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I Don't Have Enough FAITH to Be an ATHEIST
12 Biblical Archaeological Discoveries You've Never Heard Of Before with Dr. Titus Kennedy
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- [00:03]
A
Ladies and gentlemen, what are the top archaeological discoveries that corroborate the Bible that you probably never heard of? I mean, you've probably heard of the Dead Sea Scrolls, you've probably heard of some maybe other major discoveries. But are there sort of the next tier of discoveries that have been unveiled un uncovered in recent years that many people, unless they're really students of this material, have never heard about, yet they corroborate either people and or events in the Bible? There's nobody better to talk about than my friend Titus Kennedy, whose work is really at the center of a brand new course that we're running right now called Digging up the Bible. Titus has written so many great books in recent years. Unearthing the Bible is one of them. Then excavating the evidence for Jesus, and then most recently, the Essential Archeological Guide to Bible Lands. As you know, Titus, unlike myself, is a real archaeologist and he teaches at Biola University Discovery Institute. His fourth book is about to come out in February. And as I say, most of what we did in the Digging up the Bible course either came from Titus Scott Stripling and, or Joel Kramer. And Titus is on the front lines. He's been out doing digs. In fact, Titus. Well, let me introduce him properly. Here he is, the great Titus Kennedy, ladies and gentlemen.
- [01:38]
B
Titus, good to be back.
- [01:41]
A
First of all. All right, shut up with the applause before we, before we get into all these sort of under the radar discoveries that are fascinating. Titus, what have you been doing over the past year? What have you been studying? What have you been digging? What's been going on?
- [01:56]
B
Well, as far as what I've been studying, you mentioned that I've got another book coming out in a few months, so I finished that this summer. And this is on people that are named in the Bible that are attested archaeologically. So I tried to go through everyone. Essentially I've got about 135 people that are addressed in the book. They're probably could have been 5, 7, 8 more that I could have talked about, but they're very speculative. So I tried to for the most part, keep them really accepted and consensus with a few that I thought, you know, people should know about these with the caveat of we're not 100% sure if it's this person. So that took a lot of my time. But also I was out in the field this year. So I was in Jordan and Egypt for two months, most of the time in Jordan and working on a new excavation or a renewed excavation at the site of Zoar, which is A really important site for the biblical narrative. But this is one of those places where if you ask somebody, have you heard of Zoar? Have you read this section in the Bible about Zoar? Most people will say, I don't remember that name.
- [03:22]
A
Why don't we start there with Zoar? This is one of the ones that's kind of under the radar. Titus. And it's mentioned in Genesis 14 as one of five cities that had to do with Abraham. Take it from there. What was the city about and what have you discovered about it?
- [03:39]
B
Right. That's the first place that we see it. It's in the narrative with Abraham and Lot. And then in chapter 19 of Genesis is where we read more about Zoar. It gets a little bit more involved. One of the things that we find out about this city, it's part of those five cities of the plain. So Sodom and Gomorrah, the two famous ones, and then Admon Zeboim, and then finally Zoar, which was also called Bella. And Lot flees to Zoar from Sodom. So it becomes a very, very important part of the narrative. It's the one city of those five that doesn't get destroyed because Lot goes there and then he decides to leave that city and go nearby up into the mountains, into this cave, Lot's cave. And so both actually the, the cave and the city have now been excavated. And we were working on the city and we were trying to get down to the, the Bronze Age, to this period of Lot and Abraham, to expose some of the structures from that time. And that that was our main objective because it's never been found before. We know where Zoar is because it was continuously inhabited more or less until about the 15th century AD. But we still have very little information on the city from the time of Lot.
- [05:10]
A
How far down were you able to get in this two month dig were you able to get to the bronze, like 4,000 years ago? You're able to get back to almost 2000 BC.
- [05:20]
B
So what we found is that we were digging at what we could call the Byzantine city of Zoar. And it had never been excavated lower than the Byzantine period. So we're talking, you know, 4th century AD is the start of the Byzantine period. And we got underneath that and we found material, even occupation, a floor and a wall from the Nabataean period, same time as the Romans. But the Nabataean kingdom was not part of Rome at that time from the first century BC and ad and then we dug Underneath that. And so we're wondering, will we come across Iron Age? And then will we get to Bronze Age? And we dug really far down, like 10ft in a couple of probes.
- [06:08]
A
Wow.
- [06:09]
B
And we found some Bronze Age pottery sherds, but we did not find walls or floors. And then we did some additional research, so to speak, in the area. We were looking at other sites or other remains next to our site, and we found what we think is the actual Bronze Age settlement. So the plan is to then go and excavate that as sort of a separate area to uncover the Bronze Age city or parts of the Bronze Age city.
- [06:47]
A
Now, in those five cities that are mentioned in Genesis 14, one of them was not burned. Is it Zoar?
- [06:53]
B
Yeah, Zoar is the one that was preserved. So that's why it's still there in the Nabataean period, in the Byzantine period, in the Islamic period. So there was a Roman fort there. It was a major center for Byzantine Christianity. A bishop was there. They've even got tombstones of some of the bishops from the early Christian period. And it's also mentioned in the Iron Age. So if we look in places like Isaiah and Jeremiah, probably a reference to it in Second Kings and then Deuteronomy as well. It's. It's still going. It's still there. So lot went there. It wasn't destroyed. It lived on. The other four were obliterated. Nobody rebuilt those cities, so just Zoar was there.
- [07:40]
A
Now, your colleague, another great archaeologist, Joel Kramer, has a video on these five cities. Do you agree with Joel's assessment of that? And which of the cities or which of the sites now would be considered Sodom? Which do you think is Sodom and which do you think is Gomorrah?
- [08:03]
B
Yeah, I do agree with Joel on this. I was working with another archaeologist, actually. Both of us were named Dino Politus. He's a Greek archaeologist, but he's been working in Jordan for 40 years. And he's actually the one who excavated and led the lot's cave project, where they found this cave with material from the time of Lot, and then in the Byzantine period, they built a historical commemorative church there. And then he started working at Zoar, and then there was a hiatus of several years, and so then we partnered with him to start working. And. And he seems to agree with us more or less on some of the locations as well. But as far as my perspective on Sodom and Gomorrah, I would. Would place Sodom probably at Baba Draw and Gomorrah at Numera. And I did a recent podcast on this with Tim Mahoney, actually, where we get pretty into depth with that. And then another one with Henry Smith where we go over a lot of that same material to try to unpack what's Zoar, Why is it important? How does it connect to Sodom and Gomorrah?
- [09:17]
A
We're going to put those podcasts in the show notes, ladies and gentlemen, because we want to move on to other discoveries. But when we come back from the break, I want to ask Titus, what this kind of discovery, whether it's Zoar, whether it's Sodom, whether it's Gomorrah, what does that tell us as Christians about the accuracy of the Bible? Are we overstating this, or is it really a discovery that affirms or corroborates what the Bible says? So we're going to talk much more with Dr. Titus Kennedy right after the break, pick up his book Unearthing the Bible. You might want to start there. It's 101 archaeological discoveries to bring the Bible to life. Much more after the break. See you then. Don't go anywhere. What discoveries that you have never heard of are corroborating either events or people or places in the Bible? My guest today, Dr. Titus Kennedy, an archaeologist who has written several great books. Books. Just go to Amazon type in Titus Kennedy. We'll also put links to the books in the show notes. We were talking before the break about one of these discoveries. You may not have heard of one of the five cities of the plains that the Bible talks about in Genesis 14. It starts anywhere there with one of the cities being Zoar. The other two famous ones, Sodom and Gomorrah. What. What does the discoveries of Sodom, Gomorrah and Zoar tell us, Titus? I mean, about the truth of Christianity, if anything, or the truth of the Bible.
- [10:56]
B
I think these are part of the overall evidence that demonstrates the historical reliability of the Bible. Because first of all, these are way back in time. And to me, that is a bit more astonishing of a discovery than, say, you find something from the New Testament period where we have a lot more information. But these are thousands of years ago, the time of Abraham and Lot. And we've got the names of these five cities. We have their periods in which people lived, and then we have their destruction and. And these claims that four of them were never rebuilt, but the fifth wasn't destroyed and it continued to live on. So you know all these details about where they're located, what their name is, when they were occupied, what kind of fate they met. All those things are correct. And this just shows that at least that that component of the biblical narrative is corroborated by archaeological discoveries. And, of course, many, many others are as well.
- [12:07]
A
Now, the next discovery we're going to talk about. Titus, I learned from you, and I think this one is fantastic. I mean, it affirms so much. And you literally went into the Sudan, put your kind of life at risk doing this, trying to verify this discovery. It's called the Nomads of Yahweh discovery. Unpack that one for us.
- [12:33]
B
Yeah, this is in reference to an inscription, actually, we could say three inscriptions, but two of them were found at one temple. One was found at a nearby temple from slightly later. So if we just focus on the early ones, when it was first written, first inscribed, these are the most important. And it's an Egyptian inscription, and it's part of a list that the pharaoh is claiming that, oh, I, I subjugated all of these people and places. They're. They're under my authority. I defeated them. And so we have a lot of different cities and towns named, but then there's a section in which there are these groups of nomadic people that are named. And so we have nomads associated with various deities. Like, one group is associated with Anat, who is a Canaanite goddess, and another one is associated with baal. But then there's one that is associated with Yahweh, the nomads of Yahweh. And this is really important because it's the earliest we've ever found the name Yahweh in an archaeological context. So the, the next earliest prior to this discovery was on the meshestili from the 9th century BC. But this inscription is from about 1400 BC, and it's also from the Egyptians. So we know that the Egyptians were familiar with the name Yahweh way back in the time of Moses or just after the time of Moses. And so this tells us they seem to have had interaction with the Israelites. In fact, if we read Exodus, Moses reveals the name of God Yahweh to the pharaoh. So, yes, that's according to the Bible. And then they're also saying that these people were living as nomads, wandering. And the geographical context of where this, this group is is somewhere to the east of Egypt during, during the wandering period, maybe Sinai, maybe Edom or Moab, Transjordan. But it's, it's right before they start conquering and settling Canaan. So it. It does a lot of things for us. Besides having early attestation of the personal name of God, Yahweh tells us the Israelites were out there wandering at that time because they're the only people in ancient times who worshiped Yahweh. There. There are no other people who worship Yahweh. They never adopted Yahweh in any of their polytheistic godheads. So you can go through all the inscriptions and see that. So we know it's the Israelites, and then they're there wandering where they're supposed to be. And so this gives us a lot of historical biblical connections. And yet this was, I would say, virtually unknown, except to some scholars and a few people who read certain books that mention it in passing. You know, prior to 10 or 15.
- [15:48]
A
Years ago, what amazes me, as you pointed out elsewhere, that this inscription is found in formerly Egyptian territory. It's now Sudan, but at the time it was part of Egypt. And it's right at the time of the Exodus. Because the biblical dating of the Exodus, as you've pointed out, would be 1446 BC. Forty years later, they're at Jericho, 1406 BC and this particular dating of this inscription, the nomads of Yahweh, comes from about 1400 BC. And correct me if I'm wrong, Titus, Did Amenhotep III erect this inscription? And Amenhotep III is the grandson of Amenhotep ii, who was the Exodus pharaoh?
- [16:37]
B
Yep, that's. That's what I think.
- [16:40]
A
Wow. I mean, can I ask you a question about the Exodus? Because it really bugs me. I know there are people that have come after you for putting forth the evidence that the Exodus was real and it took place in the 1400s B.C. just as the Bible and the archeological evidence seems to suggest this is part of it, part of the archaeological evidence. Why are some archaeologists either denying the Exodus took place at all, or they seem hell bent on saying it was in the 1200s AD? Why do they do this when it appears? All of the biblical, Egyptian and archeological evidence points to the 1400 BC? Why are they doing this, Titus? Do you have any idea?
- [17:26]
B
I think it's an issue of framework and worldview combined with what they've been taught in the circles that they run in. So if you come up in an academic circle where everyone is on the same page that the Bible is a myth or some assortment of various legends, then all your colleagues are going to think that the Exodus was a myth and you're going to be taught that in your classes, and that's what you'll read and in your books and in your articles. And that's just a framework that you're working with. And generally, that group doesn't really even look into the possibility that the Exodus could be historical. So they're not even looking at, oh, you know, maybe this is archaeological evidence of an aspect of the Exodus story. So it's generally, it's just discounted as far as other ideas about the Exodus being historical or, or partially historical, but happening in different time periods. Again, framework, worldview, interpretational lens. So they're, they're hermeneutics, so to speak. Not just the Bible, but history in general. And so they're, they're seeing things a certain way, and they have interpreted that the Exodus happened in the 13th century or the 12th century, or there's even rare cases where claims are made that happened in the 11th century B.C. and so then they'll piece together some events or some archaeological data that, you know, looks like it might fit.
- [19:13]
A
Well, they, they seem to protest too much because I saw one interaction you had with one guy, I'm not going to dignify his name, where he was just so caustic to you. And you're just presenting evidence. And this guy seems, he seems to treat you like a little kid and is almost dismissive, like, how could you believe this occurred in the 1400s? And by the way, friends, we have a couple of videos that we put out recently when we were over in Egypt in this area, and they're called something like evidence. Nine evidences for the Exodus and nine evidences. The Hebrews were in Egypt before the Exodus. And you and Stephen Meyer pointed out that you only need to establish two things, that the Hebrews were in Egypt at a particular time around the 1400s BC and then they left. And you can. The evidence is there. We don't have time to go into it all here. But those two short videos, friends, you might want to check into. I need to ask you one other thing, Titus, because you're a real archeologist. You're going down and you're digging and you're going into tombs, and you did a trip to Egypt. You're doing another trip in January this year. But on your last trip to Egypt, you took my videographer with you, my friend Clint Bolen, who films all our campus events, and you literally went into Amenhotep II's tomb. Amenhotep the second, friends, we believe Titus believes, Joel Kramer believes is or was the Pharaoh of the Exodus. This tomb is not open to the public. So you got in. What did you see, what did you verify? What did you learn.
- [20:58]
B
Really? One of the main objectives was to find out if his son or his son's mummy was still in the tomb, because it was unclear where this was, was. And so I'm talking about Web and Senu, who seems to have been the, the firstborn son of Amenhotep ii. So he would have been the crown prince, but he died when he was quite young. 11, 10, something like that, nine maybe. We're not sure exactly from analysis of his body, but he was buried there in the tomb, which I think is some circumstantial evidence for the Exodus, that he died young in that, that plague, the 10th plague, the death of the firstborn, and his father honored him by putting him in the tomb, you know, long before the pharaoh himself died and was buried. And so, yes, that mummy is still in that tomb. It's actually the only mummy that's still there. And I think it could undergo some, some more analysis. Be interesting what else we might be able to find out about it. But you know, the tomb itself is pretty incredible. It's, it's huge, it's complex. When it was first discovered and excavated, it was very difficult for the people to get into it and get into the burial chamber where the sarcophagus still is. But of course they opened it up and there was the, the mummy of Amenhotep ii as well as a stash of some other mummies.
- [22:39]
A
We're going to talk a lot more with Titus Kennedy about these fantastic discoveries that you probably have never heard of unless you're a real student of biblical archaeology. So don't go anywhere. You're listening to I Don't have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist. With me, Frank turek, my guest, Dr. Titus Kennedy. Get his book Unearthing the Bible or Excavating the Evidence for Jesus. A lot more. Don't go anywhere.
- [23:04]
C
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- [23:49]
A
What are some of the most amazing archaeological discoveries that confirm or corroborate what the Bible says that you. You probably have never heard of? Right now we're Talking about Amenhotep II's tomb and a mummy that is still in there is of this guy right here. Who is this?
- [24:08]
B
Titus is Weavin Senu, the son of Amenhotep ii.
- [24:15]
A
And his body is still in that. That sarcophagi. Sarcophagus.
- [24:19]
B
Still. Still. Still in a wooden coffin inside the tomb in a side room? Yes.
- [24:26]
A
Why do you think they haven't taken that out and moved it to the mummy room in Cairo? Like where his father is, Almond Hotep ii? Why. Why is. Why have they left him actually in the tomb? Any idea?
- [24:40]
B
That's a great question. Because all the other mummies that were stashed in there, they moved out too. I. I'd like to find out. I mean, I think it's intentional. Maybe they just did it honorifically or maybe they're just waiting to move him until they can accommodate a space in the museum. I don't know. The. So the mummy is still in the actual coffin, so you have to open it up.
- [25:08]
A
Oh, you couldn't open it, but it's there. Okay.
- [25:10]
B
Yeah, yeah. You know, you could, you could peer in through the slats, basically, and see it's still in there.
- [25:17]
A
But that's. That's just amazing to me. And the mummy of his father, Amenhotep II, as. I think that mummy was discovered in 1902 or something. And one of the experts that looked at it noticed that it seemed to have some scarring that could have been from boils. Have you looked into that at all?
- [25:41]
B
Yeah, I've looked at. It is very, very odd. And you know, what is that from exactly? It's. It's speculation because we don't know if it's something that happened during his life or if it's genetic that was part of inbreeding, essentially causing genetic problems. Because that family, during the 18th Dynasty, like a lot of the dynasties, was just inbreeding. So it, it could have been something like that. But it is very, very strange. You know, you look at a lot of mummies and that's not something that you are typically seeing.
- [26:22]
A
Yeah, it could be from the plague of boils. It's possible. We're speculating. But he has it. His father. We have his mummy. His father doesn't have it. We have his son, Thutmose iv, the guy that put up the dream Stella. He doesn't have it. His son Webin Senu, he didn't seem to have. But he was very young. It seems very odd. We'll put a picture of it. You can see it here. Those are the pic, those are the. They appear to be scars from boils. All right, Fascinating stuff. Why don't we talk a little bit about the Mesha Stella? What is that, Titus?
- [27:01]
B
Yeah, I think this is a good one to talk about because it's very important. It's been around for a long time, but I also don't think that it's one of the more well known discoveries. So right now it's sitting in the Louvre museum in Paris, so anybody can go take a look at it. But this was a victory stele erected by King Mesha of Moab. And on it he gives this account of the oppression of Moab by Israel and then how they rebelled and they were able to become independent or. Or on free again. And what's really interesting about this though is that first of all we've got of course attestation of Mesha of Moab who is mentioned in the book of Kings. But then as you read through the whole account, it's basically the Moabite version of the story that is written in 2nd Kings chapter 3. And then in addition to that we have some some other names, locations, but we also have the name Yahweh. So the Moabites knew the personal name of God that the Israelites used, Yahweh. And this is the earliest inscription with the name Yahweh in a Semitic language. But of course it's not the earliest now because of that nomads of Yahweh inscription. But very, very important. And then even more recently when this underwent some new analysis in the 90s, they found that the name David or the phrase house of David was also present on this meshest dealy just like the tell Dan Steely. And so we had another enemy of the Israelites acknowledging that David was the founder of the Israelite dynasty of kings. So just a lot of really important data points on the meshestili that show the historical accuracy of scripture.
- [29:09]
A
And when this was discovered in the 1800s, wasn't there a big fight over it? And the locals heated it up and broke it up into pieces so they could each get a piece of the sale of the mesish stela or stele to the archaeologists. Wasn't it some kind of crazy story like that?
- [29:28]
B
Yep, yeah, when they found was intact. But they thought that if they broke it into pieces and sold them individually that they would get more money. And so they sort of destroyed it in the process. Thankfully, most of the pieces were recovered and put back together and there was actually a squeeze taken of the steely before it was destroyed. And so, you know, we, we know exactly what it looked like, all what the whole inscription was. And so if you go to the museum, there are some, some bits that they had to reconstruct based on that squeeze. But you know, most of the stone is still there.
- [30:10]
A
A squeeze is kind of like a paper mache copy of it somehow. Is that a fair way of putting it?
- [30:17]
B
So they would, they would put that on the front of the inscription and then they pull it off and it would have impressions or depressions showing all the bumps and lines and inscribed parts.
- [30:32]
A
Now, by the way, friends, we're covering these very briefly. If you want to go deeper, get Titus's book unearthing the Bible 101 archaeological discoveries, or you can get the book on Bible lands. We're talking. This is an Old Testament discovery, obviously. So this is from what you year approximately we in the 800-900-bc yeah, about.
- [30:49]
B
840-Bc so 9th century-bc okay.
- [30:53]
A
It's fascinating. In fact, I remember Joel Kramer saying if he had to pick one discovery from the Old Testament, it'd be this one, because there's so many.
- [31:02]
B
It covers a lot of territory, a lot of different things. Yeah.
- [31:05]
A
And it's coming from a foreign source, ladies and gentlemen. Just like the nomads of Yahweh is an Egyptian source, this is a Moabite source. Fascinating stuff. How about Uzziah of Judah? What's that discovery about Titus?
- [31:20]
B
I, I like this one because it's, it's one of the kings, of course, so he's a king of Judah. But this is one where, if you do some reading, many scholars will say that we have no archaeological evidence that this king existed. They're not necessarily saying he, he didn't exist, but they're saying there's no archaeological corroboration. And as I looked into this more since I was writing this book about all the people, I found that we actually have quite a bit that connects to Uzziah. Now, a lot of people might have seen or heard about what's called the Uzziah Tablet. And this talks about King Uzziah and it's definitely him, but it is a reburial inscription, probably from the first century. So it's ancient, but it's not from his time. He ruled in the 8th century BC but there is a text of The Assyrian king Tiglath Pileser III from year three of his reign. And it mentions how he received the tribute from Azriah of Judah. So Uzziah also is known as Azariah. So he's, he's using his Azariah name here of Judah. And so that's the Assyrians saying, oh, yeah, here's this king and he gave us a tribute. And then there's actually two seals from servants of Uzziah, and they've got their names on them, Shevnayahu and Abia, and they have servant of Uzziah on there as well. And these are from the 8th century. So really we have three different sources archaeologically for, for this king. And that to me is pretty cool just in and of itself. But I think it's quite important because again, typically you would read we don't really have any evidence for his reign or his existence, you know, or it's all disputed. But it's, it's quite clear from these three sources.
- [33:34]
A
Now, were those seals found in the city of David, Jerusalem, at the time of the first temple? Is that.
- [33:41]
B
They are. They are unprovidenced, but they were found so early or they came on, on the market so early that it wouldn't have been possible to forge them because people didn't have that kind of knowledge of Paleo Hebrew and the seals at that time.
- [34:00]
A
Now there are many other seals that have been discovered, ladies and gentlemen, maybe you can just comment on the Isaiah seal and the Hezekiah seal, if you would. Titus found, I think, in the Ophel, very close to the city of David. What's significant about them? And they were found very close to one another.
- [34:20]
B
Right. So we had a lot of bule of Hezekiah before that. So the bule is the impression created by the seal into a piece of clay, and then that clay was wrapped around a document, sort of like wax in later periods, especially in medieval Europe. But they were all on the antiquities market, like somebody just picked them up off the ground or they looted them. And so a lot of scholars thought, yes, these are real. But we couldn't prove that beyond the shadow of doubt. But then in this fairly recent excavation, just several years ago, they found bule of King Hezekiah that matched all the other ones that were known. So that verified those. And they found a bule of Isaiah the prophet. So he had a seal. He stamped things with his seal and it read Isaiah the prophet. That's how he identified himself. So that was the first time that there was any archaeological evidence for Isaiah the prophet. And it, you know, comes from Jerusalem right in the Royal Quarter 8th century BC right next to some boule of other officials. And Hezekiah became a very, very important discovery.
- [35:47]
A
It's amazing. And, and there's been many other obscure characters in the Bible that have their seals have been found. I think one that helped Jeremiah. Right, Jeremiah. That's been found. I can't remember his name, but it, right.
- [36:01]
B
Baruch the scribe.
- [36:02]
A
Oh, there you go. It's incredible when you look at this stuff, Titus, and you or you're a professional, you're looking at it all the time, but the general public doesn't know this and it's just amazing. And we've got a lot more with Dr. Titus Kennedy right after the break. Hey, Frank wanted me to let you know that he's going to be at the University of Georgia on October 23rd with his friend Lucas Miles, the president of TP USA Faith, doing the Prove Me Wrong tour. There's going to be be a lot of Q and A. Check all the details@cross examined.org October 23rd at the University of Georgia. See you there. Welcome back to I Don't have Enough Faith to Be an atheist. My guest, Dr. Titus Kennedy. Today, I'm Frank Turek. Titus not only a professor at Biola University, he also does work at Shepherds University and Dallas Theological Seminary as well. By the way, is it called Shepherd's University? What's it called, Titus? It's in Raleigh, North Carolina, not far from there.
- [37:06]
B
Shepherd's Theological Seminary, Shepherd's Theological launching archaeology program, Shepherd's Institute of Archaeology, Massachusetts program. We'll see if it carries on to a Ph.D. but we're, we're doing excavations, field classes, all that.
- [37:23]
A
Nice. And Joel Kramer's part of that as well, right?
- [37:27]
B
Yeah, Joel. Joel works on the digs with us and has occasionally taught some classes. And then he's obviously producing a lot of high quality media content in biblical archeology.
- [37:40]
A
Yeah. Check out, check out Joel's YouTube channel, Expedition Bible and check out Titus's books Unearthing the Bible, Excavating the Evidence for Jesus and and the Essential Archeological Guide to Bible Lands. Any of them are great. And get them all at Amazon. And the new ones coming out in February. We're going to do a program on that once it comes out. Let's do a couple of these sort of below the radar discoveries that confirm or corroborate aspects of the New Testament. We've done several in the old, the old cover is a lot longer period so there's so many names and events and places. I mean you said in the new book coming out, titus, you had 135 people across both testaments. When we did digging up the Bible, we came up with 107. You got 28 more than we have because you're in a real archeologist, you know where to look. But even at 107 you're going, this is amazing. You got, you got 135. And those are just people, not places. Right. There are. Then you got a whole number of places as well. But let's talk about the Alexander most graffito found in Rome. What's that about?
- [38:49]
B
Yeah, this is the earliest depiction of the crucifixion of Jesus. And they call it the Alex Ominous graffito because the guy pictured on it and his name is written on there, his name Alex Ominos. And so what it shows is Jesus on the cross, but they gave him the head of a donkey because they're mocking him. And then it shows this guy nearby the cross and he's looking up at Jesus. And they wrote Alex Ominous worships his God there. And so they're trying to make fun of this Christian who is worshiping a crucified Jesus Christ. And of course Paul writes about this, that the crucifixion to, to the Greeks or the Hellenistic mindset was foolishness because they, they couldn't fathom how one of the gods would be killed and executed by this form of punishment that was generally just reserved for non citizen criminals, worst criminals who weren't even citizens. And so it just was so strange to them. But they knew about it and they knew that the Christians worshiped Jesus Christ and that he died on a cross. And so we can see how widespread Christianity was and how widespread the knowledge of the life of Jesus was because this was found in Rome actually on the Palatine Hill inside a building on the Palatine Hill. And these probably workers. You know, this wasn't some professional inscription, but they carved this into the wall of a building. That building was in use between 90 and 200 AD. And so that's when this graffito dates to. So it's very, very early. We can see that these widespread and the impact of Christianity.
- [40:48]
A
You also in unearthing the Bible have several other New Testament discoveries. And I found it fascinating, Titus, that there are at least seven biblical names from Jesus trial and crucifixion that have been confirmed by archeology. I'm just going to list them and ask you to comment on one of Them. We've got Herod, we have Simon of Cyrene, we have Pilate, we have the Caiaphas ossuary. That thing's amazing. We have Peter being discovered in several places. We have Jesus on the James ossuary. Also, Jesus has been found elsewhere. And then we found Annas tomb, even though his name wasn't on it. We know it's Annas's tomb because Josephus tells us where it is and describes it exactly. Just south of the Temple Mount. So seven people associated with the crucifixion of Jesus have been found in the dirt. Pick one of those to talk about whether it's Herod, Simon of Cyrene, Pilate, Peter, Caiaphas, Annas, or Jesus. Just pick one.
- [41:45]
B
Sure, let's. Let's talk about Peter because I find that besides Simon, he's probably the one that's least known, or the archaeology is. So Peter's Peter is very interesting because I'm not sure that too many people would claim that he didn't exist. But to have archaeological evidence for this person who was a fisherman, disciple of Jesus, and then he was one of the apostles, early, early Christian leaders. It's, it's pretty astonishing because he never held any kind of political office, military position, things like this. But we have a few things. So first of all, we have his house in Capernaum that when he left Judea and went to Rome, he left it to the local Christians. And so they started using his house as a church. Now this, this is probably the earliest, well, let's say the second earliest house church that we know of, because the, the Church of the Apostles on Mount Zion in Jerusalem, that's, that'd be the earlier one, but this one is, is well preserved. And you can go and look at it today. And you can see the walls, you can see the modifications to the walls. Second, third and fourth century, they were inscribing things on the walls. And some of those inscriptions mentioned Peter, of course, others mentioned Jesus. But then if we go to Rome, what we have in Rome is the tomb of Peter that was rediscovered underneath the, the Vatican. And they found this reburial of Peter from the second century. And some of the early church history sources talk about this. But this burial from the second century, they found the bones of this man about 60 years old. All the components of his skeleton were there, except for the feet. And Peter was crucified upside down on a cross. And so if they cut him down, then his, his feet would not be there, just, you know, ankles up and Then there was an inscription there that said Peter inside. And so we have this second century inscription from his reburial at that time. It's probably the only actual body of one of the apostles that we have is Peter.
- [44:10]
A
That's amazing. So the Vatican is in the right spot, then?
- [44:15]
B
Yeah, absolutely, because they just built it over the place where Peter was martyred and then buried. And they, you know, years later, of course, Constantine goes there and says, oh, yeah, we should build a church here to commemorate where Peter was martyred and buried. So he built that there. And then, you know, fast forward in time to now, and this much larger basilica was built over the original Constantinian church.
- [44:43]
A
And so Peter's name is found there. It's also found in Capernaum in this house, which, when you go to Capernaum, ladies and gentlemen, we're just there just a few days ago. You see what looks like the Millennium Falcon has landed in Capernaum. It's just a Roman Catholic church built over this ancient house. And then church also. Jesus was found in that area. Graffiti from him, it's just. Or about him. Just incredible stuff. Tell us one more Titus from the New Testament. That's the Corinth, Bema and Gallio. What's that about?
- [45:22]
B
Well, this is part of the Acts narrative. So Paul, of course, goes to Corinth and he spends a considerable amount of time in ministry there, but he starts teaching in the synagogue. And people. Some people accept that Jesus was the Messiah and accept Christ, and others resist that. And so they want. They want to kick him out of the synagogue, and they want to kick him out of Corinth so that he can't keep spreading the gospel. And so some of those Jews then bring him to the governor and give these accusations against Paul. And that governor, we're told in the book of Acts is named Galio. And this happens at the Bema, or the judgment seat in the Corinth. Well, when Corinth was excavated and you can go and still see this today, they found this Bema seat. Now, it's not like a little chair. It's a whole platform. So it's going to be very obvious, but this is where the governor was standing or sitting when Paul was standing in front of him and listening to these accusations. And we know that it's the Bema in Corinth because there are actually two inscriptions that were discovered right next to it. In fact, one of them says that this. This judgment seat had been rebuilt and paid personally at the expense of. Of making all its marble. So this is one of the people who refurbished it. And they are putting an inscription there about that. It is very common in the Roman world. So we know that's the bema. We also know Gallia was the governor right at the time when Paul was there on trial because of other sources, Roman sources from Delphi nearby in Greece. There is an inscription there that mentions Gallio, the governor. And it's. It says that he's a friend of Claudius Caesar. And the date is, is 8052. And so that is really a linchpin chronologically for when Paul was in Corinth. So we've got the bema, we've got the governor of Achaia at Corinth who was named Gallio. We even have Claudius, who of course is mentioned in Acts. All these things coming together helps to corroborate the. The story of Paul in the Book of Acts.
- [47:51]
A
It's amazing stuff. Titus, tell people the difference between unearthing the Bible and excavating the evidence for Jesus so they know which book to get.
- [48:00]
B
Well, unearthing just focuses on artifacts and it covers artifacts spanning the whole Bible from Genesis to, to Revelation. So it's more of a sampler and there are short entries there and you could use it even as a little reference book, but it's pretty easy read. I think. Excavating the evidence for Jesus focuses only on Jesus and the Gospel from just before his birth to the Ascension. And it, you know, reads through chronologically and it's more story oriented with the life of Jesus.
- [48:34]
A
It's great stuff.
- [48:35]
B
A lot more detail.
- [48:36]
A
Great stuff. That's Dr. Titus Kennedy. Titus, thanks as always. Great stuff, my friend.
- [48:41]
B
Yeah, my pleasure. Thanks for having me on.
- [48:44]
A
Titus Kennedy, ladies and gentlemen. Get any of his three books, fourth one coming out in February, and Lord willing, we will see you here next time. God bless. Oh, by the way, the Bible's True. See you.
- [48:57]
C
Dr. Frank Turek is bringing powerful evidence for God to campuses like you. UC Berkeley, the University of Georgia and Ohio State, reaching thousands in person and millions online. But each event now requires costly security. Your gift helps the light of truth pierce the darkness. Give today@crossexamined.org.