ENTRY

For a full 100 years, American, British, French and German scientists conducted excavations in the Middle East, Mesopotamia, Palestine and Egypt. In all major countries have established institutions and schools engaged in such research.

These breathtaking discoveries, of which it is impossible to comprehend at once, have forced us to reconsider our views on the Bible. Many of the events, first considered "religious legends, acquired the status of historical facts. Research results are often matched in detail with Biblical stories. Not only do they support them, but also covered the historic ground, which increased the Old Testament and the Gospel.

No book in human history did not provide such a revolutionary impact, such a decisive impact on the development of the Western world, such a broad response to the world as "the book of books-the Bible. There is no doubt that the long history of the triumphal procession of only gaining scale.

Is it always right to the Bible? We can answer this question with regard to the fragments, confirmed with non-biblical resources and data of archaeology. In addition, the Bible in any case may qualify for another, more indirect form of innocence: it somehow helps us better understand the thinking and behavior of people past, their teachings, parables, allegories, allusions, symbols and visions. Maybe sooner or later we will be able to understand even the fragments that remain far vague and embarrassing us. And then we say that the Bible is absolutely right!

 

Werner Keller from the book "the Bible as history".

 

NOTE: This book was published in 1955. Since then, archaeologists have found a huge amount of new evidence of the truth of the biblical narrative and no rebuttal.

 

UR THE CHALDEAN

Ur arose from the depths of the misty past as the capital of Sumer, one of the oldest civilizations of Mesopotamia. As we know, the Sumerians were Semites, in contrast to the ancient Jews. When some 2000 years BC of the Arabian Desert covered great invasion of Semitic nomads, the first thing they faced in the South, were vast plantations, its buildings and canals.

No one could guess that quest RAH, referred to in the Bible, will lead to the discovery of the civilization, which we were able to dive into prehistoric times darkness deeper than leave traces of ancient man found in Egypt.

Once, 4000 years ago, here grew vast fields of wheat and barley. Everywhere, as far as you can reach the eye, stretched orchards, groves of date palms and fig trees. These extensive lands could successfully withstand the comparison with current Canadian wheat farms or gardens and fruit farms of California. The lush green fields and orchards have been with network level artificial canals and ditches-the masterpiece of the irrigation system. Once upon a time, back in the stone age, the most experienced of the local people have learned to use the water of the great rivers. Skillfully and systematically to accord a precious moisture from dying this way and transformed the desert into a rich and fertile land.

Around the middle of the 19th century throughout Egypt, Mesopotamia and Palestine began research and excavation.

Until the Bible was the only documented source of our knowledge about this part of Asia to 550 BC. But the Bible does not talk about the historical period, leaving a vague twilight of the past. About people and names found in the Bible, does not even know the ancient Greeks and Romans.

In the same way as the Frenchman Champollion, which happens to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphs, Rawlinson, who identified the city, successfully solved the riddle of cuneiform writing. Ancient documents talk!

THE DELUGE

When we hear about the global flood, then almost immediately remember the Bible and the story of Noah's Ark. It's a great old story went around the world together with Christianity. But although it is the most famous of the legends of the flood, it is by no means the only one. Many nationalities, there are legends about giant and catastrophic flooding. The Greeks tell the story of the flood and tied her with Dequalion. Long before Columbus set of legends, the accepted wisdom among the natives of America, kept alive the memory of the great flood. In Australia, India, Polynesia, Tibet, Kashmir and Lithuania of the flood stories passed down from generation to generation until today.

Countless attempts to solve the riddle of the flood had left long before because scientists of previous generations have not achieved concrete results. Already for a long time it seemed that the solution of this mystery lies in the depths of time, where people never get ...

The deluge was the only possible explanation for the appearance of a large deposits of silt under the Hill in UR, which so clearly divided into two epochs. At the foot of the ancient Sumerians, Tower near Cheers on the lower Euphrates, anyone could descend into a narrow shaft and touch the remains of a giant catastrophic flood. To count age stratum, which has maintained traces of human settlements can be set, when there was a great flood.

This event had broad international implications, which explains the persistence of the legend of the flood of many peoples.

 

Mount Ararat is located in Eastern Turkey, near the border with Iran and Russia. The snow peak reaches a height of 5165 m. In the last century, many years before the shovels of archaeologists digging up the land of Mesopotamia, the first expedition to Mount Ararat. This was the story of the Shepherd.

At the foot of Mount Ararat lies a small Armenian village whose inhabitants, Bayazit held from generation to generation pass on the story of a remarkable event, with mountain Shepherd. The Shepherd said that he once saw on the Hill a huge wooden ship. Report of the Turkish expedition, apparently confirmed the story, since it refers to the wooden bow of a ship, who was peeping in the summer from the glacier on the South side of the mountain.

During the first world war, the Russian officer, Aviator Roskovitskij, said he noticed from his airplane on the southern slope of Mount Ararat "remnants of the broken vessel of decent size. While the war was still raging, Tsar Nicholas II immediately sent a search party of Ararat. We hoped that the ship will be able to take a picture. However, all reports on this expedition are gone (presumably during the Revolution).

During the second world war happened several more cases like this-with a Russian pilot and four American pilots. These are the latest reports were submitted for study of American historian and missionary doctor Aaron Smith of Greensboro, a specialist in the study of the flood. As a result of years of labour he has collected all the bibliography on Noah's Ark. In the collection of Dr. Smith was 80 thousand works of the flood on the 72 languages, of which 70 thousand refers to the remains of the legendary Ark.

In the early morning hours of July 6, 1955 year Frenchman Fernando Navarra, in charge of the search for the most famous ship in history, to his very great surprise, was lucky: he has found and walked away with three pieces of timber,  frozen into a block of ice at the top of the mountain. A fallen log. 4484.

 

NOTE: It is clear that somehow obtained the age of findings coincides with the Biblical chronology.

 

ABRAHAM'S JOURNEY

About 1900 b.c. Canaan was not inhabited. Indeed, this family does not belong to anyone. Somewhere among the plowed fields were fortified with towers. On the surrounding slopes to grow vineyards or fig and date palms.

Abraham, as the Bible tells us, chose with its first study of Palestine deserted and the hard way, which led to the South: here the wooded slopes of the hills an unfamiliar country gave shelter and a safe haven, but the open plots served as grazing ground for his Stud.

Between sedentary farmers and pastoralists and wild hordes, nowhere bound, whose houses were tents of goat hides somewhere in the desert under the stars, was in constant war. And it is in this troubled country went to Abraham, his wife Sarah, his nephew lot, with

their families and their livestock.

 

We are grateful to the dry sands of the Egyptian desert: it has full-with the majority of the hieroglyphic texts, including valuable written evidence of Semitic in the Nile Valley. And yet the best and precise evidence is the images, one of which-the Semitic family.

In 1890, the Cairo authorities have charged a British professional Percy e. Newberry explore several ancient tombs. The expedition was funded by the Egyptian Research Fund.

Having spent a lot of time and effort, Newberry eventually made it to the great stone house. In the light of torches, he managed to make out in three land protruding out of the crypt and the remains of two rows of columns. Bright walls were covered with magnificent coloured paintings on wet plaster. They carry depictions of scenes from the life of a person, learn about the harvesting, hunting, dancing and competitions. In one of the paintings on the North wall, immediately on the portrait of a nobleman in life-size, Newberry found figures of people, looked like. They were fair-skinned persons, with pointed facial features and unusual for the Egyptians. Two Egyptian officials portrayed in the foreground, represented this group of aliens noble dignitary. What were their people?

The style and the color of their clothes played with great precision. Rectangular woolen capes, reaching to the knees for men and calves in women moved through one shoulder. They are made of multicolored striped fabrics and cloaks. If they do not resemble us the famous "coat of many colors", which Jacob, to the great annoyance of his other sons, gave his beloved son Joseph? Men-trimmed beard is gabled. Women's hair free fall to the chest and bandaged shoulders and a narrow white tape around the forehead.

For the dating of this picture approximately 1900-m BC (the time of the Patriarchs), we can imagine that Abraham (then still called Abram) and his family looked almost the same.

SODOM AND GOMORRAH

The disaster is the subject of a biblical story of a divine punishment for the sin of not-paid, has left a deep imprint on human memory to this day. Sodom and Gomorrah have become synonymous of Vice and wickedness. People always remember the loss of these cities when euphemistically speak of total destruction. It is inexplicable, a terrible disaster always struck their imagination, what is mentioned since ancient times. Amazing, totally unbelievable events took place at the Dead Sea, "Salty sea", where according to the Bible, was a disaster.

The dead sea has a depth of about 500 meters, so his bottom more than 1000 metres below the Mediterranean Sea. There are almost 30% table salt (Oceans and seas 3.3-4%) and a variety of chemicals from tributaries. Jordan fall and many small rivers, but no river it follows. Only recently, along with the excavations in other parts of Palestine, awakened interest in Sodom and Gomorrah. It was known that these extinct cities existed in biblical times in the Valley of the Sit, and archaeologists have started their quest. For discoveries and observations, geologists have added new explanations that might shed light on the origin and the ending of the biblical story of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.

An American expedition led by Lynch provided the first information about the surprisingly rapid lowering of the Jordan River for its short journey through Palestine. Is also place of invasion of the Dead Sea in a flat region of the southern basin.

THE EXODUS FROM EGYPT

American Professor William Albright Ekogrin-invest, which is one of the few scholars of universal skills-theologian, historian, philosopher and orientalist, archaeologist and specialist in comparative philology. On his word completely reliable. "According to our current knowledge of the topography of the Eastern Delta, an early Outcome. absolutely right ". Further evidence of authentic historical nature of the story on the outcome and on the journey to the land of Midian, Sinai and Kadešh can be presented without much difficulty, thanks to our growing knowledge of topography and archaeology.

The first leg, made refugees, can be easily traced on a map. The main road was too dangerous. So the Israelis headed south.

"The miracle of the sea constantly takes human minds. The difficulties faced by scientists and researchers are not to the flight of the Israelites, which was quite plausible. The problem was the location of the event.

 

ISRAEL IN THE DESERT

By the American archaeologist, Nelson Glûek, our understanding of the living conditions of Israelis during that period became even more. According to the scholar, the area was inhabited by the semi-nomad tribes, who supported trade and commercial relations with both Canaan and Egypt. Among them was composed of Midian, Moses was living in exile.

An Israeli archaeologist made his Rothenberg, Benno accidental discovery (he found the idol in the form of a bronze serpent up five inches and partially decorated with gold leaf) is the archaeological site, where there were traces of Midian. And, as if this sensational confirmation of such controversial biblical story about wandering the Israelites in the desert were not enough, the same place where the snake was found sanctuary!

Its dimensions are close to the sanctuary, described in the Bible. It was the site of a more ancient Egyptian places of worship of the goddess Hathor. Midian, the Egyptians developed the Timna copper mines, have turned this place into a sanctuary of their own religion and covered his canopy; Rothenberg found not only the holes for the Poles, instead of a tent, but also the remnants of fabric from the canopy.

Opening of Rotenberga gave us the possibility to suggest that Israelis are in fairly early had buff as described in the Bible.