Archaeology Confirms Dates of Five Biblical Battles

February 6, 2023 By Dave Armstrong

Battles at Beth She’an (c. 926 BC), Beth Shemesh (c. 790 BC), Bethsaida & Kinneret (732 BC), and Lachish (701 BC) The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a peer reviewed journal of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), is one of the world’s most-cited and comprehensive multidisciplinary scientific journals. On 24 October 2022, it published the article, “Reconstructing biblical military campaigns using geomagnetic field data,” by Yoav Vaknin et al. It confirms some of the dates indicated in... Read more

Svendsen’s Dissertation on Mary: 2. “Brothers” of Jesus

February 2, 2023 By Dave Armstrong

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Including a Handy, Nine-Point Summary of Solid Exegetical Arguments for the “Cousins” Theory of Jesus’ “Brothers” Eric Svendsen is an anti-Catholic Protestant, who was, for a time, arguably the second most influential and active anti-Catholic polemicist online, after Bishop “Dr.” [???] James White. Then he suddenly vanished from the Internet in 2008. He had been indicating that he would do so as early as 2 November 2005, when he wrote on his blog that he was “packing it in” in large part because of “the... Read more

Svendsen’s Dissertation on Mary: 1. Preliminaries

February 2, 2023 By Dave Armstrong

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Including Explicit Biblical Indications or Analogies for Mary’s Universal Intercession and the Notion of “Fittingness” Eric Svendsen is an anti-Catholic Protestant, who was, for a time, arguably the second most influential and active anti-Catholic polemicist online, after Bishop “Dr.” [???] James White. Then he suddenly vanished from the Internet in 2008. He had been indicating that he would do so as early as 2 November 2005, when he wrote on his blog that he was “packing it in” in large... Read more

Archaeology & a Proto-Hebrew Language in 1800 BC

January 31, 2023 By Dave Armstrong

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An article in Haaretz: “Two 3,800-year-old Cuneiform Tablets Found in Iraq Give First Glimpse of Hebrew Precursor” (Ofer Aderet, 1-20-23), describes a very recent and exceptionally exciting discovery (I corrected a few typos): “This is something sensational. I’m excited,” says Professor Nathan Wasserman of the Hebrew University Institute of Archaeology and Department of Ancient Near Eastern Civilizations. His colleague from the Tel Aviv University Archeology Department, Professor Yoram (Yori) Cohen, calls it a “paradigm change” of “very fundamental significance,” and... Read more

Archaeology & King Rehoboam’s Wall in Lachish

January 31, 2023 By Dave Armstrong

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Toi Staff reported on this exciting archaeological discovery in The Times of Israel: “Archaeologist: Thick wall found at Lachish indicates King Solomon’s son built it” (4-23-19): Prof. Yosef Garfinkel, head of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s Institute of Archaeology, announced the find at a conference two weeks ago, . . . The discovery, he argued, bolsters the biblical account in the book of Chronicles of the city under 10th century BCE King Rehoboam’s reign, . . . “We looked in... Read more

Archaeology & Solomon’s Temple-Period Ivory

January 28, 2023 By Dave Armstrong

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[click to enlarge image] George Haddad reports on this new discovery in his article, “Period Ivories Discovered in the City of David” (Armstrong Institute of Biblical Archaeology, 9-7-22). He writes: Around 1,500 rare and ornate decorated ivory fragments were discovered in the City of David archaeological site known as the Givati Parking Lot excavations, located just southeast of the Old City, in an excavation led by Prof. Yuval Gadot of Tel Aviv University and Dr. Yiftah Shalev of the Israel... Read more

Polycarp vs. “Faith Alone” (vs. Jason Engwer)

January 27, 2023 By Dave Armstrong

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St. Polycarp (69-155) was the bishop of Smyrna, and was a disciple of St. John, according to St. Irenaeus (c. 130-c. 202) and Tertullian (c. 155-c. 220). Protestant apologist Jason Engwer, the main blogger at Triablogue, recently wrote the article, “Baptism and Justification in Polycarp” (1-26-23). This is my response to it. His words will be in blue, Polycarp’s in green. ***** Polycarp’s Letter To The Philippians [link] occasionally discusses soteriological issues, but not in a lot of depth. For... Read more

Archaeology & Judges-Era Lead & Tin Trade

January 26, 2023 By Dave Armstrong

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N. Yahalom-Mack et al, “Incised Late Bronze Age lead ingots from the southern anchorage of Caesarea,” Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports Volume 41, February 2022 [link], stated in their Abstract: Four lead ingots [dated to the 13th–early 12th century B.C.] were found as part of a shipwreck cargo in the southern anchorage of Caesarea in Israel. Analysis of the lead and a study of the markings incised on three of them are presented here for the first time. Four Cypro-Minoan... Read more

Sodom Obliterated

January 26, 2023 By Dave Armstrong

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Chapter Four from my Book, The Word Set in Stone: How Archaeology, Science, and History Back up the Bible [to be published by Catholic Answers Press on March 20, 2023; 320 pages] [pre-order from Amazon ($21.95 for the paperback) ] Then the Lord rained on Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven . . . and lo, the smoke of the land went up like the smoke of a furnace. —GENESIS 19:24, 28 Prior to the... Read more

Introduction for My Book: “The Word Set in Stone”

January 24, 2023 By Dave Armstrong

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+ Near Eastern Archaeological Periods and Timeline of the Patriarchs [click on the cover to see a much larger image] [to be published by Catholic Answers Press on March 20, 2023; 320 pages] [pre-order from Amazon ($21.95 for the paperback) ] Introduction What we may call biblical archaeology flourished from the 1930s to the 1950s, under the leadership of the great Methodist archaeologist and polymath William Foxwell Albright (1891–1971) and Jewish archaeologist and rabbi Nelson Glueck (1900–1971). In his 1959... Read more