Archaeological evidence that the Bible is true! with Paul Weaver

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1:08Hey guys, welcome to the show. Today, my guest is Dr. Paul Weaver, and he has a book out called Faith Affirming Findings. 50 archaeological discoveries that validate the historicity and reliability of Scripture. These are amazing archaeological finds, and they are very much faith affirming. We're going to talk about many of them, several of them. Several of them, that silence skeptical, critical scholars who denied a person place or thing mentioned in the Bible, but were later proven wrong by the archaeological record. We're going to look at those because you can't deny the veracity of the Bible. We're going to look at the Bible and the people places and things. But first a word from our sponsor. For a short devotional, we would love to introduce you to the Salvation Army's one minute podcast, Heartbeat. New episodes drop every Tuesday and Thursday.

2:09One of the biggest questions we carry as human beings is, what happens next? What will Heaven be like? The Bible gives us incredible promises about eternity. We know that through Jesus, death isn't the end. We know that we will be with God, but it's interesting that the Bible doesn't give us every detail about Heaven. And maybe that's intentional. Maybe God didn't reveal everything because He doesn't want us spending our lives only looking forward to the next one. He wants us to live this one. Jesus said, I have come that they may have life and have it abundantly. We don't have to fear the future because God holds eternity. But we also don't have to miss the beauty of the life He has given us right now. But fully, love deeply. Trust God with what comes next. For more episodes of Heartbeat, visit SalvationArmyRadio.org. What if everything you love about your faith got deeper? Richer, more rooted, more alive? L. Shadai Ministries exist to take Torah to the nations, restoring the biblical and historical foundations of the connection between Christians and the Jewish roots of Scripture.

3:16Pastor Mark Biltz has taught in 25 nations on five continents, and now he's teaching you. Listen free at oneplace.com. Just search L. Shadai Ministries at oneplace.com. Please welcome Dr. Paul Weaver. Well, thank you for the opportunity to be with you. I'm looking forward to our conversation. I am too. This book was amazing. Like I said in the intro, it really is faith-affirming. I mean, these kind of archaeological findings are, they just boost your faith and they're very important. So tell me, first of all, why this book now, why did you even write this book? Yeah, so my PhD is in Biblical studies. And what I did take courses on archaeology along the way. And I just love the background of the Bible. I love things that help the Bible come to life. And I think biblical archaeology does that. And of course, the second and the really passionate, I'm passionate about one is helping people to get excited about studying the Bible.

4:21And two is helping people to recognize and understand and have greater confidence in the history and reliability of Scripture. And the archaeology does both of those things. It helps you to see the Bible in 5K, if you will. And it also affirms our faith in the history and reliability of Scripture. So I've always been interested in biblical archaeology. And my PhD studies, I did more of that than in my dissertation while I was considering what I wanted to do for my, you know, spend this one year of time studying and writing. And I thought, you know, there's a big chasm in my opinion between the field of biblical studies and the field of archaeology. You have a lot of archaeologists and you have a lot of biblical scholars, but not many are both. It's really an interdisciplinary task. And so I thought, well, maybe I can help bridge this divide, the scap, commentaries on Corinth, on first Corinthians and second Corinthians in my estimation, didn't give enough of the archaeological background to their commentary.

5:24I wanted to provide almost a handbook, if you will. There's 23 volumes on the archaeology of Corinth. Well, you can't deal with all of that in a commentary, but I wanted to provide in my dissertation the most important discoveries from Corinth that relate to the exposition of first Corinthians. So that was my dissertation. And I love the faith affirming aspects of that as well. And then I just reached out to Cregul and I posed this idea and they were excited about as well. So really helping people to see the biblical text that relates to the discovery, describe the discovery, and then give the 3, 4, 5, sometimes 6, 7, 8 things from that discovery, a site or a artifact that affirms a real person, a real place, real things. Recorded in the Bible. And so it was a lot of fun. And then I created 51 videos, 6, 10 minutes videos to go with it and 51 PowerPoint presentations.

6:25So I hope people use it to study it for themselves, study the scriptures to study these discoveries, but then also use it in their Bible studies and preaching and teaching and personal study. Yeah, you mentioned in the introduction or in the beginning of the book, you mentioned how this would be a valuable tool for pastors or preachers. And I think it, I mean, I think that's so, so important to be able to connect the dots and for when a pastor is preaching on a certain passage and that archaeological finding is part of that passage to put that up on the screen. And I think that would just really bring it home. So I think this is really important for pastors and as you said, people leading Bible studies, et cetera. Yeah, this week and I preached a message out of Daniel 5 and bell shatter and I think we're going to talk about that. And I use these discoveries to as this, you know, as an illustration and a side note to say what we're reading is real person, real event, real place.

7:32Okay, so let's get into some of the discovery. By the way, I mean, when you did, we're doing your research, were there any, was there anything that genuinely surprised you in terms of the archaeological evidence? And nothing surprised me. I in the process, I reached out to about 25 different archaeologists and biblical scholars and asked them to give me their top 50 discoveries. So that was fascinating to hear what people would choose as their top 50 most important discoveries to talk about. And probably top 40 were similar, right? But then depending on their interest, the Old Testament studies or if they're New Testament scholar, if they're into, you know, textual chrissism and the manuscripts, they of course they included their interest and discoveries most interested in each one of many of them have a lot of interesting stories as to their discovery. I think that was fascinating for me, some of the stories that I did not know specifically. And so I went back to the original primary sources to read things, you know, a hundred years ago, were written down as to how the discoveries made. So not just about the discovery, but I also try to include the fascinating stories that are about how they were discovered.

8:51Yes, so, okay, well, let's get into and you say the first, I think five are going to go through you say that these discoveries, silence, skeptical or critical scholars who denied a person, place or thing mentioned in the Bible, but were later proven wrong by this archaeological record. So this is very interesting. Let's start with the House of David Steely. Is that how you say it? Yeah, that's good. I like that. Steely is a good. Some people pronounce it Stella and other still. I like, I think it's British pronunciation. Steely. Steely. Like, yeah, David. Yeah. Yeah. So what is all of this is all about and why it's why it's important. Yeah, let me tell you briefly about minimalist first, right? It's silenced the critics that minimalist scholars are those that are archaeologists and biblical scholars who don't believe the Bible is historically reliable. They have an anti Bible bias and they'll only accept what's in the Bible in the new and Old Testament scriptures that are also affirmed by extra biblical sources.

10:02And so for a long time up till 1993 when this discoveries made the House of David Steely, there were those who were denying that King David ever existed, right? Because they did not find yet an archaeological artifact or with the name David on it and that could be affirmed to be the King David described in the Bible. The House of David Steely did silence the critics and we as maximalists who hold to the Bible as being historically reliable and we accept the maximal amount of content within it. We don't we would say it not guilty until proven innocent like they would we'd say the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence. So just because we don't have something yet discovered doesn't mean it doesn't exist that it's not out there or that Abraham didn't exist. The fact is the further back we go the less and less archaeological remains we're going to find and there's other reasons as well because God did not want Abraham to magnify himself.

11:04Most of the discoveries we find are Kings and Pharaohs bragging about their military exploits so so the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence. Right. Okay, so should I bring up this this slide? Yeah. Okay. So this is the House of David inscription and tell Dan is where it's discovered. So sometimes it's also called the tell Dan inscription and Dan a tell is simply a mound of dirt. In real, it's a hill but underneath that hill is the ancient civilization. So archaeology is a destructive science, if you will, to get down to the layer that you want to study you have to go through other layers of civilizations oftentimes unless it was only inhabited for one period of time and then abandoned. There's sometimes that happens, but not very often, but a tell then is if that city has been abandoned like Dan, like then it's going to grow over it's going to become a mound of dirt, dirt's going to fill in and grass and vegetation's going to be grow on top of it.

12:15So in the north is where Dan is the ancient city of Dan and it was identified by a man by the name of Edward Robinson in the 1800s, 1838, but then Avraham Bidom was an archaeologist that discovered this House of David Steely or House of David inscription and it was discovered in 1993. And on this slide you can see the larger portion was discovered in 1993 it's labeled on that slide A, but then in 1994 the next excavation season B and C those two other fragments were discovered and Bidom writes and I'm going to quote him now the 27 years of excavation at tell Dan for 27 years produced very little written material until on July 21st, 1993. And then described basalt stone was discovered and this the largest portion again discovered 1993 the second and third portion that B and C described discovered 1994.

13:22There's still two portions that have yet to be discovered and the top portion and bottom, but this is incredible find because this victory Steely was written in air Mac on this basalt stone slab and it's commissioned by a king by the name of Haazah el of Aram and Aram would have been an enemy of Israel and they would have been north of Israel. And so this time of course well I haven't gotten that to that yet, but this is going to describe some events relating to the ten northern tribes known collectively as Israel who after Solomon died we have the break in a way of the ten northern tribes and the two southern tribes. Right this is dealing with the ten northern tribes and this king. Haazah el of Aram who's bragging about his military exploits and that's what a Steely is it's a monument and in it on it is inscribed several names we see the name johorum son of a hab like those are biblical names a haziah son of johorum again kings and biblical names and then it says from the house of David.

14:35Now I mentioned to you the minimalists Philip Davies is one of those minimalists and he wrote infamously he wrote the following his professor at Sheffield University he wrote the following I'm not the only scholar who suspects that the king figure of king David is about as historical as king Arthur. We'll be right back after this short break for a short devotional we would love to introduce you to the salvation armies one minute podcast heartbeat new episodes drop every Tuesday and Thursday one of the biggest questions we carry as human beings is what happens next what will happen be like the Bible gives us incredible promises about eternity we know that through Jesus death isn't the end we know there will be no more pain no more suffering and that we will be with God but it's interesting that the Bible doesn't give us every deal. We can't let you know that we have a little detail about heaven and maybe that's intentional maybe God didn't reveal everything because he doesn't want us spending our lives only looking forward to the next one he wants us to live this one Jesus said I have come that they may have life and have it abundantly we don't have to fear the future because God holds eternity but we also don't have to miss the beauty of the life he has given us right now live fully love deeply trust God with what comes next.

16:28So let's go to church L. Shadai Ministries at one place dot com. Well, this discovery 1993 of the 1994 firms several things right first the House of David Steeley silenced the critics the steely dated over 100 years after David reigned. So it's speaking of these kings who are from the House of David right and so it's mentioning this dynasty this line of kings from David and if there's a line of kings from David or a dynasty from David then there must be a David himself and so it silenced the critics there it also mentions again those different kings are on that's mentioned in scripture and second Kings 828 mentions how a haziah also on that victory steal. Victory steely johoram son of a hab went to war against haza el king of aram and that's second Kings 828 and 29 so real people real places real events etched in stone and not by the Israelites but by the enemies of Israel.

17:33And what what did the what's your professor of chef field like what did he what was his reaction to this discovery. You know i'm not sure that he has anything in in writing. He just quietly just ignored it and that happens right so now the they move the goalposts and now they say well king David he probably did exist we acknowledge that. But he was just this little chiefed in like just this little tribal chief not a king of a. Empire that's described in in the bible you know David conquered and expanded the empire and. And then we've since then we found a place called kerbett kaiafa that has a fortified city from the time of David and there's no pig bones right indicates this is not the Philistines or canonites these are people that. Have a ban ban on pork and there's no idols either so again and move the goalpost but here we found another discovery that seems to.

18:36Support david's existence and that he ruled over a kingdom not just a chiefed in of a little tribe right okay good okay well let's next is this i can't pronounce it so you're going to have to do it. But what is this is the nabanitis cylinder the nabanitis cylinder and your listeners and viewers would not be maybe not familiar with nabanitis but you would be familiar with his son a man by the name of bell shazor and again this discovery is fascinating because bell shazor again the minimalist those who. And then we'll have to deny the historical reliability of scripture unless there is an extra biblical source that will firm. The detail in the bible well they denied even going back to 1850 they denied that bell shazor ever existed they just said he is just a figment of their imagination.

19:36So in the book five anybody that is read Daniel five and the feast of bell shazor and the handwriting on the wall obviously it mentions bell shazor by name a couple times many times in that one chapter and that writing on the wall minatechia peteis and Daniel interprets that three words after bell shazor tries to seek after his wise men to try to interpret it they can't. Is able to interpret these three words and says God has weighed you he's found you morally deficient and you're going to fall to the needs and the Persians well the nabanitis cylinder mentions that bell shazor by name and it includes details relating it's really a prayer to the king excuse me to the to the gods the Babylonian gods and at the end of the prayer. He mentions his son bell shazor and this is the prayer i'll read it for you as for me nabanitis king of Babylon save me from sinning against your great godhead and grant me as a present a long life and as for bell shazor my eldest son and still reverence in him for your great godhead so he's praying to his god insane give me long years and give my son honor for you.

21:00And him long years as well. This silence is this again notion that this is just a figment of the Jewish people's imagination. Yeah, I like that. Okay, so let's move to what is this one? Yeah, this is also named after nabanitis it's called the nabanize chronicle and so if you want something to survive antiquity right something to survive thousands of years you don't write it on ancient paper right you put it on etch it in stone like this this would be a stone tablet or you put it in clay and and harden it in an oven and so that's what the nabanize cylinder was clay cylinder this is a stone. Stone inscription etch and stone and I love discussing this discovery coupled with the nabanize cylinder because both of them mention bell shazor by name as the son of nabanitis this was a rectangular tablet in the kadian language when the older oldest languages that we know of in uniform script which is a wedge shaped script and so much like our art.

22:14Our alphabet can be used for other languages so uniform script is used for different languages not just a kadian and it records the events during nabanitis is rain now in Daniel chapter five it mentions that bell shazor is the son of nebuchadnezzar now that's an interpretive or a translation problem that word actually means a male descendant so it doesn't mean literally the son of in fact from the Babylonian world. The Babylonian records we realized that there are several kings between nebuchadnezzar and nabanitis and then bell shazor and so bell shazor was a male descendant from nebuchadnezzar. Sorry, I have a brain lapse today on the heat here in Dallas. Yeah, so but and so nabanitis was the father of bell shazor and bell shazor would have been the descendant of nebuchadnezzar.

23:20So the nabanitis chronicle wise this important the nabanitis chronicle not only mentions that bell shazor is the son of him, nabanitis, but also mentions that nabanitis was down in Arabia for 10 years. Why is this significant because three times in the biblical text it says that the wise men were first offered to become third in power if they could interpret these three words that's in Daniel five six five seven, excuse me, and then when they're not able to interpret these three words the handwriting on the wall then, then nabanitis was reached out to Daniel and offers him third place in power. That's Daniel five sixteen and then when Daniel does interpret these three words, nabanitis, nabanitis, excuse me, bell shazor actually does what he promised and made Daniel third in power now only lasted one day because that night and Daris the Mead would conquer him.

24:23So yeah, but the point is for generations scholars and Bible students of the word have been scratching their head and they didn't know the why they knew the what the biblical text says the what he was offered third in power, but now we know the why because nabanitis was down in Arabia for 10 years and he put his son in charge of Babylon in Babylonia in the city of Babylon. And so nabanitis was first in power, a bell shazor second in power Daniel was offered third in power. So what are we looking at here? Yes, this is a fascinating discover as well we've looked at a couple artifacts right the nabanized chronicle the nabanized cylinder now we're going to look at what's a site this is in Magdala, which is on the sea of Galilee, but this is probably where Mary Magdalene was from. And this is a synagogue an ancient synagogue now when we read the biblical text we it's clear according the gospels and the book of Acts that first of all Jesus went into synagogues Matthew 423 Jesus was going throughout all Galilee this would be Galilee part of Galilee went throughout all of Galilee teaching in their synagogues Matthew 423.

25:38Luke as well mentions that just went to Nazareth and went into the synagogue right and that's the great passatory stands up and quotes from Isaiah and says this has been fulfilled basically right yeah so so synagogues were clearly used according to the gospels and then you think of other places. That was this is mode of operation going in the synagogues speaking from the scriptures. Jesus warned his disciples that they had been treated in the synagogues he warned them of the hypocritical Pharisees who loved to sit in places of honor in the synagogues and Paul persecuted Christians in the synagogue of Jerusalem so these then talk about Paul right you can go through the book of Acts the word synagogues is just a little bit more interesting. The word synagogues is used a total of 37 times in gospels and Acts and so minimalist again denied this to be the case they said synagogues would not have been used until 80 70 when Jerusalem was destroyed and when and now you would need synagogues because there's no temple and so they I didn't know.

26:54So they'd argue it's a competition with the temple right yeah and and and that's just not the case right so so they were saying you want to need synagogues till after 80 70 when the temples destroyed well in the intertestional period between the clothes of the Old Testament and open of the New Testament these 400 years of silence or so you have a you have the synagogues coming to use and you have a lot of things to do with the rabbis now becoming teachers of the law in the synagogues and so the temple is a place for sacrifices but the synagogues were the places of the teaching of the law right right and so this discovery and Macdala with benches around it the mosaic pillars and clearly this is a synagogue from the first century and there's another synagogue discovered in cappurnum or cappurnium and so these again silence the critics and there's even I in my book I have a picture of it and

27:54the videos as well there's a what we call the Macdala stone and that's fascinating because on the Macdala stone actually has pictures of the temple aspects of the temple that is the pillars of the temple oil representing the temple and all of that points the fact that they did not see synagogues as a competition with the temple but rather being used in concert with so yeah it's kind of a teaching place and so who who would sit on the benches was that for like the like the you know the groundlings or was like or where was the place of honor in these synagogues versus like where the groundlings would sit yeah that's a great question which of these benches in this picture where would be the place of honor maybe in the front probably in the front there but I don't know that we know exactly which is the place of honor but those benches would have been sat upon by first century devout Jewish followers of Yahweh listening to the law being preached and and Jesus probably was in this very very synagogue in the church

29:10in Macdala and of course the one in Kaepernam were pretty sure as well it's so close to what we think is Peter's house which has also been discovered so there's so many incredible discoveries it was hard to narrow it down to 50 yeah okay so let's go move on to what is this yeah this is another incredible find it's a crucifixion heal a heal bone of a crucified victim now obviously this is not a cure not Jesus is heal bone because he rose from the grave but this was a first century crucified victim and there's several things important in this picture we it's been detected that looks really painful by the way yeah huge nail like giant nail iron nail through the heel bone yeah so so this points to the horrific and gruesome way of death that

30:10our savior would have gone through and as this would have been violently nailed through his ankle yeah and this victim was 24 to 25 years old is estimated you can see the curl in the end of that nail that's very significant we're thankful for that curl because of that curl that remained in the ankle of the individual rather than being removed and used again in another crucified victims death and on one side of the nail in this picture if those are joining viewing this on one side there was a piece of olive wood that would have been on the head of the nail would have been nailed through the olive wood into the ankle and to keep it stationed on the ankle not to to move as the nails being violently nailed through the ankle bone then on the other side there's a portion of the left remained from the crucified beam a small portion of that has been detected as well.

31:15So how does this silence the critics well well first why was why was the nail curled so it wouldn't slip out is that why the nail we don't know why the nail curled itself okay the olive wood that was placed between the head of the nail and the ankle bone on the right in this picture was the olive wood that kept the nail from slipping when it would be nailed into the ankle bone but the curl we don't know maybe it had been used over multiple crucifixions and it lost its strength but hit a knot in the wood some suggest we don't know why it curled maybe it was struck by a hammer as well but typically nails were very expensive so they would have removed them typically and used them again but because of that curl or thankful for it because now we have the first first century crucified victim nail in the ankle bone and the name of the nail embedded why is this important because critics skeptics said that nails were too expensive to be used in crucifixion attempts but the biblical narrative the gospels clearly indicate that Jesus was nailed to across john 19

32:32John John's gospel and John 20 and 20 verse 25 John Thomas doubting Thomas says unless I see the nails marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails where I will not believe and then John 20 27 Jesus says put your finger here see my hands stop doubting and believe so clearly the biblical text indicates nails were used and here we have the first century crucified victim probably crucified under Pontius as well as man by the name of Yehohanan it was discovered in 1968 in a chamber and it was labeled on the bone box was labeled Yehohanan so his name was on it so in the first century a small window of time oshwares were used which was simply limestone bone boxes were used to in a second burial process process. So the first barrel process was the individual who died would be placed on a flat surface.

33:37And of course that happened to Jesus. He was placed on a flat surface. That's the first barrel. But then a year later, the loved ones of the person that has died would after all the skin and flesh has rotted off the bones. All that's left are the bones. A year later they would come and collect those bones and put them in an ash-wary, a bone box. And this process, the second barrel process was only used from the middle of hair of the grates. Almost once they minister, but rain until 80-70 in Jerusalem was destroyed. So if you find a bone box, an ash-wary, you know it's first century BC, first century 80. So that narrowed the down. And this was etched. Yeohannin's name was etched on it. So there are other contributing factors that indicate this was first century AD and probably died under Pontius Pilate as well. And so obviously, Jesus was not buried, second barrel process, but Yeohannin's bones point to nails used. And then also a second thing

34:43that skeptics said, skeptics critics said that crucified victims would never be given an honorable burial, an appropriate burial. They would be left to be eaten by dogs or left to rot and thrown into nameless site along with other enemies, robbers and thieves. But this particular crucified victim was given two burials, right? The first process had been laid on a flat surface, so then a year later. And so this silence of critics in both of those areas. And so would Jesus have been crucified this way? Would it have gone the nail gone through his ankle bone instead of his his foot? Yeah, so I think so. I think that also is something that we didn't know about before the discovery of this crucified victim Yeohannin's ankle bone. And so as you indicate in pictures, some pictures you'll see crucified victims with rope around

35:47their hands, right? That's what they thought before they found that this ankle bone had nail through it. So then you also often see the feet with the nail driven right through the top of the two feet together. But this indicates it was probably from the sides that ankles would have been on the sides of the beam. And finally driven with that olive wood in between it into the ankle then into the beam. That doesn't seem very pleasant. And then then the need to get breath every time pushing up with on those on those nails would have been incredibly painful. Yeah. Okay, so what is this? Yeah, this is another artifact inscription in stone. And we call it the polytark inscription. And polytark means the one who serves as a polytarker, one who serves in this position. It's an office or a position in the city, a city official.

36:54And this is significant because Luke who makes it clear in his gospel, Luke 1.1, that he's planned. He's given a careful documented history of the words and works of Jesus. Then the book of Acts, his second volume, he is written to theophilus as well to continue that story, the historical narrative now of the apostles and the growth of the church. Well, Acts 17, Luke records for us this engagement here regarding Paul. And it says when they did not find them, speaking of Paul, they began dragging Jason and some brethren before the city authorities. Polytark is the word there. Shouting, these men who have upset the world have come here also. They stirred up the crowd and the city authorities. Polytark who heard these things. Now, the significance is this word polytark is only used here. And it's only used by Luke in the book of Acts. And so again, skeptics, critics

37:57of the Bible who treat the Bible as guilty of errors and exaggerations and sometimes even falsehoods have had indicated that Luke was or whoever wrote it was just an error that polytark was not a word that was used at that time of that location. And so here's a discovery that was discovered in Thessonica, ancient city of Thessonica, which is in modern-day Greece. And it was on an arch called the Bardar Arch. And it's about two and a half feet tall, six feet long. The arch no longer exists there because over time it had to be, it was removed. But the inscription itself, the polytark inscription was preserved. And so one time these minimalist scholars questioned Luke's veracity, claiming there was no such thing as a polytark. Now, Clyde Fant and Mitchell Reddish to scholars in

38:59their book, write the following of the more than 60 known inscriptions. Now we have more than 60 inscriptions that mention polytarks. Three-fourths of them are from Macedonia. That's where Paul was in Acts 17, with approximately half of those being in Thessonica, which is where Paul was when Luke writes Acts when Paul records the events of Paul in Acts 17. So John McCrea, New Testament scholar, who's now with the Lord, and he did a lot in the area of archaeology as well. He said the following, it is incontrovertible that polytarks existed in Macedonia long before the time of the Palsopal. And so this discovery of the polytark inscription amongst many others later discovered silence the critics once again. The Bible is historically accurate. Luke accomplished what he intended to do to provide a careful documentation, the history for theophilist, the gospel of Luke,

40:00and the book of Acts. And so we're thankful for this discovery and many others like it. Wow, okay. All right, let's do this one. Caiaphas, the osteo-Austawary, what is this about? I mean, we talked about osteo-Austawaries, but yeah, tell us about this. Yeah, so Yeohannins, Aushwary was much more simple, right? It was just a bone box, limestone bone box, not very ornate at all. But this one, this discovery, known as the Caiaphas Aushwary, was much more ornate, has intricate design, Rosetta flowers there, six of them in the middle of a big circle. And, but how has it discovered this is another fascinating discovery. And the stories of these discoveries, again, some of them, the pool of saloon was discovered with a because of the septic system was broken and they had to go and fix it and they discovered the pool of saloon. Well, this is another discovery by accident. I tell people this way that it's expensive to build in

41:07Jerusalem, not only because of the resources it requires to build and not only because of the labor, although those are expensive, but because when you excavate to build something, you are likely to find something 1,000 years old, 2,000 years old, 3,000 years old, and you'll have to stop everything and call the Israel Antiquities Authorities and have them come and check it out. Well, this discovery was found in the Peace Forest, which is south west of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, and they were using heavy moving equipment, bulldozer, and the bulldozer fell into a tomb. And we know it's a first century tomb, why? Because there were Aushwaries or Aushwaries, both pronunciations. And these Aushwaries were strewn all over broken and thrown all over. So, they had discovered a first century Aushwary, a tomb full of Aushwaries. And I have the recounting

42:07of how that came about in my book, but the tomb looks kind of like a hand with no pinky. These are different coqueme, different locations where these Aushwaries would be placed. So, this second burial process, and there's one, the thumb of this hand, if you would imagine the the tomb being like a hand, the thumb, thankfully, the grave robbers who had found the fingers, or had found all the Aushwaries in the fingers, they had broken them and robbed them, the thumb was not discovered. And so, sitting in place, I'm thankful, God's sovereignty and wisdom, it chose to preserve it for us. It did not get discovered by these grave robbers, and it remained intact. And so, it's a beautiful Aushwary. It is very ornate, as I mentioned, as approximately

43:0829 inches long, 14 and a half inches high, this would have been a wealthy individual in it. The two large circle patterns include six smaller circles, and these are Rosetta flowers, which were common in the first century. On the side is etched, you can see one of the two etchings, and it's etched in Aramaic, the name Yehosef, or Chaeapha, or Joseph, son of Chaeapha. So, then two different places, two different forms of the same name. And so, the remains of a 60-year-old man are found in it, coins dated to AD 42, 43 are discovered in it, helping to date this as well, pottery from the first century as well. Now, the question is, we know Caiaphas, but we don't know Joseph. What's the God do with this name Joseph of Chaeapha? In inscription on the side of the Aushwary. By the way, it looks like just scratchings, because they would crawl into

44:15place the Aushwary there, and they just etched on the side. So, that's everything else would have been pre-bought, pre-made, and that's why this is very different than the rest of this ornate discovery. But what about Joseph? Well, Flavius Josephus, the Jewish historian of the first century, helps us by explaining that this is Joseph who was called Chaeapha, of the high priesthood. And so, Joseph was a common name in the first century, and so on it, and so Chaeapha would have been the nickname, the family name, nickname for this Joseph. So, separating Joseph from all other Josephs, this is Joseph Chaeapha. And so, this discovery helps us in Josephus Flavius, again, another Joseph, right? Another form of Joseph Josephus tells us that Chaeapha's real name was Joseph, his nickname was Josephus. It was Chaeapha, excuse me. And so, again, the ornate details of this

45:16point to a very wealthy person. This was not a common oshwery. Then the name there on the side, there's agreement that this is indeed the Chaeaphus, who was the the the enemy of Jesus, the villain of the story that brought Jesus before the Sanhedrin, and then led Jesus off to Pontius Pilate. Let's look at this. Is this the one you're talking about? Yes. Okay. Yeah. So, this inscription, the Pilate inscription, was discovered in 1961 in a place known as Cessaria Maritima. Now, Cessaria Maritima is a very important city. It was actually built by Herod, the not so great, I call him. In fact, if you go to Israel, you'll see Herod's handy work everywhere, right? He was, it really fits the description of this meglomaniac, who's paranoid, and he's built

46:17all of these different, the Herodium. He names it as after himself. That's where he's buried this big city on a hill that he built. Cessaria Maritima is one of these cities that he built from nothing. There's basically a very little there before he built it, but this is going to be the place that future leaders, future kings and prefects are going to live. And this is where Pontius Pilate lives on the Cessaria Maritima. And you can see why he would live there because it's on the Mediterranean Sea, and it's beautiful. And, and, Herod the Great had built this palace that extended into the Mediterranean Sea. So, at this location is where Pontius Pilate would have lived, and he was in Jerusalem to, to keep the peace during the Passover, because Passover is pilgrimage feast, and that's why he's there, and he can judge Jesus, but he's not there to worship on the Passover. He's there to keep the peace. Right. That's when the pilgrimage feast that, basically, every

47:23devout Jewish male was expected to be there. And so, you've got Jerusalem ten times the size it normally is. This is a perfect time for rebellion as they're worshiping Yahweh, and reminded that Yahweh says one day these Gentile enemies will no longer be over you. Well, Pontius Pilate would have been in Jerusalem for that occasion. So, back to Pontius Pilate, this is the first inscription discovery of, of, of the name Pontius Pilate, and it was discovered in 1961, and it was repurposed. So, it was initially probably a part of a temple that was used to honor and worship Tiberius, and the inscription itself reconstructed. We don't have the whole thing, as you can see in that picture, it only says Tiberium and Pontius Pilate and Prefect of Judea, but reconstruction of it, we think, is probably the Tiberium identifying the location, the Tiberium,

48:27that Pontius Pilate, Prefect of Judea, has built for the people of Caesar in honor of Tiberius. And so, this would have been a stone, kind of like a cornerstone, that would have been built to identify this Tiberium as a place of honor or deification worship of Tiberius, but it mentions Pilate who would have built that Tiberium. Well, this stone, when the Tiberium, you know, probably at some point was no longer being used, this stone was repurposed. Maybe you like to repurpose things, my wife certainly does, or has me repurposed things. So, this stone, which was a part of the Tiberium was repurposed and used and discovered, where it was discovered was in the theater there in Cessaria, Maritima. And so, this important location, Paul sailed in and out of Cessaria, Maritima, the Preatorium, the place where the great built and future prefects like Pontius Pilate would have

49:32lived, and even Paul would have been in jail there at one point. And all of this is very significant, but this particular discovery, the Pilate stone, one more detail about the person that's so important, that he's mentioned so many times in Scripture, right? Pontius Pilate 51 times in the gospel, three times in the Book of Acts, once in First Timothy, we have a Apostle's Creed that mentions Pontius Pilate, suffered under Pontius Pilate. Here we have an inscription that mentions Pontius Pilate by name, and so we have one more detail that etched in stone that affirms the biblical record. Wow. This information, I think, is so vital for not only Christians, but for unbelievers who think that the Bible is some ancient myth, and I mean, I used to think that. And actually, I'm reading John Linux's book, his autobiography, he's coming on the show in a couple weeks, but oh great. He talks about this and how he was very into this as a kid. He was into the archaeological

50:40stuff, like all of the evidence of Christ and of the Bible and their underpinning the veracity of the Bible. But this, I mean, I think if nonbelievers took the time to not only read the Bible, but to read books like yours, it would just be kind of undeniable, right? To believe that the Bible is true. Yeah. Yeah. If the Bible is true and it is, I say this often, if the Bible is true and it is, then we'd expect the archaeological record to affirm it, and it does time and time again. Yeah. So if we can believe that people places events and things which are historically accurate, and I think they are, then we can trust, I think, gives good argument to trust the theological concepts in it, right? That salvation is by grace through faith that Jesus Christ died in our place, that Jesus is God and his substitutionary puttonement forgives sin if we accept him as our Savior. So we do need to go that next step,

51:43right? It's not enough just to believe the Bible is a sort of Bible. We need to trust in what it says about Jesus as our Savior. Yes. Amen to that. Well, let's leave it there. And guys, the book is faith affirming findings, 50 archaeological discoveries that validate the historicity and reliability of Scripture, Dr. Paul Weaver. Thank you so much for coming on the show talking about this. My pleasure. It's been a joy. Wait, don't touch that dial. Please like and subscribe. And also, please consider becoming a patron on Patreon for as little as $5 a month. You can really help us out on the show. The link is below and we so, so appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Beckett Cook Show. Your support makes this content possible. All episodes of the Beckett Cook Show are also available on YouTube. For more information about Beckett in his ministry, visit his website at BeckettCook.com.

52:49Hey there, it's Nicole Yunas, host of the How to Study the Bible podcast. We're every single week, we join together to encounter God through his Word. You can subscribe at lifeaudio.com.