An Amazing Discovery Out Of Israel – With Omer Eshel: Is archeology confirming the Bible? Have you heard how old the recently-found inscriptions are…or what they say? What enabled this new discovery and where will it be kept? When did the Israelites know how to write, and why does that matter? Tune in to hear Omer Eschel explain why a recent discovery is so consequential!

Guest: Omer Eshel

On-air Personalities: David Barton, Rick Green, and Tim Barton

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Transcription note:  As a courtesy for our listeners’ enjoyment, we are providing a transcription of this podcast. Transcription will be released shortly. However, as this is transcribed from a live talk show, words and sentence structure were not altered to fit grammatical, written norms in order to preserve the integrity of the actual dialogue between the speakers. Additionally, names may be misspelled or we might use an asterisk to indicate a missing word because of the difficulty in understanding the speaker at times. We apologize in advance.

Faith and the Culture

Rick:

Welcome to the intersection of faith and the culture. Thank you for joining us today on WallBuilders Live. This is where we take all the hot topics of the day and we look at them from a biblical, historical and constitutional perspective. That’s how we should do any issue that affects our neighborhood, our communities, our states, our nation. 

We want to know what the Bible says about it, because that’s where all the answers are and it’s God’s word. And His way is not only right, it works best. Then we want to know what history can teach us about it. How can we learn where other people have faced those things? King Solomon was right, nothing new under the sun. So lot to learn from history about any issue we’re dealing with even today.

And then of course, we need that constitutional perspective, because we’ve been blessed to live in the United States of America. The Constitution is our rulebook for how we should play this game of society here in America. And so biblical, historical, constitutional perspective, if you’ve listened to us before, you know that’s how we try to approach every single issue, whatever it actually affects.

And you can listen to more of our programming at our website, wallbuilderslive.com has an archive section, with weeks and months of previous programs, including our Good News Friday programs, our Foundations of Freedom Thursday programs, and then our various interviews that we typically do throughout the week. And today, we’ve got one of those cool interviews coming up as well.

But I encourage you to visit the website wallbuilderslive.com. That’s also where you can make your one-time or monthly contribution. It takes fuel in the tank to get there, folks. So we appreciate all of you that have been donated to WallBuilders Live, make it possible for us to add stations and just continue to train pastors and young leaders and legislators and all the different things that we’re doing, including our Constitution Coach program, and teaching people biblical citizenship. Every time you donate to WallBuilders Live, you’re helping all of those various programs reach more people. So thanks for being a part of that.

Alright, David and Tim, we’ve got an amazing discovery out of Israel. And of course, we’ll get Omar [inaudible 01:55] on to talk about it later in the program. But you guys have been there many times and had the opportunity to visit a lot of these archaeological sites. So this has got to be pretty cool for you guys to see this discovery as well because you’ve been over there.

David:

Well, this was one that when it came out, it really got my attention because I read an article that said that on over in Israel where they have the Mountain of blessing and cursing, on the mountain of cursing, they found an early, early, early tablet earliest they found there that has some of the curses. And I thought that’s really cool. Because this now shows Deuteronomy to be accurate as now vindication of what happened when Moses stood the children of Israel in the two mountains and delivered the blessings and curses.

Tim:

Well, and at least it confirms that part of the story, right, which at that point, if you can confirm a significant detail of the story with an actual artifact, it gives reason for credibility for the rest of the story. And certainly, one of the great things about Israel is I think they’ve found more than 37,000 archaeological sites and they’ve excavated and dug several 1,000 of them. They just don’t have the finances or the time to continue digging in so many places.

But as was identified with this, whenever they do dig, they continue to find amazing things that confirm portions of the Bible. One of the things that our good buddy, Omar that Rick, you’re going to talk to you just a few minutes, one of the things that he has told us over and over and over is in all of the digs they have never discovered anything that is contradicted what the Bible said, that they found some things that the Bible didn’t detail because the Bible doesn’t tell you every part of everybody’s story, right and all of the history of the world. But it does make some very specific claims. And they’ve never found a single artifact to contradict any of the claims from the Bible.

On the contrary, every time they find an artifact related to the Bible, it is a confirmation of what the Bible says. And this is another great example of the confirmations from archaeology, from history, from these amazing old finds that they continue to dig up that looks to yet again confirm part of the story the Bible says.

This one, dad, as you mentioned in Deuteronomy 28, such a great passage, one that I have pointed many people to where we often point out and dad, you’ve talked many times before, but I think it’s Deuteronomy 6:33 where that everything that God commands…

David:

6:24

Tim:

6:24, I’m so glad you remember, I was making up numbers. Yes, Matthew 6:33, one of my favorite verses. But Deuteronomy 6:24, let’s go there and said Deuteronomy 6:24, where Moses reminds Israelites everything God has commanded you, it’s for your good. When you do a God says, it benefits you. 

And a lot of times we haven’t seen those connections. You get to Deuteronomy 28 and God made it very plain for the Israelites going in to the Promised Land, that guys, if you do it my way you will be blessed. And in fact, these blessings, they will chase you down, they will pursue you, they will overtake you, you can’t escape my blessings.

But if you don’t do it my way, if you try it your own way, if you reject my commands, it’s not going to go well for you. In fact, everything will crumble around you. Things that we’ve seen happen for many nations over the history of the world that America unfortunately has been experiencing over the last many decades as things are collapsing and crumbling around us. But yet again, Deuteronomy 28 is where it tells us that God is very plain if you do it his way, God’s ways work. And when we reject God’s ways, it doesn’t work. And this tablet goes back to the consequences of rejecting God’s ways.

David:

And it goes back. And it’s interesting, just the historical background. When the children of Israel came out of Egypt, they had been in slavery for 400 years. And the problem with 400 years of slavery is you act like a slave, you think like a slave, you behave like a slave, your expectations are like a slave. 

God gets them out in the wilderness and finally gets them to the mountain. He says, now, I’m going to change your thinking, and he gave them 613 laws. And so the 613 laws, when they finally apply that, made them of the greatest empire in the ancient world. But it took them a while to get there.

So when Moses tried to take the first group across, they were still thinking like slaves, and they wouldn’t blame God and they wouldn’t Him, and God said, no, that’s it. I’ve had it. We’re going to have a new generation come along. You guys going to wander in the wilderness 40 years, but your kids are going to get to go in. 

And so the book of Deuteronomy is old man, Moses, telling the kids that now it’s your time, you guys have been wandering around for 40 years, your parents are all dead, now you guys get to go in and here’s what God has told you. Here’s the 613 laws.

And so what happens is in Deuteronomy 11, he’s talking to the younger generation. And this is what he tells him. He says, when the Lord your God has brought you into the land you’re entering to possess, the Promised Land, he says, You’re to proclaim a Mount Gerizim, the blessings, and on Mount Ebal, the curses. So these are two mountains that are side by side in Israel. As you look at the Israeli horizon, you can see these two mountains, one is the mountain of blessings, and one is the mountain of curses.

And so as you get in Deuteronomy 28, they did that. They stood on Mount Gerizim and read all the blessings that God says if you’ll follow my word, Tim, as you said, Deuteronomy 6:24, if you’ll follow my word, these good things will happen. And then they went over to Mount Ebal, and they read the curses, says now, if you don’t follow our word, here’s what’s going to happen to you. And so it’s really clear, here’s the negative consequences of disobeying my word and here’s the positive consequences of obeying my word.

So this archaeological find, what they did was over on top of Mount Ebal, they found a really, really, really early piece of writing they contain one of the curses, and they said, oh, my goodness, look, here’s the curse on top of the mountain of cursing. This shows what the Bible says was right way back there in Deuteronomy. 

And so when I saw that and got the article, I said, look, we got to get Omar about this because he’s an archaeologist. He has been involved in so many archaeological digs over there. He ran the Dead Sea National Park, where they found all the Dead Sea Scrolls. And so this is the kind of stuff that’s really big to him.

And when we take groups to Israel, I mean, we got to have Omar because he knows more about what’s going on, he knows more about the Bible than nearly anybody in America I know of. And it’s just fun. Because you’ll walk to a place and he’ll say, well, this is what’s in this passage or this verse or this book. So get getting his perspective on this because this really does prove the Bible. I mean, this is a great finding, and it’s great to know that while we have faith, our faith is not just based on nothing. We actually have evidence under our faith and this is part of it.

Rick:

Omar [inaudible 08:14] is our special guest today. Stay with us, folks, we’ll be right back on WallBuilders Live.

AMERICAN HISTORY

This is Tim Barton from WallBuilders with another moment from American History. In 1963, the United States Supreme Court decided that voluntary Bible reading could no longer be part of the school day. Founding Father, Benjamin Rush, known as the “Father of Public Schools” under the Constitution, pointedly warn that the Bible should be read in schools and preference to all other books.

He specifically warned that if America ever cease promoting biblical principles in schools, then we would waste so much time and money and punishing crimes and take so little pains to prevent them. He was right. We now have 7 million Americans in prison on probation or on parole, and the United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world. Sadly, this was unnecessary, but is the result of no longer teaching the morals of the Bible in schools. For more information about the Founding Fathers’ views on the positive impact of the Bible in schools, go to Wallbuilders.com.

Rick:

Welcome back to WallBuilders Live. Thanks for staying with us today. Omar [inaudible 09:28] back with us. Always, if you get a chance to go to Israel with David and Tim, you get to meet Omar in-person and get to see these amazing places. But I get to talk to him on the phone every once in a while, get him here on the radio program to share with us. Always good to have you, brother. Thanks for some time.

Omar:

Thank you so much for having me back. Thank you. And shalom to everybody.

Rick:

Well, David and Tim said you got to get him on because they’ve deciphered this inscription, and it’s just another example of proving the existence of these things and the accuracy of these things. And David said Omar knows better than anybody else, get him on. So we want to pick your brain on this thing. So it’s some kind of an inscription that was found. Tell us about it.

Omar:

It’s not just some kind of an inscription. This is kind of like a knockout to anyone who disproved the Bible.

Rick:

It really?

Omar:

Oh, yeah. Oh yeah. This is one of the most important inscriptions that were found, I would say, in the past 50 years. This inscription is dated to the 13th century BCE, meaning the time of Joshua son of the Nun. And I tell what’s so special about it. It is clearly a Jewish inscription which goes along very, very well with the blessing and the curses of Moses. And what is the knockout, it’s very simple. Up until now, the oldest inscription in Hebrew that we found was dated to the 10th century BCE. So all the critics of the Bible said everything in the Bible, you know, Book of Joshua, Book of Judges, all of that cannot be that people wrote it in that time because they didn’t know how to read and write. This is Joshua.

So if we have inscription from the town of Joshua, then it means that the people who live there documented all the works of the Judges, which means that the text we have about Judges and Joshua, were given from first eyewitness because they knew how to read and write. This is an earthquake.

Rick:

Wow! Wow! So tell us what it says.

Omar:

So it’s basically a curse. Now we have to understand that occurs in the Bible is also a legal document. If you will do something wrong, God will punish you. This is basically a legal document between God and the children of Israel, exactly as the Bible speaks about. For example, if you will build an altar, you shall be cursed. If you will make a mask or picture, you will be cursed. If you will worship other gods, you will be cursed. 

But the big thing here, curses like this, we found all over the Middle East, all over. However, we also have the actual name of God. We have Yahweh, we need to see that name Yahweh. For any Canaanite, Yahweh means nothing. For the Jews, Yahweh is the actual name of God. So we have here exactly what the Bible speaks about.

Rick:

Wow. Alright. And how did this get found? I mean, who discovered this?

Omar:

Well, this place it’s the Joshua altar. So we know about this first for a long time. Ever since I would say 20 years ago, a little bit less than that, the Israel Ministry of Antiquity developed a special and unique form of 15 we’re using wet techniques, like we do in our study tools, we do that simple now that you can find very, very fine artifacts that you couldn’t do before. 20 years ago, there was no where they could find it.

Rick:

So who will keep this? What Museum is it going to go into?

Omar:

I bet it will go to the Israel Museum. This is as important. I think a discovery like this is almost as powerful as the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Rick:

Wow! Wow! Unless you’re a scholar of like you and others that are in this all the time, you don’t realize that something like this has that much significance. So this is really important to get this program out there and get people to know these things. Have you already heard some of the reverberations out there? I mean, how are people responding to it?

Omar:

Well, in Israel, it’s an earthquake. This is an earthquake. In any academic institute that searched the Bible, this is an earthquake. This proof all the assumptions of those who had any doubts about the Bible saying they couldn’t read and write. So if they cannot be that the story of the Judges, how would they know? Now, I’m going to give you an example for our listeners. 

One of the big assumption is that for those who bash the Bible, they said that if only during the 10th century, the book of Judges was written because they didn’t know how to read and write, however, now after we found this inscription, we know that the children in Israel knew how to read and  write also already in the desert because they just entered into the land, which means that the accounts that we read about in book of Judges were made by first eyewitnesses. Think how big this is?

Rick:

Yeah. So it’s not just verification of a particular scripture, it verifies that that entire time period existed and that those writings were from people that could read and write and that were in that exact area, right? I mean, am I understanding that right?

Omar:

This is verifying exactly as you said. Imagine those who bash the Bible say, okay, so the Bible, let’s go with their assumption. But they said the Jews know how to read and write only during the 10th century BCE. So let’s say they were going to come and say, how would you know that this is what Deborah said to [inaudible 15:16]? How would you know what Ehud son of Gara did with a double edged sword? How would you know that? Because it was 300, 400 years after the effect because the people of Israel knew how to read and write only during king David’s time. But this is not correct.

The people of Israel knew how to read and write doing Joshua time and even during the desert. Because don’t forget, we received the 10 Commandments, which were in writing, people knew how to read right even before Joshua, which means that people document. 

When you had the Battle of [inaudible 15:51] Deborah versus Cicera, the people of Israel documented that in writing, which means that the Bible that we read today was actually written back then by first eyewitnesses. That is just not just verifying one tablet. That verifies basically the books of the Bible.

Rick:

Huge! Man huge, that’s fantastic. So important that this kind of research continues and so thankful that you’re right there on top of it, and able to share with our listeners here and just appreciate you taking time to explain it to us, and can’t wait to meet you in Israel. One of these days, I’m going to get to come with David and Tim on that tour, and get to travel around with you there. But brother, appreciate your time today.

Omar:

Thank you so much. We’re actually working on tour. So yes, we’re going to do a special study tour. And we’re going to talk a lot about these kinds of discoveries. And actually, during the visit, we will do that, we’re 15. Actually, Gabby once found a coin from the temple. So it’s incredible

Rick:

I love it. I love it. Well, thank you, brother. God bless you. And thanks again for coming on. WallBuilders Live today.

Omar:

Thank you so much. God bless everybody. Thank you.

Rick:

Stay with us, folks. We’ll be right back with David and Tim Barton.

SUMMER INSTITUTE

Hey, guys, this is Tim Barton, I am interrupting the normal broadcast to bring you something pretty special. This summer, we are doing a special program for college aged students 18-25 year olds. And it’s something that is becoming more and more special based on where the climate is.

In the middle of a crazy culture, in the middle of a nation going in crazy directions and right now we’re seeing in academia where even Christian universities are promoting critical race theory, teaching the 1619 project, we want to do something to help equip young people the next generation, to know the truth, the truth of the Word of God, the truth of America, the truth of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the free market, we want to get into a lot of this. 

And this is something that if you are an 18-25 year old, or if you are a parent or grandparent, if you have an 18 or 25 year old, if you’re in church, you know 18-25 year olds, this program is something that can be life-changing for them, you want them to be a part. Go to wallbuilders.com and look for the summer institute to be part of this program.

Rick:

We’re back here on WalBuilders Live. Thanks for staying with us. And thanks to Omar [inaudible 18:15] for joining us once again. And back with David and Tim. Guys, I know this is for David, what you were talking about earlier, the blessings and the curses, just the fact that it reinforces essentially what we teach at WalBuilders, a culture can be blessed or cursed depending on the inputs; garbage in, garbage out; good stuff and good stuff out and this is more evidence that that’s exactly how God designed the system.

David:

Yeah, but can I point out that Omar did not go where I thought he was going to go? I thought it was going to be about the mount of blessing and cursing. He said, no, no. This is much bigger than that. This is like cataclysmic kind of stuff. This…

Rick:

It impacts all these other books of the Bible. I didn’t think about that either.

David:

I had not even thought about that. And by the way, one of the things that Omar points out, the way they deal with things in Israel is you have the Hebrew U approach, Hebrew University approach and they have the Tel Aviv University approach, and the Tel Aviv guy or the secularist, and they keep saying oh, nothing in the Bible’s right and they keep finding all the things it says, yeah, it is. They say nothing in the Bible is right except this. But everything else is wrong. And the Hebrew you guys say no, God said it and it’s right, and if He said in the Bible, we’re going to find evidence that is right.

And the Hebrew you guys keep getting proven right. I mean, they assume that what’s in the Bible is accurate. And as Tim pointed out early, there has been not a single piece of evidence found in these thousands of excavations that have disproved anything in the Bible. And the Tel Aviv University guys keeps saying, well, it’s all wrong except for what’s been proved right. But the rest of it’s wrong. And it keeps getting picked off.

And so I will tell you, I had never heard the argument that the early Israelites were illiterate and therefore could not write and therefore all the stuff back in Judges and Joshua and all that, it couldn’t be accurate. Somebody had to write it a lot later. And so when you come up with now the earliest known piece of Hebrew writing that goes all the way back to Joshua, would push them in the time of Moses, because they were contemporaries, they lived together. I mean, you have now changed everything about the apologetics of the Bible.

Tim:

It was interesting to when he said that this is as big, maybe bigger than the Dead Sea scrolls, and you’re like, wait a second, how can this be bigger? And to the point that you’re making, it’s a weird accusation to think that they’re at the time of Joshua, the time of Moses or wasn’t writing, because if you go back, right, Moses leads the Israelites out of Egypt. 

And backup several 100 years when you had Joseph who was second only to the pharaoh, right, he had been in Potiphar’s house and he goes to jail and finally, he’s out and then he saves them from the famine, all this kind of stuff, well, you largely believed in Egypt at the time, that there was writing, that there was a language, there was a written language at that time.

And so to imagine there’s a written language in Egypt, but not for the Israelites, that seems weird to me. But it reminds me a little bit of some of the accusations that we often hear about America and the founding fathers and things that were like, wait a second, if you just do some basic research that has some common sense, you realize so many accusations, whether it be against Christopher Columbus or George Washington or Thomas Jefferson. You go through some of these people that are being villainized today and you quickly do some basic study with real documents with real history, you realize this is not good attacks at all. They don’t make any sense.

And yet, these attacks unfortunately seem to stick in a lot of areas. And certainly, when it comes to the apologetics, the defense of the Bible, and Rick, you pointed out several times, one of the things that is so awesome about going to Israel, and one of the reasons we love going with Omar more than anybody else we’ve been with to this point, whenever we do tours with Omar is he will only take us places. 

We only stop where the sites we are stopping are confirmed archaeologically to have been biblical sites. Because there’s a lot of sites going back to some of the early history even going back to early Catholic Church, kind of stuff, where there was a lot of sites that are what are considered like traditional sites where this is where people remembered things traditionally.

And the reality is when they began to do archeological digs, they discovered some of the places that have been celebrated for hundreds of years are not actually historically where those things actually happened. So he says, we’re not going to go to traditional sites, we’re going to go to archaeologically confirmed Bible sites where through the digs, we know this is where the Bible is. And it’s why we love going with him so much.

So it’s very much where if somebody came and did a tour of one of our facilities and museums, and we say, hey, don’t take our word for it. Here are the actual documents. Here are the actual writings of the founding fathers. What we do for American history is what Omar does for the Bible and Israel. So it’s so amazing. And just in case anybody’s interested, in 2023, we are working in the spring of 2023 to have another trip going over there. 

Because at this point, a lot of where there had been some pretty rigorous, crazy vaccine requirement, whatever standards in Israel, pretty much all those are redacted. And we certainly think that by 2023, as we’ve already seen here in America where now the cloth muscles are coming off people on airplanes, we think a lot of restrictions will be really done away with, life will be normalized on some level, we hope and pray.

Nonetheless, we are planning for an Israel trip in 2023. We will try to give information out along the way on the WallBuilders website for people who want to go, definitely worth going. And guys, a few things to back to the Omer interview…

David:

And by the way, you can start budgeting right now, you’ve got till 2023. So start putting some money aside. And this is definitely not one of the more expensive Israel trips you’ll take. We really work to keep this thing economical. So you can start budgeting right now, plan for 2023. Going to Israel will change what you think about the Bible, it turns the Bible from a black and white program to a full color program. It is unbelievable what it will do.

Tim:

And guys, I know we’re almost out of time. I want to highlight a few things from the interview. So one of the things that even people might hear and feel a little different about, Omar several times talked about BCE, whether it’s 1100 BCE or 1000 BCE or 1300 BCE, and just so people know, Omar absolutely believes in Jesus. 

And if you even asked him like hey, so tell me about this, like BC versus BCE, and he says we have before the common era or like AC after the common era vs AD [inaudible 24:24] he says, you know, this is what we say over here because this is what how people use the terminology in Israel. He says but if you’ve asked them what changed what, made it go from before the common era to after the common era? 

He says obviously, it’s Jesus. And like this is the deciding factor. He says they want to change what BC or BCE means. That’s fine. It’s still centers around Jesus. So just as nobody gets caught up on that.

But one of the cool things even mentioned is that my wife, a couple of trips ago, we were able to do some he called a wet sifting where they take actual dirt that was below the Temple Mount and you get to go through the dirt. And so my wife Gabby, she and I and some pastor friends were at one of the stations and we’re hosing down the dirt and we’re sifting through it. 

An Amazing Discovery Out Of Israel – With Omer Eshel

And we found nails and coins and pottery, so many cool things, but a coin from all the way back to the time of Jesus that we found digging through this dirt. So just so many fun things, dad, as you mentioned, definitely something you want to budget for.

And God willing, we’ll take one of these trips every other year. So if you can go this next year, then it’s something you definitely want to budget for in the future. It is a trip of a lifetime. But guys, certainly cool to hear some additional details about why this find in Israel was even more significant than we initially do.

Rick:

Alright, folks, we are out of time for today. Thanks for joining us on WallBuilders Live. Once again, visit that website wallbuilderslive.com. You can make a one-time or monthly contribution there. You can get access to our archives. And you can also check out becoming a biblical citizenship coach or what we call it constitution coach. 

We got a lot of different versions of the course available to you. But we give it to you for free. How’s that for a good deal? Look, we’re going to equip you to be able to be the catalyst in your neighborhood, in your community, in your home. The catalyst for restoring biblical values and constitutional principles, and we give it to you for free, the training is free, all of it.

So check it out today at biblicalcitizens.com. That’s biblicalcitizens.com That course has Kirk Cameron, Charlie Kirk, David Barton, Tim Barton, Bob McEwen, I mean, all these folks are in there. And it’s a great way for you to learn a biblical perspective on how to be a good citizen right here in the United States of America.

Sure, appreciate you listening today. You’ve been listening to WallBuilders Live.