That sounds wonderful Em. I love when we are spontaneously transported to what seems like another world but was there all along....
I have been doing pretty well, I must say. I met a wonderful new friend. Her name is Jess. She lives in Shaker Hts, works downtown as a receptionist in an accounting firm. She is 28... She is courageous, strong, and positive (though faced with such adversity)She has O.I. Its short for "osteogenemesis imperfecta" (sp?) -brittle bone disease. I instant messaged her about 2 weeks ago on myspace. We met up 3 days later:) She is very independent. She is around 3 ft. tall. Big beautiful brown eyes, and long brown hair. Lives alone with 2 cats. Lucy and Gracie. She has a fast wheelchair that gets her on and off the RTA bus anywhere she wants. Last night we went to the Cleveland Art Museum and then had dinner and drinks on Coventry. God is blessing us both with eachothers friendship:) :)
Then of course there is the story about the Christians dressed up like Clowns, the communists, Fox 8 news and myself last Sunday as I went downtown to help the homeless....good times. ;)
Faith and doubt go hand in hand, they are complementaries. One who never doubts will never truly believe. -Hermann Hesse (1877-1962) Reflections, 291
Here is something I was reading this evening. I am interested in learning more about biblical archeological finds....read on.
A shift to unbelief
For many centuries people simply assumed that everything in the Bible was true. But then, from the late 1600s through the 1800s, a series of scientific discoveries came to light that many assumed contradicted the Bible...
It wasn't long before many intellectuals, particularly those teaching in European universities, began to "deconstruct" the Bible. They soon concluded that, among other things, the books of the Bible couldn't have been written by their reputed authors—and, for that matter, the Bible couldn't have been written until hundreds of years after their lifetimes. All in all, they decided, the Bible's stories and characters were simply a collection of myths and legends pieced together by writers many centuries after they supposedly happened.
For them the Bible was only a collection of ancient fables no different from the timeworn myths of any other ancient tribal history. Sadly, their thinking not only persists to our day but permeates the curricula of many universities. Students are saturated with these ideas by professors who aggressively promote an anti-Bible bias. That bias now pervades the mass media and most of the scientific community.
Richard Dawkins, professor of zoology at Oxford University, is an aggressive proponent of evolution whose contemptuous view of the biblical creation account is typical of those who dismiss the Bible as being the inspired truth of God.
"Nearly all peoples have developed their own creation myth," he writes, "and the Genesis story is just the one that happened to have been adopted by one particular tribe of Middle Eastern herders. It has no more special status than the belief of a particular West African tribe that the world was created from the excrement of ants" (The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design, 1986, p. 316).
Critics formulate their own myths
So which is it? Is the Bible the revelation of man's Creator, as it claims to be? Is it an accurate history of ancient peoples—men and women who lived long ago whose stories were recorded for us—or is it a patchwork collection of fables?
Critics of the Bible have long ridiculed its value as a historical document. For decades many vehemently argued that the Hebrew Scriptures couldn't be what they claimed to be since, according to these critics, the art of writing dated back only to about 1000 B.C.—around the time of Israel's King David.
Anything earlier than a few centuries B.C., they argued, was unreliable oral tradition at best and wildly exaggerated mythmaking at worst. Thus they could safely dismiss the entire Old Testament as any sort of reliable historical document. The events of Genesis, the Exodus from Egypt, King David and his exploits, stories of armies and empires, the kings of Israel and Judah and so much more—all, they said, were nothing but fable.
Although critics of the Bible still abound, fewer and fewer are willing to make the same arguments on those same grounds. Why? The evidence grows daily that the modern-day mythmakers were wrong—spectacularly wrong.
Empires emerge from the sands of time
Rather than accept the Bible's witness as true until proven wrong, critics took the position that the Bible is untrue until proven otherwise—a way of thinking that, regrettably, permeates the minds of many scholars and thinkers to this day. But is their bias justified?
Evidence for the authenticity and accuracy of the Bible began to surface virtually the instant archaeologists started to scratch the surface of the biblical lands in the mid-1800s...
One of the earliest of these scientific explorers was the American Edward Robinson. He identified the location or ruins of literally hundreds of biblical towns and cities by a remarkably simple method: He simply talked to the Arab inhabitants, who had preserved the traditional names of the locations in their own tongue for centuries! Subsequent excavations at many of these sites have proven they were correct; the names were indeed passed on accurately over many generations.
Shortly after Robinson's first forays into the Holy Land, English, German and French excavators began to explore ruins in what is today Iraq. Their finds were staggering. They uncovered not only the great cities of the Assyrian and Babylonian empires mentioned in the Bible, but palaces and monuments of the very kings recorded in the Scriptures. Some even contained accounts of military campaigns that matched the Bible's, as well as carvings depicting the actual battles. (See "The Mighty Assyrian Empire Emerges From the Dust," below.)
A lost people emerges
Another major shock to those who maintained that the Bible was myth was the 1876 discovery of proof of an entire empire that had been lost to history. Though they are mentioned 47 times in the Bible, many scholars had come to regard the Hittites as simply a fable.
However, the discovery of inscribed clay tablets at a Turkish site led to an excavation that uncovered a fortified citadel, five temples, enormous stone sculptures and a room containing more than 10,000 tablets.
Says archaeologist and author Randall Price: "Once they were finally deciphered it was announced to the world that the Hittites had been found! [The site] had in fact been the ancient capital of the Hittite empire . . . The rediscovery of this lost people, one of the most outstanding achievements in Near Eastern archaeology, now serves as a caution to those who doubt the historicity of particular biblical accounts" (The Stones Cry Out, 1997, p. 83).
By no means are these the only people and empires mentioned in the Bible whose existence has since been proved by the archaeologist's spade. As more sites have been explored, many more peoples and even specific individuals recorded in the Scriptures have been verified as real.
Proof that biblical figures were real
As recently as a decade ago, some argued that Israel's most famous king, David, was but a myth. The record of the Bible wasn't good enough, they insisted; proof of his existence must be found elsewhere.
In 1993 that proof emerged when Israeli archaeologists discovered an inscription that referred to the royal dynasty David founded. Recorded on a monument some 150 years after David's death, the inscription commemorates the victory of the king of Damascus over the forces of Israel and their king, who was "of the house [dynasty] of David" (see "An Ancient Inscription Proves David Was Real," page 5).
Over the years dozens of artifacts and inscriptions bearing the names of individuals mentioned in the Bible have been uncovered. In 1982 a cache of 51 ancient baked-clay seals that were used to bind papyrus or parchment scrolls was uncovered in a Jerusalem excavation. One bore the impression of the seal of "Gemaryahu [Gemariah] the son of Shaphan." This same "Gemariah, the son of Shaphan," was a scribe in the court of Judah's king Jehoiakim as mentioned in Jeremiah 36:10-12, 25-26.
In 1975 another hoard of seals emerged, apparently uncovered in unauthorized digging in Jerusalem. One bore the name of Ishmael, the man who assassinated Gedaliah, the governor appointed by the Babylonians after they destroyed Jerusalem (2 Kings 25:25).
Even more surprising, another seal bore the name "Berekhyahu [Baruch] son of Neriyahu [Neriah] the scribe." This man was none other than "Baruch the scribe," trusted friend, confidant and scribe of Jeremiah the prophet (Jeremiah 36:4-32; 43:1-6; 45:1-2).
As if that were not astounding enough, another seal in a private collection in England was found to bear not only Baruch's name but a fingerprint along one edge—apparently Baruch's own fingerprint from when he impressed his seal into the soft clay some 2,600 years ago!
These are only a few of the finds that prove specific people mentioned in the Bible—many only in an incidental way—were indeed real and lived at the exact time and in the exact location in which the Bible places them. A complete list of such finds would fill many pages of this magazine.
Other finds foil critics' claims
What about the critics' assertion that the Bible couldn't have been written when it claimed to be because the ancient Hebrews didn't know how to write at that time? This assumption was demolished in 1979 when, in the course of excavating a tomb in Jerusalem from the seventh century B.C., archaeologists discovered two tiny gray cylinders.
The objects turned out to be silver foil amulets covered with delicately etched Hebrew characters. When deciphered they were found to contain most of the words of the blessing recorded in Numbers 6:24-26. This remarkable find proved that not only did the ancient Hebrews know how to write centuries earlier than critics said they did, but one of the oldest portions of the Bible was obviously in use at a time well before the critics maintained it had been written!
For many centuries people simply assumed that everything in the Bible was true. But then, from the late 1600s through the 1800s, a series of scientific discoveries came to light that many assumed contradicted the Bible...
It wasn't long before many intellectuals, particularly those teaching in European universities, began to "deconstruct" the Bible. They soon concluded that, among other things, the books of the Bible couldn't have been written by their reputed authors—and, for that matter, the Bible couldn't have been written until hundreds of years after their lifetimes. All in all, they decided, the Bible's stories and characters were simply a collection of myths and legends pieced together by writers many centuries after they supposedly happened.
For them the Bible was only a collection of ancient fables no different from the timeworn myths of any other ancient tribal history. Sadly, their thinking not only persists to our day but permeates the curricula of many universities. Students are saturated with these ideas by professors who aggressively promote an anti-Bible bias. That bias now pervades the mass media and most of the scientific community.
Richard Dawkins, professor of zoology at Oxford University, is an aggressive proponent of evolution whose contemptuous view of the biblical creation account is typical of those who dismiss the Bible as being the inspired truth of God.
"Nearly all peoples have developed their own creation myth," he writes, "and the Genesis story is just the one that happened to have been adopted by one particular tribe of Middle Eastern herders. It has no more special status than the belief of a particular West African tribe that the world was created from the excrement of ants" (The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design, 1986, p. 316).
Critics formulate their own myths
So which is it? Is the Bible the revelation of man's Creator, as it claims to be? Is it an accurate history of ancient peoples—men and women who lived long ago whose stories were recorded for us—or is it a patchwork collection of fables?
Critics of the Bible have long ridiculed its value as a historical document. For decades many vehemently argued that the Hebrew Scriptures couldn't be what they claimed to be since, according to these critics, the art of writing dated back only to about 1000 B.C.—around the time of Israel's King David.
Anything earlier than a few centuries B.C., they argued, was unreliable oral tradition at best and wildly exaggerated mythmaking at worst. Thus they could safely dismiss the entire Old Testament as any sort of reliable historical document. The events of Genesis, the Exodus from Egypt, King David and his exploits, stories of armies and empires, the kings of Israel and Judah and so much more—all, they said, were nothing but fable.
Although critics of the Bible still abound, fewer and fewer are willing to make the same arguments on those same grounds. Why? The evidence grows daily that the modern-day mythmakers were wrong—spectacularly wrong.
Empires emerge from the sands of time
Rather than accept the Bible's witness as true until proven wrong, critics took the position that the Bible is untrue until proven otherwise—a way of thinking that, regrettably, permeates the minds of many scholars and thinkers to this day. But is their bias justified?
Evidence for the authenticity and accuracy of the Bible began to surface virtually the instant archaeologists started to scratch the surface of the biblical lands in the mid-1800s...
One of the earliest of these scientific explorers was the American Edward Robinson. He identified the location or ruins of literally hundreds of biblical towns and cities by a remarkably simple method: He simply talked to the Arab inhabitants, who had preserved the traditional names of the locations in their own tongue for centuries! Subsequent excavations at many of these sites have proven they were correct; the names were indeed passed on accurately over many generations.
Shortly after Robinson's first forays into the Holy Land, English, German and French excavators began to explore ruins in what is today Iraq. Their finds were staggering. They uncovered not only the great cities of the Assyrian and Babylonian empires mentioned in the Bible, but palaces and monuments of the very kings recorded in the Scriptures. Some even contained accounts of military campaigns that matched the Bible's, as well as carvings depicting the actual battles. (See "The Mighty Assyrian Empire Emerges From the Dust," below.)
A lost people emerges
Another major shock to those who maintained that the Bible was myth was the 1876 discovery of proof of an entire empire that had been lost to history. Though they are mentioned 47 times in the Bible, many scholars had come to regard the Hittites as simply a fable.
However, the discovery of inscribed clay tablets at a Turkish site led to an excavation that uncovered a fortified citadel, five temples, enormous stone sculptures and a room containing more than 10,000 tablets.
Says archaeologist and author Randall Price: "Once they were finally deciphered it was announced to the world that the Hittites had been found! [The site] had in fact been the ancient capital of the Hittite empire . . . The rediscovery of this lost people, one of the most outstanding achievements in Near Eastern archaeology, now serves as a caution to those who doubt the historicity of particular biblical accounts" (The Stones Cry Out, 1997, p. 83).
By no means are these the only people and empires mentioned in the Bible whose existence has since been proved by the archaeologist's spade. As more sites have been explored, many more peoples and even specific individuals recorded in the Scriptures have been verified as real.
Proof that biblical figures were real
As recently as a decade ago, some argued that Israel's most famous king, David, was but a myth. The record of the Bible wasn't good enough, they insisted; proof of his existence must be found elsewhere.
In 1993 that proof emerged when Israeli archaeologists discovered an inscription that referred to the royal dynasty David founded. Recorded on a monument some 150 years after David's death, the inscription commemorates the victory of the king of Damascus over the forces of Israel and their king, who was "of the house [dynasty] of David" (see "An Ancient Inscription Proves David Was Real," page 5).
Over the years dozens of artifacts and inscriptions bearing the names of individuals mentioned in the Bible have been uncovered. In 1982 a cache of 51 ancient baked-clay seals that were used to bind papyrus or parchment scrolls was uncovered in a Jerusalem excavation. One bore the impression of the seal of "Gemaryahu [Gemariah] the son of Shaphan." This same "Gemariah, the son of Shaphan," was a scribe in the court of Judah's king Jehoiakim as mentioned in Jeremiah 36:10-12, 25-26.
In 1975 another hoard of seals emerged, apparently uncovered in unauthorized digging in Jerusalem. One bore the name of Ishmael, the man who assassinated Gedaliah, the governor appointed by the Babylonians after they destroyed Jerusalem (2 Kings 25:25).
Even more surprising, another seal bore the name "Berekhyahu [Baruch] son of Neriyahu [Neriah] the scribe." This man was none other than "Baruch the scribe," trusted friend, confidant and scribe of Jeremiah the prophet (Jeremiah 36:4-32; 43:1-6; 45:1-2).
As if that were not astounding enough, another seal in a private collection in England was found to bear not only Baruch's name but a fingerprint along one edge—apparently Baruch's own fingerprint from when he impressed his seal into the soft clay some 2,600 years ago!
These are only a few of the finds that prove specific people mentioned in the Bible—many only in an incidental way—were indeed real and lived at the exact time and in the exact location in which the Bible places them. A complete list of such finds would fill many pages of this magazine.
Other finds foil critics' claims
What about the critics' assertion that the Bible couldn't have been written when it claimed to be because the ancient Hebrews didn't know how to write at that time? This assumption was demolished in 1979 when, in the course of excavating a tomb in Jerusalem from the seventh century B.C., archaeologists discovered two tiny gray cylinders.
The objects turned out to be silver foil amulets covered with delicately etched Hebrew characters. When deciphered they were found to contain most of the words of the blessing recorded in Numbers 6:24-26. This remarkable find proved that not only did the ancient Hebrews know how to write centuries earlier than critics said they did, but one of the oldest portions of the Bible was obviously in use at a time well before the critics maintained it had been written!
Emily, hahahaha remember when you were in my way and wouldnt let me go to the bathroom and I got attacked by the wall !?!?!?! xoxox
Amanda, I really really miss you! !!! xoxox
Karyn, I hope to see you tomorrow at the party!
Love you each. Sweet dreams. Proverbs 3:24
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