CNN and 586 BC: More evidence of the Bible’s historicity

In Jeremiah 15, God tells the prophet that “I will make [Jerusalem] an object of horror to all the kingdoms of the earth because of what Manasseh, son of Hezekiah, king of Judah, did in Jerusalem.” Can you imagine God saying that He’s going to make you “an object of horror”?

Well, as God does, He kept His word. The wealth of Jerusalem’s inhabitants was given as plunder to invaders, only after they were starved, put to the sword, or enslaved.

Of course, passages like this one, in which God “speaks,” are rarely taken seriously, much less historically, in academic circles. And, among other things, scholars have long assumed that the “real” Jerusalem was pretty insignificant, closer in size and splendor to Dayton, Tennessee than Dayton, Ohio, and not even close to being the Iron Age equivalent of Paris or New York.

In other words, many scholars have long assumed that the stories of Jerusalem’s rise and subsequent destruction were over-inflated, self-serving myths intended to serve theological and political purposes.

A recent story at CNN described an archaeological dig on Mount Zion, and the findings of things like “ash deposits, arrowheads and broken pieces of pots and lamps.”

Now, this may not sound like much, but to trained archaeologists and historians it speaks volumes. By itself, ash can be evidence of anything from ovens to burning trash heaps. Or it can be evidence of an immense conflagration associated with an invasion.

What archaeologists found with the ash strongly suggests the invasion interpretation. As one historian put it, “nobody has arrowheads in their domestic refuse.”

And then there was this find: A piece of “jewelry, which appears to be a tassel or earring with a bell-shaped upper portion.” Just as “nobody has arrowheads in their domestic refuse,” “nobody abandons golden jewelry.”

The most reasonable explanation is that these findings reveal “some kind of devastation and destruction.” And what devastation and destruction could it have been?

The arrowheads provide the answer. A type known as Scythian arrowhead, these were “‘fairly commonplace’ in battle sites from the 7th and 6th centuries BC and were known to be used by Babylonian warriors.”

Jerusalem was destroyed by the Babylonians in 587 and 586 B.C. Thus, CNN’s headline: “Archaeologists find evidence of Babylonian conquest of Jerusalem — as told in the Bible.”

Not only do these findings corroborate the Babylonian conquest, they also back up what the Bible says about life in Jerusalem in the decades leading up to the conquest. Most notably, the project director told CNN, the jewelry is “clear indication of the wealth of the inhabitants of the city at the time of the siege.” Turns out, Jerusalem had wealth worth plundering after all.

I love telling about these sorts of discoveries on BreakPoint. Especially in the past quarter century, archaeology is constantly finding evidence for the historicity of biblical narratives long assumed to be myths, legends, or complete fabrications. We’ve gone from kings David and Solomon being fictional characters to being glorified tribal chieftains to — what do you know? — pretty big deals who left evidence of their reigns throughout the region.

The confirmation is not only gratifying; it’s extraordinary. After all, no other ancient text, especially those that offer the origin stories of other religions, nations, or regions, is even remotely equivalent to the Bible in its accuracy. For example, Rome was either founded by Romulus after he killed his twin brother Remus, or it was founded by refugees from Troy after the events described by Homer. These two stories cannot be reconciled but, then again, they aren’t intended to be actual history.

In contrast, the biblical story of a distinct people and their relationship with the God who personally intervenes in their (and in our) history to effect His purposes is a remarkably coherent story. And discoveries like the one on Mount Zion reveal it’s a historically accurate story as well.

It has been said that Ronald Reagan once dispatched the Liberal/Progressive movement with his famed statement that Liberals "know so many things that aren't so."

The Liberal/Progressive "knowledge base" appears to ignore and/or erase any reference to, or acknowledgement of, the Source of all wisdom; therefore that supposed "knowledge base" is empty and illusory.

Read the following words from Dr. Russell Kirk:

"A Michigan farmer, some years ago, climbed to the roof of his silo, and there he painted, in great red letters that the Deity could see, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” These words are on that roof yet. When in his cups, which was often enough, that farmer thrashed his daughter to fill her with a holy terror.
"In his way, I suppose, the drunken brute did fear God. Surviving the thrashings, his daughter grew to be a woman; and though she did not much fancy her father’s company, she lived as decent a life as most. Her upbringing, bad though it was, may have been better than the formative years of the average American child nowadays, “permissively” reared. To the permitted brat with the permissive parents, few appetites are denied, and he grows up ignorant of the norms of human existence. Never learning in childhood that certain things exist which we ought to fear, he slides into physical maturity, bored, flabby in character, and moved by irrational impulses toward violence and defiance, the consequence of a profound disorder in personality.
"Without a knowledge of fear, we cannot know order in personality or society. Fear forms an ineluctable part of the human condition. Fear lacking, hope and aspiration fail. To demand for mankind “freedom from fear,” as politically attainable, was a silly piece of demagogic sophistry. If, per impossibile, fear were wiped altogether out of our lives, we would be desperately bored, yearning for old or new terrors; vegetating, we would cease to be human beings. A child’s fearful joy in stories of goblins, witches, and ghosts is a natural yearning after the challenge of the dreadful: raw head and bloody bones, in one form or another, the imagination demands. From the great instinct to survive, to struggle, to triumph, comes the urge to contend with fear.
"And there are things which rightfully we ought to fear, if we are to enjoy any dignity as men. When, in an age of smugness and softness, fear has been pushed temporarily into the dark corners of personality and society, then soon the gods of the copybook headings with fire and slaughter return. To fear to commit evil, and to hate what is abominable, is the mark of manliness. “They will never love where they ought to love,” Burke says, “who do not hate where they ought to hate.” It may be added that they will never dare when they ought to dare, who do not fear when they ought to fear.
"Time was when there lay too heavy upon man that fear of the Lord which is the beginning of wisdom. Soul-searching can sink into morbidity, and truly conscience can make cowards of us all. Scotland in the seventeenth century, for instance, tormented itself into a kind of spiritual hypochondria by an incessant melancholy fawning upon the Lord’s favor. But no such age is ours."
Read more.

This is incredible for me. I knew it! And why was Jerusalem invaded and conquered? Because every nation that legalizes child sacrifice is eventually conquered. God’s red line is making it legal.

“Surely at the command (mouth) of the LORD it came upon Judah, to remove them from His sight because of the sins of Manasseh, according to all that he had done, and also for the innocent blood which he shed, for he filled Jerusalem with innocent blood; AND THE LORD WOULD NOT FORGIVE.” (All caps mine)

Manasseh repented in Babylon and was reinstated. His grandson? Josiah. Great revival.

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