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How Did They Know? |
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There is no ancient document more historically accurate than the Bible. Adding the encyclopedic length into consideration, it is a full fledged bronze age book with no equal to this day. It is the best selling book of all time, by billions. Archeology verifies minute facts about the Bible regularly: In 1947 the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered. Many skeptics were expecting a huge upset of faith as the world anxiously awaited translations. -Only the upset never came. Instead, these Old Testament scrolls turned out to be virtually identical to the book we had sitting on our shelf all along. There was no big media splash. It was the same old book we already ignored. Many believers were equally uninformed and unexcited. Recently, a clay receipt for Nebuchadnezzar's "Chief Eunuch" mentioned in Jeremiah was discovered in a pile of Assyrian cuneiform: Sarsechim (Hebrew Link) = Chief of Eunuchs. Nebo-Sarsekim (News Link) = Unabbreviated title. If you were making up the Bible, which very few authors could, this would not be the part you would bother to tell the truth about. It strongly suggests that Jeremiah was a historical person too: "Thus speaketh the LORD God of Israel. Write thee all the words that I have spoken unto thee in a book." -Jeremiah 30:1 King David was also presumed mythical. Until one day an inscription from the 9th century B.C. was found with the words "House of David" on it. The giant inhabited city of Jericho Joshua led Israel to war against sounds fairly mythical. Later, it was declared "the oldest discovered city." Even the "fallen walls" of Jericho were seemingly located. Another fantastic element of the text, crossing the Jordan river on "dry land" proved quite reasonable in 1927 -when a natural damn dried up the Jordan river for 24-hours. Apart from profoundly accurate archeology, there are other mysteries about the Bible. In 1976 a discovery was made at the bottom of the ocean. It was unexpected and it was amazing. Hydrothermal vents were found 2500 meters under the water. -The Biblical authors already knew about them: ...in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened. -Genesis 7:11
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