Remember how they told you the Bible was a fairy tale?
It turns out that the fairy tales keep coming true. 👇
Keep the name "Mount Ebal" in mind, because it will be important.
In 1982, Adam Zertal, an archaeologist at University of Haifa, completed a dig on Mount Ebal to unearth ancient stones that had been placed over religious altars on the mountain that dated to the Bronze and Iron Ages. As is typical with such digs, the excavated soil was dumped and preserved near the dig site in case it contained anything the archeologists missed.
Zertal died in 2015 at the age of 79, but in 2019, a team of scientists, including Scott Stripling of the Archaeological Studies Institute in Katy, Texas, sifted through a third of the dirt at Zertal's east dump site. In it, they found a folded lead tablet – a stone book of sorts that couldn't be opened without damaging whatever inscription was inside.
The scientists were able to use modern imaging, however, to get a look:
It measured 2x2 cm., and when folded it was 0.3 cm. thick, while the thickness of the single lead strip itself merely measures 0.4 mm. Indentations pocked the outside of the tablet. The Czech Republic's lab of X-ray tomography performed several reconstructions of the tablet, revealing that writing exists on the tablet's exterior and interior.
Here's what the tablet said:
"You are cursed by the God YHW."
Yikes! Curses?
If you don't know, the name "YHW" or "YHWH" is the word "Yahweh" (Semitic languages don't always write vowels), the name that God gave Himself when Moses asked Him during his encounter with the burning bush. It means "I am that I am."
The name "El" or "Elohim" was a generic name for a deity, like our word "god" today is used for many religions, but "Yahweh" was unique to the Israelites.
"The folded lead defixio, the subject of this paper, probably derived from the fill of the altars," the scientists wrote.
The altars and the tablet with the curse are linked, and the scientists believe the tablet dates from the 13th century B.C. based on analysis of the script.
Okay, now I'm about to blow your mind.
We have a tablet with a curse from an altar on Mount Ebal that dates to the 13th century B. C., which would be around the time when the Israelites fled Egypt.
Now let's turn to the Book of Deuteronomy, Chapter 11, starting with verse 26. These are the last instructions of Moses to his successor, Joshua, and the Israelites before they cross into the Promised Land.
See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse: the blessing, if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you today, and the curse, if you do not obey the commandments of the Lord your God, but turn aside from the way that I am commanding you today, to go after other gods that you have not known. And when the Lord your God brings you into the land that you are entering to take possession of it, you shall set the blessing on Mount Gerizim and the curse on Mount Ebal.
I've been to Mount Nebo, where Moses died. From there, you can see the Jordan Valley and the mountains of Israel to the west.
Moses told the people to set up two altars on opposing mountains – Gerizim and Ebal – as a reminder of the choice that lay before them in conquering the land ahead of them. It was a physical metaphor for the spiritual choice ahead of them.
Would they follow God's instructions, or would they go their own way? One path would lead to blessings, while the other would lead to curses.
After Moses died, Joshua did exactly as Moses commanded (Joshua 8:30-35):
Then Joshua built on Mount Ebal an altar to the Lord, the God of Israel, as Moses the servant of the Lord had commanded the Israelites. He built it according to what is written in the Book of the Law of Moses — an altar of uncut stones, on which no iron tool had been used. On it they offered to the Lord burnt offerings and sacrificed fellowship offerings. There, in the presence of the Israelites, Joshua wrote on stones a copy of the law of Moses. All the Israelites, with their elders, officials and judges, were standing on both sides of the ark of the covenant of the Lord, facing the Levitical priests who carried it. Both the foreigners living among them and the native-born were there. Half of the people stood in front of Mount Gerizim and half of them in front of Mount Ebal, as Moses the servant of the Lord had formerly commanded when he gave instructions to bless the people of Israel.
Afterward, Joshua read all the words of the law — the blessings and the curses — just as it is written in the Book of the Law. There was not a word of all that Moses had commanded that Joshua did not read to the whole assembly of Israel, including the women and children, and the foreigners who lived among them.
Which is easier to believe:
- That the Bible is a cosmic accident hashed together randomly over millennia, surviving by happenstance over the ages, with prophecies that are both narratively and scientifically accurate – being proven time and time again to be true?
- That the Bible is the actual Word of God, given to us as a history of humanity and God's redemptive work, and that the ridiculous accuracy of its ancient text proves it was divinely inspired?
Of course, not all the experts agree. There will be considerable debate around this, as with all biblical artifacts. But considering how wrong the expert class has been on everything lately – not to mention the "experts" in the 1800s who taught everyone that the Bible's historicity was completely bunk – don't be surprised if the skeptics are proven wrong in the end!
Here's the team of scientists who uncovered this bombshell discovery:
The finding has just been published in the journal Heritage Science by Prof. Gershon Galil, a researcher at in Jewish history and biblical studies at the University of Haifa; Scott Stripling of the Archaeological Studies Institute in Katy, Texas; Ivana Kumpova, Daniel Vavrik and Jaroslav Valach of the Institute of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics the Czech Academy of Sciences; and Pieter Gert van der Veen at the Department of Old Testament and Biblical Archaeology at the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz in Germany.
