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- [00:00]
A
Yeah, I decided to go with a rating system similar to other studies. Especially if you look at textual criticism, they'll often do this with textual variants. So I thought that would be helpful rather than just talking about it in the text, if it was there in the heading. So people had a quick reference for it. And I, I only gave four, four categories. So I've got firm and I have probable, and I have tentative and I have speculative. So I included some speculative because I thought people need to know about some of these, but they also need to know that this is not a for sure thing. It's, it's possible, but we don't have enough evidence to say definitively or, or positively. But uh, essentially what I looked at is when, when they're an A rating or firm, they probably have all five of those categories or, or even if they don't have all five, then maybe they have four, maybe they even have three. But it's so obvious that it couldn't be anyone else like a specific king like Nebuchadnezzar. You know, actually Nebuchadnezzar ii. There's, there's no other king Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon during the 6th century BC so we don't have to confirm all his sons and daughters and his father and things like that. We know exactly who that is. But, but in other cases where it's a more obscure figure, we do need the extra information in order to really confirm for sure that it is that person.
- [01:40]
B
Yeah, I mean you, you labeled it out chronologically basically. And, and, but let's, let's start with Nebuchadnezzar. He well known in the Book of Daniel. I mean people can read about him. And, and of course coming from a very well known Near Eastern context of Babylon, you know, is, and you have an A rating for him. Very firm.
- [02:00]
A
But how firm is it that that's one of those. That's absolute, cannot be mistaken. We have so many texts of Nebuchadnezzar that he himself commissioned where he is even speaking, speaking in the first person. Like his inscription on the Ishtar gate. We have building projects of his. There's even a stele that shows him in Babylon in front of the Ziggurat. Sometimes it's called the Tower of Babel stele. Not the ancient, ancient Tower of Babel, but another Tower of Babel. So in situations like that, again, we have so much evidence, it's 100% that this is the, the person that the Bible is referring to. Same time period, same location Same name, same title. We do have information about his family, although it's not talked about in the biblical text. And then even events associated with him when he's leading the charge or ordering for Jerusalem to be attacked and besieged, taking kings into exile, destroying the city later on. So very obvious in a case like that.
- [03:14]
B
Yeah, it's fun. So, I mean, this is where, again, when you have those that are skeptical and the Bible says something, and again, you might go back 200 years before a lot of this was excavated and. Yeah, the Bible, you know, whatever. The skeptical world. Yeah. Is it even true? Again, it's just no different than the Iliad, one of the ones that, when I was in graduate school, you know, 2008 or so, I remember writing a paper on it, kind of a thesis on it was the person of King David. Back then you had this debate of the minimalist and maximalist, and it was kind of in its heyday and. But yet a lot of stuff was being discovered and you have King David in your book. And so in that sense, based on. You have a firm rating and based on that backdrop, I mean, is David a myth or is he a real figure? And what does the archaeology show?
- [04:05]
A
Yeah, he's. He's absolutely a real figure. But until the 90s, most scholars were leaning towards the idea that he was a fictional or mythological character because they had no defined archaeological evidence for the existence of David and his role as a king. But that changed when the Tell Dan Stele was found, which you've got it behind you, and it talks about how the Arameans had defeated these kings of Israel and Judah, and they had come from the line of the House of David, showing that he was the king that established the ruling dynasty of these Israelite monarchs, and that that was from the 9th century BC. So it comes from the. The generation after, essentially. And then they looked at the Mesha stele again, which is Moabite, also from the 9th century BC, and it also referenced the House of David in the same way as the founder of the royal dynasty. And then even more recently, although there is still debate about this, there's the probable palace of David in Jerusalem, constructed about 1000 BC, and there's evidence from several sites, cities or fortress towns around the area of ancient Israel and the Kingdom of David that show that there was a government functioning at the time that was building those sites and ruling over them. In fact, there's even the ostracon from Khirbet Qeiyafa that references the king, and it's in Hebrew So I think it's very powerful evidence now for David not just as existing, but also as the king, and the king ruling over a kingdom like we read about in the Bible.
- [06:06]
B
Yeah, I remember I was there in 2008 with Joseph Garfinkel and he hadn't really published anything yet, but we were there at Khirba Qyafa. He gave us an insider view because we were, we were over excavating at got. And here you have this, the double gated city, you know, and all, again, all the things that they were finding there was just. And now when we go, when I take groups, I like to take them there because it's right above the Valley of Aah, so you get to see all that too and be like, look here, here we are, here's a city. And, and I said, here's this little known city, which I think based on again, coming from that world, you know, is this city is very, very influential in this debate. And, and it's much more than what is typically, typically seen, which I think is kind of fun. Taco, as well, you, we mentioned, you know, Nebuchadnezzar, which is a foreign ruler again towards the northeast, and the kind of the Babylonian, you know, you know, Mesopotamian area. Of course we have Israel, but then also Egypt, I mean, Egypt's well known in history. Talk about Shishak, because here's a guy that again appears in the Bible, well known, and it was, Was he a real person?
- [07:16]
A
Yeah, absolutely. So Shishak is one of these situations where the way that it's transliterated in English translations of the Bible can cause a little bit of confusion. But we, we do have his name rendered in Hebrew, especially like in 1st Kings 14:25 as Shoshak, which is essentially identical to the Egyptian rendering of his name as an Egyptian king or an Egyptian pharaoh. So in Egyptian history, this would be the ruler known as Shoshank the first. And he ruled in the 10th century BC, specifically about 945 to 924. So he's there before the split of the kingdom, while Solomon's still alive. And then he's there after the split of the kingdom. And then it says in the fifth year of Rehoboam, that's when this pharaoh came up and he attacked some of the cities in Judah, Israel as well, and he besieged Jerusalem. So the time period fits, the name fits, the title fits. We don't have discussions about his family ties specifically, you know, his, his father or son or something like that in the Bible. So we can't really compare that. But again, this is a situation where he's a king at a specific time in a specific place, and so it's really not a difficult identification. And then he also helps us with events. You know, we can match the events of this Egyptian king in Egyptian sources with the events of that Egyptian king mentioned in the Bible, his attack on Judah and Israel and Jerusalem. And we see this in his own inscriptions, like at the Bubastite portal at Karnak, where he. He lists all these places that he went to and he defeated. Megiddo actually is on one of those. And that's really important because at Megiddo, they. They excavated a victory stele of Shoshank the first, and it's got his cartouches on it. So more firm identification there. Really another one of these where it's. It's absolutely the same person. We see them doing the same things, same time and place. And again, the Bible is talking about real historical people doing events that actually happened.
- [09:51]
B
Titus, let's jump into the New Testament and maybe, as I mentioned, maybe give a little contrast or similarity. Maybe I'm wrong, but is the New Testament figures, are they a little bit easier than maybe some of the Old Testament figures?
- [10:06]
A
Yeah, they are easier. And the primary reason for that is because it's closer to our current time. Secondarily, in the Roman period, there was a lot more writing and inscriptions especially, that have been preserved. And so there's just more information with people's names on it that we're able to look at. More preserved, more writing makes it simpler for us.