The Sean McDowell Show - Q&A: The Bible and Archaeology (Conversation with Joel Kramer)

Episode Date: September 29, 2024

What are the toughest archaeological challenges for the Bible? How does the Biblical account fare? In this video, we take live questions from people about the Bible and archaeology. WATCH: How Archaeology Supports the Bible (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_k4noV95kk) *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/

All right, friends, we are live with my friend Joel Kramer, an archaeologist in Amman, Jordan. He is the head of SourceFlix Ministries, which is aimed at bringing Bible to life through visual media. He's a professor at Shepherds Theological Seminary and the author of Where God Came Down. Joel, you came on about four or five weeks ago, and we talked about some of the top archaeological finds supporting the Bible from your book. And there were a ton of questions last time. So I thought, and you graciously agreed, let's do a live Q&A where we just invite people to ask some of their questions about archaeology. So if you are joining us, we're going to take some live questions. But leading into that, there's a bunch of specific digs that you have worked on and some insights you found recently that a lot of people don't know about. I think

our audience will find it fascinating if we start there. So you sent me this video of something I was not aware of, I don't know how I missed it, called the Yahweh Inscription, and you personally traveled to Sudan to see it and study it. Tell us what this archaeological find is. And first off, thanks for coming on, Joel. Yeah, absolutely. It's good to be here. Yeah, that inscription, I mean, it was a few years ago now that I went and saw this inscription. And the more I learn about it, the more significant I realize that it is.

It really destroys a lot of theories. And one of the main ones that it would destroy is that the Bible was written way late and that Israelites didn't exist until much later in history. And so this inscription is the earliest inscription that mentions the name of the God of Israel, Yahweh. And it's in northern Sudan today, but in ancient times that was a part of southern Egypt. And so there is a temple there on the Nile River that was built by the Pharaoh Amenhotep III. And he built this and did his inscriptions there in the late 15th century BC. So just to give some context to where that lines up chronologically with the Bible, we're talking about the end of Moses's life and the beginning of Joshua's conquest. And so what he does in this temple is he lists out his

foreign enemies, and most of them are city-states, so he just mentions the city. For example, Ashkelon would be one example of his foreign enemies. Well, it gets to these nomads called Shazu, which is translated nomads, and so how do you identify nomads called shazoo and which is translated nomads and so how do you identify nomads who are wandering around uh in this case east of egypt and so one of them that he lists out as his enemy are the nomads of yahweh meaning the nomads who worship the god yahweh and so when we go chronologically into the bible where israel is at this time they're east of egypt and they are following uh their god yahweh around in the cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night and so what better way to describe them at that time

than the way that amenhotep iii does uh the nomads of yahweh. Okay, now this dates, does the actual inscription date to 1500 BC, or it's an inscription later that's about what happened roughly the time of the Exodus and the fall of Jericho and Joshua? Yeah, according to biblical chronology, when we figure out when the Exodus happened from the Bible itself, then we come to the date 1446. Then when you take out the 40 years of wandering, then the conquest to about 1410 to 1400 BC, end of the 15th century BC. And so it dates right there to that transition time when the ministry of Moses is coming to an end and then the leadership of Joshua is taking over. So here is the Pharaoh of Egypt saying, one of my foreign enemies are the nomads of Yahweh. Well, who would the nomads of Yahweh be? And this is where, you know, secular scholars say they're the Edomites, they're the Kenites,

they're anybody but the Israelites, because they don't believe that Israel exists at this time. But obviously the nomads of Yahweh are the Israelites who mention in their own historical writings, the Old Testament, the name of their God Yahweh 6,823 times. Whereas outside of Israel, there is no inscription or historical source that links Yahweh to any other people or nation other than Israel. Okay, so Joel, to make sure I understand, we have a physical inscription naming the God of Israel, not like Allah is more of a generic name for God, the specific God of Israel around the time of the Exodus. We have a physical remain from that time period found in this inscription. Did I get that correct?

That is correct. And it's very important that people understand that this isn't me or anyone else. This isn't Christians saying that there is an inscription that says this. This is secular scholarship that has dug this up and published it. It was published, it was found back in the 1950s. It was published. There's never been another translation that doesn't say that it says land of the nomads of Yahweh. And so it's agreed upon the date that's given by secular scholarship is the end of the 15th century BC. And in fact, I went to school for archaeology in Jerusalem for 10 years. Nobody ever taught me this. I was never taught about this inscription. We studied, of course, the time period of the Exodus and the conquest and the desert wanderings. Nobody ever

mentioned it. I studied under secular scholars, but the way that they tend to deal with this evidence is they just don't talk about it. And so I read it in a book by a well-known Egyptologist. And when I read about it, I was absolutely shocked. I went and found the excavation report, saw the translation of it, did some more research. And then I went to Sudan and went through, I had to go through 22 checkpoints and camp out in the desert to get to this remote temple and see this inscription. And, and yeah, it's, it, like I said the reason that it's not talked about very much in secular scholarship is because there's there's all these theories there, the theories of men that, that Israel didn't exist until much later in the Bible wasn't written until much later. Okay.

Well then why do you have these nomads of Yahweh running around east of Egypt as enemies of Egypt that are mentioned in this specific inscription? And then nearby that site, there's another site called Amara West that I also went to where there's another inscription that says the same thing. This is the Pharaoh Ramses II, who also lists out his enemies in the 13th century BC and lists out also the nomads of Yahweh. So this is key information. Oftentimes, secular scholars will say that there is no evidence for the exodus and for the conquest. Well, you can say that if you dismiss the evidence, and this is hard evidence. Okay okay we've got some questions coming in we're going to move to those but one last question is apart from this inscription that's found what's the next oldest physical inscription is it an ancient stella is it another stamp or

what after this is the next proof of the god of Israel, even the existence of Israel as a nation? The next one would be this Amara West one from the 13th century, but I would say the next most important one after the soul of inscription would be what's known as the Moabite stone, or the Mesha Stele. And this was found here in the country of Jordan in 1868. It was found at the old capital of the Moabites at Dibbon. And it is the oldest inscription, 9th century BC, that mentions both the name Israel and the name of their god Yahweh together in the same inscription. And so there's a whole string of inscriptions that have been found through archaeology that mention Yahweh. This one at Solove is the oldest, and the reason it's a problem for these skeptical theories is that it predates by many centuries when they say that Israel came into existence and when the Bible was written and so forth.

This is super, super fascinating. I cannot believe I had missed this inscription before you brought it to my attention. That's very, very significant. Let me ask kind of a broad question. We're going to jump into some of the specifics. This is one that I've actually been meaning to ask you jlb says has archaeology ever proven part of the Bible wrong yeah that's a that's a good question and the answer is is no there is nothing that I'm aware of you know now if you're asking the skeptics that question they

would say yeah there's a ton of things um but the reality is is that uh is that the bible lines up now what can happen is um the bible gives us a chronology that you you follow the biblical chronology and everything lines up so what can happen is if you start following a chronology that's just a theory and that isn't based on what the Bible actually says when it happened and stuff like that, then you can get off in things. And so if you're looking for the conquest evidence in the wrong period, then you're not going to find it because it didn't happen then. And so you get that kind of stuff. But as far as laying out the chronology, as the Bible lays out the chronology,

and then looking at these sites, you know, it's why the criticism of the Bible from secular scholarship continues from generation to generation. It's because it can withstand it, because it isn't proven wrong through archaeology and evidence. One of the digs I've wondered a lot about and get asked somewhat frequently is Sodom and Gomorrah, and I know you've studied this, and some of this is in Jordan where you live. Will you give us your sense of where that scholarship is and where you think the evidence points and maybe some ways of study that may be upcoming and still not yet discovered? Yeah, no, the sites of Sodom and Gomorrah are part of a big picture. They're part of the

cities of the plain. So really, as far as looking for something archaeologically, the story of Sodom and Gomorrah is a dream story for archaeologists because you have multiple cities that are destroyed by fire at the same time, and then they're never inhabited again. That should stand out in the archaeological record. And so what happened is when they went looking for Sodom and Gomorrah, at first scholars couldn't find them. And so the Bible indicates where you should go looking for Sodom and Gomorrah. Just quickly, first of all, you should go looking for Sodom and Gomorrah near the Dead Sea, because it talks about Yom Sidim, which is the Sea of Salt.

And so the battle with the kings of the cities of the plain takes place at the Dead Sea. So you should look for them in the context of the Dead Sea. Ezekiel 16, 46 talks about Sodom as Jerusalem's wicked sister that lives south of Jerusalem. So you can't have Sodom to the north of Jerusalem. And then the real key one is Genesis 10, 19, which is laying out the borders of Canaan. And so it's saying that this Western border is from Sidon all the way down to Gaza on the Mediterranean coast, and then from Gaza east towards Sodom and Gomorrah. So that means that Sodom and Gomorrah are going to be east of Gaza. And so that puts you in the vicinity of the Dead Sea, east of Gaza, which is also south of Jerusalem. And this is where the Bible says that you should look for Sodom and Gomorrah in the cities of the plain. Well, this was a really remote area in the early explorations, and not very many people went into this area. And when they went into this area, they didn't see these big, glorious tells, you know, mounds, ancient ruins,

like they saw in other places. And so they basically were saying, well, there's not these glorious tells like you see everywhere else. And so then scholars started looking to the north of the Dead Sea, which again, it can't be to the north of the Dead Sea because that's north of Jerusalem. And so there's these beautiful tells up there, though, wonderful tells, and lots of biblical stories happen up there, just not Sodom and Gomorrah. Anyways, long story short, they started thinking these tells up there were Sodom and Gomorrah and the city of the plain, and that continues up to this day. There's certain archaeologists that believe that, but the most famous biblical archaeologist of all, William Foxwell Albright, went in the 1920s, went looking for, in the right place, you know, and this remote area. he was the first archaeologist that went into this area and this is you know the 1920s so he goes he goes down in there and he

discovered the site called Baba draw and Baba draw he discovered the site later that site was excavated the way that it was excavated which is kind of interesting is a guy named Paul Lapp was in Jerusalem. He's a scholar in Jerusalem. And all these intact pots started coming into the antiquity market in Jerusalem. And he was like, where is this river of intact material coming from? Well, he followed the trail and it was coming from Bab-a-Dra. And there's a cemetery right next to Bab-a-Dra that they estimate 500,000 plus people are buried in. And so just to make a very long story short, they excavated both the cemetery and the city.

And both of them were destroyed by fire at the same time. So in the cemetery, they had these uh they're called charnel houses think of a mud adobe house that they build and then they put the dead in into this mud adobe house well these had been burned through and the interior of them had been burned and so you know i mean if you're an army attacking a city, why would you attack the cemetery and destroy a cemetery with fire? So it showed this destruction by fire of both the city and the cemetery. And then Babadra never was inhabited again. And that you have to have for these cities of the plain.

And the reason why is because they're used once. This destruction is very early in the plain. And the reason why is because they're used once. This destruction is very early in the Bible. It's in the early parts of Genesis at the time of Abraham and Lot. And then from that time on, these cities are used as examples of utter destruction, eternal destruction and abandonment. So they're used by the prophets that way. They're used by Jesus that way. You know, he tells Capernaum, if the miracles that I've done here in Capernaum, if those would have been done in Sodom and Gomorrah, if in Sodom, then Sodom would have remained until this day. Well, that means that it didn't remain until that day. And it wasn't a city at the Roman period,

just as when the prophets are talking about, it wasn't a city at the Roman period, just as when the prophets are talking about, it wasn't a city in the kingdom of Israel period. Anyways, they went on, they surveyed other places, they found other sites in the area, they excavated those, and they also were destroyed by fire and never inhabited again, except for one, which is Zoar. Zoar is in the Bible. That's the one that Lot runs to from Sodom. Zoar is known from the ancient map that's here in Jordan that's famous. It's called the Madaba map. It's the oldest map of the Holy Land that we have on a church floor mosaic. And so Zoar is located on this southeast side of the Dead Sea, right where we're talking about in this city of the plain. And we know that that city continued from the Bible and also from archaeology.

I know the archaeologist that's been digging there. Pottery from these early periods are found there. And then the cemetery associated with that site doesn't end at the time that all these other cities and cemeteries do. It continues on in use because Zoar is the only one that is spared in the city of the plains for the sake of Lot. Okay, so last question about Sodom and Gomorrah. It seems like the location matches up with the various biblical data. The description of it being burned including cemeteries that wouldn't make sense otherwise are burned uh does the time match up uh it sounds like that does and what does larger scholarship do they accept that it fits a biblical narrative or are other scholars more skeptical of this and then we'll move on yeah i mean basically um scholarship you know in general secular scholarship in general sees uh sees most

of the bible as mythology however even uh with sodom and gomorrah they tend to see it as uh as mythology but based on some memory of some actual event that happened that destroyed these cities. And so, yeah, I mean, these sites, I can't even tell you, I mean, as an archaeologist in this area for 15 years, there is no site that strikes me so intensely as these sites. Like the site of Gomorrah at a site called Numera. You go there, or FIFO, which is either Adma or Zeboim, one of these cities of the plain. You go there, and you kick the ground, and ash flies up.

Still. And there's human bones in this destruction layer that's that's right up at the top i mean most sites to get down to the time of abraham and lot you got to dig and dig and dig it takes years and years to get down to those layers this layer is right up on the top it's why it took so long to find these sites they're not tells because a tell is formed over a long period of time as these cities are built and then destroyed or abandoned and rebuilt over and over and over until you get these mounds. Well, that didn't happen with these cities. They were cities early on. They were destroyed and they never were rebuilt. That's why they

didn't stand out. And that's why they took so long. But I mean, you go there and you see the bones and, you know, I take groups to these cities and and And and they're right next to water sources. That's the other thing. That's amazing I mean you have water to this day going right past them and yet they're never rebuilt They're never used again. And obviously the people this Understood this curse and and it lasts to this day. Joel, here's a practical one.

This is from a new friend of mine, Noho. He's a 12-year-old. He is into music and is a young apologist, and he wants to know, what is the best? Let me put it up here and just state it clearly. He says, what is the best piece of archaeological evidence which supports the Bible? So if you had to pick one, which one would you pick and why? Yeah, that's a great question. Well, let me answer it this way.

I'll try to just pick one. I don't think I can pick one because there's so many, but I would like to respond to that. I think that with what we're told, and we get bombarded a lot from secular academia, you know, about is there evidence for the Bible? Is there archaeological evidence for the Bible? And the only way I can explain it is think of creation, right? So you have somebody who is from the biblical worldview, and somebody asks them, is there any evidence for creation? Everywhere you look, there's evidence for creation. It's everywhere, okay? And then you ask somebody from a secular worldview, is there evidence for creation. It's everywhere. Okay. And then you ask somebody

from a secular worldview, is there evidence for creation? And they're like, it's nowhere. There is no evidence for creation. And so my point is, is that archeology is the same. You ask me, is there evidence for the Bible? Is the archeological, what's the number one thing that you would say? And I would say, it's everywhere. It's everywhere I look, there's evidence for the Bible. Every site I go to, I've lived here for 15 years. I still have this big, long list of places I still haven't made it to that are important, that I still haven't gone and experienced and studied because it's completely overwhelming everywhere. There's, I tell my study groups that come and they're exhausted at the end of two weeks. They go from morning till night, every single day for two weeks. And I tell them we could wake up tomorrow. We could do it all over again. And we could go to sites that we didn't go to on this two weeks. And

we could do that again. We could do that again. We could do that again. We could do that again. I mean, it's that overwhelming. And so what I would say to this young man is inscriptions. I would say that inscriptions are the thing that establish facts better than anything else found in archaeology and if I could if I could pick one I would pick the Moabite stone oh that that I already brought up that was found in 1868 because it's one of the first inscriptions that was found here in the biblical land. And it's an amazing inscription. It talks about kings in the Bible, Omri, and it mentions a house of David. It talks about Gad, the tribe of Gad

living in this area east of the Jordan from ancient times, it says. And this is the 9th century BC. It begins with Mesha, who is the king of Moab. In the Bible, it names Mesha as the king of Moab, and this inscription starts out, its first line says, I am Mesha, son of Chemosh, king of Moab, a Debonite, you know, from Devon the bone. And then he goes on to explain this event that's found in the Bible. And, and so it's, it's just an amazing inscription that, that, you know, is, yeah, it, it was a home run hit early on in archeology. And I don't know that

it's ever been topped, maybe equaled, yes, but never topped. That's awesome. I want to come to specifically Jericho, because you took me and a group of high school students there almost a decade ago now, and you've been studying that for a long time. But there was a question that came up. I'm searching here for it. I might have missed it, so I won't throw it, but essentially the question was asking, what advice would you give? There was one from a high school student who said, I'm considering going into archaeology. What advice would you give for me in approaching this? Boy, that's a good question. It's a tough field because, though it doesn't sound like it, you know, when you hear the field biblical archaeology, it sounds very friendly to the Bible. But it's actually a secular field. And especially these days, it hasn't always been hostile towards the Bible. In the very early days of biblical archaeology, there was a high regard for the Bible.

But these days, it's very hostile to the Bible and the biblical position. And so it's a tough field for that reason. need young people to go into these fields and go in with, you know, the main skill you have to have in order to go into these fields is you have to know how to be a critical thinker. And you need the Bible. And the reason I say that is I would have never survived in school and archaeology studying under secular professors without the Bible, because the Bible is a source as absolute truth which which i did and um when you have absolute truth then you can do what you know paul is uh calling the burians noble for you got to be a burian archaeologist you got to be able to decipher between what you're being told and taught what is true and what is not true and to reject and uh and and not be influenced by what isn't true i'm not saying don't listen to it or don't

uh don't you know come into contact with it you're you're you're gonna have to as you study but you've got to be good at deciphering what you accept and and grow and learn and what you don't and to uh do that, you need the Bible. You need a source of absolute truth. If you don't believe in the Bible, if you don't believe in absolute truth, which is secular, scholarship doesn't,

then how do you know anything? Then you're just in this big whirlwind of everybody arguing with everybody. And how do you decipher between who is right and who is wrong? It's a never-ending whirlwind of confusion. Whereas if you have the Bible and you have absolute truth, then you can sit at God's inspired feet, you know, and learn from Him. For example, you know, we talked about Sodom and

Gomorrah. The Bible says it's east of gaza now if you start listening to somebody that says oh that's not really what the bible means and east doesn't really mean east and it really means this and that south of jerusalem it doesn't really mean south of jerusalem and if you start listening to that stuff then you lose your advantage because your advantage isn't how smart you are or your education. Your advantage is that God is telling you this is where you go looking for Sodom and Gomorrah. And if you start to ignore that and start raising scholarship up above the Bible, then you lose that advantage and then you lose your compass and then you don't know where you're going and then you're confused. So my number one advice is to hold firm to the Bible as inspired

and to use that as an advantage. That's why biblical archaeology hasn't gone anywhere for years and years and years because the Bible has been neglected. And so nobody knows where to go look for things or how to interpret the things that they find because they're neglecting the most important ancient texts that come from those periods and places that they're digging in. Joel, that's great advice to be a critical thinker, be committed to the scriptures, but go into archaeology with your eyes wide open and aware that there's many people operating under different assumptions. And yet, with that said, we need young people to go into archaeology and make a difference. I think that's great advice.

Now, very quickly, when we come back, I'm going to have the question you and I did not discuss, but should have known this question would come up in a live Q&A. And I don't know if you've studied this or not. I really want to know what your thoughts are. Come in a second. But those of don't know if you've studied this or not i really want to know what your thoughts are come in a second but those you just join us we're here with joel kramer uh he's a professor at shepherd's theological seminary and archaeologist in amman jordan and we're taking some live questions uh from him if you're new to channel make sure you hit subscribe this is brought to you by biola apologetics next week, we're bringing out an expert PhD who just did his research on how new trans policies

will affect girls' sports. And he did his PhD doctoral dissertation. You will not want to miss this, so make sure you hit subscribe and the notification button. All right, Joel, I think you probably know what question is coming up. So here we go. Are ready where is noah's ark it's a great question yeah we don't yeah that is a great question and uh we we don't know where

noah's ark is um we do know that it landed in the mountains, plural, of Ararat, as the Bible tells us. And so, and, you know, the whole thing of going and looking for it on Mount Ararat is kind of turned into a fiasco and whatnot. The powerful evidence for the flood is not finding, it hasn't been finding Noah's Ark because that hasn't been found. What the powerful evidence is through archaeology is all of these texts, ancient texts that have been found on tablets and from all these different cultures that speak about the flood. So one example is the text, the cuneiform tablets that were found in Ashurbanipal's palace in Nineveh in the excavations there. And so this records the story known as the Epic of Gilgamesh. And in this ancient account, you have Gilgamesh, who is very interesting. He's afraid to die, and he's going in search of eternal life. So where does he go?

He's the king of the city-state of Uruk, and he's the mediator between the gods and the people. He doesn't go to his gods. Instead, he goes on this huge journey searching for the man who came through the flood. Utnapishtim is the Sumerian name for what the Bible calls Noah. Anyway, so he goes in search of Utnapishtim because he survived this flood, and he wants eternal life, and so why not go talk to the guy, you know, who survived the flood with

his family, and so that's why it gives the account that it does, and the account is amazing that he builds this ark, and that he puts his family on it, and that it rains, and that the whole world is flooded, and that he comes, he sends out birds looking for land and he comes to rest on a mountain and he, and on and on. And so, and then, and then the other interesting thing is that when Gilgamesh does finally find Utnapishtim, what does Utnapishtim tell him? He tells him, sorry, sorry, dude, you're going to die like everybody else. You know, and so anyways, it's one example of these flood accounts that come from these different cultures that have been found through archaeology. This is a story that was lost and then was discovered through archaeology.

Couldn't be read at the time a guy named george smith uh is one of the handfuls of uh guys who learned to read cuneiform and he's sitting in the library or in the reading room at the british museum and and when he first reads this flood account he gets so excited he literally jumps up and starts ripping his clothes off and whatnot. And it was a huge deal back then. It was a huge deal. I mean, the world was stunned that this flood account that correlates so much with the details in the biblical flood account has been found. And everybody was interested in the high high ups of british society came and

and you know it was an amazing thing and and uh we should still respond to uh the archaeological uh discoveries that have been found in the past and that continue to be found in the same kind of way it's uh they're amazing that's helpful. I always wondered how archaeologists got excited when they translated something. Now I know. So that sounds like a fascinating story. Well, he wasn't the archaeologist that found it. He was the linguist that read the tablet that at this time had, you know, there was like 50,000 tablets. That's how much evidence there is for things. There was 50,000 tablets and a handful of people that could read them that could come on their lunch break from their regular job

to start reading through these 50,000 tablets. And oh my gosh, look, here's a flood account. Here's a fascinating question that relates to the site of I. And I know that's important because you've actually dug there and have first-hand experience with this so this comes from joe and he says i dug it kerbet l mocketeer i know i butchered that dr bryant woods thinks that's the very good question um so so i also dug at uh mocketeer and uh and when i was digging at mocketeer uh bryant wood is is uh my personal mentor um and uh he he's one that i met when i did uh the film with him uh jericho Unearthed. And so, yeah, I've dug with Dr. Wood. When I was on that dig, I met another student named Titus Kennedy, and he and I became friends

first on that dig. And so it was during that dig that I really, both Titus and I, you know, individually kind of came to the understanding that this couldn't be I. We just didn't see the fortified wall and we didn't see this kind of thing. I would take archaeologists out to that site because I lived in Israel at the time and they couldn't see it. And they thought, you know, this is not what you think it is. And all this kind of stuff that there was a gate there that that was believed to be the gate that really was identified by other archaeologists as a wine press. And and when I excavated a wine press myself, I really became convinced of that. You know, it's not enjoyable for me to not agree with my mentor and everything like that. But

anyways, long story short, so then where is I? And so Titus and i you know started looking into that and and what i found is um kind of one of my secrets of uh trying to understand where a biblical site is besides the what the bible has to say of course is to go to the earliest archaeologists the ones who were exploring and digging back in the day when they believed the Bible was historical and used it. And so there's a guy named John Garstang. And John Garstang, in 1928, he dug three sites, the three sites that Joshua says that he burned. And he dug at Jericho. Then he dug at Ai, at a site called Etel, and then he identified Hatzor and dug Hatzor. He found the same pottery, he found the same burn destruction, he found the same evidence at all three sites. So, um, I, the site of I that, that, um, that scholarship believed to be I up to this

day. So if I, I asked my secular, uh, my secular professor, where is I? He said, oh, it's, it's over at Etel, you know? And so, um, the reason that Bryant Wood didn't go to Etel is because the guy who dug there said that he didn't find the right kind of pottery. Okay. And so, and so Titus Kennedy now and is the director of the dig there at Etel and I work with Titus. We've dug there one season, then we got shut down because of the pandemic. But, but yeah, I mean, I, it's not published, so I can't really go into too much about what we found there. But I'll just say that it really matches with the biblical account and there's a destruction there and so forth. The pottery that supposedly was missing is not missing. That's amazing.

Politics drives things in this part of the world. I don't know. You know, I think politics is driving things in America. It sounds like these days. And it's been that way here in the Middle East for a long time. They were all in, this is the British Mandate period, and they were all in this British mandated land. Then 1948 happened, and then the border between Israel and at that time Jordan came, and Hazor was on the Israel side, and I and Jericho were on the Jordanian side. From that time on, the war from 1948 went from guns to archaeology. And so then from that time on, on the Jordanian side of the border, then they couldn't find Israelite conquest evidence anymore. But on the Israel side, they still could find conquest evidence at Hazor. Does that make sense? Yes.

Yes. So the politics of the day, that's one of the things you really have to look at carefully, is because politics tend to drive things more, unfortunately, than the archaeology drives things. so the the um understanding that these were the three sites that uh joshua burned were overturned on the jordanian side of things okay and continued to stand on the israel side of things that is very really doesn't have yeah really doesn't have to do with uh pottery like everybody thinks really has to do with that that's really interesting to know i think looking from the outside that's often missed and i didn't understand that i remember when we were with you again about a decade ago you described that under a home jewish israel israeli muslim or christian if any thing is found as, it could threaten the person's right to their home.

So there's a discouragement from considering sites where people live. Is that right? And could you explain how that works? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, everything is evidence for something. When that war went from, and I'm not trying to be political myself. I'm not giving my own political views or anything. I'm just saying that when the war in 1948 happened, then in the aftermath of that, it became, the struggle became, who has the right to the land? Do the Palestinians have the right to

the land? Do the Israelis have the right to the land? Well, that's based on history and what happened. So if you're arguing that the Palestinians have the right to the land, not the Israelis, then you can't be showing all this evidence that Joshua and the Israelites came in and conquered the land in 1400. So yeah, and it's just's it's a bomb going up you know ready to go off or going off almost constantly over there and so so now whenever i study a site now i've learned over the years

you study the archaeologists that dug there before you study the site i want to know who they are i want to know what their political angle is. I wanna know everything about them, where they went to school, who they trained under, everything like this to understand. And usually you can figure out what they're gonna say before they dig and so forth. And that was the case with Kenyan.

You couldn't dig on the Jordanian side of things unless you were on the side of establishing that the Palestinians have the right to the land. They wouldn't give you a permit to dig. Just like today, you get in trouble on both sides. If you dig, you can, as an archaeologist, you can dig on the Israeli side or the Arab side, but you can't dig on both. Really? Wow. No, because it's interesting. Yeah. And so it's

intense. It's an intense political situation. Of course, it's so intense because it's connected to real history. Right. And so there's, of course, secular agendas, but there's also political agendas and whatnot. Yeah, and it took me years and years to understand that. Yeah. That's great. Now, there's a few questions here, one about your story and interest in archaeology and a few about Abraham. I'm going to direct people that have those questions. Our first interview, we really unpacked your story, your motivation, your approach.

And in your book, Where God Came Down, which I want to give a little plug for, Where God Came Down, a couple of the first archaeological evidences are for Abraham. So if you're interested in the cave, we unpacked that in the first interview. And you also find them in the book Where God Came Down. There were a couple of questions that popped up. What about some of the sensational claims that we hear? Like I, I told you that I do this atheist role play, right? Role playing atheist. And I go to Christian events. And one of the questions that comes up every other time is, well, don't you know, they found chariots and wheels at the bottom of the Red Sea and people are like convinced of this stuff so is

that even remotely true or what are some other examples of sensational claims that just get overstated yeah so um so it's gold chariots in the bottom of the red sea which is really um it's ron wyatt who came up with that a guy named ron Ron Wyatt and his sons who snuck into Saudi Arabia while they were exploring all that stuff and got arrested. And I actually lived on the Red Sea side of Saudi when that happened. I was a kid at the time. But anyways, it's gold chariot wheels at the bottom of the Red Sea. And, you know, this is why you have to be a critical thinker. Can you think of a worse metal to make your chariot wheels out of than gold? Right?

That's a good question. First of all, it's way too heavy, and it's way too soft. And so you're not going to have a bunch of chariots running around with gold chariot wheels um right there it's ridiculous if they had found um gold chariot wheels at the bottom of the red sea they'd be in museums all over the world just like the dead sea scrolls are um and you know the reason it became so popular is that another guy came along uh and made a film out of it and popularized it and so on and so forth. So people have been exposed to it and so forth. But yeah, these are easy to swallow, simple things that the problem with them is they're not real.

They are actually mythology. And, you know, another one is that the Ark of the Covenant was found in the Garden Tomb area and that the blood of Jesus was dripping on the mercy seed and it didn't have a Y chromosome in the blood and the evidence for the actual evidence for the Bible is on one side, you got the skeptics from secularism pounding on this side. And then within the church, you know, within Christianity, you have all these sensationalists that are saying things that just actually aren't true to try to battle that secular thing. And people are like, oh, well, they're saying that the Bible's not true. And they found the blood of Jesus with no white chromosome. And, you know, it's hard to present the real evidence as exciting because, you know, you know, who cares about some pottery if you've got the blood of Jesus dripping on the, none of the things hold up, either side.

You know, the truth is there's no more evidence for the criticisms against the Bible than the sensationalistic claims. And that's really, it's really true because here's the way it works. I've learned this over the years, is that what the Bible is telling us happened, happened. Okay, and the evidence isn't there to prove the Bible right. The evidence is there because it happened, and it left the evidence behind.

So anytime that you get a position that says that the Bible, which is historical, is not historical, that it's a myth, then they have to come up with an alternate explanation for what happened. And that's going to be contrary to what actually did happen. Therefore, there aren't going to be any ancient texts that say that their theory happened. Does that make sense? And because there's no ancient text that says that it happened, the reason that there aren't ancient texts saying that it happened is because it didn't happen. So it didn't leave any evidence behind. So all these criticisms that are coming at the Bible are coming from these baseless, weak positions that are not backed by any ancient texts, that are not backed by any evidence.

And yet they're the positions that are challenging the Bible. Where's the evidence? There's no evidence for this. There's no, well, you know, bring me from your criticism and from your take on things. If the Exodus, for example, didn't happen, and the Israelites weren't in Egypt, then where did they come from? everybody agrees that the is that the land of Canaan became the land of Israel and the kingdom of Israel so where did they come from and whatever their alternative alternate view is it won't have any ancient texts that back it up nor any evidence that could connect to any ancient text because there aren't any Joel this is really

helpful of the sensational claims because part of me is a Christian I'm like yes I want the best evidence we can find to not be gullible, but also the other side can be overly skeptical. I think that's a fair pushback on both sides. In the past month or so, at least two new stories have popped up on my radar. One was the finding of the purple cloth dating to the time of King Solomon in the place and locale of King Solomon. Now, the argument wasn't this is proof that King Solomon lived, but it shows there was a kind of royalty and arguably wealth in that time and that place. Another one was this dance floor of John the Baptist, and they made the case that this is where he was condemned to death because of the girl who dances and asks for his head on a platter. When you hear these, the first thing I check is the source. One,

I believe, was like the Jerusalem Post. It was a newspaper I follow out of Israel. Another one was Live Science. So I think, oh, there's probably something to this. It doesn't strike me as sensational. When you hear stories like that come out kind of on a popular level, what advice would you give for me and others who aren't archaeologists to make sense of it? Yeah, it would, you know, on those particular ones, which, you know, I haven't read those articles or heard about those particular ones. The Jerusalem Post usually reports on things that are from actual digs and everything like that. So it would depend on what the dig was and who was the one who was excavating and what is the context of where it

was found. If purple fabric was found that dates to the time of Solomon, that's great. But I mean, we know that there was purple fabric at the time of Solomon. Sometimes the find is absolutely legit, but sometimes they can make a mountain out of a molehill type thing gotcha you know make more of it then then really should be made of it and this of course has to do with trying to get attention and trying to get maybe

sponsors for digs and all that kind of stuff and and to feel some meaning to the dig and stuff like that. So that's a very common thing, is to make more out of something than need be. Totally fair. Here's one for you. I haven't asked you about this one either, but your thoughts on the Shroud of Turin. I don't know a ton about the Shroud of Turin. I know a little bit about it. I've done a little bit of research on it. It's in context.

My professor that I studied under excavated a tomb and found an actual uh um face covering from uh the tomb that that the bodies at that time the um the face covering was detached from uh from the rest of the wrappings um i don't consider the um shroud of turin authentic, personally. Oh, very interesting. It doesn't fit the description of how people were buried in Jerusalem at the time of Jesus. And I know they say all this stuff about pollen and all this kind of technical stuff, but you get that a lot, you know, oh, carbon-14 proves this and proves that, and, you i don't i don't believe that okay i think it's a i think it's a later forgery you know pushed off as yeah yeah oh thanks that's great to your opinion here's one that i think would be helpful to know i know you've obviously thought about this a common

archaeological find do you feel that the sennacherib prism is strong evidence for the bible and what do you think of the connection with herodotus so basically what are your thoughts on the sennacherib prism yeah so um the uh the time period of sennacherib is probably the time period where the most evidence from biblical, the biblical sources and extra biblical sources come together. Converge, okay. Yeah, I mean, it's really a rich period, the Assyrian period, because this is contemporary with the prophet Isaiah and Micah and others. And this is the invasion of the Assyrians. I mean, it's a very, very dramatic event. This is when Sennacherib invades Judah in 701 BC,

destroys all the fortified cities in Judah and lays Jerusalem under siege. And this is when God delivers Jerusalem from him by putting 185,000 soldiers to death. So it's a very interesting time. And so the, and we have, of course, the biblical records to compare then now with the Assyrian records that are excavated from Sennacherib's palace, not just the inscriptions on prisms, of which there's more than one, but also the carved reliefs on the walls. These were excavated in the mid-1800s by Austin Henry Laird. And so, yeah, it's, so if you take the details of what Isaiah says happens, and, you know, in the King's account, in the Chronicles account and what Sennacherib says happened, it's an amazing correlation.

So for example, Isaiah says that all of the fortified cities were destroyed down to Jerusalem and Jerusalem was like a hut in a melon field or a cucumber field, that the cucumbers were the destroyed cities and all that was left was Jerusalem. The way that Sennacherib puts it is he says, I destroyed 46 fortified cities in Judah.

And then he says, I laid siege to Jerusalem. And he brags about shutting up Hezekiah like a bird in a cage. He mentions Hezekiah by name and says that he shuts him up like a bird in a cage, but then he admits that he doesn't get his hand into the cage to get the bird. And so he goes back to his palace in Nineveh. And what's amazing about his palace in Nineveh, it's called the Palace Without Rival. That's its ancient name. And in this palace is the central courtyard. And in the central court, you have this long hallway that's going off the front, and you have these winged bulls with the human head on either side. And then back from them, you have slightly

smaller ones and back from them, slightly smaller ones, so that this hall is going into a room that's the main showroom that is the focal point from his palace. And in this room, it's like looking down a telescope, so to speak, is focused on is called the Lachish Rim. And this, if you go to the British Museum, you'll see all the reliefs that show the destruction, the siege and destruction of the second most important fortified city in Judah. And the Bible says that Lachish was under attack, was under siege when Sennacherib sent his message up to Jerusalem, and then it fell. And we have the excavations at Lachish that have found the siege ramp, and then we have a picture of Lachish from these wall reliefs from Sennacherib's palace that shows the sacking of Lachachish and so the point is is that what Sennacherib wanted was he wanted Jerusalem in his main showroom the

number one city in Judah but he didn't get it so why didn't he get it well the Bible tells us why he didn't get it if the if the Assyrians would have broken through the walls of Jerusalem think of all If the Assyrians would have broken through the walls of Jerusalem, think of all of the promises that God would have broken. Would have been the end of the Israelite remnant, and there would have been no people for the Messiah to come from. And so God didn't leave it up to the people. You see Hezekiah, you got to understand that the Assyrians were undefeated at this point in history. Every city that they had laid siege to, they had taken. And in fact, in their whole career, there's only one city that they laid siege to that they didn't take, and that was Jerusalem. And in excavating myself personally in Jerusalem for 10 years, one of the most amazing archaeological phenomenons in Jerusalem archaeology isn't what

you find, it's what you don't find, and that is there is no Assyrian burn layer in Jerusalem, because God delivered his people, because of all the promises that he had made to the patriarchs, and also to David, that his throne would last forever. And Hezekiah goes and prays to God that God would deliver Jerusalem from the Assyrians so that the whole world would know that Yahweh was God. And so that's what he does. And so, yeah, this amazing amount of evidence

that comes from Assyria and then the excavations at Lachish and the Bible and it all converges together in this time period and paints this amazing correlating picture of what happened from different perspectives. That's so fascinating the way you describe the promise to Israel and the protection of Judah at least this is a century and a half plus before the Babylonian captivity and destruction, because you're dealing with the time of Isaiah. So the Bible describes from one angle, but the Sennacherib prism describes it from another angle, and the two of them come together and tell a larger story if you put them together. That is so interesting the way you described that well

joel i'm gonna respect your time i know it's even much later where you're at in jordan and probably going to bed soon but there are a ton more questions here to those who are asking questions i apologize if i missed i tried to get the ones that i know you've studied and were interested in but we'll we'll have to do this again here's one question I think you will want to answer to kind of wrap us out. Christian Celtic Warrior says, can someone put out a DVD on all the biblical evidence found, please? Now, instead of one DVD, tell us a little bit about your website. Tell us about SourceFlix and maybe just one or two of the DVDs you've done that you think would be most helpful for people watching?

Yeah, that's what I came over initially to when I moved to Israel to do was I was a filmmaker. And so my website is Sourceflix, flix spelled like Netflix, F-L-I-X, sourceflix.com. And I have videos on there that deal with jericho i have one on jericho i have um i have several of them on archaeology several of them on on other biblical related issues and and whatnot um you couldn't put it all into one uh dvd or one book. Um, because like I, I said before, it's, it's overwhelming. Um, you can study this place all your life, uh, as I hope to do, and you'll never master it. You'll never, you'll, you'll, it's, uh, it's overwhelming. And, um, and so there's always more to learn. It seems like every time you learn something, then you discover a hundred things that you realize now that you don't know and you don't understand.

And so, and I think that that's the right way to think about it. The right way to think about it is, is it is overwhelming like that. And, you know, and I think to think of it in the big picture, also, if we're wrapping up here a little bit, you know, the big picture is really an important thing to start about, you know, there's a saying that says, we miss the forest for the trees. That's biblical archaeology today. We miss the forest for the trees. So take the conquest,

Joshua's conquest. What's the evidence for it as an example? Let's talk about the forest issue, about what all archaeologists agree upon. They have to agree upon because of the evidence they all agree that the cities that in the land of canaan were canaanite cities and then something happened and they became israelite cities right and so um so jericho eventually it was abandoned for a long time it becomes an israelite city hatsor becomes an israelite city when it was a canaanite city And so Jericho eventually was abandoned for a long time. It becomes an Israelite city. Hazor becomes an Israelite city when it was a Canaanite city. Lachish becomes an Israelite city.

Canaan becomes Israel. Everybody agrees with that. And then you've got these destruction layers that are the end of the Canaanite city, and then built on top of those destruction layers are the Israelite cities. There's only so many people that could have done that, that could have conquered the land of Canaan. And nobody says that they did it except for one. Who says that they did it? The people who occupied the land next. They kept their own records of what happened and how it happened. They were faithful to write it down. They were faithful to copy it over thousands of years so

that it never was lost. And to pass it down, this is the account of what happened. They say they did it. And they're the ones who occupied the sites that stopped being Canaanite and began to be Israelite, according to everybody. It's not that difficult. It's straightforward. It's obvious. Biblical archaeology isn't some mystery thing that you find a gold chariot wheel in the bottom of the sea that nobody's noticed for.

It's obvious. God's not trying to trick us. He's not trying to hide evidence from us. It's out wheel in the bottom of the sea that nobody's noticed for. It's much, it's obvious. God's not trying to trick us. He's not trying to hide evidence from us. It's out there in the open. It's, it's obvious. And where he says things are, they are, you know, if, if you have a treasure map that tells you where the treasure is, how do you test whether it's reliable or not? It's real simple. You follow the treasure map to where X marks the spot of the treasure, you dig a hole, and if you find the treasure that's reliable. And again and again and again,

the Bible tells archaeologists if you go right here and dig right here, Jericho, for example, you're going to find a fallen wall. And then they get around and they dig and what is there? There's a fallen wall. And then on top of that, a burn destruction. And on top of that is an abandonment layer. And on top of that is an Israelite city. And what do you read in the Bible? It says that the wall fell down. And then the Israelites burned the city. And then cursed the city and it was abandoned for a long time until the time of Ahab when the city was rebuilt as a Israelite city same sequence in the Bible as under the ground The Bible told you what you were gonna find before you find it you go find the same sequence of events

It's that obvious and from one site to another it's that obvious and And from one site to another, it's that obvious. And the criticisms of the Bible are baseless. If you've got a criticism of the Bible, bring me an ancient text that tells me that this other thing happened. Go find an ancient text that was buried in a cave for over 2000 years and bring that account. I'll consider that a challenge. Other than that, they're baseless.

And the reality that the Bible is not mythology, but history and beyond that authoritative is obvious. If it was mythology, you couldn't come here on a trip and go on a two-week study trip learning all these things you could study the languages that are real languages study the geography that's real geography dig the sites that are real sites study the artifacts that you find them none of that stuff would be possible none of these fields would be available to study if this was mythology joel this is great stuff i love your passion i appreciate your friendship i remember when you

took us to the dead sea scrolls and we walked up into those caves and it was it went from like a story historians talk about to a real cave a real place for me we went to jericho and you described some of the layers that have been found and how it matches up with a biblical account is is game-changing so again i just someone just said that they uh they bookmarked your site sourceflix.com with an x like netflix if you've been tracking this and you want just more resources from biblical perspective about archaeology follow joel kramer on his site, SourceFlix. And I've told you this, Joel, but your video, Jericho Unearthed, I've shown that to my own kids.

I've used that when I was teaching Old Testament. I'm not anymore used to it with my students because if I remember, it's like 30, 35 minutes. It's not that long, and you get right into the evidence. And my favorite part about the end of that is when you're interviewing, if I remember, one of the last living people from the dig with Kathleen Kenyon. You're like, in light of this evidence, would you reconsider? And this guy's not a Christian was like, yes, I think we've missed something here. That's powerful stuff.

So I hope people pick up Jericho on Earth. Follow your site. Support you. And I'm going to show one more time your book, Where God Came Down. It's a beautiful book. I've read most of it. And if you're up for it, I'll give you a little time. I don't want to wear out my welcome, but would love to have you back to just keep this conversation

because people are asking some really, really good questions and just a lot of positive comments about your willingness to come on. So hang 30 seconds after. But again, those of you joining us, make sure you hit subscribe. and just a lot of positive comments about your willingness to come on. So hang 30 seconds after. But again, those of you joining us, make sure you hit subscribe and the notification button. Coming up, we have interviews. I do these behind-the-scenes interviews just with thinkers and scholars. And upcoming, we have Lee Strobel, Nancy Piercy, and Wayne Grudem

who have agreed to come on and talk about the people and the experiences and the books that have shaped their lives. And this upcoming – it's Tuesday or Wednesday. I'd have to double-check. An expert who just graduated did his PhD work on trans sports policies and how it will affect girls' sports specifically in track and field. And some of this data is just fascinating. So make sure you join us for that so all right

everybody good to see some familiar faces in the chat room and some new faces uh you guys are awesome really uh hope and trust this was was beneficial so hang on there joel for a minute but thanks everybody for joining us we'll see you real soon