♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ >> Thank you for tuning
in to "Digging for Truth," where we explore the truth
of the Bible and the Gospel of Jesus
of Nazareth. I'm your host, Henry Smith. Today we continue our
archeological journey through the Book of Judges with archaeologist
Dr. Scott Stripling
of the ABR staff and the director
of the Shiloh excavations. Well, Scott,
welcome back to the show. >> Hi, Henry.
It's good to be with you. There's a lot in Judges. >> There certainly is. And that's why we had to have
these two episodes together. So we had a wonderful time in our first part
of this journey. Let's continue our journey
through the Book of Judges. One of the things
that we wanted to talk about, some of the judges
are obscure to people, but one
that certainly isn't obscure is the man of the fleece. And that would be Gideon. Tell us a little bit
about him and what we might know from the archeological record
related to him. >> Well, we didn't know anything
until 2021. And this is why we were talking
in the last episode about... And we now know more
about Othniel. We also now know more
about Gideon. So you can only imagine in the
coming years the types of things that archaeology is
going to turn up. There was an ostracon that Yosef Garfinkel uncovered
at a site called Khirbet El-Rai, which is about two and a half
miles from Lachish. It was on a storage jar, and so we can date the type
of storage jar we were. They also did carbon dating
on the contents of the jar. Dates to around 1100. There were several fragments
of the jar, I think seven total, that three of which, when put together,
had the name Jerubbaal. Well, the Bible says that
this is another name for Gideon, and Gideon dates to around 1100. So, you know,
you dig into that a little bit. And the biblical story is
that Gideon destroys the town of Ofra, tears down their
Asherah poles and their altar,
so good for him. But then
the people are in an uproar that -- because he did
this, and Gideon's father sort of mocks them and says,
"Well, you know, if you think that's it, then let Baal contend with him,"
with Gideon, his son, which is what Jerubbaal,
Baal at the end, that's what that means -- the Lord --
the Lord contends with him. So Gideon goes by sometimes
the name Jerubbaal. And what do we find
on this -- what did they find
at Khirbet El-Rai? The name Jerubbaal. So, we don't know that it was
our Jerubbaal for sure. It could be, but we know that that was a name
that was in use at that time, and we now have it on a --
on an ostracon. >> Yeah, I was fascinated by
that when that was discovered. One of the -- Okay, so I heard you say
the pottery fits the biblical chronology. And the carbon 14 dating fits
the biblical chronology. Do we -- >> Oh, and the epigraphy,
by the way. So, the style of writing.
>> Okay. >> So it's a --
>> Threefold matrix. >> Threefold. So that's what we love to do,
is to triangulate when you're getting a date. So it's what normally
epigraphers is referred to a Proto-Canaanite script and morphing, they would
think, into a Hebrew script. We of course know that it's -- we actually have
a Hebrew script older than this, but so you're seeing this transitional script,
because Canaanites and Hebrews are using the same alphabet. And also a lot
of the same words. So it's that Proto-Canaanite,
Proto-Hebrew script. So really interesting. >> So it sort of fits together. Now have we found any -- do we
know if this was a common name, like, in any way? Has this name ever been found
elsewhere before? Is this unique as far
as we know? >> No, to my knowledge, it's first found there
and only found there. And that's really,
really interesting. With time, maybe we'll find other mentions of it
in other places, but we know it in the Bible and now we know it from
this ostracon. >> At the very least, if we --
we don't maybe want to jump and say it's Gideon himself, but it shows you the name
is using -- is being used contemporaneously with the
reference in the biblical text. Right place,
right time, et cetera. So really fascinating. And only in 2021, Scott.
So, you know, this is the thing that's so great
about archaeology. It's just, you know, truth
springs from the Earth, brother. And you picked the right field
to go into. >> I know. I'm having the time
of my life. >> I know you are.
I know you are. Okay, so now we want to shift a
little bit to a famous temple, the temple
of Baal-Berith. And I'll let you explain
what that is and where that is. >> Well, there's our
there's Baal again. So in remembering
Canaanite mythology, Baal is the storm god, and
he's the son of El and Asherah. And so we see his name
in Jerubbaal. And now we have the temple
of Baal-Berith. So, you know, it's a big deal. This is a major Canaanite deity. And there is a temple mentioned
three times in the Book of Judges,
chapters eight and nine, and it is at Shechem. So they seek refuge
in the temple of Baal-Berith. Well, in the excavations
at Shechem, indeed, a temple was found
that dated to that time period, and it's easily visible today. But folks can visit the site and
see the remains of that temple that's mentioned in
the Book of Judges. And I think the main thing
I want to underscore here, Henry, is that
the Book of Judges is dealing with real people,
real places, and real events. And so when we're talking
about these various judges, Othniel and Gideon and Jephthah and so forth, we have
archaeology that matches it. So these are
not just mythological and theological stories
that are, you know, written whole cloth and put together to give
us some sort of morality tale. They really happened.
>> Yeah, yeah. And a remarkable detail
of the text and what it is. And, folks, if they ever get an opportunity
to come to Shiloh to serve as a volunteer, we --
as long as circumstances allow, we almost always find a way
to get to Shechem, because you could go there
and see it. It's incredible,
the archeological discoveries that have been found there. Probably a less well-known
thing. I just want you to comment
on this for just a moment. We see the appearance
of villages in the central hill country that
sort of pop up 13th century, right in the middle
of the judges period. What's our
general interpretation of that in the archeological record
and the comparison to the text? >> Well, and those two do hold
to a late date for the exodus, would point to that. They would say, you know,
"Why do we have a proliferation
of the small villages in the Central Highlands
around the year 1200?" And indeed, that's what we do
at Khirbet el-Maqatir. You know, our site
was rebuilt around that time, maybe 40,
50 people living there. And there are hundreds
of those little villages that pop up. So I -- if we follow
the biblical text, the clues are embedded
in the text itself. When the Israelites came
into the land, remember Deuteronomy 7:7,
God said, "I did not choose you because
you were greater in number than these nations. I chose you
because you were few in number." And so I think you have
a small number of Israelites, and God told them,
"You're going to live in houses you did not build, you're going to occupy cities
you did not construct." And then throughout
the period of the judges, we do not see much
demographic growth because it says in the text that God is allowing them
to be defeated by their enemies. The curses in Deuteronomy are
your wives are not going to carry
children to term and so forth if you turn away from the Lord,
and they're continually, you know, going through
these cycles of apostasy and then repentance. But around the year 1200, they finally do reach sort of
a critical demographic growth, where now they have outgrown
these old Canaanite cities, and they have moved out
into the Central Highlands, where they had been nomadically,
or semi-nomadically, and they begin to construct what you would see
a normal demographic pattern. And our friend Titus Kennedy, incidentally, did his doctoral
dissertation on this topic of demographic patterns in
the late Bronze Age in Canaan. >> Yeah, it's good stuff. So it fits within the Bible, even stuff that's
not directly mentioned, just the context of what's
happening in the Scripture, the growth of Israel
as a nation. All right, Scott, well,
we do need to take a break, and we'll be right back
after this message. >> Hi. Welcome back
to "Digging for Truth." Dr. Scott Stripling is
with us today. We're talking about the Book
of Judges and archaeology. Okay, Scott, let's talk
about an interesting character that we're going to
sort of set up our next segment and we're going to talk about,
we promised people that we would talk about your
cutting-edge research on Shiloh. We're going to connect
these up together. Let's talk about
a guy named Jephthah, Judges chapter 11, and spend some time talking
about him. >> Yeah, he actually starts
in chapter 10 and goes into chapter 12. So it's pretty major period
of time. And Jephthah, as we might say,
was bad to the bone. So he's
in the Transjordan region. And in chapter 11, we have a really nice
synchronism that also supports the early
date of the Exodus and conquest. And in verse 26, Jephthah says
to the ammonite king who's trying to seize this land that, "The Israelites
have already been in this land," he said, "for 300 years." Well, if we date him to
around 1100, which everyone does,
and we add 300 years to it, that means around 1400, when they would have conquered
the Transjordan. And that is spot on
with what we read in the Bible. And so people who are trying to -- they don't
want to accept an early date. They've come up with
some critiques of that, so what you might say
opposition arguments. And one thing that has
been raised is that he mentions the wrong God here.
So, he says, "Your God" -- "Why didn't your god Chemosh
give this land to you?" And so folks have said,
"Wait a minute. That's not correct. That's -- Chemosh was not the
god of the of the Ammonites." So, shall we dig into that
a little bit? >> Yeah, let's do that. So, what's
that first implication? If he supposedly got
the god wrong, then maybe he got the
300 year marker wrong, as well? Is that the leap of logic
that's taken? That's kind of a fallacy. That's a fallacy, isn't it? >> He's an unreliable source
is what they would say. He's proven that he
doesn't know what's going on because he doesn't even know
who their God was, because he's a country bumpkin,
is what they would say. He's an unreliable source. >> We call
that a person ad hominem. That's not
a very good argument. Even a broken clock --
>> I don't think would say that to Jephthah's face, by the way, because he was -- he was
a pretty bad dude. >> Yeah, yeah. Even a broken clock is
right twice a day, right? So, okay,
so this god, Chemosh, the claim here is that
this is not the Ammonite god. And so therefore Jephthah
is an error. Explore
that a little bit more. Tell us your thoughts on that and what we might -- might be a more nuanced view
of that. >> The gods of the surrounding
nations are all interesting. And sometimes there's
different names, same god, you know,
going by different names. This Transjordan region, this
was originally Moabite land. It then was conquered
by the Amorites. The Israelites then conquered
the Amorites when they arrived
at Sihon and Og. So you've got a change of
possession, just like, you know, I'm in Texas. We've got
six flags over Texas, you know, different entities that
have ruled Texas over the years. So you had Moabites were
in charge. They had one set of gods. Then you had Amorites who came
in with some different gods, and then they're conquered
by the Israelites, who are, of course,
monotheistic, at least most of the time. So the god of
the Ammonites, who never controlled
the territory, incidentally. So it's Moabites, Amorites,
Israelites. Ammonites never had control
of it. So their god is Moloch. So the critics would say that Jephthah should have said,
"Your God Moloch." But I think, Henry, what he's doing
is he's poking fun at them. He's saying,
"Your god Chemosh -- Chemosh," in other words, "Oh, you must --
you must not be Ammonites. You must be Moabites,
your god Chemosh, because they could make
a claim to it because they used to control
this, but you guys never have." >> Yeah, yeah.
So a couple of things there. One is there might be more --
you're suggesting there might be more nuance,
there could be sarcasm that's involved here. But even
if he just made a blunder... Let's just maybe -- If we conceded that
for the sake of argument, that doesn't mean that the
300 year figure is a blunder, which we mentioned already. So it's really kind of like
much ado about nothing, almost. I mean, right?
>> Yeah. >> I mean, and when you're
quoting a person from the past, you want to try to,
"How -- Can we find a way that this person may
be speaking truthfully before we proclaim
that they're wrong or lying?" Maybe tell -- talk about that
a little bit. >> Well, even if you
said this intentionally, these gods can be worshiped
in multiple cultures. And so it very well
could have been that Chemosh was being
worshiped also at that time and we just don't know about it. And we have numerous examples
of this across cultures with Marduk
and other gods, as well. Real quickly, I have written
the archeological supplement for a new study Bible
that'll be coming out by -- hopefully
by the end of this year called "The Open Study Bible." And I have a section on that
in there. So folks who are interested
can keep an eye out for "The Open Study Bible"
coming down the pike from HarperCollins
later this year. >> Oh, well that's fantastic. Okay, so now, people have heard
us mentioned a couple of times here about this original
research related to Shiloh and the Amarna letters
and sort of -- So let's give an introduction
to that, Scott. And then in our last segment, we're going to explore
that further together. Maybe about a minute
if you would, boss. >> Okay. Well, here's the thing. Jephthah is still the judge
in view. And we were dealing with
El-Amarna 288. And EA 288 refers to Silu. So it's one of the letters from
Abdi-Heba, King of Jerusalem, and he's crying out to Pharaoh
for help, and he's saying that
these other sites have fallen. And he mentions, for example,
Lachish. And then he says Silu will -- Critics like Albright and Hofmeyr and others
have tried -- I guess maybe critics isn't
the right word. I'll just say that some scholars
have identified Silu with a fort down in Egypt. And this is --
Rainey also recently. So even though Conder,
who was in the 1880s, 1890s, he was the first one
to ever write about this, he identified it as Shiloh, but that has been deeply lost
in the research. And in the last several
generations, there's been this sort of
general agreement that Silu is referring
to Shiloh. And that's what I want to talk
about in the next segment. >> All right.
Well, we're going to do that. We're going to take a quick
break, and we'll be right back. >> Hi. Welcome back
to "Digging for Truth." Dr. Scott Stripling is
here with us talking about the archaeology
of the judges period. Now, Scott, you've been doing some
really original research on this question of,
does the name Shiloh appear
in the Amarna letters? And you've set that
up already in our last segment. Let's talk some more about that. I'm dying to know more. >> Clyde Billington
and I have just co-authored an article on this topic, which will be included
in the new Festschrift that the nearest archeological
society is publishing for Edwin Yamauchi
in honor of his 90th birthday. And in our research,
we were trying to look at -- it seemed clear that
Silu does refer to Shiloh, even though Rainey and Moran
and others had identified it
with this fort down in Egypt. And there's a number of problems
with it being a fort in Egypt. Like, why would Pharaoh
need to be notified that a fort in Egypt
was under attack? And if it's a fort, aren't there soldiers that
are stationed there already? And there's no other site
in Egypt mentioned in any of the
382 Amarna letters. So if it was, then it's the only
one that would have this. And so just lots of -- lots
of problems with this. And it seemed to fit
very naturally that the king of Jerusalem, which is just 19 miles
from Shiloh, would be informing --
that's his job, is to inform Pharaoh
of what's going on around him. So at Lachish and at Shiloh. So as I dug into this,
I found a lot of reasons to believe that
that was indeed the case. But I thought -- One thing
that bothered me was the "S" and the "S-H" sound. So, we have -- In Hebrew, both sounds exist, "S-H" and
"S," but not all letters -- not all languages have both. So in the Amarna tablet
288, it says Silu, but in the Bible it's Shiloh. Shiloh. So why isn't there
an "S-H" sound? And so Clyde and I
were grappling with this. And we're looking at Eukaryotic
and, you know, languages of surrounding
countries and so forth. And lo and behold, it was right there in chapter 12
of Judges dealing with our old friend Jephthah. >> Okay.
So, tell us about that. I'm just going to let
you go with it. Go for it. >> Okay.
Well, here's what happens. As I said,
Jephthah is in the Transjordan. The men of Ephraim territory, which is
where Shiloh is located, central hill country,
large area, the men of Ephraim
cross over the Jordan River from the West to the East. They have a battle with
Jephthah, and they lose. They get beaten badly, and they are retreating
across the Jordan to go back to Ephraim territory, the primary city
of which is Shiloh. And so what Jephthah does is
he sets up a checkpoint at the border,
at the fjords of the Jordan, and anyone who's trying to cross
over, they say to the men -- this is a really curious story, Judges 12 1:7 --
say, "Shibboleth." And if they say Sibboleth, they cannot pronounce
the "S-H" sound. Then Jephthah and his men
kill him. They put them to death. In other words, they're
from Ephraim territory. They're the enemy at this point if they cannot pronounce
the "S-H" sound. So what this tells us is that
there is a dialect of Hebrew spoken at this time, where there is no "S-H" sound. That's what the Bible says. And what do we have
in the Amarna letters synchronizing with this? We have Silu, and it's written
from the people of Ephraim. So how do they pronounce Shiloh? They pronounce it as Silu. And so this is what was
so fascinating to us, that the answer wasn't
in the Eukaryotic. The answer was right there
in the biblical text. >> Right there
in the Hebrew Bible. Okay. So let's explore
this a little bit more. Tell the audience
what a shibboleth is, what does that mean, and it does seem like
a strange story, you know, because it's
so foreign to our context. A little bit --
Maybe a little bit about that. >> Yeah. Well, I don't remember
what a shibboleth is. But I know it's a term. It's an idiomatic expression
that we use even in English, like when we say "a shibboleth," you know, somebody can't
pronounce something correctly. >> Yeah, yeah. >> And, you know, I've read
that story so many times, and I never thought
that it would come to bear in archeological research. >> Yeah.
It's so interesting, too, the -- You know, it's hard to imagine,
why would you kill people just because you can't pronounce
a word? But it has to do with
this war that's going on. This is part of the picture of
the judges period, too, Scott. Like, this is the degradation
and depravity of what's happening
to the Israelites because of the idolatry. They're killing each other.
It's -- It's tragic. >> Well,
I think that Abdi-Heba, the king of Jerusalem, when he has heard the people
of Ephraim pronounce where they live, they pronounce
it without the "S-H" sound. It's later written with
the niqqud dots and so forth. It's later written
into the Hebrew text as "S-H." But at the time, it would have
been pronounced as Silu. You see it on the map,
for example too, which is written in Greek,
Silu, where the ark stayed. So some languages,
like Latin and Greek, do not have the "S-H" sound.
Hebrew does. This explains it to us that one of the dialects of
Hebrew being spoken at that time --
Just like even today, we have regional dialects
in the United States where we pronounce
some words differently. They clearly have that
at that time. >> Excellent, excellent. One of the nuances
of language. And right there, the answer's
in the biblical text. And it's contemporaneous.
It's at that time period. So it kind of gives you
a picture of, what would it be, a grammar or a lexicon snapshot of, "Hey,
they said it this way." And then we have this tablet
that fits with Shiloh. I love it, Scott.
It's just so intriguing. Can't wait to read that
when it comes out. >> One more thing.
>> Sure. >> Since we now know this, that places the -- the dating
of that story, it places it for us very nicely. And it also synchronizes well
with the Amarna letters and the early date
for the Exodus, because we can date
those Amarna tablets. >> Yeah, it all fits in nicely.
Okay, Scott. Well, it's been quite
a journey through Judges. I can give you
about a minute just to summarize the importance of all this. I know it's a tough task,
but please go for it. >> Well,
Judges is a continuation. It's not like the conquest ends
in the Book of Joshua. And we see this with
Othniel, the very first judge. He is a direct descendant
of Caleb. And so it's a continuation where they are continuing
to gradually possess the land. The problem is sin. And so as they apostatize
and turn away from the Lord, they're falling
under judgment. They're being conquered. Then at times
God's raising up judges. Interestingly, we have
synchronisms with a number of these judges
that are mentioned that we were
able to talk about today. And so it's fascinating to see that when we read
the Book of Judges, we're dealing with real people,
real places, real events. Those of us working in
the highlands of Israel encounter them quite a bit. >> Amen. Well, Scott,
thanks for all the hard work and for coming on the show and just doing an excellent job
of teaching us and uplifting us and edifying us to believe what
God has said in the Scriptures. I love you, man.
Appreciate you. >> My pleasure.
Blessings, Henry. >> All right. Well, friends,
thank you for watching "Digging for Truth" today. You know, the word that
you use to describe the judges is "deliverers" in
the Old Testament. This is the same word that
refers to the Messiah, a deliverer. But in the case of the judges,
the deliverer is only temporary. The situation remains
the deliverer dies, and then the people go back
to apostasy. Well, in the case,
we have a deliverer named Jesus who permanently delivers us
from the dominion of sin. And when he returns and comes
back to inaugurate a new heavens and new Earth,
we'll have a situation where we'll never fall back into
those kind of conditions again. We hope you'll consider
this truth today. And thank you for supporting
the ministry of ABR. ♪♪
