Biblical Archaeology
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So many times we hear from those we try to share the good news of Christ with that the gospels are just hearsay, written long after the time of Jesus, and are not eyewitness accounts. Where do they get this idea? They get it from many modern scholars, but not from the actual evidence of the text! They conclude that the gospel accounts are unreliable. Is this conclusion justified? The idea that the gospels are documents that are far removed from original eye witnesses by a long process of anonymous communication of oral tradition is a popular idea today. Some modern scholars also view...
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In this modern skeptical age, many people have been totally mis-informed about the Bible. Attacks on the Bible as God's Word are everywhere, and myths about the Bible abound in today's culture. Here are five common myths about the Bible you may have heard, and the startling truth you need to know about them: Myth #1: The Bible has been copied so many times, it's like the telephone game, all we have are copies full of errors and so we don't have the original. The Truth: If there is any text we can be sure we have reliable copies of, it's the Bible. The reliability of copies of an ancient...
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Bible critics often say that Moses did not write the first five books of the Bible (the Pentateuch), but that it was written by several authors at a much later time. Perhaps in your college religion class, your professor told you that only naive people believe that Moses actually wrote any of the Bible, but now we modern scholars know better? The question is, do they really know this for a fact? We've seen in a previous article that Archaeology shows writing existed in Moses's time and confirms the antiquity of the Pentateuch. But there is plenty of other kinds of evidence that support...
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As we saw in the previous article on the Documentary Hypothesis, pastors and seminarians are still being taught that rather than Moses, four guys known as J, E, P, and D wrote the first five books of the Bible (The Pentateuch). We saw how flawed their methods were. But why is this still being taught? Does archaeology support the JEDP Hypothesis? The JEDP theory ignores archaeology and claims that there couldn't have been writing at the time of Moses in 11500-1400 B.C.E. Remember, they dated the documents of the Pentateuch at 850 B.C.E. at the earliest. But we have the following discoveries: The...
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If you ask most Christians if they believe God created the universe and the earth, they will answer yes. The book of Genesis provides an account of that creation in Chapters 1 and 2. But when you ask Bible believers whether they can take Genesis 1 and 2 as straightforward history, the stumbling begins. Some will say that you can take it literally and plainly, that God created in six literal twenty four hour days, some will say that the days were eons or geological ages, and still others will take the Genesis accounts as non historical poetry or even reworked myths from ancient Babylonian...
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For many years King David was considered a legendary character by some scholars. Then an inscription from the ninth century B.C. referring to both the house of David and the king of Israel was found in 1993 at the northern Israelite site of Tel Dan. The inscription contained the words “House of David.” Here is a quote from the discoverer of the inscription, Professor Avraham Biran: “In this fragment, a king of Damascus, Ben Hadad, is apparently victorious. . .But what was really thrilling was to find he defeated a ‘king of Israel of the House of David’! So here you have the mention...
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Most of us have heard the familiar song, "Joshua fought the battle of Jericho, and the walls came tumblin' down." But it is common in modern scholarship to deny the authenticity of the story of Joshua in the Bible. Many cite a study by archaeologist Kathleen Kenyon as having debunked this event as the Bible relates it. Kenyon, who excavated Jericho in the 1950s, said the city was indeed destroyed, but the time it was destroyed was too early to fit the biblical account. But the evidence has been revisited, and there are reasons to question this conclusion. First,...
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Is there any evidence supporting the existence of Jacob, Joseph, Abraham or the other patriarchs of the Old Testament? Answer: Although we might not expect to find personal references to such men in the archaeological records we can verify that the political, historical and social conditions fit their life and times in history. For example, Joseph was sold for twenty silver shekels, according to Genesis 37:28. Egyptologist Kenneth Kitchen found that this amount matches exactly with Joseph’s time period according to the Bible and not any earlier or later periods.[1] Joseph’s...
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Let's bury once and for all the idea that the disciples of Christ put words in Jesus's mouth or invented history! Here are at least 17 reasons below that show that what Jesus said and did was accurately reported. 1.Eyewitnesses: At the time of writing there were many eyewitnesses, including hostile ones, who could have discredited any inventions. This could be true even forty years laer. Many of even the more skeptical scholars will admit this possibility. Josh McDowell quotes Laurence McGinley: “First of all, eyewitnesses of the events in question were still alive when the tradition had been...
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Some scholars say the New Testament writers invented many of the details of Jesus’ life and sayings and that they put words in His mouth. Is this true? Answer: Some modern scholars are inclined to dismiss much of the New Testament, especially the Gospels, as inventions of the authors rather than real history. Many people embrace this idea because they don’t want to be under the authority of what Jesus said, and so they claim His words were not His words at all, but invented by the Gospel writers to meet some social or political need. But what does the evidence show? In the writings of the New Testament...
© 2012 Vince Latorre, The Bible Can Be Proven