Archeological Finds Confirm The Bible

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Archeological finds back Biblical-tales

HAZOR, Israel - A string of recent archeological discover­ies have provided the first hard evidence for a number of Bibli­cal figures and events, many of which had been widely dis­missed as myths and moral tales.

Individually, the discoveries are important. Together, they are buttressing words believers have taken on faith. The most important of the new discoveries is evidence for the existence of King David. The Bible says the child David killed the Philistine giant Goliath and went on to found Jerusalem, which this year is celebrating its 3,000th anniver­sary as the City of David.

David's is an exciting tale of murder, adultery, political deceit and extraordinary faith and courage. The story is so fantastic, many Biblical scholars have long thought, that even David himself must have been made up.

Then came what Seymour Gitin of The W. F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research in East Jerusalem calls 'one of the greatest finds of the 20th Century."

In 1993, Israeli archeologists digging in Tel Dan in the Golan Heights unearthed a piece of stone from an. ancient monu­ment, or stele. Inscribed upon it, in ancient Aramaic, were the words "King of Israel" and "House of David."

The story so shook some scholars that they insisted the find was phony or the inscrip­tion incorrectly translated. A year later, however, ar­cheologists found more frag­ments of the stele with addi­tional inscriptions referring to the ancient king.

Today, the new scholarly consensus is that David was real. The rock upon which David's name was found is only one of the recent finds consis­tent with Biblical accounts. Recent expeditions at Shechem, where the Bible says Abraham built an altar to God, prove an organized community existed there during Abraham's time nearly 4,000 years ago.

This summer, archeolo­gists digging in a kibbutz in Central Israel found a stone tablet with a Phoenician inscription bearing the name of the city of Ekron, the fabled city where, according to the book of I Samuel, the Philistines, took the Ark of the Covenant after capturing it from the Israelites.

Recent excavations have uncovered a string of ancient Egyptian forts along the Sinai’s Mediterranean coast. The discovery offers a plausible explanation for an Exodus story that has long puzzled scholars - for why Moses would lead his people out of Egypt through the Sinai wilderness Instead of along the shorter coastal route.

This. summer, archeologists sifting through a 2,000 year-old garbage dump at Masada in Southern Israel. unearthed a wine jug with the name of King Herod. It was the first object found bearing the name of the great Judean king mentioned in the Gospels.

An ivory pomegranate purchased in the international antiquities market by Israeli authorities for $550 000 in 1988 is now believed by many scholars to be the first relic found from Solomon's "Temple. According to the Bible, the magnificent temple generally dated to about 950 BC housed the Ark of the Covenant. An inscription on the pomegranate has been corded as "Holy to the priests, belonging to the temple of Yahweh.”

Regarding the story of Noah and the Ark: In Yemen, the Hula Lake region of Israel and the Empty Quarter in Saudi Arabia, he and other have found evidence of flooding during the Early Bronze Age.

We never have to go to science to verify the truthfulness of the scripture. We can believe every word of the BIble. God is truth, and His word is truth.

By David Briggs The Associated Press

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