Old Testament Discoveries

For many years it has been known that there are events noted in the Old Testament of the Bible that had not been mentioned in other historical recordings. The Old Testament stood alone as the evidence that those events truly took place. In many cases the records of these events were criticized by some of our well known skeptics of the scripture. Publicly they stated how untrue the scripture must be to be the only place such an event was recorded. Now there have been archeological discoveries in recent years that have proven just how correct the writings of the Bible are.

We'll begin with the discussion of a man named Abraham. You remember him, don't you. He also was known as "Abram". In the book of Genesis there is reference to him living in a city called "Ur". (Genesis 11:31) It is described as a "great city" which would leave you to reason that it was a large city where many lived. However, many top people who research such matters stated their disbelief that this city ever existed. There wasn't anything recorded regarding it. Recent diggings uncovered ancient ruins of the city. They found remains of temples, homes and tombs of the King and Queen.

Further in the book of Genesis (15:20)there is a mention of a nation called Hittite. There were no known recordings of its existence outside of the Bible. Now years later there have been discoveries of Ancient Egyptian and Assyria records that show that the Hittite nation did absolutely exist. The records even show that it stood as a strong nation for almost seven centuries.

An ancient city of Egypt called Pithom has been uncovered. The bottom of these storehouses contain brick with straw on the bottom and bricks without straw on the top portions. This coincides with descriptions of how the Israelites were forced to make bricks in Exodus 1:11; 5:7.

They have discovered a mummy. Believed to be that of Meneptah II who is widely believed to be the Pharaoh recorded in the book of Exodus. There is a hymn written about him which mentions Israel. There is also an inscription that tells of the death of his young son. This could be the son that died during the last plague mentioned in Exodus 12:29.

In the book of Daniel it is recorded that a great city called Babylon fell. This has been questioned over the years because in Daniel it states that Beshazzar was the last ruler of that city. (Daniel 5:30). There had been no mention ever found in Babylonian records about a ruler named Belshazzar. Well that was until the year 1853. There were discoveries of ancient inscriptions that the last known King who was Nabonidus had a first-born child named Belshazzar. It further stated that this was his "favorite son" and that they ruled together. One inscription read "He freed his hand, he entrusted the kingship to him. Then he himself undertook a distant campaign.." This also answers the question of why the Bible stated that Daniel was the "third ruler in the Kingdom". Nabonidus and Belshazzar were the first two.

The findings go on and on that have been discovered to prove the facts of the Bible. They have located the land of Goshen, the city of Nineveh. They have found evidence to verify Shishak's account of his campaign against King Rehoboam. I could go on and on.