My conversation on biblical archaeology with Jennifer Bagnaschi on the “Deep Believer” podcast.
Before debating free will, you have to start with the Calvinist view of God.
In Calvinism, God doesn’t merely permit or allow events to happen—He decrees them.
That distinction changes the entire debate over predestination.
This video illustrates how biblical archaeology works by examining a clay seal dated to the 8th century BC and attributed to the prophet Isaiah. It was produced by the Armstrong Institute of Biblical Archaeology (http://www.armstronginstitute.org) and narrated by Stephen Flurry.
The prophet Isaiah scolds a guy named Shebna for building an ostentatious tomb for himself. (Isaiah 22:15-16)
Isaiah describes Shebna, who is the steward to King Hezekiah, as the man “over the royal household.”
Shebna is a minor character in the Bible. In film parlance, he’s a biblical “extra.”
In 1870 the French archaeologist Claremont-Ganneau found a limestone block with a 3-line Hebrew text.
It dated to the eighth or seventh century B.C.—around the time of Hezekiah.
The inscription was above the entrance to a tomb built in the grand style befitting an official of some importance.
The British Museum acquired the limestone inscription which was only deciphered in 1953 by the Israeli archaeologist Nahman Avigad.
The inscription has a missing space with only the ending part of a name—“yahu”—but it lists the man’s occupation by saying he is “over the house.”
That’s precisely the job of the royal steward as described in Isaiah.
Archaeologists recognize the missing space ...
What light, if any, can biblical archaeology throw on the most important event in Christianity, namely the resurrection of Jesus?
Skeptics say it’s pure legend with no material evidence to even render it worth considering.
But a marble slab uncovered by archaeologists in Nazareth says otherwise.
It’s known as the Nazareth Inscription.
Dated to the first century A.D., most likely during the reign of Tiberius or Claudius, the slab has a 14 line inscription.
The first line is “Edict of Caesar.”
But the most interesting part comes next.
The edict pronounces the death penalty for anyone stealing bodies from graves or moving the stones that seal tombs.
Now why would Rome have found it necessary to issue an imperial edict on this subject at that time?
There is only one answer. The Jews and the Romans had found Jesus’ tomb to be empty. There was no body in there.
The dispute was over how this came to be. The official Roman position was the disciples stole the body.
Evidently the edict was...
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