The historical account contained in the Bible begins with the Old Testament account of the creation of the Earth.  It tells us that the Earth has a purpose and is no accident.  The beginning of life was not just a chance occurrence but was carefully planned and executed.  This world was created as the habitat for God’s children.  The final act in the creation story is that of Adam and Eve, the first parents of all men.   The Bible tells us that they were created and placed in a garden.  Here they were told they could freely eat of every fruit except one.  This fruit has become known as the “forbidden fruit”.  We read that sometime after they were placed in the garden, Eve and then Adam partook of the forbidden fruit and as a consequence they were cast out of the Garden of Eden and the Earth entered its present state.  This event has been dated by many authorities to approximately 4,000 years BC, or 4,000 years before the birth of Jesus.

Adam and Eve had children and the Earth began to be populated with their descendants.  Unfortunately, many of them began to engage in evil practices.  The Bible tells us that about 1,600 years after the fall, all mankind except for one man, Noah, and his family had become evil. The extent of this evil was so great that the Lord sent a great flood to cleanse the Earth.  This flood destroyed the entire human race, except for Noah and his family.  This ends the first period in the history of the world as told in the Bible.  Noah was the tenth generation descendant of Adam.  The time from the fall of Adam to the flood is known as the Ante-diluvian, or pre-flood period.  It lasted approximately 1,600 years from the fall in c. 4000 BC to the flood in c. 2400 BC.

Very little of the history of the people and events from this 1,600 year period is contained in the Biblical account.  No extant writings from this period have been discovered to date.  Thus we still know very little of the events that transpired during this time.  Due to this lack of available information, I will not deal with this period in history except to say that this civilization was completely destroyed by the flood and all the civilizations we are familiar with began after this great calamity.

After the flood the second period in the history of the world began.  Another ten generations passed after the flood before the coming of the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  This time I will refer to as the pre-patriarchal period. It began with the flood and ended with the birth of Abraham, in 1996 BC, lasting approximately 400 years.

 As with the ante-diluvian period not much information is given about this time.  There is one very interesting story however, that is told.  At some time during this period, the people again became wicked and decided to build a tower to heaven.  Since they were all descended from Noah they all spoke the same language.  Apparently most of them were gathered together into one group. This group of people decided to build a tower sufficiently high that if the Lord decided to flood the world again they would be able to climb to the top and avoid drowning in the flood.  The Bible tells us that the Lord destroyed the tower, confounded their languages and scattered them upon the face of the Earth.

After giving their genealogies, the Bible begins the stories of the patriarchs and of God’s covenant with Abraham (renewed through Isaac and again through Jacob) to give him and his descendants the land of Canaan as their homeland.  This is the third period of time and is known as the patriarchal period or time of the patriarchs.  The first of these was Abraham.  Unlike the previous two periods the Bible contains a fair amount of information about this period.  In the book of Genesis the first three chapters are of the creation and Adam and Eve in the garden.  The 1,600 years between the fall of Adam and Noah’s flood are contained in just 6 chapters.  The prepatriarchal period is given in just 2 chapters.  The remaining 39 chapters cover the time of the patriarchs.

Abraham was commanded by the Lord to leave his home in Ur of the Chaldees and was promised a new homeland for him and his descendants.  This new homeland would be in the land known as Canaan.  Abraham journeyed to Canaan but, because of a famine there, he continued on to Egypt.  The Bible doesn’t tell us how long he remained in Egypt or what events transpired there but when the famine had ended he returned to the land of Canaan where he dwelt among the Canaanites.  His first stop was near Bethel.  Here we learn that he had many flocks and herds.  So many in fact that he was forced to separate from his nephew Lot.  Lot chose to live in the plain of Jordan near the city of Sodom.  The picture that emerges is one of five independent city-states each with its own king in a type of confederation.  These cities are conquered by a confederation of foreign kings and at least four of them are destroyed by brimstone and fire that the Lord rained down upon them.

Abraham continued with his pastoral life moving south to Hebron and then further to Gerar in the land of the Phillistines.  Eventually he moved back inland and settled near Beer-sheba.  Throughout the time of the patriarchs the land remains populated by independent city-states and there is plenty of room for a nomad such as Abraham to drive his flocks and herds looking for new pasturage.

At some point while they were still in Egypt Sarah, Abraham’s wife, was given Hagar to be her handmaid.  When Sarah despaired of having a child, she gave Hagar to Abraham to be a concubine or secondary wife.  At the age of 90 Abraham sired a son and named him Ishmael.  Finally when he was 100 years old his wife Sarah gave birth to a son they named Isaac.  The Lord renewed the covenant he had made with Abraham and promised the land to the descendants of Isaac.  Ishmael was sent away with his mother and legend has it that he became the father of the Arabs.  Sixty years later, Isaac’s wife Rebekah  gave birth to twin sons Esau and Jacob.

Esau married two local girls, an act expressly forbidden by the Lord, and sold his birthright to his brother.  Isaac and Rebekah sent Jacob back to their ancestral home to obtain a wife and there he married two wives and took two concubines.  On the trip to Nahor, Jacob stopped at Bethel and here we learn that what became the city of Bethel was at this time only the ruins of an earlier city known as Luz.  Here the Lord changed Jacob’s name to Israel.

While living in Nahor Israel had twelve sons.  These twelve sons of Jacob would become the namesakes for the twelve tribes of Israel.  Israel eventually relocated back to the land of Canaan with his newly acquired wealth of herds and flocks.  We also learn that Esau had moved to the vicinity of Mount Seir where his descendants became the Edomites.  On his way home, Israel stopped near the city-state of Shechem where his daughter Dinah was taken by the prince of the city.  Again we learn that the land of Canaan consisted of a loose confederation of city-states each with its own ruler.  Following this conflict, Israel then travelled to the south of Canaan.

The Bible tells us that Joseph, one of the sons of Israel was sold into slavery by his brothers and taken to Egypt.  In Egypt, Joseph rose to a position of authority second only to pharaoh.  When famine struck the land of Canaan, Jacob sent his ten older sons to Egypt to buy food.  Here they encountered Joseph and eventually the family was reunited and they all moved to Egypt.  It was while they were living in Egypt that Jacob died.  This concludes the period known as the time of the patriarchs.  It began with the birth of Abraham in 1996 BC and ended with the death of his grandson, Jacob, in 1689 BC covering a period of 307 years.  It gives us our first clear picture of the land of Canaan and will help us to determine whether the stories contained in the Bible are based in a real world location rather than a mythical long long ago.

With the death of Jacob the patriarchal period comes to an end and we begin the fourth period in the Biblical story. After the death of Joseph, the Israelites living in Egypt were taken into captivity by the Egyptians.  They were forced to toil to make bricks for the Egyptians from which two treasure cities Pithom and Raamses were built.  They were freed by the Lord who worked through His prophet Moses whose story is well known.  The account of the ten plagues has been the subject of many discussions and even Hollywood movies over the years.  After the plagues Moses led the children of Israel out of Egypt into the desert of Sinai.  The miraculous crossing of the Red Sea and the destruction of the Egyptian armies makes an inspiring story.    The date for the exodus is given as 1491 BC, and this 198 year period in biblical history from the death of Jacob in 1689 BC until the exodus in 1491 BC is known as the captivity. Two very important facts emerge from these stories.  First, the Egyptians were using mud bricks in their construction.  Second, the Egyptian society was completely destroyed by the plagues which led to the Israelites gaining their freedom.


The exodus brings the period of the captivity to a close and ushers in the fifth period in biblical history the wandering.  The Israelites travelled to Mount Sinai where first they built a golden calf and then refused to attempt the conquest of the Promised Land.  As a consequence they were condemned to wander in the desert for forty years until a new generation arose that would follow the Lord’s prophet.  A large group of people wandering in a very sparsely populated area for a time of 40 years should have left traces that would be possible to find even after nearly 3,500 years.  At the end of the 40 years, the twelve tribes led by Moses conquered the kingdom of Arad to the south and the kingdoms of the Amorites to the east of the land of Canaan, in modern day Jordan.  Here we have facts that should be verifiable.  Their great leader and lawgiver, Moses, died before the Israelites were allowed to cross the river Jordan into the land promised to Abraham.  The death of Moses marks the end of the period known as the wandering.  This forty year period lasted until 1451 BC. 

            Joshua succeeded Moses and led the twelve tribes across the Jordan River in a war of conquest.  This sixth period is thus known as the conquest.  The story of the destruction of the city of Jericho is also well known.  The children of Israel led by the priests carrying the Ark of the Covenant marched around the city for seven days.  Finally on the seventh day, after completing seven circuits of the city, the priests blew the trumpet and the Israelites shouted and the walls of Jericho “came tumblin’ down”.  This was the first in a series of battles in which the Israelites destroyed the major centers of Canaanite power in the land.

 The land had changed from the time of the patriarchs.  The independent city-states have grown into larger more urban centers with high walls and standing armies.  Several of these cities are named notably Jericho, Ai, Bethel and Jerusalem (which at the time was called Jebus).  The period of the conquest lasted twenty-two years until the death of Joshua in 1429 BC.  The promise of the Lord to Abraham had been fulfilled and the children of Israel had gained their own homeland in the country previously known as Canaan.

Following the conquest, the land was divided among the twelve tribes, each with its own leaders.  They were no longer a nation, but twelve distinct states united in a loose confederation through a common heritage and the worship of the same God.  United, the nation of Israel was successful against their enemies and a homeland was obtained.  Divided into twelve tribes, they were beset and often conquered by their neighbors.  They were ruled by men, and sometimes women, known as judges and so this period, the seventh in our story, is known as the period of the judges.  The story of the period of the judges follows a repetitive pattern.  One or more tribes of the Israelites forget their God.  They are then conquered by an enemy.  They then repent and return to the worship of the Lord and He calls a judge who frees them from their oppressors.  After a period of peace they again forget the Lord and the cycle begins anew.  This period lasted 334 years until 1095 BC.

After the time of Samuel, the last of the judges and a prophet, the tribes demanded that Samuel give them a king such as the other nations possessed to lead them in combat.  Samuel though reluctant consented and anointed Saul to be their first king.  This, the eighth period in the biblical story, is known as the time of the kings, or United Israel.  Saul united the tribes and led them in a successful war against the Amalekites.  The Amalekites are called the “first among nations” and their defeat thrust the new united Israelite nation onto the international stage as a real power.  Though at first righteous and successful, Saul later became proud and wicked and lost his life while fighting the Philistines.   David became king and again united the tribes into a single nation.  He led the Israelites to war, defeated all their enemies and expanded the borders of the kingdom from the river of Egypt to the Euphrates.  He made the united nation of Israel a great imperial power.  It was during the reign of King David that the city of Jebus was captured and, renamed Jerusalem, became the capital of the Israelite kingdom.

In contrast to the first two kings, Solomon the son and successor of David was a man of peace.  He engaged in peaceful commerce with his neighbors and made the kingdom of Israel rich.  He built a great temple to the Lord in Jerusalem and used the riches flowing into his capital to embellish it.  In his day the city of Jerusalem became the richest most famous city in the ancient world.  His reign was an unprecedented time of peace and prosperity for the twelve tribes.  Solomon was the wisest and richest ruler of his day.  The time of these three monarchs or United Israel began in 1095 BC, with the coronation of Saul and ended 120 years later in 975 BC, with the death of Solomon.


  During the reign of Solomon the twelve tribes had been heavily taxed to support his many building projects.  After his death, the Israelites asked Rehoboam his son and successor to lessen the tax burden before they accepted him as their king.  Foolishly he ignored their petition and instead promised to raise their taxes.  At this the northern ten tribes revolted and declared their independence.  They chose Jeroboam, a former lieutenant of Solomon and a leader of the tribe of Joseph to be their king.  Ignoring the lessons of the past, the Israelites again divided themselves into two independent kingdoms.  The southern kingdom, Judah, consisted mainly of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin with its capital at Jerusalem.  The northern kingdom, Israel, contained the other ten tribes with its capital at Shechem.  Omri a later king of the northern kingdom of Israel built a new capital named Samaria.  This ninth period is known as the time of the divided monarchy.

Shortly after the split into two kingdoms, Judah was attacked by the Egyptians and the riches of the temple were taken to Egypt.  The land of Syria, conquered by David, was lost and the kingdom of Israel and the new kingdom of Aram (Syria) with its capital in Damascus fought constantly.  The golden age of Israel was lost forever and a new period in their history began.  This was a period characterized by a decline in the power and prosperity of the Israelites. 

Besides Egypt, other nations figure prominently in the biblical narrative.  One of these other nations, the Assyrians who were the masters of Mesopotamia, conquered the northern kingdom of Israel captured Samaria and deported the survivors to Assyria. These tribes disappear from the historical record to become the “ten lost tribes”.  With the conquest of the ten northern tribes and the destruction of Samaria the period of the divided monarchy came to an end.  It began at the death of Solomon in 975 BC, and ended 254 years later with the destruction of the northern kingdom in 721 BC.

  The southern kingdom of Judah was able to outlast the Assyrians, but a little over a century later a new conqueror arrived.  The Babylonians led by the famous Nebuchadnezzar, having conquered the Assyrians to become masters of Mesopotamia, also conquered the southern kingdom of Judah.  The temple built by Solomon was destroyed and, like the Assyrians before them, the Babylonians took the defeated Israelite people captive and deported them to Mesopotamia.  This tenth period between the destruction of Samaria and the conquest of Judah and destruction of Jerusalem is known as the period of Judah.  It began in 721 BC, and ended 134 years later in 587 BC.

The next and eleventh period is known as the captivity.  It began with the destruction of Jerusalem and the deportation of the population of the kingdom of Judah in 587 BC.  Fifty years after the Jews had been deported, the Persians conquered Babylon and the Jews were freed to return.  This fifty year period is known as the captivity.  It was ended in 537 BC.

The twelfth and last period in Old Testament biblical history began when Cyrus the Great, king of Persia, allowed the Jews to return to the land of Canaan and rebuild their temple.  Several groups of Jews made the return to Jerusalem and despite the opposition of the peoples who had moved into the territory during the years of captivity, were able to rebuild the temple and city walls of Jerusalem.  Jerusalem became the capital of the Persian province of Yehud, and the Jews once again prospered.  The Old Testament narrative concludes in the time of the prophet Malachi about 432 BC.  This time from the decree of Cyrus in 537 BC to the end of the Old Testament, I have called the time of the return.

The table below summarizes this history.  Many students who find history boring do so because of the problem of memorizing dates.  Dates are important to history because they establish precedence.  In other words, what happened first, what happened next, etc.  In this book, I will have to resort to dates many times.  In order to make them easier to understand, I will use tables to illustrate past events by periods as well as date.  The dates used in the preceding text and in the table at the end of this chapter were obtained from the Bible dictionary from the King James Authorized (KJA) Version.  The quotes used from the Bible will also be from the KJA version.

Throughout the Old Testament, the Lord directed His people through men known as prophets.  These men are the original authors of the books which comprise this canon of scripture.  Later other men copied these books and inserted comments of their own.  Thus we have the account of the death and burial of Moses in the book of Deuteronomy, a book originally written by Moses himself.  These prophets were called to lead Israel and to deliver God’s instructions to His people.  The story of the Old Testament, therefore, is the story of God’s dealings with the house of Israel in ancient times.

The question raised by modern scholars is; how accurate are these stories?  Are they real accounts of what actually happened, or are they just a collection of folk tales, assembled in order to give the Israelites a history and to teach important lessons?  The skeptical scholars of the nineteenth century rejected all the stories of miracles contained in the Bible.  Having thus “freed” themselves of the belief that the Bible was the Word of God, they also felt free to accept the historical accounts as fact or fiction depending on their own preferences.  But what is the truth?  Did the events described in the Bible really happen?


Date BC                                    Period                                     Description of Period

4000 - 2400                             Ante-diluvian                        From the fall of Adam to the Flood.

2400-1996                               Pre-patriarchal                     From the Flood to the birth of Abraham

1996-1689                               Patriarchal                             From the Birth of Abraham to the death of Jacob.

1689-1491                               Captivity                                 From the death of Jacob to the exodus.

1491-1451                               Wandering                             The 40 years of Israel’s wandering in the wilderness.

1451-1429                               Conquest                                From the death of Moses to the death of Joshua.

1429-1095                              Judges                                     From the death of Joshua to the coronation of Saul.

1095-975                                United Israel                            From Saul’s coronation to the death of Solomon.

975-721                                  Divided Monarchy                  From the death of Solomon to the destruction of Samaria.

721-587                                  Judah                                         From the capture of Samaria to the destruction of Jerusalem.

587-537                                  Captivity                                    From the destruction of Jerusalem to the decree of Cyrus.

537-430                                  Return                                         From the decree of Cyrus to the end of the Old Testament.

Ever since the time of the reformation, scientists have doubted the veracity of the stories told in the Old Testament.  Some have seen them as parables, or stories told to illustrate religious truths.  Others believed them to be nothing more than fables.  A typical representation of the modern scientific view is expressed by Cyrus H. Gordon in the book Forgotten Scripts.  He says; “Scripture, especially in the early chapters of Genesis, contains myths and legends that unsophisticated believers mistook for history.  The legend of Noah...teaches us that all men, regardless of nation, race, or language, are brothers, descended from one man (Noah) and his wife”(Gordon, 1987, p. 74).  The implication, of course, is that sophisticated people do not mistake the Bible as history.

Not only does his explanation deny the historicity of the Bible, it is also illogical.  If Noah were not an historical character there would be no need for the story.  The teaching that all men are brothers is made sufficiently clear by the story of Adam and Eve.  If that were the purpose of the story of Noah it would be entirely redundant.  If, on the other hand, the story of Noah is true, then there should be real physical evidence that the events described in the story really happened.

This is true for all the stories in the Old Testament.  If it is an accurate account of historical events then there must be evidence that the people and events described in the Biblical narrative were real.  The ancient Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians, and Persians must have left remains that can be seen even today.  We should be able to find evidence of the exodus from Egypt, the wandering in the desert and of Joshua’s conquest of Canaan.  There should be traces of the Empire of David and Solomon, and the conquest of Israel by Assyria and of Judah by Babylon.  We should be able to confirm the conquest of Babylon by Persia and the return of the Jews to Palestine.  All these peoples and events must have left traces, and it is the function of modern archaeologists to find and interpret these remains.

The science which came to be known as biblical archaeology really had it’s beginning in 1798 AD when Napoleon Bonaparte invaded Egypt.  His primary purpose in occupying Egypt was the defeat of the British Empire.  Napoleon hoped to accomplish this by building a canal through the Suez peninsula connecting the Mediterranean Sea with the Red Sea and by using this new route, attacking and taking India from the British.  The French hoped that the loss of India would weaken the British Empire and allow them to dictate the terms of peace to the English.

A large number of French scholars and scientists went with Napoleon on this expedition to study the land of Egypt.  They were sent by the French government in order to study the land so that it could be exploited to the greatest benefit of France.   In Egypt they found the remains of hundreds of temples and pylons, stelae and papyri, all covered with writing that no one could read.  It was immediately clear that Egypt had indeed been the great country the Bible claimed.  Not only that, but the inscriptions were a veritable treasure trove of information just waiting for the man who could decipher the script and read the ancient writings.  It had been over one thousand years since any one could read the ancient script. “The last dated inscription in Egyptian hieroglyphs occurs on the temple of Philae in AD 394” (Clayton, 1994, p. 10).

The key to deciphering the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs was found the next year when a soldier in Napoleon’s army discovered the now famous Rosetta stone. The stone contained an inscription written in classical Greek.  It was commissioned by the pharaoh Ptolemy V Epiphanes.  Greek was a language well known to classical scholars and the inscription could be easily read.  The exciting part of the find is that the inscription was copied in two forms of ancient Egyptian; demotic, a form of cursive hieroglyphics, and the very hieroglyphs which covered the ancient temples and monuments.  Although they couldn’t read the hieroglyphic inscription at first, they could read the Greek version and thus they knew what it said.  This enabled the Egyptian writing to be deciphered.  In 1822, the French scholar, Jean Francois Champollion, announced to the Academy of Paris that he had deciphered the Egyptian hieroglyphs.  Scholars immediately set to work copying and translating the incredible amount of writings available.

At last, scholars possessed a second source of information on the ancient world.  Egypt had played an immensely important role in the history of Israel, as told in the Bible.  Being the story of the Israelites, however, there were enormous gaps in Egyptian history that the Bible didn’t cover.  The gaps in the history of Egypt left by the Bible could now be filled in and the Egyptian side of the story could be read.  Since the two countries had been neighbors for hundreds of years it was hoped by Biblical scholars that the Egyptian inscriptions would confirm the stories contained in the Bible.  All that remained was to date the writings and then compare them to the same times from Biblical history.

Unfortunately, references to the Israelites and of the nation of Israel remained elusive.  For nearly 100 years, no reference to Israel was found in the writings of ancient Egypt.  Finally, in 1896, a black granite stele was discovered in the ruins of the mortuary temple of Merneptah, son and successor to Ramses II.  When deciphered, it told the story of Merneptah’s conquests in Asia.  “In line 27 of the text, the word Israel appears in hieroglyphics” (Berrett, 1973, p. 52).  To this day it is the only mention of Israel that has been found in Egyptian hieroglyphs.  This has helped support the theories of the biblical detractors.  Since several of the stories from the Old Testament mention Egypt in an important role and since the two countries were neighbors the biblical stories should be reflected in the Egyptian accounts.  Where are the Egyptian accounts of the Biblical events?

Egyptian wasn’t the only ancient language deciphered in the nineteenth century.  In 1802, the German scholar, Georg Friedrich Grotefend had begun the decipherment of ancient Persian, by identifying one third of the phonetic symbols used in that language.  During the course of the century, other scholars were able to decipher the rest of the symbols and another previously forgotten language was read.  Another treasure trove of ancient historical records had become available to modern scholars.  Now they could read about the history of Persia before their conflicts with the Greeks.  This allowed scholars to learn the Persian side of the story.  The writings of the Persians, however, exciting as they were, failed to shed additional light on the early history of the Israelites.  Israel as a nation had ceased to exist before Persia became a great power.

Perhaps the greatest breakthrough in deciphering ancient writings was made by the English scholar, Henry Creswicke Rawlinson, who copied and deciphered a huge trilingual inscription carved on a cliff-face at Behistun in Iran.  The inscription was carved in Old Persian, Elamite, and Akkadian; the language of the ancient Assyrians and Babylonians.  Rawlinson deciphered the Old Persian, though thirty years after Grotefend had done the same, and then began to work on the Elamite version.  “In the 1840s the French, under Paul Emile Botta (1802-1870) and the English lead by Austen Henry Layard (1817-1894), had vied with one another using crude ‘excavations’ to see which side could obtain from the Mesopotamian ruins the ‘largest number of works of art with the least possible outlay of time and money’” (Renfrew & Bahn, 2000, p. 27-30).  Tens of thousands of tablets and fragments along with numerous other inscriptions were uncovered in these efforts.  Realizing that the vast number of writings thus being discovered made the decipherment of the Akkadian language more important, Rawlinson switched his work from the Elamite version to the Akkadian text.

Due to the complexities of the Akkadian script, its decipherment proved to be a considerable challenge.  Rawlinson rose to the challenge and with time he was able to master it.  In 1857, Rawlinson, an Irish scholar Edward Hincks, and a Frenchman Jules Oppert, were all given a copy of the inscriptions on a newly discovered Assyrian cylinder and asked to work on it independently.  When the three translations were compared they were near identical matches, and thus “...the decipherment of Akkadian was not only in fact accomplished but also generally recognized” (Gordon, 1987, p. 67).

In contrast to the discoveries in Egypt, there were many references to Judah and Israel found in the ruins of Assyria.  Among the documents discovered in Nineveh by A. H. Layard, are the Tablets of Tiglath-Pileser III.   These tablets tell the story of Jehoahaz, king of Israel, paying tribute to the Assyrian king.  Also found at Nineveh were the Royal Annals which tell the story of Sargon II’s capture of Samaria, the capital of the northern kingdom of Israel.  The campaigns of Sargon against Israel were found in half a dozen different inscriptions, confirming the stories as told in the Second Book of the Kings, in the Bible (Berrett, 1973, p. 195).

The Taylor Prism, uncovered in Nineveh, tells the account of Sennacherib’s campaign against Judah in the days of Isaiah.  In addition, a bas relief, found on the walls of his royal palace, displays scenes from his siege and conquest of Lachish, at the time of its conquest the second most important city of Judah.  The inscriptions confirm the stories from the Bible once again, though they differ in one account.  The Bible tells us that the angel of the Lord destroyed 185,000 Assyrians in a single night ending the siege of Jerusalem (2 KINGS 11: 19-35).  Naturally the Assyrian version leaves out this account.  The Assyrian inscription tells that Sennacherib shut Hezekiah, king of Judah, up in Jerusalem like a bird in a cage, but can’t hide the fact that the city wasn’t captured.  It simply closes with a list of tribute taken which is also contained in the biblical account (2 KINGS 18: 14-15).

Digging in the ruins of Calah, another major Assyrian city, A. H. Layard discovered the Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser.  It shows the Israelite king Jehu, who reigned in the days of Elijah the prophet, paying tribute to Shalmaneser III.  It is the only known portrait of an ancient Israelite king.  The ancient Israelites considered these depictions to be graven images, expressly forbidden by the second of the Ten Commandments received by Moses.  To them it was a form of idolatry to have their images carved in stone.

In the ruins of Babylon, German archaeologists from the Deutsche Orient-Gesselshaft discovered a very important clay cylinder with cuneiform writing.  It is known as the Cyrus Cylinder and tells how Cyrus the Great of Persia captured Babylon without a fight, freed foreign prisoners who were allowed to return to their own lands, and restored treasures stolen from foreign temples.  This document provides striking support for the Biblical account of the Babylonian captivity and the return of the Jews under Persian rule.  The biblical version of this story is told in the first chapter of the book of Ezra.

In the 1850s, while working on the Akkadian script, Edward Hincks realized that the cuneiform characters were first created for another language.  This was the language of Sumer.  Due to a similarity in the names this is generally though incorrectly believed to be the land known in the book of Genesis as Shinar.  Then in 1854, 246 miles south of Baghdad, J. E. Taylor discovered the Sumerian city of Urim.  This, he declared, was Ur of the Chaldees, the home city of Abraham.

Other ancient languages were soon deciphered and read, culminating with the discovery and decipherment of the Hittite language by the Czech scholar Bedrich Hrozny early in the twentieth century.  All of these cities and all of these civilizations were already known to scholars through the biblical accounts.  They proved that the stories of the Bible were set in the real ancient world.  If some of the stories were parables, at least they were set in an authentic time and place.  These various writings also confirmed the existence of the kingdoms of Judah and Israel.  Compared to Egypt, the Assyrians and Babylonians are newcomers in the history of the Holy Land.  The stories confirmed by the writings of these peoples are the later stories from the Bible.  Thus, archaeologists have been forced to accept the later history of the Israelites even while continuing to deny their earlier history.

As of this writing, no great treasure trove of ancient writings has been found in the Holy Land itself.  “Out of approximately 475 place names mentioned in the Bible only about 262 have been identified with any degree of certainty” (Aharoni, 1967, p. 117).  This does not mean, however, that we know nothing of the early history of this land.  Most of the principal cities have been located, and much information has been gleaned from these sites.  Many of them still bear the same names today that they did anciently. “In Palestine, places and towns which are frequently mentioned in the Bible are being brought back once more into the light of day.  They look exactly as the Bible describes them and lie exactly where the Bible locates them” (Keller, 1981, p. 22).  Many of the most important cities such as Jerusalem and Damascus are still occupied.  This makes excavation of these cities very difficult.  There are others which are no longer inhabited, such as Ai.  There are also modern cities which still possess the ancient names but which are now located close to, but not on top of, the ancient site, such as Jericho.  Sites such as these have been excavated and much has been learned from these excavations.

In the early days of archaeology, it was usual practice to dig up as much of a site as possible, as quickly as possible, throwing away everything but the most valuable or impressive finds.  In this way, much information about places like Nineveh and Babylon was lost.  Many statues and inscriptions were removed from the sites without anyone recording the layers in which they were found, thus removing a potential method for dating the strata.  In the Holy Land there were no early discoveries of inscribed tablets, or gold statues or other obviously valuable items to lure the early treasure hunters.  Archaeology in the Holy Land has been more careful and methodical almost from the very start.

It was here that Sir W. M. Flinders Petrie developed the principle of stratigraphy.  For many years scientists had wondered about the mounds that dotted the landscape of the Middle East.  These mounds were known by their Arabic name of tells.  By systematically excavating a tell in Palestine, called Tell el-Hesi, Flinders Petrie proved that it was composed of many cities each with its own layer of occupation superimposed one over another.  At certain points in the history of this city it had been abandoned or destroyed.  Each time this happened, the new inhabitants leveled the remains of the old city and built a new one on top of these remains.  In this manner the city gradually rose higher into a mound.  Flinders Petrie realized that the layer closest to the surface was the most recent, and the layer closest to bedrock, or undisturbed soil was the most ancient.  This made it possible to arrange the layers in sequence, but the problem of dating the layers remained.  Nor could he accurately compare the layers of one tell with another.

In excavations of Roman sites in Italy archaeologists have discovered many coins.  This allows them to date a site as sometime after the latest date on the coins found.  Finding no coins or inscriptions in the lower layers, Flinders Petrie was forced to use another method to date the various strata in the tells.  The method he devised was based upon pottery.  His method of pottery typology is the most commonly used method to date finds in the Holy Land today.

Highly useful and easily constructed, pottery was used very widely in the Middle East.  Although it would frequently break, the broken pieces or shards were very durable.  Since they had been fired in an oven, they were extremely resistant to the effects of weathering.  Every layer or strata within the tell contained many of these shards.  Although the pottery vessels were handmade, they were made in standardized styles and shapes and thus exhibited many similarities.  These pottery types remained consistent over wide areas though they changed slowly over time.  By arranging these shards into groups based upon the layers of strata from which they were removed, Flinders Petrie was able to construct sequences of pottery typology, based upon these changes over time.  This allowed him to develop a relative chronology for the Holy Land.  By comparing the pottery types found in any excavation with his standard sequences, it was possible to synchronize it with a layer from Tell el-Hesi.  This allowed him to correlate strata from different sites into the same time period.  He could now determine which stratum from one site was contemporary with a particular stratum from another site and so a relative chronology for Palestine based upon pottery was established.

Since there were no dates available for these strata, another system of labeling them became necessary.  The method chosen was based upon the material from which tools were fashioned.  It was seen that the earliest layers contained tools made mainly of stone.  In higher levels copper and bronze (an alloy of copper and tin) gradually replaced stone as the most common material from which tools were formed.  Higher still, tools made of Iron began to appear in the layers.  Thus the history of Palestine, and much of the ancient world, was divided into a Stone Age, Bronze Age and Iron Age.  It needs to be mentioned that these divisions are not clear cut.  “Moreover, iron objects appeared before the beginning of the Iron Age, and well into it bronze remained the most widely used metal” (Coogan, 1998, p. 17).  The actual dividing lines between these Ages were determined in conjunction with other criteria.

At certain points within the strata of the tells in Palestine, archaeologists came upon layers of ash, charred wood and blackened soil.  These layers indicated that the city was destroyed by fire.  Sometimes all the cities in an area would have this same layer of ash at the same point in the pottery typology sequence, indicating that all the cities were destroyed at nearly the same time.  This is best explained by an invasion of an enemy people who captured and burned the cities.  This layer of ash divided the tells in the land into periods before and after the destruction.  Sometimes a layer with one type of pottery was succeeded by a layer with a significantly different type of pottery.  This change in material culture (pottery and other goods) indicates that the new city was founded by a different people.  Sometimes after an invader left the survivors would rebuild their city.  The pottery in this new city would be different from the preceding one, as it did change gradually over time, but not significantly so.  A sudden, drastic change in pottery meant that the people who built the new city were not the survivors from the old city, but were new people most likely the destroyers.

Other changes occurred over time as well.  In some periods the cities were built with walls surrounding them for protection, at other times they were built without walls.  Settlement patterns also changed over time.  During some periods the people were scattered over the land in small villages, and sometimes they were gathered into large cities.  All these differences divide the history of the land into smaller periods of time.  In order to label these different times the Ages were further subdivided.  The Bronze Age, for example was divided into the Early Bronze, Middle Bronze, and Late Bronze Ages.

These divisions into Early, Middle and Late generally mark larger changes in material culture or settlement patterns.  Over the course of millennia there are bound to be a great number of changes.  Some of these changes are more subtle but still measurable.  In order to differentiate between these smaller changes the Ages are further subdivided.  The Early Bronze Age for instance, is divided into Early Bronze I, Early Bronze II and Early Bronze III.  After the designations for these periods were established it was found that there needed to be a further distinction between some of the periods.  Thus the Iron Age II is further divided into Iron IIA, Iron IIB, and Iron IIC.

As if this system weren’t confusing enough to a new learner, not all archaeologists agree on the names for the periods.  It was discovered that there was a period of time between the Early Bronze III and the Middle Bronze I Ages.  Some archaeologists therefore refer to this period as the Early Bronze IV.  Others feel that it doesn’t belong in the Early Bronze Age and so they label it the Intermediate Bronze Age.  While this division into ages may be confusing at first, the point to remember is that Early always came before Late, I comes before III, and A comes before C.  Thus it is simple to establish the order of the various ages.

If the layers of strata which contained these pottery types also contained other artifacts of known date, Flinders Petrie knew it would be possible to determine approximate dates for the strata in the tell.  Since the strata were now assigned to Ages, dates for these Ages could also be established.  Most strata in Palestine contained foreign objects mixed in with the pottery shards.  These other artifacts were usually such things as foreign pottery brought to the site as containers for trade goods, or perhaps a seal with the name of a king or pharaoh of the time.  Since most of these items were tied to Egypt, a chronology of Palestine based upon the chronology of Egypt was possible.  Since the Egyptologists had already developed a chronology for Egypt it wasn’t long before a chronology for Palestine was developed.

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