Archaeological Evidence

-Abraham in archaeology:.After calling Abraham and instructing him to leave the area he was born in, God guided him to the land of Canaan, now modern Israel. His descendants comprised the 12 tribes of Israel. They migrated to Egypt and were in bondage, returning 430 years later to settle Canaan.(map), the land promised to their forefathers:.Deuteronomy 34:1-5.

The Canaanites grew hostile toward the family of Jacob.(out of Jacob came the Israelites; Jacob's name was changed to Israel).as their size continued to increase:.Genesis 37:1,2.

Then, where did they go?

The Genesis 14 account of Abraham defeating a coalition of kings from the east fits with the geopolitical conditions of that and only that era. Before that time, the region of Mesopotamia was closely governed by the dynasties of Ur and after that time, the empires of Babylon and Assyria controlled the region.

Abraham and later Isaac, made a treaty with King Abimelech and Jacob made a treaty with Laban.."I have over 90 documents of ancient treaties and covenants.(agreements).to compare from B.C.E. 2600 down to B.C.E. 600"....Kenneth Kitchen, University of Liverpool, England told.Christianity Today Magazine (christianitytoday.com)."and so there's no room for mistake here.".The treaties, Kitchen explains, take distinctive forms over the centuries, with oaths and curses and stipulations being presented in different orders and being given different emphasis. The ones with Abimelech and Laban fit precisely the structure of treaties from the middle of the second millennium, but neither later nor earlier ones.

The names Yitzchak.(Isaac), Ya'akov.(Jacob), Yoseph.(Joseph) and Yishmael.(Ishmael).all begin with something linguists call the 'Amorite imperfective'. From studying lists of thousands of names found from the third millennium and later, Kitchen shows that 55 percent of the names during the time of the Patriarchs begin with an i / y sound, but already.'by 1500 the whole thing drops to a tiny percentage and never ceases dropping after that'..Where, Kitchen asks, did fiction writers of the middle of B.C.E. the first millennium get these names if they were composing their biblical novellas.(a short novel).a thousand or more years after the names had fallen from popular use?

Kitchen asks the same question about Genesis 37:28, which states that Joseph was sold by his brothers to slave traders for 20 silver shekels while on their way to Egypt. Tracking the price of slaves sold from B.C.E. 2400 to B.C.E. 400 and using extrabiblical sources, he finds that this amount matches exactly the going price in B.C.E. the eighteenth century. Steady inflation had driven it up to 30 shekels by the thirteenth century, which corresponds to Exodus 21:32; 50 shekels in the eighth century, which corresponds to 2Kings 15:20 and to nearly 100 shekels soon after the exile from Egypt in the sixth century.

It is worth noting that the practice of using forced labor for building projects is only documented for the period B.C.E. 1450 to 1200, the time most biblical historians place the Israelites in Egypt. The realization that there were others enslaved along with the Hebrews may explain who the 'mixed multitude' of Exodus 12:38 are who joined the freedom train..(for more on the Israelites coming out of Egypt see the article 'Did The Exodus Never Happen', in September 7, 1998, Christianity Today Magazine)

-David in archaeology:.Kings David and Solomon reigns spanned from about B.C.E. 1000 to B.C.E. 920.

In 1993, excavations at the ancient city of Dan.(named after one of the twelve tribes of ancient Israel).unEarthed a stone slab dating to 841 B.C. It contained the first ancient extrabiblical reference to the 'House Of David'.(a phrase used more than 20 times in the Old Testament). Discovered in two pieces the Tel Dan Stele stone slab is helping to muffle those who say King David was a myth. 

In addition, an ancient receipt.(in stone).for three shekels donated to the 'Temple of Yawweh' and King Solomon's pillars, gives us the oldest known reference outside the Bible to King Solomon's temple. And, a seal with Solomon's name on it could very well date to the 10th century B.C. when Solomon still lived. ...Journal for the Study of the Old Testament.

-Israel in archaeology:.On a seven foot high stone slab, Pharaoh.(one of the kings of Egypt).Merneptah.(also spelled Meneptah and Merenptah, son of Rameses II, B.C.E. 1203).boasted.(prematurely) that."Israel is laid waste and his seed is not". This was the first extrabiblical mention of Israel.

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