A. Bones
will not be broken
David again wrote a
specific prophecy concerning Jesus death: “He keeps all his bones, not one of
them is broken” (Psalm 34:20). Then,
John records that, when “the soldiers came, and broke the legs of the first man
and of the other who was crucified with Him; but coming to Jesus, when they saw
that He was already dead, they did not break His legs” (John 19:32-33). This is unusual given the nature of
crucifixion. Victims needed to push up
using their legs to take a breath when on the cross. When hanging, they were unable to do so
effectively. This repeated pushing up to
breath, then slumping back down, continued agonizingly for days sometimes. To hasten death, the executioners broke the
victims’ legs so they would be unable to push up for a breath. In Jesus’ case, the soldiers recognized that
He was already dead, so this was unnecessary, fulfilling a prophecy made ten
centuries earlier.
B. Side will be pierced
The
fact that Jesus’ legs were not broken leads to another very specific prophecy. Zechariah wrote, “they will look on me whom
they have pierced” (Zechariah 12:10).
John then recorded that, “one of the soldiers pierced His side with a
spear, and immediately blood and water came out” (John 19:34). John then continues, “And he who has seen has
testified, and his testimony is true; and he knows that he is telling the
truth, so that you also may believe” indicating he was an eyewitness of these
events (John 19:35). Zechariah predicted
this about 550 years previous and John saw this firsthand.
C. Darkness over the
land
The
prophet Amos, around 760 B.C., recorded a prophecy from God which stated, “I
will make the sun go down at noon and make the earth dark in broad daylight”
(Amos 8:9). Then, when Jesus died,
Matthew recorded that, “from the sixth hour darkness fell upon all the land
until the ninth hour” (Matthew 27:45).
Not only is this mentioned by Matthew, an eyewitness, but it was also
recorded by Thallus, a Roman historian, writing possibly around 52 A.D. Unfortunately, Thallus’ work did not survive,
but was apparently extant in 221 A.D., when Julius Africanus wrote that,
“Thallus, in the third book of his histories, explains away this darkness as an
eclipse of the sun”.[1] This is further confirmation of the events
recorded in the Bible.
D. Resurrection
David predicted the
resurrection of Jesus Christ more than 1,000 years prior to His birth, when he
wrote, “For You will not abandon my soul to Sheol (the grave); nor will you
allow Your Holy One to undergo decay” (Psalm 16:10). Then, as the Apostle Paul pointed out, David
was obviously not referring to himself, because “David, after he had served the
purpose of God in his own generation, fell asleep, and was laid among his fathers
and underwent decay; but He whom God raised did not undergo decay” (Acts
10:36-37). The resurrection from the
dead of Jesus Christ was predicted in the Old Testament, further demonstrating
the Bible is from God.
I.
Archaeology
Many
archaeological discoveries made within the past 100 to 200 years validate
records written in the Bible over 2,000 years ago. Space does not permit a listing of all these,
but a few will suffice to illustrate that the Bible is a reliable and
trustworthy document, based in factual history.
A. Hittites
The
Hittite civilization was founded around 1,800 B.C., with the two great periods
of Hittite power having been around 1,800 B.C. and again about 1,400 to 1,200
B.C. This people-group then seem to have
disappeared around 717 B.C. when Carchemish was conquered by Sargon II and the
Hittite people were absorbed by the Assyrian empire.[2] The NASB version of the Bible mentions the Hittites 47 times from Genesis
through Ezekiel. Several mentions of
these people in the Bible are as follows:
1.
Genesis 23:10–11 - “Now Ephron was
sitting among the sons of Heth; and Ephron the Hittite answered Abraham in the
hearing of the sons of Heth; …, saying, ‘No, my lord, hear me; I give you the
field, and I give you the cave that is in it.”
2.
II Samuel 11:3 – “So
David sent and inquired about the woman. And one said, "Is this not
Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?"
3.
Exodus 33:2 – “"I will send an
angel before you and I will drive out the Canaanite, the Amorite, the Hittite, the Perizzite, the Hivite and
the Jebusite.”
This
may sound like dry stuff, but here’s the point:
For many centuries, the only record of the Hittite’s existence was in
the Bible. Because no documentation was
found of these people in secular historical records, the Biblical accounts were
doubted (standard operating procedure for liberal Biblical critics). Then, beginning in 1871, artifacts and
monuments began to surface. Enough
evidence was discovered that, in 1884, William Wright published The Empire of the Hittites and A. H.
Sayce published The Hittites – The Story
of a Forgotten Empire. A major
breakthrough occurred in 1906-07, when approximately 10,000 clay tablets were
found at Boghazkoi, which contained a wealth of information about these people.[3] When examining records of ancient
civilizations, some key points should be kept in mind. One of the leading experts on the Hittites,
Harry A. Hofner, formerly of Yale University, notes that “it is possible to
identify at least four distinct ethnic groups in antiquity to whom the name
‘Hittite’ has at some time been applied.”
At least two of these groups, the Hattians and the Nesites, are likely
not mentioned in the Bible.[4] Through extra-Biblical evidence, what the
Bible has stated for thousands of years has again been demonstrated to be
accurate.
B. Cyrus cylinder
The prophet Jeremiah, writing about 605 B.C., predicted the
captivity of the Israelites - and the exact length of that captivity - when he
stated, “This whole land will be a desolation and a horror, and these nations
will serve the king of Babylon seventy years” (Jeremiah 25:11). Jeremiah then predicted the return after 70
years of the people back to Israel: “For thus says the LORD, 'When seventy
years have been completed for Babylon, I will visit you and fulfill my good
word to you, to bring you back to this place’” (Jeremiah 29:10). About a hundred years earlier, around 705 B.C., the prophet Isaiah gave a very
specific prophecy stating, “It is I who says of Cyrus,
'He is my shepherd! And he will perform
all my desire and he declares of Jerusalem, 'She will be built,' and of the
temple, 'Your foundation will be laid'" (Isaiah 44:28). Nebuchadnezzar the Babylonian invaded
Palestine and carried off many captives, including Daniel and his three
friends. In 539 B.C., Babylon fell to
Cyrus the Great and four years later, after Cyrus issued a decree permitting
the rebuilding of the Jewish temple, the work began in Jerusalem. This was exactly 70 years after the beginning
of the captivity, exactly as the prophecy was stated by Jeremiah. Ezra 1:2-4 quotes the decree issued by Cyrus
allowing the return of the Jews and rebuilding of the temple. The very fact that he permitted this is
unusual and the truth of this was doubted by some scholars.
In 1973, French archaeologists found a large Persian stele (stone slab or pillar bearing an
inscription or design and serving as a monument) in a Greek temple at Xanthos,
Turkey which contained Aramaic, Greek, and Lycian writing. This stone containing cuneiform writing is
known as the Cyrus Cylinder. It is a
record of King Cyrus crediting his god Marduk with his success. Some of the writing records the return of
captives to their own lands to worship their own gods. This included the Jews, exactly as was
predicted by Jeremiah and Isaiah. Some
of the text of the Cyrus Cylinder is as follows:
“…I returned to [these] sacred cities
on the other side of the Tigris, the sanctuaries of which have been in ruins
for a long time … I [also] gathered all their [former] inhabitants and returned
[to them] their habitations… all the gods … brought into Bablyon … unharmed, in
their [former] chapels…”[5]
The
Cyrus cylinder, dated from approximately 538-529 B.C., housed in the British
Museum, is not only additional archaeological evidence for the historicity of
the Bible, but also of the divine nature of the Bible as seen in fulfilled prophecy.
Conclusion
It
is not necessary to take a blind leap of faith to believe the Bible is
accurate. Manuscript evidence shows the
Bible was reliably copied by scribes over many centuries. Historical accounts written in the Bible were
shown to be accurate centuries later by archaeological and extra-Biblical
historical evidence. Fulfilled
prophecies link the Old Testament and the New Testament, demonstrating the
veracity of both. Here’s the big
question we all must ask ourselves: If
it is reasonable to believe the Bible is true and inspired by God, what should
I do?
[Biblical
quotations are from the NASB version.]
[1]
Josh McDowell and Bill Wilson, He Walked Among Us (Nashville, TN: Thomas
Nelson, 1993), 35.
[2]
Josh McDowell, Evidence that Demands a Verdict, Volume II (San Bernadino,
CA: Here’s Life Publishers, 1975),
339-340.
[3]
Ibid.
[4]
Ibid., 341.
[5]
Randall Price, The Stones Cry Out (Eugene, OR:
Harvest House Publishers, 1997), 251-252.
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