G1 Conference Session 2: Dr. Carl Morgan "Top 10 Archeological Evidences that Confirm the Bible"

Genesis Apologetics

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I am Carl Morgan, one of the pastors at Woodland United Fellowship in Woodland, California, and also the director and curator of the

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Woodland Museum of Biblical Archaeology. I'm also a biblical archaeologist and have participated in three different archaeological digs in Israel and Jordan, and my task in this presentation is to share with you ten archaeological discoveries that I consider to be very important in demonstrating the

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Bible to be absolutely true and reliable. I could show you at least a hundred more, but we'll focus on a few of my favorites.

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The first one is called the Dead Sea Scrolls. Now you may know more about these than I do because these are well known and they were found in the caves at the

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Dead Sea above the Essene community at Qumran in 1948, when some boys threw some rocks in one of the caves and heard the sound of pottery breaking, and they investigated and found ceramic jars that contained writings from as early as the second century

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B .C. Ultimately, the caves in the area produced a hundred thousand fragments from 1 ,100 different scrolls and 11 different caves.

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Now these scrolls, called the Dead Sea Scrolls, tell us much about Jewish life before 70

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A .D. and other commentary on the many Jewish writings.

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Around 230 of the scrolls are from the Old Testament, and these scrolls contain portions of every book in the

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Bible, well the Old Testament, except the book of Esther, including a complete book of Isaiah.

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Until the discovery of these scrolls, the oldest version of the Old Testament text was the Aleppo Codex, and that was in 935

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A .D. that it was composed, and that's over a thousand years after the originals were first written.

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So a major criticism of the Old Testament is that the scribes through the years had made mistakes when copying and recopying, and the

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Bible is not reliable, and it can't be trusted. Amazingly, that argument was shattered because the scripture that we have and use today is almost identical to that copied in the second century

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B .C., only a generation away from the original manuscripts. So we can have great confidence in the accuracy of our translations today.

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The second one that we're looking at, the discovery, is called the

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Merneptah Stele, and this is Pharaoh Merneptah. He's an

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Egyptian pharaoh, about 1213 to 1203 B .C., and he looks pretty good to being that old,

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I think. And he created a large stone victory stele that brags about his victories over his enemies.

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And this engraved slab, it's of granite, and it's more than 10 feet tall, and was found in 1896 in western

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Thebes in Egypt by archaeologist Flanders Petrie, and it was written in hieroglyphics.

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It contains the oldest certain reference to Israel outside of the Bible, and it's referred to as the

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Merneptah Stele. It was carved in around 1210 B .C., and is currently located in the

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Egyptian museum in Cairo. Israel is listed here on this stele down at the bottom, and it's right along with Libya and the

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Hittites, Ashkelon, Gezer, Syria, as the enemies of Egypt.

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Now, why is this important? There are many archaeologists and biblical scholars who believe that the conquest of Canaan did not take place, and that Israel did not escape from Egypt as the

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Bible says. They believe that Israel emerged out of the Canaanite peoples at a much later time, and the biblical history of Israel is incorrect.

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Now, this early evidence, it lets us know that Israel was a powerful enemy of Egypt, powerful, as early as 1208 to 1210

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B .C. Now, there's no reason to doubt, then, that the Bible is accurate concerning the history of Israel as it presents it.

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Also, Israel did not emerge out of the Canaanites and come to power much later in the

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Iron Age after King David, although these scholars would not believe there was a King David either.

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They were already a powerful nation at this point, separate from the Canaanite peoples.

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Now, the next one is one of my favorites.

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It's called the House of David Stone, and this stone was found at Tel Dan, and it's in northern

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Israel by Avraham Biran in 1993. It is a basalt stone, secondary use.

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It was found in a wall, though originally it was a monument, and it was written in Aramaic, probably by Syrian King Hazael, about the victory over Jehoram of Israel and Ahaziah of Judah of the 9th century

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B .C. Now, it reads on it, Beit David, or Dynasty or House of David.

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Now, why is this important at all? It's really important because it affirms that David and his dynasty existed.

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Now, while I was in college, there was a trend in religion departments to question whether David even existed at all, and I had professors like that, because he was only found listed in the

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Bible, his history was only in the Bible, and the Bible was not good enough historically. It was not credible evidence, and he was a myth to many in their minds.

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So now we have this name and dynasty mentioned by a papal pagan king written in stone just over 100 years after he lived, and now there's a

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David in their minds, everybody's minds, and that's not questioned by anyone of any real authority or credibility.

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So that's a very important archaeological discovery. The next is what we would call

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Hezekiah's Tunnel, and Hezekiah's Tunnel is a fun site to go to.

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If you ever go to Israel, you can walk through it, and it's about 1 ,750 feet long, but here's what it looks like when you get inside the tunnel, and the water is cold year -round.

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This discovery is related actually to 2 Kings chapter 20, verse 20, and 2 Chronicles 32 .30,

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where King Hezekiah is said to have stopped up the Gihon Spring in Jerusalem and channeled the water westward inside the city.

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Now this tunnel was discovered in 1838 by Edward Robinson, and it's 1 ,750 feet from the

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Gihon Spring to the Siloam Pool, and today you can walk through it as I said earlier.

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Now there is an inscription that was written in Hebrew, and it was found in 1880 by boys swimming in a pool that the tunnel empties into, and it's from the end of the 8th century

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B .C., and describes how the tunnel was dug, how the workers were going from two ends, and they met, and their pickaxes hit, and water flowed through.

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And that inscription was chiseled off by vandals in 1890, and today is in the

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Istanbul Museum, and there's the Siloam inscription that you can see today if you ever go to Istanbul.

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Now this proves that the Bible is accurate, even in details such as Hezekiah's preparation for battle along with the

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Assyrians in the 2 Chronicles 32 .30 passage. Now closely related to this is what is called the

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Siloam Pool, and it's mentioned in John chapter 9, verse 11, as a location where Jesus sent the blind man to wash the mud from his eyes so that he could be made to see.

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Traditionally this pool was identified as the small pool that Hezekiah's tunnel emptied into, but this has turned out to be a

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Byzantine pool from the 8300s, which is problematic to try to put it in the time of Christ, it doesn't fit.

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Well in June 2004, during construction work to repair a large water pipe near this older pool, or this other pool, steps were found that revealed a much larger pool.

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And archaeologists Ronnie Reich and Eli Shacron identified two stone steps, and after excavation revealed a monumental pool.

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It's 160 feet wide and 220 feet long. So pottery and coins found indicate that this pool was used in the first century during the time of Jesus Christ.

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Now the pool has yet to be completely uncovered, but the discovery does solve one major problem that many have looked at through the years.

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On the day of Pentecost 3 ,000 were saved and baptized. Well where were they baptized? We know that there were small pools or mikvahs around the temple area, but this pool would have been an ample supply of water for these baptisms.

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We also know from other Jewish writings that every morning during the Feast of Tabernacles, a priest would take a golden vessel to the pool, fill it with water, bring it to the temple altar in this great processional.

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And there was a road that is recorded in other writings that led to the temple from the

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Siloam pool. And that leads us to the next, and that's the Siloam stairway, or the

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Pilgrim's Road, that was discovered not long after the excavation of the

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Siloam pool. This step stairway runs from the Siloam pool to the western wall of the temple mount.

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Now this is important. It's made of limestone. The stairway runs uphill and is allowed at least 26 feet wide and covers a third of a mile in length, and it lies beneath the surface of modern

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Jerusalem, meaning unlike most archaeological digs, which begin from the ground and go down, this excavation is done subterraneously, tunneling beneath the hustle and bustle of modern

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Jerusalem above. So there are reasons why this archaeological discovery is so very, very important.

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Many today are advocating that the Jewish temple in the time of Christ was not located at the present -day temple mount within these massive retaining walls built by Herod the

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Great. They say it's in the lower city of David, but this discovery is very special because it makes it easy to locate where the temple actually stood.

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You follow the Pilgrim's Road and it leads you to the temple, and guess what?

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It leads to the southwestern corner of the temple mount, so we know where the temple was.

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And now if you plan to visit Jerusalem in the next year when tourism opens up again, the road should be open for you to walk on the same steps that millions of pilgrims and worshippers, including

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Jesus Christ, would have walked on as they made their ascent to the temple. Now there's another one that's called the

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Caiaphas Ossuary. This is number seven. An ossuary is a bone box, and in December of 1990, a 2 ,000 -year -old burial cave was accidentally opened in Jerusalem during construction, and inside were four of these ossuaries, or bone boxes, with the remains still in them.

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One of the limestone boxes was exceptionally decorated, as you can see as you look upon this one.

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Inside the box was found, among five other skeletal remains of individuals, the bones of a 60 -year -old man.

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Now on the outside of the box was a crude inscription in Aramaic that listed his name.

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His name was Joseph Caiaphas. Now the first -century historian

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Josephus identifies the high priest at the time of Jesus as Joseph Caiaphas.

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Most scholars agree that this is the high priest at the trial of Jesus. Now the bones of this man who presided over the

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Jewish portion of the trial of Jesus and then sent him on to Pilate are actually the first remains of someone mentioned in the

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Bible to ever be found. This discovery gives authenticity to the details, some of the minute details of the arrest and trial of Jesus, which many think never did take place.

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That leads to another archaeological discovery, also found in an ossuary.

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It's the crucified man. In 1968, during construction again in Jerusalem, a lot of archaeological discoveries are made and found.

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It's through construction sites. They unearth something and then the archaeologists have to go in and finish it up and take care of it.

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Well anyhow, this unearthed a Jewish tomb and we know the man's name. And his name was

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John, son of Hedcole. And his death took place during the first century AD. Now there was also the bones in the same ossuary of a four or five -year -old male whose name was also

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John. So probably John and little John are in the same box.

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A nail had pierced his right heel bone. An early examination even determined that his wrist had also been nailed.

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Now this was disputed by a later examination. I go with the first one.

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It also appeared that his legs had been broken. So the value of this find is that it is the only physical evidence that has ever been found that a person was even crucified during the time of Jesus Christ.

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So it also shows how a person was crucified during the time of Christ. And it proves that the biblical account of Jesus' crucifixion was accurate in every way.

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Number nine, Kibbutz El -Makaddar or Biblical Eye. The site for Biblical Eye has been the subject of much debate during the last 50 years.

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Eye is the city that was destroyed by Joshua by fire after the Israelites destroyed

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Jericho as they entered into the Promised Land. Tradition has placed this city at a site called

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Et -Tel. And in the 1970s, a professor, Joe Calloway of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville had dug there and found no indication that the city was even occupied during the time of Joshua.

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Whether you use a 15th century BC date or a 13th century BC date, nobody lived there.

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So no one lived there at the time. And his conclusion was that there was no destruction by eye by the

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Israelites and therefore there was no Joshua. And that puts into question the whole

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Israelite events that took place. So it's a slippery slope if you go into that direction.

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Well in 1995, Associates for Biblical Research, Bryant Wood, they began and he began excavating another site nearby.

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It's about a mile east called Kibbutz El -Makaddar. And it proved that Calloway had been digging in the wrong site.

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This seal is an Egyptian seal and it's of a scarab seal that was found on site that dated the site to the time of Joshua in the 15th century

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BC, which works nicely with a 1446 BC Exodus date and also a 1406 conquest date.

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So we know that this site, that city gate, has been found and that was needed according to the story in the

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Bible. The city was burned with fire. Excavation has proven that Kibbutz El -Makaddar was inhabited at the time of Joshua and that the conquest actually took place.

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And every detail, just as the Bible describes, it's a long way from saying none of it happened.

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Finally, and my favorite, I have a little connection here, and that is Tal El -Hammam and that is

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Biblical Sodom. Biblical Sodom, this Tal is in Jordan, right northeast of the

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Dead Sea, and it's a large mound, and in Jordan they call them Tals, in Israel they're

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Tels, in Jordan they're Tals, in Jordan at the northeast end of the Dead Sea. It's a site that is believed to be

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Sodom of the Bible and has been excavated for 15 seasons under the direction of Dr.

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Stephen Collins of Albuquerque, New Mexico at Trinity Southwest University. Now I have helped with 13 of these excavation seasons and plan to return again in February of 2022.

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If anyone wants to go along, get in touch with me, you can go dig as well. The site is large, it's 67 acres, and has produced everything necessary for it to be classified as Biblical Sodom as found in Genesis 13 through 19, in every detail.

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Now for many, the story of Sodom and Gomorrah is just that, it's a story, it's myth.

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Well this site has proven that to be totally incorrect. Now what do you need?

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First of all, you need the right location, and the location we have is at the northeast end.

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If you look at this detail, Babi Dra and Numera are the traditional sites of Sodom, and they're down at the southern end of the

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Dead Sea. They don't fit, and the reason is why that doesn't fit. Abraham and Lot were at Bethel and I, or Bethel, and they looked eastward to the

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Kakar, or the circular plain of the Jordan, that depression there, and you cannot see the southern portion of the

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Dead Sea from the location they were at, but you get a perfectly good angle of the Kakar, and that's where we find our site.

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It's the largest, and it sticks out very plainly. The other thing you need is the right time, which would be classified as the

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Middle Bronze Period, that would be the 18th and 19th century BC, during the time of Abraham.

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And this is a square that I dug in the second season, and it's in 2006 actually, and as you see it, the lower portion is from the

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Middle Bronze II period, and that would be the time of Abraham. We found there a full meter of ash, and we had to go down about 15 feet through what's called

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Iron Age segments of more recent occupations until we reached this, but we did find everything needed there to place it in the right time frame.

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We know that we had to have a walled city, and that was necessary.

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We had to have a gate complex because Lot sat in the complex, the gate plaza, when the angels came to destroy the city.

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Well, this is the gate complex that was actually found, and you can see it a lot clearer here.

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As we see, it's highlighted, you have towers, you have a gate complex, it's a very large area, very unique.

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So we do have the towers and the gate plaza. Archaeologist, architectural archaeologist

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Lane Rittmeier did a reconstruction drawing of the lower city entrance, and this is how Sodom would have looked during the time of Abraham.

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Now, what about the evidence? What happened? I think we figured that out completely, actually, and after this summer we will know even more as we have doing, if we can't dig this season, but we're doing a lot of archaeological analysis of the ash layer, of the soils, of the other objects that have been found, bones, things like that.

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So this is a hard fired mud brick, and it was, it's like stone.

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You can fire mud brick, not usually for walls, but in this case this is like stone, and it got extremely hot.

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Another thing that got hot was roofing material. I have pieces of this, and this is where it's just mud that you would put on your roof, and it's called wattle and daub.

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You can see the imprint of the reeds in this. This is hard as a rock, and it got fired extremely hard, and then you have pottery that is glazed and also bubbled.

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The middle bronze pottery shirt from the time of Abraham is on the left. On the right is trinitite.

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Trinitite is the melted and fused silica material found at the site of the first nuclear bomb testing site in New Mexico, and scientific testing that we've had done, several universities, has shown it took at least 10 ,000 degrees

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Fahrenheit to accomplish this. So the area of the present work is at a palace area on the top, and this is the upper tall, and this is the palace of King Bara that's mentioned in the

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Bible, and hopefully this will be where we will find cuneiform writings that will give us even more detail about this wonderful site.

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So what have we learned? A lot. We know that the destruction is at the right time, just as the

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Bible said. We know that the destruction is at the right place, just where the Bible says it is.

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We know that how it happened. It was a meteorite airburst that God used, and it lasted just a few seconds, and he wiped out this city with up to 10 ,000 degrees, and I anticipate we find it even be hotter than that with extreme winds.

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All the foundations are shifted to the northeast because it came from the southwest. There's an ash layer of at least a meter.

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The destruction temperature, again, 10 ,000 degrees Fahrenheit, and Dead Sea mineral content of 8 % is in the soil, and that indicates that a tsunami impact came when it came from the

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Dead Sea area and brought with it mineral salts from the Dead Sea and hit our site. So that may even explain

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Lot's wife, who turned to a pillar of salt. There may have been many pillars of salt that day as these 10 ,000 degree mineral deposits hit that site.

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So what I'm getting at is that this occurred exactly as the Bible indicates. Now, I hope that this short presentation has encouraged you to do more study on your own concerning the relationship of archaeology and the

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Bible. You're invited to visit our Woodland Museum to learn more. Give us a call or email us to make a reservation for you.

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We're open at this point. The website is www .woodlandmba .org,

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and you can receive all the information you want there. Remember that no matter what the skeptics say or what you hear or what you see on these crazy archaeological

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TV shows, remember biblical archaeology, true biblical archaeology, never, never has succeeded in refuting the