Posted on 08/20/2005 6:09:30 PM PDT by gscc
RECENT ARCHAEOLOGICAL DISCOVERIES IN ISRAEL PERTAIN TO KING DAVID, JESUS Aug 17, 05 | 4:55 pm
Working a short distance from each other near Jerusalem's Old City, archaeologists have made two major discoveries in recent months, one pertaining to King David and the other to Jesus.
Working a short distance from each other near Jerusalem's Old City, archaeologists have made two major discoveries in recent months, one pertaining to King David and the other to Jesus.
Israeli archaeologist Eilat Mazor has uncovered what may be the 3,000-year-old foundation walls of the palace of the biblical King David in the area known as the City of David.
The foundations for the monumental building are large boulders. Its walls are more than six feet thick and extend at least 98 feet. Also found at the site were a governmental seal of an official named Jehucal or Jucal, who is mentioned in the Book of Jeremiah, and numerous shards of Iron Age II pottery dating from the 10th to 9th centuries, corresponding to the time of David and Solomon.
The find has sparked a lively debate among archaeologists about whether the structure is actually the palace of the fabled Jewish king. If true, it "could turn out to be the archaeological find of the century," according to the Jerusalem Post. But in any case, all agree that it is a rare and important major public building from a period that has been under-represented in the archaeological record. "This is a very significant discovery, given that Jerusalem as the capital of the united kingdom [Jewish] is very much unknown," said Gabriel Barkay, an archaeologist from Israel's Bar-Ilan University. "This is one of the first greetings we have from the Jerusalem of David and Solomon, a period which has played a kind of hide-and-seek with archaeologists for the last century."
Just down the hill from that excavation, near the Old City walls, workers repairing a sewage line last summer unearthed what appeared to be two steps. Three short stairways were eventually uncovered, leading down to a pool that may have been at least 225 feet wide.
Archaeologists using metal detectors found coins in the plaster that helped them date the pool to the Second Temple period between roughly 100 BCE and 70 CE. They hypothesize the structure is the Pool of Siloam, where Jesus healed a man blind from birth, as told in the gospel of John.
In John 9, Jesus was asked whether the man or his parents were to blame for his blindness and he replied that the fault belonged to neither. He then spit on the ground, rubbed the mud on the man's eyes and told him to wash in the Pool of Siloam. The man did so and was healed.
Another pool in Jerusalem, built in the Byzantine era, had been identified as the Pool of Siloam because it was assumed to occupy the site of the original pool used in Jesus's day. It seems now that assumption was incorrect.
As the Holy City yields more of its secrets, it seems to become ever more sacred for many of its residents and visitors.
ENORMOUS TRENCH UNCOVERED OUTSIDE ANCIENT PHILISTINE CITY
An enormous stone trench surrounded by towers was recently found at a dig on Israel's southern coastal plain near the ancient town of Gat, the largest and most important of five local Philistine cities in Biblical times.
The find reinforces the Biblical account of the fall of Gat as told in Kings II (12:18). In the Biblical story, the Aramean King Hazael conquered Gat and surrounded the Philistine city with an enormous stone moat flanked by guard towers to prevent besieged residents from escaping. The moat is five meters deep, four meters wide, and stretches for 2.5 kilometers around the walls of the city at a radius of 300 meters.
Gat was Goliath's birthplace and had a population of 10,000 at its peak. Within the ancient city, ruins of houses and many Philistine artifacts, including writing implements, have been found. The Philistines inhabited the coastal plain for almost 600 years and their battles with the ancient Israelites are related in the Biblical stories of Samson, Samuel, King Saul, and David and Goliath.
Although they have vanished from history, they left behind their name, which the Romans adapted as "Palestina," the Roman name for the Land of Israel.
I find it amazing how the veracity of the scriptures that I take by faith is continually proved true and accurate.
Philistines, far from vanishing from history, have multiplied beyond belief and could nowadays be found everywhere, even on FR. Why, each and every one of us has met quite a few of them.
Allah's power has stood the test of time...and its product is death and hatred and violence and rape.
But Jesus stands today as He stood 2000 years ago. He is as beloved today...beloved against the backdrop of modernity...as He ever was.
Jesus competes with the meaning of comtemporary times and He still comes out more modern...more evolved...more perfectly good.
He poses the question...who is He?
SPOTREP
found at the site were a governmental seal of an official named Jehucal or Jucal, who is mentioned in the Book of Jeremiah, and numerous shards of Iron Age II pottery dating from the 10th to 9th centuries, corresponding to the time of David and Solomon. The find has sparked a lively debate among archaeologists about whether the structure is actually the palace of the fabled Jewish king.A lively debate -- which should be about whether those who deny the historicity of the Kingdom of Israel will continue to be taken seriously, or whether they will be rolled off to the unemployment line where they belong.
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Can we just do away with the nonsense of BCE and CE and go back to BC and AD? No Christian ought to accept the secularising of history as if God didn't matter.
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