Transcript: 20 Archaeological Finds for the Old Testament (with Titus Kennedy)

But give me a sense, because you helped me pick these 20 archaeological findings. Why these 20? What big story do they kind of tell when taken together?

DR. TITUS KENNEDY: Well, I chose these 20 artifacts in particular because I was looking for the most important and also the most interesting that were in a range chronologically throughout the whole Old Testament. So some of these are incredibly important finds in terms of establishing the historicity of certain biblical narratives, while others are helpful in us understanding the context or even translating passages in the Old Testament better. So I wanted to give a little bit of both of those sides of biblical archaeology.

ATRA-HASIS (SIMMONDS ARK TABLET)

SEAN MCDOWELL: Well, let’s dive in and do that very thing. Let’s start with number one, Atra-Hasis. What is that find?

DR. TITUS KENNEDY: Atra-Hasis is an ancient story, an epic or a myth, it might be called, from Mesopotamia. And in particular, this was recorded on clay tablets. Now, the Atra-Hasis story mostly contains a flood story with a little bit of a creation time prelude. But fairly recently, the oldest tablet of Atra-Hasis was rediscovered, so to speak, by the British Museum. It was brought in by a private collection.

And when the curator was reading it, he noticed some lines from it that had not appeared on some of the other Atra-Hasis tablets. In particular, there was one talking about bringing the animals on to the boat two by two. And so he saw the immense importance of this. And he asked the owner if he could hold on to the tablet and translate it.

So he went through, he made the translation of this new tablet and found out it was actually from about 1900 BC. It was older than all the other Atra-Hasis tablets. And it was also the closest of any of the other flood stories to the Noah account in Genesis. And so what this shows us, at the very least, is that people way back in the time of Abraham knew about the flood story and had essentially the same details in their story as what was recorded about Noah in the book of Genesis. Just showing us the antiquity of the account of the flood and that people from various parts of the ancient world agreed that there was some kind of flood event with a man in a boat who was saved.

SEAN MCDOWELL: So why is this find significant?

DR. TITUS KENNEDY: Well, this one bolsters the credibility of the Noah narrative in Genesis. And really, we could say to the overall story of Genesis. Because Genesis is so far back in time, obviously, we don’t have as much archaeological material for many of the accounts in there. The different people and the events, you just lose that over time. And we can see a progression as we go forward in time through the Old Testament that the closer we get to the present day, usually the more material remains we still have left over.

But the writings of Moses and Genesis are very, very criticized, especially the patriarchal period, as being a late, late invention and really anachronistic, not based on historical reality. But this is something that tells us, at the very least, people knew about this flood story, this one man who built a boat and was saved from it. It wasn’t just a creation or even a copy of the Israelites from much later.

CODE OF HAMMURABI

SEAN MCDOWELL: Archaeological discovery number two, the Code of Hammurabi. What is this find?

DR. TITUS KENNEDY: The Code of Hammurabi is one of the most famous ancient law codes, and it was commemorated on a stele, a large stele. This has a lot of things we could talk about. But for the purposes of my book, what I discussed in there had to do with the social customs of the patriarchs, and in particular, a slave price in the Joseph story. So the Code of Hammurabi has some things that match up to the social customs of the time of the patriarch, like the choice of the firstborn, even when he’s not chronologically born first. Think of Ishmael and Isaac, for example, or Jacob and Esau, things like that are discussed in these laws. Also, Reuben losing his firstborn rights, that kind of situation.

But there’s a really important section that actually three of the laws talk about the price of a slave in the 18th century BC when this was written. And if we look at the Joseph story in Genesis chapter 37, we see that he was sold for 20 shekels of silver. Now, that may seem like a useless detail that’s in the biblical text there. It doesn’t tell us anything theologically or spiritually, but it’s included in there.

Well, if we go and then we look at the time of Joseph, we see that’s right around this time of the Code of Hammurabi, and we match those up, we see they have exactly the same price for a slave. And that’s important because the price has changed over time. If we go earlier, we’re going to see five shekels of silver, and then 10 shekels of silver. You finally get to 20. So the time of Moses, it’s 30. And then you go on to the divided kingdom period, and it’s 50. So they were changing over time.

This tells us that the element of the Joseph story here about the price of slaves is absolutely accurate for the time period in which the Bible places Joseph. As I said before, it was changing over time. So it wasn’t just a good guess or the same price that was always continuous. It tells us about a component of historical accuracy there in the Joseph narrative.

PAPYRUS BROOKLYN

SEAN MCDOWELL: Archaeological discovery number three, the Papyrus Brooklyn. What is this?

DR. TITUS KENNEDY: Papyrus Brooklyn is an Egyptian papyrus from what’s called the Second Intermediate Period. It roughly dates to the 17th century BC. So it’s also approximately from the time of Joseph, or maybe just after his life and just before Moses. This was found in southern Egypt in the Thebes area. And it’s a list of household servants or household slaves. Now, that may not seem like a very interesting thing. It’s just some list of people working in houses.

But when the names were analyzed, we saw that many of the names were Semitic names, and then they were given a new Egyptian name. So think about, again, the Joseph story. He gets renamed with an Egyptian name. But even more specifically, several of these names are actually biblical Hebrew names. Some are feminine forms of masculine names that we’re familiar with, like Jacob and Menahem and Asher. But we also have the name Shifra, which appears on this. And she’s one of the Hebrew midwives mentioned in Exodus 1. We have someone named Hebrew on there.

And then we have another name that’s actually not used as a name in the Old Testament, but it was Hebrew, [asedto], meaning herb. So we have all these Hebrew names popping up in Egypt prior to the Exodus. This is significant because it demonstrates there were people with Hebrew names, Hebrews, Israelites, living in Egypt before the time of the Exodus. And that is a major critique of the Exodus story, is that there’s supposedly no evidence that Hebrews or Israelites were in Egypt before the time of the Exodus. Well, this places them there, and it even puts many of them in the role of servant or slave.

WEIGHING OF THE HEART (42 NEGATIVE CONFESSIONS, HUNEFER)

SEAN MCDOWELL: Archaeological discovery number four, the Negative Confessions. What is this?

DR. TITUS KENNEDY: The Negative Confession was a process that Egyptians would go through in their afterlife preparation. And I looked at this one because it gives us some context, again, for the Exodus story.

Now, when they would do this, they had this weighing of the heart ceremony, and you would put your heart on one side of the scale, and that would go against the feather of truth on the other side of the scale. And if your heart was too heavy with sin, that would tip the scales and you wouldn’t go to paradise.

So go back to the Moses story, and he’s talking with Pharaoh, and we’re reading through that narrative, and it says that Pharaoh hardened his own heart, and then later on it says that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart. Well, if we look in Hebrew and we see there are actually two specific words that are used. One is to make heavy, so Pharaoh made his own heart heavy, and then the other was God strengthened Pharaoh’s heart. So Pharaoh would have understood this, or any Egyptian would have understood this as the Pharaoh was sinning and thus making his heart heavy with sin, and then God gave him the strength to get through the plague.

So Moses is essentially telling us, Pharaoh’s sinning against God, he’s making his heart heavy, so the Egyptians can understand this. It simply helps us to better know the context of the Exodus story, and also to translate or give a better commentary that is more fitting to the culture of the time.

But secondarily, it also just lends historical credibility to the Exodus story, because it shows us that the author was someone who is very familiar with the language, culture, and religion of ancient Egypt. Again, it wasn’t just some anonymous author from the Kingdom of Judah or in Babylonian exile from a thousand years later.

NOMADS OF YAHWEH

SEAN MCDOWELL: Archaeological discovery number five, the nomads of Yahweh inscriptions. What’s this?

DR. TITUS KENNEDY: This is one of my favorites. I worked on a project connected to this inscription, and it’s also, I think, one of the most significant finds, again, connected with the Exodus and the wandering. Now, often it’s said that there’s no evidence for the Israelites during the wandering period, and also we shouldn’t expect much, because they were living as nomads wandering through the wilderness.

But there is this Egyptian inscription, which appears on a temple of the Pharaoh Amenhotep III. One inscription is on a pillar, and the other was on a wall. And in Egyptian hieroglyphs, it says, ‘THE LAND OF THE NOMADS OF YAHWEH.’ And so they were saying that there was this area east of Egypt, it’s contextually placed around Moab or Edom, Transjordan, where some nomads were living, wandering, that worshiped the God Yahweh.

Now, this tells us that the Egyptians were familiar with the name Yahweh, even the pharaoh himself. And that tells us there must have been a connection at some point. They must have had interaction with the Israelites. Of course, the Israelites are the only people in ancient times who worshiped the God Yahweh. We have no evidence of anyone else ever worshiping Yahweh or making inscriptions about Yahweh.

So it puts Yahweh-worshiping wanderers, Israelites, in the place where they’re supposed to be during that 40-year wandering period after the Exodus, just before the conquest. It provides us with archaeological evidence that the Israelites were wandering in the wilderness, that they did worship Yahweh, and also that the Egyptians were familiar with them and the name Yahweh, which had been revealed to Moses not too long before the Exodus. And so, again, it bolsters the historical reliability of the Exodus wandering story.

JERICHO SCARAB (AMENHOTEP III)

SEAN MCDOWELL: Archaeological discovery number six, Scarab of Amenhotep III. What’s this?

DR. TITUS KENNEDY: So scarabs were these little artifacts, little ornaments that were shaped like a scarab beetle. And then on the bottom side, the belly side, the Egyptians would often put an inscription there. And many of these have inscriptions which have the name of the pharaoh who was in power at the time. So this particular one has the name of Amenhotep III inscribed on it. This one was found at Jericho.

And what this does is it allows us to date a particular layer or an archaeological site because the scarabs were much like coins. They were made during the reign of a certain king or ruler. And then after that, they often used them in burials or they were just gotten rid of, discarded in the lair. So at Jericho, if we find this Amenhotep III scarab there, then that suggests that Jericho was occupied during his reign. So he started ruling just a bit before 1400 BC and then ruled for maybe 30 years after that. So he’s right around the time of the conquest and the initial settlement of the land.

And this was found with many other Egyptian scarabs which also had rulers from roughly that time period, from the 15th century BC. For example, Hatshepsut who ruled in the early 15th century BC, Thutmose III who ruled early to mid-15th century BC. So it tells us people were living in Jericho during the time of Moses and Joshua and then it stops, indicating that the city was abandoned or destroyed.

Jericho is often called out as this archaeological site where we have no evidence that anyone was there at the time of the conquest and so the conquest must not have happened. And that whole argument is based on the chronology of the archaeological material found there, pottery and scarabs in this case. Well, the scarabs that were found there by John Garstang when he excavated, they indicate that people were living there through the 1400 BC to the time of Amenhotep III, again, who ruled right around 1400 BC and then it stops. So that tells us people indeed were living there at the time that Joshua came and then they weren’t and the city got destroyed. That corroborates the biblical narrative and timeline.

MERNEPTAH STELE (AKA ISRAEL STELA)

SEAN MCDOWELL: Archaeological discovery number seven, the MERNEPTAH STELE. What’s this find?

DR. TITUS KENNEDY: This is one of the most famous artifacts in the whole group that we’re doing. This is a huge stone monument inscribed with pictures and hieroglyphic text, an Egyptian stele. And it was done by the pharaoh Merneptah, sometimes it’s called the Israel Stele. And that is because near the bottom, the pharaoh is talking about a campaign that he had in the land of Canaan. So he says that he went to Canaan and then he mentioned three different cities that he attacked and conquered. He says Ashkelon, which is in the south, Gezer in the center of the country, and then Yinoam, which is up in the north.

And then after that, he says that he destroyed the seed of Israel. And scholars interpret this a couple of different ways. Some may say basically he’s claiming to have wiped out Israelites, but others say, no, he’s talking about destroying their fields. But anyhow, the main point is that he mentioned Israel in the land of Canaan. And it’s actually the only group of people that he mentioned in that region. So it indicates they were the dominant primary group and they must have been there for some time to establish themselves to state to the late 13th century BC. So Israelites are already settled in the land of Canaan by that time. And they had to have come from somewhere.

You know, the Bible places them in there in the JUDGES period. That’s what this coincides with. And so this is a really strong connection for the time of the settlement of the Israelites and their establishment of a nation. This is another category or period of biblical history, which is very criticized. The idea that the Israelites came in from outside to Canaan from Egypt, you know, most scholars now reject that. And they say the Israelites just came out of Canaanites. And many of them put them very, very late. Even some saying like the 10th century, 9th century BC is when Israel really emerged. But this tells us the Egyptians acknowledged that Israel was in existence in Canaan and the dominant group in the 13th century BC. And that coincides much more with what we see in the Bible’s narrative and chronology of things.

PIYM WEIGHT

SEAN MCDOWELL: Archaeological discovery number eight, what is called the Piym weight. What is this find?

DR. TITUS KENNEDY: The Piym Weight s just this little stone weight with the Hebrew inscription on it that says PIYM. And I put this one in there because I think it’s something that shows how archaeology can help us understand the context and even translate things better. So before this was discovered, there’s one passage in the Old Testament, in 1 SAMUEL which mentions the word Piym. And translators had no idea what this was. It doesn’t appear anywhere else. We didn’t have any explanations, lexicons for it. And so they just had to guess as to what it meant based on the context. And they didn’t get it right.

But eventually one of these was discovered together. And they pulled this little stone weight out of the ground and it was inscribed Piym on it. And they weighed it and it was two thirds of a shekel. So then we understood that a Piym was a weight that was two thirds of a shekel. But it went out of use sometime during the monarchy period. And it was never written about again. And people didn’t know what it was. And that’s why centuries later we weren’t able to translate it correctly. It shows that archaeology can help us with our Bible translation to make it more accurate and understanding of the historical context. It also shows the antiquity of the book of Samuel because this weight, as I said, it went out of use during the monarchy period. So it shows that whoever wrote Samuel must have lived way back in the time when the Israelites were still using the Piym weight.

TEL DAN STELE (HOUSE OF DAVID)

SEAN MCDOWELL: Archaeological discovery number nine, Tel Dan Stele. What’s this find?

DR. TITUS KENNEDY: This stele completely changed the perspective of many archaeologists and scholars in the 90s. So up through the 80s and into the early 90s, many archaeologists, ancient historians, even some biblical scholars were saying that David never existed because we have no evidence from ancient times for him. We just have the biblical narrative and then later writing.

But in 1993, while excavating at the site of Tel Dan, thus the name, the Tel Dan Stele, the archaeologists found a fragment of this broken Aramean victory stele. So it was a stone monument that the Arameans had set up after they had defeated the Israelites at Dan and they inscribed on it about their accomplishments. And this first major section that was discovered mentioned some Israelite kings. And then it said that they were from the house of David. So this is a phrase that comes from the Bible, from the book of Samuel and Kings even. And it indicates that David was the founder of the dynasty of Israelite kings. And so you had the Arameans acknowledging the existence of David and his role as the founder king.

This demonstrated and established and really changed the perspective on the historicity of David. So as I said before this, many scholars were questioning it. This made everyone change their minds, almost everyone. And so now David is accepted as a historical figure. And again, this shows the historical reliability of the biblical text. And again, that David was a real king and the founder king of the Israelites, just as we see in the Bible.

KHIRBET QEIYAFA OSTRACON

SEAN MCDOWELL: Archaeological discovery number 10, Qeiyafa Ostracon. What’s this find?

DR. TITUS KENNEDY: This is another artifact that comes from around the time of David. This was discovered at an Israelite fortress near the border with the Philistines. And for a time, it may still be, depending on who you ask, is the oldest Hebrew inscription yet discovered. So it dates to around 1000 BC. And it’s a piece of pottery with Hebrew written in ink on it. So an ostracon is basically a shard of pottery with ink or inscribed writing on it. It’s some kind of letter. A lot of the letters themselves are faded. So there are disputes about the entire translation. But we know that it does mention a command and it mentions, most importantly, a king. So it’s a letter from presumably some Hebrew official in Jerusalem, probably, to this outpost at Qeiyafa by the Elah Valley. And it mentions the king.

And so this tells us that the Israelites had a king at that time and that the kingdom where Hebrews, where Israelites live, expanded all the way to the Elah Valley. Well, this site and this ostracon in particular are part of the body of evidence that really helps establish that the kingdom during the time of David did actually expand all the way to the borders that the Bible talks about. And it wasn’t just this little city-state centered around Jerusalem and the immediate area.

SHOSHENQ I STELE (MEGIDDO)

SEAN MCDOWELL: Archaeological discovery number 11, Shoshenq I stele discovered at Megiddo. Tell us about this.

DR. TITUS KENNEDY: Shoshenq I was an Egyptian pharaoh who campaigned in the land of Israel and Judah during the 10th century BC. So with Egyptian and Hebrew chronology, we could put him around 925, 926 BC when he attacked. So this is something that is mentioned in the books of Kings and Chronicles. And it’s an important chronological marker. But again, it’s another thing that we can check the historical reliability of.

The Bible really only talks about his attack on Judah and Jerusalem because that part of the divided kingdom period, the Bible’s often just focused on the southern kingdom of Judah, not the northern kingdom of Israel. But in Egypt, Shoshenq recorded his military expedition and he put a list of all the different places that he went to and attacked or conquered or subdued. And he has quite a few in the northern kingdom of Israel. Megiddo is one of those. And we go to Megiddo. There was a destruction layer from the 10th century BC. And there was this fragment of a victory stele with the name of Shoshenq I on it, demonstrating that he had been there and had conquered the city.

Now his list back in Egypt also includes some places in the south like Arad. And there’s an interesting little name that is something like king of Judah or capital of Judah. So I think that’s him talking about going to Jerusalem and encountering the king there. But this really firmly establishes that he campaigned in Israel and Judah.

Well, first, this helps us with biblical chronology and getting that all correctly lined up with the other nations around them. Because Shoshenq told us what time in his reign that he went to Israel and Judah. And then we have in the Bible, the year of the reign of Rehoboam when Shoshenq came there. And so that helps us to line up. All right, we can check our biblical chronology, make sure it lines up with the historical chronology of the rest of the world.

And then secondarily, it again, establishes that this section of the Bible, these passages are historically reliable. They’re corroborated by other archaeological evidence from the Egyptians in this case.

MESHA STELE (AKA MOABITE STONE)

SEAN MCDOWELL: Archaeological discovery number 12, what’s called the Mesha Stele. Tell us about this one.

DR. TITUS KENNEDY: The Mesha Stele, sometimes it’s called Moabite stone, is essentially the Moabite version of 2 KINGS CHAPTER 3. It’s really incredible. If you read the two texts side by side, you can see they’re talking about all these same events. So this is a Moabite version and king Mesha was the one who had this commission. He’s one who’s Israelites fight against in this story. And he mentioned some other Israelite kings from earlier, like Omri, for example, is mentioned on the stele there. And then he talks about his god Chemosh, which again is mentioned in the Bible as the main god of the Moabites. And then he mentioned that the Moabites were able to defeat the Israelites. And if we read 2 Kings chapter 3, indeed, we see that’s what happened. The Moabites come out victorious in this battle and kind of regain their independence from Israel. This is a stele which demonstrates the historical accuracy of many claims in the biblical text.

The overarching story in 2 Kings chapter 3, the existence of Mesha, king of Moab, that their chief god was named Chemosh. Some of the Israelite kings like Omri attested by these foreign nations. And this one also has mention of the house of David on it, like the Tel Dan Stele. So further evidence that David was a king and the founder of the Israelite dynasty.

BLACK OBELISK OF SHALMANESER III

SEAN MCDOWELL: Archaeological discovery number 13, the Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III. Tell us about this one.

DR. TITUS KENNEDY: This was a really exquisite looking artifact object commissioned by the Assyrian King Shalmaneser III. And on it, he had all these artistic panels, as well as Assyrian writing telling us what’s going on. Now for the connection to the Bible, this specifically has a piece of artwork that’s very important. It shows king Jehu bowing down to the Assyrian King Shalmaneser III. And it gives his name and it talks about him bringing this tribute into the Assyrians. So this is actually the earliest artistic depiction of an Israelite king that has ever been discovered. And it’s a source outside of the Bible that is confirming the existence of king Jehu and his interaction with the Assyrians.

SEAN MCDOWELL: So why is this discovery so important?

DR. TITUS KENNEDY: First, contextually, it can show us what did the Israelites look like at the time of Jehu? And even the king, we can see the kind of dress that they wore. It also shows us that they were subservient to the Assyrians during this period. As we read through the Old Testament, we see that during the divided kingdom that the Assyrians are often lording over the Israelites, especially the northern kingdom. And then again, it attests to the existence of Jehu as a king during the time of the Assyrians in the divided kingdom.

BULLA OF ISAIAH (THE PROPHET?)

SEAN MCDOWELL: Archaeological discovery number 14, Bulla of Isaiah. I’m really curious. Tell us about this one.

DR. TITUS KENNEDY: So bulla is a piece of clay that has been stamped with a seal, usually a ring seal. Think about in later times of history, people had these insignia seals and they might stamp a piece of wax on a document. So it’s the same kind of idea as that, except in ancient Judah, in this case, they were using clay instead of wax. So if you have Isaiah the prophet, he would write a letter to the king perhaps. And then he wraps that up, rolls that up, ties it, and then he puts this piece of clay on it and he stamps it with his ring, which has his name and title on it. And then that gets delivered. It’s a seal that shows who it’s from that hasn’t been broken yet. This was discovered in Jerusalem near the royal administrative complex, kind of in between where the temple is and where the main part of the city of David is. And it was also found in the context of a bulla of king Hezekiah.

But this was the first evidence outside of the Old Testament from ancient times that attests to the existence of Isaiah. And it’s got his name, ISAIAH, and then it has the title PROPHET on it. This demonstrates the existence of Isaiah as a prophet in the 8th and 7th centuries BC at the time of king Hezekiah right in Jerusalem. And again, it’s our first evidence, archaeological evidence of Isaiah.

SENNACHERIB PRISM (TAYLOR PRISM, ORIENTAL INSTITUTE PRISM, JERUSALEM PRISM)

SEAN MCDOWELL: Archaeological discovery number 15, what’s often called the Sennacherib prism or prisms. What is this?

DR. TITUS KENNEDY: So the SENNACHERIB PRISM, and yes, there are multiple prisms. This is a record commissioned by Sennacherib the king of Assyria about many of his campaigns. So we have three complete copies of this, but there are also several other fragments that have been discovered elsewhere. And what that tells us is that he had these made and they were sent all around his empire so that people could see his exploits or really in later times, you know, they would be preserved in such a way that almost like a time capsule you could get at them later, which is one reason why we have three in such great condition.

But in particular, this has an account of his campaign against the kingdom of Judah during the time of Hezekiah. And he mentioned all sorts of things that are also found in the biblical story about this. So he talks about how he defeated 46 strong walled towns of the Judeans along with other villages. So he goes in and he defeats all these different towns and cities. Lachish, for example, is one that we know very well about. And then it says that he went to Jerusalem and he besieged it and that Hezekiah was there like a bird in a cage. And so he says that he surrounded the city, Hezekiah is in there. He tells him that he asked for tribute and Hezekiah sends the tribute out. And we even have a correlation between the amount of gold that he asked for in the Assyrian text and the amount of gold that’s specifically stated in the Bible. And then, though, he just stops. There’s no talk about the taking of Jerusalem. And there’s no talk about what happened next.

Well, if you look at Assyrian records, you notice that they only talk about their victories. They never talk about their losses. So you read the biblical story of Hezekiah and Sennacherib and you see that the officers and mighty warriors of Sennacherib were killed, says, by the angel of the Lord. And then he goes back to Nineveh. So Sennacherib doesn’t say anything about that part. We just see that he’s back in Nineveh by his own records and he’s there and eventually gets assassinated by his son. But all these other elements of the story that we see in the Bible, he talks about in his Assyrian records. This demonstrates the historical accuracy of this quite long and in-depth narrative about the interaction between Sennacherib and Hezekiah when he came in to Judah to attack and destroy, take over many cities and then besiege Jerusalem, call for a tribute, but not take Jerusalem.

NEBO-SARSEKIM TABLET

SEAN MCDOWELL: Archaeological discovery number 16, the Nebo-Sarsekim tablet. What’s this?

DR. TITUS KENNEDY: This is a tiny little clay cuneiform tablet that was discovered that is simply a Babylonian official who’s getting a receipt for a donation that he made to the temple. But this one is really interesting and important because this person, Nebo-Sarsekim, the chief eunuch, he shows up in the book of Jeremiah around the time of the Babylonian dominance over Judah. And it’s just mentioned in one verse in Jeremiah, just in passing, he mentioned some officials. But there was a man who was working on translations of some tablets in the British Museum that had not been published. And he’s looking through this one and he thought, huh, that name sounds familiar. I think I’ve seen it in the Bible, maybe the book of Jeremiah. And he looks and it’s the same person.

So we have the archaeological attestation of this somewhat random lesser official that is just mentioned once in passing in the book of Jeremiah. Again, this demonstrates the accuracy of part of the Bible, the book of Jeremiah, specifically in this case, but it’s a little minutiae. It’s one of those things where the author, he didn’t have to mention this person. He didn’t have to mention them by name and by title. But he did so, he did that with multiple officials. And so he is putting himself out there as a historian and he’s allowing people then to check to make sure that this is accurate, that these are real people and that they actually had that title and they were in existence at that time. And so Jeremiah puts himself out there for us to check. We’re able to look at the evidence and see that he was indeed correct and accurate in his historical writings.

JERUSALEM CHRONICLE (ABC 5)

SEAN MCDOWELL: Archaeological discovery number 17, what’s called the Jerusalem Chronicle. Tell us about this one.

DR. TITUS KENNEDY: This is another document that has to do with Babylon and the Babylonian period. But this one has to do with the military attack by Nebuchadnezzar on the city of Jerusalem and then him taking a king into exile and appointing a new king. So it tells the story of Nebuchadnezzar coming to Judah and then coming up against Jerusalem and besieging it. It doesn’t say he destroyed it because this is not the 587 BC destruction. This is an earlier time. And it says that he removes the king and then he appoints his own king of choosing. And we read in the Bible that’s exactly what happens here. It’s around 598 BC and he appoints Zedekiah as essentially a puppet king.

So we have the Babylonian version of that sequence of events right before the final rebellion and destruction of Jerusalem. This is the Babylonian source that agrees with the biblical source and demonstrates that this story is correct, that the biblical authors got all the details right and actually provided us even more details than the Babylonians did. Demonstrating, once again, the historical reliability of the biblical text.

BABYLON “RATION TABLETS” (JEHOIACHIN=YAUKIN=JECONIAH)

SEAN MCDOWELL: Archaeological discovery number 18 was called the Babylon ration tablets. Tell us about these.

DR. TITUS KENNEDY: These are tablets that really just talk about food rations. So it doesn’t sound that exciting. It’s not any war. It’s not any building of a magnificent temple. But they’re interesting because they talk about this king Yaukin or Jehoiachin who was taken into exile in Babylon. And then we read in 2 Kings that he was eventually released from prison. And the king, [Amalmar Duke], gave him a daily allowance. And so he’s given these rations according to the Bible. And if you look at these tablets, it actually talks about his daily allowance that he is given. He’s called the king, called the king of Judah, the former king that still retains the title, and his son. So they’re all given this daily allowance. And it’s figured in an amount of oil, so a measurement of oil. And oil could be used for many things. It was a commodity, though, also at that time. So of course, you could cook with it. People would use it for personal hygiene also. But you could trade it, too, for other items. And so this is like an allowance that he is getting, just like we see in 2 Kings.

This is another really little detail stated in the biblical text that’s corroborated by outside sources, by Babylonian records in this case, these rations that are given to the king. And it also attests to the existence of Jehoiachin as the king of Judah and his place, or his time, in prison and then in exile in Babylon.

CYLINDER OF NABONIDUS

SEAN MCDOWELL: Archaeological discovery number 19, what’s called the Cylinder of Nabonidus. What’s this?

DR. TITUS KENNEDY: This is one of my favorites because of the story that came about as a result of this find. So back before this was discovered, there are actually multiple cylinders of Nabonidus, but before any of them were discovered, there were many scholars who were looking at the Book of Daniel, and they were saying, who is this king Belshazzar? We have never seen him mentioned in any other text. So the Book of Daniel must have just created this king.

Nabonidus was supposed to be the final king of Babylon before they were taken over by the Persians. And so they’re saying the Book of Daniel has got all these errors, it’s unhistorical. Then this text and one other were discovered. So on this text, it tells us that the firstborn son of Nabonidus was named Belshazzar. So it tells us Belshazzar did indeed exist. He was the heir to the throne. He was the crown prince of Nabonidus. And so Daniel didn’t just make him up.

And then in the Chronicles of Nabonidus, it actually tells us that Nabonidus left Babylon, and he turned over the kingship in Babylon to his firstborn son, Belshazzar. And so rather than Daniel just being totally unhistorical and fabricating names, we found that he was not only accurate, but he was conveying information to us that we had no idea about until archaeological discoveries started pulling up more information about the last Babylonian king. It speaks to the historical accuracy of the Book of Daniel. And it also implies that the author, Daniel, was living there in Babylon in the 6th century BC, and that he had some kind of position where he understood the political positions of people and what had gone on.

You know, he talks about third place in the kingdom is offered to him, right? So he understood that Nabonidus was the first in the kingdom. Belshazzar was second in the kingdom. And so he could only be offered third place in the kingdom. So it really bolsters the credibility of the Book of Daniel.

GESHEM KING OF QEDAR (QAYNU BOWL)

SEAN MCDOWELL: Archaeological discovery number 20, what’s called the BOWL OF QAYNU AND GESHEM. Tell us about this.

DR. TITUS KENNEDY: I picked this one because of the chronological progression of artifacts that we’re going through. It connects to the Book of Nehemiah because it names a king, Geshem, the Arabian. Geshem was an Arabian king that is noted multiple times in the Book of Nehemiah. He’s one of these kings who is opposed to Nehemiah rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem. And so we’ve got this source from their own kingdom that Geshem indeed existed in the 5th century BC at the time of Nehemiah, and he was the king of Arabia. It demonstrates a section of historical reliability for the Book of Nehemiah, one of the latest books of the Old Testament. And also, similar to what we saw with Nebo-Sarsekim in Jeremiah, Nehemiah puts all these little details, the names and locations of these various rulers. And he didn’t necessarily have to do that. He could have just said, this Arabian king, the king of Arabia. But he gives us this specific name. And so we’re able to check to see if that’s accurate. And indeed, it is, as well as many of the other officials in his book who are attested by archaeology.

SEAN MCDOWELL: Dr. Titus Kennedy, I had so many questions for each one of these I wanted to ask you, but it’s really important for this video that we give people a sense of the scope, kind of 30,000-foot view of archaeological discoveries supporting the Flood, the Exodus, the Conquest, the existence of David, Isaiah, on to supporting Daniel and Nehemiah.

I’m curious, given that you’ve studied so many different archaeological finds, are there any areas where you look and you’re like, wow, the archaeological record at this point seems to contradict the biblical account? And if so, what are they? And how do you make sense of them?

DR. TITUS KENNEDY: I can’t say any archaeological discoveries clearly contradict the biblical record. We do have cases where we have questions, and we don’t have all the answers. But I just say that we’ve been in that situation many times before, and when more discoveries are made, we understand what’s going on. And time and time again, what we’re finding in archaeology continues to confirm the historical reliability of the Bible.

SEAN MCDOWELL: Now, we’ve looked at 20 of these. In your book, Unearthing the Bible, you have 101 archaeological discoveries, you say, that bring the Bible to life. Given that you are a professional archaeologist, you’ve studied this also academically, and you’re a Christian, how does studying the archaeology support or strengthen or challenge your faith?

DR. TITUS KENNEDY: Oh, it definitely supports and strengthens and broadens my faith, because I really see archaeology as having two major applications to the Bible. The first of it is that it helps us to better understand the historical context of ancient times. And so we’re able to better interpret and even in some cases, better translate some of the passages. And then secondarily, we have all this material that corroborates, that demonstrates the historical reliability of the Bible. And so we don’t have to always be having these questions come up about, can we trust this passage? Can we trust this book? We don’t have any evidence for anything in here. And it’s all just blind faith. But no, we have a very reasonable, rational faith that is corroborated by so much evidence. And that can give us confidence in what is written in the Bible that we can trust that.

SEAN MCDOWELL: You hinted at this with some of the finds, like the Tell Dan Stele, the Bulla of Isaiah, confirming the historical existence of these figures. Have you seen a shift in the time you’ve studied this, or just looking back on the field of archaeology, more favorable towards the Bible? Or even with these finds, would you say that many, if not most archaeologists, still are critical towards the Bible as a historical source?

DR. TITUS KENNEDY: You know, it goes up and down a little bit, but overall, the trend is actually more skepticism towards the Bible. So if we went all the way back to the 1930s, 1940s, many scholars would be much more favorable to the Bible as a useful or even accurate historical source. Then in the 80s and 90s, it was getting really bad, I think, because we’re at a point where culturally, academia was so skeptical towards the Bible. And yet, there were quite a few things that hadn’t been discovered yet. We’ve made a lot of discoveries in the last 30 years.

But today, what most scholars think about in terms of the Bible and its historicity, Old Testament, we’re just talking about that, is they basically have thrown out everything prior to the reign of David as mythical, legendary, unhistorical. And don’t even look into that, for the most part. The main debate now has shifted, really, to the time of the monarchy period in Israel, in terms of what was the extent of the kingdom of David and Solomon, you know, how accurate, how historically reliable are the narratives about the kings, and then about the time of the Babylonian exile and the Persian period.

So, they’ve basically written off the Exodus and the conquest and the patriarchs as just, that’s not historical. We have no archaeology that connects or demonstrates that.

SEAN MCDOWELL: What would you say, Dr. Kennedy, to maybe a young Christian who’s trying to figure out what they want to do with their life and are intrigued by this? Is there room and need for Christians to go into the world of archaeology?

DR. TITUS KENNEDY: Yeah, there is definitely a need for more Christians to go into archaeology. It is a fairly small discipline in terms of the total amount of people involved, just because of the nature of the work, but it is vastly dominated by secularists. And yet, there is so much archaeology that can be done that connects to the Bible and is important, as we talked about earlier, you know, for those two main reasons. Context and reliability.

And so, I would encourage anyone who is interested in doing archaeology to learn more about it and try to get involved in it. Obviously, you can read books on your own time, you can watch videos, but I would also suggest trying to volunteer on an archaeological excavation to see if that’s something that you really like, you know, or maybe go volunteer at a museum to see if it’s that side of archaeology that you’re more intrigued by.

SEAN MCDOWELL: Well, a couple things you can do as well is pick up a copy of Unearthing the Bible by Titus Kennedy. He goes into more depth on each one of these finds and talks about 81 more. It’s a great book with beautiful pictures and just a description of the find itself. And you can think about studying with Dr. Kennedy and myself at Biola. He’s an adjunct professor at Biola University and will come teach classes in our graduate program on apologetics, specifically on archaeology. There’s information below, so think about joining us for the top-rated distance apologetics program. And make sure you hit subscribe because we’ve got some more videos coming up with others, including Dr. Kennedy, talking about the archaeology, supporting the Gospels, and the person of Jesus. Dr. Kennedy, thanks so much for great answers.

DR. TITUS KENNEDY: Hey, I appreciate you having me on the show, Sean.

SEAN MCDOWELL: You bet.

For Further Reading:

Paul Maier on The Real Jesus: New evidence From History And Archeology (Transcript)

How to Educate Your Children: Jeff Sandefer (Transcript)

(Through The Bible) – Book of Ecclesiastes: Zac Poonen (Transcript)

Days of Noah & Lot: Derek Prince (Transcript)

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