By Hank Hanegraaff

Like the Book of Mormon, the Bible has been roundly denounced as a cleverly invented story. Unlike the Book of Mormon, however, the Bible is buttressed by history and physical evidence. While the archaeologist’s S-P-A-D-E continues to mount up evidence against the Book of Mormon, it has piled up proof upon proof for the trustworthiness of Scripture.

STELES AND STONES. In demonstrating that what was concealed in the soil corresponds to what is revealed in the Scriptures, the Merneptah and the Tel Dan Steles come immediately to mind, as do the Moabite and the Pilate Stones. With “Israel is laid waste, its seed is not” etched into it, the Merneptah Stele presents as formidable a challenge to exodus deniers as the Tel Dan Stele does to those pontificating that the biblical account of King David is no more factual than tales of King Arthur. As Time rightly observed, the skeptics’ claim that King David never existed is now hard to defend: “House of David” is inscribed on the Tel Dan Stele. The Moabite Stone honors the victory of King Mesha of Moab over Israel, mentioning Yahweh, House of David, Omri, and Nebo and therefore making it difficult to contend that these biblical kings and places are the stuff of myth. Likewise, the Pilate Stone demonstrates in spades that Pilate was the Roman authority in Judea when Christ was crucified.

POOLS AND FOOLS. Until quite recently, skeptics viewed the existence of the pools John referred to in his gospel to be little more than a religious conceit, a predilection on the part of Christians to believe that what they think is true is true solely because they think it’s true. Only fools believed in John’s pools. All of that changed in June 2004 when workers in the Old City of Jerusalem unearthed the place where Jesus cured the man born blind. Today, you can step into the very Pool of Siloam in which the blind man “washed, and came back seeing” (John 9:7 nasb). Likewise, you can rest your arms on the guardrail overlooking the excavated ruins of the pool of Bethesda, where Jesus cared for the physical and spiritual needs of a man who suffered there for thirty-eight years (John 5). And you can stand amazed that what was once secreted in soil accurately reflects that which is sealed in Scripture.

ASSYRIAN EMPIRE. From six hundred years before Christ until eighteen hundred years after Him, Assyria and its chief city, Nineveh, lay entombed in the dustbin of history. Then the stones cried out again. In 1845, Henry Austen Layard began digging along the Tigris River and unearthed Nineveh, the diamond of Assyria, embedded in the golden arc of the Fertile Crescent, midway between the Mediterranean and Caspian Seas. Among the stunning archaeological gems discovered there were Sennacherib’s Prism, which corroborates the Bible’s account of Sennacherib’s assault on the Southern Kingdom of Judah (2 Kings 18–20); the Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser, showing archaeology’s oldest depiction of an Israelite, Jehu the king of Israel, giving a tribute of gold and silver to the Assyrian king; and the palace of Sargon, previously known only by a single reference in sacred Scripture (Isaiah 20:1). Together, Sennacherib’s Prism, Shalmaneser’s Black Obelisk, and the ruins of Sargon’s Palace provide weighty testimony to the reliability of the biblical record.

DEAD SEA SCROLLS. In 1947, the shattering of parchment- preserving pottery led to one of the greatest archaeological discoveries of modern times. With the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, we now have a virtual first-century Hebrew Old Testament library available at the click of a twenty-first-century mouse. Not only so, but the Dead Sea Scrolls predate the earliest extant Hebrew text—Masoretic—by a full millennium. As such, everyone from scholar to schoolchild can determine whether the Old Testament Scriptures have been corrupted by men or miraculously preserved by God. Additionally, the Dead Sea Scrolls provide significant insight into the text of the Old Testament and add considerable clarity to the text of the New Testament. (See “How do the Dead Sea Scrolls buttress God’s preservation of Scripture? (S-I-G-N-S)” on p. 157.)

EPIC OF GILGAMESH. Until the late nineteenth century, the masses presumed the great primordial deluge to be relegated to the text of Scripture. That began to change in 1853 when Hormuzd Rassam discovered the palace of Assurbanipal. There, among the treasures of Assyria’s last king, he uncovered clay tablets on which was recorded the Epic of Gilgamesh and its independent confirmation of a vast flood in ancient Mesopotamia, complete with a Noah-like figure and an ark. While the Epic views the waters of the flood through the opaque lens of paganism, it lends significant credence to the actual event. It is likewise a reminder that the reality of a great deluge is impressed on the collective consciousness of virtually every major civilization from the Sumerian epoch to the present age.

The archaeologist’s S-P-A-D-E demonstrates time and time again that, in direct contrast to pagan mythology—from Mormonism to Mithras—the people, places, and particulars found in sacred Scripture have their roots in history and evidence. What was concealed in the soil corresponds to what is revealed in the Scriptures.

In part adapted from Has God Spoken?

When [Jesus] had said these things, He spat on the ground and made clay with the saliva; and He anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay. And He said to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which is translated, Sent). So he went and washed, and came back seeing.

John 9:6–7 NKJV

 

STELES AND STONES

POOLS AND FOOLS

ASSYRIAN EMPIRE

DEAD SEA SCROLLS

EPIC OF GILGAMESH

For further study, see Hank Hanegraaff, Has God Spoken? Memorable Proofs of the Bible’s Divine Inspiration (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2011).

 

 

 

 

 

 

***Note the preceding text is adapted from The Complete Bible Answer Book: Collector’s Edition: Revised and Expanded (2024). To receive for your partnering gift please click here. ***

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