The Sean McDowell Show - Excavating Babylon (with Joel Kramer)

Episode Date: December 29, 2023

Babylon is the second most mentioned city in the Bible yet few archaeologists have been able to excavate the area. Joel Kramer has made multiple trips into Southern Iraq to examine the ancient biblical prophecies about Babylon. His findings are genuinely remarkable and a modern-day example of fulfilled prophecy. WATCH: Exploring Babylon and the Prophecies Against Her (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtUNHjDmGOY&t=493s) READ: Where God Came Down, by Joel Kramer (https://a.co/d/9RqyuKY) *Get a MASTERS IN APOLOGETICS or SCIENCE AND RELIGION at BIOLA (https://bit.ly/3LdNqKf) *USE Discount Code [SMDCERTDISC] for $100 off the BIOLA APOLOGETICS CERTIFICATE program (https://bit.ly/3AzfPFM) *See our fully online UNDERGRAD DEGREE in Bible, Theology, and Apologetics: (https://bit.ly/448STKK) FOLLOW ME ON SOCIAL MEDIA: Twitter: https://twitter.com/Sean_McDowell TikTok: @sean_mcdowell Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmcdowell/ Website: https://seanmcdowell.org

What is so significant about the ancient city of Babylon? It's actually the second most mentioned city in the Bible. A friend of mine, an archaeologist, Joel Kramer, who has an incredible ministry and YouTube channel called Expedition Bible, who has been there firsthand and is going to report back to us what he saw and why he thinks it's compelling evidence for the scriptures. Going to Babylon impacted me. Joel, it's been at least a year or year and a half since I've had you on.

You're always a favorite on my channel. Thanks for coming back and being willing to talk about this. Hey, it's great to be with you again. Well, let's jump right in. I showed this video that you have about Babylon fulfilled prophecy to my 11 year old son last night. And he goes, dad, this is so interesting. Send this to my teacher. I want to show it to my classmates. Well, it's related to the city of Babylon. And I think maybe a place to start would

be to ask the question, why is Babylon such a significant city in the old Testament? Where does it first crop up, and when is it at its height of significance as well? Yeah, it's a good question. The first place that it crops up is the Tower of Babel account, and one thing to understand about Babylon is actually the name of the city is Babel throughout the Old Testament. Babylon is the Greek form of the name that's used often, you know, because people are more familiar with the name Babylon. And so that's usually how it's translated. But if you are reading in the Hebrew, then throughout the entire Old Testament,

the name appears as Babel. And so it first appears in the Tower of Babel account in Genesis 11. Well, actually before that, Genesis 10, I believe it is with Nimrod, who is a mighty warrior before the Lord, and he starts building cities. And the first one that's mentioned is Babylon. And so then it carries a theme throughout the Bible, Old and New Testament. And so it's actually the second most mentioned city in the Bible after Jerusalem. And really is the antithesis of Jerusalem as well. And so you have this theme that's kind of held together, like for example, in Genesis 11, where it says, where they say, come, let us build

a city and a tower that reaches to the heavens so that we can make a name for ourselves. And then if we fast forward in time to Daniel chapter four, I believe it's verse 30, where we have Nebuchadnezzar who's walking around on the roof of his palace and he's looking out over this city and he says, is this not great Babylon that I have built by my power power for my mad for the glory of my majesty and uh and then so very very much related to the genesis 11 account and then that carries all the way to revelation where where it's used metaphorically um that same anti-god um you know uh just rebellious, proud attitude that you find throughout scripture. And so, and of course, this is not just a scriptural theme, but it's a historical theme for the city itself. And it just comes back into play, back into play throughout Scripture. And so it's a very important city

to understand. Yeah. I wasn't aware that it's the second most cited city in Scripture, which makes sense if you see it in Genesis 10 and 11, comes up all the way through Scriptures and then appears in Revelation as this foil that we get Jerusalem mentioned first, God's city, compared to Babylon, this in somewhat anti-God city, that a prophecy we're going to look at today related to its fall would be a pretty significant prophecy. Now we're going to get into that, but arguably, or even historically, not arguably, Babylon was at its height during the time of Daniel, wasn't it? We see that in Scripture. Do we also see that outside of Scripture as being supported? Yeah, I mean, definitely it reached its climax during the reign of Nebuchadnezzar II,

who is the King Nebuchadnezzar that we're reading about in the Bible. And then archaeologically, which I'm sure we'll talk about, but most of what has been uncovered at Babylon, the ruins, are from that period. And so, yeah, definitely that is the climax of the city, its size and its glory. Okay, so where in the Middle East is Babylon today, and how confident can we be, just archaeologically, historically speaking, that this is the same Babylon going all the way back to Genesis, and or at least the time of Nebuchadnezzar and the time of Daniel? Yeah, so Babylon is in what is today Iraq, and it's in the southern part of iraq it's about 54 miles south of baghdad and um and so in the early days of exploration some of the early

explorers were exploring the ruins and and describing them and whatnot. And it was known back then it was identified as Babylon. However, when the major excavations took place and from what was found there, there is no question that this is Babylon. And the reason why is because it's unlike a lot of other cities that have been excavated in that this one, the Babylonian records were found in the city itself. And so you're talking about tens of thousands of cuneiform tablets and all kinds of inscriptions, all kinds of stamps that are stamped onto the bricks for the buildings. And so they say, I am the king of Babylon and this is my name and I built this

building and this is what it is. And I mean, it's almost bizarre having spent most of my time archaeologically in Israel and Jordan, where you're trying to figure things out based on how a piece of pottery is bent and how that's different from another one it's not like that and the cities in mesopotamia and babylon in particular because everything's stamped with the name of the builder um the there's inscription after inscription that not only gives the name of the city but um all kinds of building projects and who they attacked and who they conquered and who was paying taxes and on and on and on. And again, in the Old Testament, the name of the city is Babel. And in the Babylonian records themselves, you have this old name being used. And so you have a, you know, you have it continually used.

And so there's other cities that would be called from time to time, Babel, the gate of God. Oh, my city is awesome. It's the gate of God. I mean, Jacob calls Bethel the gate of God, but that is known by the name Bethel. And so this city is the Babel that is throughout the Old Testament. The one that it's talking about that's often translated Babylon, that's the same city throughout. And so, and it's the famous city. If it was another Babel, then it would have to identify that other Babel that it's talking about. But when it's talking about Babel, Babylon, it's talking about the city that we know. So its identification is certain. Of course, there's debate in modern scholarship of whether, you know, that we should look for, for example, the Tower of Babel somewhere else.

But that's really a new thing. The scholars before didn't do that because if you're looking for the temple in Jerusalem, for example, then why go look in another city for the temple of Jerusalem? Why go look for the Tower of Babel in another city? It's the tower that's Babel. And so its identification, especially as the Babylon of Nebuchadnezzar, is absolutely certain. Okay, before we get to the prophecies, where this kind of gets really interesting to me, is some things in archaeology there's debate about. So we had you on earlier, you made a case for Sodom and Gomorrah, and there's some Christian scholars, Steve Collins came on, he made his case for a different location. Either it's one of those or neither of those, but there's some debate about maybe where that's at. When it comes to something like David's palace, as far as I'm aware, it's so clear and exactly

where you'd expect and so much evidence. There's minimal debate about that. It sounds like when it comes to where Babylon is at, it's agreed upon the evidence, there's minimal debate about that. It sounds like when it comes to where Babylon is at, it's agreed upon the evidence, both literary and archaeological, is about as confident as something could be from that far in the past. Is that a fair summary? Yeah, I think that's completely fair. Except this day and age, it seems like even things that have been known and established with certainty are being questioned and new sites are being proposed and stuff like that. Like the temple in Jerusalem, for example.

Oh, that's somewhere else. So there's a lot of crazy ideas that come out these days about things that have been really well-established and well-known. But I've never heard of anybody proposing another site for Babylon. But these days, you never know. Okay. Fair enough. Taken as it is. Now, let's go to the prophecies in Jeremiah and Isaiah about Babylon and give us some

context when these prophecies were made and exactly what is prophesied would happen to this city. Yeah. I mean, there's several prophecies about Babylon. The main ones, I would say, would be Isaiah chapter 13 and Jeremiah chapter 50. And within those very detailed prophecies, that's one point is that they're very, very detailed. Why Babylon is being judged and its destruction and the anger of God seems to be more heightened than with other cities.

But really what it comes down to, I think the main part of those prophecies, because they're very similar, Isaiah 13 and Jeremiah 50, is both of them say that the city will be overthrown by God, which is very interesting. And that they will be, you just mentioned Sodom and Gomorrah, that they will become, Babylon would become like Sodom and Gomorrah. And then the next description right after that is that the city will never be inhabited and lived in again.

And so it's going to be a desolation, it says, through all generations or from generation to generation. And so, and people are not going to live there. And then what it does actually discuss in detail about what will live there are the wild animals. And it goes through and names them specifically. Jackals will inhabit these once glorious palaces that were, you know, the palaces of these mighty kings of the earth will be inhabited by jackals and hyenas. And so you have owls will be there. And so it's very specific. It describes it as a habitation for wild beasts. And it specifically says that people will not live

there and it it paints it as a permanent condition um it through all generations and so um so certainly what that created in me and i i'm sure for most people as they read those prophecies then it creates in you an expectation of what you would expect Babylon to look like today. And so it definitely did that for me. And that was a major reason. It was those prophecies that intrigued me so much about Babylon that made me want to go and see it for myself and see what it looked like today and whether that's the way that these ruins are. And so that led to me trying over a course of several years to try to get a visa into the country so I could go see

these sites. It took years to do so. That's awesome. I'm sure there's a whole backstory to that, that maybe we'll get into some other time. But so this prophecy, Isaiah 13, Jeremiah 50, is not just the destruction of this city. It's the destruction. Specific animals are listed. Jackals, owls uh what else did you mention maybe hyenas are mentioned and it would not be inhabited again so there's a certain level of specificity with these prophecies that we expect to find when we get there now before we move to what you saw how much has this site been excavated? Because you talked about in Israel, it's like one little piece of pottery.

It's smaller. Has this been excavated a lot? Are there ongoing excavations there right now? What's the archaeological history and present taking place in modern day Babylon? Yeah, so the excavation history is there were several, I would say, smaller scale excavations that took place very early on. But by far the most important excavations of the site were by the German archaeologist named Robert Koldewey. And he excavated the site from 1899 to 1917. And I don't know how else to put it, but the guy was just a stud. I mean,

he was something else. 18 years. And I mean, in those 18 years, he took very, very, very few days off, much less, you know, like a vacation. He had a huge dig crew that he kept just going day after day after day for 18 years. The only reason he stopped digging was because World War II had, or sorry, World War I had gotten up to that place. And so he had to abandon the site because of incoming soldiers and whatnot. But I mean, the amount of dirt that they moved in 18 years is just mind boggling. I don't know of any other archaeologist in the history of archaeology that has moved as much dirt as Col de Bay did. I mean, you're talking about in places he dug down to a depth of 80 feet

and he uncovered literally miles of the processional way. And, you know, he would dig down to like the Temple of Marduk, for example, was 65 feet below the ground. And so he moved you know jokingly if if cold of a could come back right and and would visit any any archaeological site today including the the squares that I've dug myself I would be absolutely embarrassed for him to look at my square I'd be like oh gosh you know he'd be like you call this archaeology people with brushes, you know? And anyways, it's really mind boggling. It really is. And so hats off to him for that.

And so he uncovered the city of Nebuchadnezzar or at least parts of it. But even with moving that much dirt, how massive this city is, is also mind-boggling so for example there's 43 temples that are mentioned in the babylonian records that are in the city and of those 43 he only excavated five of them and not all of the five of them and so you know we're we're talking as much dirt as he moved there is still a ton more that could be moved. But I mean, yeah. And this is when they had, they would set up a railroad, you know, in the site itself and had these huge carts that they would fill up with dirt and move down the road and dump

and that kind of thing. So it is, it is impressive. But that's, that's how, what we know about the city, that's how it was uncovered. And really his work, you know, is the one that did that. Okay, now that's like a century ago, roughly, that he stopped. So for the past century, what's been going on, if anything, archaeologically there? There's some stuff going on, but these days when you're hearing of an archaeological project, a lot of times it's more restoration, involved with

restoration and stuff. And so there hasn't been dirt moved, you know, in any kind of significant way in a very long time. There's been restoration work that's been done on the ruins and, you know, in any kind of significant way in a very long time. There's been restoration work that's been done on the ruins and, you know, there's some archaeological work being done there now, which is very necessary because you have a big problem there with a rising water table. And so they're trying to protect the ruins that have been exposed that you can see. They're trying to protect them because of that. But it's mostly that kind of kind of thing. And so the days of moving dirt like cultivated, they used to move dirt in the old days and excavations don't move dirt like that anymore. Not not any ones that I've seen anyways.

Are there any other differences that are relevant to this investigation from being there in Iraq, the kind of archaeology, the kind of city that are different from the other kind of excavations you've done in Israel, Jordan, Egypt, etc.? Everything is different. Absolutely. I mean, it's still something that I'm still wrestling with trying to adjust to it all because it's so radically different. First of all, the sheer size is different. So when you're looking at sites like Nineveh and Babylon, I mean, the biggest sites in Israel and Jordan are drops in the bucket compared to them. For Babylon, you're talking about a city that is, you know, roughly two miles long and two miles wide. Wow. Yeah, it's huge. wide enough on the top 23 feet across, wide enough for two chariots, you know, horse-drawn chariots to go pass each other on top of the wall.

And so it's just, it's huge that way. But the other thing that's totally different is, for example, in Israel and Jordan, you have mountains and you have high places. In Mesopotamia, in Babylon, you're talking about the alluvial soil and these huge valleys created by the Euphrates and Tigris rivers. So you don't have rock in that soil. So they learned to make mud bricks and then kiln fire them and harden them into stone. And then that's what they built with. And then that's what they built built with. And so that's completely different. So they could stamp, you know,

uh, their building projects. Uh, and, and then you have, um, yeah, you,

you have, those sites are littered with, with broken up bricks, you know, uh, which you don't see in Israel and, uh, and Jordan. And you have, you know, which you don't see in Israel and Jordan.

And you have stone is the main building component in Israel and Jordan. And so, yeah, it's just, it's really completely different. It's a river culture in Mesopotamia, whereas it's a rain culture dependent on the rain in Israel and Jordan. So the differences just go on and on and on. Wow. And it is completely different. Okay. No, that's totally helpful. Now, Saddam's palace, as I understand it, is in that general vicinity, but has also been abandoned. Where does that situate and kind of maybe where the walls are going around the city with where the ancient city of Babylon was?

Yeah. So the ancient city of Babylon is in two different walled sections. One is on the east and then the other one is across the Euphrates River on the western side. And so they're walled off, they're independent of each other, their walls don't connect. And so the Euphrates River flows between those two sections of the city.

And the Euphrates is pretty close to its ancient bed when it flowed through there, but it's a little bit shifted over to the western side. And so you have the old riverbed that goes in between those walls of the two sections of the city. And that's where a village was located back in the days that Col de Bay was excavating and then um saddam hussein removed that city or that that village um when he built an artificial mound and then built his palace up on top of it one of one of several palaces that he had and um and so you get kind of a mixed story about that whole thing but from what it sounds, he never was able to move into that palace. And it's basically never completely finished from what I've been told

and then abandoned before it was ever even lived in. But it was not in within the city itself. It was in between these two walled cities and the old riverbed. Okay. So what was this moment like? You wanted to go here for years and either you're, maybe you're flying in and you're able to look down or maybe you're driving into it. What did you expect to see? Were you a little bit nervous? Like I know these prophecies, what if they don't really match up?

Like what was your expectation going into finally seeing the city you've wanted to go to for years? Yeah, so I've been there multiple times, probably about 10 times. And the first time I went there, you know, quite honestly, if I could describe my reaction to it, I would say I curled up in a fetal position and started sucking my thumb because I was so overwhelmed with, I didn't understand what I was looking at. And that often happens to me, you know, when I go to a site for the first time, I don't understand it necessarily the first time. And there's a lot of things that confuse me and I'm trying to work out the plan. And so it took me several days on that first trip to start to understand, okay, here's where the city walls are going. Oh my gosh, this is huge.

And okay, this is where Saddam's palace is, but that's the riverbed. And so I started working it out using, that's what I tend to do when I go to these types of sites is I have the top plan, as they're called in the archaeological report. And then I'm trying to line that up with the ground. Okay, this is here and this is over here. And so it took me several days there to even start to get a grip of how big the city was and where the temples were located and where Koldovey excavated when he found this and where he excavated when he found that. But as it was kind of all coming, you know, where I was starting to understand. And then, you know, I'd be there in the evenings and everything. And I, you know, I guess there in the evenings and everything and and i you know i guess i was expecting a certain thing most places that i go to i have an expectation and quite honestly most places disappoint you a little bit you know your expectations exceed your experience if that makes sense that did not happen at babylon the um the the place itself far exceeded my

expectation um you know i thought maybe maybe it'd be a place where you could conceive of some wild animals living i didn't know there would be dens all over the place that there would be animal tracks literally the place is littered with animal tracks. And then that's just tracks. But then as the sun goes down or the sun goes up, then they're all howling and they're all running around there. And you're kind of thinking, I wish I had a gun or something to protect myself. And so it was very much like visiting an archaeological site and an animal sanctuary at the same time. And it was, like I said, beyond my expectations.

And, you know, you'll hear me in the video that I do about it just keep harping on the same thing. But that's because it was just like, wow. I mean, to think, for example, of the buildings and how magnificent they were in that city and how incredibly elaborate and huge that city was, and to think that, you know, that place that literally literally it's literally true that jackals are dwelling in these uh these ruins of these former glorious palaces and it's literally true that hyenas and uh and wolves are are in the ruins living in the ruins and dens in what used to be the temple of Marduk, the most glorious temple, not only in Babylon, but it was the most glorious temple of an empire and therefore in the world at that time. So, yeah, it was something else. It is something else. Okay, so let's take this prophecy one by one. But first off, I'm glad that it took you a little bit of orientation because I'm watching your video and I hope folks watch it below.

Again, my 11-year-old son loved it. If I was teaching Old Testament still with high school students, I would show it. It's the kind of thing I'd share with a skeptic who's not convinced. I'd say, hey, check this out. Let me know what you think. But you made it seem so easy. I'm like, wow, he knows East and West. He knows the walls.

I'm glad it took you as an archaeologist some time to get oriented. It made me feel like, okay, I'm not the only crazy one here looking at how vast this is, a city going back hundreds, if not thousands of years. So you show up, you're blown away. The three prophecies that he shared are basically city would be destroyed. There would be jackals and owls and hyenas and other animals. And then third, it would never be inhabited again. First off, there's still people living in broader Babylon, but what we know where the old city was, was it completely destroyed? In fact, the prophecy kind of compares it to Sodom and Gomorrah, the level of destruction. Did that first piece come true? And if so, how would we know? Yeah, so yeah, that it's not inhabited again.

One point that's important to make is that you have to look at the city walls, because the city was a walled city. And so when Isaiah and Jeremiah are prophesying against Babylon, they are prophesying against the walled city of Babylon. Therefore, what is inside those walls are part of that prophecy. And outside of those walls is not part of that prophecy. And so what's very distinct is that this city, this ancient city, these ruins are not inhabited by people. There are no villages inside of the walls of these cities. Once you get outside of the walls of those cities, then almost immediately you have the villages. And there's not a village that's called Babylon or anything like that.

But these are smaller villages that are around the outside of it but not on the inside of it and you know today there might be rules that say you're not allowed to live this is an archaeological site and you're not allowed to live inside these walls but that certainly wasn't the case back in the 1800s you know when these early explorers were coming in and so you have where you can see on the plans where the villages were in the 1800s, and none of them are inside the walls of the city. One of them that's the closest is in the old riverbed, and then the other ones are outside the wall. So it would seem as though there is the concept of the locals that there is a curse on this place and that they interesting they do not live there they do not seem to want to live there

and so um and so yeah it's very very stark and very distinct that nobody people do not live in inside of Babylon today. And so all of that specific part of the prophecies is probably the, it's extremely obvious when you're looking at the place today, that that is the case, that is fulfilled. Now, did you ask some locals why people don't live there, or did you just get a sense from looking at it that there's a curse on it? Where did that observation come from? Well, again, I think that today I don't think they would let you live there because it's an archaeological site, and it's one of the ones that's protected by the antiquity department. But again, going back and looking at early explorers who drew top plans and drew in where the ruins were, where the walls of the ruins were, and then where the villages. And they mark them on their plan. This is the name of this village and this is the name of this village.

So you can see exactly where those villages are. And so you can see that it's not lived in there and then you know from the archaeology because if you if you think about um cold bay digging there for 18 years and uncovering what he covered most of the city that he uncovered is from the time of nebuchadnezzar and so there there's not a lot of layers now of course of course, that city, as we know from the book of Daniel, when Cyrus took over the city in 539 BC, he didn't have to attack and fight. It was some kind of a surprise attack that they snuck in there and took it over really quickly and so um we don't know exactly how the city um became the ruins that they are because there's not like a distinct destruction and if you look at the prophecies itself god is saying i am the one who is overthrowing them and then he compares it as you

pointed out to sodom and gomorrah well what is it unique about sodom and gomorrah well sodom and gomorrah wasn't attacked by an army uh it was overthrown by god he's the one that overthrew those and so there's that interesting connection and then there's also the um that sodom and gomorrah and you you brought that up but that's an important point for sodom and gomorrah if you're looking for sodom and Gomorrah archaeologically, you need a site that was a city, two sites that were cities at the time of Abraham and Lot, and that were then destroyed, overthrown by God, and then remained an uninhabited ruin from that point on through history, because we have it being used again and again as an example. In this case, we have Isaiah and Jeremiah using it as an example that Babylon, you will become like Sodom and Gomorrah. And then it says, people will not live here through all generations.

And so that both means that babylon is going to become like that but it also means that sodom and gomorrah are going to become like that it's a major reason why i believe that the site that was discovered by william foxwell albright um is the one that is part of the cities of the plain because it has that evidence and then the other place numera has that evidence as well as being abandoned and laying in desolation never ever lived in again as it says in those excavation reports and that's the that's what the the glorious capital of the most powerful empire at the time of babylon became It became an uninhabited place.

Okay, so imagine, Joel, the government says, you know what, we're not going to protect this land anymore. We're going to allow people to live here. Would that overturn the prophecy? Because it seems to say generation after generation seems to imply forever. Yet on the flip side, that seems to be like too much power to just overturn a prophecy of God that had been true for, you know, at least 2000 plus years. So how would you respond to that if you go back for an 11th trip and it's like, oh my goodness, they allowed some people to live in the land. Isaiah and Jeremiah got it false. Well, I mean, I'll just put it this way. If I would have come there and seen a village on top of the ruins of Babylon, I would have been disturbed. Um, that would have been disturbing to me. And, um, and so, uh, now that doesn't mean that I would have thrown my Bible in the garbage

can, right? I would have. I would have worked through that. Okay, what does that mean? What does this mean? This must mean something that I must have misunderstood or we must have misunderstood this prophecy and everything like that. And, of course, those things are possible because we don't understand Scripture perfectly and that kind of thing. But, yeah, I would and that kind of thing. And so, but yeah, I,

I would not expect that at all. And I would, it would, I, if that were to happen, I would have to, um, I would have to reevaluate how, how I understood those scriptures and what they meant and everything like that. But I, I don. But I don't see that happening. Yeah. So I don't know if that answers your question or not, but it's kind of hard to picture what you would do in that scenario. But I had kind of a similar experience when I went to Tyre, um, because Tyre is, is talked about destroyed and, and not being inhabited. And, um, and then you go there and you go to the fish market in Tyre and everything like that. And again, I, I was disturbed when I went there the first time and I, I had to work through that, but, but I came to an understanding that the Old Testament city is in a different place than the New Testament city and that the aqueduct system there brought the water over to the other place.

And so, again, the prophecy was against the mainland city specifically, and this was the walled Old Testament city. And so inside those walls was what was being prophesied over. And so though I initially was very confused and didn't understand, I was able to work through that both in Scripture and on the ground to realize, oh, okay, now I think I understand better. And so that's an example of that actually happening. Yeah. That's fair. I was curious how you worked it through because part of the question is what's meant by generation after generation. When I say my mechanic, oh, he's going to take forever.

I just mean a long time, not literal forever. Yeah. You know, I mean, if this has happened 2,700 years and stayed for a long period of time, this is generation after generation after generation. Of course, we don't have to consider those options because it's still not inhabited, but those would be fair questions to ask if so. Now, I imagine somebody else would object and say, okay, Joel, what's the big deal of predicting that a city would be destroyed? Every big city, every big empire at some point has come to an end. And when cities are destroyed,

it's not uncommon to see animals living there. And somebody in that area could have known that there were owls and jackals. And so it feels specific like a prophecy, but it's really not that specific. How would you respond to that kind of objection? You know, I would pick maybe, you know, another big major capital of the empire like Athens or, you know, when you go to Athens or Rome. If I were to read about Rome, and the Bible said about Rome what it says about Babylon, and I went to, and I have gone to Rome today, I would be greatly disturbed, because it would be the opposite of what my experience of going to Babylon was. It would be, well, no, this is an inhabited place. This is a city still today. This is a living place.

This is not fit the description that I'm reading about, that hyenas and jackals and all these wild animals will live here. And so while it's true that empires don't last and that they crumble, the prophecies in regards to Babylon are very, very specific. And I think that's why it's being specific when it's saying this is a permanent condition, because a lot of prophecies aren't permanent. And so that is one of the unique things of there's not a lot to go on for Rome, for example, that would necessarily be permanent. But man, for Babylon, you have all these details that then line up with the experience.

And so, you know, another example like that would be what the Bible prophetically says about Jerusalem and it really matches the prophecies about Jerusalem that it's going to be lived in from generation to generation, and then Samaria is going to be destroyed and be a place of agriculture, and that's what it is to this day, and so those contrasts, you can contrast those against each other from what scripture says about them and then what they're like today. And the same is true for Babylon and other cities that were the capital of empires. I think we have a certain historical perspective now, roughly 2,600 years later, looking back. When Babylon was obviously one of the first great empires that wasn't clearly global, but this is before Persia, this is before Greece, this is before Rome.

We're able to look at all these empires that have fallen, looking back going, oh, of course it makes sense. But for those people at that place who didn't have that historical perspective, told that one of the most beautiful, great, powerful, large cities in the world would not only fall, but that this specifically would happen to it. The animals would be roaming around. And as you showed, they're everywhere roaming around, dens. I mean, they're like ubiquitous and it never would be lived in again. It doesn't seem shocking to us, but if you put yourself in that position at that time,

that is almost unthinkable. There's no way this empire is going down. So I think that adds an element to what you said that really makes it that much more of a powerful prophecy, especially when you compare it to Jerusalem, compare it to Tyre, to Athens and others, make it significant. Now, you've been an archaeologist for years. Love your books. We'll link to those below. Would highly recommend them for folks, not only because the evidence that you lay out, but the pictures are just beautiful and they come from firsthand experience. You've gone to a ton of sites, whether it's David's Palace, you've made a case for Sodom and Gomorrah. You described going to Tyre. How significant would you place this in terms of tangible, fulfilled prophecy compared to others, Old Testament or New Testament? Boy, that's a good question. First of all, I would like to, I'm very grateful and thankful to God that he allows me to do this because I definitely am a kid in a candy store to be able to do that.

And that's by his grace. But, yeah, I mean, it impacted me. You know, the going to Babylon impacted me. It humbled me. I say in the video that I made about it, it put the fear of God in me. And it did, not that, the scripture talks about people that pass by Babylon will be taken aback by, by what it looks like. And I definitely was taken aback. And so, but, but it's so interesting because as you said, so many other sites that I've been to are so much more impressive looking. The ruins are more impressive and you look at them and you're like wow and you're

marveling at all these kinds of things babylon is not like that because there's hardly anything left to see and there's there's many reasons for that um one because uh the ruins have been there so long and and uh but the other thing is is because of the reality that once you make a, uh, a kiln fired brick, then that's a very valuable thing. And so the people used it once it had become ruins, the people that lived in the villages around there used it as this massive quarry, right. To go and get these fired bricks. And in fact, when Koldove would dig down and expose the ruins that he did, then people would come after he was done digging and take those bricks back and build villages. And the dams that they've built in the Euphrates River there are built by the thing that was so staggering to me about babylon is is the measure of how glorious

and great it once was and now has been reduced down to so little next to nothing and um and that kind of makes sense to me because uh again, it's used metaphorically in Revelation, and so what happened to Babylon is that metaphor, and it serves as a, well, if we're going to try to make a name for ourselves, if we're going to build things to try to make a name for ourselves and for our own glory, then this is what that is going to become. It's going to become absolutely nothing. And so for me, it's very motivational to be about kingdom work and, you know and that can't be destroyed and fall apart and everything like that

because Babylon maybe of all the ruins that I've seen, Babylon maybe is the best example of the parable when that something that was built so big and glorious, but it was just built on sand and God just washed it away. I was showing your video last night to my son, like I mentioned, and my wife was kind of working on stuff, listening. And at the end of video, which I love that you do, you just give this personal sense

and takeaway. And you make this point, like just the sovereignty of God really stood out to you. My wife like repeated that. She's like, wow, this is a tangible, physical reminder of what scripture says. That when we try to become like God going all the way back to Babel, when we build the most powerful, beautiful city in the world, that at some point God is going to have his will reign. And what's cool about that comment, I know you said this intentionally,

is the book of Daniel is about the sovereignty of God. That's what it's about. Nebuchadnezzar says, worship this statue about me. And God is like, no, your kingdom is going to be defeated. It's only a matter of time. So that spiritual takeaway, it's amazing in our world today where we tend to see things through such a secular lens. Here is physical land reminding us of a prophecy fulfilled from 2,600 years ago. If we have eyes to see and ears to hear, it's present. So I've never been there, probably never will get a chance to be

there, but I'm really thankful you put this video together, showed the images of it so I could share it with my son. And now with a lot of my students, it really helps bring the Bible to life, which I know you do at Expedition Bible, and that's really your heart to do so. So folks, if you're watching, make sure you hit subscribe. When you started, you're like, Sean, you have like 50,000 subscribers at that time. Can you help me out? Now I'm like, man, Joel, your channel has taken off. Rightly so.

Maybe give us a hint. I don't want to steal your thunder, but maybe give us a hint of other travels you have coming up, other journeys or archaeological digs you're working on that we can look forward to seeing as well. Yeah, I'm getting ready in a couple of days to, um, I'm going to head to Saudi Arabia. My son's coming in, um, on his college break. And, uh, and so we're going to be flying there on Sunday. Um, I, I grew up in, in, uh, Saudi Arabia, but I haven't been back there in a very long time. And so're we're going to uh investigate in a nutshell uh the

four rivers that are mentioned for the garden of eden in uh genesis chapter two the the tigris the euphrates the gihon and the pishon and so you know the the number one candidate for the bishon which has really been the mystery um for a long time is uh is in saudi arabia back when it was a much wetter climate and so we're going to be going and exploring that um i'm going to be doing more on the cities of the plain sodom and gomim, and Edma, and Zoar. And yeah, it's never-ending. People ask me, well, are you going to run out of things to do? And no, I'm not going to. That would be like asking Koldeve, hey, are you going to completely finish excavating Babylon

and be done with it and go on to another site? You know, it's because, you know, it's like you can never master the Bible. You can never master the land of the Bible. And it's so full of richness and profoundness and evidence that there'll be no end to exploring it. Well, I've been with you in person you took us up to the dead sea scrolls i'll never forget seeing cave one uh you took some students and i maybe 12 15 years ago to jericho saw that in person was just incredible so hopefully sooner than later can come back maybe bring some students and you can show us around in person but you're

doing great work again anybody who's not subscribed to his channel, Christian or not, first off, it's just entertaining. Even if you end up differing with Joel when it's all said and done, you're a filmmaker and an archaeologist. Some people are filmmakers, not archaeologists. Some people are archaeologists, not filmmakers. You had the two wedded together and just know how to tell a story and make it come alive. So folks, make sure you subscribe to Expedition Bible YouTube channel. And while you're at it, make sure you hit subscribe here. We'll have Joel back. We're going to have Titus Kennedy back again. We love covering archaeology on this channel as we can. And also make sure if you thought about studying apologetics, we have the top rated distance program in the world. In fact, your good friend Titus Kennedy comes in every year

or two and teaches a full class on the Bible and archaeology for us. It's a part of our master's program. Joel, it's somewhat late morning here, which means it's late at night there. So thanks for taking your time to join me. Do this again and just prayers with you on this trip to Saudi Arabia. And what a special time with your son. I hope even on top of the archaeology, you guys just bond and build memories together. Thank you. I appreciate it. Appreciate you. Thanks, brother.