Key Texts: 1 Samuel 17; Daniel 1, 5; Isa. 36:1–3, Isa. 37:14–38; Matt. 26:57–67; Heb. 11:1–40.
Part I: Overview
History is important because all life is rooted in history. There is no human existence outside of history. History is the fabric of life. It is where God chose to place us and to reveal Himself. Because the Bible is historically constituted, history is the “place,” if you will, where God gives us an opportunity to test and confirm the truthfulness of His Word. That is why history and historical details are where the trustworthiness of the Bible and of God’s Word are challenged the most and where criticism often begins first. Paul addresses this very issue with the church in Corinth when he brings up how some in the church have questioned the testimony of the apostle’s word: “Now if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen: And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain” (1 Cor. 15:12-14). Paul affirmed that the trustworthiness of the historical event of Christ’s bodily resurrection was the keystone of the Christian faith. If that event did not take place, then our faith is based on a pious hoax, not on reality. Biblical faith is based on the facts of history. It is based on a God who acts in history, and it is biblical history that is the subject of this week’s study.
Part II: Commentary
Illustration
Old Testament theologian Walter Dietrich wrote recently, “In the modern age, history must be understood and described etsi deus non daretur (‘as though God did not exist’).” But he admits that this is difficult when assessing biblical history. In the Bible “God plays an active role. . . . God gets personally involved. . . . He sends prophets . . . . He moves events.” Dietrich concludes, “What enlightened person can accept all these things as historical accounts?”—The Early Monarchy in Israel: The Tenth Century B.C.E. (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2007), pp. 102, 103. A whole array of critical methods has removed the historical framework of the Bible and its teachings, denying the very events that God has given to confirm His personal work throughout the lives of His people. During the last 200 years, these methods of the enlightenment have often been used to deconstruct the plain teaching of the Bible. Historical criticism brings into question events, and even entire periods, in the Bible and relegates them to myth, saga, story, or merely theology in the sense of human imagination. These periods include the Creation, the Flood, the patriarchal period, the sojourn in Egypt, the Exodus and conquest, the united monarchy, etc. New Testament scholars using these methods have dissected the sayings of Jesus in order to determine, they claim, what He really said and what others attributed (falsely) to Him. Many of our young people are faced with these critical approaches when they attend secular universities. This raises some important questions for the serious Bible student. Do historical matters really matter to faith? How can I live by faith when that faith is challenged by modern and postmodern thinking? How does the Bible as God’s inspired Word open my eyes and expand my thinking?
Scripture
As serious students of the Bible, we must ask whether the Bible should be evaluated on the external assumptions and norms of modernism and postmodernism or whether the Bible should be evaluated on its own terms. The internal testimony of Scripture indicates that God spoke to His people through prophets and sometimes directly. He addressed them in both time and space. That is, He acted in real time (events) among real people in actual places.
People. The existence of at least one hundred biblical individuals, including kings, servants, scribes, and governors has been confirmed through careful archaeological and historical research. In the last two decades, many more people were added to this list through the discovery of seals, seal impressions, small inscriptions, and monumental inscriptions. Here are only a few examples.
Baalis. In 1984, at the site of Tell el-cUmeiri in Jordan, archaeologists from Andrews University uncovered a clay seal impression bearing the name “Milkom’ur . . . servant of Baalyasha,” undoubtedly a reference to Baalis, the king of ancient Ammon, mentioned in Jeremiah 40:14. This obscure king was said to have plotted against Judah on the verge of the Babylonian destruction (Randall W. Younker, “Israel, Judah, and Ammon and the Motifs on the Baalis Seal from Tell el-cUmeiri,” Biblical Archaeologist 48/3 [1985], pp. 173–180).
Isaiah the Prophet. Excavations in Jerusalem in 2009 uncovered a seal impression containing the name “Isaiah, [the] prophe[t].” Excavator Eilat Mazar believes that this was in fact the seal impression of Isaiah the prophet. It was found less than ten feet away from the seal impression of “Hezekiah, son of Ahaz, King of Judah” (Eilat Mazar, “Is This the Prophet Isaiah’s Signature?” Biblical Archaeology Review 44/2&3 2018, 64-73, 92). In 2014, students from Southern Adventist University uncovered two seal impressions of Eliakim at the city of Lachish. According to Isaiah 37:1, 2, all three individuals—Hezekiah, Eliakim, and Isaiah—were present in Jerusalem during the invasion of Sennacherib into Judah.
Herod the Great. In 1996, students working with Ehud Netzer at Masada, Herod’s desert fortress, uncovered an imported fragment of a wine amphora. On the fragment was an inscription: regi Herodi Iudaico, “for Herod, king of Judaea.” It was the first mention of Herod the Great’s title outside of the New Testament, and Josephus found in an archaeological context (“Pottery With a Pedigree: Herod Inscription Surfaces at Masada,” Biblical Archaeology Review 22/6 [November-December, 1996] p. 27).
Cities. Dozens of sites in the Middle East have been excavated, revealing their secrets and confirming the existence of thriving cultures as described in the Bible. Excavations at Babylon revealed colorful glazed brick walls covered with images of lions, griffins, and bulls. The ruins of Hazor, Megiddo, and Gezer were surrounded by massive double walls and gates, attributed to the building activities of Solomon (1 Kings 9:15).
The Philistine cities of Ashkelon, Ashdod, Ekron, and Gath have been excavated extensively, revealing a sophisticated culture of architecture, art, and technology. In 1996, an inscription was uncovered at Ekron revealing a dynastic line of five kings including Achish, the son of Padi, who ruled over Ekron until the destruction of the city by Nebuchadnezzar (Seymour Gitin, Trude Dothan, and Joseph Naveh, “A Royal Dedicatory Inscription from Ekron,” Israel Exploration Journal 47/1–2 [1997]: pp. 9–16). The decorated Aegean-style pottery and the technology of these cities reveal that the Philistines were the elite in the ancient land of Canaan. To this short list could be added dozens of other sites, such as Jericho, Jerusalem, Acco, Dan, Abel, Azekah, Libnah, all currently being excavated in the Middle East.
Events. One of the most illustrated events of the Bible is the campaign of Sennacherib against Judah in 701 B.C., as recorded in Isaiah 36, 37; 2 Kings 18, 19; and 2 Chronicles 32. Excavations at Nineveh in modern Iraq have discovered the annals of King Sennacherib, who describes his campaign against Judah in detail: “As for Hezekiah the Judean, who did not submit to my yoke, I shut him up in his royal city like a bird in a cage.” Carved reliefs in the central room of his palace depict the Assyrian attack against the city of Lachish, its defeat, and the procession of prisoners before the king seated on a throne. Recent excavations from 2013–2017 by Southern Adventist University and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem excavated the massive destruction of Lachish in Israel, recovering dozens of arrowheads, sling stones, and items of scale armor amid the debris left behind by the Assyrian armies. Yet, Jerusalem was spared, a vivid testimony to the accuracy of the biblical record concerning this event.
Yet after 200 years, archaeology has barely scratched the surface of what could be found. Only a fraction of the hundreds of sites that existed have been located today. Only a fraction of those located sites have been excavated. Only a fraction of those excavated sites have been excavated to any real extent (often less than 5 percent). Only a fraction of those excavations have been published. And only a fraction of those that have been published make a direct contribution to understanding the people and events of the Bible. We should therefore not be surprised that many people, places, and events remain to be discovered. As hundreds of archaeologists, volunteers, and other specialists are uncovering these ancient remains, more evidence continues to accumulate to confirm the historical framework of the Bible, filling in the details of how the people of these ancient cultures worked, lived, and interacted with one another.
Part III: Life Application
History is not merely a dry subject to pass in high school and college or to discuss in this class. It is our story, and it is “His story.” If God has been personally working throughout the history of the world, do you believe He is still active in your life today? Do we still experience miraculous deliverances from the powers of our enemies, of disease and hardship? We often read of the miracles performed in the Bible and wonder whether such miracles still occur today. Don’t they? If we were to collect the true miracle stories of God’s healings, the dreams He has sent, and His work in the course of our personal lives today from our church family around the world, would we not be able to fill a book?
1. Share with your class how God has worked in your life. What has He done for you or maybe a family member or friend? Pose this question to your class. What testimonies do they have to share in response?
2. A young Adventist starts classes at a public university and is confronted with a professor who states in the beginning of class that, while some of the students in class may have grown up in churches and synagogues, now they are at university and will learn what actually happened in the past. How should that student respond in this situation?
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Key Texts: 1 Samuel 17; Daniel 1, 5; Isa. 36:1–3, Isa. 37:14–38; Matt. 26:57–67; Heb. 11:1–40.
Part I: Overview
History is important because all life is rooted in history. There is no human existence outside of history. History is the fabric of life. It is where God chose to place us and to reveal Himself. Because the Bible is historically constituted, history is the “place,” if you will, where God gives us an opportunity to test and confirm the truthfulness of His Word. That is why history and historical details are where the trustworthiness of the Bible and of God’s Word are challenged the most and where criticism often begins first. Paul addresses this very issue with the church in Corinth when he brings up how some in the church have questioned the testimony of the apostle’s word: “Now if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen: And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain” (1 Cor. 15:12-14). Paul affirmed that the trustworthiness of the historical event of Christ’s bodily resurrection was the keystone of the Christian faith. If that event did not take place, then our faith is based on a pious hoax, not on reality. Biblical faith is based on the facts of history. It is based on a God who acts in history, and it is biblical history that is the subject of this week’s study.
Part II: Commentary
Illustration
Old Testament theologian Walter Dietrich wrote recently, “In the modern age, history must be understood and described etsi deus non daretur (‘as though God did not exist’).” But he admits that this is difficult when assessing biblical history. In the Bible “God plays an active role. . . . God gets personally involved. . . . He sends prophets . . . . He moves events.” Dietrich concludes, “What enlightened person can accept all these things as historical accounts?”—The Early Monarchy in Israel: The Tenth Century B.C.E. (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2007), pp. 102, 103. A whole array of critical methods has removed the historical framework of the Bible and its teachings, denying the very events that God has given to confirm His personal work throughout the lives of His people. During the last 200 years, these methods of the enlightenment have often been used to deconstruct the plain teaching of the Bible. Historical criticism brings into question events, and even entire periods, in the Bible and relegates them to myth, saga, story, or merely theology in the sense of human imagination. These periods include the Creation, the Flood, the patriarchal period, the sojourn in Egypt, the Exodus and conquest, the united monarchy, etc. New Testament scholars using these methods have dissected the sayings of Jesus in order to determine, they claim, what He really said and what others attributed (falsely) to Him. Many of our young people are faced with these critical approaches when they attend secular universities. This raises some important questions for the serious Bible student. Do historical matters really matter to faith? How can I live by faith when that faith is challenged by modern and postmodern thinking? How does the Bible as God’s inspired Word open my eyes and expand my thinking?
Scripture
As serious students of the Bible, we must ask whether the Bible should be evaluated on the external assumptions and norms of modernism and postmodernism or whether the Bible should be evaluated on its own terms. The internal testimony of Scripture indicates that God spoke to His people through prophets and sometimes directly. He addressed them in both time and space. That is, He acted in real time (events) among real people in actual places.
People. The existence of at least one hundred biblical individuals, including kings, servants, scribes, and governors has been confirmed through careful archaeological and historical research. In the last two decades, many more people were added to this list through the discovery of seals, seal impressions, small inscriptions, and monumental inscriptions. Here are only a few examples.
Baalis. In 1984, at the site of Tell el-cUmeiri in Jordan, archaeologists from Andrews University uncovered a clay seal impression bearing the name “Milkom’ur . . . servant of Baalyasha,” undoubtedly a reference to Baalis, the king of ancient Ammon, mentioned in Jeremiah 40:14. This obscure king was said to have plotted against Judah on the verge of the Babylonian destruction (Randall W. Younker, “Israel, Judah, and Ammon and the Motifs on the Baalis Seal from Tell el-cUmeiri,” Biblical Archaeologist 48/3 [1985], pp. 173–180).
Isaiah the Prophet. Excavations in Jerusalem in 2009 uncovered a seal impression containing the name “Isaiah, [the] prophe[t].” Excavator Eilat Mazar believes that this was in fact the seal impression of Isaiah the prophet. It was found less than ten feet away from the seal impression of “Hezekiah, son of Ahaz, King of Judah” (Eilat Mazar, “Is This the Prophet Isaiah’s Signature?” Biblical Archaeology Review 44/2&3 2018, 64-73, 92). In 2014, students from Southern Adventist University uncovered two seal impressions of Eliakim at the city of Lachish. According to Isaiah 37:1, 2, all three individuals—Hezekiah, Eliakim, and Isaiah—were present in Jerusalem during the invasion of Sennacherib into Judah.
Herod the Great. In 1996, students working with Ehud Netzer at Masada, Herod’s desert fortress, uncovered an imported fragment of a wine amphora. On the fragment was an inscription: regi Herodi Iudaico, “for Herod, king of Judaea.” It was the first mention of Herod the Great’s title outside of the New Testament, and Josephus found in an archaeological context (“Pottery With a Pedigree: Herod Inscription Surfaces at Masada,” Biblical Archaeology Review 22/6 [November-December, 1996] p. 27).
Cities. Dozens of sites in the Middle East have been excavated, revealing their secrets and confirming the existence of thriving cultures as described in the Bible. Excavations at Babylon revealed colorful glazed brick walls covered with images of lions, griffins, and bulls. The ruins of Hazor, Megiddo, and Gezer were surrounded by massive double walls and gates, attributed to the building activities of Solomon (1 Kings 9:15).
The Philistine cities of Ashkelon, Ashdod, Ekron, and Gath have been excavated extensively, revealing a sophisticated culture of architecture, art, and technology. In 1996, an inscription was uncovered at Ekron revealing a dynastic line of five kings including Achish, the son of Padi, who ruled over Ekron until the destruction of the city by Nebuchadnezzar (Seymour Gitin, Trude Dothan, and Joseph Naveh, “A Royal Dedicatory Inscription from Ekron,” Israel Exploration Journal 47/1–2 [1997]: pp. 9–16). The decorated Aegean-style pottery and the technology of these cities reveal that the Philistines were the elite in the ancient land of Canaan. To this short list could be added dozens of other sites, such as Jericho, Jerusalem, Acco, Dan, Abel, Azekah, Libnah, all currently being excavated in the Middle East.
Events. One of the most illustrated events of the Bible is the campaign of Sennacherib against Judah in 701 B.C., as recorded in Isaiah 36, 37; 2 Kings 18, 19; and 2 Chronicles 32. Excavations at Nineveh in modern Iraq have discovered the annals of King Sennacherib, who describes his campaign against Judah in detail: “As for Hezekiah the Judean, who did not submit to my yoke, I shut him up in his royal city like a bird in a cage.” Carved reliefs in the central room of his palace depict the Assyrian attack against the city of Lachish, its defeat, and the procession of prisoners before the king seated on a throne. Recent excavations from 2013–2017 by Southern Adventist University and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem excavated the massive destruction of Lachish in Israel, recovering dozens of arrowheads, sling stones, and items of scale armor amid the debris left behind by the Assyrian armies. Yet, Jerusalem was spared, a vivid testimony to the accuracy of the biblical record concerning this event.
Yet after 200 years, archaeology has barely scratched the surface of what could be found. Only a fraction of the hundreds of sites that existed have been located today. Only a fraction of those located sites have been excavated. Only a fraction of those excavated sites have been excavated to any real extent (often less than 5 percent). Only a fraction of those excavations have been published. And only a fraction of those that have been published make a direct contribution to understanding the people and events of the Bible. We should therefore not be surprised that many people, places, and events remain to be discovered. As hundreds of archaeologists, volunteers, and other specialists are uncovering these ancient remains, more evidence continues to accumulate to confirm the historical framework of the Bible, filling in the details of how the people of these ancient cultures worked, lived, and interacted with one another.
Part III: Life Application
History is not merely a dry subject to pass in high school and college or to discuss in this class. It is our story, and it is “His story.” If God has been personally working throughout the history of the world, do you believe He is still active in your life today? Do we still experience miraculous deliverances from the powers of our enemies, of disease and hardship? We often read of the miracles performed in the Bible and wonder whether such miracles still occur today. Don’t they? If we were to collect the true miracle stories of God’s healings, the dreams He has sent, and His work in the course of our personal lives today from our church family around the world, would we not be able to fill a book?
1. Share with your class how God has worked in your life. What has He done for you or maybe a family member or friend? Pose this question to your class. What testimonies do they have to share in response?
2. A young Adventist starts classes at a public university and is confronted with a professor who states in the beginning of class that, while some of the students in class may have grown up in churches and synagogues, now they are at university and will learn what actually happened in the past. How should that student respond in this situation?