A few years ago, archeologists digging in the Hinnon valley, south of Old Jerusalem, discovered over a thousand items of pottery and jewelry in nine burial caves. These treasures included two silver charms found about 900 yards south of the spot where Solomon's Temple once stood three thousand years ago. These charms were in the shape of thin scrolls of silver inscribed with scriptural text. While most of the text was lost, the remainder reads, "The Lord bless thee, and keep thee. The Lord make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee: The Lord lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace" This, taken directly from the book of Numbers (6:24-26), is the oldest known original biblical inscription being written in the seventh century before Christ, more than four hundred years before the majority of the Dead Sea scrolls were written.
The roman emperors made the likelihood that the Scriptures would survive tenuous at best, being in opposition to the christian "cult" in thier midst from the very beginning. Prof. S.l. Greenslade, editor of the Cambridge History of the Bible, wrote: "An imperial letter was everywhere promulgated, ordering the razing of the churches to the ground and the destruction by fire of the scriptures, and proclaiming that those who held high positions [in the empire] would lose all civil rights, while those households, if they persisted in thier profession of Christianity, would be deprived of liberty" [Cambridge University Press, 1963]
Historians have recovered nearly 100,000 letters and writings from this era written by christians. So great was their love of the Scriptures that they quoted from them so often in these letters that almost 98% of the entire New Testament can be reliably reconstructed from them. In other words, even if the roman emperors had succeeded in destroying the actual Scriptural texts, 98% of the New Testament could be confidently reconstructed today.
Bible critics have long held that Moses did not, in fact, author the first five books of the Bible (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy). Thier reasoning is based on the extended use of a variety of given names for God used throughout the books (such as Jehovah, Elohim, etc.). They insist that a later editor must have compiled the books together into one manuscript (the "Law" portion of the Torah) about 600 years before Christ and that the events described in these books are therefore nothing more than a myth.
This illogical series of assertions, when considered carefully, is revealed as absurd. Not only do they not provide any reliable evidence of their assertions but they are confounded by what we know of the Jewish people and thier zealousness for the Scriptures.
Consider, for example, the complicated and difficult demands of the celebration of Jewish festivals such as The Passover, The Pentecost and the Feast of Tabernacles. How likely is it the Jews, of all people, would so zealously guard, celebrate and pass on these traditions if they did not celebrate actual events? The symbolic reenactment of specific miracles described in the Scriptures is hardly likely had these events never occured and been witnessed by the people themselves.
Now imagine someone, even some beloved and famous Jewish leader, attempting to convince all the Jewish people scattered throughout Europe to begin celebrating these festivals in remembrance of non-existent miraculous events more than a thousand years after they were supposed to have happened. Now imagine that same leader inspiring the elders among these people to falsify their Scriptures and records so that it appears that these festivals were first observed during the time of the book of Exodus over a thousand years previously. Then, once you have satisfactorily accomplished this great mental feat of reasoning, imagine that all the scattered Jewish people (and everyone else for that matter) had neglected to mention this great, world-reknowned and persuasive leader in any of their historical records.
Examples of the desperation with which bible critics attack the integrity of the bible, such as this one, should themselves go a long way toward proving that the Bible holds a special rank among all the religious texts in existence today. No other religious scripture has ever been attacked with the deviousness and fury which the Bible has suffered, and none other could have possibly survived intact.
Despite the best efforts of the emperors, christianity became the official state religion of the Roman Empire, thanks to the misguided emperor Constantine. Soon enough, the church caved into the corrupt kings and aristocracy of the time. For centuries it was illegal to possess the Bible, even for christians. During the Inquisition, such penalties as burning at the stake were routinely handed down against those found in possession of it, in full or part. Even when a copy was available during the Dark Ages, most (including many priests) were unable to read the original Latin which the church insisted the Scriptures be printed. Due to the desire of the church to maintain sole access to the Scriptures, as well as thier obvious rejection of the truth it contained, even most devout christians were unable to denounce the false doctrines that abounded in those days with any real confidence. Most christians today are surprised and horrified to discover that the Catholic Church itself was responsible for maintaining laws that forbade christians from owning, or having free access to, a copy of the Scriptures.
After almost a thousand years of church dominance of spiritual truth, Martin Luther translated and printed the Bible in a variety of languages including English, German and French. The resulting explosion of christianity, lead by bible-bearing, faithful witnesses, was unprecedented in history leading the christian religion to it's gloriously overshadowing the false religions of it's time. A variety of sects, some faithful and some false, sprang up in defiance of the church's tradition of superceding Scripture with council decisions and papal decrees.
Comparisons of the Scriptures to original Hebrew texts and New Testament text showed that the bible, even after nearly a thousand years of violent repression by the church itself, had not effected the accuracy of the translation at all. Only a few minor variations of spelling and not one incident of a missing or replaced word could be found. The bible had survived completely intact.
Many bible critics, until recently, insisted that the art of writing did not exist in the world during the time of Moses. Hence, Moses could not possibly have written the first five books of the bible, thus proving that they (and the bible with them) are false. Nonetheless, recent discoveries by archeologists of numerous ancient inscriptions, such as the black stele of the Laws of Hammurabi, prove that writing existed, and was actually wide-spread, centuries before Moses' time.
The greek historian Herodotus, in his book Polymnia section c8, "This people [the Israelites], by their own account, inhabited the coasts of the Red Sea, but migrated thence to the maritime parts of Syria, all which district, as far as Egypt, is dominated Palestine." The pagan historian Strabo, born in 54 B.C. writes in his Geography, lib. xvi., c.2 "Among many things believed respecting the temple and inhabitants of Jerusalem, the report most credited is that the Egyptians were the ancestors of the present Jews. An Egyptian priest named Moses, who possessed a portion of the country called lower Egypt, being dissatisfied with the institution there, left it and came to Judea with a large body of people who worshipped the Divinity."
Many today still argue that the continued copying and recopying of the Scriptures over the last four thousand years, before the advent of modern printing technology, could not possibly have allowed the Scriptures to remain perfectly intact. Thus, if the Scriptures have changed significantly over time they cannot be true to thier claim of being "infallible".
These people are obviously unaware of the methods used by the Masoretic Jews to make these copies. The method, while painstaking, proves to be quite infallible and perfectly accurate. These ancient scribes derived thier name from the Hebrew word meaning "wall" or "fence", describing thier intent to be a barrier to protect the Scriptures from inaccuracy. By counting the exact number of occurances of each individual letter within thier copy of a particular book and then comparing that number to the total occurances of each individual letter in the original manuscript, copies were verified with complete confidence as "perfect". The occurance of any particular letter appearing even once more or less in the copy would result in that copy being immediately destroyed.
For an example of how accurate this method was, consider the Yemenite Jews. Seperated from the Masoretic Jews for about one thousand years, the Yemenite Jews made thier own copies using the same method the Masoretic scribes used. After 1000 years of copying the scriptures by both people the versions can be compared and found to be identical. In fact, the only differences found in these hand-written copies were little more than variations in the forms of individual letters. Not one phrase was misplaced, not one significant concept altered.
In 1993, archeologists excavating in Galilee at Tel Dan uncovered a fragment of inscribed stone clearly referring to "the House of David" and identifying David as "the king of Israel." This was the first archeological discovery to confirm the biblical account of David as king in Israel in the ninth century before Christ. It was quicky attacked as a fake by critics who had long held that the King David, and many other Israelite kings, were purely mythical. The following summer two additional fragments of the original inscription were uncovered alllowing archeologists to piece together the entire original manuscript. It was confirmed that it referred to David as king of Israel. Thereafter another scholar, Andre Lemaire, discovered another stone inscription created by King Mesha in the ninth century B.C. that made reference to the "House of David."
* Mention of Omri was found on the stone inscriptions of three kings of Assyria, the Black Obelisk of King Shalmaneser III and the annals of both Tiglath-Pileser III and Sargon II.
* Other Assyrian inscriptions found in Ninevah confirm other kings of Israel - Ahab, Jehu, Joash, Hoshea, Menehem and Pekah.
* Names of kings of southern kingdom of Judah found in the inscriptions of nation they fought - Ahaz, Ahaziah, Hezekiah, Jehoiachin, Manasseh and Uzziah.
* Confirmation of King Jehoiachin was also found in the ration records of the army of Nebuchadnezzer, king of Babylon - "ten silas of oil to Jehoiachin, king of Judah."
* Also found on the Black Obelisk of King Shalmaneser III - an engraving of king Jehu of Israel bowing down in obediance to King Shamaneser II. With it, an inscription referring to him as the "son of Omri", indicating awareness of his lineage to Omri as the Old Testament book of Kings confirms.
While excavating in and around Jericho between 1930 and 1936, Prof. John Garstang wrote, "As to the main fact, then, there remains no doubt: the walls [of the city] fell outwards so completely that the attackers would be able to clamber up and over thier ruins into the city." In addition to writing this independant description of this one particular find, he also signed it and had two of his co-workers witness and sign it themselves.
Why did he feel it necessary to emphasize the authenticity of this statement to such a degree? Because the evidence from every other archeological site around the ancient cities of the Middle East always showed the walls of the cities always fell inward. Every single one except, of course, Jericho's. They all fell inward rather than out for a very simple reason: when attackers besiege a city they are typically trying to get in, not out. And yet Jericho's walls clearly fell outward.
The reason for this can be found in the biblical account of the fall of Jericho when God caused the walls to "fall down flat" allowing Joshua's army to seize the city. (Joshua 6:1-20)
"Now, in the first year of Cyrus, king of Persian, that the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and put it also in writing, saying, Thus saith Cyrus king of Persia, The Lord God of heaven hath given me all the kingdoms of the earth; and he hath charged me to build him an house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Who is there among you of all his people? his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and build the house of the Lord God of Israel, (he is the God,) which is in Jerusalem." - Ezra 1:1-3
Under the rule of Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar, who ruled these lands immediately before Cyrus, it was the governmental policy to displace whole people, such as the Jews, to the far reaches of the Empire. King Cyrus, a ruler who feared and worshiped Jehovah, overturned this policy and ordered that all such displaced people be allowed to return to thier homelands.
Explorers in Iraq found, in the last century, an inscribe clay cylinder bearing this very same decree of King Cyrus of Persia. The king had apparently issued this decree quite soon after conquering the Babylonian Empire.
"I gathered all the former inhabitants and returned them to thier habitations." - from the decree of King Cyrus of Persia.
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