Dan Olinger

Why Creation Matters, Part 4: The Sabbath

March 12, 2026 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1: Introduction | Part 2: From the Beginning | Part 3: The Flood 

Moses gives us one more application of Creation that I’d like to note. One of the Ten Commandments, the fourth, makes a direct reference to the creation as a basis for application to how we live. I note that two of the commandments—the second and the fourth—receive considerably more column inches than the others. (Not that any of the ten are “less” important than the others, of course.) The second, which forbids graven images, protects the holiness of God; since God is unlike any of his creatures, to make an image of him is to represent him as less than he actually is.

Does the fourth commandment do something similar? God says that his people are to honor the Sabbath—because he did. Interestingly, there is a second recounting of the Ten Commandments over in Exodus 31, where God says something that ought to get our attention. He says there that by resting on the seventh day, God “was refreshed” (Ex 31.17).

Now, God doesn’t get tired; he’s omnipotent. And creating the universe, even in just six days, was not at all taxing for him. But when he finished his astonishing work, since he had created time as well as space, he took some of that time to sit back and enjoy—take pleasure in—what he had created. We know, because he created sunsets, that he enjoys the beauty of sunsets; we know, because he created flowers, that he enjoys the beauty of flowers.

One of God’s attributes is aestheticism.

And because we are in his image, we should take the time to sit back and enjoy a job well done.

Aaaahhhh.

Is there more to it than that?

I note that in Israel, violating the Sabbath was a capital offense (Ex 31.14). Does God kill people for being insufficiently aesthetic?

I suppose, given enough time and thought, I could try to make a case for that, but I don’t think it’s necessary; these passages add further depth to the significance of the Sabbath.

God calls this practice “a Sabbath of rest” (Ex 31.15). We’ve noted that he was not tired at the end of the Creation week, so the seventh day did not serve as recuperative for him. But he knows that we, his people, whom he loves, do get tired, and as he provides all our other needs, he provides our need for proper rest and recovery from exertion. He goes further than that; he commands it. We must rest, as a sign of our relationship with our Creator God.

Work/life balance. It’s a thing.

We think we show our love for God by doing all the things. Well, if we love him, we do obey him. But we don’t show love for him by abusing ourselves in his service; we plan regular times of refreshment, of enjoying his presence and the beauty of where he has placed us in his created world.

Which brings us back to aesthetics, doesn’t it?

Some years ago I was blessed to visit in the home of a Messianic Jewish family in Arad, Israel, on a Friday evening. We gathered around the table for supper, joined hands, and sang their traditional song:

Shabbat shalom!
Shabbat shalom!
Shabbat shalom, shalom!
Shabbat shalom!

We smiled, and we circled the table, and I experienced newly the joy of entering into God’s Sabbath rest, receiving it as a precious gift, and delighting in it for itself alone.

How much we 9-to-5 commuters abandon, and unnecessarily.

I don’t have room here for a thorough discussion of Sabbath theology; there’s a lot more to it, and there are whole books on the topic, from both sabbatarian and non-sabbatarian perspectives, and in each of these directly opposing views there are strengths and motivations to appreciate. Suffice it to say that it is a deeply important concept—and the reason it is important is that it is rooted in the doctrine of Creation.

If we have no Creator, we have no provider; we have no meaningful beneficence; and we have no assurance that there is one who loves us perfectly, knowledgeably, and wisely for time and for eternity.

Rest.

Photo by Greg Rakozy on Unsplash

Why Creation Matters, Part 3: The Flood

March 9, 2026 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1: Introduction | Part 2: From the Beginning 

As Moses continues his narrative of beginnings, he comes quickly to an account of the Flood, God’s global judgment on human sin. Perhaps you’ve never noticed how thoroughly the flood account is imbued with Creation language.

The account begins with the observation that “man began to multiply on the face of the earth” (Gen 6.1)—which is a direct response to God’s command to multiply in Genesis 1.28. A few verses later (Gen 6.6), Moses states that God “repented” that he had made man on the earth. Thus Moses introduces the Flood as, in effect, God’s reversal of the Creation event: his Uncreation, if you will.

And so begins the account. God describes all the life he created in Genesis 1, using the same language: “man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air” (Gen 6.7)—“all flesh, wherein is the breath of life” (Gen 6.17). God orders Noah to preserve two of each of these life forms (Gen 6.20), specifying “male and female” (Gen 6.19).

As he continues his instructions, he specifies not just two, but fourteen–seven pairs–of the clean animals, again including both male and female (Gen 7.2), and specifying both beasts and fowl (Gen 7.2-3).

Sidebar: Some question why God specified 7 pairs of each clean beast—and some are completely unaware that this specification was even made. Why this command? Well, for starters, we’re told that upon exiting the ark, Noah made a large sacrifice (Gen 8.20), and after going to all that trouble to preserve breeding pairs, you don’t want to kill them. I also note that that dove eventually didn’t return to the ark (Gen 8.12). Further, I speculate that Noah and his family might have eaten some meat on the ark, and further, they may have wanted some breeding insurance for clean animals as the repopulation proceeded.

Back to our account.

As Noah and his family enter the ark, the Creation language is repeated (Gen 7.8-9). And then they wait for seven days until the rain starts (Gen 7.10). Is this intentionally matching the Creation week? Maybe.

Summarizing the entry into the ark, Moses recalls the Creation language of “after its / their kind” (Gen 7.14), “the breath of life” (Gen 7.15), and “male and female” (Gen 7.16). As the water rises and the death begins, Moses repeats the language: “of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man” (Gen 7.21, 23). He speaks further of “the face of the earth” (Gen 1.29) as the now-emptied home of animal life (Gen 7.23).

As the rain continues, “the waters prevailed, and were increased greatly upon the earth” (Gen 7.18). This too recalls Creation language; in the beginning the Spirit was on the face of the waters (Gen 1.2), and on the 2nd day God separated the land from the water. This gracious provision for life in the Creation week is now reversed; the means for life among land animals is removed, and all flesh “in whom is the breath of life” dies (Gen 7.22).

After the ark lands on dry ground, Noah waits for seven days (there’s that period again) to send out a dove (Gen 8.10), and another seven days (Gen 8.12) to sent it out (successfully) again. Is this an intentional doubling of the Creation week to imply the completeness of God’s restoration of his good Creation? I’m just suggesting this; we don’t have any way of being certain of the significance.

So on “the first day of the first month the waters were dried up from off the earth” (Gen 8.13)—for the second time (Gen 1.9-10). And into this new world “every living thing that is with thee, of all flesh, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth” emerge to “be fruitful, and multiply upon the earth” (Gen 8.17-18).

And the account closes by recounting God’s words: “seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease” (Gen 8.22).

Creation order is restored.

So we find that Creation and the Flood are intimately linked in the plan of God. In response to man’s sin, God undoes his miraculous creation—miraculously—and then returns it to its original state, despite the presence of sin. He shows his mercy more spectacularly than he did by creating humans to begin with. And he can do this, obviously, because he was capable of creating the cosmos in the first place.

Creation is the basis for mercy. It matters.

Photo by Greg Rakozy on Unsplash

Why Creation Matters, Part 2: From the Beginning

March 5, 2026 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1: Introduction

Moses himself, the author of the creation account, begins to interpret and apply it almost immediately. He finds his opportunity in two specific events: the initiation of the godly line, and the Great Flood.

After the account of the Fall (Gen 3) and the birth of Cain and Abel and Cain’s murder of Abel (Gen 4), Moses begins to trace the line of “the seed of the woman” (Gen 3.15). That line is clearly not through Abel, since he is dead and without any named offspring, and it’s clearly not Cain, the murderer and outcast (Gen 4.12), as his offspring Lamech demonstrates (Gen 4.23-24). So Eve has a third son, Seth (Gen 4.25), whose name means “to appoint,” implying that he is either “the seed of the woman” or the seed’s progenitor; indeed, shortly later “men began to call upon the name of the Lord” (Gen 4.26).

Moses chooses to begin chapter 5 by announcing a formal genealogy: “This is the book of the generations of Adam” (Gen 5.1). But at the beginning he chooses to spend some column inches on the birth of Seth, more than is usual in a genealogy. He begins by referring back to his creation account—specifically the key fact that Adam and Eve were created “in the likeness of God” (Gen 5.1). Borrowing almost precisely from his earlier language, he emphasizes that both Adam and Eve, both of whom are essential in producing the godly line, are created directly by God and are in his image (Gen 5.2). He even says that God “called their name Adam” (Gen 5.2), which sounds odd to us until we realize that the name “Adam” simply means “person” or “human” (e.g. Gen 2.5).

Now Moses applies that language to the birth of Seth:

And Adam … begat a son in his own likeness, after his image; and called his name Seth (Gen 5.3).

Likeness. And image. Just as God, so to speak, created “after his kind” (Gen 1.11), so Adam and Eve did as well. And this language is more specific than “after his kind”; it’s a mirror image in certain ways.

What’s the significance of this? It tells us that the image of God is not a “one-shot deal” effective for just a single generation or birth. It continues; Adam passes that image and likeness on to his offspring, who pass it on to theirs. We’re all, all of us, in that image and likeness.

We find evidences of that in later Scripture. The New Testament repeatedly describes man, or all mankind, as in the image and/or likeness of God (1Co 11.7; 15.49). It describes Christ as particularly in that image (2Co 3.18; 4.4; Co 1.15; He 1.3), and believers, who are “in Christ” (2Co 5.17), as further conformed to that image (Ro 8.29; 1Co 15.49; 2Co 3.18; Co 3.10).

I find it interesting that in the first reference to “image” in the New Testament, Jesus implies something further about its significance. In Matthew 22.20 and its Synoptic parallels (Mk 12.16; Lk 20.24), Jesus points out that since a coin bears the image of Caesar, it must belong to Caesar, and should be paid as a tax. What he does not say, but clearly has in mind, is that whatever bears the image of God—mankind—must then belong to God, and not to the state. We are his by right of creation, and he has marked us with his image—a brand, if you will—as visible evidence of that.

The first significance of creation, then—established from the very beginning—is that God is our Owner and Lord, whether we acknowledge that or not. I suspect that a significant motive in the invention of other creation stories is the desire to circumvent, even to suppress (Ro 1.18), that fundamental fact.

Photo by Greg Rakozy on Unsplash

Why Creation Matters, Part 1: Introduction

March 2, 2026 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Some years back, I wrote a series here explaining why I am (still!) a young-earth creationist, even though more and more of the cool kids are eating at a different lunch table. In evangelical academia, most scholars, while rejecting the atheistic evolution of, say, Richard Dawkins or the late Stephen Jay Gould, Carl Sagan, or Christopher Hitchens, have adopted one of two theistic accommodations of evolutionary theory: either theistic evolution, typified by Biologos and its founder Frances Collins (most famous for his time as leader of the Human Genome Project, which produced a fully mapped human genome in 2003); or what I would call discontinuous or punctuated evolution, typified by Hugh Ross’s Progressive Creationism, which posits that God worked direct acts of creation at points along the timeline that natural processes could not account for. (Theistic evolutionists are generally nearly as dismissive of Progressive Creationism, labeling it a “god of the gaps” solution, as they are of Young Earth Creationism, which they view as uneducated and therefore ignorant.)

I think it’s noteworthy that although evangelical scholars are generally old-earth creationists, the same cannot be said of the folks in the pew, or even outside the church: a 2024 Gallup poll recorded the most popular view as “God created humans in their present form” (37%); slightly fewer held that “humans evolved, God guided” (34%); and fewer still held that “humans evolved, God had no part (24%).” (Compare an earlier Pew Research Center survey here.) This spread is remarkable, given that public education has promoted atheistic evolution exclusively for well over half a century. I wonder whether there is something inherent in humans that resists atheistic “solutions”; it’s almost as though one has to go to college to be pressured away from it.

At any rate, the earlier series represents my thinking on the “age of the earth” question. Here I’d like to broaden and refocus the discussion a bit.

Some years ago my colleague (and doppelganger, before I grew a beard) Dr. Bill Lovegrove challenged the BJU university body, in a chapel message, to search the Scriptures for passages after the creation account in Genesis 1-2 that refer back to that account and draw some sort of conclusion or application from the fact that God is the Creator. I did that, and I’d like to share the results of that study here. Bill’s a scientist (engineer), but what he suggested is in fact a biblical theological study, which is where my training is; it’s right down my alley.

So where does the Bible refer to God as the Creator, or to the creation event, and then apply that truth in some way to our thinking or behavior? You might be surprised at how frequently, and broadly, it does that. Such passages appear in every section of the Hebrew Scriptures, the Tanakh—the Law, the Prophets (Former and Latter), and the Writings. They appear in the New Testament as well—the writings of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, as well as the epistles of Paul, Peter, and the author of Hebrews, and the apocalyptic book of Revelation. That covers all the biblical genres, as well as the entire biblical timeline, from the earliest narrative in Genesis and the oldest biblical book (Job, I think) through the exilic and post-exilic writers (Jeremiah and Nehemiah) and through the New Testament from Matthew to Revelation.

Because of the wealth of biblical data, I suspect this will be a long series. And that’s kind of the point.

This is not some minor doctrine. Creation matters.

Next time, the earliest biblical data.

Photo by Greg Rakozy on Unsplash

Archaeology, Part 10: Concluding Thoughts

February 26, 2026 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

In this series I’ve attempted to identify and describe the highlights of archaeological discoveries that help support the historical reliability of the biblical narrative. I define “highlights” by the discoveries’ historical significance, their level of detail, and their personal interest to me. :-)

Takeaways

Two things to notice about these.

The most significant, I suppose, is how unlikely it is that most of them would be forgeries. Forgers want to make a big splash. For example, in 1983 a German publication released a 62-volume set of diaries purported to be by Adolf Hitler. Some experts were convinced by them, and they stirred up a firestorm until they were debunked. Forgers get their reward by getting a lot of attention—and usually money.

Now, I suppose the Balaam inscriptions at Deir Alla might be suspect on these grounds (though in fact the majority of experts view the inscriptions as genuine), but what about the others? Nebo-Sarsekim? Asayahu? Even Baruch? (why not Jeremiah?) An Assyrian receipt for tribute paid by Judah in the 8^th century BC? Libyan soldiers in a relatively minor pharaoh’s army? An adoption tablet from a Mesopotamian city?

Not likely.

For many of these finds, their very triviality argues for genuineness.

A second observation is the distribution of these artifacts. They come from across the Near East, from Egypt to Iran to Syria. They come from throughout the timeline, from 2000 BC to about 535 BC.

The credibility of the biblical account is attested to by Israel’s neighbors, allies, friends and foes.

This is a very strong historical record.

Broader Examples

I’ve limited this selection of discoveries to a relatively narrow topic; there’s plenty available on other archaeological discoveries:

Dead Sea (Qumran) Scrolls

Hezekiah’s Tunnel

Galilee boat

Jerusalem’s Stepped Stone Structure

Jericho excavation

And on and on it goes.

Resources

There’s a lot more than I’ve delineated here. May I recommend a handful of resources?

James B. Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament (expensive; try a library search)

Titus Kennedy, Archaeology and the People of the Bible: Exploring the Evidence for the Historical Existence of Bible Characters

Bible Places blog (His photo collections are remarkable, too.)

Dessert

One more thing, just to cleanse the palate.

(Dessert doesn’t cleanse the palate, does it? Oh, well. Work with me here.)

In Acts, Luke describes the initial missionary journey of Saul/Paul and Barnabas. They were sent out from Antioch, Syria, and proceeded to preach their way across the island of Cyprus, which was Barnabas’s home. There they interacted with the Roman proconsul of the island, Sergius Paulus, who was then converted (Ac 13.6-7).

Interestingly, multiple inscriptions mention this person. Most particularly, an inscription at Soli, on the northwestern coast of the island, names “Paulus” as proconsul; this would be Sergius Paulus’s family name, so it does not identify him specifically; but this was precisely the time Sergius held that office. Other more specific inscriptions have been unearthed in Pisidian Antioch, which was the first place Paul and Barnabas went after leaving the island. If the proconsul had family roots there, he might well have opened doors to the two preachers for their next stop.

A little taste from the New Testament just to keep you interested.

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

Archaeology, Part 9: Babylon

February 23, 2026 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Skipped a week. I was sick. And am now delighted to be better.

During the century or so when Babylon dominated the Ancient Near East (roughly 6^th century BC), many artifacts testify to the accuracy of biblical history.

Nebo-Sarsekim Tablet

This small tablet, a little more than an inch wide and about half an inch tall, is clay inscribed with cuneiform, in the manner of the day. Found in Sippor, Iraq, on the southern outskirts of Baghdad, it is an archival report of a donation of 1.5 minas (about 27 troy ounces) of gold to the temple of the god Marduk in Babylon by a Babylonian military commander, “Samgar, Nebo-sarsechim the Rabsaris.” (I bet you saw that coming.) “Nebo-sarsechim” is the man’s name, and “Rab-saris,” “chief eunuch,” is his title.

In the archaeological community there’s broad agreement, not just among conservatives, that this is the official mentioned in Jeremiah 39.3.

Asayahu Bulla

In recent decades the Muslim officials who control the Temple Mount have been excavating dirt under the Mount and dumping it elsewhere in an effort to remove any evidence of Hebrew occupation of the Mount. An organization, The Temple Mount Sifting Project, has been formed to sift this displaced soil to recover any archaeological data. In July 2025 sifters found a bulla (see previous post) with a name, “Yedaiah, son of Asayahu,” clearly impressed on the front by a seal, and remarkably, a fingerprint on the back side.

There was an official named Asayahu (Asahiah) who served King Josiah in Jerusalem (2K 22.12). He was one of the officials involved in the king’s reaction to the discovery of the Scroll of the Law (probably Deuteronomy) in the renovation of the Temple in 621 BC. We can’t be certain that this is the same person, of course, but the fact that it is from Temple Mount soil does raise the odds considerably.

Lachish Letters

Excavations at Tel Lachish have uncovered several ostraca, or pottery fragments, with writing on them. As we’ve noted before, such fragments of broken pottery were frequently used as “paper” in the ancient world, since they were common, essentially free, and reasonably stable.

These ostraca consist of several letters written by a Judahite military officer to the chief commander at Lachish during the Babylonian invasion of Judah before its final destruction in 586 BC. Of particular note is Letter 4, in which the writer notes that he is not seeing the signal fires—which would indicate that the town was still standing against the Babylonians—from Azekah and Lachish.

That’s significant because in the biblical account, Azekah and Lachish were the last two cities to fall before Nebuchadnezzar besieged Jerusalem as the crowning act of his campaign in Judah (Jer 34.7).

Cyrus Cylinder

This is technically not a Babylonian document, though it is from the end of that era. Darius the Mede overthrew the city—and empire—of Babylon by invading the city during Belshazzar’s Feast (Dan 5.31). Shortly later Cyrus ascended to the throne.

Cyrus was relatively enlightened as ancient dictators go. While the Cylinder itself is in the British Museum, a copy is in the United Nations building in New York, displayed as a sort of ancient charter of democratic principles—but he was no proponent of democracy. However, it did occur to him that if the conquered and displaced peoples in his empire were happy, they might not revolt as much. So as a statement of his governing philosophy, he had this cylinder produced.

The text inscribed on the Cylinder describes the historical background of Cyrus’s rise to power and then declares his expectations moving forward. Most importantly, he states that displaced persons may return to their homelands and rebuild their temples. He does not mention the Jews in particular, but the statement is consistent with his eventual actions toward the Jews as recorded in Ezra 1.1-4.

Some concluding thoughts next time.

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

Archaeology, Part 8: Jerusalem

February 12, 2026 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Babylon invaded and sacked Nineveh, Assyria’s capital, in 612 BC to become the dominant power in the Ancient Near East. Just seven years later, in a last gasp, Egypt and Assyria joined forces and confronted Babylon at Carchemish, on the Euphrates north of Israel and Syria. Babylon walked away victorious; it would dominate the region for most of the next century.

In the meantime life went on in Jerusalem, with tribute payments now going to the new boss. As you would expect, archaeologists have found countless artifacts in Judah and specifically Jerusalem during this time. There are two that have particular relevance to this series, as connecting biblical and “secular” historical entities.

The Ketef Hinnom Scrolls

As Babylon was threatening to exile Judah, somebody died just southwest of Jerusalem, in the village of Ketef Hinnom, and was buried in the traditional way. About 26 centuries later, in 1979, an archaeologist named Gabriel Barkay discovered the burial chamber and found two small silver amulets, expensive versions of phylacteries, with just a bit of Scripture inside. What Scripture? Why, Numbers 6.24-26, the well-known Aaronic Blessing.

Why are these amulets significant?

First, they constitute the oldest written Scripture ever found, centuries older than the Dead Sea Scrolls. Second, they contain the name of Jehovah (YHWH), adding to the confirmed history of Israel’s use of the name. Third, they demonstrate that the Torah—or at least the Aaronic Blessing and the command to bind the Scriptures on your body (Dt 6.8)—was in existence and recognized as Scripture before the Babylonian Exile and thus during the First Temple Period, contrary to the imaginings of more radical biblical critics. And it correlates precisely with other Hebrew manuscripts, after the manner of the Dead Sea Scrolls—though the brevity of the quotations isn’t much data.

The Baruch Bullae

We all know that ancient documents were written on scrolls, which were rolled up for storage or transport. Many scrolls were also sealed with clay for security or authentication. For example, if the king sent out a pronouncement, recipients would need to know that the scroll was actually from the king, so he would impress his ring into the clay seal to verify its authenticity.

Over time the clay seal would dry out and harden. Archaeologists have found many of these seals, which look like simple small rocks to the untrained eye. But those with seal impressions can often be dated and tied to a specific event.

These “stones” are called bullae. In the 1970’s several bullae turned up bearing the name “Berechiahu, son of Neriahu, the scribe.” The Bible describes Jeremiah’s scribe as “Baruch, son of Neriah” (Jer 36.32). We know that names ending in “iah” (a reference to YHWH) often had a more formal spelling ending in “iahu” or “yahu.”

So is this a big deal?

Depends.

The bullae have what we call a “provenance problem.”

I said that they “turned up.” They were not found in situ, in an archaeological dig; they simply showed up in the antiquities market, like an old coin at a coin show. No one knows where they came from. And the antiquities market in Israel is loaded with fakes. We really can’t blame anyone for being suspicious.

Almost immediately some experts began to find reasons to suspect forgery. More recently a scholarly paper has argued that none of those reasons disprove the bullae’s authenticity, though it isn’t possible to prove authenticity either. (See the arguments pro and con at the link just above. One of the authors of that paper, by the way, is Gabriel Barkay, the discoverer of the Ketef Hinnom Scrolls.)

So. Maybe, maybe not.

Wouldn’t it be cool if the seals had been on Jeremiah’s first manuscript, which King Jehoiakim threw into the fire (Jer 36.23)? Or the title deed to the property Jeremiah bought to demonstrate his confidence that Judah would return from Babylon after 70 years (Jer 32.10)?

It sure would. But we’ll never know for sure in this life.

And in the next, maybe we’ll be focused on other things.

Next time, Babylon.

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

Archaeology, Part 7: Assyria

February 9, 2026 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

With Egypt’s decline in the 9^th century BC, Assyria rose to dominate the Ancient Near East. Its part in the biblical narrative is significant; it threatens both Israel and Judah, imposes tribute payments, and eventually attacks them both militarily, conquering Israel and exiling its leadership, and conquering much of Judah (2K 18.13) until its siege of Jerusalem is, um, interrupted by the Angel of the Lord (2K 19.35-37).

There are parallels in the ancient soil.

The Black Obelisk

The Black Obelisk was erected by Shalmanezer III (858-824 BC) to proclaim his fame, Ozymandius-style. Among other things, it includes carvings of five different kings paying tribute to him. The second of these is “Yaua of Bit Omri.” Elsewhere it refers to “Yahua, son of Hubiri.”

The Bible does relate that Jehu’s reign as king of Israel overlapped Shalmanezer III’s by nearly 30 years. However, he was not of the “house of [bit] Omri”; he was a commoner who took the throne by force (2K 9.13-14) from Joram, who was Omri’s descendant. Given Omri’s significance, it is easy to see that the Assyrian king might have gotten the genealogy wrong.

The Calah Inscription

A large number of inscriptions was unearthed at Calah (modern Nimrud, near Mosul), Iraq, in the mid-1800s. One of them, by Tiglath-Pileser III (745-727 BC; called “Pul” in the Bible,) mentions a biblical event:

“The land of Bit-Humria [literally Omri-Land, that is Israel] …all of its people […to] Assyria I carried off. Pekah, their king, [I/they ki]lled…and Hoshea [as king] I appointed over them. 10 talents of gold, x talents of silver, [with] their [property] I received from them and [to Assyria I carried] them off.”

This not only describes the deportation to Assyria, but it specifically mentions Pul’s replacing of Pekah with his puppet Hoshea (2K 15.29-39). The biblical account does not say here that Hoshea’s installation was at Pul’s insistence; perhaps it was, or perhaps the emperor just took credit for it. Megalomania was influential in those days.

The Taylor Cylinder

This is perhaps the most well-known Assyrian artifact having to do with the Bible. It describes Sennacherib’s siege of Jerusalem, which I mentioned at the beginning of this post. He besieges the city (2K 18.13ff), and Hezekiah prays to the Lord for deliverance (2K 19.14ff). God responds by slaughtering the entire besieging army as they sleep in their tents (2K 19.35ff), and Sennacherib returns to Nineveh.

The Taylor Cylinder describes this campaign from the perspective of Sennacherib himself. He lists all the cities he has conquered—and they are many. But when he comes to Jerusalem, which of course would be the greatest prize, he says simply,

“I locked [Hezekiah] up within Jerusalem, his royal city, like a bird in a cage. I surrounded him with earthworks, and made it unthinkable for him to exit by the city gate.”

But he does not say he conquered the city. And he does not describe the outcome; Ancient Near Eastern dictators were not inclined to say, “And then, you know, the oddest thing happened … ”

Tribute Sherd

 Emek Tzurim National Park is an area in the City of David, south of the Temple Mount, where soil from various archaeological sites is taken to be sifted for artifacts. In 2025 scholars published a significant find: a small sherd (piece of broken pottery, used for paper in those days) with cuneiform writing, dated to about 700 BC. Of course, cuneiform was a Mesopotamian, not Israelite, script. The clay appears to come from Nineveh or thereabouts.

The writing relates that Judah’s tribute payment is overdue. We know that Judah was paying tribute at this time, during the reigns of Hezekiah and Manasseh (2K 18.14). This places Assyrian dominance in Jerusalem in this period.

We’re seeing the connections between biblical and archaeological history grow more frequent—unsurprisingly, since more recent finds are likely to be more plentiful.

Next time, Jerusalem in the Babylonian period.

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

Archaeology, Part 6: Egypt vs Jerusalem

February 5, 2026 by Dan Olinger 1 Comment

Part 1: Introduction | Part 2: The Days of Abraham | Part 3: Egypt | Part 4: Canaan | Part 5: David

After David and Solomon, civil war split the kingdom into Northern (Israel) and Southern (Judah) entities. Both kingdoms fell into idolatry; God judged Israel with exile to Assyria in 722 BC, and Judah with exile to Babylon in 3 deportations, 606, 596, and 586 BC. Archaeological finds have spoken of biblical figures and places throughout the period.

During this time the Ancient Near East was a battleground among 3 competitors for King of the Hill: Egypt, Assyria, and (later) Babylon. During Solomon’s reign Egypt still dominated the region. When Solomon tried to kill Jeroboam toward the end of his reign, Shishak, king of Egypt, gave him asylum (1K 11.40). Later, when Rehoboam, Solomon’s son, was king, Shishak invaded Judah and besieged Jerusalem (1K 14.25; 2Ch 12.2). When the city’s residents humbled themselves and cried to God for help, he promised them deliverance (2Ch 12.7). Shishak did considerable looting, but he did not destroy the city (2Ch 12.9).

⁶Whereupon the princes of Israel and the king humbled themselves; and they said, The Lord is righteous. ⁷And when the Lord saw that they humbled themselves, the word of the Lord came to Shemaiah, saying, They have humbled themselves; therefore I will not destroy them, but I will grant them some deliverance; and my wrath shall not be poured out upon Jerusalem by the hand of \ Shishak. ⁸Nevertheless they shall be his servants; that they may know my service, and the service of the kingdoms of the countries. ⁹So Shishak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem, and took away the treasures of the house of the Lord, and the treasures of the king’s house; he took all: he carried away also the shields of gold which Solomon had made (2Ch 12.6-9).

Archaeologists have found several inscriptions mentioning a Pharaoh “Sheshonq” who reigned at this time. The most famous of these was found at a gateway called the Bubastite Portal, in Luxor, Egypt, at the Temple of Karnak. It lists the cities Sheshonq conquered in both Israel and Judah—more than 150 of them, including Megiddo, where a burn layer has been found from this period, indicating a major destruction.

But there is no contemporaneous burn layer from Jerusalem. And the inscription does not appear to mention that city, which of course would have been the biggest prize had it been captured.

But Megiddo? Another inscription was found there, in northern Israel, in 1925. Though little of the inscription remains, it does place Sheshonq in the area of Megiddo during the campaign described in the Bible, and consistent with the Bubastite inscription.

One other interesting coincidence between the archaeological record of Sheshonq and the biblical account: the Bible mentions that the invading force included “the Lubim” and “the Sukkiim” (2Ch 12.3). These were from we today call Libya, to the west of Egypt and across miles of the Sahara Desert. What were they doing there?

Well, the archaeological record shows that Sheshonq was not Egyptian, but Libyan; in fact he and his Pharaonic descendants are called “the Libyan Dynasty” by Egyptologists.

What I find especially interesting about these coincidences, and many other similar ones, is that they’re so minor. By that I mean that they’re not the kinds of things that a later forger would insert into the biblical account to make it seem legitimate.

Sukkiim?

Seriously?

As these finds and many others to come in this series robustly demonstrate, the Scripture is an accurate historical document.

Next time: Assyria.

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

Archaeology, Part 5: David 

February 2, 2026 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1: Introduction | Part 2: The Days of Abraham | Part 3: Egypt | Part 4: Canaan 

What followed the invasion of Canaan was a time of loose confederation that we call “the period of the Judges.”

Snippets from this period are recorded for us in, not surprisingly, the book of Judges. A repeated theme in that book is that “there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes” (Jdg 17.6; 18.1; 19.1; 21.25). Those days saw a regular cycle of apostasy, invasion, repentance, deliverance through a judge, and then apostasy again.

There are a good many archaeological finds from this period—what archaeologists call the Late Bronze and Early Iron Ages—but none that provide clear links to the wider “secular” history, so far as I am aware. No inscriptions naming any of the judges; no donkey jawbones with odd scratch marks.

Given the biblical theme, we should expect that the political situation would be unstable and that yearning for a king and the resultant stability would grow—similar, I suppose, to the way the US Articles of Confederation eventuated in a robust Constitution and balanced but limited federal government.

As we know, the first king, Saul, was a disappointment, but while he was still king, God had the prophet Samuel appoint his successor, the shepherd boy David (1S 16.12-13). David ended up reigning for 40 years, setting a standard that outshone all that followed, with the possible exception of his son Solomon.

We have some interesting archaeology referencing David.

Tel Dan Stele

For more than two centuries after the rise of rationalism in the 18^th century, biblical criticism viewed the David / Solomon stories as the stuff of legends, attempts by an insignificant Levant-based tribe to legitimize its past. No historical Saul or Goliath or Bathsheba or visit of the Queen of Sheba. No wise Solomon, and no David. Legends all.

Then, in 1993, archaeologists uncovered a paved courtyard in the northern city of Dan, which had been a worship center set up by Jeroboam I, the northern king after the split from Solomon’s son Rehoboam (1K 12.28-29). Upon turning over some of the paving stones, they found writing on the undersides. Three of the stones had been repurposed from a stele that had been broken up. The stele and inscription were ordered in the 9^th century BC, probably by Hazael, king of Syria/Damascus, in commemoration of his attack on the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. (You can understand why the memorial would have been broken up after Hazael’s dominance was over.)

The key element in the inscription is the king’s reference to “Ahaziah the son of Jehoram king of the house of David” (the phrase “the house of David” highlighted white in the photo linked above). This is the first known historical reference to David.

In the years since its discovery, there have been arguments over details of interpretation (as there pretty much always are in archaeology), but most scholars agree that this is a reference to King David, and that he was a historical figure.

Mesha Stele (Moabite Stone)

Mesha was king of Moab, just east of the Dead Sea, in the mid-9^th century BC, during and just after the reigns of Jehoshaphat in Judah and Ahab in Israel. This stele, discovered in 1868, has been recognized for decades as containing the earliest historical reference to YHWH, the God of Israel.

But after the discovery of the Tel Dan stele, scholars looked more closely at this artifact to see whether it too might contain a reference to the house (“BT”) of David (“DWD”). In “a badly damaged section” they found “BT[?]WD,” which would say that, if the damaged spot contained the letter “D.”

Maybe, maybe not.

(Yes, I just linked to a Wikipedia article, which is just not done in academic writing, but this article is actually pretty good.)

So David has been rescued from the mists of legend to actual historical status.

Ever onward.

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash