Have you ever told someone the truth, but they didn’t believe you?
Today I want to share with you an excerpt from The Answer Book: A Devotional for Busy Families. This is one of the shorter, optional days (Week 2, Day 6, page 23) . I hope it blesses you and spurs good discussion in your family.
“Just Like I Said”
Have you ever told someone the truth, but they didn’t believe you? Then someone else brings proof you were telling the truth, and you are finally believed. How does that make you feel? We know the Bible tells the truth, and it is really neat when other people bring proof to support what we know to be true.
Archaeologists look for fossils, buildings, and artifacts that were buried long ago. They have found cities mentioned in the Bible right where the Bible says they should be.1 They also found things like bricks made of good straw, poor straw, and no straw in Pithom, Egypt, like it says in Exodus 5:1-12.2
The Mohammedan mosque, the Dome of the Rock, now stands in Jerusalem, where the temple described in the Bible once stood.3 Archeologists have not found remains of the temple Solomon built in Jerusalem yet (2 Chronicles 2-7), but they have found other temples and buildings from that time.4 Destroyed remains of the rebuilt temple have also been found.5
Jesus told Thomas, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” (John 20:29, NIV).
Thank God that the Bible is true. Ask Him to strengthen your faith.
Want More?
Read Exodus 5:1-21. Why are the Pithom bricks different from other bricks in Egypt?
Footnotes
1 Henry Smith, “Getting Archaeology Right at Ai,” Answers: Building a Biblical Worldview Answers In Genesis, (June 16, 2013) (December 9, 2013), available from www.answersingenesis.org/articles/am/v8/n3/getting-archaeology-right-at-ai.
2 Henry H. Halley, Halley’s Bible Handbook, 24th ed. (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan Publishing House, 1965), 120.
3 King David (who reigned from 1000-960 BC) conquered Jerusalem, first bringing it into Israel and making it the nation’s capital (2 Samuel 5:6-16). He was also the one to draw up plans and begin gathering construction materials, but his son Solomon (who reigned from 960-922 BC) actually built the first temple (2 Samuel 24:18-25; 1 Chronicles 28-29; 2 Chronicles 1-7). The Dome on the Rock was built AD 689-691.
4 Samuel J. Schultz, The Old Testament Speaks, 4th ed. (San Francisco HarperSanFrancisco, 1990), 145.
5 Archaelogists have found stones with burn marks on them dating to the first destruction of the temple in 586 BC. See Walter C. Kaiser Jr., A History of Israel (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1998), 404-405.
Antiochus IV Epiphanes did not destroy the temple, but he desecrated it (made it unholy) when he set up a statue of Zeus and had the priests sacrifice pigs (unclean animals according to Deuteronomy 14:7-8) on the altar of the LORD (see the prophecy in Daniel 11:31; 12:11). The resulting revolt, named the Maccabean Revolt after the leading family, resulted in the Jews regaining their freedom from the oppressing Seleucids.
Judas Maccabeus rededicated the temple in 165 BC. (Read the full story in the apocryphal [considered sacred by some, but not inspired by God] books of 1 and 2 Maccabees.) Jews remember that event when they celebrate Hanukkah [or Chaunuka] (see 1 Maccabees 4:52-56 and the Talmud [an additional book of Jewish law], Shabbat 21b).
Archaeologists also found evidence of the rebuilt temple. See Schultz, 145. Schultz proposes on page 260 that Zerubbabel (who rebuilt the temple in 520 BC) followed Solomon’s plans the best he could but with much less impressive building materials. This makes sense, since Israel was at its peak in Solomon’s day (1 Kings 3:10-13; 9:26-28; 2 Chronicles 9:1, 9; 1 Kings 4:24; 1 Kings 10:14-15, 21, 27; 2 Chronicles 1:15) and just coming back from conquered defeat and exile in Zerubbabel’s [day] (2 Kings 24:13-14; Psalm 137:1-6; Ezra 1-6).
Josephus Flavious recorded his eyewitness account of the destruction of that temple in AD 70. See “The Romans Destroy the Temple at Jerusalem, 70 AD,” EyeWitness to History, 2005 (February 6, 2014). Available from www.eyewitnesstohistory.com.
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