Monday 9 February 2009

[Sunday School] Day 5: topic 3 part 2

[cont']



A famous story in the OT. Hezekiah saw the invasion of Sennacherib, but he somehow fended off the powerful opponent.



The Sennacherib Prism tells a similar story. It says that Sennacherib took a lot of cities of Judah, and laid siege to Jerusalem, but it is interesting that it never says he succeeded in taking Jerusalem.



We have also found the tunnel associated with this story. Hezekiah feared that Sennacherib might cut off their water supply, so he dug a tunnel to channel water from Gihon Spring to inside the walls of Jerusalem.



In the tunnel, we found an inscription recording how the tunnel was dug. Apparently, they started digging on both ends of the tunnel and tried to meet in the middle, which sounds so ridiculously difficult, but they did it nonetheless somehow.



A seal that might have belonged to a subordinate of Jeroboam II, the Israelite king.



Possibly a seal that belonged to the last king of Israel.



Cool, a ring-seal!!



It might have belonged to the son of Hilkiah who found the "scroll of torah" (some scholars thought that this might be the Book of Deuteronomy) in the temple during the reign of Josiah.



This one was discovered from an official dig site, so it must be the real deal.



Might have belonged to the grandfather of Ezra.



This bulla might have belonged to Baruch, the secretary of Jeremiah.



A similar one, but with a portion of a fingerprint of someone.



Might have belonged to Jerehmeel the prince, who tried to arrest Jeremiah and Baruch.



Might have belonged to a contemporary of Jeremiah.

Now, we have seen a lot of archaeological finds that might have confirmed a number of details that are told in the OT. We have not "proved" the OT this way, because there are more things that can't be proved than those that can be proved. But I think, these things are cool to look at. At least much cooler than those fake stuff (e.g., Jesus' blood, the ark of Noah).

But to be fair, next time, we'll look at things that contradict the OT. Gird your loins!!!

[to be cont']

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