“And the Lord God of their fathers sent warnings to them by His messengers, rising up early and sending them, because He had compassion on His people and on His dwelling place. But they mocked the messengers of God, despised His words, and scoffed at His prophets, until the wrath of the Lord arose against His people, till there was no remedy. Therefore He brought against them the king of the Chaldeans, who killed their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary, and had no compassion on young man or virgin, on the aged or the weak; He gave them all into his hand. And all the articles from the house of God, great and small, the treasures of the house of the Lord, and the treasures of the king and of his leaders, all these he took to Babylon. Then they burned the house of God, broke down the wall of Jerusalem, burned all its palaces with fire, and destroyed all its precious possessions. And those who escaped from the sword he carried away to Babylon, where they became servants to him and his sons until the rule of the kingdom of Persia, to fulfill the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed her Sabbaths. As long as she lay desolate she kept Sabbath, to fulfill seventy years.” 2 Chronicles 36:15-21
In our last post about ancient Israel, I shared that there was enough archaeological evidence about Assyria taking Israel captive for me to continue investigating the claims of the Bible. I was an ardent atheist and journalist in search of the truth.
The next step in the investigation was to see what archaeological support there was for Babylon defeating Judah, taking the people captive and destroying the capital city, Jerusalem.
The Bible claims that King Josiah of Judah was killed in battle with the Egyptian army at Megiddo. Necho is mentioned as the pharaoh at the time. Dating of the kings of Judah from Solomon to Josiah puts the date of Josiah’s death at about 609 BC. It goes on to say that the people of Judah made Josiah’s 23-year-old son Jehoahaz king in his father’s place. According to the Bible, Pharaoh Necho put Jehoahaz in prison at Riblah in the land of Hamath after just three months on the throne and that Jehoahaz died in Egypt. Necho made Josiah’s 25-year-old son Eliakim Judah’s king and changed his name to Jehoiakim. Jehoiakim ruled for 11 years, but was a vassal of Egypt until Babylon took Judah from the Egyptians. The Bible claims Jehoiakim was King Nebuchadnezzar’s vassal for three years, but then rebelled against him.
“And the Lord sent against him raiding bands of Chaldeans, bands of Syrians, bands of Moabites, and bands of the people of Ammon; He sent them against Judah to destroy it, according to the word of the Lord which He had spoken by His servants the prophets.” 2 Kings 24:2
Jehoiakim died and his 18-year-old son Jehoiachin became king. He reigned in Jerusalem for three months and ten days. King Nebuchadnezzar summoned the young king to Babylon and made Jehoiakim’s 21-year-old brother Zedekiah king of Judah. He ruled as a vassal king for 11 years, but also rebelled against Nebuchadnezzar. The Bible says that in the ninth year of Zedekiah’s reign, in the tenth month on the tenth day of the month, King Nebuchadnezzar and his army came against Jerusalem and built a siege wall all around the city. By the ninth day of the fourth month, according to the Bible, the famine had become so severe in Jerusalem that there was no food for the people. Judah’s army broke through the city wall and fled, but Babylonian soldiers captured Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho and took him to Nebuchadnezzar at Riblah. The soldiers killed Zedekiah’s sons, then put out his eyes, put him in fetters and took him captive to Babylon.
What happened next, again according to the Bible, was the destruction of Jerusalem by the army of Babylon.
“And in the fifth month, on the seventh day of the month (which was the nineteenth year of King Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon), Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard, a servant of the king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem. He burned the house of the Lord and the king’s house; all the houses of Jerusalem, that is, all the houses of the great, he burned with fire. And all the army of the Chaldeans who were with the captain of the guard broke down the walls of Jerusalem all around. Then Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard carried away captive the rest of the people who remained in the city and the defectors who had deserted to the king of Babylon, with the rest of the multitude … Thus Judah was carried away captive from its own land.” 2 Kings 25:8-11, 21
History and Archaeology
The Bible makes a lot of historical claims concerning Judah and Babylon, so it should be easy to show that the Bible is not historical at all but filled with myths and legends. Right?
By the time I arrived at this point in my investigation 44 years ago, I had already seen strong evidence that the Bible was in fact historical rather than mythical. Would it prove itself so once again?
We’ve already seen that the Hebrew and Assyrian timelines agree about Assyria’s defeat of the northern kingdom of Israel in 722 BC. The Hebrew (Old Testament) timeline would put Babylon’s defeat of Zedekiah and destruction of Jerusalem about 586 BC. How does that square with ancient history and archaeology?
Babylon became a major empire toward the end of the 7th century BC under the leadership of Nabopolassar and his son, Nebuchadrezzar II. The ruins of Babylonare located about 55 miles south of Baghdad, Iraq, near the town of Al-Hillah.
Some of the archaeological finds supporting Nebuchadnezzar as king of Babylon during the end of the 7th century and beginning of the 6th century BC and the Babylonian Captivity are:
Bronze Door Slab with Inscription
Archaeology and Babylonian Captivity
The Bible and Nebuchadnezzar
Several Books of the Bible record details of King Nebuchadnezzar’s defeat of Judah. They include:
2 Kings – “ At that time the servants of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up against Jerusalem, and the city was besieged.”
1 Chronicles – “Jehozadak went into captivity when the Lord carried Judah and Jerusalem into captivity by the hand of Nebuchadnezzar.”
2 Chronicles – “Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up against him, and bound him in bronze fetters to carry him off to Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar also carried off some of the articles from the house of the Lord to Babylon, and put them in his temple at Babylon.”
Ezra – “But because our fathers provoked the God of heaven to wrath, He gave them into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, the Chaldean, who destroyed this temple and carried the people away to Babylon.”
Nehemiah – “These are the people of the province who came back from the captivity, of those who had been carried away, whom Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon had carried away, and who returned to Jerusalem and Judah, everyone to his city.”
Esther – “Kish had been carried away from Jerusalem with the captives who had been captured with Jeconiah king of Judah, whom Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon had carried away.”
Jeremiah – “And afterward,’ says the Lord, ‘I will deliver Zedekiah king of Judah, his servants and the people, and such as are left in this city from the pestilence and the sword and the famine, into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, into the hand of their enemies, and into the hand of those who seek their life; and he shall strike them with the edge of the sword. He shall not spare them, or have pity or mercy.”
Ezekiel – “For thus says the Lord God: ‘Behold, I will bring against Tyre from the north Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, king of kings, with horses, with chariots, and with horsemen, and an army with many people.”
Daniel – “In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it.”
The Prophets and Nebuchadnezzar
Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel were Hebrew prophets during the reign of Nebuchadnezzar. What, if any, archaeological finds support these three prophets and what they prophesied? We’ll see next time as we continue our investigation into‘Convince Me There’s A God.’
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Some skeptics of the Bible falsely claim that the Bible is entirely fiction; that one cannot find ANY historical truths between the covers of the Christian holy book. Archeology, as you have so thoroughly presented above, proves this position as ludicrous. There is a great deal of accurate history recorded in the Bible.
But just because a particular collection of books contains SOME accurate historical facts does that mean that ALL the stories and details presented in that collection of books should be accepted as fact.
Imagine if we did this with Homer’s “Iliad and the Odessey”. Historians have shown that there really was a war between the Greeks and the city of Troy; the names of some of the Greek kings have been proven to represent real historical people. But just because these assertions of facts have been proven correct, does than mean that we should all accept as fact that one-eyed Cyclops exist and that the pantheon of Greek gods literally involved themselves in this ancient struggle??
I think not.
We should approach the Bible as we do every other ancient text.
We should sift out the facts from the fiction, myth, and legend. For instance, even the most ardent skeptic of the historical Jesus agrees that Rome ruled Palestine during the 20’s and 30’s AD and that Pilate was a Roman ruler of Palestine during that time period. But these facts do not prove that a first century Jewish prophet was resurrected from the dead, to eat a broiled fish lunch with his former fishing buddies, later to levitate from the top of a hill into outer space!
Hi, Gary. I agree that we should approach the Bible as we do every other ancient text. That’s how we see its historical accuracy. Yes, sift out fiction, myth and legend from all historical texts. That demonstrates the historical accuracy of the Bible. You are correct that the fact Pilate was a Roman ruler in Palestine during the same time period proclaimed in the Gospels does not prove that Jesus of Nazareth was risen from the dead. However, it does prove the historical accuracy of the authors. There are other proofs for the resurrection.
What was important during my investigation of the Bible was that the historical claims were true. If they were not true, I could have easily concluded that my investigation had demonstrated the inaccuracy of the Bible and moved on to living out atheism with no concerns about the existence of God. However, because of the historical reliability of the Bible, I was not able to make that conclusion. I either had to continue to investigate or close my eyes to the growing evidence and quit. I chose to see the investigation through to see where it took me.
I just re-read your article, Matt, and it strikes me as odd that you accept the supernatural claims of the Bible (talking/walking snakes, talking donkeys, men walking on water, dead men walking out of their graves, a 2,000 year old (dead) Jewish prophet as the Creator God, etc.) just because authors in the Old Testament correctly recorded a significant number of historical facts.
Isn’t that a non-sequiter?
Recording accurate history does not confirm even ONE supernatural biblical claim. Historical accuracy of the authors does NOT prove that ALL their claims were true.
Just because Homer correctly recorded the Greek-Trojan wars, does mean that we should believe in one-eyed Cyclops and in the supernatural powers of Achilles and Zeus??
No.
Hi, Gary. I’m not quite half way through sharing about how I became convinced in the existence of the God of the Bible. I did not accept the supernatural claims of the Bible ‘just because authors of the Old Testament correctly recorded a significant number of historical facts.’ I found the evidence compelling for the Old Testament’s credibility as an ancient history, but I didn’t accept the supernatural claims. I continued to be anti-supernatural during my investigation of the Old Testament.
I agree with you that the historical accuracy of the Old Testament authors does not prove that all their claims were true. However, if the claims of the Old Testament authors had not been historically accurate I would not have continued my investigation. What the historical accuracy of the Old Testament authors did was keep me in the game. The historical accuracy of the Old Testament moved me into the New Testament, which is where I’ll be moving to soon in the Convince Me There’s A God series.
Hope that helps!