Fascinating Archeology of the Bible

Today’s post notes three compelling points from biblical archeology:

To begin, I highly encourage you to spend 12 minutes of your day watching this YouTube video regarding the prophet Isaiah: “Archeological Proof of the Prophet Isaiah?”  In short, it seems highly likely that excavators in Jerusalem uncovered archeological evidence of Isaiah and his role during the reign of King Hezekiah.

Second, last Sunday I had the chance to preach from Luke 3:1-6.  If you’d like, you can listen to the sermon here.  Interestingly, in verses 1-2a of chapter 3, Luke gives his readers a substantive list of historical figures.  Two of those mentioned are Pontius Pilate, the Roman prefect (or governor) of Judea at the time of Jesus’ public ministry, and Caiaphas, the Jewish high priest during the same period.  I find it fascinating that both figures appear in the archeological record outside of the Bible itself:

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Figure 1: This first image is a replica of a stone fragment found in Caesarea Maritima (the capital of Judea during the days of Pilate) that mentions Pilate’s name.  The original is on display in the Israel Museum.  The caption may have read: “Pontius Pilatus, the prefect of Judaea, erected a building dedicated to the emperor Tiberias”.
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Figure 2: This second picture (which comes courtesy of Todd Bolen and the Photo Companion to the Bible collection, available at Bibleplaces.com) is the apparent ossuary of Caiaphas.  The inscription on the box reads: “Joseph son of Caiaphas.”  According to the Photo Companion to the Bible, this name “…corresponds with the known name of the high priest at the time of Jesus’ crucifixion.”

One thought on “Fascinating Archeology of the Bible”

  1. Thanks, PJ, for passing this along. Great video. By the way, when we were there in Israel and looking at the same site, we were told that 51 bullae had been discovered to date, 26 of which were names (with exact spellings) from the Bible.

    It makes me wonder, though, why all the bullae are found in the same place. Hmmm.

    Dave

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