Latest / Prophecy Watchers / Archaeology Is Proving the Bible! | Dinesh D'Souza | The Week in Bible Prophecy

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Archaeology Is Proving the Bible! | Dinesh D'Souza | The Week in Bible Prophecy · Prophecy Watchers

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  Speaker 1: The Week in Bible Prophecy, a Prophecy Watchers podcast.
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  Speaker 2: Hello, everyone. Mano Gonzalez here in studio. Welcome to the
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  Speaker 2: program today. We are going to be talking about one
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  Speaker 2: of my favorite two subjects, biblical archaeology and Bible prophecy
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  Speaker 2: with Dinesh D'Souza. So stick around. I want to invite
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  Speaker 2: you all to our Branson Conference, December 10th through the
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: 13th in Branson, Missouri. It's going to be a phenomenal time.
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  Speaker 2: We got 25 speakers. We're expecting over 1,200 people there.
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  Speaker 2: out and just to hear all of the different prophecy teachers.
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  Speaker 2: There's going to be a lot of messages, as you
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  Speaker 2: can imagine. So you can consider joining us there. Also
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  Speaker 2: want to remind you, if you've ever wanted to go
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  Speaker 2: to Israel, we have two trips planned, one for January
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: and one for March. We're going to be talking a
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  Speaker 2: lot about the land of Israel today as well. And
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  Speaker 2: so all that information, just go to prophecywatchers.com. Go to
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  Speaker 2: our events tab and you can see all the information.
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  Speaker 2: If you want to join us, it's a great time
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  Speaker 2: to go to all of these places. Janesh, welcome. Here
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  Speaker 2: we are.
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  Speaker 1: It's good to be with you again. Thanks for inviting me.
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  Speaker 2: This is great. And, you know, most people know that,
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  Speaker 2: you know, I love archaeology so much. You know, I
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  Speaker 2: went and got a master's degree in biblical archaeology. So
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  Speaker 2: coming along and seeing all this stuff you're doing is
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  Speaker 2: my two favorite topics, is Bible prophecy and archaeology. So
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  Speaker 2: this is phenomenal. Your new book, Stones Cry Out. Biblical archaeology, prophecy,
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  Speaker 2: and the last days is just, again, makes me really
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  Speaker 2: happy even to say that. And so for our audience
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  Speaker 2: who might not know about you, kind of give us
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  Speaker 2: a little background.
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  Speaker 1: I'm an immigrant of the United States from Bombay, India.
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  Speaker 1: I spent most of my career as a political writer, author,
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  Speaker 1: and filmmaker. I've made a number of documentary films on history, politics, culture.
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  Speaker 1: I've also written some books on Christian apologetics and debated
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  Speaker 1: some of the world's leading atheists. But for all of that,
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  Speaker 1: I was not very familiar with biblical archaeology until just
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  Speaker 1: a few years ago when I made my first trip
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  Speaker 1: to Israel, the end of 2022. And I was charmed
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  Speaker 1: to be in the land of the Bible, but then
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  Speaker 1: I began to experience some of these artifacts that have
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  Speaker 1: come out of the ground that corroborate the Bible in
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  Speaker 1: ways I had not realized. not just in big ways,
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  Speaker 1: but also sometimes in really small ways. And I turn
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  Speaker 1: to my wife and I go, you know, I'm really
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  Speaker 1: a little shocked because shouldn't this information be shouted from
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  Speaker 1: the rooftops of every synagogue and every church? I realized
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  Speaker 1: subsequently that that is not so, in part because a
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  Speaker 1: lot of pastors are a little uncomfortable with archaeology. It's
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  Speaker 1: not their subject. It's not what they learned in divinity school.
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  Speaker 1: And on the other side, a lot of archaeologists like
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  Speaker 1: to see themselves as secular. They're in academic departments. They
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  Speaker 1: don't want to be seen as like proving the Bible
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  Speaker 1: to them. The Bible is a religious text, a work
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  Speaker 1: of revelation. And so what happened is you have a
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  Speaker 1: sort of a chasm here between all these marvelous discoveries
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  Speaker 1: that are coming out of the academic world and people
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  Speaker 1: don't know about them. I said, look, I need to
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  Speaker 1: spend a couple of years, three years, as it turns out,
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  Speaker 1: digging into all this, really coming to understand the field,
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  Speaker 1: understand how biblical archaeology works, and convey that excitement, and
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  Speaker 1: also lay out all these discoveries, by the way, over
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  Speaker 1: 150 years, more than 100 artifacts, and it covers the
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  Speaker 1: whole scope of the Bible. Very exciting stuff.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, to me, in getting into the material, it's just, again,
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  Speaker 2: so phenomenal. And you make it really, really easy because
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  Speaker 2: it's very logical how you've organized the book. And we
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  Speaker 2: were talking earlier, maybe help people understand that in addition
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  Speaker 2: to the book, which comes out in October, you have
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  Speaker 2: a very, very nice way for people not just to
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  Speaker 2: read it on a paper, but also to see it visually.
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  Speaker 2: Talk about that.
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  Speaker 1: Well, I'm a filmmaker as well as an author. And
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  Speaker 1: so essentially, I took the Bible divided into 10 chapters,
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  Speaker 1: so to speak, or large episodes. Remember, the Bible goes
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  Speaker 1: back to Abraham and the patriarchs. That's about 2000 BC,
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  Speaker 1: so 4000 years ago. And the scope of the Bible
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  Speaker 1: runs all the way from then through about 50 AD,
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  Speaker 1: which is, of course, the Book of Acts, the early
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  Speaker 1: Christian movement. And It'd be one thing if there was
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  Speaker 1: good archaeology on one particular segment of the Bible, but no,
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  Speaker 1: there's fascinating archaeology all the way through. So when I
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  Speaker 1: finished my research, it's almost like I had not a
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  Speaker 1: second Bible, but sort of a tapestry running on top
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  Speaker 1: of the Bible with all the dates dropped in, and
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  Speaker 1: all the artifacts. I mean, think about it. You go
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  Speaker 1: to church, you'll hear a sermon on Jeremiah, but very
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  Speaker 1: rarely do you find out, well, what century was this?
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  Speaker 1: You know, what was going on in Israel? Who was
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  Speaker 1: the king? What else was happening in the region.
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  Speaker 2: At the time?
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  Speaker 1: The Bible isn't just a collection of morality tales or parables.
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  Speaker 1: It is grounded in history. God chose a particular people,
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  Speaker 1: particular place, particular times to sort of disclose or unfold history.
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  Speaker 1: a story of his relationship with man. Now, the book
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  Speaker 1: has timelines, it has.
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  Speaker 2: Maps.
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  Speaker 1: It has lots of photographs, color photographs. And it also
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  Speaker 1: has these QR codes. This is modern technology, right? And
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  Speaker 1: so the QR codes take you to on-site video footage.
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  Speaker 1: So the book becomes sort of interactive. Obviously, the very
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  Speaker 1: best thing is go to all these sites yourself. But
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  Speaker 1: the next best thing is to experience them through this book.
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  Speaker 1: I love the idea that I'm not just telling you
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  Speaker 1: about these things. I'm sort of taking you there so
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  Speaker 1: you can see them for yourself.
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  Speaker 2: No, absolutely. And I've got to see, you know, those
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  Speaker 2: you know, in advance, I got to see this, the
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  Speaker 2: places you've gone, which of course I've been to Israel many,
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  Speaker 2: many times and done archeology there. And it's just, what
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  Speaker 2: I find awesome is that, you know, you bring up,
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  Speaker 2: you know, James Hoffmeyer, he was one of my professors,
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  Speaker 2: you know, so you're bringing up all these well-known individuals,
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  Speaker 2: archeologists who love scripture, who love the Lord Jesus, who
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  Speaker 2: love to see the Bible show its historical nature and character.
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  Speaker 2: So this is just absolutely incredible. And this is, you know,
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  Speaker 2: maybe if you don't mind, You know, you reference it
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  Speaker 2: in various places, and I really appreciate how you do,
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  Speaker 2: because when I was in graduate school, this is kind
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  Speaker 2: of what we had to do is, you know, you
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  Speaker 2: had to interact with those that were maximalists or those
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  Speaker 2: that minimalist, you know, Israel Finkelstein and others. But you,
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  Speaker 2: as you mentioned as well, you've dealt with apologetics and
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  Speaker 2: talk about just the kind of the background of how
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  Speaker 2: apologetics works. And when you're engaging, not just with the evidence,
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  Speaker 2: but you're also engaging with the skeptics, which is a
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  Speaker 2: good thing.
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  Speaker 1: Absolutely. I want the book to be not just an
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  Speaker 1: encouragement to the believer, which it really is, because most
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  Speaker 1: of us have believed these things on faith since we
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  Speaker 1: were kids or sometimes in adult life. But many of
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  Speaker 1: these archaeological findings that have come out, sometimes in the
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  Speaker 1: last 10 years, last 25 years, last few decades.
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  Speaker 1: These things have been in the ground for centuries, for
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  Speaker 1: thousands of years. Think about it. King David's palace has
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  Speaker 1: been in the ground since about 1000 BC. It's coming
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  Speaker 1: out now. Surely that's going to have some significance that
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  Speaker 1: it's almost like, and this is the title of my book,
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  Speaker 1: you know, the idea that the stones cry out. It's
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  Speaker 1: like God is choosing now to speak out or cry
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  Speaker 1: out through the stones using almost a different language, the
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  Speaker 1: language of science and And dirt and archaeology just say, hey, listen,
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  Speaker 1: the historicity of the Bible is something that can be corroborated,
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  Speaker 1: can be substantiated. Now, from the beginning of biblical archaeology,
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  Speaker 1: going back to the middle of the 19th century, there
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  Speaker 1: were skeptics who, some of whom would actually hope that
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  Speaker 1: archaeology would be used to disprove the Bibles. And they
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  Speaker 1: jumped on some of the early findings of archaeology to say,
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  Speaker 1: you know, here you go. You know, these flood narratives
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  Speaker 1: are not unique to the Bible. We find them in
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  Speaker 1: all these other cultures. Maybe the biblical writers just plagiarized
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  Speaker 1: them straight from Mesopotamia. So the skeptics kind of got
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  Speaker 1: on their high horse. But it's been bad news for
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  Speaker 1: them ever since because in 150 years of biblical archaeology,
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  Speaker 1: there are now just dozens upon dozens of findings that
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  Speaker 1: confirm the Bible and And there's not a single significant
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  Speaker 1: archaeological discovery that refutes the Bible. So there are ongoing disputes,
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  Speaker 1: like when Jesus walked the Via Dolorosa, is it this
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  Speaker 1: road or is it that road? The journey of the
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  Speaker 1: Israelites through Mount Sinai, is this the peak or is
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  Speaker 1: that the peak? There are some legitimate arguments about locations
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  Speaker 1: and dates. but there are no important findings where someone
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  Speaker 1: can say that the archaeology definitively shows X and it
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  Speaker 1: contradicts the Bible, which says Y.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. To me, the amazing thing, especially what you've done here,
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  Speaker 2: is the Bible is filled with historical reference, people, places, wars, etc.
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  Speaker 2: It's not just some book on theology that is unrelated
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  Speaker 2: because ultimately, The gospel, the gospel that we hold to,
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  Speaker 2: salvation through Jesus Christ alone, it happened in a particular place,
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  Speaker 2: at a particular time, in a particular context, etc. And so,
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  Speaker 2: you know, with that as a backdrop, how do you
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  Speaker 2: balance the theological messaging of the Bible with the historical
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  Speaker 2: and now the archaeological?
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  Speaker 1: I take a very simple approach, which is this. I
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  Speaker 1: sort of narrow the field and I say, look, I'm
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  Speaker 1: not going to try to prove the theology of the Bible,
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  Speaker 1: I'm not going to try to prove the miracles. But
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  Speaker 1: if I can support the historicity of the Bible, including
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  Speaker 1: tiny details, guys who make cameo appearances in the book
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  Speaker 1: of Jeremiah, and I can show you, here's a clay
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  Speaker 1: seal with that guy's name on it. And if I
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  Speaker 1: can show you that even some of the more mythical
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  Speaker 1: sounding characters, you know, Balaam, son of Beor, this guy
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  Speaker 1: supposedly has a talking donkey. And you can just imagine
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  Speaker 1: the field day, the skeptics had, it was ridiculous, obviously
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  Speaker 1: made up. And then here's a plaster inscription in Jordan,
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  Speaker 1: which is Moabite country. Balaam, son of Beor, was a
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  Speaker 1: fortune teller. And there in the plaster, the ancient plaster,
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  Speaker 1: it says the warnings and sayings of Balaam, son of Beor.
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  Speaker 2: There it is.
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  Speaker 1: So this guy jumps into the pages of history via
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  Speaker 1: the pathway of archaeology. This happens again and again. So
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  Speaker 1: my point is this. Look, you know, here's this biblical narrative.
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  Speaker 1: And if the historicity of it, which, by the way,
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  Speaker 1: the skeptics have been poo-pooing for decades, can be affirmed,
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  Speaker 1: it makes it much more likely the rest of it
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  Speaker 1: is true. Kind of like if you or I in
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  Speaker 1: a jury and we're listening to a suspect describe what
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  Speaker 1: he did for the past 30 days and some of
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  Speaker 1: it is kind of exotic and far out and can't
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  Speaker 1: be verified, But a lot of it can, right? He's like,
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  Speaker 1: I ate a Chick-fil-A. Here's my receipt. I crossed state lines.
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  Speaker 1: You can see me on the surveillance camera. So in
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  Speaker 1: the many cases where you can check him out, you
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  Speaker 1: find he's telling the truth. There's not a single case
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  Speaker 1: where you can find that he's lying. You're more likely
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  Speaker 1: to say, well, pretty much the rest of his story
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  Speaker 1: is probably true because it's pretty obvious this guy's a truth-teller,
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  Speaker 1: not a liar.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, 100%. And I know for those that are involved
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  Speaker 2: in apologetics or just even the Bible, We can't prove
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  Speaker 2: the resurrection in the sense of redoing it like empirical data,
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  Speaker 2: empirical science that, you know, archaeology, there's carbon-14 data, there's
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  Speaker 2: all these different technologies that use. We can't prove a miracle.
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  Speaker 2: Those we do take by faith, but as you said,
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  Speaker 2: those kind of things that are out there that can't
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  Speaker 2: be reproven according to the scientific method. However, when you
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  Speaker 2: look at these other evidences that line up, you go, hey,
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  Speaker 2: there's a preponderance of bonafide evidence here that is building
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  Speaker 2: a case. And so let's jump into it because you
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  Speaker 2: start out talking about, which I thought was pretty neat,
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  Speaker 2: the importance of the cities of Jerusalem and Athens, you know,
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  Speaker 2: and why did you start that way?
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  Speaker 1: For many people, this book, The Stones Cry Out, is
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  Speaker 1: simply a corroboration of the historicity of the Bible. And
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  Speaker 1: they're like, wow, this gives me confidence, added confidence that
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  Speaker 1: that the Bible is not just a matter of faith,
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  Speaker 1: it's also a matter of fact. That was my main
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  Speaker 1: motive here. But I realized as I dug into it
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  Speaker 1: that there are some important political and cultural and moral implications. So,
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  Speaker 1: for example, there's a big debate going on right now
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  Speaker 1: about whose land is it regarding Israel. Well, the archaeology
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  Speaker 1: demonstrates the presence of the Jews in their ancient homeland
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  Speaker 1: going back 4,000 years. You just can't deny that. So
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  Speaker 1: suddenly when you hear someone go, well, the Jews are colonizers,
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  Speaker 1: you go, wait a minute, you know, are you saying
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  Speaker 1: they colonize their own land? I mean, this is like
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  Speaker 1: accusing the Indians of colonizing India, you know, or the
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  Speaker 1: Irish of colonizing Ireland. I mean, it doesn't make a
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  Speaker 1: lot of sense, right? The other thing is that a
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  Speaker 1: philosopher named Leo Strauss said that Western civilization, the civilization
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  Speaker 1: that built America. is based on Athens and Jerusalem. And
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  Speaker 1: by Athens, he's referring to Socrates, free speech, classical reason,
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  Speaker 1: the birth of democracy, all of that. But by Jerusalem,
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  Speaker 1: we mean, of course, the idea of divine creation, the Exodus,
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  Speaker 1: the Ten Commandments, the teachings of the prophets and the Psalms. Now,
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  Speaker 1: Jerusalem has always been more vulnerable than Athens because, of course,
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  Speaker 1: If someone is an unbeliever or a skeptic, they're like,
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  Speaker 1: I like Athens, but I don't like Jerusalem. So this
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  Speaker 1: book is a fortification of the Jerusalem pillar of Athens
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  Speaker 1: and Jerusalem. So above and beyond authenticating the Bible, it's
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  Speaker 1: also supporting the founding pillars of America and the West.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's a great way to say it. It
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  Speaker 2: reminds us that, again, Jerusalem, just by its very nature,
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  Speaker 2: is a reminder that God has spoken. And as we know,
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  Speaker 2: This is the place where, you know, the Son of
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  Speaker 2: God came and gave his life for humanity. So it's
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  Speaker 2: a real location, but it's also, again, a theological reality
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  Speaker 2: in contrast, as you mentioned, you know, in the book
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  Speaker 2: where a lot of Athens is a little bit more
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  Speaker 2: secular in its approaches. But nevertheless, you have this, one is, again,
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  Speaker 2: they're both pillars in their own way. And so what
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  Speaker 2: you did in the book, which, again, is very helpful,
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  Speaker 2: is you go back and As far as we can,
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  Speaker 2: because archaeology obviously is a relatively, I would say, new science,
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  Speaker 2: as you mentioned, basically the mid-19th century. So you go back,
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  Speaker 2: you start with basically the person of Abraham. And talk
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  Speaker 2: about what that looks like in the archaeological record. The.
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  Speaker 1: The way archaeology works, the further back you go, in
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  Speaker 1: a way, the harder it is to find artifacts, because
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  Speaker 1: things are more likely to be lost if there's a
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  Speaker 1: greater expanse of time. The other problem is that the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob,
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  Speaker 1: were nomads. They didn't have a fixed abode. They didn't
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  Speaker 1: have a house. They moved around. They lived in tents.
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  Speaker 1: They had cattle. And so the chances of finding like
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  Speaker 1: the footprints of Abraham would seem extremely remote. You wouldn't
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  Speaker 1: expect to find anything. And yet, there are things that
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  Speaker 1: are found. And they are the great trees of Mamre.
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  Speaker 1: Abraham did buy one piece of property. He actually bought
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  Speaker 1: a burial cave, the Bible tells us, from Ephron the Hittite.
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  Speaker 1: The location of that cave is known. And it is now,
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  Speaker 1: there's a big monument there that was actually built by
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  Speaker 1: King Herod called Mephela. And so there's all kinds of
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  Speaker 1: fascinating archaeological stuff on Abraham. Even some of the kind
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  Speaker 1: of weird practices in the Bible. I mean, think about it.
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  Speaker 1: Abraham can't have a son, so he conceives with a concubine.
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  Speaker 1: That son has certain rights, but then suddenly, you know,
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  Speaker 1: Isaac shows up. So Isaac becomes sort of the legitimate heir. Well,
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  Speaker 1: all of this is, you know, then a little bit later,
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  Speaker 1: you have Jacob and getting a blessing from And so
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  Speaker 1: this odd idea that one brother kind of gets the
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  Speaker 1: blessing that was meant for the other brother, all of
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  Speaker 1: this stuff that seems kind of exotic and unique to
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  Speaker 1: the Bible, turns out, guess what?
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  Speaker 2: No.
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  Speaker 1: In ancient Mesopotamia, in ancient Syria, these practices were in
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  Speaker 1: fact commonplace, and it's now verified from archaeological records. So
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  Speaker 1: the point here is that this all renders the biblical
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  Speaker 1: account far more anchored in history and far more believable.
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  Speaker 1: So I begin with Abraham and the patriarchs, and I
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  Speaker 1: continue with, of course, the Sodom and Gomorrah. Where is Sodom?
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  Speaker 1: Where is Gomorrah? Very fascinating archaeological debate. There are, in fact,
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  Speaker 1: two contested locations. and I give you the arguments for
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  Speaker 1: and against each one. I'm not myself sure which one
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  Speaker 1: it is. I lean one way a little bit, but
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  Speaker 1: more evidence could come out that points the other way.
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  Speaker 1: So it kind of shows you part of the benefit
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  Speaker 1: of reading the book is you also understand kind of
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  Speaker 1: how this discipline works, because the archeologists kind of working
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  Speaker 1: with the Bible in one hand and the spade of
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  Speaker 1: the trowel in the other hand, and the Bible is
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  Speaker 1: giving you clues. Like Abraham is standing, by the way,
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  Speaker 1: I don't know in location, but he can see the
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  Speaker 1: smoke from Sodom, which means Sodom has to be kind
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  Speaker 1: of within his range of view. And so the archaeologist
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  Speaker 1: then goes, okay, well, let me go look over there. Obviously,
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: you have to dig, you have to find charred remains,
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: you've got to look for the stones to speak out,
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: so to speak. But it's a marvelous discipline. I almost
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: feel like if I was, you know, 19 years old
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: all over again, that's something I might like to go into.
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I mean, this is, That's one of the
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: reasons why I did what I did in the sense
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: I was pastoring. And I'm like, you know, I was pastoring,
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: but I'm like, I've always loved biblical archaeology, and so
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: I'm going to go do this. I'm going to go
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: to school. But, you know, again, it's so fun for
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: me because these are things that we had learned. You
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: bring up often, and I saw this myself, again, in
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: the academic world, where you have those that are skeptics.
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: And the accusation, going all the way back, certainly to
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: David and earlier to Abraham, they will say, well, all
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: this stuff about Abraham or maybe the Exodus, et cetera,
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: was written down much later. And then you have in
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: the book the discussion of the Mari and the Nuzi
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: tablets where these are ancient records and you describe how
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: would these people later, maybe unpacked, how would these people
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: later writing in the 4th century or 5th century B.C.,
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: How would they even know about these ancient customs? But
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: yet now the tablets, these ancient tablets come along and
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: show us. Help us unpack that for us.
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so the skeptics in archaeology, they're called the minimalists.
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: They make two points. One is they say the absence
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: of evidence is evidence of absence. And that's actually a
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: flawed principle in science and in archaeology because the absence
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: of evidence simply means... could very well mean you just
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: haven't looked in the right place. It doesn't prove that
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: something doesn't exist because you haven't found it yet. You
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: could find it tomorrow or next year. The other point
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: that they make is that they presume that the Bible
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: must have been written hundreds of years after the events
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: that it purports to describe. And therefore they say, naturally,
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: the people who wrote it weren't there. They embellished, they
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: made up a bunch of stuff. They might have had
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: some fragments of oral history, but they added a bunch
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: of stuff. So the Bible is a kind of big
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: mixture of a few facts and a lot of legend. Now,
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: the problem for that view, I think, all these many
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: years later, is biblical archaeology is at this for now
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: over a century. Many of the skeptics are not archaeologists.
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: I call them armchair critics. They go, you know, I'm
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: sitting in my armchair, you know, here in Oxford. I
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: don't see how this could have happened. But what you
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: find is that the Bible has details that require a
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: familiarity with the culture and practices of the time. So
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: here's a very good example. The Bible tells us that
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: when Joseph's brothers, this is Joseph of the coat of
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: many colors, sold him into slavery. the price was 20 shekels.
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: Bible happens to just drop that little detail. Archaeologists have
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: basically now checked out the price of a slave around
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: 1900 BC, which is when Joseph lived. And the price
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: turns out to be all across that region, 20 shekels. Now,
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: it wasn't even that all the way. The price was
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: lower before and it was higher later, which is telling
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: you that kind of inflation is doing its work just
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: like now.
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: So think about it. If someone's writing the Bible, let's
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: say 500 years later or a thousand years later, how
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: on earth would they know what the price of a
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: slave was in 1900 BC? They have no written records.
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: How did they guess right? And if it was just
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: one guess, it's one thing, but I show in the
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: book dozens of examples of this kind of detail, which
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: really requires you to be either on the scene or
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: getting really good information that is passed down that is
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: meticulously transmitted and accurately transcribed.
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that is the important thing because we've
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: come to understand, like you just said, the record of
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: 20 shekels because of archaeological finds that have been in
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: the ground for 1,500 years. And so that would be
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: one of the only reasons why we would now know
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: what it was. And so you imagine people 1,000 years
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: ago or 2,000 years ago that are allegedly writing these
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: things that they wouldn't have had most likely access to
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: those things that have been in the ground after a
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: destruction of a city, you know, a library gets collapsed,
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: all the cuneiform tablets are buried. I mean, it's just,
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: to me, it's just another reminder of the reliability of
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: some of these very interesting details. In the book, as
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: you are going through, you are discussing, you know, timeframes.
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: And so you kind of brought up Joseph and let's
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: not go too far fast beyond him. Let's bring him
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: up again because very obviously in the Bible, here's this guy,
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: this Hebrew guy that gets elevated to the second in command. Well,
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: I mean, what a, what an embellishment that is right in,
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: in trying to establish the legitimacy of, of Israel. So
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: what do we know from the archeological record that comes
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: along and gives us some insights into him and that period?
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: The first thing we know is that there is clear
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: proof of Semites from the region of Canaan and right
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: around there, that's Israel, greater Israel, in Egypt. That is
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: beyond a doubt. We also know from something called the
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: Tomb of Rechmeyer, the Rechmeyer paintings, that there were foreign
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: servants and slaves who were put to work by Pharaoh.
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: when I say put to work, put to work doing
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: the exact work described in the Bible, which is to
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: say building using clay or mud and straw. And you
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: can see in the paintings these foreign workers, darker skinned,
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: they're under the supervision of supervisors. It brings to mind
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: the passage in the Bible where Pharaoh very sternly says,
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: I'm not gonna allocate any more straw to the Israelites,
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: but I want them to make just as many bricks
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: as they did before. This is like, you're looking at it. Now, Joseph,
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: for some decades, the skeptics, the minimalists said it is
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: very implausible that a foreigner, a Semite, a Canaanite could
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: rise up high within the Egyptian hierarchy. But James Hoffmeyer
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: and others, Kenneth Kitchener, have shown that no, this actually
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: did happen from time to time. And not only that,
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: But a little bit later in Egyptian history, you have
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: the Hyksos dynasty, which was a dynasty made up of foreigners.
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: So it went all the way to the top. And
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: so if Joseph happened to live under the Hyksos, and
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: there's some debate here going on about when exactly we're
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: talking about, but putting that aside for a moment, the
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: idea that under the Hyksos, a fellow Canaanite, a fellow
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: Samite would be given an important position a role as
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: a public official in the kingdom of Egypt, this is
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: hardly implausible. And so, and the other thing, by the way,
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: that I go into is not only can you find
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: Israelites sort of in Egypt, but you can also find
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: Egypt in Israel or Egypt in the Bible. And here's
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: what I mean, that if you look carefully at the
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: writers of the Exodus, you happen to notice that they
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: are more familiar with Egypt than they are with Canaan.
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: It's the way they talk. When they're talking about Egypt,
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: they have detailed knowledge of locations, cultural practices, diet, all
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: those sorts of things, which again, how would they otherwise
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: know if they weren't there? But when it comes to Canaan,
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: the rhetoric that they use makes it feel like they're
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: a stranger. It's kind of like if I was talking
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: to you, Mondo, and I said something like, let's go
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: to Washington, D.C., the capital of America. Now, I wouldn't
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: say that to you if you and I were both Americans.
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: It's a very strange thing to say, but if you
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: have two French guys that are talking, they're likely to say,
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: let's go to the capital of America because they're outsiders
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: and they have to use that kind of language to
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: describe what they're talking about. So, in any case, the
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: point is there are multiple converging lines of evidence here
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: that are support the notion of the Israelites in Egypt.
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And you know, it's interesting because I got to
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: spend a couple of weeks with James Hoffmeyer in going
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: all through Egypt and seeing these, these, like you mentioned,
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: the paintings inside the caves and everything else, but also discuss,
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: because I know you bring this up is the way
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: that there's a difference in the way an Egyptian looks.
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: And there's a difference in the way that these Canaanite
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: looked and it's there it is on the wall. And
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: yet Maybe discuss that because, again, that's just another little
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: nugget showing you that these foreigners building, you know, with
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: straw and everything else, they were definitely foreigners. They weren't
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: Egyptian slaves. Yeah.
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: And secular archaeologists, by the way, think of it. Most
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: Egyptologists are not Bible believers. They are just guys who
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: went to university, have an interest in the pharaohs. And
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: so they acknowledge the presence of the Semites in Egypt.
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: in Egypt. The other thing is to notice that, take
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: a name like Moses. If you're in Canaan, you've never
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: been to Egypt, you're making this stuff up, you're likely
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: to come up with a Canaanite type of name. Moses,
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: as it turns out, is an Egyptian name. Not only that,
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: but now from other royal records, it's a name connected
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: to Egyptian, the upper class, to royalty. In fact, if
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: you listen to the sound of Moses, it sounds like Ramos,
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: it sounds like Ramesses, it sounds like Thutmose. Notice that
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: Thutmose sounds a lot like Moses. So these are the
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: actual names of Egyptian pharaohs. And so again, the writer
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: of the Exodus was quite knowledgeable about Egypt. Bullrushes, the
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: servants and slaves are fed leeks and onions, this kind
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: of minute detail. or even things about when they describe
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: the type of birds that you see when you're crossing
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: the desert. Bedouins can tell you today, yeah, those are
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: the birds we see now. You see then later the
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: population of Canaan begin to grow rapidly once the Israelites
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: come over. No surprise, there are new villages, new settlements.
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: You basically see a population explosion. Kenneth Kitchener writes about this.
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: even in a period, which is very long ago, we're
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: talking about around 1500 BC, when you get multiple lines
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: of archaeological evidence pointing in the same direction, then you've
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: got something there.
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, to me, it's phenomenal. And especially when you look
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: at archaeology in general, depending on the site, but most
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: archaeological sites, especially in the land of Israel, it'll be
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: less than 8% is uncovered. And so this just shows
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: you that with that little bit that we are able
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: to see that has been brought up out of the
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: ground at 8%, the connections are amazing. So imagine if
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: you had 90% of the knowledge, it would be absolutely incredible.
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: And one of the most important steleys that has ever
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: been found, and you bring this up, is the Merneptah stele.
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: Talk about the importance of that. Because again, this is
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: an Egyptian reference to one of the pharaohs and talking
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: about the people of Israel.
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: 1207 BC, if I'm going from memory, but I'm not
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: far off, the pharaohs were very powerful. Egypt was the
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: kind of great power of that time. And Egypt also
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: had a powerful presence in Canaan. And so the pharaoh
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: in the Manap-Testelli is boasting about his conquests. And he
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: says things like, Israel has been laid waste. He's boasting
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: about it. And when he says Israel is he uses
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: a term that isn't just the place Israel. He means
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: the people of Israel. The Israelites have been defeated. So
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: think about that for a minute. What he's saying is
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: not only are there Israelites now in Canaan, that's an
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: important point that corroborates the Exodus, but number two, they
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: have been there for a while. They are a kind
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: of force. And he, Pharaoh, a very powerful figure, is
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: actually boasting, I defeated them. So they have probably been
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: there decades, if not a couple of hundred years, and
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: they have formed a powerful entity. And the Merneptah stele
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: tells you that whenever you want to date the Israelites
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: back in Canaan, it's no later than 1207 BC because
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: that's the date of the stele. So archaeology supplies these
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: kind of decisive markers. I think the other thing for
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: me that's really cool is that not only... You know,
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: you take something like the biblical account of the battle
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: between the Israelites and the Moabites. The Moabites are from
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: what is now modern-day Jordan, and the Bible gives you
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: the battle from the Israelite point of view. It involves
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: this guy named Mesha, who's the king of Moab. He
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: rebels against Israel, and there's a big fight over it. Now,
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: the Moabite stone is a very important artifact, which tells
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: the account of the exact same battle, but from the
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: Moabite side. So now it's kind of like World War II.
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: You know, we've got the Allied side, we've got the
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: kind of the German, the Nazi side, and that's cool enough.
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: But not only that, there's information on the Moabite stone
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: that's not in the Bible. So now you're not only
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: getting a corroboration or a perfect match, you're getting information
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: added information for a student of the Bible where you
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: learn new information about this particular conflict and what it
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: was all about. And so archaeology, in a way, supplies
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: a sort of added, I would say, texture or depth
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: for the student of the Bible. And that's why I
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: find this kind of stuff endlessly fascinating.
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, 100%. When you think about just some stone that
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: was discovered, and yet it makes a great connection. And
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: You know, give us a little bit, again, going on
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: just from a timeline. You spend a whole chapter talking
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: about Joshua and the conquest. And what can we know?
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: Give us some hints about that. Give us some teasers
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: on that one.
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: Well, the walls of Jericho, according to the Bible, fell down.
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: And they fell down not because they were battered down.
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: The Israelites marched around them for seven days and they
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: fell down. Like a miracle, right? And normally, how do
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: you corroborate a miracle?
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: Well.
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: you go look at the ruins of those walls. And
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: the archeologists say, first of all, that just as the
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: Bible says, Jericho was burned. You can see all the
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: charred remains now. Number two, the Bible tells you that
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: the walls fell. And if you look at the walls now,
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: the ruins, it's very obvious the walls fell outward. They
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: didn't fall inward. Now, if you ran and hit a
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: wall with a battering ram, it would fall inward. But
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: if the wall fell some other way, like an earthquake,
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: the wall could fall outward. In other words, the stones
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: end up on the outer side. And that's what we see.
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: It's very obvious from the archeology that Joshua attacked in
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: the spring. And the reason you know that is you
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: see the remains of grain that is still there in
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: the ruins. And that's also important because according to the Bible,
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: Joshua was instructed by God Do not eat the grain. See,
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: in ancient armies, when you conquer a place, you know,
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: you need supplies. So you're going to plunder the place,
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: you're going to eat the grain. But in this case,
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: Joshua followed God's command, evidently, because the grain is untouched.
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: It's uneaten. It's still in the jars. So look at
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: all this. We're not just talking about kind of corroborating
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: a generic event. We're talking about corroborating it down to
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: some of the rather minor details that are given in
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: And Joshua is said to have burned three cities, which
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: is Jericho, Hazor, and Ai. Now, one of those cities, Ai,
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: there's a debate about its location. So I admit that
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: we're not 100% sure about where biblical Ai is located.
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: But we do know where Hazor is located. And guess what? Hazor,
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: in fact, shows the same charring, the same burning that
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: the Bible talks about. Hazor was definitively burned. And then
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: you go, you know, onward with the royal period with
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: King David and Solomon. You go a couple of hundred
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: years later, the period of the great prophet Isaiah and
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: the king Hezekiah, a little further to Jeremiah. I mean,
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: the archaeology just like never stops. And again, part of
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: what fascinates me from the later period, this is Isaiah
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: and Jeremiah, is the emergence of these clay seal impressions
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: out of the ground. They're called bula or bule, plural.
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: And these are seals that were used to tag merchandise
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: or they were also used to seal correspondence. And the
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: correspondence is gone, but the clay can harden over time.
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: And so these clay seals sometimes have names on it.
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: Really fascinating because an archaeologist picks up a seal, it
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: has a name on it. The archaeologist has no idea
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: who it is. He just puts the seal somewhere into
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: an academic collection or into a museum and some other
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: guy comes along and goes, wait a second, that guy's
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: in the book of Jeremiah. You know, a cameo appearance of,
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: you know, Jehukal son of Shalamiah or Gedalia son of Pashur.
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: These are kind of sidekicks of King Zedekiah in the
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: time of Jeremiah. But wait a minute, here's a seal.
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: That seal was actually, you know, on this guy's ring
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: finger and he pressed it into a piece of clay.
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: So isn't it remarkable to like, you know, having that
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: to look at now, 2,500 years later. And of course,
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: there's also wonderful archaeology on the New Testament.
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, that to me, all the stuff that
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: Eilat Mazar has done, you know, that she was involved
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: with the city of David, you know, and again, a
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: lot of these discoveries, you know, it's 2026. So I remember,
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: you know, again, a lot of the stuff that I
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: did was, you know, right around 2008. But to see
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: what has just been discovered in the last 25 years,
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: all these little things, the more and more they get
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: in there, I think one of the things you bring out,
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: like you just said, is so important is these random, unimportant,
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: relatively speaking characters are getting validated.
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: And sometimes these characters are they have a mythical feel
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: to them. You know, in the book of Daniel, you
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: have this guy named Belshazzar. And there's a kind of
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: a miraculous account of writing on the wall. And we
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: read that Belshazzar took, put a kind of, he put
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: a robe on Daniel and he named him, quote, the
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: third ruler of the kingdom. A very odd phrase. And
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: historians thought for a long time, well, we don't know
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: about this Belshazzar, the last king, Nabonidus of Babylon. This
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: Belshazzar is obviously a made-up character that the biblical writers
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: conjured up, except the Nabonidus Cylinder, now found in Babylon,
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: and it talks about, number one, that King Nabonidus had
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: a son. His name was, you guessed it, Belshazzar. And
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: another cylinder says that when Nabonidus was out of town,
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: Who ruled in his place? Belshazzar. So think about it
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: this way. Nabonidus is the first ruler of the kingdom.
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: He's the king. Belshazzar is the second ruler. He's his son.
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: And now that cryptic phrase from Daniel, which is that I, Daniel,
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: was named the third man of the kingdom, makes sense.
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: Daniel couldn't be the first man. That's the king. He
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: couldn't be the second man. That's his son. But he
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: could be the third man. And so this cryptic reference
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: in the Bible is illuminated by indisputable historical evidence of
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: the existence of Belshazzar.
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just absolutely, again, incredible evidence. and seeing these
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: things come to be in the record. And let's talk about,
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: you know, the archaeology of the time of Jesus. I mean,
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: are we left, is it all over and done with?
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: It's just Old Testament, or do we have stuff for
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: the New Testament?
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: No, there is remarkable stuff on the New Testament. And
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: here's an interesting thing. A lot of the archaeology in
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: the Old Testament is coming not from the Israelite side,
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: but from the enemies of Israel. So it has even
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: more credibility, right? You have King Hazael of Aram boasting
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: about his victories over the house of David. He has
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: no reason to lie. He's super excited. He just won
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: these victories. And so it corroborates the house of David. Obviously,
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: it corroborates the existence of David. And now we have
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: the ruins of David's palace. Now, fast forward to the
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: New Testament. In the second century AD, there was a
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: Roman emperor named Hadrian. And he knew that there were
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: venerated Christian holy sites that had been preserved from the
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: time of Jesus. These are people, by the way, think
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: about it. Jesus dies around 32 AD. The apostles continued
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: to live and write through about 90 AD. So even
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: in the early second century, there are people who knew
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: the apostles, people who absolutely knew where Jesus was born.
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: They absolutely knew where he grew up. They absolutely knew
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: where he walked and taught. And they knew the site
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: of the crucifixion. So Hadrian decides, you know what? I
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: hate these Christians. I'm going to go stamp out all
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: the holy sites. He knows where they are. So he
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: goes and builds pagan monuments on top of them. But
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: little does he know, this enemy of Christianity, that in
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: doing that, he is in a way marking the site
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: for later historical identification. So in the fourth century AD,
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: when Constantine converts to Christianity, he sends his mom, Helena,
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: to Jerusalem to find the holy sites. Well, she knows
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: exactly where to look. She goes to all these pagan
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: monuments that Constantine's predecessor, Hadrian, had erected. She pulls them
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: down and basically builds churches on those locations. So this
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: is one way in which, by a kind of strange
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: twist of history, many would say providence, we have the
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: legacy of these sites preserved, oddly enough, by a Roman
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: emperor who was a great persecutor of the Christians.
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it just reminds you of Genesis 50-20, that what
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: the enemy intends for evil, God is going to make
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: good out of it. Just historically, especially archaeologically, many of
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: the places... Sometimes it's hard to know, but when you
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: have that level of ancient history going back to Hadrian,
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: it's phenomenal. And talk about as well, so there you're
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: bringing up places. Let's talk about some of the people
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: of the New Testament, you know, the villains and others.
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: Well, let's look at the great trial of Jesus, because
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: it's just such a dramatic scene. You have four main characters,
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: all of whom are very different from each other. One is,
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: of course, King Herod. One is the Roman prefect Pontius Pilate.
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: One is the accused man, Jesus. And then there is
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: the high priest, Caiaphas. Now, there's fascinating archaeology on all four,
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: but I'm going to just focus for a moment on one,
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: and that's the high priest, Caiaphas. So the Bible only
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: gives us one name. He's Caiaphas. But the historian Josephus,
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: a Jewish historian who served kind of in the Roman Empire,
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: he gives us his first name. Joseph Caiaphas. Now, Caiaphas
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: is a really big villain in the Bible, right? He's
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: the guy who, well, when Jesus is arrested, he's taken
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: to Caiaphas' home. Caiaphas whips up the priestly council called
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: the Sanhedrin against Jesus. They are the ones who go
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: to lobby Pontius Pilate, and Pilate is initially reluctant, because,
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: I mean, think about it. The Romans have followed the ism.
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: He's like, okay, this guy claims to be the Messiah. Well,
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: we have hundreds of Greek and Roman gods. Who cares?
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: They have to intimidate him into going along with the crucifixion.
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: Caiaphas is the kind of orchestrator of the crucifixion, in
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: a way. Important guy. Now, fast forward a couple of
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: thousand years, and they're digging in the priestly quarter, also
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: the aristocratic quarter of Jerusalem. and out of the ground
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: come these little stone boxes that are called ossuaries. So
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: in the first century AD, if you died, you were
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: buried in a tomb, but when your body decayed, they
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: would take your bones out and put it in a
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: box and put your name on it. This was the
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: customary practice. And so the archaeologists are looking at these ossuaries,
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: and there's about two dozen of them, about 20 of them.
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: And as they're looking, they see one of these boxes
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: is particularly decorated or ornate, and it has a name
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: on top of it. Yehoseph bar Kayapha. So Yehoseph is Joseph, bar,
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: son of, Kayapha, Caiaphas. It's him. And you open the box,
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: and inside are the bones of a 60-year-old man. You
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: date the bones, and they're dated to the first century AD.
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: It's him.
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: Who else?
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: So think about it. It's one thing, Mondo, if you
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: and I are looking at some stone inscription or some
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: historical reference that some historian wrote 200 years later, It's
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: another whole feeling to be looking at not just the
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: guy's burial box, but his actual bones. It kind of
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: brings with a certain kind of historical force the presence
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: of all those great and dramatic and world-changing events that
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: were happening that this guy was part of.
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, again, I'll say it again, just phenomenal.
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: You know, one of your subtitles, you talk about biblical archaeology, prophecy,
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: and the last days. And so how do you bring that?
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: Now we've kind of given a little bit, I mean,
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: people got to get the book to get all the
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: rest of the deals. How do you bring it to
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: the last days?
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: The prophetic side of it, I approach a little cautiously,
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: but I focus on the big signposts of the end times.
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: So one of them, of course, and you know more
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: about this than even I do, and that is the
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: sort of the return of the Jews to their ancestral homeland.
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: That's predicted in the Bible. It's a very implausible prediction.
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: For many, many centuries, it would have seemed ridiculous and impossible.
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: Even as late as the 20th century, it was thought
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: to be very far-fetched, and yet it happened in 1948.
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: That's clearly an important marker. It is also said, I
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: think this is Matthew 24, where he talks about, in
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: the end times, every eye will see. In other words,
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: events will occur of great significance and the whole world
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: will be able to observe them simultaneously. Well, think about it.
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: If we lived 50 years ago, I mean, I lived
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: 50 years ago. You know, how is that possible? How
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: can the whole world see an event at the same time?
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: But we can now recognize under technology and, of course,
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: the technology of the future that this is possible now
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: and will be even more possible in the years and
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: decades to come. The other thing I think is really
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: interesting is to ask this question. Why are the stones
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: crying out now? If I look at biblical archaeology, it
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: covers three phases. The first phase is sort of 1850
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: to 1947. I pick 1947 because Israel is formed in 48.
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: So in the first phase, you get some important discoveries,
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: but it's relatively few. 1948 to 2000, a lot more.
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: So there's a kind of acceleration of the pace of
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: archaeological discovery. And 2000 to the present, phase three, the most.
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: The most spectacular discoveries in the last 25 years. So
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: it's almost like God is like ramping it up. You know,
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: he's upping the ante, as they say. And so my
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: question is, why now? And my answer is this, and
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: that is, number one, we are living in a secular age.
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: Young people go off to college and they learn to
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: respect the language of reason and science and archaeology, and
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: God's like, okay, well, guess what? I'll speak to you
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: in that language also. You have the Bible, but this
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: is going to be me speaking through science and through objects.
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: That's what archaeology is. It's objects that come out of
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: the ground. And so I think the fact that this
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: is happening now is almost like God is removing people's
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: excuse for not believing in in the events and people
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: and places of the Bible. God is sort of saying like, look,
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: you know, regardless of your mindset, I'm giving you enough
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: evidence and here it is in front of you. You
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: can look at it. You can touch it in some cases.
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: You really have no reason except a kind of obstinate
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: refusal to dismiss it.
• 47:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. A hundred percent. And I mean, so at
• 47:34
  Speaker 2: the end of the day, you know, we've kind of
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: just been able to kind of get some of the highlights.
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: How does this It kind of closes out here. Imagine
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: you have somebody who is a skeptic who's like, okay, well,
• 47:46
  Speaker 2: you bring that guy, that guy, I don't know who
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: he is, but he's bringing up some good points. How
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: does all this draw people to the person of Jesus
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: and the work that Jesus did?
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: The first thing to note is that biblical archaeology is
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: exclusive to the Bible. And what I mean by that
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: is you cannot even attempt this kind of archaeological scrutiny
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: to any other sacred book. There's no archaeology in the Quran.
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: Nobody even tries. Or the Buddhist scriptures or the Hindu scriptures.
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: And what that tells you is that the Bible is
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: in a different category than these other books because it
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: has withstood now 150 years of withering archaeological scrutiny, often
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: driven by people with a, I mean, it's not an
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: exaggeration to say a mad hatred of the Bible.
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: True, yep.
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: You know, looking to find something where they could go, ha,
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: and they haven't got it yet. So that's very telling,
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: isn't it? And, you know, for me, it has been
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: a very powerful experience to... I have an archaeological Bible
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: that is the script of the Bible, but in the
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: notes it has all the artifacts and lots of pictures.
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: So it kind of hits you with a certain force
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: because as a kid, you know, you learn about Noah's Ark,
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: you learn about Jonah and the belly of the whale,
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: There's a kind of a way in which all of
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: this kind of comes together. And as an adult, you wonder,
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: is it really all true? I mean, I believe it,
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: but there's a little part of me that wonders, did
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: all of this really happen the way the Bible?
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: Says?
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: So you have this little skeptic in all of us,
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: including the believer. And so the archaeology then comes with
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: a sort of refreshing, okay, let's go take a look.
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: And I think we live in an age where people
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: are very oriented toward experience. You know, even, Mondo, a
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: decade ago when I debated these new atheists, I realized
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: that one thing they have going for them is that
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: they'd say, all right, well, you say that God exists, like,
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: show him to me. In other words, don't just talk
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: about God. Give me some evidence that I can kind
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: of put my hands around. So this desire in our
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: time to have direct experience. And the beauty of archaeology
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: is it can deliver that.
• 50:05
  Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: And it can deliver it unquestionably. Now, I will say
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: as a small qualification that there are certain archaeological objects
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: I've left out of the book because sometimes like an
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: antiquities dealer in Cairo will say, hey, I've got, you know,
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: this is the box of the brother of Jesus, but
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: it didn't come out of the ground. It just mysteriously
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: appeared in his shop. And so I'm like, guess what?
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to be including that because we don't
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: really know where that came from. So there is a
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: little bit of hocus pocus in the archaeological sort of,
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: open market, this book is very careful in only looking
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: at artifacts where, whether it's a believing archaeologist or an unbeliever,
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: they're going to go, oh yeah, that's the Tel Dan Stele. Yes,
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: that does confirm the existence of the House of David.
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: That is really, you can argue about what that means,
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: but the fact that we're looking at that stele, that's
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: an authentic archaeological artifact.
• 50:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you have people that, I remember when they, you know, 1993,
• 51:02
  Speaker 2: when you have those that are responsible for trying to
• 51:05
  Speaker 2: discredit the archaeologist, you know, Abraham Baran, and you're like,
• 51:08
  Speaker 2: this guy's a solid individual. And so, you know, maybe
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: my last question here for you is, you know, in
• 51:17
  Speaker 2: all the work that you've done in all the last
• 51:18
  Speaker 2: few years, you know, writing, of course, bringing it all together,
• 51:21
  Speaker 2: how has it impacted your faith personally?
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: First of all, just being in Israel has given me
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: that sense of being in my spiritual homeland. All these
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: places that I had heard about, are sort of there
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: to experience. And I hadn't quite expected that, Mondo, because
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: I've actually traveled a lot, and cities these days have
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: become very homogenized. They're a long way from their ancient past.
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: And not only that, but in places like Greece and
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: Rome and Egypt, the history is there, but it's no
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: longer relevant, right? The pharaohs aren't around. You've got to
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: go find them in a museum somewhere. Where is the
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: empire of the ancient Greeks? It doesn't exist anymore. But
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: in Israel, the Jews are back, you know, and they
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: look the same. They dress the same to a considerable degree.
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: They eat the same food. They speak the Hebrew language,
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: which they've revived. They, you know, they have shekels and
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: they worship the same God, celebrate the same holidays. So
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: you have this kind of eerie sense that you're not
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: that far removed from the world of the Bibles. And
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: then the archaeology kind of comes in at that point.
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: And it's, by the way, a lot of it, of course,
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: is in Israel, but not only in Israel. There's important
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: archaeology in Jordan, in Syria. Some of this stuff is found,
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: you know, in the ruins of Nineveh, all over, right
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: in what is now modern day Iraq. And then the
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: New Testament changes the geography because now we're talking about
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: the journeys of Paul. He's moving through Greece. He gets
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: up to Turkey, or at least Anatolia, which is now
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: modern-day Turkey. So you have a very interesting timescale from
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: 2000 BC to about 50 AD, and then a very
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: interesting geography, which is largely in Israel, particularly the Old Testament.
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: But in the New Testament, you've got Rome, you've got Ephesus,
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: you've got Greece, you've got Turkey.
• 53:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Dinesh, this has been great. And for those watching,
• 53:30
  Speaker 2: what he has done in this book is so great
• 53:32
  Speaker 2: because it establishes the foundation, as we've been discussing today,
• 53:36
  Speaker 2: the historicity of the Bible and landing, again, on the
• 53:39
  Speaker 2: person and the work of Jesus. And that, to me,
• 53:42
  Speaker 2: to see Caiaphas there, the guy that sentenced Jesus to death.
• 53:45
  Speaker 2: And what's our goal? Our goal is to talk about
• 53:47
  Speaker 2: these things, but ultimately to point people to the death
• 53:51
  Speaker 2: and resurrection of Jesus in the first century for us. humanity.
• 53:55
  Speaker 2: God's love is demonstrated here, and again, it's not just fiction.
• 54:00
  Speaker 2: All these little things point to it, and God is
• 54:02
  Speaker 2: setting a foundation for us to understand not just what
• 54:06
  Speaker 2: the Bible said historically, but actually not only what Jesus
• 54:09
  Speaker 2: did historically as well, but the message of salvation through him. So,
• 54:13
  Speaker 2: as always, we appreciate your support and prayers for what
• 54:15
  Speaker 2: we do here. Thanks for watching this week. I hope
• 54:18
  Speaker 2: you've been very blessed. This has been a great time
• 54:20
  Speaker 2: to see again how God has spoken, and as As
• 54:23
  Speaker 2: Dinesh's book says, the stones are crying out. And we're
• 54:27
  Speaker 2: seeing more and more of it every week when more
• 54:29
  Speaker 2: and more stuff is uncovered. So thanks for watching today
• 54:32
  Speaker 2: and we will catch you next time.