Biblically Compatible Archaeology and Geography

  A recent discovery from Jerusalem puts us in touch with the righteous king of Judah. December 25, 2015 From the February 2016 Trumpet Print Edition M odern thinking dismisses the Bible as merely a religious text. It assumes its purpose is to inspire pious behavior, not to establish historical fact. But every now and again, the dust of Jerusalem stirs. Excavators dig down to the past, unearthing one layer after another. And sometimes, the events and the people of the Bible spring to life. A new discovery has emerged from the soil of Jerusalem, and it resurrects the history of one of the most important kings in Judah. 2 Kings 18:5 says that “after him was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor any that were before him.” You can find the name of this king in the biblical books of Kings, Chronicles and Isaiah. You can also find it on this new discovery: a tiny clay seal impression, known as a bulla. It says: “Belonging to Hezekiah, [son of] Ahaz, King of...

 by   Damien F. Mackey     --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Those frequent TV documentaries about ancient cities and civilisations that promise to provide the key to hitherto unresolved mysteries can often turn out to be disappointing and even, in some cases, rather boring – these last best serving as a cure for insomnia. Such was by no means the case, however, with Dr. Stephanie Dalley’s TV doco, “ Finding Babylon’s Hanging Gardens”, which wonderfully solved an age-old problem.   ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------   A Synopsis of this highly absorbing program prepares us for what to expect from Dr. Dalley ( http://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/video/204433475546/finding-babylons-hanging-gardens ):   A world wonder so elusive, most people have decided it must be mythical. ...

  by Damien F. Mackey     Biblical scholars, such as Edwin Thiele, can be so committed to the supposedly unassailable accuracy of neo-Assyrian chronology that they are prepared to sacrifice multiple biblical synchronisms in order to ‘rectify’ the biblical chronology. Here, instead, far from my passive acceptance of the received neo-Assyrian chronology, I shall be questioning the very number and succession of the neo-Assyrian kings.       Introduction   The extent of the neo-Assyrian succession that will occupy my attention in this article will be limited to that embraced by the Book of Tobit, i.e., from “Shalmaneser” to “Esarhaddon”.   Whilst the standard textbook arrangement of neo-Assyrian monarchs runs something like this (my reason for including Tiglath-pileser III will become clear from Table 2 ):   Table 1   Tiglath-Pileser III 745–727 BC ...