This blog is meant to look at culture, politics and faith but mostly focuses on politics. As I’ve mentioned before, I deliberately try to include some faith-related content that eschews politics altogether.
For the first time, a team of Israeli archaeologists has uncovered ancient artifacts at northern Israel’s “Armageddon” site that might offer proof of an epic battle documented in the books of Kings II and Chronicles between a king of Judah and an Egyptian pharaoh.
Two academic papers published earlier this year explained how an unprecedented amount of 7th-century BCE Egyptian pottery was found in recent excavations at Megiddo, suggesting that Egyptian soldiers were indeed in the right biblical place at what could be the right biblical period.
“Megiddo is the only site in Israel and the neighboring countries mentioned in the Bible and in all great records of the Ancient Near East,” said Prof. Israel Finkelstein, head of the School of Archaeology and Maritime Cultures at the University of Haifa and long-time director of the Megiddo Expedition.
I love biblical archaeology that offers evidence, if not outright proof, for events and people written about in the Bible. So often the Bible is scoffed at as being mythological or just a collection of imaginative stories, but certainly not rooted in history. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The Book of 2 Chronicles in chapters 34-35 and 2 Kings in chapters 22-23 narrate the vicissitudes of the 16th King of Judah, Josiah. As he rose to the throne, he was described as a God-fearing leader who brought the people of Israel back to a righteous path after centuries of idol-worshipping and sinful behaviors. Yet, his efforts did not placate God’s wrath against the people. As Egyptian Pharaoh Necho marched against the Assyrians, Josiah confronted him at Megiddo, and Necho killed him (2 Chronicles 35:20-22; 2 Kings 23:29). The Assyrians, one of several biblical foes of the people of Israel, were responsible for destroying the kingdom of Israel in the northern part of the land (where Megiddo is located) in the 8th century CE, a century before the Josiah-Necho battle.
“It is important to note that the re-establishment of the site as an Egyptian stronghold in the late 7th century BCE had long been suspected, mostly based on a biblical verse in the Book of Kings, which described Josiah’s execution at Megiddo by Pharaoh Necho,” said Dr. Assaf Kleiman of Ben Gurion University, a senior member of the Megiddo Expedition staff who led the studies published in Egypt and the Levant and the Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament.
The Bible is so historically accurate that archaeologists have found it a reliable source for their own work.
One of the archaeologists that I follow is Joel Kramer, who hosts episodes of the Expedition Bible on YouTube, to which I subscribe. The most recent episode is Tomb of the Exodus Pharaoh: What Was Found & Why You Don’t Know About It!
In that episode (embedded below), Kramer finds the mummy of what we can be pretty sure is the pharaoh of the exodus, when the Israelites broke free from Egypt where they had been enslaved for more than 400 years. Most fascinating is the tantalizing possibility that we also find the mummified remains of the pharaoh’s son — the one who dies as a result of the last plague that God brought on the Egyptians.
At midnight the Lord struck down all the firstborn in Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh, who sat on the throne, to the firstborn of the prisoner, who was in the dungeon, and the firstborn of all the livestock as well. Pharaoh and all his officials and all the Egyptians got up during the night, and there was loud wailing in Egypt, for there was not a house without someone dead.
— Exodus 12:29-30
Have a good weekend.
Love this podcast. I’m following this guy now. Want to learn more. I was in the Middle east in 2001 and went to the Chiro museum and saw lots of mummies. Wish I would have been more educated on all of this.