A Journey Through Biblical History with Tommy Chamberlin

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I'm excited to be here with you all tonight Tonight's a little different. I'm not a preacher. I try to be a teacher

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You all could decide if I do any good at that by the end of the night but as we go through the night

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If you have any burning questions Hang on to that and make sure that you come up and ask me here at the end because when we're done

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We're not done. I'm here to you all are tired of talking to me and looking at artifacts and then then we'll be done

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All right So keep that in mind now a little bit of an introduction my day job is I'm chief assistant

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Pike County attorney And I already had somebody asked me. Can I drop your name if I get a ticket in Pike County?

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So, you know, all right So the the job I have or the volunteer job my hobby job as I like to call it is

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I'm a square supervisor at the Shiloh Excavation in Israel now, I may break over tonight and call it

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Shiloh. That's because in Israel that's how you say it Okay, so if you ever say Shiloh, it's shallow.

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All right I am speaking a master's in biblical history and archaeology I'm starting my biblical

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Hebrew or ancient Hebrew this fall y 'all pray for me ain't good at languages I can't imagine an Eastern Kentucky hillbilly would struggle with languages, but you know

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That's that's my my next tough subject and I am a I've directed two different biblical archaeology museum projects now

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They can't be with me tonight But I always like to show you my most important job and that's a husband and a father

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And so that's my girls if the one in the middle was with me Then she'll be up front tonight and she would try her best to do all the talking

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And so she's decided she's going to marry Indiana Jones and be an archaeologist when she grows up.

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I'm think I'm proud I'm not sure yet so Certainly the archaeology part of good with the

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Indiana Jones guy. I love him He's I want to be him when I grow up, but he's a little bit Don't want my daughter married now

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I'm here on behalf of the University of Pikeville and then a group you need to know about if you're interested in biblical apologetics archaeology

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Or and I'll talk about in a minute if you hear something Somebody makes a statement about the Bible that just they say so well

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The Bible's not true blob and we know that blah blah here is the resource for you to go to Associates for biblical research or ADR has been in existence for over 40 years

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To challenge the skeptics on the historical reliability of the Bible All right

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Now our video partner is in grace with Jim Scudder if you may have seen him on TBN But I've got to give a little credit because they they allow me to use their wonderful video content as we'll see it tonight

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So today's presentation is a little different tonight's about having a little fun and hopefully learning a little something

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We're going to examine artifacts We're going to look at original videos from Israel and we're going to study the biblical text in detail

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We're going to hopefully illuminate scripture with archaeology And maybe even talk about the original languages a little bit.

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But here's my main goal. Number one if One person in this room. I'll eat you leave here and I've encouraged you to read your

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Bible in a deeper fashion or More often I've done my job.

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All right, and number two, which is really why I do these presentations There are all kinds of young people in this room

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And that's who I like to talk to because I'm gonna tell you mom dad grandma grandpa if you do not know when your children go away to public universities and Sadly some so -called

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Christian universities today They're gonna be taught the Bible is nothing but a collection of morality tales to teach you how to act and they're not

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History and they're not true If you are listening to me talk tonight and you remember nothing else you hear me say

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You remember when you hear that junk that Tommy said bull and go do your homework

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Because when you do your homework, you're almost always gonna find the answer and you're gonna find the Bible reliable All right.

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Now with that said we're gonna dive right in and tonight we're gonna go from the world Before Abraham down to the time of Jesus We're gonna look at artifacts and different archaeological sites.

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We'll spend quite a bit of time in the Old Testament But we'll talk about a variety of subjects and tonight you all don't need a bunch of what

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I call Samples of entire presentations as you take an hour and I've got five minutes to cover the information

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All right, so we'll start with the world before Abraham the first artifact I do want to point out just because it's the oldest one here on loan from the

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Horn Museum Is this cuneiform tablet right here in the middle of our display?

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It dates to 2600 BC. All right, you see the seated figure here in the middle of the tablet.

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He's sitting on a throne He has a horned helmet and in front of him is a crescent moon This is the

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Sumerian moon God. His name is sin All right, and this is the world before Abraham and why do

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I point that out when Abraham is born and comes into the world? Do the people believe in one God or many?

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Many Many I heard many that's the world Abraham is born into. All right and so When we look at the biblical chronology

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Abraham was born around 2166 BC if you believe the Bible I do.

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All right And we do have another cuneiform text that I specifically asked for for the museum

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And it's this little one right here and So let's take a look at it.

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I'll show you a picture of the front and the back I'll tell you why in a minute and I'm going to read it to you and we're going to see if this cuneiform text from The year 2037

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BC has any great secrets from the ancient world for us. It says one dead goat

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Received from Lugo Mastaba sealed by Lukala the month of the Feast of Shoghi the year

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Hunri was destroyed Lukala the scribes son of Eurakos Well, it's a contract for a dead goat

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Somebody thought 4 ,000 years ago. That was important enough to write down. What in the world does this have to do with the world of Abraham?

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What is Abraham's wealth measured in? Livestock generally.

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Yeah, and what we find when we study these cuneiform tablets from that time They are almost everyday life.

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They are items recording transactions and it ain't I Gave him 150 gold pieces

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It's livestock Just like we see in the Bible just like the description we have in Abraham the spit of Abraham now this particular one

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Why did I want it? Because it gives us a date It says the month of the

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Feast of Shoghi the year Hunri was destroyed. Now. I know everybody knows what Hunri was destroyed. I Don't either but the experts do the year was 2039

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BC and by the biblical chronology a guy named Abraham Was 127 years old.

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He had a son named Isaac the year that cuneiform tablet was written. It was 27 All right, so we literally are looking at an artifact from the lifetime of Abraham.

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All right, so check that out now We're gonna jump around a bit, but we're gonna dive first into one of my favorite artist

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Favorite topics from the Bible and it's the story of the Exodus. All right I am preparing a new presentation

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That's 90 minutes long on the Exodus alone And we've got maybe five or ten minutes to cover the same kind of stuff here

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So let's let's hit the gas and see what we can do. Okay first If you are not aware,

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I'm going to give you what you're likely to encounter when you turn on secular TV And you watch and they talk about the

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Exodus it's going to be something like this They're gonna say the time of the

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Exodus was the 13th century BC the 1200s BC All right, and they're gonna say something like this if there was an

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Exodus it occurred in the 13th century BC however There is no evidence of an

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Exodus at that time And they say there's no Semites in Egypt This is a very common date and the common position you'll see in most literature in most so -called experts

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All right, that's what they talk about when it's about the Exodus if you've heard it You probably heard it before there's no evidence of any

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Exodus from Egypt. All right Well, we won't get it going to all of that If you really want to know invite me back and we'll do the full presentation, but we're gonna talk about a little bit tonight first Do they have the right date that's a pretty good important question as dr

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Stripling says you can look for at the right place at the wrong time and you're not going to find anything All right.

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So most things you look at most even Bible Encyclopedias and stuff you look up will say the

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Exodus was in the 1200s. Does the Bible say that so when did the Exodus occur? Let's go to the text first Kings 6 1

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Solomon began to build the temple for the Lord in the 480th year after the

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Israelites came out of the land of Egypt in the fourth year of his reign over Israel Okay. Now that is an interesting clue most scholars agree

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That we know the date Solomon began the temple. Okay, that's the year 967

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BC considered a rather firm date in ancient history so if we add 479 years to that because it was in the 400th and 80th year not not after Well, I don't know what happened there.

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All right, we get to 1446 That's in the 15th century ladies and gentlemen.

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Does that sound like the 1200s to you? Absolutely not. So That is doing one of the greatest greatest dynasties of Egyptian history the 18th dynasty of the

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New Kingdom So let's look at an interesting clue from the text some Verses from Exodus 2 3 & 4 when

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Pharaoh heard about this He tried to kill Moses But Moses fled from Pharaoh and went to live in the land of Midian After a long time the king of Egypt died

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The Israelites grown because of their difficult labor and they cried out and their cry for help

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Ascended to God because of the difficult labor then the angel the Lord appeared to Moses in a flame of fire within a bush

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Now in Midian the Lord told Moses return to Egypt for all the men who wanted to kill you are dead the text seems to suggest

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That the Pharaoh who wanted to kill Moses has now died and now God is sending him back to Egypt That's probably pretty familiar verses for most of us that attend church and grew up in church.

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You are thing All right. So here's a question. Does anybody remember how long Moses was in the wilderness?

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Before he went back to Egypt 40 years. Okay. Now that's important.

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So if Moses is in the wilderness for 40 years The Bible seems to suggest that he's only returning to Egypt when the

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Pharaoh who wanted him has died Who wanted to kill him is now dead. All right. So here's the thing

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How long does that Pharaoh has had to be on the throne? 40 years

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Minimum it's a long time. So in the 18th dynasty, which is the 1400s when the

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Bible would put it we find a Pharaoh named Moses the third He was considered one of the greatest

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Pharaohs of Egyptian history. They actually call him the Napoleon of Egypt Okay, he reigned for 54 years

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Now guess what? He's the only Pharaoh in that time frame that reigned for 40 years or more

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What was the clue we just had? It seems to suggest that Pharaoh had to reign 40 years the

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Pharaoh that Moses ran from remember he kills the Egyptian He runs off and God says the burning bush

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You can go back now those who wanted you dead or dead seems to tell us the Pharaoh had reigned for 40 years There's only one

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Pharaoh that meets that criteria. His name is Moses the third. Okay Moses the third

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Reign is right in the middle of the 1400s now an interesting artifact Okay We have an

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Egyptian scarab scarabs were popular amulets and seal impressions in ancient Egypt Let's look at one on display from the 18th dynasty

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I want you to notice the sphinxes and the mirror image cartouches. You may know what a cartouche is

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We're gonna have vocabulary test after all right a cartouche It's a circle ring in Egyptian hieroglyphics, it's got a little dash on the bottom and the hieroglyphics on the inside I always tell kids if you want to impress mom and dad when you go to a museum

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When you see that hieroglyphics find the circle with the dash to say mom and dad. This is a cartouche

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What and that's the name of a Pharaoh? So if you see a cartouche only the name of a Pharaoh is allowed inside now up here

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Right here in our display is an Egyptian scarab and you'll see the

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Sphinx their mirror images Do you see the cartouche here in here?

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See the hieroglyphs now, I'm no expert on Egyptian hieroglyphics, but I know the guy who is dr.

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Petrovich whenever we're getting items for our museum collection said Tommy you want this scarab.

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I'm like, okay Dr. Petrovich, why do I want this scarab? He said do you know whose name is in the cartouche?

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He's dragging me on baiting me I'm like, dr. Petrovich, you know, I can't read it. He said his name is

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Thutmose III You know who that is and I smiled I said yeah said that's the

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Pharaoh that Moses ran from he said bingo So on display in your church tonight is a scarab of we believe the very

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Pharaoh of the oppression The only Pharaoh of the 18th dynasty that matches the 40 -year period

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But I want to talk about his son. His name was Aminhotep II. There's Aminhotep He's the son of Thutmose III.

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By the Egyptian chronology The AVR follows he would have been Pharaoh around the year 1446

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BC Why was that number important? When did I tell you that the exodus occurred?

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All right in ancient Avaris otherwise known as Tell el -Daba In an area of the

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Nile area you would call Goshen Was the remains of a large city now that city was excavated by a non

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Bible -believing German archaeologist Who did excellent? Archaeological work. All right

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And what he discovered Was a large city That began several hundred years before it had a very small

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Semitic population, you know what a Semite is a Semite is from the area of Canaan All right, ladies and gentlemen, what would

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Israelite look like in the archaeological record? All right, and then that Semitic population at Tell el -Daba over the next three centuries exploded

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It went from a small family to a large large number of people All right, and then something strange happened as they as he studied their bones

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There you you learned a lot about people by looking at their graves and studying their graves They were pretty well to do for a while and near the end of the period the expensive grave goods disappear and the bones

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Show evidence of strong stress Manual labor

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What do you think that might be from? Making bricks somebody said all right now if you asked

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The archaeologist could this be the Israelites? He says oh, no. He said it's it's too too early

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The the Israel these are not proto Israelites It's the 1400s.

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They would have been here in the 1200s He never read his Bible All right.

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So what we find an ancient of ours is a city that was full of Semites people from Canaan it had a palace at the site

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You notice it doesn't seem Moses takes a long time to get to go when he wants to talk to Pharaoh One of the big criticisms from the so -called experts criticize the

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Bible Well, we know that the Pharaoh's palace is down in central Egypt and the Bible seems to show that he got

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Moses Talked to him in a short time frame, but he's up in the north And then we look at this site and I mean no tip the second has a palace right there at the site

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All right, and guess what happened? Somewhere during amino tip the seconds rain

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This whole city was abandoned The archaeologist says it's as if Everybody just packed up and moved off one day.

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They said the answer for them was clearly it's a plague. I Submit to you.

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It's a different answer. All right And so we'll keep it short

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But what I would tell you is when you hear there's no evidence of an exodus Ask if they know when it happened and when you look at the evidence you find amazing evidence in Egypt And this is all in the last 20 years.

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All right, but this has come out now one final thing about amino tip the second Of course, if you haven't guessed we believe he's the

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Pharaoh of the Exodus He does something interesting in his reign Even the experts will tell you his reign begins like many others and it goes out on a whimper

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See most Pharaohs invade the Levant His dad sure did plenty of it he did it early in his time but around the year 1446 as we count it

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He never went back to Canaan. He never took his army and he never went there

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I think there's a reason. All right now with that said we do have an interesting artifact on display

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I want you to see I show you the little things. I know you won't look at all right, so on This mirrored display is a little

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Egyptian plaque on the back of it or you can see the front of it here There is a

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God and two goddesses Egyptian okay on the back of it we find some papyrus

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And we find a what? What was the vocabulary word? cartouche

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Once again, ladies and gentlemen, I can't read it. But dr. Petrovich can he said Tommy, you know, who's cartridge that is?

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No, dr. Petrovich. I don't know said his name is Aminhotep the second. I Submit to you ladies and gentlemen on display is an actual artifact of the

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Pharaoh of the Exodus himself. All right, so Check those out. But if you want more details on that I would encourage you to check it a

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BR or if I don't stink it up too bad tonight Maybe you want to say come back sometime and give us the whole whole talk on that all right, but we're going to move on to one of my favorite topics and One of the main purposes of a

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BR and that's the conquest of Joshua. All right, so The conquest of Joshua is a subject that we specifically focus on And tonight we're gonna look at three actually what

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I wrote this it was three now. It's four different sites From the conquest each is an entire presentation on its own and you're gonna get the bare bones.

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So We're gonna start with a teaser photo Because I like to get your attention and shock you a little bit and I want to show you a picture of me at a place called

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Jericho Now we all know the story of Jericho don't we and the walls came tumbling down Now if you haven't figured it out yet Tommy's a

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Bible believer and I'm gonna maybe give you a hard thing to listen to but I want you to hang in with me

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See this big thick stone wall behind me This is the middle bronze wall that was used through the late bronze that big stone wall is the wall from the time of Joshua It's not being restored ladies and gentlemen that wall never moved

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Tommy Doesn't the Bible say it fell down? Hang in there. Give me a minute.

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Okay, so Jericho What do the so -called experts say quotes like this the huge ruins of the

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Hyksos City give rise to the folk tale Attached attached to the hero Joshua. These are the things your children will be taught at public university stuff like this the narrative of the capture of Jericho and I in the

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State you probably hear it called AI and the conquest are devoid of historical reality

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Or real simple no evidence of invading Israelites at Jericho All right. So that is the opinion of secular archaeologists and historians and what your kids gonna be taught at school

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All right. Is it so well, this is mainly based on the opinion of an archaeologist named

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Kathleen Kenyon She excavated Jericho in the 1950s and when she went to excavate

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Jericho one of her quotes was as follows I am unencumbered with any biblical baggage

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Does that sound unbiased to you? Not to me it doesn't

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Dr. Kenyon Probably lived an unbiblical lifestyle. I'll just say it like that and we find people sometimes want to Not believe the

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Bible and make certain conclusions. Here's the question The world today goes with what dr.

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Kenyon says They never talked about the guy 20 years before I got him

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John Garstein who excavated before her Who wasn't a Christian and said huh? Isn't this interesting the evidence matches the biblical text?

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She said it doesn't All right. So what does the evidence actually show?

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So the attorney in me I Don't want your opinion. I want to know what the evidence is and unfortunately when we talk about archaeology

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Most archaeologists opinions are sold and put into the public as fact not interpretation not a you know fact

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And so for me, I don't want to hear You know, don't don't give me what your opinion is.

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Give me the evidence Then give me your opinion and we'll decide if your opinion is legit. So we're gonna start with the walls

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I love the subject of the walls of Jericho as you have now seen I've stood beside those walls And those were supposed to fall weren't they?

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Well, we're gonna visit with an archaeologist named Bryant wood. Okay In dr.

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Wood is after dr. Wood. They won't go to Jericho. So let's pay attention with what dr Wood has to say with regard to the walls falling the

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Hebrew wording there is extremely precise Now all of our translations say the walls fell flat, right?

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That's that's okay, I guess but really the Hebrews tells you a little bit more

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The Hebrew word is one word the walls fell tucketh hot and that literally means fell beneath themselves and that's exactly

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What we have there Jericho these walls When they fell had to collapse down the embankment or fall off that retaining wall beneath themselves

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They were deposited at the base of the tell and then the

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Israelite soldiers went up Again a small detail but a later writer would have never known they had to go up He would have said they rushed into the city, right?

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But the Bible says they went up into the city very precise Eyewitness account

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I think only archaeologists would come here or get away with this

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Well on the retaining wall of Jericho you're standing where few have stood and where we were standing

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There was 30 feet of mud brick and the excavations revealed several courses still clinging to the wall

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They've now decomposed But you can see where it collapsed outward and in the bulk the remnant of that red mud brick that created the ramp and the

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Bible Is very specific the Israelites went up into the city and it sounds like anywhere they were around the city

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They could have gone up into the city. So this simultaneously they would have sieged the city They the inhabitants had no chance and you can almost imagine

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The size of this wall because it would have been what six feet Yep wide and that would have been 30 feet tall and and you're already how far above the ground 20 feet at its highest point

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Of stone so the stone walls 20 feet The mud brick is another 30 so and then you have another course of mud bricks at the top of the tell that are the same

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Height so when the Bible describes it as a city reaching up into the heavens It must have looked impossible

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The walls of Jericho were made of two parts now our pictures faded a little but our artist rendition

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Here is very good. You see the the lighter tan here at the bottom. That is a stone revetment wall

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I would call it a foundation wall That's 20 foot tall on top of it was another 30 feet of mud brick on top of the stone.

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All right, so You have about a 50 foot tall wall bit of two parts stone and then mud brick what fail do you may catch that?

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What part fail? The mud brick. Yeah. All right. So everywhere there's been several excavations

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Jericho Everywhere they excavate all around the city. Guess what happened to the mud brick it fell

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Okay, and it did something Fascinating. All right.

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Now we've color -coded this to help you see remember dr Kenyan that doesn't believe the

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Bible this is her drawing that stone revetment wall I've been telling you about is represented by the black stone wall here as They excavated all around the city.

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They found fallen mud brick and it did something weird It didn't crumble down.

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It didn't fall in it fell out in front of the stone In an interesting way, we've called it so you can see

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Do you see what it does over the stone base? And did you hear what they said the word in Hebrew is they went up not that they rushed through the gate

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Not that they rushed in they went up into the city Ladies and gentlemen, the mud brick fell and literally created a ramp over the stone section of wall

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Only an eyewitness Would know that Okay So they rushed up up into the city over the stone wall.

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All right now, hang on Tommy You said they fell all around the city What about a lady named?

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Rahab ah Well, if you remember Rahab story, she hid the spies and Was told her and her family would be saved

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Where was Rahab's house? on The wall on the wall, okay

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Joshua 2 15 then she led them down by rope through the window since she lived in a house that was built into the wall of the city, so Let's go back to Jericho Well, we are in the north side of the city.

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So that's significant because it is of well What we know from the archaeological record matches the biblical account very nicely

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The Bible tells us that the walls of Jericho fell down except for one section There was a woman named

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Rahab Rahab and we read about her in the genealogy of Jesus Don't we and the reason it's the north section is where she's believed to have lived is because it was near the wilderness and the

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Spies escaped right into that area. Yeah, and and possibly though it says to the mountains nearby

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I mean, it's probably this would be the closest place to that. Yeah, okay We we don't make this stuff up Jim.

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You understand? We just it's this is the way that it was excavated is that all the walls fell down except one section on the north so Give me another explanation.

28:16

Yeah. Yeah, I'll take the bar. We'll just have a look and Here we are on the northern most part of tell

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Jericho and it's here that we believe that the spies were were Escaped if you will out of Rahab's house and the scarlet thread hung from the window.

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It probably fled to the mountains over here and It's this section of the wall

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Jim that did not collapse So when several people Excavated here they found the mud brick walls were still intact right all the excavators not only here but in other sections at least several courses

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But here they were completely preserved and the Bible describes Rahab's house being built

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Into the wall or on the wall, which is unusual Language, right and that's exactly what it was.

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This is how the excavators found it They were literally built on top of or into the wall On the northeast corner of Jericho the 19 -teens

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German team Did find a section with the mud brick wall didn't fall there was built on top of it.

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And did you catch what was? preserved on top of the wall houses rooms

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All right, so I would submit to you. That's probably where Rahab live now

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I know I had one couple how many people here have been to Israel How many have been to Jericho Anybody?

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Okay, if you've been to Jericho when you walk into the parking lot and you go through the front gate you are on The plane and all behind you is open plane

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Back to the Jordan River. Okay, and here's the side of Jericho Now the sides you come in is where I took the picture with the wall

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The northeast corner that they're talking about is completely on the opposite side

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Okay, ladies and gentlemen if that's where Rahab's house was It so comes to life for me

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I wish you could see this what's in my mind because see on the other side of this tail

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Is where the mountains are if her house is on the side where you come in at the parking lot? They've got to go around the whole city.

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They're gonna be captured She literally lives on the side where she lets them out and they have a straight shot to the mountains

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All right, and you know, it's like dr. Stripling says the evidence is what it is You can't make this stuff up, but it illuminates it.

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So well when we talk about the Bible All right now so to clarify the walls fill everywhere except one spot and that's

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Rahab's house All right, the spies would have access to flee to the mountains from that side and There's a whole lot more we can talk about Jericho, but you've had your five minutes

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So if you want to hear that you got a we got to do the walls of Jericho, but not tonight Now we're gonna move on to the next side of the conquest and you probably know a little less about it

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But this is my reminder to do something because if I don't do it now, I forget so I put a reminder in there

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Okay, let me find a couple good ones I'm gonna hand you a pottery shirt and you're gonna pass it around your section.

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I'll tell you why All right, if you come to one of my presentations, I make sure everybody handles an authentic piece of Ancient history and this is one of the ways to do it.

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We'll get back to that in a minute. Okay? so the next side of the conquest Was a place called

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I by the way, if you're in the back of the room It's your responsibility to get that back to me. All right The next side of the conquest was a place called

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I in the mountains or in the States I've always heard it called AI in Israel. It's pronounced.

31:54

I and I'm trained to call it So when I say I you can think AI, okay All right.

32:00

Everybody agreed that it was in a place called It tail. All right, and in the 1960s and early 70s a

32:08

Bible -believing Baptist archaeologist named Joseph Calloway went to it tail to show the world

32:15

Joshua's I Basically in response to Kathleen Kenyon's results at Jericho He basically said

32:21

I'm gonna go to it tail and show the world the Bible's reliable and showed him the remains from Joshua's conquest of I and when he got done his announcement was

32:34

There is no evidence of any fortress or anything from the time of Joshua and it tail and ladies and gentlemen from the 1950s and 60s the

32:45

Archaeological Interpretations of Jericho and I are you one of your main reasons that people be into questions historical reliability of the

32:53

Old Testament We've already talked about Kathleen Kenyon and how she got it wrong. How about Joseph Calloway and the fortress of I okay?

33:02

Here's what the experts again would say There's no evidence of a second millennium Canaanite city at this spot at tail or any other spot in the region

33:11

This constant constitutes unequivocal archaeological evidence for the lack of correlation between the story in Joshua 8 with all its topographic details and historical reality

33:22

My organization that I work with ABR was formed to solve the problem of I all right

33:29

Our founder was a guy named David Livingston He researched other sites in the area and he decided he thought

33:35

I may be in a place called Kermit Nissea So ABR excavated our first 20 years

33:41

At Kermit Nissea and the first thing to say is dr Livingston was convinced and basically nobody else.

33:49

All right, the evidence really isn't that good for I? Kermit Nissea Then in the mid 1940s a guy named

33:58

Bryant would you've already heard from dr. Wood once tonight, okay? Dr. Wood is literally this guy's interesting.

34:04

You need to look him up He was literally a rocket scientist who read a book about archaeology and decided he want to go back to school and become a biblical

34:11

Archaeologist I've met him both sweet like sweet man and his wife and his wife was

34:17

With the kids. Oh, yeah, he said we had to spend every vacation going to a museum somewhere in the world, you know and so Dr.

34:25

Wood did become an archaeologist and he become an expert on late Bronze Age pottery

34:31

Does PhD in it late Bronze Age is the period of the conquest and he was looking at a report

34:37

About pottery that had been picked up off the surface from an obscure place called

34:42

Kerbit Elmacotter Okay, so in 1995 he launched an excavation at Kerbit Elmacotter Now what

34:51

I want to tell you is they began to excavate and here's the story as I understand it I wasn't there in 1995. He was told dr.

34:58

Wood You ain't gonna find nothing there but an early Christian Byzantine Church He said but I have a report with pottery from the time of Joshua.

35:07

Nope, nothing there but a church There was one thing ever there. It's the only thing that'll ever be there. So he went to excavate, you know what he found

35:14

Church and he's digging the pottery and they're like he's like but where and as I understand the story

35:20

There was a fella. No, this is out kind of in the wilds. There was no porta potty There was no public bathroom the call of nature literally was the call of nature

35:30

So the fella had the call and he went over the hill And he was gone and he was gone and he was gone longer than he should have been.

35:39

He didn't come back Finally, he come wandering back and he walks to dr. Wood and in his two hands

35:46

He has a pile of ancient pottery and he goes to dr. Wood and says dr.

35:51

Wood. What is this? And dr. Wood nearly has a coronary. He says where did this come from? See, dr.

35:57

Wood knows he was looking at pottery from the time of Joshua He said there's all kinds of it right down over the hill

36:05

Where no one ever bothered to come look and so they went down over the hill and began to excavate

36:11

Wanna guess what they found? So I'll tell you a bit about the site

36:16

It's a half mile from the place called it tell where everybody said I was okay, dr.

36:24

Wood found a Late Bronze Age fortress right down over the hill. All right from the time of the conquest

36:32

Also when he found his fortress, he begins to say oh my what do I have and he begins to look at the clues in The Bible the topography the lay of the land and then like sites like Jericho Joshua 7 and 8 gives eight clues

36:49

To what the lay of the land must have looked like around the site in the fortress of I and he realizes that tale matched one or two curb

36:57

Adele McCotter All right. All right, and then as he excavated it becomes apparent

37:06

Someone Destroyed the fortress right around the year 1400

37:12

BC Ladies and gentlemen, if the exodus was 1446, how long were those wilderness?

37:19

40 years. So when's the conquest right around 1406 BC? somebody

37:26

Destroyed that fortress around 1400 BC Joshua chapter 8 verse 28

37:34

Joshua burned I and left it a permanent ruin desolate to this day

37:41

Let's look into this really strong Heavily fortified

37:47

Canaanites it all fits the the soldiers are drawn out the ambush force

37:52

You have the timing of it comes in from behind and they defeat The inhabitants of I and conquer the city

37:59

They also were told that they could plunder this city right and they did but they also then destroyed it by fire

38:06

What did you find? Okay, only three cities are destroyed by fire in the conquest Jericho I and Hutsul so the question is

38:13

Do we have evidence of burn if we didn't that would mean it didn't happen because lots of things could happen to this

38:20

But in fact, we did find evidence of burn in numerous locations Including in the gate where the bedrock itself is calcined and all of the late bronze

38:29

What we would call a 1b pottery is is refired So it was fired initially in a kiln and then a second time in a conflagration the strongest evidence we have for the destruction of the fortress by fire is

38:47

Again, the pottery because we are finding pottery. That's been what we call refired

38:53

Now when a pot is fired in the kiln Takes it up to a certain temperature and that makes it good and hard and it will it will last you know but we have found

39:05

Pottery sherds that have been subjected to an even higher temperature than the original firing

39:12

Temperature and it makes it extremely hard and our pottery normally wouldn't be so Hardened we call it metallic.

39:21

It's very very hard. It's like concrete almost when you scrape it with a knife It's just very very hard was a fortress

39:33

That meets all of the topograph topographical descriptions in the book of Joshua chapter 7 or 8

39:41

That's in the right place. It's the right time and Somebody burned it to the ground around the same time.

39:46

The Bible says that Israelites destroyed. I All right And I would submit to you what he found was the lost fortress of I Here's the difference when

39:57

Joseph Calloway in the 1960s made his announcement. He made world news Want to think any secular media picked up dr.

40:05

Wood's story That's the world we live in today most people will never hear unless you go looking this information

40:16

All right, we try to get we're trying to get it out there But it doesn't make the popular, you know, but we're starting to get into the war and getting soaked into the archaeology stuff

40:27

So it's showing up now and a lot more material and oh, there's one other thing those burnt pottery sherds

40:36

All across the site the pottery was subjected to an intense fire one of the evidence the site was burned

40:41

Talk about making it really hard, but those handles that I passed around. Where are they? If you handle that if dr.

40:50

Wood or dr. Stripling were here tonight They would tell you you handled in your hand evidence of the burning of I from the book of Joshua chapter 8

40:59

That's where those are from All right I was very privileged to be given a bag full of those for these presentations

41:04

Literally burnt pottery from the side of I if you are interested. There's a whole box of it up there

41:10

I picked out two of the best pieces in my opinion and clearly we see our handles So I like to tell you if I get a chance to put actual biblical history in your hands

41:19

I'd like to tell you tonight you handle biblical history, but we're going to move on And this one

41:26

Is a story I'm going to give you just a little information on that you can look up that's in the news today These days had a press conference about it recently for a few years

41:37

I had a secret and I couldn't tell My groups where I went and talked

41:42

I would usually say something like there's something big coming You'll have to get me come back to tell you So after Jericho and I the

41:50

Israelites were had been told by Moses is directed by God You are then to go have a ceremony and it's to be on Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal after you get a foothold in the land and that's what they did after Jericho and I and you to put half the tribes in One mountain and half the tribes on the other and basically here's how the ceremony went.

42:07

They spend all day one side says If I am faithful to my wife a good husband and I'll live a good, you know do follow

42:18

God's Word I will be blessed and the other side said yes, and I'm in and if I am

42:24

Unfaithful to my wife if I lie cheat and steal I shall be cursed you get the picture it goes back and forth all day as they talk about God's promises in his commandments and what

42:34

God says about Blessing and cursing. All right. Well on the mountain of the curse an archaeologist in the 1980s

42:44

Mount Ebal The text refers to an altar by the way the altars on Mount Ebal that's the mountain of the curse

42:53

Why would the altar be on the curse? Not the mountain of blessing make a thought

43:04

That's exactly right. That's where it's needed. All right. Yeah, where we see him, you know, that's that's we need

43:11

That's where we need it. Exactly So that's where it's at in the 80s an

43:16

Israeli trained non -bible -believing archaeologist named Adam Zertal Found an altar under a large pile of stones on Mount Ebal dating to the 13th century

43:28

BC Now remember we started earlier and I was told at the time of the Exodus He said

43:33

I think and he wasn't a Bible believer and he took a picture of what he had found

43:39

To a Jewish rabbi and he said I know what that is He brought him a book and showed him a picture of the

43:45

Old Testament altar. And of course, dr Zertal also about had a coronary. He became a person of faith

43:52

Okay now What dr.

43:58

Zertal had been taught was the Exodus was in the 1300s I told you about 1300 altar what he also excavated that didn't get the news

44:06

Underneath that altar from the 1300s is an altar from the mid 1400s

44:13

And it appears about 200 years later. Somebody came back and venerated the older altar. What did

44:18

I tell you? The Exodus and Conquest was? 1400s. All right. Now, here's what's fascinating.

44:24

We were very interested in this site It's also in a politically sensitive area it's one of the few things

44:31

I've done in Israel that I didn't tell my wife because I got to go visit it in a Bomb -proof bulletproof bus with the military escort.

44:37

We didn't bring that up until I accidentally mentioned it and she said you did what? And I had to confess but Our team is very interested in the site and we studied

44:47

Zertal's work because of the political sensitivities. We can't do any excavation there now But we have developed and made popular a archaeological process called wet sifting

44:59

Basically, you know when you dig stuff up you sift it All right No, it doesn't take an expert to figure if something small is covered in dirt and mud

45:08

Even if you sift it out, it's gonna look like a dirt clod. It's hard to see But what if you wash it?

45:15

We wash at Shiloh. So we got permission to go in and remove we knew where dr.

45:21

Zertal's dump pile was When he had excavated the altar we knew where he dumped all the the sifted material

45:27

We went in re -sifted it and washed it our small finds expert one day picked up something

45:33

She thought it was a piece of clay in her hand went like this. She said, oh, that's heavy She knew exactly it wasn't clay.

45:38

She knew it was lead About a postage stamp size you see two sides of it up top is what she had in her hand

45:44

She took it to dr. Stripling immediately because they both knew both knew what it was Popular in the ancient world in lead and folded over.

45:52

It's what we call a curse tablet Ladies and gentlemen, where was this from the mountain of the curse?

46:01

All right, they tried to open it Because most of the time, you know, what's on the inside? riding

46:07

And they realized they destroyed if they opened it and we were all excited I got to hear all about it.

46:13

And then I was told to keep the mouth shut Nobody All right.

46:18

Well and then Cove it hit and then finally as the pandemic slowed down We were able to take it to a university in Europe that was experts on scanning lead and That said we can scan it and we will be able to show you what's on the inside long story short

46:39

We have all the scans in several months ago. They made a public announcement We can read the inside Sorry, it's the oldest

46:52

Hebrew ever found in Israel It has the name of God twice Yahweh All right, and it's a curse tablet

47:04

It says and somebody told me said I don't want to hear this during the pandemic that sounds bad It says cursed cursed cursed

47:10

By the God Yahweh, you shall be cursed. You have to understand what the point is, or was it?

47:18

All right, and it's the stuff from the early altar It's basically saying if I don't live life

47:24

God's way I will be cursed you talk about creating a firestorm See the writing dates the lead dates all to the time of Joshua And if you don't believe the

47:40

Bible, this is a problem. So we've been highly criticized In skeptical, but it is one of the hottest items in biblical archaeology today

47:51

And if you want to see the name of God in proto Hebrew here it is The name

47:56

Yahweh it appears twice on the tablet Do you all want to know a secret? They're recording me so I can't tell you too much

48:04

There's also writing on the outside, but that's a different presentation all right, so now we got to move on to my favorite archaeological site a place called

48:14

Shiloh and The whole congregation the children of Israel assembled together at Shiloh and set up the tabernacle the congregation there and the land was to do

48:22

Before them we call Shiloh the first capital of Israel. All right So this is a small taste of what we're gonna do in the morning

48:28

And this is where Joshua put the tabernacle of the Ark of the Covenant We have a whole lot of ancient pottery pottery shirts on display here from Shiloh tonight including stuff from the tabernacle period

48:40

So I want to make sure you get the opportunity To hold some of that. It's over here on the touch table.

48:46

I Do want to focus on one thing that is unique to Shiloh and I'm gonna let dr

48:52

Stripling tell you about it and then I'll tell you what it has to do with material here tonight before I do that I need a volunteer

48:58

You help me In the purple right there. You look about the right height. Come on We have something that no other site in Israel has

49:08

Around the entire perimeter. There are storage rooms big storage rooms and they date to the period before the

49:18

Israelites were there because the pottery at the bottom is Canaanite Amorite pottery and on top of that we have the classic collared rim jar

49:26

Which is what we would call the Israelite storage jar very typical So you can see that it was used you're gonna occupy cities.

49:34

You didn't build you're gonna live in houses You didn't construct they're using these storage rooms. Now. This begs the question why all these

49:43

Storage rooms what is unique about Shiloh? Why does no other site have this configuration?

49:50

Well, this is a really nice shot of these storage rooms when people tithed in biblical times, how do they do that?

49:58

They brought grain they brought items because they didn't have coins anyways Yeah, but you're bringing but they would bring commodity.

50:06

So what do we find a material culture that matches what we read? It's what I call verisimilitude it matches what we read in the text storage rooms bone deposit horned altar

50:18

Palm granites it all begins to add up and looking like there could have been a platform here in this area

50:28

I Want her to stand right here in the middle? No, put it up about where I showed you all right now move your hands here to the edges

50:36

They need to see the pottery piece. I want you all to look at the big picture up here Okay. Now this is an intact pythos on display at the

50:43

Israeli Museum And that thing would be About as tall as what

50:49

Jamie Lee's holding here so you can see be hard to put that in my suitcase But I want you to look at the top of it

50:57

Look at the rim and look at what Jamie Lee's holding Does that look similar to you?

51:05

Yeah, so on Display or parts of two pythos from those storage rooms

51:11

All right. So all around the perimeter shallow we find storage rooms. Why?

51:17

There's no change. There's no money at the time you bring your ties. It has to be your ties and offering is commodity

51:23

She had to have some more to store all this stuff She's holding a pythos rim from an iron one

51:30

Pythos when this was found out of context. Otherwise, it would be in our scientific report It got discarded accidentally by previous excavation.

51:39

Dr. Stripling was gonna put it in his teaching set in Israel I'm not shy to ask questions. I said, dr.

51:44

Stripling if you do that 50 people a summer will see it You send that to me to Kentucky 2 ,000 -3 ,000 a year

51:52

We'll get to see this pottery piece and he goes I'll think about it. I'll tell you tomorrow The dr. Stripling answer in the morning was

51:58

Tommy Chamberlain. I know you I'm gonna let you take the pythos rim But don't you forget it's not yours.

52:06

It's mine. It comes home to me one day ladies gentlemen. That was about five years ago I've never mentioned to him again, and I won't he's gonna have to remember

52:13

I've got it if he wants it back. Don't everybody share this video with him. But here's the thing. What's the cool thing?

52:19

Why did I get Jamie up here to show you how big from this one piece? Imagine this going all the way to the floor this big storage jar.

52:26

We're gonna call Jamie a pythos. What is she holding? She is literally holding

52:33

Pottery from the Israelite sacrificial system may be from the ballpark of the life of Samuel himself

52:39

This is one of the coolest Biblical context I can let you hold in touch and she just got a little more nervous than she was when

52:46

I got her out Of her seat. All right So if you don't care to put that back in the display for me, sweetie Thank you so much. Give her a big hand for helping us out

52:53

Okay So it's really rare to have something on a display like this We can connect so directly to a biblical history, but I do want to show you one other one

53:03

We have an intact pythos rim so over here as well is this one check that out

53:11

All right. So the whole thing is here. All right, this one predates the Israelite period. This is Canaanite Let's say 1700 to 1600

53:18

BC and the reason I like to show this one is the guy in the picture excavated it All right

53:24

And so that is one of my favorite personal discoveries And I'm really proud to share it with you here today we thought we had the whole thing and we tried to restore it and we had about one half and so oh well

53:42

Now that's team purple From last summer. That's my group from last summer and there

53:49

I am right there and we were excavating and In a e29 it might be hard to see but I wanted to show you maybe

53:58

Tell me about what we found last summer. I'll talk about this more in the morning. You see the big wall here

54:05

All right, you notice how the rocks just kind of end This is the big fortification wall that surrounds

54:11

Shiloh. I'm no military expert, but the holes in your fortification wall cause a problem I would think so So there has to be a reason

54:21

Why was there a big hole in the wall? All right, here's what I'll tell you I'll give you a clue

54:28

The gate of Shiloh has never been found Until last summer

54:34

All right. We'll talk about that more in the morning. I got the privilege to help excavate part of the gate

54:40

We think this is part of the chamber. The entrance is over here If you read the text

54:45

Eli dies in the gate So I literally got to ask myself the question about excavating a spot that literally a biblical event happened

54:51

That's cool. And it's exciting to share it with you. But that is my teaser to say come in the morning and learn more

54:57

All right, so we're gonna move on to one of my favorite accounts from the

55:03

Old Testament and I like to mention a place called a Zika here. I may have heard of that Zika, okay

55:10

We're gonna bring a story to life and We're gonna start with the verse

55:17

Then join Barry and Jeremy and one of my favorite places in Israel I'm gonna read the verse to you and you can figure out if you think

55:24

What this might be I'm gonna need somebody to help me probably a young boy. How about you you help me young man?

55:30

Okay, you come on up. Here's our verse now the Philistines gathered their forces for war and assembled at Soka in Judah They pitched camp at Ephesus demean between Soka and a

55:42

Zika. What is this talking about? Let's go to the place and find out after Saul was

56:16

Rejected by God and Samuel you try to imagine how much turmoil he must have felt

56:22

Trying to figure out when his time as king of Israel would be over Samuel in secret

56:29

Anoints David, but he hasn't been installed as a king yet Saul is trying to fight these battles with the

56:35

Philistines wondering when he's going to be replaced and that brings us to one of the Most famous stories in all of the

56:42

Old Testament as we walk beside a brook in the Valley of Elah If I were to ask someone tell me the story of David and Goliath They would tell me that there was this giant he came and fought against the

57:12

Israelites and it was a wonderful Opportunity to show the faith of David and they would be exactly right.

57:18

That's the right story But the Bible tells it a little bit differently the Bible scopes it in geography and first Samuel 17

57:24

It starts off and says now the Philistines gathered their armies for battle And so they were gathered at Soka which belongs to Judah and Soka is located just along that Ridge over there on the eastern end of the valley and they encamped between Soka and Azekah now

57:39

Azekah sits just around the corner here so we are in between Soka and Azekah said

57:45

Saul and the men of Israel were gathered and encamped in the Valley of Elah and Drew up a line of battle against the

57:50

Philistines the Philistines stood on the mountain on one side that mountain over there and Israel stood on the mountain on the other side with a valley in between them and that's how the

58:01

Bible sets up this story Then it introduces the main characters of the story Well, then later on we know that when

58:07

David finally went down to battle with Goliath He didn't use any of Saul's armor or his sword But he crosses a brook and picks up five smooth stones, right?

58:15

And of course, we just crossed the brook ourselves right here below us So he would have come down from the Israelite camp crossed that brook and then gone down into the valley

58:23

That's exactly right. Then David came out here and faced the giant and I believe at that point he gives one of the most moving speeches that's in all of the

58:32

Bible in 1st Samuel 17

58:38

After Goliath has taunted him it says in verse 45 Then David said to the Philistine you come to me with a sword and a spear and a javelin

58:46

But I come to you in the name. I Come to you in the name of the

58:53

Lord of hosts the God of the armies of Israel whom you have defied This day the Lord will deliver you into my hand and I will strike you down and cut off your head

59:02

I will give the dead bodies of the host of the Philistines this day to the birds of the air and to the beast of The earth that all the earth may know that there is a

59:10

God in Israel That all this assembly may know that the Lord saves not with sword and spear

59:15

For the battle is the Lord's and he will give you into our hand such a beautiful speech

59:20

And of course, we know that as soon as he finished that he took one of those stones put in his sling and killed Goliath the writer of 1st

59:29

Samuel is establishing David Barry and Jeremy there. I want to introduce you to my assistant.

59:38

Come here just to say what was your name young man, David? I'm gonna say hello David All right.

59:45

So when we think of David and Goliath, we think of a young man a young man

59:50

But the Hebrew the word that we translate youth in English means young warrior. Okay, David's not a little boy

59:57

Okay, he got a little meat on his bones probably a late teenager, all right And we imagine a little guy with his slingshot and a pebble

01:00:08

David or chase is holding authentic iron age sling stone. All right now chase

01:00:15

Is that really lightweight? Not really.

01:00:20

Let me ask you this He's gonna be our expert if I ratchet that up about a hundred to hundred twenty five miles an hour

01:00:27

Which is what we can do with a sling and I put it right here and hit you with it at that speed What's he gonna do to you? Probably kill me if you didn't hear the answer that I think so is too

01:00:41

So if you don't handle anything else in our touch table Pick up the sling stone the weight is an educator now

01:00:49

We often imagine so the little pebble but it's not that it's one of these it's got some hoof to it

01:00:55

But what about that slingshot? Well, it's not a slingshot ladies and gentlemen It's a sling and here's my replica sling and let's see if I can do this without taking anybody's head off All right, so it's probably up here.

01:01:08

It's like one of these. All right now I'm gonna walk David ran now listen,

01:01:13

I was a college baseball pitcher on scholarship one rip one Red Scouts that I had the best fastball

01:01:18

He always saw on a little guy. I never knew if that was a compliment or an insult to quote my center fielder I could chunk that tater

01:01:24

Okay, now I would imagine if I had one of these and you let me get a run -and -go I'm gonna tell your head off Okay, that's what

01:01:31

I imagine for David. So when we think of David and Goliath, we think of David's choice of weapons It's a little different than the way we've made the story

01:01:40

God's miracle for David do not misunderstand me God is clearly in the story, but I think it's a little different way than we imagine it

01:01:47

You see when David got up that morning, he didn't know he's gonna face Goliath But David's been a shepherd all his life and David was a teenage boy

01:01:53

I remember being a teenage boy never man in the room does too and I and you gotta do something fill up that boredom now

01:02:00

Maybe in some generations we had the BB gun and or our gun and we shot shot things off the fence

01:02:05

My guess is David is something like that If they're taking care of them sheep getting bored every day

01:02:12

My guess is David is becoming an expert with a sling and you see when he gets up and he goes to face

01:02:18

Goliath that day Goliath big ugly guy He talks a lot of smack and he's bad and you don't want to get in that man's wheelhouse because he ain't gonna work out

01:02:28

For you, but you see if you need a weapon to reach out and touch him The life has a javelin they can go so far.

01:02:35

Guess what goes farther this He is prepared. He is an expert in the exact weapon

01:02:44

He needs to face his biggest enemy to reach out and touch him from a distance And you see

01:02:49

God prepared him every day for a fact He never knew he'd have till he came.

01:02:57

Guess what? He will you too? That's the story of David and Goliath. All right.

01:03:03

Now with that said let's give chase a big hand Thank you for helping out And if you don't handle anything else tonight

01:03:11

I won't pass it around because there's so many of us if you don't have anything else to not go over to the touch display

01:03:17

Pick up the sling stone. Okay, but don't do what

01:03:26

I did with the sling that may not work out I've practiced a little bit. So All right now

01:03:34

I promised we dig a little bit into translation and importance of a word so When I encourage you to study your

01:03:42

Bible There's so much to be learned, you know when I was growing up in Church, we went to church every

01:03:49

Sunday morning every Sunday night. We live too far to go on Wednesday night But if there's revival we went okay by time.

01:03:55

I was my early 20s. I knew it all Or I thought I did And what I've learned is I've gotten older and I've studied the

01:04:01

Bible is how much I don't know and what I would encourage you Is if you've spent your whole life And you know

01:04:07

God's Word back forward and forward there is stuff still for you to learn I encourage you to be a student of the

01:04:12

Bible and one of the examples for me one of the best examples Comes into the translation and the understanding the original languages

01:04:20

So we're obviously reading an English translation if we understand the Hebrew and Greek better I think we get a better picture and I'm going to show you an example from one of my favorite verses for this and it's

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Jeremiah 17 5 & 6 we're gonna read in the King James Thus saith the

01:04:35

Lord Curse be the man that trusteth in man and maketh flesh his arm and whose heart departeth from the

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Lord for he shall be like the Heath what is that in the desert the

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NIV? This is what the Lord says cursed is the one who trusted man who draw strength from mere flesh and whose heart turns away from The Lord that person shall be like a bush in the wastelands

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The ESV thus says the Lord Cursed is the man who trusted the Lord in man and makes flesh his strength whose heart turns away from the

01:05:06

Lord He is like a shrub Have a clue there for myself. So here's what we're going to do

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Dr. Stripling is going to bring this verse to life for you a little bit. Okay, and We're going to focus on that word.

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I bolded in And I believe we may change your understanding a little but I wish you could get it the way

01:05:25

I did the first time The first time I heard this explained I was walking through the G and that Judean desert.

01:05:31

It's like a hundred and ten degrees All right The air -conditioned bus is way back over there and we're walking through an area where the local

01:05:39

Bedouin have killed a goat three days ago You imagine the smell.

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All right that wonderful smell as dr. Stripling says stop get your cameras out and I'm like Dr.

01:05:52

Stripling. Are you sure? here and That's the lesson. That's the lesson

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I got and it was worth it smell and all so let's hear what he's got While waiting for Abraham to use his smartphone while sitting on a donkey to find us some camels

01:06:07

Scott noticed an interesting bush the fruit looked appetizing, but looks are often deceiving

01:06:15

Here we are at a bush that is very important in the Bible, but almost no one knows about it

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Jeremiah 17 5 says cursed is the man who has turned his heart away from God.

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He will be like a Bush tree shrub the English translations don't know what to do with the word same way in other languages, too

01:06:34

The Hebrew word is Arara. A -r -a -r -a. This is an

01:06:39

Arara Now let's think about that for a minute. Cursed is the man who has turned his heart away from God He will be like an

01:06:47

Arara. So What is this like? How does this represent a man who's turned his heart away from God?

01:06:52

Well, think about it. It's beautiful on the outside right, it's got this gorgeous fruit looks like a grapefruit and when we pull one

01:07:05

Feel it Nice and soft. All right. So on the outside everything looks great, right?

01:07:13

Right, and especially think about that our younger culture today. There's such pressure about Cosmetically, you know how you look and I mean,

01:07:20

I'm all for look as good as you can But don't dare trust that as a means of righteousness Now what happens in life is we get squeezed and I want you to watch what happens when we get squeezed

01:07:30

Oh Okay There's nothing on the inside Except a seed and poison that white stuff which is now on my hands, which we're gonna watch off in a couple minutes

01:07:41

Yeah, I'm glad you did this illustration That that that will kill you Now, let's read the text again

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Cursed is the man who has turned his heart away from God. He will be like an

01:07:55

Arara He'll look great on the outside, but when you squeeze him all there is on the inside is hot air and death that'll preach

01:08:03

But that that will work. Yeah, the verse continues and and Jeremiah writes

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But blessed is the man whose heart is turned toward the Lord He will be like a tree planted by a river of living water that brings forth its fruit and season

01:08:18

So you see the juxtaposition the tree of death and the tree of life It's all has to do with the orientation of our heart and I would have walked right past that well that there's like we say

01:08:28

There's a lesson under every stone Let's get this poison off. Yeah, exactly It's one of my favorite simple examples of why studying the language is so important it changes the whole verse

01:08:43

All right, and brings it to life, but I can't think of the one of those and not think of that smell

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And so that's it for me. Now. It looks like I picked the shorter version I've got a little bit of New Testament tonight

01:08:54

So I'm gonna take just a minute To give you a little information on a couple things will be in the longer version for just a second

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Two artifacts over here. I think you should see when you get time this broken jar handle has a

01:09:06

Stamp on it. The stamp has a winged figure like an eagle if you look up lamellic

01:09:12

LMLK that is a lamellic seal on display in the church tonight We have a stamp seal of a king of Judah.

01:09:19

It is the real thing It is King Hezekiah from the Old Testament. It is his official seal and they say the the

01:09:26

English says belonging or the English translation will be belonging to the king and this is the period right before the

01:09:31

Assyrian conquest The other one is a broken idol Maybe if you grew up in church like me and the preacher was talking about an idol

01:09:40

I always imagine this big metal or wood thing up on top of the hill And all through the prophets period of the

01:09:48

Old Testament the prophets Jeremiah Isaiah they continue to say put away your idols and Archaeologically, we find something interesting if you look at this figure

01:10:00

She's missing a head and you notice I said she because if you look close, she's clearly female.

01:10:05

Okay, and She's missing her head Most of them she would have a head and it comes down to called

01:10:11

Judean pillar figurines over a thousand of these have been found in archaeological excavations, they are probably assurance fertility idols

01:10:20

Guess where we tend to find them archaeologically Generally from homes we identify as Israelite they're going to the house of God and worshiping

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God and they're going home and Hedging their bets with fertility idols and that's what the prophets are talking about put away your idols

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You know, they're trying to have it both ways and if you don't know much about God, you don't get it both ways all right, and So here's the thing about our particular idol.

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I'd like to think whoever had that got the message look at her neck It ain't jagged.

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It ain't rough. It's smooth. How do you put away your idol? You cut its head off.

01:11:06

I think maybe I'd like to think this one somebody did the right thing now with that said Let's dive into the

01:11:13

New Testament This is a rendering of this previous site. ABR excavated curb at Elma Carter.

01:11:19

This is the first century village You've heard me talk about the 14th century fort tonight, but this is what the first century village looked like We'll talk about that in just a second.

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This guy's a guy named Herod the Great. I don't remember I remember I don't remember why I put him in there.

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It's been a while since another presentation But oh, I remember why I don't have the the sherds with me.

01:11:41

We'll skip him. All right, but Here's what I want to talk about So let's skip to the

01:11:48

Last Supper. Jesus has his Last Supper with his disciples in a Cataluma, which is a guest room in Jerusalem a little

01:11:55

Christmas story for you baby, Jesus Is born in a place because there is no room in the in the

01:12:04

English we say in in the Greek It's that word

01:12:10

Cataluma Now I'm gonna puzzle you Luke uses the exact same word for the

01:12:16

Last Supper. He describes those two things He's Jesus's Last Supper in a hotel motel or in Huh?

01:12:23

It's clearly somebody's upstairs guest room. So in the Christmas story When it says there was no room for them in the

01:12:32

Cataluma It might be quite what we're thinking, but that's a different story.

01:12:37

All right in this one Jesus is having his Last Supper in a Cataluma a guest room in Jerusalem And it says and he took the cup and gave thanks and gave it to them saying drink ye all of it

01:12:48

This is my blood the New Testament which is shed for many for the remission of sins Well, my hero is the guy named

01:12:53

Indiana Jones if you haven't guessed that I think I told you earlier and in his third movie He went looking for the

01:12:58

Holy Grail now when I used to do these presentations I'd have a lot of fun and I never told him in advance and the pastor is off the hook tonight

01:13:06

And he had no idea because you see I would usually have a display of four grails up here three replicas in one reel

01:13:15

Now if he's seen the movie, he might he might be tempted to pick the one from the movie All right, so I'd always call the pastor up and say pastor, which is it?

01:13:26

Could do the cool line he picked foolishly or he picked wisely well Pastor already knows what the cup is

01:13:33

And so we're not going to have that fun tonight. But the point is We have a good idea what style of cup

01:13:40

Jesus passed the Last Supper see in the first century Jewish people were becoming obsessed with ritual purity

01:13:48

We see this off of the New Testament. The disciples are breaking the rules. They're breaking the purity rules and We find it in all kinds of ways in the material culture

01:13:56

They don't want to be they are the way I would describe it is they're becoming Super or extra religious.

01:14:03

Why would that be? Well Tommy's theory is they're expecting someone Okay guy named

01:14:09

Messiah. All right, and they're getting on board. So like even the rules about art

01:14:15

If you know the archaeology a couple centuries before on their pottery the oil lamps, they didn't care to fudge the rules a little but we get to this time period it's all by the book and There's some verses in the

01:14:30

Old Testament that talks about how things can become impure and when your pottery becomes impure You must break it says the

01:14:36

Lord when the last time y 'all took your kitchen Dishes out and broke them because they were impure and got rid of them got new stuff

01:14:43

It's an Old Testament, right? It does to all the stuff that can become impure guess what's never listed as something that can become impure stone

01:14:53

So, how does the human mind work stones not on the bad list? So if we make our stuff of stone, it can never go bad

01:15:01

Okay, so on display we have a first century stone mug

01:15:09

These stone vessels were used for about 100 years in a window. You would possibly know as the

01:15:15

New Testament Okay, and if you are an archaeologist and you find these stone vessels on your

01:15:22

Site and you don't know what the site is. It's a really big clue your sites Jewish Because it was

01:15:28

Jewish people that used them and only for a short window in history It's also a clue that it's a first century site.

01:15:35

Okay now The cup here is from our site at curb at Elmacotter We believe the first century village at curb at Elmacotter is a place called

01:15:45

Ephraim in John chapter 11 Jesus and his disciples visit Ephraim And so that's an interesting connection to our artifact here today, there's a picture of it, but here's the simple thing

01:15:58

If you're the Jewish host of that home and it's an important meal a ritual meal

01:16:04

It's a holiday. We would call it's Passover Would you let that important rabbi and his followers have their

01:16:11

Passover meal with utensils? It could have become impure The answer is no They almost certainly would have used stoneware

01:16:20

So the very cup Jesus passed at the Last Supper we suspect is one of these

01:16:25

Okay, so it's over here in the display and This one is from the site that we think is

01:16:32

Ephraim if we're right Then we're talking about a site Jesus of Nazareth himself visited. It is one of my favorite artifacts on display

01:16:40

If you want to hold one, there's a broken bottom of one over in the touch display And it literally to me is a connection to the time of Jesus All right.

01:16:49

Now in this case right here is a coin. You don't want to miss It's called the shekel of tear tire

01:16:57

And if you lived in the first century, you could only pay your temple tax with those remember those money changers

01:17:03

Jesus got so upset at see You had to bring your money and exchange it with them

01:17:09

And you was for a foreign currency from the city Phoenician city of tire or tear I never know which way to say it

01:17:16

And on the face of those coins if you can look here, somebody already asked me tonight. Oh, is that Caesar Tommy?

01:17:23

Ladies gentlemen, that is not Caesar on the face of the coin. It's a pagan deity named milk art later on You might call him

01:17:30

Hercules. Okay This ain't Disney's Hercules So what does that mean at the temple of the one true

01:17:38

God in Jerusalem? You can only pay your temple tax with the coin with an idols image right on the front

01:17:43

And we go back to Jesus and the money changers in my mind I might add a little more element about what he's upset about I wonder you know literally using idols images in paying your temple tax because The Jewish leadership passed a special rule the time said that's the only coin will take what was that?

01:18:01

You see your adjunct average Roman denarius Had about 80 % pure silver the

01:18:07

Phoenician one a lower estimates 92. All right. It's a money racket

01:18:14

Ladies and gentlemen, if that coin is the silver coin that the temple treasury is full of When a guy named

01:18:20

Judas comes Yeah, I'll betray him and they give him 30 pieces of silver.

01:18:26

See when I was a kid I literally thought 30 little pieces of silver It's a slang term. It's like I'm telling you

01:18:31

I will give you 30 bucks You don't expect me to show up at your house with 30 deer you expect $30.

01:18:37

It's a slang term That means 30 silver shekels Historians all agree. It is that style of coin

01:18:43

Judas is given There's one on display right here on the top of the coin case and that one's a little extra special Those coins are like the coins today.

01:18:51

They're dateable that coin dates to the year 30 AD That's kind of cool because if you know the if you know the information

01:19:00

That is either the year Jesus is crucified or the year begins in ministry I think it's year begins in ministry

01:19:07

I think it's crucified in 33 other experts would disagree with me and say 30 The point is that is ministry of Jesus lifetime.

01:19:15

We are literally looking at artifacts That's the type of thing Judas was given. So, please check the coin out And if somebody reminds me it's kind of hard to see in there

01:19:23

I'll take the lid off and get it out when people come up and you can I'll hold it and you can look at it if You want to see it. All right.

01:19:28

So with that said there's lots of other stuff here to see I've Actually not got one of the things up there that I've got but there's a lot the large storage jar

01:19:40

Is mid first century according to dr. Stripling. So it's ball. It's New Testament time to two decades life of Jesus Our paperwork tells us it comes from a place called

01:19:50

Bethany That's pretty cool. All right And there's several other things to see here's what you need to know about the display

01:19:59

I don't take any of this down to you all are done looking. You know, you ain't just here for me to talk I hope I want you to enjoy looking at the artifacts and ask questions