Archeologists keep coming up with more and more evidence that the Bible stories are true.
Israeli archaeologists have unearthed a seal impression belonging to a minister of the biblical King Zedekiah, which dates back 2,600 years, during an archeological dig in Jerusalem’s ancient City of David. The finding helps corroborate the story pertaining to the biblical minister’s demand to have the prophet Jeremiah killed.
The seal impression, or bulla, with the name Gedalyahu ben Pashur, who served as minister to King Zedekiah (597-586 BCE) according to the Book of Jeremiah, was found completely intact just meters away from a separate seal impression of another of Zedekia’s ministers, Yehukual ben Shelemyahu, which was unearthed three years ago.
Both ministers are mentioned in the Book of Jeremiah (Jeremiah 38 1-4) along with two other ministers when they came to King Zedekiah demanding the death of the prophet Jeremiah for preaching to the besieged city to surrender.
This is the history that the Palestinians continually deny. Funny how the evidence keeps on showing that, gee, Jews have been in Jerusalem for thousands of years.
And as a special postscript: The City of David is in the part of Jerusalem that Jordan forbade Jews from entering after the 1948 war of independence.
People love to talk about “Arab East Jerusalem.” Funny how they never mention the Jewish part of the “Arab” East Jerusalem.
What’s the difference between the City of David and Bethlehem?
Bethlehem is down the road a piece.
I have to disagree Meryl. What’s written is not necessarily what ‘true.’ This is particularly the case when dealing with the early history of the Israel/Judah kingdoms. There is a whole history of ascribing to earlier kings what was actually built/written later. witness ascribing the song of songs, psalms, and Kohelet to Solomon. A later example of that would be ascribing authorship of the Zohar to Talmudic Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai rather than the much later Moses de Leon
At the least it shows that 1) the Jews really were in Judah and Israel two and a half millenia ago, contrary to Arab lies (as Meryl points out), and 2) that even if written later the Biblical books have a basis in fact, since they retain the memory of real people.
But if archaeologists had dug up the Deuteronomistic History on clay tablets from the library of a ruined city buried for 2500 years it would be hailed as a fantastic, wonderful find and the account used without reservations to reconstruct the history of the region.
Please correct me if I’m mistaken, but the City of David is the area immediately south of the Temple Mount (on the west side of the Kidron Valley). North of the Valley of Hinnom. BTW, Hinnom is also known as Gehenna — the place where the garbage of the city was dumped and burned — hence the Hebrew name given to the place of eternal burning. In the King James Translation “hell”.
Try here.
Bob, I wouldn’t advise using the translations from the King James Bible. I’d go with Jewish scholars’ translations. The King James version is notorious for its edits of the original text. At least, to us.
Fear not, Meryl. I’m well aware that the KJV was at best a fair translation 400 years ago based on only a handful of manuscripts, some of doubtful accuracy. Even if it were a flawless rendering of the Hebrew, the English language has changed in the past four centuries.
Just to be nitpicky, since the King James is written in English – not in the original Hebrew – it may well be a poor translation but hardly be a corrupt editing of the original. No one has ever been able to corrupt the original text, as evidenced by the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls at Qumran.