Evidence for the BIble
Archaeological Evidence for Accuracy
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For years, the Bible has been put to the test, and over and over again, it has proven itself to be accurate, trustworthy, and inspired.
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The Bible states that all scripture is God-breathed, meaning God directly had a say in what was written.
The Bible is full of History...the Bible is History. This makes verifying it a simple fact-check operation.
There are many characters found in the Bible who were thought to have never existed, but archeology has found that they actually did exist in the position, time, and place depicted by the Bible.
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A big one is the king of Israel, David. According to skeptics, David didn’t exist. There was no evidence of him anywhere outside of the Bible. Then, in 1993, the Tel Dan inscription was discovered at Dan, in the northern part of Israel. This inscription contained writing from King Hazael of Syria referring to his having killed a king of the house of David from the dynasty of David. This was written around 796 B.C., 175 years after David, but more importantly, 300 years before the legends about David were supposed to have been invented.
Today, nobody questions the historical figure of King David.
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Many other people recorded in the Bible were once thought not to exist, but have later been validated by archeology.
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A whole people group was once thought to have been invented by Biblical writers: the Hittites. There was no proof of this group anywhere except that they were recorded in the Bible. Then, in 1906, the capital city of the Hittites was discovered in modern-day Turkey.
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There was once thought to be a considerable discrepancy in the book of Daniel about the last king of Babylon. There, it states that the last king of Babylon in 539 B.C. was Belshazzar. He played a prominent role when he interacted with the biblical figure, Daniel. But historians had known for a long time that the last king of Babylon was not Belshazzar but a man named Nabonidus. This was thought to be a significant flaw in the Bible. But the British council in Basra unearthed the remains of a temple repaired and dedicated to the moon god, Sin. In this temple, they found four identical time capsules left by King Nabonidus. On these cylinders was written a prayer for himself, and then he added, “And Belshazzar, my firstborn, the offspring of my heart.”
Come to find out, king Nabonidus had been away for ten years fighting wars in a distant land, leaving his son Belshazzar as a ruler in his absence.
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Many other men in the Bible have been confirmed by archeology:
King Ahab by the stele of Shalmaneser, Jehu by the Black Obelisk, King Ahaz by a seal impression, King Hezekiah by a seal impression, and Shebna by a seal impression, among others.
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In Nahum 3:15, the Bible prophesies that the city of Nineveh would be destroyed by fire, and in Zephaniah 2:13, it says Nineveh would become a desert. The whole city of Nineveh was thought not to exist by skeptics. In 1847, Austen Henry Layard finally discovered the lost ‘nonexistent’ city. When he dug the city out of the sandy desert, he saw that the walls were burned black and the city had indeed been torched.
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There are records of decrees in the Bible that have been proven to have been historical. The decree of Cyrus, king of Persia, which sent the Jews back to their homeland, was found written on the Cyrus Cylinder, now on display for the whole world to see, one of the first charters of freedom.
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Skeptics thought the Romans didn’t have a taxation system, but later, they discovered they had extensive taxation methods.
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In the city of Corinth, at the ruins of the theatre, an inscription was found that says that Erastus, the city treasurer, laid the pavement at his own expense. In Romans 16:23 of the Bible, Paul, who is writing from the town of Corinth, states, “Erastus, the city treasurer, greets you...” The word used for city treasurer in the inscription is not exactly the same as that used by Paul. However, in both word meanings, the positions are the same, and they come with financial dealings. Also, according to records, the name Erastus was not very common, showing up about once every 1,100 names. So we can say with confidence that they are the same person.
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Back to the Old Testament, the prophet Jeremiah’s scribe, Baruch, has been verified, and if that’s not enough, we may have his fingerprint. An impression of Baruch’s personal seal was uncovered, along with a fingerprint on the back. However, since we don’t have Baruch’s mugshots, we can’t be sure the prints are his.
The writer Luke records in his gospel and the book of Acts 117 names of people living at that time, 114 places, and 25 significant events, laying himself open for inspection, placing his writings in danger of skeptics, not fearing the result because he knew his writings were true. He also records a famine and the expulsion of the Jews, both found in 1st-century texts.
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Sir William Ramsay, an archaeologist from the late 1800s to early 1900s, once wrote, “You may press the words of Luke in a degree beyond any other historian’s, and they stand the keenest scrutiny and the hardest treatment...Christianity did not originate in a lie, and we can and must demonstrate this.”
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This is but a drop in the bucket for the evidence for the validity and accuracy of the Bible. For thousands of years, the Bible has withstood and survived some of the most brutal attacks that skeptics have been able to give.
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The Bible is the accurate word of God.
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- Clay Riggs