amazing

discove ies
that unlock the

Bible

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 OT H ER T I T LE S AVA I L A BLE IN T H I S S ER I E S

Incredible Mysteries of the Bible

Stephen M. Miller
ISBN-13 : 978 - 0 -310 -25594- 9
ISBN-10 : 0 -310 -25594-5

How We Got the Bible

Clinton E. Arnold
ISBN-13: 978 - 0 -310 -25306 - 8
ISBN-10: 0 -310 -25306 -3

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 amazing
discove ies
that unlock the

Bible A V I S U A L E X P E R I E N C E

Douglas Connelly

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 Amazing Discoveries That Unlock the Bible
Copyright © 2008 by Douglas Connelly

Requests for information should be addressed to:

Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49530

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Connelly, Douglas, 1949 –

Amazing discoveries that unlock the Bible : a visual experience / Douglas Connelly.
p. cm. — (Zondervan visual reference series)
ISBN-13: 978-0-310-25799-8
ISBN-10: 0-310-25799-9
1. Bible—Antiquities 2. Middle East—Antiquities 3. Middle East—Civilization. 4. Europe—Antiquites. 5. Europe—Civilization. I. Title.
BS621.C625 2007
220.9’3 — dc22
2007000424

This edition printed on acid-free paper.

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible: New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Interna-
tional Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.

Internet addresses (websites, blogs, etc.) and telephone numbers printed in this book are offered as a resource to you. These are not intended in any way to be
or imply an endorsement on the part of Zondervan, nor do we vouch for the content of these sites and numbers for the life of this book.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means — electronic, mechani-
cal, photocopy, recording, or any other — except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

Interior design by Ron Huizenga

Printed in China

08 09 10 11 12 • 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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 TABLE OF CONTENTS
Digging Up the Bible . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Northern Kingdom Destroyed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

Do These Discoveries Prove the Bible Is True? . . . 8 Hezekiah’s Tunnel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

The Babylonian Flood Story . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Sennacherib’s Prism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

Royal Treasures of Ur . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Lachish Letters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

Ebla: Living Like a Canaanite. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Mistaken About Daniel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

Pharaoh Hardened His Heart. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Prophecy Fulfilled! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

Out of Egypt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Cliffside Carving . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62

The Hebrews Are Coming! (Amarna Letters) . . . 20 Herod: Murderer, Dreamer, King. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

Jericho’s Walls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Herod’s Temple . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66

No Other Gods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 Jews Only . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68

Hunting for Hittites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 The Jesus Boat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70

Mythic King or Man of God? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 The Bible Jesus Read . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72

Finding the Philistines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 Pontius Pilate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74

Solomon’s Temple . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 Crucifixion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76

The Lost Ark . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 Everyday Treasures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78

Solomon’s Cities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 Famous Faces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80

The Moabite Stone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 Bone Boxes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82

A Buried City . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 Peter’s House . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84

Authorized Access Only . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 Sightseeing in Corinth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86

The City No One Could Find . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 Touring Ephesus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88

Snapshot of an Old Testament King . . . . . . . . . . . 46 Paul in Trouble . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90

War with Assyria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

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 ^ THE PLACE overlooking
the Sea of Galilee where Jesus
delivered the Sermon on the
Mount (Matthew 5 – 7).

Digging Up the Bible

The events of the Bible took place in history — in real places In this book, we will look at some of the
with real people. But the nations, armies, and rulers of the most amazing discoveries about the Bible ever
Bible along with the musicians, carpenters, and school teach- made — and we will see how those discoveries
ers passed off the scene long ago. What was their world like? unlock God’s Word. It’s a journey you won’t
Archaeology helps us reconstruct the biblical world. The forget!
study of ancient things (which is what the word archaeol-
ogy means) involves knowledge of history, geography, lan-
guage, money, warfare, biology, ceramics, and even medicine.
Scholars may sift carefully through the ruins of a city or a
burial site or even a garbage dump. They use highly sophis-
ticated methods of excavation, soil analysis, carbon dating,
and photography. It’s a very detailed, difficult job! But once # BUST OF
in a while, the diggers and discoverers come upon an object AUGUSTUS CAESAR,
ruler of the Roman
or building or piece of writing so startling, so amazing that it Empire when Jesus was
makes all the hard work seem like nothing. born.

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 $ GOLDEN BOWL from the
Canaanite city of Ugarit.

@ A snapshot in
stone of the Persian
king, Xerxes, the royal
husband of Esther.
Xerxes ruled a a vast
empire that stretched from
India to Ethiopia.

! A SCROLL of the Psalms found

among the Dead Sea Scrolls.

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 Do These Discoveries Prove
the Bible Is True?
Inscriptions on ancient memo-
rial stones and long forgotten
coins will never “prove” or
“disprove” the Bible. Even if
every historical fact was prov-
en beyond question, the heart
of the Bible’s message must be
accepted by faith. The discov-
eries of archaeology help us in
other ways.
! An image of the Caananite god, Archaeological discoveries
Baal. demonstrate the accuracy of
the biblical writers. As new
documents are found or as new artifacts are uncovered, the
reliability of the biblical record is confirmed over and over.
Evidence from the ancient world helps us better understand
the cultural and historical context of the Bible. We learn how
people lived and worked and thought. We can enter into their
world and understand God’s message more clearly.
Archaeology helps us unravel some of the riddles of the
Bible. Political or historical questions are often resolved by
examining related documents or surprising discoveries from
the biblical world.
The people of the Bible come alive in our thinking. When
we see the ankle of a crucified man or the prison where Paul
was in chains or an object from Herod’s magnificent temple,
the biblical accounts take on new life.
Archaeology affirms our confidence in the Bible’s truthful-
g
ness but, in the end, we trust in the living
uth, not in
God as the source of truth,
some relic from the past..
# THE SEAL READS,
“Belonging to Jehoahaz,
son of the king,” and
pictures a fighting rooster.
Scholars aren’t sure who
Jehoahaz was — probably
a lesser son of one of
Israel’s kings.

! A carved ivory box found at Megiddo.

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 @C Carefully sifting through the dirt, destruction, and debris of an ancient
site requires patience and tedious labor. Every significant artifact is
photographed,
pho catalogued, and meticulously preserved for further study.

SSLAVE TAG
This Roman slave tag was
attached to an iron collar and
asks that the slave be returned
to his owner. Runaway slaves
(like Onesimus in Paul’s letter
to Philemon) were routinely
collared to prevent further escape
attempts. Persistent runaways
were branded on the foreheads—
an F for fugitivus (fugitive).

@ A JAR in which the Dead

Sea Scrolls were stored. The dry
climate around the Dead Sea
preserved the leather scrolls for
more than 2,000 years.

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 ! Michelangelo’s depiction of the flood on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome.

The Babylonian
Flood Story
You’ve heard the story of Noah and the ark since you were a child, but what if you found another
flood story from another culture and in an ancient language? George Smith, a British explorer and lan-
guage specialist, found just such a story — and it caused a worldwide sensation. Smith was in the British
Museum sifting through clay tablets recovered from the library of the Assyrian king, Ashurbanipal,
when he came across an incredible p g He found himself translating a flood story very much like
passage.
the biblical account of Noah and the flood. He was so excited that he raised money
to return to Nin
Nineveh in order to find the rest of the tablets — and amazingly
he did!
The B Babylonian flood story is told on the eleventh tablet of a
muc longer poem called the Epic of Gilgamesh. You can read
much
t whole poem online or checked out from your local li-
the
b
brary. Gilgamesh apparently was a real king in the ancient
l
land of Sumer (2700 – 2500 BC). Legends grew up around
this heroic king and eventually the story became one of
the culture’s great epics. Does this Babylonian epic give
u a better account of the flood than the Bible? No way!
us
Th Babylonian version is simply a corrupted memory of
The
the actual flood, and that account is preserved accurately in
Gene 6 – 9.
Genesis

& SEVENTH-CENTURY BC TABLET in which Utnaphishtim,

th
the Babylonian “Noah,” and his wife tell Gilgamesh about
th
their experience in the great deluge.

10

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 AMAZING
FLOOD STORIES
The Babylonian flood story is not
the only account of that event
outside the Bible. More than 200
flood legends have been found
in cultures all over the world.
In the ancient Greek legend,
the heroes Deucalion and his
wife Pyrrha entered the ark and
the god Zeus sent nine days of
such torrential rain that it carved
out the present-day Greek pen-
insula. The Toltec Indians of
ancient Mexico believed that a
flood destroyed the world 1,716
years after its creation. Only a
few people escaped in a closed
wooden chest.
The legends are so numerous
and from such diverse cultures
that they could not have been simply copied from each other. Further- ! Deucalion and Pyyrah are
more, the legends were recorded long before missionaries brought warned by Zeus to escape the
any knowledge of the biblical account of the flood to these cultures. coming flood.
James Perloff makes some startling comparisons: In 95 percent of the
more than two hundred flood legends, the flood was worldwide; in 88
percent a certain family was chosen to survive; in 70 percent survival
was by means of a boat or raft; in 67 percent animals were also saved;
in 66 percent the flood was due to human sin and wickedness; and in
57 percent the boat came to rest on a mountain.*

Black Sea

& A STONE DEPICTION OF M t. Ar a r a t

Ca
sp
ia
GILGAMESH, the heroic king

n
Se
of Uruk in the land of the

a
Sumerians. Gilgamesh learned
Haran
the flood story as he traveled Nineveh P
ARAM E
R
Ti
through the underworld and g
S
M
ris
talked with the survivors of that Sea ES
R.
Eu ph

IA
an Mari ra
O
ne sR
P
te

long ago catastrophe. ra

er Damascus
.
O
i t T
ed A
M M
Babylon
Jerusalem I
SUMER A
Uruk
Ur

EGYPT
$ The mountains of Ararat ARABIA
where the Bible says Noah’s ark Pe
rs
ia
eventually came to rest — and n
G
ul
where explorers have searched
Re

f
d

ever since for remains of a

Se
a

wooden ark.

CAPTION Text

11

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