Title: When History Reveals the Past


It was the last day, thirty miles south of Tel Aviv, the last piece of evidence to be un-earthed at Tel Sied Israel until next year – but what a piece of evidence. I’m Charles Morris and welcome to Haven Today. What that archeological team came up with is now thought to be the earliest piece of Hebrew writing ever found - a thirty eight pound stone with the entire Hebrew alphabet. Why is this important? What does it have to do with our faith and the Bible? Don't go away, in the next few minutes we will be joined from Pittsburgh by the head of that archaeological team and from California we will be joined by a leading Hebrew scholar. This Haven Today is called “When History Reveals the Past”. Later I'll tell you how you can get a copy on CD of this important program to hear again or share with someone else. Now let's worship the Lord together.

Song: A Mighty Fortress

It's a remarkable archaeological find; that is how the secular press is putting it, about thirty miles south of Tel Aviv on the line with us from Pittsburgh Theological Seminary is Dr. Ron Tapy. Dr. Tapy is an archaeologist who leads the team that made this important discovery. Dr. Tapy, I want to welcome you to Haven Today. Thank you very much. It is a pleasure to be here to talk to you. Dr. Tapy, can you tell us just a little bit about this find that you guys made? Yes, I would be happy too. In fact, on the last day of the season, on a Friday, we were taking final photographs and one of our volunteers, a student from Colorado State University, noticed what he thought were scratches on a stone that had been incorporated into a wall of a structure that we had been dating to the 10th Century B.C. So Ron pointed this out to his supervisor and his supervisor came to me and I went over to take a look at it and realized as I bent down over it that this was in fact an ancient encryption. The letters were perfectly clear. It was early in the morning so the rising sun was still close to the horizon and the morning light was scraping across the stone sideways at an angle that just highlighted the letters. I literally could not believe it as I bent over and saw these letters appear before my very eyes. I didn't realize at the time however that what I was looking at was not a narrative encryption, it was what we call a “ABC’dery”, it was an alphabet written out in its entirety. The Semitic Alphabet has twenty two letters and all twenty two letters are there carved in limestone. Then the limestone block had been incorporated into the wall of a building that dates to the 10th Century and suffered destruction sometime near the end of that period. The time period that we are talking about here falls squarely in the era, in which by traditional reckoning, we place the rule of King Solomon and Jerusalem. You and your colleagues are pretty well convinced that this is an early form of the Hebrew alphabet, right? We are, as a matter of fact as you may know that not many encryptions have turned up in archeology in Israel, certainly not in the 10th Century, in fact it’s a very dramatic discovery to have this because here is the state of affairs; In 1908 at a site a little bit north of ours, a site by the name of Gezer, there was a short encryption discovered that came to be known eventually as the Gezer Calendar. It dates to the 10th Century and it is believed to be Hebrew. Up until July 15 this past summer, that was the total number of encryptions that we have from the 10th Century. Now we have two. The second encryption that we discovered this summer, as I say, is important for various reasons, especially because it is an “ABC’dery”. It is the complete alphabet so all the letters are there, you know in the course of writing, if I were to write out a sentence, some letters would get used more often than others. For example, our “V” gets used quite a bit but our “X” doesn’t. So by this being an alphabet, we don’t have to wonder what letters they had but did not use, and so forth, it’s all there and it has some very unique and challenging features about it but the entire is there. This means, or course, that in the 10th Century the Israelites, the Judahites, the people living there, could have written anything they wanted. This is incredible that you were able to find this. Ron, you have a Ph.D. from Harvard, you are now at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and you lead the archaeology program there and you also use to teach at Westmont College here in California. Most of us think of archaeologists, just as having seen some of the Indiana Jones movies, so let me just ask you – how do you know that this stone dates back to when you believe it dates? Well, we tried to bring together a number of different avenues of inquiry when we are trying to assign a date to something. Traditionally pottery is very important to an archeologist because we know that we have a pretty good idea how the pottery forms, the styles that came into vogue and went out of existence in various areas of Israel’s history and Caanan’s history. So we have a pretty good pottery sequence right now. We look at the stratography, which is how the layers occupational degree or stacked up on one another. We can use that vertical access, the study of the soil itself to help us date where are at any given moment. In the case of this discovery, we have from a couple of phases later than the discovery, a good series of carbon fourteen dates too from botanical remains that have been analyzed through radiocarbon techniques and they have come back with a date that we can work back from to the 10th Century. It turns out that when they look at this writing style that we have on the stone, they conclude that this is a 10th Century script. That is very exciting and in a moment we are going to have on another scholar who's going to talk about how this relates to the Bible, which of course many of our listeners will be wondering about as well. Ron Tapy, thank you very much for talking with us and simplifying for us a little bit about what you do and may the Lord let you find many more important objects of history in the years ahead, thank you. Thank you Charles and thank you for your work too.

Song: Faith of Our Fathers

Well we have had the archaeologist on the air from Pittsburgh whose team in Israel found this important forty pound stone with the Hebrew alphabet. We now have on the line with us a Hebrew Scholar Dr. Tremper Longman from Santa Barbara California where he teaches, Tremper welcome to Haven Today. Thank you very much Charles. Sure, I'll mention your Ph.D. is from Yale and you did a post-doc at the University of Pennsylvania which included archaeology, didn't it? Yes that is right. We also have Dr. Longman on with us because he's written a biblical history of Israel with a couple of other scholars. Tremper, there's a great divide today in scholars who don't even believe there was a unified kingdom, the North and the South – Israel, they question the historicity of the Old Testament story. What is your take first of all on this new stone that was found in Israel just recently? Well, Charles the divide that you are talking about is most noticeable between a group that is called “minimalist”, these are people who think the Bible supplies a minimal amount of history and that it's really a work of fiction produced in a very late period of history and so they don’t think, for instance, that David and Solomon were leaders of an important united kingdom that had great power and was a centralized authority. On the other hand of course you have scholars who do treat the Bible as an authentic witness of what happened in the past. This isn’t just Evangelical Christian scholars, it include Jewish scholars and Catholic scholars and others. But the significance of this find is that its another piece of evidence that indeed in the 10th century B.C. there was a significant and sophisticated kingdom located in the central hill country of Judah. That’s important to help us argue against the minimalist that the Bible does provide us with authentic history. If you just went by the Bible, what was going on in that hill country, I guess we can say around what is Jerusalem today, in the 10th century, was happening? The 10th Century is the time period of David and Solomon and of course what’s happening then, after a tumultuous period called “The Period of The Judges” God raised up a leader, and we won't talk for a moment about Saul, but raised up a leader after his own heart, namely David, and God is blessing David’s kingdom so that it is prospering in many ways and expanding. David is even finalizing the conquest because there had been up to his reign a number of internal enemies particularly the Philippines who have remained in the land, but with David he’s going to bring the conquest to completion. With David and Solomon we really come to the high point of Israelite history. Tremper, this stone that was found was apparently a drinking vessel, and we are going to post a picture of it on our website at Haventoday.org so people can see what it looks like, but it was apparently a drinking vessel maybe used in cult rituals. It was embedded in the wall and some of these archaeologists are thinking that it was maybe the ancient belief that the alphabet had a magical power to ward off evil. Do you want to try giving me an exclamation for how that fits in with the worship of Yahweh in Israel in the 10th Century? This is all so new and the first I've heard this aspect of it. But even if that is the case, that wouldn't be all that surprising nor undermined the significance of this find. For one thing we know that even during the reign of David and Solomon there are people who are not a faithful who are worshiping false gods and so that wouldn't be contrary to our understanding of what's going on during that time period at all. Still, the significance of the fact that you have such an early attestation of the Hebrew alphabet this is still significant whether it's on a pagan ritual drinking vessel are not. Well I've met Orthodox Jews in Israel today who are very superstitious, it hasn’t gone away. This is true, I remember seeing the floor of this synagogue up in Tyberia as a astrological zodiac on the floor. But again, the relevant of this find doesn’t depend on whether it’s a ritual drinking vessel or not. What does this have to do with people of faith? Well, you know our faith Charles is a historical faith. The Bible attests to us, a God who acts in history to save this people and once you start questioning the historical truthfulness of the Scriptures; the Old Testament Scripture, the New Testament Scriptures, you're really undermining the faith and so it's very important that we stand by the historical record of Scripture. To put it in relationship to another event, f the Exodus didn’t actually happen, it looses the significances for our faith. Now of course most pointedly in the New Testament Paul himself says if the Resurrection didn't happen our faith is in vain. That is just another way of saying, this isn’t just a parable, it’s about God entering into our world and saving us. That’s why the battle over the historicity of The Old Testament is so important. Where does this all lead us? Why is this important in the long run in the New Testament for us? Again, I think that the New Testament is not separate from the Old Testament; it grows out of the Old Testament. If The Old Testament isn’t true, then the New Testament doesn’t make a lot of sense. It’s all one story of God’s redemptive history that is how he enters into history in order to save us. I think the bottom line is this find is new contribution and should give us confidence in that truthfulness of Scripture. Dr. Tremper Longman, thank you for taking time out of a faculty meeting to join us here at Haven Today. Thank you Charles.

Song: Find Us Faithful


Find Us Faithful, meaningful words and a meaningful song by Haven here on the program. We've been talking with Dr. Ron Tapy about a major archaeological find in Israel. Ron is a member of a team of scholars that made the discovery that included Dr. Kyle McCarter - Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Dr. Bruce Zuckerman of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, and Dr. Meryl Lundberg also of USC. I also want to thank Dr. Tremper Longman, a well-known Old Testament scholar at Westmont College speaking with us on the faith aspect of this important find. If you like to see a picture of the ABC’dery that was discovered south of Tel Aviv, you can go to our website at Haventoday.org, there you will see a picture from Ron Tapy holding this remarkable find. We have also put up some other pictures and information that you can find under our “Going Deeper” section at Haventoday.org. When you reach your website I’d like to also introduce you to the Archaeological Study Bible. When Zondervan released this one-of-a-kind Bible along with Gordon Conwell Seminary a few months ago, nobody thought it would be so popular. They have had to go back to press more than once to keep up with demand. You can read all about it and even watch a video of it on our website. This new Bible contains the latest research with over 500 photographs, numerous informative articles, and literally thousands of cultural historical and archaeological references. It's time we had a Bible like this, we have it in hardback or in two leather versions and I'd like you to have one as our thank you for your gift to Haven Today. Call us at 1-800-65-Haven or make your gift online at Haventoday.org and get a copy of this new Bible. When you contact us, let us know the station you listen to Haven Today on. I'm Charles Morris, thank you for joining me, come back tomorrow when we'll talk about faith meeting history with Dr. Walter Kaiser - more on biblical archaeology here on Haven Today.