Free Republic

“He burned the House of Hashem, the king’s palace, and all the houses of Yerushalayim; he burned down the house of every notable person.” II Kings 25:9 (The Israel Bible™) On the eve of Tisha B’av, the fast day commemorating the destruction of the First and Second Temples, archaeological evidence of that destruction has been uncovered, verifying the truth of the Book of Kings and reaffirming that the Temples stood in Jerusalem. In a discovery the Israeli Antiquities Authority (IAA) called “mesmerizing proof” of the Babylonian destruction of the First Temple, structures over 2,600 years old were exposed under collapsed...

JERUSALEM – Over 100 tablets that date back to the times of Nebuchadnezzar’s rule in Babylon, now modern-day Iraq, have been placed on display in Jerusalem as a further testament to the reliability of the Scriptures. The palm-sized tablets, which provide a glimpse into the lives of the Jews during the time they lived in exile in Babylon, had been discovered in Iraq and held by a UK-based Israeli collector. The artifacts contain writing in the ancient akkadian cuneiform script and detail transactions, trades and contracts between Jews in approximately 500 B.C. They also trace at least one Judean family...

As we watch horrific images of beheadings from the country formerly called Iraq - a country that is disintegrating into various tribal fiefdoms before our eyes - it is easy to forget that it was once the cradle of civilization. In point of fact, Arabs are latecomers to the area. They are first mentioned in the mid 9th century BCE as a tribal people subjugated by the Assyrians. Way before that, the area was home to the Babylonians. First records indicate that Babylon was established as a city around the 23rd century BCE. It stood about 50 miles south of...

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - A new exhibition of ancient clay tablets discovered in modern-day Iraq is shedding light for the first time on the daily life of Jews exiled to Babylon some 2,500 years ago. The exhibition is based on more than 100 cuneiform tablets, each no bigger than an adult's palm, that detail transactions and contracts between Judeans driven from, or convinced to move from, Jerusalem by King Nebuchadnezzar around 600 BC.