MORE EMBARRASSING, David M. Raup, U. Chicago; Ch. F. Mus. of N. H., "The evidence we find in the geologic record is not nearly as compatible with Darwinian natural selection as we would like it to be. Darwin was completely aware of this. He was embarrassed by the fossil record because it didn't look the way he predicted it would.... Well, we are now about 120 years after Darwin and the knowledge of the fossil record has been greatly expanded. We now have a quarter of a million fossil species but the situation hasn't changed much. ....ironically, we have even fewer examples of evolutionary transition than we had in Darwin's time. By this I mean that some of the classic cases of Darwinian change in the fossil record, such as the evolution of the horse in North America, have had to be discarded or modified as the result of more detailed information." F.M.O.N.H.B., Vol.50, p.35

PREDICTION FAILED, Niles Eldridge, Amer. Mus. N. H., "He [Darwin] prophesied that future generations of paleontologists would fill in these gaps by diligent search.... One hundred and twenty years of paleontological research later, it has become abundantly clear that the fossil record will not confirm this part of Darwin's predictions. Nor is the problem a miserably poor record. The fossil record simply shows that this prediction was wrong." The Myths of Human Evolution, p.45-46

HISTORICAL – NOT EMPIRICAL, JOHN H. HORNER "...paleontology is a historical science, a science based on circumstantial evidence, after the fact. We can never reach hard and fast conclusions in our study of ancient plants and animals... These days it’s easy to go through school for a good many years, sometimes even through college, without ever hearing that some sciences are historical or by nature inconclusive." Dinosaur Lives, 1997, p.19

"TREES" NOT FROM FOSSILS, Steven J. Gould, Harvard, "The evolutionary trees that adorn our textbooks have data only at the tips and nodes of their branches; the rest is inference, however reasonable, not the evidence of the fossils.", Nat.His., V.86, p.13

STORY TIME, COLIN PATTERSON, Senior Paleontologist, British Museum of Nat. History, "You say I should at least 'show a photo of the fossil from which each type or organism was derived.' I will lay it on the line--there is not one such fossil for which one could make a watertight argument." "It is easy enough to make up stories of how one form gave rise to another.... But such stories are not part of science, for there is no way of putting them to the test. .... I don't think we shall ever have any access to any form of tree which we can call factual." HARPER'S, Feb.1984, p.56

BOTHERSOM distress, STEPHEN J. Gould, Harvard , "Every paleontologist knows that most species don't change. That's bothersome....brings terrible distress. ....They may get a little bigger or bumpier but they remain the same species and that's not due to imperfection and gaps but stasis. And yet this remarkable stasis has generally been ignored as no data. If they don't change, its not evolution so you don't talk about it." Lecture at Hobart & William Smith College, 14/2/1980.

Modern Human Fossils found in Dinosaur age Rocks

Numerous cases of human skeletal remains in ancient strata have been identified. Some have been compiled by William R. Corliss in his book Ancient Man: A Handbook of Puzzling Artifacts. Walk into any natural museum today, or read any textbook on anthropology, and one invariably finds a large chart exhibited, tracing the ancestry of man back through more primitive forebears, until the line is lost somewhere amid the apes. Paleoanthropologist Richard Leakey, excavating in Ethiopia, announced the discovery of what are supposed to be the oldest "accepted" fossil remains of man - about 4 million years old. What has been disturbing about the new

finds is that they are, in part, too human: Their great age, yet partly "modern" appearance, has forced evolutionists to push back the departure of man from the ape stock farther into the past, so that now it is beginning to infringe upon the time period necessary for the development of the apes themselves.

But while the African finds are revolutionary, there have been other discoveries of human fossils greatly more important, but these have been deliberately neglected or denounced, because they are far older than man is "supposed" to be.

 

Over a hundred years ago, in the 1850's, gold miners began digging tunnels into the sides and top of Table Mountain, northwest of Needles, California. Gold was discovered, but along with it were bones of extinct mastodons, mammoths, bison, tapirs, horses, rhinos, hippos and camels - all dating from the Pliocene strata [around 5 million years old]. In 1863, a physician from nearby Sonora, Dr. R. Snell, began to collect specimens from the excavations. In that year, with his bare hands, he loosened from among the fossils a stone disc that appeared to have been used for grinding. But Dr. Snell was not the first, or last, to unearth mysterious objects from the mountain gravel: In 1853, Oliver W. Stevens made affidavit that he removed a large stone bowl from the lowest level tunnel; in 1857, the Honorable Paul Hubbs, of Vallejo, dug up part of a human crania from inside the Valentine shaft; and in 1862, Mr. Llewellyn Pierce also signed affidavit that he had found a stone mortar 200 feet in from the mouth of the same shaft. All these finds were set aside by evolutionist detractors as they came about.

The Guadeloupe skeletons are another find set aside and forgotten. Just offshore of Guadeloupe, in the West Indies, lies a kilometer-long formation of limestone.

This limestone in which the skeletons were embedded was extremely hard and part of a formation more than a kilometer in length, while, according to modern geological dating, is 28 million years old [Miocene strata]. This presents a very difficult problem for evolutionary theory to explain, for here is undeniable evidence of a perfectly modern human being on earth apparently 25 million years before man was believed to have swung out of the jungle trees. Not only that but, according to Darwin, man originated from the Old World monkeys in Africa, and modern-looking man was only supposed to have migrated to the Americas some twenty thousand years ago.

 

Interestingly, two Neanderthal-like skulls were found near Santa Barbara, California, and reported in 1923, but because the great age attributed to Neanderthals does not fit the theory of recent migration to America, these skulls were dismissed as being from modern Indians having Neanderthaloid features. As for the Guadeloupe skeletons, in the late 1700s many human skeletons -- all indistinguishable from modern humans -- were excavated from this limestone. One of the quarried specimens, ensconced in a 2-ton slab, was shipped to the British Museum. It arrived in 1812 and was placed on public display. With the ascendance of Darwinism, the fossil skeleton was quietly spirited away to the basement. These specimens were only lately brought to the attention of the creationist community by Bill Cooper's book ("Human fossils from Noah's Flood," Creation Ex Nihilo, vol. 5, no. 3, 1983, pp. 6-9).

However, the discovery of these human remains has been well-documented in scientific literature.

The skeletons are currently being housed in the collections of the British Museum of Natural History.  According to the report of the excavators there are more remaining in the Miocene limestone strata east of the village of Moule on the island of Guadeloupe in the Caribbean. Top minds and evolutionist thinkers from the time of this discovery even to our date call the Guadeloupe skeletons "controversial".

In 1958, Dr. Johannes Huerzeler, of the Museum of Natural History in Basel, Switzerland, unearthed a human jawbone at a depth of 600 feet, in a coal mine in Tuscany, Italy. The bone had belonged to a child, between the ages of five and seven. Though flattened like a sheet of iron, the jaw was declared by several experts to be not only human, but modern-looking at that. But what mystified them was that it had been encased in a Miocene stratum - geologically dated at 20 million years. Dr. Huerzeler declared it to be the world's oldest man" - but his fellow anthropologists did not dare give it the same distinction. Here were human remains more modern in appearance than all the "ape-men" forms ever found - yet they were five times as old as any of them. In fact, the jaw bone is as old, if not older, than many ancestors of the apes. The bone raised more problems than answers - so the find was quickly "shelved," and no further work was ever done to give it due recognition.

One of the more controversial of the "out-of-place" bones from extreme antiquity is today part of the collection of the Freiberg Mining Academy in West Germany. It is a poorly preserved human skull, found in brown coal in 1842, from an undisclosed locality. Early European authorities dismissed the skull as a fake, but more recent research and analysis has questioned this hasty pronouncement, putting it back into the realm of the authentic. The reason for its initial denunciation is understandable: The coal it was embedded in, a portion of which still clings to the skull, is estimated to be as much as 50 million years old.

It seems that even when authentication is overwhelming, the response by the scientific community is, inversely, underwhelming. In 1973, a rock collector named Lin Ottinger was searching over a rock plateau that had just been bulldozed over, in preparation for the beginning of mining operations by the nearby Big Indian Copper Mine. The mine is situated 35 miles southwest of Moab, Utah. During his pickings in the exposed rock, Ottinger suddenly found pieces of bone and teeth, and traced these to a patch of sand with a brown stain - the tell-tale sign of decayed organic matter. Carefully removing the sand, Ottinger discovered the top portion of a large intact bone. The rockhound, realizing the importance of his find,

 decided to have a credited expert look at it, and let him do the digging, so that everything would be "scientifically acceptable."

A week later, Ottinger returned to the plateau with Dr. J.P. Marwitt, professor of anthropology at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, several photographers, a news reporter, and a number of observers. With cameras recording the event, Dr. Marwitt carefully removed the lower halves of two human skeletons. The bones were articulated - that is, laid out naturally - showing the bodies had not fallen or been washed into the

 stratum in which they were situated. These and other factors revealed the bones to be as old as the layer in which they were found. The one problem was, the layer is Lower Dakota and Upper Morrison formations -over 100 million years of age, according to uniformitarian geologists. Yet, as Marwitt noted, the bones were not simian or even half-ape: They were fully human and modern-looking.

The skeletons were taken by Marwitt back with him to the University of Utah, to run laboratory datings on them. But whether the tests were ever run, there was no official confirmation. One gets the impression they were, and that the findings were too disturbing for conservative thinking. Marwitt suddenly became "disinterested" in the project, and left Utah to take up a teaching position elsewhere. After a year waiting for results, Ottinger recovered the bones - and that ended the scientific inquiry.

More finds, made in the last century, were similarly reported, and promptly forgotten. The Saturday Herald of Iowa City carried an article that on April 10, 1867, human remains and artifacts were brought to light at the Rocky Point Mine, in Gilman, Colorado. At a depth of 400 feet below the surface, excavators found human bones embedded in a silver vein. Along with the bones was found a well-tempered copper arrowhead. As best as can be calculated, the vein in which the items were situated was 135 million years old, by present geological standards.

At times, the discoveries made revealed "mysteries upon mysteries." In July, 1877, four prospectors were looking for gold and silver outcroppings in a desolate, hilly area near the head of Spring Valley, not far from Eureka, Nevada. Scanning the rocks, one of the men spotted something peculiar projecting from a high ledge. Climbing up to get a better look, the prospector was surprised to find a human legbone and knee cap sticking out of solid rock. He called to his companions, and together they dislodged the oddity with picks. Realizing they had a most unusual find, the men brought it into Eureka, where it was placed on display.

The stone in which the bones were embedded was a hard, dark red quartzite, and the bones themselves were almost black with carbonization - indicative of great age. When the surrounding stone was carefully chipped away, the specimen was found to be composed of a leg bone broken off four inches above the knee, the knee cap and joint, the lower leg bones, and the complete bones of the foot. Several medical doctors examined the remains, and were convinced that anatomically they had indeed once belonged to a human being, and a very modern-looking one. But an intriguing aspect of the bones was their size: from knee to heel they measured 39 inches. Their owner in life had thus stood over 12 feet tall. Compounding the mystery further was the fact that the rock in which the bones were found was dated geologically to he era of the dinosaurs, the Jurassic - over 185 million years old. The local papers ran several stories on the marvelous find, and two museums sent investigators to see if any more of the skeleton could be located. Unfortunately, nothing else but the leg and foot existed in the rock.
 

The next and last skeletal find takes us another quantum leap in geologic time, and plunges us even deeper into the earth's strata. A Scientific American article published in 1880 reprinted the particulars of a discovery made in the spring of that year, reported in the St. Louis Republican. Dr. R.W. Booth, who operated an iron mine about 3 miles from Dry Branch, in Franklin County, Missouri, unearthed from a depth of 18 feet a human skull, portions of ribs, vertebrae and a collar bone. With them were two barbed arrowheads of flint, and pieces of charcoal. Dr. Booth realized the significance of all this, but was frustrated when at just a touch the skull crumbled to dust, and the other bones likewise broke into pieces. But these pieces nevertheless told their story: Later analysis showed they were definitely human. Two and a half weeks later, Dr. Booth reached a level of 24 feet, and found more of the same skeleton - a thigh bone, vertebrae, and more charred wood. What is more, the remains were found resting on a layer of iron ore, which bore the impressions of coarse matting. One could still see the marks of criss-crossing fibers. What astounded Booth was that the layer in which both portions were dug up was the second or saccharoidal sandstone of the Lower Silurian - dated an incredible 425 million years old.

Let me repeat that: 425 million years. We have gone far beyond the purported age of human culture, of man himself, the apes, all mammals, even the age of the dinosaurs. According to evolutionary theory, the Silurian age saw the advent of life on land and was in fact more than two-thirds of the way back to the supposed advent of life itself. But what are the remains of man and his products doing at this level? Something, certainly, is very wrong.

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Evidence of  "David and Goliath" found in Philistine Artifacts

Associated Press  November 11, 2005

The Goliath find comes years after archaeologists unearthed a stone slab stele in Tell el-Qadi of Israel with the statement, "House of David" and “King of Israel” included in a patch of sentences about wars of the time.

The December 1995 issue of Time magazine reported about the 1994 discovery of the stone stele:

"This writing – dated to the 9th century BC, only a century after David’s reign – described a victory by a neighboring King over the Israelites. Some minimalists tried to argue that the inscription might have been misread, but most experts believe Biran and Nivah [the two archaeologists who discovered the chunk of basalt at Tel Dan] got it right. The skeptics’ claim that King David never existed is now hard to defend."

This proof of David’s existence is especially important since Jesus Christ, prophesied to be the Messiah, was prophetically required to be a descendant of King David. The two discoveries combined tell a scientific world that David and Goliath are not story book names invented by Jews, but actual historical figures who's record in the Bible may indeed be fact.

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For many years skeptics have worked very hard trying to find fault with the Bible. But through their incredible efforts, they have only managed to establish stronger and stronger evidence proving just the opposite—that the Bible is in fact totally accurate. Some of the best evidence for

 Biblical accuracy comes from the field of archaeology where modern day research has unearthed solid evidence for the people, places and events mentioned in the Bible. The Bible talks, for example, about a King named Herod. Recent archaeological digs have proven beyond the shadow of a doubt that such a king did in fact exist and that he lived right where and when the Bible says he did. For years historical scholars doubted that Herod even existed, but now coins bearing Herod’s name have been unearthed proving that the Bible was right. Archaeological digs at Samaria, Caesarea, Jerusalem, Jericho and Masada all have uncovered items proving the existence of this king.

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Chariot Wheels Found in the Red Sea

One of the most famous stories of the Bible is God's parting of the Red Sea to save the Israelites from the Egyptian army and the subsequent drowning of soldiers and horses in hot pursuit. Over the years, many divers have searched the Gulf of Suez in vain for artifacts to verify the Biblical account of the drowning of the entire Egyptian army in the Red Sea; but carefully following the Biblical and historical records of the Exodus brings you to Nuweiba, a large beach in the Gulf of Aqaba, as Ron Wyatt discovered in 1978. Ron's discovery of a wheel hub that he brought to the surface in the late 1970s had the remains of eight spokes radiating outward and was examined by Nassif Mohammed Hassan, director of Antiquities in Cairo. Hassan declared it to be from the 18th Dynasty of ancient Egypt, explaining the eight-spoked wheel was used only during that dynasty around 1400 B.C. Hassan is on videotape stating his conclusion regarding authenticity. A big problem for explorers and scientists is that the Egyptian government no longer allows items to be removed from the protected region.

 Repeated dives in depths ranging from 60 to 200 feet deep (18m to 60m), over a stretch of almost 2.5 km, has shown that the chariot parts are scattered across the sea bed. Artifacts found include wheels, chariot bodies as well as human and horse bones. Divers have located wreckage on the Saudi coastline opposite Nuweiba as well.

Since 1987, three 4-spoked gilded chariot wheels were found with metal detectors. Coral does not grow on gold, hence the shape has remained very distinct, although the wood inside the gold veneer has disintegrated making them very fragile.

Archaeologists found and photographed numerous coral encrusted chariot parts. Several dives have revealed more and more, but could not be collected or taken.

"I am 99.9 percent sure I picked up a chariot wheel," Peter Elmer tells WorldNetDaily after two diving trips to the Gulf of Aqaba branch of the sea. "It was covered in coral."

The 38-year-old forklift mechanic from Keynsham, England, traveled to the region with his brother, Mark, after being inspired by videos of explorers Ron Wyatt and Jonathan Gray, who have documented artifacts that authorities have confirmed to be a chariot wheels dating to the time of Ramases II and Tut of the eighteenth dynasty, dating the exodus to 1446 BC.

Picture of a chariot wheel and axle up-ended and covered with coral on the sea floor.

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True Location of the Red Sea Crossing Found

 

 

Traditionally it is believed that the Red Sea crossing took place on the Gulf of Suez. However, there are no mountains to be found there. The area is

 completely flat, unlike the Biblical description. The Gulf of Suez was also a popular site because it is traditionally believed that Mt. Sinai is on the Sinai Peninsula. Again the Bible tells us differently, (Galatians 4:25), "Mt. Sinai in ARABIA".

 

After several miles Wadi Watir mountain range opens out to a large beach area, on the western coast of the Gulf of Aquaba. The only beach area along the Gulf of Aquaba, that would have been large enough to accommodate the estimated two million people and their flocks. The Israelites were prevented from traveling north by the presence of an Egyptian military fortress.

 

This satellite image shows the huge Nuweiba beach and how it is surrounded by high mountains, and the large path through the mountains leading to it. To the south the mountains extend all the way down to the sea, thus preventing any further passage. Of course they could not turn around and retrace their steps as the Egyptian army was pursuing them. God had brought them to a point where only He could deliver them,

 

Exodus 14:3 - They would appear to be "entangled" and "shut in".

 

"And Moses said unto the people, fear not, stand still, and see the salvation of the LORD, which He will show you today, for the Egyptians whom you have seen today, you shall see them no more again forever...and the LORD caused the sea to go back by strong east wind all that night, and made the sea dry land, and the waters were

The huge Nuweiba beach

divided. And the children of Israel went into the midst of the sea upon the dry ground: and the waters were a wall unto them on their right hand, and on their left." (Exodus 14:13, 21, 22).

 

 

Perhaps most amazing of all, is that this beach is a landing for the only under water land bridge in the entire gulf. Along the length of the Gulf of Aquaba, depths reach to an average of 5000 feet and the Egyptian shoreline drops steeply under water at a slope of about 45 degrees. If the Israelites had tried to have crossed anywhere else along the Gulf of Aquaba they would have been faced with an extremely steep drop to about 5000 feet.

With all of their animals and wagons, the task would have been practically impossible. Only here, on the shores of Nuweiba, does the 'pathway' drop off at a gradual slope of 6 degrees, to a depth of only 100 meters. The Bible describes it as, "Away in the sea and a path in the mighty waters" (Isaiah 43:16, 17).

The "bridge", is still quite deep at around 2800 feet (850m) in the middle. It was not just freak weather that allowed the Israelites to cross. The parting of the waters, the most awesome display of God's saving power in the Old Testament, was intended to be etched into the minds of the Hebrews for all time.

 

 

On the Saudi side of the land bridge there was found a column or pillar, lying face down on the shore with an inscription in Archaic Hebrew that read, "MIZRAIM (Egypt), SOLOMON, EDOM, DEATH, PHARAOH, MOSES, YAHWEH."

It is believed it was erected by Solomon to commemorate the crossing of the Red Sea. The inscriptions on the column found lying on the shore were eroded, but readable. The authorities have since set the pillar in concrete on location.

 

The find of the pillar alone establishes the Nuweiba beach and land bridge across the sea as the true location of the Red Sea crossing. However, to seal the matter, along this land bridge crossing is the location archaeologist divers have found the human remains and chariot wheels on the sea bottom.

 

 

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Dinosaur Footprints, side by side with Humans

Dinosaur Valley State Park in Glen Rose Texas is famous for its dinosaur tracks in Cretaceous limestone that is dated over 110 million years old. The Paluxy River going through the park has some of the largest and most famous dinosaur tracks in the world. What evolutionist's have been trying to de-bunk for years is that dozens of human tracks are perfectly formed in the same riverbed limestone. At a certain point in the Paluxy River is a series of 14 sequential human fossil footprints on the same platform with at least 134 dinosaur tracks.  Some human tracks have also been found not only in the same formation, but on the same bedding plane and in some cases even overlapping the dinosaur tracks.

The accusation by evolutionists is that it the footprint is "carved" into the old stone by over zealous creationists. However, to test this the stone was cut in five places across the foot- print

to check the interior stone mapping for pressure print under the surface.

If it is a footprint, and not a carving, there will be an impression under the print. The track was carefully cut with a diamond saw to section it with a view to examine the subsurface

pressure designs show under the toes.

A carving in stone is easily caught on the surface with the naked eye or using magnifying equipment. Not only do no carving marks exist of any type, but the grain of the stone surface is consistent in the print as it is out of the print to the surrounding areas where the track was found.

Media from around the country had witnessed at least some of the discoveries. Evolutionists, however, had dismissed the human footprints as the carvings of Indians, the tracks of a sick dolphin, a case of misidentification, or an outright fraud. One gentleman was so threatened by the discoveries that he actually took a hammer, went to the river, and broke up some of the footprints to make them useless for study.

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Evidence for the Existence of Jesus Christ

 

One of the most important historical questions of course is the question of whether or not Jesus Christ ever actually existed. Atheists have argued to the contrary despite all the archaeological evidence. Archaeologists have discovered 1st century artifacts which bear His name, proving at least that someone of that name existed and lived around the time the Bible says that Christ lived. Furthermore, the fact that modern time has been recorded with reference to BC and AD seems to suggest the existence of a prominent person by this name. The Jewish historian Josephus [of Jesus' time] who was not a believer in the divinity of Jesus Christ, makes mention of Him, as well as His brother James. In Antiquities he wrote,

 

“But the younger Ananus who, as we said, received the high priesthood,

 was a bold disposition and exceptionally daring; he followed the party of the Sadducees, who are severe in judgment above all the Jews, as we have already shown. As therefore Ananus was of such a disposition, he thought he had now good opportunity, as Festus was now dead, and Albinus was still on the road; so he assembled a council of judges, and brought before it the brother of Jesus the so-called Christ, whose name was James, together with some others, and having accused them as law-breakers, he delivered them over to be stoned.”

 

This being written nearly 2000 years ago around the time of Christ, it is clear historically at least, that Jesus Christ did exist and lived in Israel just as the Bible teaches.

 

More recently a discovery was made that proves not only that Christ existed, but was worshipped as God. On November 5, 2005, Israeli archaeologists made an amazing announcement. In Megiddo, in northern Israel, archaeologists discovered the remains of the oldest Christian church ever discovered. Evidence reveals that this church dates as far back as the second or third century A.D. The remains included a Greek styled mosaic entry way to the church that bore an amazing inscription.

FOXNEWS.COM reported: “Two mosaics inside the church — one covered with fish, an ancient Christian symbol that predates the cross — tell the story of a Roman officer and a woman named Aketous who donated money to build the church in the memory “of the God Jesus Christ.” Not only does this recent discovery help reinforce the fact that Jesus did actually exist, but it helps establish the fact that the church actually believed that Jesus was God long before the time of Constantine in the fourth century.

What did the inscription say? The church was dedicated to “the God Jesus Christ.” Some who ignore the Bible and other historical evidences have argued that up until A.D. 325 Jesus followers viewed him as a mortal man. This discovery demolishes their argument.

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Another prominent Bible figure whose existence was doubted by many historians due to lack of archaeological evidence, was Pontius Pilate, the procurator whom the Bible declares ordered the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. However, one of the greatest Roman historians, Cornelius Tacitus, makes mention of him in his Annals (xv. 44) (AD 54-68). Writing of the account of Nero’s persecution of Christians, Tacitus recorded,

Furthermore, in June 1961 Italian archaeologists led by Dr. Frova were excavating an ancient Roman amphitheatre near Caesarea-on-the-Sea (Maritima) and uncovered this interesting limestone block that had been used as one of the theater seats. Overturned, there was an inscription on the stone, which had originally been used as a road sign, which clearly reads: "To the honorable gods Tiberium Pontius Pilate, Prefect of Judea, had dedicated" Needless to say, this along with other historical discoveries, including the historian writings of Josephus about Pilate and the finding of coins issued by Pilate in 29-32 AD, has given a great credibility to the Biblical story of Jesus Christ, because before these findings the only place mentioning Pontius Pilate was the Holy Bible.  

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Other characters and places in the Bible are also known to have existed through evidence provided by archaeology. For example, archaeologists have unearthed the remains of King Solomon’s palace and of the stables at Megiddo. The pool of Bethesda in Jerusalem, described in the Bible, has also been uncovered. Indeed, the land of Israel contains an abundance of historical treasures, and every single one of them supports the

Biblical account of history.

Jericho Finding Backs Biblical Chronology

The name ‘Jericho’ brings to mind Israelites marching, trumpets sounding and walls falling down (Joshua 3:15-20). It is a wonderful story of faith and victory, but did it really happen? The skeptic would say no, it is merely a folk tale to explain the ruins at Jericho.  The fact that Jericho was found with it's tremendous walls leveled to the ground would appear to be enough to amaze any skeptic. Research conducted by British archaeologist

 Kathleen Kenyon confirmed the existence of a place described in the Bible as Jericho. However, her investigations lead her to conclude that Jericho could not have existed after 1550 BC, clearly contradicting the Biblical chronology of its destruction by Joshua and the Israelites. Years later however, other archaeologists found evidence that showed Kenyon’s date was incorrect and that Jericho’s existence did indeed fit with the Bible’s chronology.

During excavations in the early 1930s, it was determined from the remains of the walls of Jericho that they were not pushed inward as one would expect had they been knocked down by attackers with battering rams. Instead, the walls seem to have fallen straight down, as if the Earth had disappeared beneath them. The Biblical account tells us that they were knocked down supernaturally.

When the walls of Jericho fell, they fell straight down, consistent with what one might expect during an earthquake. But there is something else unusual about the way they fell. It seems that almost all of the walls fell, with the exception of a portion of the northern wall. There, the wall somehow managed to remain standing. The Bible tells the story of Rahab, a Canaanite prostitute who hid the Israel spies who came to assess the city. She hid them in her home which was built against the city wall. She was told to bring her family into her house and that they would be spared. The Bible tells us that Rahab’s house was somehow spared when the rest of the city fell. Archaeologists not only found that part of the wall remained standing, but that there were houses built against that portion of the wall.

According to a paper published by the Biblical Archaeology Review (March/April 1990), remains from the city of Jericho clearly show that its demise did indeed line up with the Biblical account. The evidence shows that the city was strongly fortified; that it was attacked after the spring harvest; that there was not enough time for the inhabitants of Jericho to flee with food and supplies; that the siege did not take long enough for the city dwellers to use up their food supply; that the walls were leveled in a manner that provided easy access for the siege to take place; that the invaders did not loot the city; and that the city was indeed burned after the walls were leveled. Each of these findings lines up perfectly with the account given in Joshua 2 and 6.

Daniel 5 tells us that Belshazzar was the king of Babylon during its demise. However, archaeologists could never find proof for the existence of such a person. In fact, the evidence pointed to Nabonidus as king of Babylon at that time. However, Daniel’s account as recorded in the Bible has been confirmed by more recent archaeological discoveries. Nabonidus was indeed king of Babylon from 556 to 539 BC. But in 553 BC he left on a long journey, leaving his first-born son, Belshazzar, in charge. So when Cyrus overthrew Babylon, Nabonidus was in northern Arabia and Belshazzar was the reigning king. This fact was discovered when archaeologists unearthed a document known as the “Persian Verse Account of Nabonidus.” Before this document,

Belshazzar was unknown since Greek historians were mainly interested in official kings. Because Belshazzar was only a subordinate, his name was not recorded as the reigning king and historians soon forgot about him completely.

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In the book of Acts, we are told that the apostle Paul had started a riot in

Jerusalem when he took a group of Gentiles into the Jewish temple. While Gentiles were allowed in the outer court of the temple, they were not

permitted to go beyond this area. The Jews even put up signs in Latin and Greek warning that any Gentile that went beyond the outer court would face death. In 1871, one of these Greek notices was discovered in Jerusalem confirming the Biblical account.

The notice left little room for misinterpretation and said simply “No foreigner may enter within the barricade which surrounds the temple and enclosure. Anyone who is caught doing so will have himself to thank for his ensuing death.”

more to come

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