Jerusalem, Pool of Bethesda Français : La Piscine de Bethesda à Jérusalem. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Many people discount the Bible as being too old to be reliable, although, people are quick to fall for “ancient secrets” of various historical empires and religions. Is there any hard factual evidence to support anything in the Bible? Jesus said in Luke 19:40 “I tell you,” he replied, “if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.”
This is now happening, in fact, the stones have been crying out for about 150 years. Archeology, as a formal discipline, is only 150 years old and has been used as a way to prove the Bible wrong. However, the opposite has occurred. Archaeological evidence has been proving the Bible to be correct and authentic by thousands more than any other ancient manuscript.
In “The Case For Christ” Lee Strobel documents how archeologists discovered places, artifacts and papyri that prove the existence of things mentioned in the Bible. Just a few archeological discoveries that were once thought to be errors of Bible writers until someone found them in the dirt are; “Jacob’s Well” John 4:12, “Pool of Bethesda” in John 5:1, “Pool of Siloam” in John 9:7, “the Stone Pavement near the Jaffa Gate” in John 19:13 and the census of Luke 2:2.
Before you discount Lee Strobel’s work keep in mind that he started researching as an Atheist who was determined to reveal the Bible as a completely false, man made religion. The deeper his research took him the more it proved the Bible to be true and it completely changed how Mr. Strobel thought about God and he became a believer.
Is there really no historical evidence of the Egyptian plagues? The Ipuwer Papyrus sheds light on a particularly dark time in Egypt’s history.
Ahlcindo.blogspot.com explains that “there exists an ancient Government papyrus in which the Egyptian Scribal Priest {Ipuwer} presents a lengthy diatribe to the Pharaoh (who certainly is the cause of the Plagues) and in general laments a series of catastrophes that have shaken the core of the nation. The Papyrus of the scribal priest Ipuwer describes the final acts in the downfall of the Middle Kingdom of Egypt”.
Ipuwer writes about the blood, destroyed crops and trees, dead animals and people, darkness, fire, starvation and valuables taken by slaves. Very similar accounts found in Exodus.
Lest we never forget those good ol’ Dead Sea Scrolls dating from 250 BC to AD 68. It contains copies of Isaiah that are verbatim – no errors, omissions, additions, misinterpretations or misspellings. As far as ancient documents goes, that’s like a photocopy from the daily newspaper!
Dead Sea Scroll – part of Isaiah Scroll (Isa 57:17 – 59:9), 1QIsa b (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
FaithFacts.org lists a few rock hard discoveries that support Biblical truth.
Actually, when it comes to ancient texts the Bible is more reliable than others that are rarely challenged. Such as Homer’s Iliad which is estimated to have been written around 800 BC but the earliest manuscripts are from the second century AD, a thousand years later (Strobel p62).
Jesus was right. His people kept quiet so now the stones are crying out that Jesus is God!
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