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Origin of Black Mankind Affirmed
The Black man's heritage and history did not begin with slavery. It began in the Garden of Eden nearly 8,000 years ago.
Could low self-esteem in the Black community be due to a lack of historical identity and heritage? Any race of people must know their history and heritage in order to successfully grasp and fulfill their destiny. This heritage and history has been recorded in the Old Testament Hebrew text since the time God inspired Moses, Isaiah, and other prophets to write the OT books.
Who is the Black man? What is his origin? Did God create them black? What is the origin of the Whites, Arabs, and Jews? These are questions that have pledged the minds of men for centuries. The answers are found in the Hebrew Text of the Old Testament. Our Bibles were translated into English from this text.
A scholar, from the state of Indiana, by the name of C. McGhee Livers has authored a book entitled Biblical History of Black Mankind. C. McGhee Livers has studied Greek and Hebrew for a number of years.
She taught these Bible languages at two colleges in Indianapolis, Indiana as well as a Black History class. It was during the teaching of the history class that she realized how hungry Black people and others are for truth concerning the heritage and history of Black Mankind. Knowing that the Black man's heritage and earliest history could only be found in the Bible; the author began to translate selected scriptures of the Hebrew text into the English language. She gave special attention to the detail of Hebrew syntax and the verbs used in each scripture. As she translated; she began to write the book.
In this book the author affirms the Black man's identity and collective destiny. Black mankind is first identified at the start of the creation of man. According to Genesis 2:7, Adam was made from the dust of the ground. The word "dust" was translated from the Hebrew word aphar, which means "dust, clay, mould." The author points out that using the word "dust" alone is an incomplete translation. It only indicates that Adam was made from the surface soil. The word aphar also identifies the type of soil as "clay soil " As we know, clay soil can be formed into a shape, whereas a sandy soil cannot. Here you can see the importance of detail in translating. Finally, the word aphar also means, "mould. " Mould is soil that is rich in humus. Soil that is rich in humus is always black or very dark brown in color.
Therefore a Revised and Detailed Translation (RDT) of Genesis 2:7 would be; "Yahweh, in His plural measure formed and fitted Adam of black clay soil from the region and blew fire into his nostrils, the breath of the briskly alert and vigorous, and Adam existed as a living perfume."
The author expounds upon each word in the above scripture, making it profoundly clear to the readers. Each chapter of Biblical History of Black Mankind begins with a scripture verse, which the author translates and expounds upon step by step. It is through this type of careful scrutiny in translating, that the Black man's origin and destiny is revealed.
This scripture alone identifies the ethnicity of Adam as a Black man. Made from the black clay soil of the region. Affirming that out of Black Mankind (Adam), came every race on the face of the earth.
Not only is the origin of Black Mankind revealed in this book, but the origin of the white man, Arabs, and Jews are revealed.
The author believes that this information has been kept in obscurity over the centuries to be revealed through the Word of God at His appointed time. She (author) refers to this appointed time as "for such a time as this."
In this book the author affirms the Black man's identity and collective destiny. Black mankind is first identified at the start of the creation of man. According to Genesis 2:7, Adam was made from the dust of the ground. The word "dust" was translated from the Hebrew word aphar, which means "dust, clay, mould." The author points out that using the word "dust" alone is an incomplete translation. It only indicates that Adam was made from the surface soil. The word aphar also identifies the type of soil as "clay soil " As we know, clay soil can be formed into a shape, whereas a sandy soil cannot. Here you can see the importance of detail in translating. Finally, the word aphar also means, "mould. " Mould is soil that is rich in humus. Soil that is rich in humus is always black or very dark brown in color.
Very intelligent design!
Humus?
8,000 year old dirt!
That explains our fertility rate!
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"Men are disturbed not by events, but by the views which they take of them."
If by nonsense you mean the creation story (don't know what all this report means, only read the KJV one), well count me in as one of the 'bout 2 billion nonsense believers! Don't know or care what colour dirt... Though as per Ms. Jamaica contests ours seemed to have had a litte more bauxite!
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Well said Princess!Thanks for that posting Noel2000, it took courage for both of you to post on this topic as the world wants to be politically correct and please everyone.The cynics are out. You have not denied your faith as christians to sound "intellegent" or impose hubris. Its a pity many people are only lip service and would dare not touch this topic with a 10ft. pole.
The day will come when it will cost you to say what you have expressed above. As you see, you were about to be ridiculed and many would pass this post and read and not say a word. Remember the "Good Samaritan" story. Here it is once again in a similar way. Jesus Christ to the WORL!!!!!!!!
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Give me half a chance and I'll make it one
Well if you believe that you evolved from a monkey then you can continue to make a monkey of yourself.
It seems you are having a dig at a scientifically proven and incontrovertible FACT i.e. EVOLUTION.
But if you are going to do so then please actually get what evolution actually says.
It does not say I, or anyone else for that matter, evolved from a monkey.
As for belief, I don't believe I (or all humans) evolved. I KNOW we did.
But seeing as you like to call people monkeys.
Here's some facts for you, you small minded fool.
Mankind's origin is in Africa NOT the Garden of Eden. East Africa to be more specific.
Mankind i.e. Homo Sapiens have been around for approx. 200,000 years.
You say Adam was created 8,000 years ago.
Well only a real retarded monkey could post that as a truth when a sensible well educated student could easily point out that humans started leaving Africa a full 70,000 years ago.
We had reached Australia by 40,000 years ago and our last continent reached , the Americas, was done so about 14,500 years ago.
So mankind had colonised all the commonly habitated continents a full 6,000 years before God created Adam from dirt!!
So monkey are you still believing your Anansi story.
Man was cultivating the Fertile Crecent and domesticating dogs about 4,000 years before this idiot is claiming God made mankind!!
Now here they are teaching nonsense to black people in order to make them feel better about themselves.
As to the last poster Grinds, it does not take courage to post something like that.
It does, however, take full on full blown ignorance to do so.
As for paying lip service and not touching it with a 10ft pole, well I'm right here saying what was posted is a bunch of nonsense.
He ridiculed himself the moment he pressed "submit"
When i read the article i was left very disappointed at the end. i thought i would av seen some scientific findings or observation. Instead i am reading about the greek word for dust means black dirk and as such adam was black.
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FORMER President - F.A.A.B.A.C.B(Fans Association Against the Baseless Attack on Captain Burrel)
Noel dont worry about chez, he's just mad because you dont believe in his Anansi story and stick to yours mate. He seems to forget that saying something is fact does not make it fact. But you have to realize you set yourself up for attack by posting such an article. it still irks the soul of the black man to feel left out and trodden upon; however we dont need a story of black dirt to feel better about our existance. For from stones the creator can create sons of Abraham so black dirt is not needed in the first place. the example and poetry in the creation story is often misinterpreted especially by the scoffer and then some of us well meaning believers take it upon ourselves to try to explain this work of art setting up ourselves for an attack. For we know this one truth "the fool says in his heart there is no God "but out of love we seek to bring him undestanding. The believer must always remember that the words of God is like foolishness to them that perish so never work to hard on trying to convince men. They sins of their hearts blinds them to these simple truths and only the judgment will bring them to the recognition of these simple truths.
Edited by youngballa (09/08/0909:05 PM)
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Me name MIDDLEAGEBALLA NOW, man dem nuh stop call man likkle youth pon di forum iyah.
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Originally Posted By: Noel2000
Origin of Black Mankind Affirmed
The Black man's heritage and history did not begin with slavery. It began in the Garden of Eden nearly 8,000 years ago.
Hmmmm.....8,000 years...not the 6,000 plus it actually calculates out to be from the bible? Sad sad story I say, we are still trying to identify with a judeo-christian construct which ironically was borrowed from our rich past and then twisted to serve a specific purpose. Kind of funny if it wasn't so serious.
Exactly, it would be funny. However, these people are able to infect our education systems from top to bottom and teach this nonsense to people's children.
Thus, our children develop a vacuum where logic, reason and common sense should reside.
Case in point, check out this idiotic reply:
Quote:
Noel dont worry about chez, he's just mad because you dont believe in his Anansi story and stick to yours mate. He seems to forget that saying something is fact does not make it fact.
I don't require anybody to "believe" anything I say or wrote. this is bceause I am not aiming to sell them anything that requires them to make huge leaps of faith counter to any reason or logic. I prefer to have "knowledge of" rather than the frankly useless "faith in".
Stating something as a fact does not make it a fact. Wow! Check out the brains on youngballa!
However, it is a step up from stating a silly Anansi story about black people coming from dirt and stating that as fact.
Either way, all that is irrelevant because EVOLUTION IS A FACT.
It has been proven a countless number of times and there is a copious amount of evidence that proves it.
You, I and every human (or living entity for that matter) that has lived and who will ever live carry around evidence for our ancestral origins by evolution everyday.
Evidence of it exists in our DNA and is there for anyone to see.
The only people who react negatively to this, in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence that all species (or to be more precise the reason you have species) is due to the process of evolution via the agents of natural and sexual selection, tend to be the indoctrinated and religious people who on the other hand tend to "believe" stuff that is physically impossible and just plain dumb.
Seeing as you guys don't believe that evolution is the agent that gives us all the approx. 1.25 million species of animals, then they must have all been on Noah's Ark then.
Chez stop tell lie pon mi my youth, lol what facts are there to counter mate ? and where have i attacked you , and who told you i was a christian ? you have given I no facts to counter, you are just stating your beliefs to be facts when in fact it is still an evolving theory, still requires faith . in this its all choice mate, some of us choose to believe in a an all powerful force that shaped the existance of all things, while others believe that chance which has no intelligence shaped all this. still faith if you asked me, none can provide me with plausible evidence that requires no form of faith .
you call the christians indoctrinated my friends on the other hand i say it is us who are being indoctrinated, Christians last time i recall have a choice in their beliefs but I dont have one, I'm still in school got 1 1/2 yrs left and from day one is just one side of the possibilities i've been fed . If that aint indoctrination i dont know what is.
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Originally Posted By: ddread
Hehe
Looks like Noel2000 pushing the same agenda as the first Noel.
Easy pon dem Chez, for they know not what they push.
Ras, pon di case still sharp, still biting.
Hehehe
Black dirt mek black man ! a mussi Negril di garden of eden deh!
Howbeit we speak wisdom among them that are perfect: yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the princes of this world, that come to nought: but we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory: which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
I really dont have to beat down any one verbaly because we differ on things, we should argue in the best of manner. First of all the black man has no birth record, our history is written in the stars. We are direct decendants of the most high God. That is why Bob wrote in his song that god is a living man. The word Pre-Adamite was removed from the Bible. There were people before Adam of 6,000 years ago. The adam of 6,000 years ago is talking about the caucasian race their history does not go beyond 6,000 years. In masonry they talk about when you were walking across the desert, hot burning sand were you walking or riding, the silly negro will answer i was walking, no fool you were the one riding, because you put him out of the garden. They turned the Holy land upside down, so we rounded them up our people hid some of them. they were striped of every thing except the language marched for over 2,000 miles. There they lived in the caves and hillsides of EU-ROPE,THEY were bound to the caves and hillside for 2,000 years, thats why they are reffered to as cacucasian, cacuuc the cacus mountains, asian because asia is the name of this planet. And we raised Moses up to go and teach them of civilization again. If you look where the gardn of eden is in the bible youl see that adam was put out in to Eu-rope.
Also black is not a colour, but is the essence from wich all colour comes from, so we are not coloured the cacuasian is coloured.The austrian genetic scientist wrote that you can get the recessive gene from the dominant gene, you cant get the dominant from the recessive. We are the mother and father of every race of people on this earth.
"Gibberish is immensely cathartic and a relaxing way of venting out tensions, or releasing bottled up emotions without hurting anybody, because people will not understand what you are trying to say. It is actually speaking in the language you don't know. It is a wonderful potion for the modern mind, which is trained to think logically, rationalise every act, or accumulate thoughts like a heap of garbage. Yes, garbage it sure is. The modern man is bombarded with much information from the electronic gadgets and media. This unprocessed information creates stress and he feels bogged down by it. This leads to many illnesses like migraine, headache, and other psychosomatic diseases. The cultured cultivated mind needs ventilation so that it can remain sane. Gibberish fulfils this need.
I wish more and more people use gibberish as a means of communication. It will decrease our dependence on words and fill our lives with joy."
Edited by rasputin (09/09/0909:13 AM)
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Originally Posted By: Chez
Quote:
Kind of funny if it wasn't so serious
Exactly, it would be funny. However, these people are able to infect our education systems from top to bottom and teach this nonsense to people's children.
Thus, our children develop a vacuum where logic, reason and common sense should reside.
Case in point, check out this idiotic reply:
Quote:
Noel dont worry about chez, he's just mad because you dont believe in his Anansi story and stick to yours mate. He seems to forget that saying something is fact does not make it fact.
I don't require anybody to "believe" anything I say or wrote. this is bceause I am not aiming to sell them anything that requires them to make huge leaps of faith counter to any reason or logic. I prefer to have "knowledge of" rather than the frankly useless "faith in".
Stating something as a fact does not make it a fact. Wow! Check out the brains on youngballa!
However, it is a step up from stating a silly Anansi story about black people coming from dirt and stating that as fact.
Either way, all that is irrelevant because EVOLUTION IS A FACT.
It has been proven a countless number of times and there is a copious amount of evidence that proves it.
You, I and every human (or living entity for that matter) that has lived and who will ever live carry around evidence for our ancestral origins by evolution everyday.
Evidence of it exists in our DNA and is there for anyone to see.
The only people who react negatively to this, in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence that all species (or to be more precise the reason you have species) is due to the process of evolution via the agents of natural and sexual selection, tend to be the indoctrinated and religious people who on the other hand tend to "believe" stuff that is physically impossible and just plain dumb.
Seeing as you guys don't believe that evolution is the agent that gives us all the approx. 1.25 million species of animals, then they must have all been on Noah's Ark then.
Can you say "crowded"?
However, I have noticed something.
Neither Noel or youngballa can counter the facts.
All they can do is revert to ad homimem attacks.
Very Christian of them!
Where are the facts? Chez lets have an intelligent discussion without the name calling. Until modern times both the academic and the average man believed that the historical accounts in the Bible accorded well with what was known of the ancient Near East. Science texts accepted the Noahic Flood as a reasonable explanation for geological formations and secular history books included not only Abraham and Moses but also Adam and Eve as historical figures. The Bible as the foundation for Western culture was regarded both as the Good Book and as good history.
In the nineteenth century the acceptance of evolutionary theory and the application of higher criticism in religion resulted in the Bible being cast as a work of theological fiction. Its history was regarded as legend and its miracles as myths. This radical reassessment of Scripture was argued in part on the absence in the historical record of people in the Older Testament such as the Hittites. And because their linkage in the biblical text with larger-than-life personages like Abraham, David, and Solomon, these figures of faith were likewise rendered suspect. Moses was also said to be a myth because critical scrutiny deemed aspects of his biblical description as unhistorical. One reason for this supposed lack of historical reliability was the biblical statement that Moses had written the Torah (Deuteronomy 31:24). The scholarly consensus was that Moses must have been illiterate since the ancient Egyptians were thought to have delegated the work of writing to scribes. As a result, neither kings nor commoners learned the art. The Newer Testament was also regarded with equal criticism. It was viewed as the product of later ecclesiastical invention, with the Gospel of John offered as a prime example of a second century document of Gentile origin.
This momentum of scriptural skepticism could not be sustained. With the advent of the twentieth century the pendulum swung back toward an affirmation of biblical legitimacy. Even as the nineteenth century came to a close a return to biblical conservatism was forcing its way forward with discoveries such as that of the ancient capital of the Hittite Empire at Boghaz-Köy (Hattusha) along with more than 10,000 clay tablets chronicling its prodigious civilization! No longer were the Hittites a non-existent race nor were there grounds for excising the Patriarchs from plausibility as being equally historical. There also emerged from ancient Egypt a set of cosmetic tablets depicting King Narmer of the first dynasty (3100 B.C.). On one of the tablets the image of the king is revealed holding writing tablets, confirming that this first of Egypt’s dynastic pharaoh’s was literate. And since Moses had been educated in "all the learning of the Egyptians" (Acts 7:22), he must have also been well versed in this scribal skill.
Then at the mid-point of the century came the monumental discovery in caves along the shores of the Dead Sea of biblical and Jewish sectarian manuscripts. Analysis of the sectarian documents from the area of Qumran (dated from 152 B.C. to A.D.68) brought to light numerous parallels with vocabulary and theological viewpoints in the Newer Testament. This comparison argued not only for a first century date of composition for the Newer Testament, but also for its Jewish authorship. As a result the Gospel of John, formerly showcased by scholars as an expression of Gentile syncretism, was re-classified as the most Jewish of the Gospels! Finally, with the establishment of the State of Israel and a new generation of Israeli archaeologists, evidence of the Jewish past in the Holy Land was increasingly being unearthed. Following the lead of such pioneering figures as Yigael Yadin, who boasted that he went into the field "with a spade in one hand and a Bible in the other," Israelis paraded before a watching world the rock witness of their biblical heritage. Accordingly, the twentieth century closed with major newsmagazines touting in cover stories the discoveries of the century as having offered archaeological confirmation of the Bible. Jack Cottrell represented this optimism by stating: "Through the wealth of data uncovered by historical and archaeological research, we are able to measure the Bible’s historical accuracy. In every case where its claims can be thus tested, the Bible proves to be accurate and reliable.
Even as the old century faded and the hopes of a new millennium filled the horizon, the pendulum has began to swing back with a postmodern momentum to again challenge the legitimacy of the Bible. Postmodernism, as a rebellion against western cultural tradition, influenced biblical revisionists to deconstruct the text of the Bible and biblical archaeologists to abandon the interpretations of the material culture made by their predecessors. Ironically, the leaders of this new revolution against traditional interpretation are Israelis; secular Jews who generally have grown up waging an academic war against religious Jews. For them the Bible is a literary tradition produced by an elitist group of religious Jews (usually thought to have written after the Babylonian exile) for propagandistic purposes, not an account of the actual history of the Jewish People.
Therefore, rejecting Yadin’s notion that the Bible could direct archaeological discovery and that archaeological discovery could collaborate the Bible, these proponents of the "new archaeology" have sought to separate the term "biblical" from "archaeology." Prioritizing the archaeological evidence, they disdain any attempt to interpret archaeological discoveries (whether past or present) by the biblical text and dismiss the idea of an early Israel (at least before the ninth century B.C.) as literary fiction. One leader of this group of "new archaeologists," known as biblical "minimalists" because of their belief that the biblical accounts of early Israel lack a basis in history, is Israel Finkelstein, director of Tel-Aviv University’s Institute of Archaeology. He illustrates the minimalist’s position when he says: "There is no archaeological evidence to support some of the Bible’s most popular stories, including the Exodus, the wanderings in Sinai and Joshua’s conquest of Canaan. The ancient Israelites evolved from the local Bronze Age Canaanite civilization; there was no brutal military invasion."
Moreover, he argues that "King David,” who made Jerusalem Israel’s capital and from whose lineage the Messiah is expected to rule over a restored Nation, "has no historical support;" King David as an important leader who united the kingdoms of Judah and Israel "is fantasy"; “there is virtually no archaeological evidence that the united kingdom of David and Solomon ever existed. David’s Jerusalem,” he argues, was "a poor, miserable village," and that there exists no archaeological evidence for Solomon’s Temple.
While archaeology is of great help to our understanding the Bible, the biblical evidence in the text must be given priority over the archaeological evidence from the field. The reason for this is the inherent limitations of archaeology. The primary limitation of archaeology is the extremely fragmentary nature of the archaeological evidence. Only a fraction of what is made or what is written survives. Most of the great Near Eastern archives were destroyed in antiquity through wars, looters, natural disasters or the ravages of time. To this we must add the limitation that less than 2% of sites in Israel have been excavated and hundreds more will never be excavated due to lack of access or resources and destruction through building projects, military maneuvers, and pillaging by Bedouins. Even when this small percentage of sites are excavated, only a fraction of the site is actually examined, and then only a percentage of what is excavated is ever published. Of the 500,000 cuneiform texts that are known to have been discovered over the past 100 years, only 10% have ever been published.
Such limitations in archaeology should caution historians, social scientists, and theologians from drawing unwarranted conclusions concerning the biblical text based on the paucity of archaeological remains. However, once we assess the proper purpose of archaeology and acknowledge its limitations, we can successfully compare its material evidence to the biblical record. Even so, it must be remembered that the Bible itself is an archaeological document and while we have only a limited number of archaeological artifacts from the biblical period, the Bible represents the most complete literary record we possess of these times. For this reason it is improper to elevate archaeological data above the biblical text to challenge the latter’s integrity. However, while the Bible is a completed revelation it is not an exhaustive one. Though its message can be readily understood in any age, it is still selective in its statements and set in ancient contexts. Therefore, despite its limitations, archaeology as a handmaiden to the Bible can enlarge the scope of its statements and make its context more understandable. But what are we to say concerning the minimalists claims that there exists no evidence of an early Israel?
As a general rule, the further back one goes in the archaeological record (and especially in the Land of Israel) the fewer material evidences they are able to recover. Therefore, our evidence of the material culture during the time of Israel’s prophets (9th-5th centuries B.C.) is good, while our evidence for earlier periods, such as that of King David and Solomon (the 10th century B.C.), is quite poor. There are several reasons for this, especially in the case of Jerusalem. First, there has not been extensive enough excavation in the areas that would contain the remains for these periods. In Jerusalem most sites are compromised by political disputes or covered by later buildings. The royal and religious buildings from this period are most likely to be found beneath the Temple Mount, however penetration of this site for archaeological purposes is politically impossible. In the Ophel lies the unexcavated site of King David’s palace, untouchable today because an Arab building covers it.
Second, court documents archived from this period were most likely destroyed in the Babylonian invasion or perhaps were written on poorer quality materials that were not preserved.
Third, later dwellers removed earlier 10th century structures to establish their own. In many Late Bronze and Iron Age sites (1550 B.C. – 586 B.C.) later Roman and Byzantine inhabitants cleared away all previous remains before rebuilding. We find this in the case of Jerusalem which was built on terraces and bedrock so that each succeeding city destroyed what was underneath to set its new foundations on bedrock while reusing the stones from the previous buildings. Nevertheless, despite such problems, there is sufficient evidence from this period to justify accepting the biblical accounts of David and Solomon as historical.
The Amarna letters (records of correspondence between the king of Jerusalem and the Egyptian pharaoh found in Amarna, Egypt) show that in the 14th century B.C. Jerusalem was a capital city ruling over considerable territory with a palace, a court with attendants, scribes, servants, and a temple in which the king served as head of state. Based on these diplomatic letters we know the status of Jerusalem, even though there are scarcely any remains from this period. Therefore, as with the later 10th century Israelite beginnings in the city, the absence of evidence does not mean the evidence of absence. However, evidence supporting the emergence of the United Monarchy of David and Solomon in the 10th century B.C. may be attested in the Israelite town discovered at Tel Rehov in the Beth-SheanValley. In addition, in David and Solomon capital of Jerusalem, Israeli archaeologist Yigal Shiloh found a few walls that can be dated to this period as did British archaeologist Kathleen Kenyon some two decades earlier. On the eastern ridge of the City of David a Stepped-Stone Structure (originally some 90 feet tall) was also uncovered which most likely dates to this period.
There are some Hebrew inscriptions that date from this period, such as the Gezer Calander, but by far the most significant is an inscription that bears a direct reference to the Davidic dynasty! In 1993-94 at the northern site of Tel Dan, in a wall constructed in the 9th or 8th century B.C. at the ancient entrance to the city, several fragments of a monumental stele inscribed in Aramaic were discovered. Apparently erected as a war memorial by Ben Hadad, king of Damascus, who gained a victory over the Israelis about 150 years after the time of King David. What was especially exciting was the mention in this inscription that he had defeated a "king of Israel of the House of David!" The king of Israel that is referred to is Jehoram the son of Ahab, while the king of the House of David [Judah] is Ahaziahu [Ahaziah]. Here then is an extra-biblical reference to personages of which the Bible speaks (2 Kings 8:7-15; 9:6-10). Based on the revelation of this Aramaic text, the French scholar André LeMaire was able to identify the reading of the name "David" in a formerly unreadable line "House of D …" on the 9th century B.C. Mesha Stele from Moab. The implication of these texts is clear: if there was a "house of David" there must have been a "David" to have a house! In addition, the many geographical and cultural details in the life of David can be supported by archaeological discovery. While this does not necessarily validate the existence of David. It makes more plausible the belief that a David existed who made the various conquests and alliances, rather than other explanations of the Jewish occupation of Jerusalem and the expansion of the Israelite kingdom during this period.3
As to King Solomon, there are major archaeological sites that have been discovered in Jerusalem and throughout Israel that are associated with Solomon of the Bible. In particular, the sites of Gezer, Hazor, and Megiddo are stated in the Bible to have been chariot cities fortified by Solomon (1 Kings 9:15, 19). Excavations at these sites (some still in progress) have uncovered massive walls, gate systems, water-tunnels, silos, and storehouses all bearing the style of royal monumental architecture. Minimalists contend that these structures belong to the period of the later Judean king Ahab, although the original excavator’s verdict was for Solomon (and at present the final verdict has not yet been decided). Even if the archaeological record has not yet produced direct evidence for Solomon, it has indirectly given confirmation of his historical accomplishments. For example, Solomon can be found in the fact that archaeological remains evidence the First Temple attributed to him.
While structural remains of the First Temple may never be found due to the extensive nature of King Herod’s rebuilding of the Second Temple on the same site, buildings from the First Temple period have been discovered in the area south of the Temple platform known as the Ophel. The particular design of the Solomonic Temple, as given in the Bible (1 Kings 6:2-17) is a style that appears to have been derived from the long-room temple type common in Syria from the second millennium B.C.4. The best archaeological examples discovered are long-room tripartite temples at ‘Ain Dara in Syria (excavated in the 1930's by the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute) and Tel Tainat (in the Amuq Valley at the northern Orontes).
These examples confirm that the biblical description of the First Temple agrees with historical models of the time, and fits the architectural design expected for a building engineered by Phoenician artisans (2 Chronicles 2:13-14). In addition, 10th century inscriptions have come to light that mention the First Temple. One is a small ivory object carved in the shape of a pomegranate. On it is an inscription using the well-known biblical phrase "the house of the Lord." It has been identified as scepter head that once topped a staff and that it most likely belonged to a priest who officiated in the First Temple. A second inscription mentioning "the house of the Lord" was discovered on an ostracon (a broken piece of pottery used for writing). Most likely it served as a receipt for a donation given at the Temple. In addition, the extensive use of large quantities of gold in the ancient world accords with the descriptions of Solomon’s use of gold in the 10th-century B.C. in adornment for the Temple (1 Kings 6:15, 21-22, 28-30) and other items in his royal Palace and the house of the Forest of Lebanon (1 Kings 10:16-21).5 The biblical figure of 666 talents of gold (US 25 tons) reported for Solomon (1 Kings 10:14) is not extraordinary by comparison with the 7,000 tons found by Alexander the Great in Persia (1,180 in Susa alone). Egyptian hieroglyphic texts further record a gift by Pharaoh Osorkon I to his gods of 383 tons of gold and silver during the years of 924-921 B.C.6 This places Osorkon’s gift in the period immediately following the death of Solomon. Evidence of gold-plated temples exists from Assyria, Babylon, and Egypt (where also gold-plated furniture is well-attested), while golden shields like those described for the house of the Forest of Lebanon have appeared in the Royal Cemetery at Ur, Ras Shamra (Ugarit), and in cuneiform lists of conquered items during the Assyrian monarch Sargon II. Such details reveal that the biblical account of Solomon, like that of his father David, are historically accurate to the time and place of writing.
Similar support for contested events such as Joshua’s Conquest of Canaan has also emerged in the last few years. At the northern site of Tel Hazor evidence of intense burning (over 2,350 degrees Fahrenheit) has been revealed from the recently excavated Canaanite occupation level which accords with the biblical record that it was one of three cities so destroyed by the Israelites under Joshua (Joshua 11:10-14). But could not someone else have burned the city other than the Israelites? Only four groups active at the time could have destroyed Hazor: (1) one of the Sea Peoples, such as the Philistines, (2) a rival Canaanite city, (3) the Egyptians or (4) the early Israelites. The Sea Peoples as maritime traders were concerned with controlling the coastal plain and therefore Hazor located in the Golan Heights was of no interest. In the hundreds of thousands of potsherds recovered from Hazor not a single one can be attributed to this culture. Furthermore, excavations of the destruction level uncovered numerous mutilated statutes of Canaanite and Egyptian origin.
There is no historical precedence of a conquering army desecrating statuary images of its own kings and gods. That leaves us with only the Israelites. Therefore, weighing all of these historical candidates, Amnon Ben-Tor, director of Hazor excavations, concludes: "Forty years ago, Yadin ironically observed that for scholars, who are sometimes adverse to substantiating the Bible, ‘Everyone is a potential destroyer of Hazor, even if not mentioned in any document, except those specifically mentioned in the Bible as having done so.’ We agree with Yadin. Our excavations at Hazor seem to indicate that the Israelites … may be considered guilty of Hazor’s destruction …"7 If, therefore, the biblical account of the destruction of Hazor is accurate, should not the Bible’s declaration of the burning of Jericho by Joshua and the Israelites during this same period (Joshua 6:20-21) be likewise reckoned as historical (even if the archaeological evidence is still being debated)?
As the 21st century unfolds I believe that we will see much greater confirmations of the Bible from the archaeological remains than we have seen from the previous two centuries combined. We have the technology with ground-penetrating radar to make discoveries even before we dig, and if in the days to come Israel gains access to previously politically sensitive areas for excavation the secrets of the Temple Mount itself may be disclosed. Nevertheless, the lines of evidence, which we have already presented, demonstrate the historical reliability of the Bible and defend its legitimacy as the Word of God for yet another generation of believers. Thus, as Sir Frederic G. Kenyon, the renown British classical scholar and director of the British Museum, said in summing up the evidence for the Bible: "The Christian can take the whole Bible in his hand and say without fear or hesitation that he holds in it the true Word of God, handed down without essential loss from generation to generation throughout the centuries."
Yeah Noel before you run with what a bunch of known liars say, that occupy the holy land, consider the person that started this topic based on what someone wrote and got refuted, consider this historical fact. From the fact that their were a number of men 26 of them, the worlds crucified saviors they lived thousands of years before Jesus of only 2000 years ago. CHRISNA BEING one of them supposedly born from a virgin birth, also from China, mexico, Persia, Greese, to name a few, and the overwhelming majority of these practices were rooted in Paganism. Also King James was a flaming faggot who killed his momma because he was in love with her husband, so much for the king james version. Not to mention books in the original bible that was ommitted , the book of Barnabas to name a few. And to kill this myth even further about a virgin birth, in the book of luke,and i quote mary, luke 2 - 48, "i and thy father have sought thee sorrowing.
Blessed are those that buck the system, they make our lives better.
