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We Believe the Bible Because …

2 Pet 1:16-21

The External Evidence Supports It

The Bible’s Own Claims and Challenge:“Check It Out!”

Josh 4:9; Luke 3:1-2; Acts 2:29; 26:25-26

Fifty Archaeological Discoveries Related to the Bible

http://bibleandarchaeology.blogspot.com/

Samson? A small stone seal – possibly a coin – depicts a man with long hair fighting a large animal with a feline tail. Less than an inch in diameter. Excavated at the Tell Beit Shemesh site in the Judean Hills near Jerusalem. Found at a level that dates to roughly the 11th century BC.

Charge: “David was a mythical, legendary warrior king!”Tel-Dan Stele (monument), found when excavating ancient Dan in 1993/94. Inscribed basalt stone.Roughly a foot tall. Written in Aramaic mid-9th-cent. BC.Refers to the "house of David," his royal family. Now located in the Israel Museum.

PHOTO USED WITH PERMISSION: © Z.Radovan/www.BibleLandPictures.com

King David’s palace and storeroom – July, 2013. Located in Khirbet Qeiyafa, near the Elah Valley. (Goliath)An 18-mile area 20 Miles SW of Jerusalem.Olive seeds carbon-14 dated to David’s time.No pig remains found. Fits Jewish dietary laws.

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Charge: “Assyrian King Sargon never existed!”1929-1935 – Sargon’s palace discovered and excavated.This brick refers to him by name. Reigned 721-705 BC.Inscribed in cuneiform text. Located in the Oriental Institute Museum at the University of Chicago. Isa 20:1

PHOTO: © Michael J. Caba

Hezekiah’s Tunnel

2 Kings 20:20 Built by King Hezekiah in Jerusalem to bring water into the city c. 700 BC.

Tunnel still open.Can walk through it.

About 1/3 mile long. Water roughly knee deep.

PHOTO USED WITH PERMISSION: © Greg Gulbrandsen

Babylonian Arrowhead

Found in Jerusalem in material retrieved from the

Temple Mount. Of the type used by the Babylonian army that

destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem in 586 BC.

2 Kings 24:10

PHOTO USED WITH PERMISSION: Zachi Zweig

Charge: “Daniel was not written until 165 BC. Belshazzar (Dan 5:7) is fictional.”Discovery in 1854 in Ur (Iraq) by British consul J. G. Taylor.Clay cylinder inscribed in Akkadian cuneiform in the 6th century BC by the Neo-Babylonian King Nabonidus. Refers to his son Belshazzar. Note also Dan 5:16.Now in the British Museum. About four inches long. One of four such cylinders.

PHOTO USED WITH PERMISSION: © Marie-Lan Nguyen / Wikimedia Commons

The Pool of Bethesda (House of Mercy)Scene of healing in John 5

Existence once disputed, until ruins were found.

The Existence and Crucifixion of Christ

Flavius Josephus (Jewish historian, first century):

Undisputed reference to Jesus and His brother James:

“[The governor] convened a judicial session of the Sanhedrin and brought before it the brother of Jesus the so-called Christ – James by name – and some others, whom he charged for breaking the law and handed over to be stoned to death."

(Quoted in Bruce, F. F., Jesus and Christian Origins Outside the New Testament. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974. Print. p. 36.)

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The Existence and Crucifixion of Christ

Tacitus (non-Christian Roman historian, c. 110 AD):

Speaking of Christians …

“Their originator, Christ, had been executed in Tiberius’ reign by the governor of Judea, Pontius Pilate.”

(Tacitus, The Annals of Imperial Rome. Rev. ed. Trans. Grant, Michael. New York: Penguin, 1971. Print. p. 365.)

The Existence and Crucifixion of Christ

Pliny the Younger (Roman Governor, c. 112 AD):

"[The Christians] also declared that the sum total of their guilt or error amounted to no more than this: they had met regularly before dawn on a fixed day to chant verses alternately amongst themselves in honor of Christ as if to a god, and also to bind themselves by oath, not for any criminal purpose, but to abstain from theft, robbery, and adultery, to commit no breach of trust and not to deny a deposit when called upon to restore it."

(Pliny the Younger, The letters of Pliny the Younger. Trans. Radice, Betty. New York: Penguin Books, 1969. Print. p. 294.)

Christ and Christians in the First Century

Suetonius (Roman Biographer, c. 120 AD):

“Since the Jews constantly made disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus, [Claudius] expelled them from Rome.”Claudius ruled AD 41-59. Acts 18:2 – he expelled the Jews.

"Punishments [by Nero] were inflicted on the Christians, a sect professing a new and mischievous superstition.”

(Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars. Rev. ed. Rives, J.B. Trans. Graves, Robert. New York: Penguin, 2007. Print.)

The Book of Acts Vindicated

Sir William Ramsay (Scottish archaeologist, 1851-1939):

Foremost authority on ancient Asia Minor hist. and geog.Accepted the 2nd-century, non-historical view of Acts.

Until he made a shocking discovery re: Iconium.

Acts 14:6 indicates it was not in the Lycaonia region.Liberal scholars had insisted that it was in Lycaonia. Said, “The author of Acts did not know or care about the facts. He only wanted to make his story sound plausible.”

Ramsay proved that the statement in Acts 14:6 was accurate, just in the period that Acts describes (AD 37-72).

The December 1974 issue of Time stated, "The Bible is often

surprisingly accurate in historical particulars, more so

than earlier generations of scholars ever suspected."

It went on to say, "After more than two centuries of facing the

heaviest scientific guns that could be brought to bear, the Bible has survived – and is perhaps the better for the

siege."

Undeniable Historical Realities

There was a man named Jesus from Nazareth.

He died during the days of Pontius Pilate.

His body has never been found.

The church began early in the first century …

In Jerusalem, the very city where Jesus lived and died …

Within a very short period after those events.

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Undeniable Historical Realities

Baptism was practiced in the first century as a reenactment of His death, burial, and resurrection.

The bread and the cup were used in the first century to commemorate His death.

Christianity spread throughout the first-century world.

Those who claimed to be witnesses were persecuted, tried, tortured, and put to death for their faith.

They never denied or diluted their testimony.

Caesar and Christ

Will Durant, The Story of Civilization

Caesar and Christ

Vol. III, 1944, Chapter 30, part 1, p. 652.

Caesar and Christ

“There is no greater drama in human record than the sight of a few Christians, scorned or oppressed by a succession of emperors, bearing all trials with a fierce tenacity, multiplying quietly, building order while their enemies generated chaos, fighting the sword with the word, brutality with hope, and at last defeating the strongest state that history has known …

“Caesar and Christ had met in the arena, and Christ had won.”