From the Council for British Archaeology:

“Archaeology is the study of the material remains and environmental effects of human behaviour: evidence which can range from buried cities to microscopic organisms and covers all periods.... Archaeology links with many subjects, including geography, history, social sciences, maths, physics, biology, chemistry, art, religion, and technology”

What can it do?

› Prove that places and people in Bible history

existed

› Provide some background to the Bible records

What it can’t do

› Prove that the history actually happened

› Prove that the miracles of Bible history

occurred

Does support the biblical record

BUT

FAITH is still required on the part of a

believer

Of course, if archaeological finds

contradicted the Bible, it could

undermine faith! This has never

happened, however

Great cities and empires mentioned in

the Bible, have been found and their

grandeur revealed, through the labours

of the archaeologist

Here are just a few of the places which

once the critics denied existed, but

which the spade of the archaeologist

has uncovered....

Cf. Isaiah 7:17,20

Whilst researching for this talk, I found the

following website by a certain Professor

Keith N. Schoville, listing as he sees it, the

top 10 Archaeological findings of biblical

interest in the 20th Century......

The importance of this find cannot be overstressed. As we just read, every book of the Hebrew scriptures, our Old Testament, is represented, except for the short book of Esther.

This find had the ability to make or break the reliability of scripture. Either it had been reliably preserved during the 1,000 years the scrolls take us back, or it had not!

Having looked at these examples, you can see just how amazingly well preserved these scriptures are!

Due to lack of vowel points in the Dead Sea scrolls, as supplied in the Masoretic text, there are many interesting variant readings

HOWEVER, THE PRESERVATION OF SCRIPTURE HAS BEEN DIVINELY OVERSEEN!!

The Galilee boat.

› Known colloquially as “The Jesus boat”

(Turn to top 10 website for info)

(Turn to computer animation of Jesus

Boat)

The bullae of Baruch, Jeremiah’s scribe

(turn to top 10 site)

Mounts Ebal & Gerizim – the Mts of blessing

and cursing!

We have looked at just a few examples of the amazing finds of the Archaeologist, which support Bible history

They help to make Bible history live, to make it real for us

They show us how reliable the Bible is

WHAT YOU NOW NEED TO DO IS TO STUDY IT, SO AS TO FIND A PURPOSE IN LIFE AND A CERTAIN HOPE FOR THE FUTURE. GOD BLESS YOU IN THIS!