David & Solomon

I am enjoying my archaeology class so much! We finished the beginning of the Iron Age, the period of the united monarchy in Israel and shot through 500 years of the divided monarchy to the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem in the matter of about 45 minutes because my professor wanted to make sure we got into the time of Jesus. You think he might be a believer? We finished last week with King Herod’s rebuilding of the Temple Mount. It has been awesome. I am learning so much. The readings have been amazing. And next Tuesday (April 29th) is the last day of classes. I’m so sad. I really want to take this class again. If it weren’t for the drive to College Station and the fact that I’ll have graduated and won’t be a student at the university, I would. I am going to have to look into Concordia and see what classes they teach. I know they have an Old Testament class. Of course it won’t be the same as Archaeology of the Bible, because I really like the archaeological evidence that proves it. But I would still be learning about the Bible.

This weekend I read about the closest parallel to Solomon’s Temple found to date and a third reference to King David found on a pharaonic mortuary relief in Egypt. It’s just amazing! And these articles, written by scholars, archaeologists, trusted experts in their fields, state over and over again how the archaeological evidence corroborates the Biblical record. My professor was exactly right when he told us a few weeks ago when we started this new section that we could use the Bible as a guide from here on out. It was so cool last Thursday when he got so excited explaining to us three separate extra-Biblical sources found in the archaeological record regarding the measures King Hezekiah took to strengthen and protect the city of Jerusalem from attack by the Assyrian Sennacherib. We thought he was going to jump up and down. It was exciting. Find after find illustrating the same stories we can read in the Bible. It’s just unbelievably exciting. This class has made archaeology so much more for me and higher learning well worth it. I really want to go to Jerusalem now.