement of the civilization, the wealth of the city, and their dedication to the moon god. And generally recognized that Abram is the father of heights, and we assume he had some kind of association with the worship of that god until he believed in the true god. So this area, Mesopotamia, between the rivers, between the Tigris and Euphrates, is in many respects the birthplace of civilization. And as much as, I guess, people would like to find things that were really concrete that predated about 4000 BC, really kind of thin. It springs into existence in quite a dramatic way, fully advanced civilization. But thanks to Sir Leonard Woolley, we don't have to question the existence of how advanced this birthplace of civilization was. So anyway, I guess you can always look at this map. At your leisure. So what are some of the finds that have been discovered over the years that affirm the biblical record? One of the early finds, this is called the Maranaptot Stele. Is it Stele? Stella. Stella, yeah. I always find that word a bit difficult. Stella. Not the lady, the rock. Or a chunk of rock. So this was a carving. It was discovered in 1896, a house in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, discovered by Flinders Pitry, one of those lovely British archaeologists. Was British, right? So this Stele, or Stella, is attributed to this pharaoh, Maranaptot, between 1213, 1203 BC. So the thing that's quite interesting about it is that it refers to Israel. Line 27, it mentions Israel, and this is considered to be the earliest textual reference to Israel. So, you know, for those who criticized the fact that Israel ever existed in the first place, this was definitive proof that it did, and the ancients knew about it. Now, this was something that is a recent find. This is really interesting. I don't know how familiar everyone is with what's going on in Jerusalem today, but ever since 1967, when Israel took full possession of the old city, there has been an incredible amount of digging that's gone on. And it's been very politically fraught. Because some of you might be aware of the village of Silwan. Silwan is a Palestinian village that sits smack dab on top of the ancient city of David. It sits on that spur of land that pushes south and was bounded by three valleys, the Valley of Kidron, the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, and it was a valley. What was the valley on the other side? I forget. Sorry. Anyway, and then to the north was what eventually became the Temple Bound. It was a razed area. So this, it's been… Huh? Oh, yeah. It's a European valley. Clearly not Hebrew. So what they found, and so anyway, back to my bit about the digging. It's very challenging because the Palestinians claim that any activity on the part of Israel is wrecking their homes, and it's just a thinly veiled attempt to dislocate them and get rid of them, and as we all know, that situation is extremely fraught and volatile. But Israel has managed to work its way around this site, and there's been some really great discoveries of late. And this is a neat little thing. You guys have probably all read it now, so I'm wasting my breath. But it was a little tiny earring of Phoenician design, and it was found amongst the remains of the first temple period, which was really critical in ancient Israel archaeology, is to find the layers relating to Solomon's temple. So just this tiny little object, but absolutely remarkable little thing that relates Israel to the Phoenicians, which we know was a very involved relationship. We know Hiram was a great lover of David and a huge contributor to the building of the temple. Now, another Stella. This is the Misha Stella, or the Moabite stone, and this relates to the story in 2 Kings 3. And this is where Ahab, well, Ahab's son, Jehoram, was trying to bring the Moabites back under the control of Israel. See, this is all a little bit interesting, because very often we read the account of the kings, and the perspective is God's perspective. There isn't necessarily attention paid to some of the other things these kings did. And we're going to find out that Omri, who was the father of Ahab, was actually a very remarkable man and was very well known and very well respected by the nations around him. And one of the things Omri did was subject Moab as a tributary state and made him pay tribute to Israel, which was quite interesting, really, because Moab was really much closer to Judah than it was to Israel. And, yeah, this is what Omri did. And then when Omri died, of course, Ahab was dead, his son Ahaziah didn't last long, and then his brother Jehoram came to the throne and Moab rebelled. And Jehoshaphat and the king of Edom were also in on this. But this is really interesting. In this inscription, Misha talks about Chimash, the god of Moab, had been angry with his people and had allowed them to be subjugated to the kingdom of Israel. Then Chimash returned and assisted Misha to throw off the yoke of Israel and restore the lands. And he also describes his many building projects, and it's written in a variant of the Phoenician alphabet in ancient Moabite. This was discovered by Frederick Augustus Klein, an Anguilla commissioner, at Divan. And Divan is mentioned quite frequently in the prophets, because all of the prophets found occasion to talk about Moab and condemn it for its pride and arrogance. And one of the cities mentioned that was going to be judged was Divan. And this is where, in the ruins of Divan, this stone was found. Now, quite interesting, a French chap managed to take an impression of the writing. And this name was Clermont-Goneau. He was an archaeologist from France. And he took what was called a squeeze, a papier-mache impression, and it actually was done by a local Arab on behalf of this French guy. What happened after that was that the Stella was smashed by a local tribe, and it was seen as an act of defiance against the Ottoman authorities that had pressured the Bedouins to hand it over. In fact, in this case, it was going to be given to Germany, because, as you recall, the Turks and the Germans were allies during World War I. So it turned into a huge mission to recover the fragments, and they did recover a significant number of them, as you can see. But if it hadn't been for this French guy taking an impression of the original writing, it would have been well-nigh impossible to figure this out. So that was a huge blessing for us, because it affirms in great detail an interesting story. Now, there were lots of Stella made in the ancient world, which is really good, because they were stone, and they tended to last unless somebody got a hold of them and destroyed them. These are called the Kirk Monoliths. They reference the reigns of Ashurbanipal II and his son Shalmaneser III. The one relating to Shalmaneser specifically contains the description of the Battle of Karkar, and it has the name of Ahab, King of Israel, in it. And according to this inscription, Ahab committed a force of 2 ,000 chariots and 10,000 foot soldiers to the Assyrian War Coalition. Now, this is so interesting, because, again, Ahab's reputation is really bad. He was a profoundly wicked guy, and he had that nasty herpy of a wife, Jezebel, who he just loved to hate, with good reason. And we just see Ahab as this weak, ineffective, pathetic guy, and henpecked. Actually, nothing could be further from the truth. Ahab was a wily strategist. If you go to, I believe it's 1 Kings 22, where it talks about Ahab's campaign, when Ben-Hadad comes in to invade, and there's all this back and forth, and God actually tells Ahab what to do. He listens to God, and he achieves a great victory over the Syrians. And then he spares Ben-Hadad's life. And it was, yeah, 20, sorry, not 22, 20. And it was Ben-Hadad, yep. So at any rate, Ahab spares Ben-Hadad's life and makes an alliance with Ben-Hadad. And God was furious with Ahab for doing it. He sends the prophet to condemn him for this thing that he did. But what Ahab wanted to do was to have a strong Syria on his northern border, because the Syrians always loomed as a threat to these smaller countries. Israel, Syria, Ammon, Moab, Edom, Judah, even the Philistines, the Phoenicians, the Assyrians were just this constant bully on the block. So Ahab actually participated in what was a major battle to contain Assyrian aggression and dominance. And so he wasn't, you know, some big wipeout. Actually, locally, he had creds and he had a rep. And that monolith tells us that. Many have heard of the Tell Dan Stele, Stella. Stele? You steered me wrong, Shudder, steered me wrong. You're getting a steely glare. So, yeah. So one of the big criticisms of the Bible was the very existence of David, of Solomon, of Saul, of Israel, even. Like, what was, you know, did it exist? And these German critics were all over, you know, oh, you know, the Bible makes out like these were big kingdoms and, you know, triumphant and empires. And where are they? We don't even see them in the record. A bunch of disdainful academics so-and-so's. Not that I disdain academia whatsoever. But nonetheless, you know, when you get over your skis, you can make a real fool out of yourself. And these guys did. And of course, they would never own it, but hey, whatever. They're dead now. So this was a repurposed piece of building material that found its way into a structure in ancient Dan. Now, this is the northernmost part of Dan, you know, Dan Tiberishi. But this was Dan way up in the north. This was the Dan that came into being when the Danites stole, you know, Micah's image and his Levite and took them up to the city of Laish, wiped out the city of Laish and set up shop way up north. And therefore, there were like two Dan's. There was a Dan in the north and a Dan in its original tribal allotment. So this was out of its original location. But they found this stone and it was a fragment of a stele. And it referenced, talked about an individual killed, Jehoram of Israel, son of Ahab, and king of the house of David. And this is considered maybe the only extra biblical reference to the house of David. But what's so cool about this is it was a repurposed piece of building material that they realized had a writing on it that predated the structure it was a part of. And then it recounts a story we're all familiar with because, of course, the person doing the killing was Jehu. If you remember, Jehu was riding up to Jezreel and the watchman told Jehoram and Ahaziah that this man was riding up because Ahaziah had come to visit his uncle in Jezreel because his mother was Athaliah, another super bad person. And they were there together, Jehoram of Israel, Ahaziah of the house of David. And the watchman looks and he goes, I don't know who it is. And then he says, oh, it looks like the driving of Jehu for he driveth furiously, which I think is like one of the coolest Bible lines ever. And the two kings go out to meet him and they're both killed. So this this little fragment relates that story. I mean, what more do you want? Now, here is another item from the reign of Shalmaneser III. And this is the black obelisk, not a stele, fortunately. And he was the Assyrian monarch during the time of Jehu. And it actually portrays a biblical figure. And the biblical figure is Jehu, king of Israel, who, of course, was anointed by Elisha to become king of Israel and to wipe out the house of Ahab. And this right smack dab in the middle, the figure bending down is Jehu. And they know that because of his typical Semitic attire. If you look at the cap and the kind of beard he wore, all of it flags him as a Semite, as opposed to the Assyrians, who were actually Hemitic people. So this is Jehu. And we know it is because it actually calls him that. This is, you know, I won't try to pronounce Akkadian, but what's written is Jehu son of Omri. Now, you might say, oh, well, son of Omri, we know he wasn't the son of Omri. He was actually tasked with wiping out what would have been the house of Omri. But this is where it gets interesting. And this is where, you know, the fact that like Omri had taken over Moab and made it tributary. Omri's reputation was very good in the ancient world. He was viewed as a very able general, military man and ruler. And there's one thing the Assyrians like was a good military man. And Omri was just that because he had to engage in a several year long civil war with another contender for the throne. What was the guy's name? Timnay? So even though Jehu was not, you know, genealogically a son of Omri, to the Assyrians, the royal house of Israel was the house of Omri, hence Jehu being associated with it. Little ironic. And then now we talked about seals and, you know, how important they are in helping us establish the veracity, the biblical record. Here's an example of that. This is a this is a copy of a bronze cast of a steel stamp. And it's, you know, belonging to Shema, the servant of Jeroboam. And this would have been Jeroboam II. So this was a person of significance in Jeroboam's court. But it's certainly affirmation of the existence of Jeroboam. And this based on the dating would have been the second Jeroboam. So and they actually so this this original seal was made out of jasper, was found in Megiddo in 1904. And it was a U.S. archaeologist, Gottlieb Schumacher, who sounds German, but he was he was an American, probably German immigrant. And it and it as it says, you know, it was belonging to Shema, the servant of Jeroboam. So unfortunately, the bronze casting of the original was lost, but they had a this copy and then they found smaller examples of this same bulla. And these were these were actually impressions of it in clay. So what they would do was seal the envelope with wet clay and push their you know, it would have been a ring that they wore. And these were probably were quite common. Now, King Uzziah, King Uzziah is famous for trying to burn incense in the temple and being pushed out and being smitten with leprosy. But he also had a very long reign in Judah, about not as long as Manasseh, but I think about 52 years. He reigned and he was very prosperous. He was very successful in all that he did. He very glowing account. He was kind of an OK sort of a guy, but he did not serve God with a perfect heart. But interestingly, his name comes up on a number of occasions. And one of them is a fragment from the reign of Tiglath-Peleser III, and it mentions Azariah of Judah several times. Now, this character Tiglath-Peleser III is very interesting because you remember that reference to Shalmaneser III during the reign of Jehu. During this period of time, just after Shalmaneser, there was a period of significant unrest in Assyria. There was a big disruption in the Assyrian court. There seems to have been civil strife and there seems to have been an interloper that took over and wiped out the old Assyrian royal line. That person's name was Paul, and he eventually changed his name to Tiglath-Peleser. So there was a real kind of contraction of Assyrian influence for a period of time. This is when Jonah would have gone up to Nineveh and prophesied. This was during the time of Uzziah, during the time of Jeroboam II. Israel and Judah were relieved of this worry and concern about Assyrian aggression. And they prospered during this time and put this period of prosperity to good use. We know from the prophets that the time of Jeroboam was very corrupt. They were oppressing the poor and they were luxuriating on sofas of ivory. It really didn't do them any good. But nonetheless, it seems to have been a period of time that God gave these countries, Judah and Israel, to maybe somehow find their way back to a better place, which as we know they didn't. So Tiglath-Peleser began to reassert Assyrian dominance. He was very capable. He was a great general. And he seems to have taken over the kingdom and changed his name to make himself relatable to the old dynasty, which was very common in those days. You would, you know, in order to establish a reputability after you've knocked off an old aristocratic family, you'd actually claim to be a member of it. And that's what Paul and eventually Tiglath-Peleser, as he changed his name to, did just that. So one thing, another seal that's been found, Shebaniah was a servant of Uzziah. His seal's been found. And then also, we know that there was a great earthquake during the time of Uzziah's reign. And what's interesting is that in all the digs that they've worked their way through over the years, it seems to consistently show the consequence of this earthquake. So a number of archaeologists have referenced this, talks about masonry walls, best displayed the earthquake, especially walls with broken ashlers, walls with displaced rows of stone, walls still standing but leaning or bowed, walls collapsed, with large sections still lying course on course. And it's what they call a very tightly confined stratigraphically to the middle of the 8th century BC, which is important because, you know, very often they find things, but they'll find something else in another city that doesn't match the same dating period. And this does. So this was a very large earthquake. It was a big disaster, and it appears to be linked to what Amos said at the city of Bethel in reference to this catastrophe. So it was referenced in the Bible. So very interesting that the finding corroborates the biblical record in regards to this earthquake of Uzziah. So as mentioned in Amos 1 verse 1 and Zechariah 14.5. Okay, something that we all might be familiar with. It's called the Siloam inscription. And this relates to Hezekiah's conduit. And as we recall, Hezekiah was defying Assyrian authority. He was refusing to pay tribute. His father Ahaz had subjected the nation to a state of vassalage. He even dedicated part of the temple grounds, precincts to the Assyrian kings, and moved the bronze altar and replaced it with his pagan altar. This is all that Ahaz did. And when Hezekiah came to the throne, being a great man of faith, tried to undo all the damage. And he knew this would provoke a strong Assyrian response. So they dug the conduit, and he said, well, why should the Assyrian come and find out all this water? Because this was the Gahan spring would send the water flowing down the Kidron Valley, and Hezekiah wanted to divert it, which he did. So this is the inscription they found at the end of the conduit. And it talks about how they broke through and met each other. And most of this inscription is intact, but it says the tunnel, and this is the story of the tunnel. While the axes were against each other, while three cubits was left, the voice of the man called to his counterpart. There was this word zada. They think it might be a crack. In the rock on the right, and on the day of the tunnel being finished, the stonecutter struck each match towards his counterpart, axe against axe, and the water flowed. This is absolutely, this was found in situ. In other words, it was the original inscription. It was because when they found this conduit, when they were doing these early digs around the city of Jerusalem, it was filled with debris. It was barely discernible. It was a huge effort to dig this thing out and to clean it up. And it was after they cleaned it up that there it was staring them in the face. Fortunately, it was damaged when they removed it, but it has been preserved. The original is, I'm not sure where the original is. I might actually have it. Yeah, oh no, that's the tunnel. Can I go back? Can I go back? Anyway, looking at the Taylor Prism, but just if we continue with the Hezekiah's inscription, the point is it affirms the biblical record. They found the conduit, and the thing that is absolutely incredible is that it represented an absolute feat of engineering, like how they were able to tunnel from two opposite ends and meet each other is absolutely phenomenal. No one really knows how they did it, but we know they did it. The Bible talks about them doing it, and that inscription proves they did it. So very, very significant find. I thought it was Turkey. Yeah, so it's in Turkey. It's in the Istanbul Archaeological Museum. Yeah, you get a chance to go to Turkey, go for it. You know, don't worry about it. I hear it's a nice place and the food's great. Alright, this is the Taylor Prism. This is the famous prism recording Sennacherib's invasion of Judah. It's actually one of three detailing Sennacherib's campaign against Israel and Judah, as recorded in Second Kings and also the parallel account in Isaiah, and there's two other prisms, one in the Oriental Institute of Chicago and in Jerusalem. So this prism talks about Sennacherib referencing what he did to Hezekiah, and he says, As for the king of Judah, Hezekiah, who had not submitted to my authority, I besieged and captured 46 of his cities, and I, yeah, fortified cities, along with many smaller towns, taken in battle with my battering rams, I took as plunder 200 ,000, 150 people, small and great, male and female, along with great number of animals, horses, mules, donkeys, camels, oxen, sheep. As for Hezekiah, I shot him up like a caged bird. In his royal city of Jerusalem, I then constructed a series of fortresses around him, and I did not allow anyone to come out of the city gates. His towns, which I captured, I gave to Mitinti, king of Ashdod, Pady, ruler of Akron, and Silabal, king of Gaza. Now, this is such a fascinating account. What is noteworthy is Sennacherib does not talk about having captured Jerusalem or having taken Hezekiah captive, right? He does talk about taking a lot of other cities captive. One of the notable ones was Lachish, and it talks about that in the king's record, that the king was at Lachish, but he had surrounded Jerusalem with an army of 150,000 Assyrian soldiers. So, in fact, the Assyrian had been devastating Judah. And when you read through Hezekiah, Isaiah's prophecies, the Assyrian invasion was a big backdrop to what Isaiah was saying. And Isaiah's description of the state of the nation is really bleak, and it talks about the waters of Euphrates coming up to its very neck. The Assyrian did a lot of damage. And one of the chapters in Isaiah talks about the return of the ransomed, and it suggested that all the things that Sennacherib references in this prison are also referenced in Isaiah, except at the end, what Sennacherib doesn't say is that his 150 ,000 soldiers dropped dead, and he had to give everything back. He basically, you know, everything came back. Hezekiah got all the plunder and all the people, and then Hezekiah went on to enjoy 15 more years of life and prospered, and the Assyrian never ever came back. Mind you, it took about 20 years for Sennacherib to die, because it wasn't until about 20 years later that his sons ambushed him in his temple, and he was assassinated. But absolute, powerful corroboration, and if you, you know, just been around for a long time, and you know, familiarity can breed contempt, unfortunately, but it is such a great account of what he did, and then you look at the Bible and you're like, yeah, you did that at the beginning, but it didn't stick. Now, in relation to this event, recently an Assyrian inscription has been found in Jerusalem, and that's the site. I'm not too sure why I got that slide, but yeah. This is the inscription. It's a small clay remnant with cuneiform on it, and this is something new. It's a 2.5 centimeter, aka an inch. Sorry, I said centimeter. I know that's offensive. I still can't get used to those things. So it was a, you know, kind of an inch square fragment of an Akkadian cuneiform discovered close to the Temple Mount. This is October 2025. This is real recent. In an ancient drainage canal, dated to about 2700 years ago, it likely formed part of a royal seal impression on official dispatch from the Assyrian royal court. Scholars believe it may refer to delayed tribute, and it's dated the first of the month of Av. It mentions a chariot officer or a royal courier, and a petrographic analysis reveals that clay was from the Tigris Basin. So this is just absolute so cool, because remember, Hezekiah refused to pay tribute. That's what brought the Assyrian down. He wanted to undo all the damage his father had done. So the Assyrians, you see, this, everyone thinks everything was like crazy, and everyone was like, you know, cavemen. You know, the Assyrians were sophisticated people, highly literate, very skilled. I mean, they have a reputation of brutality, but they were very effective administrators. And, you know, what did they do? They wanted to conquer you. They wanted you to pay tribute. And if they thought you were going to be a problem, like Israel was to the north, they'd ship you all over the place. And like there, you know, we're going to send a couple thousand here, a couple thousand there, and then see what you come up with. So, you know, but when Hezekiah wasn't paying the tribute, they sent a courier down and say, hey, where is it? And, you know, they sent a missive to like, you know, like a past due notice. So, and this is where the Assyrian inscription was found. This is a drainage ditch. And again, this is all new stuff that's being uncovered in the old city. So, this is another stele. And this is a one that relates to the story of Manasseh. It was from the reign of Assarhaddon. And it's kind of an interesting one, because it talks about what Assarhaddon did to an Egyptian prince, and then he doesn't specifically reference Manasseh. It specifically references this Egyptian, kind of an Egyptian Ethiopian prince. And there's another person who accompanies this individual. And you again know that he is a Semite. If you look at the arrows, he's got the same hat and the same beard style as Jehu did in that earlier obelisk. And we know that, you know, God sent the Assyrian against Manasseh due to his extreme wickedness. And it shows, this stele shows ropes attached by a nose hook to the standing figure and to the kneeling figure who is identifiably Egyptian. And it talks about, you know, what he did. And then he took these captives. And we know that the standing figure was a significant personage. And when you compare it to the biblical record, it's a very reasonable conclusion to see this as a depiction of Manasseh. And, you know, this is what's on, this talks about what he did to Tirhaka, the king of Egypt and Kush. He defeated them, besieged, conquered, demolished, carried off to Assyria's wife, his court, ladies, crown prince, the rest of his sons, daughters. So it all, it, you know, relates to what he did to the Egyptian Ethiopian court. But there's nonetheless this other figure, and it's a semi, and it's consistent with the biblical record and his treatment. And it would have been what he would have done. He would have gone and taken a possibly bypassed Manasseh, went down and did what he did in Egypt, and then came back and grabbed a nest along the way. Now, lastly, this is called the James Oswery. And again, this was from a long, quite a long time ago. And I thought, you know, why am I not including this? This is such an amazing find. This was actually discovered back in, No, one wasn't here. I got it here. Anyway, it bears an inscription. And it says that literally, this is Jacob or James, the son of Joseph, the brother of Jesus. That's what's on this box. It was a Jewish bone box. It's how the Jews bury their dead. They would have a tomb with shelves that put the body in. And then after a period of time, when the body had decayed, they collect the bones and put it in this bone box. And this was discovered. Okay, this and you heard me reference the Silwan area in the Kidron Valley. This is where this was discovered. And it was in a tomb. It was there in that area, like the Mount of Olives, and the hills nearby are absolutely riddled with ancient family tombs. They're, they're full of it. And again, very tricky to excavate, very delicate political issues. But this particular box was discovered in in situ in its in its tomb. And because of the lettering on it, the controversy surrounding it exploded. The fact that there would be an ancient reference, not just to Jesus, but to Jesus's family and his earthly parentage was just blowing the minds of Bible critics, they could not handle it. So it was attacked as fraudulent and that somebody had fabricated the box and then put it in the tomb. And this thing got subject to more studies than absolutely anything you could imagine. And back in 2022, after new, you know, tons of back and forth and research and just the most incredibly sophisticated testing. This one archaeologist, Scott Stripling, stated, the majority of scholars now accept the inscription as authentic and comparing its trajectory to earlier discoveries that initially faced scholarly skepticism, skepticism that are now widely accepted, such as the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Uzziah Tablet, the Misha Stele, and the Tel Dan inscriptions. So, you know, to me, it's a slam dunk, really. I don't know what else to say about it. I mean, you can say, all right, well, then it was just a book of Jewish history. So what? It's true. But the absolute accuracy and veracity of the record is breathtaking. And it's, you know, to me, it's such a cool consideration. And, you know, is it going to make or break my faith this day? No, where am I going to go? But nonetheless, it is comforting, I guess, to see the stuff come up over and over again. And like, yeah, shrug your shoulders and you want to be a critic, bro, you go nuts. But you got you got a leg to stand on.