King Ahab: Digging for Truth Episode 99

hi welcome to digging for truth i'm your co-host henry smith and on digging for truth we love talking about the authority accuracy and reliability of the bible today we're going to be talking about one of the most famous kings of israel king ahab and brian wendell abr staff member is here to talk about the life of ahab and what he calls another bio archaeography welcome back brian thanks so much henry great to be with you again i know it's great to have you now we're going to uh well first question we got to ask is okay you have this word that you invented we've talked about this in other episodes what is a bio-archaeography well yeah like you mentioned it's a word i made up basically combining the words archaeology and biography and so bio bioarchaeography is using the archaeology of someone's life to tell their story of their life and so um we'll we'll see if it catches on but i've been doing bioarchaeography of various people who are named in scripture on my blog at biblearchaeologyreport.com all right well that's great we well we love it we invent some new words it's a lot of fun okay so we're going to talk about not captain ahab but king ahab today right captain ahab of moby dick fame but but what does the bible say about this famous king well in short he was infamous for sure he was the most wicked king that israel had scripture records this about his life it says in the 38th year of asa king of judah ahab the son of omri began to reign over israel and ahab the son of omri reigned over israel and samaria 22 years and ahab the son of omri did evil in the sight of the lord more than all who were before him and it says that he did more to anger the lord the god of israel than the than all of the other kings who were before him did to anger the god of israel and if you uh know during the divided monarchy third time where there was a king in israel and the king of judah people have noted that often the kings of judah were fairly faithful but the kings of israel were consistently wicked and so to have ahab being the most wicked more than any of the other kings of israel is really saying something yeah what a thing to have written in for all time about your character now um so his father was omri ahab was king between 874 and 853 bc we're gonna put those dates up on the screen i would mention by the way just as a as a side note for our audience in the uh books of first second kings and chronicles there are 124 synchronisms dates written about between the kings of each area of israel and they all synchronize with each other we have an article on our website that talks about that by roger young it shows the inerrancy of the bible but that's for another day here we're going to talk about evidence from outside the bible related to abe hab why don't you tell the audience about the kirk monolith what is the kirk monolith well it's a really important inscription we have in the biblical text mentions of assyrian kings if we go to the assyrian texts what we have is mention of israelite and judahite kings and so this is a an inscription that was set up by shalmaneser iii he fought a battle against a coalition of western kings near qakar in modern-day syria and he felt that he won the battle although that might be a little questionable historically and he set up this particular monument for his victory and in the inscription he names some of the kings that he fought against and one of them is ahab the israelite he's one of the the kings that actually had one of the strongest forces the inscription says that he had two thousand chariots and ten thousand soldiers and uh so while um shamanizer the third and the battle of qakar are not mentioned in scripture this inscription the kirk monolith is really important first it gives us clear confirmation that ahab was king of israel secondly it testifies to his wealth and power at this time omri his father had had taken a kingdom of israel that was that was in in in that was fractured and really brought it together and ahab continued to build it and was really quite strong at this time and we we have evidence of that now in this inscription and the battle of kharkar can actually be dated it's dated to 853 bc so we know that king ahab must have been alive at least in 853 bc yeah you know one of the many things about these assyrian records that have been discovered is that they have very precise dates because they recorded astronomical phenomenon like eclipses and such so we can get these dates right down to the very year and what's remarkable is when we look at the assyrian records they're very accurate and then we compare them to 124 different synchronisms that are found in the divided kingdom and they match up with each other yeah and there's actually another inscription that likely refers to ahab as well very famous inscription the tel dan inscription is an aramean inscription and it's famous of course because it has the phrase house of david on it um there's uh the king of aram who is boasting that he killed um someone whose last name ends in ram the son of and we're missing that part king of israel as well as the king of the house of david well the only king that makes sense in there is joram and joram was the son of ahab and so scholars have reconstructed this to read the only really plausible reconstruction kenneth kitchen points out is that he's claiming to kill have killed joram the son of ahab the king of israel and so even though his name is in a is missing in a part that is damaged almost certainly that's another inscription that refers to king ahab you know it's it's it's interesting when you when you think about this now we have ahab in other the kirk monolith and now presumably was in this inscription in this very same inscription we have the name of david and scholars go no no no that can't say david that means something something different uh you know ahab is okay but dave david we can't admit that he was uh on the steel it's kind of an interesting sort of tension there in my mind uh what do you think about that well i think we all come at our scholarship and our studies with a bias i have found at least those who are on the side of scripture where we see that scripture is historically reliable are quite happy to admit that we have that bias when we study things i have not really seen that same admission from people on the other side and so for this particular inscription those who are minimalists who do not want to see a king david of a house of david a great dynasty will try and do anything they can to make that say something else but the general consensus of scholarship is that it does indeed say the house of david you can't get around it yeah you know the question is human beings are flawed fallible limited now archaeologists and historians can be quite intelligent but the bottom line is is not whether or not we're biased it's whether or not what is the right bias to have and in our argument it would be be biased in favor of the word of god because it comes from an infinite eternal always correct being when he speaks and that's a that's a good argument for us to make philosophically and with that thought folks uh we're going to be right back in just a few moments we're going to be talking about king haihab and his kingdom in israel in a culture of intense bible-denying skepticism associates for biblical research exists to strengthen followers of jesus by affirming the authority of the bible our archaeological field work and original research form a strong foundation in upholding the reliability of the scriptures for students or anyone asking if they can really trust the bible please visit our website and partner with us by joining our prayer team or financially supporting this ministry and thank you for standing with us [Music] hi welcome back to digging for truth i'm your co-host henry smith and i'm here with brian wendell we're talking about king ahab of israel during the divided kingdom now brian ahab set up or excuse me his father omri set up a capital in samaria let's talk about that a little bit and talk about some of the archaeology related to that yeah king omri uh ended up taking the throne he had been a commander in the israelite army and there was a series of coups a lot of upheaval and the end result was omri became king and he moved his capital from tursa to samaria and built this big beautiful palace there and he built it on the acropolis of the hill and and then we know that ahab expanded it um under his rule and added some administrative buildings and extended the the palace using some finely dressed ashler stones and and archaeologists have looked at it really interesting and seen that there may be some phoenician influence to this and that's really interesting because of course ahab's wife was the very famous queen jezebel who was phoenician herself and the royal acropolis they've measured it based on the excavations there it's massive 178 meters by 89 meters covers about four acres which was about the size of an entire village at that time and um should note that there are some some new scholarships some people are suggesting maybe that some of the later editions that have been attributed to ahab are were not by ahab maybe by jehu or later but there certainly is stuff there at the palace in samaria that um that ahab would have built ahab would have lived in what's what's really interesting about the ruins of samaria is that there is no modern city that has been built over top of it and so you can actually go and and see the ruins there although unfortunately king herod built a massive temple over top of the ruins and so much of that was wiped out but you can still see the remains of an israelite wall here that dates to the reign of omri and ahab and you can actually even use google earth if you want to take a look and zoom in on some of the photos that are there of this particular site you can see the ruins in the photos it's really quite interesting yeah it's always difficult when modern cities build on top of archaeological remains so jerusalem is the the quintessential example of that and in the ancient world they didn't care much about uh well maybe we should preserve this for future archaeologists we're just going to build a you know a big structure over top of what was there before king herod making a mess of things but still you know we still have the evidence now uh you know in a couple places in uh in amos 315 and psalm 45 8 ivory uh is mentioned ivory houses particularly in amos but let's talk about the famous sumerian ivories uh in first kings 22. yeah this is really interesting scripture records in verse kings 22 39 that there was a specific building that ahab was very famous for it says there it's summarizing his rule it says now for the rest of the acts of ahab and all that he did and the ivory house that he built and all the cities that they built are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of israel and scholars have have found they based on some discoveries we'll talk about in a minute they suspect that what ahab did was that he decorated the entire palace the furniture the walls with all of these carved ivories and the reason for that is that when kathleen kenyon excavated there in 1932 they unearthed a large section of ivories this large cache of ivories that dated to the iron age to the time of ahab and so they have images of foreign deities of wildlife plants mythological creatures and because they date to the time of ahab and because we have this mentioned in scripture about this ivory house that ahab built many believe that that that was built there in fact some scholars suggest that they have phoenician influence in these particular ivories which again would make sense because ahab's wife was phoenician although some some new scholarship is suggesting that there may have been actually ivory carvers in israel at that time too regardless isn't it interesting the bible talks about this um ivory house that ahab is famous for and when we go to samaria to the palace that i that ahab lived in that he um expanded what do we find we find nearby this cache of ivories that date right to the time of king ahab i would look at this and i would say this is this is amazing this is affirmation can we prove it no but isn't it interesting the bible says ivory house we go to the house ahab lived in what do we find we find a whole bunch of ivories yeah and you know it it i've emphasized this point over and over on our our on our programs and and for anyone who's new to the program of the eyewitness nature of these things you know if you're redacting changing the text centuries later or partially inventing stories or taking part of a story and adding to it you're not going to get these kind of historical details correct when you're talking about this and the ivories from this uh from this palace in samaria a remarkable affirmation once again putting the biblical author right in the context of history yeah there's just two there are too many details for me in the biblical text for me to accept that the bible was written particularly the kings and chronicles was written hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years after the fact by people who are trying to invent a history for themselves they're just too many things that that why would you add that little phrase about the ivory houses when someone living hundreds and hundreds of years later how would they have known that and so there are just so many of these things in the biblical text that i just can't accept the theory that the bible was written hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years after yeah the time that it is purported to be written there's just too much in it that is culturally relevant to that time period yeah and we really find that i mean in our argument that we make as a ministry is that we find that goes all the way back all the way back even to into the early earliest chapters of genesis after the flood genesis 10 and so on you know details that a person just simply could not know and could not have been preserved now you mentioned uh that some of this technology may have come from phoenicia i got about 30 seconds or so let's just uh tease that a little bit phoenicians who were they and uh how is that relevant to our next segment sure well the phoenicians were a group of people that lived north of israel kind of on the coast and um and they had their own like like all ancient peoples had their own styles of art and their own culture and this is important because we're told in scripture that um that ahab married jezebel who was the daughter of a phoenician king and so she came from phoenicia and we find things that some people interpret as phoenician influence that would make sense given the roots of his wife queen jezebel that's perfect brian thank you for that and folks we're going to be uh going to a commercial break please don't go away we'll be right back we're talking about king ahab in israel bible in spade is a non-technical quarterly publication published by the associates for biblical research written from a scholarly and conservative viewpoint bible and spade supports the inerrancy of the biblical record and is a must read for both the serious bible student and anyone asking if they can really trust the bible archaeological evidence properly interpreted upholding the history of the bible subscribe today at biblearchaeology.org [Music] hi welcome back to digging for truth i'm your co-host henry smith i'm here today with my colleague and friend brian wendell we're talking about another archaeological biography or bioarchaeography right brian we're talking about king ahab so let's turn to some some additional evidence related to his reign and that is nabas vineyard why don't you go ahead with that please sure well this is a relatively recent discovery the bible people may be familiar with the famous story in scripture the famous account of how king ahab at jezreel looked out and saw this beautiful vineyard and he wanted it for himself but it was owned by a man named nabith who refused to sell it to him because it was was in his family for years and so ahab gets all depressed and his wife jezebel comes to his rescue and concocts this plan to have him falsely accused and then he is killed and ahab takes the vineyard for himself and of course we read this whole account in first kings 21 we see elijah coming to condemn ahab for this act well excavations at tel jezreel have unearthed an iron age 2b fortress on the upper tar upper part of the tell that that dates to the time of king ahab now it's interesting the word that's used in scripture for palace um hegel is not the word that is normally used in the old testament for palace it's actually a word that kind of denotes a military fortress and this makes sense because it appears that this was where king ahab and and omri presumably before him marshaled the troops whenever they went to war and so they have this palace and what happens is if you look at some of the clues in scripture about this particular vineyard there's another story in second kings nine that talks about it being on the main road east of jezreel and wouldn't you know at the base of the tell where the main road would have gone east from jezreel they have found this ancient winery carved into the rocks and so this ancient facility where they would have made wine they have the vats still there and the most recent excavators uh dr norma franklin from the university of hafa and uh and dr jenny ebling of the university of evansville they were the ones who uncovered this and based on what was there and what was not there they believed that it could date very well date to the iron age right to the time of king ahab now in the ancient world wineries were located very close to the vineyards and so they've suggested that this might indeed we can't know for sure but might indeed be um where nabith's vineyard produced the wine from their grapes and and we can't prove it for sure but i always say isn't it interesting the bible describes a vineyard east of tel jezreel on the main road and when we go to tell jezreel what do we find we find an ancient winery which would have been near a vineyard on the main road east of jezreel it really is amazing yeah you know just a couple of thoughts i have about that is one the obvious connections that you just made you know here we go we have a vineyard talk about we actually find you know uh evidence of this is where they they crush the grapes and produce the wine the other part is how wicked it is to plot to steal this property away from nabath you know just just the king using his power in such a wicked way just as another reminder to us of of uh what was going on in israel and how unfaithful the kings were uh but that's my own commentary on it brian i'm gonna shift a little bit here now uh a person who is influential in that wickedness is the famous jezebel and uh you know uh jezebel boy what a negative connotation that is if you call a woman jezebel uh you're in big trouble or or she's not the kind of woman you want to be around but but tell us about the jezebel seal that was discovered a few years ago yeah you're right henry right like a lot of the influence that we see in scripture uh of of ahab's wickedness came from his phoenician queen queen jezebel whose name still to this day carries these negative connotations back in the 1960s there was a seal that was purchased on the antiquities market and it was donated to the israel museum in jerusalem and it bears the name jezebel uh inter uh interspersed around various images and initially scholars were hesitant to identify this with abs wife in part because jezebel is spelled slightly differently than it is on scripture and it's missing a couple of letters that we would expect to see if this seal said belonging to jezebel however you may have noticed there's this broken section right at the top and more recently scholars have analyzed it again and said these two missing letters to say belonging to jezebel would actually fit in that broken section and so because of that because of the fact that this seal is of a massive size four seals at the time it's very impressive the fact that it has some egyptian iconography that we know was being used in phoenicia at this time some scholars are starting to question now and say we might actually have the seal of queen jezebel which would be an amazing thing yeah and uh like we've talked about in other in other episodes like king has hezekiah we've there's been seals found there's been a seal found of isaiah other officials that are recorded in the bible it's really a remarkable discovery right there it is spelling a little different you know there's always room to say well maybe it's not it but boy it again is another piece of evidence that fits well brian uh you know we're so grateful for the way that you sketch out these bio archaeographies for us we have about a minute left could you just sort of sum up this episode and talking about king ahab and his reign and the relationship to the archaeology one of the things that archaeology does for us is it affirms uh people and places and events that we have in scripture and we see some of that with king ahab i would argue that what what the archaeology about king ahab really helps us with is providing some of the background to this i mean we we have more written about ahab than we do any other king of israel in scripture so there's lots to double check and see confirmations and affirmations but when we look at the archaeological evidence one of the neat things that we see is that we we get some of the fuller picture than we do when we just look at the biblical account for example we know based on the archaeology that king ahab followed his father's expansionist tendencies rebelling and fighting against the king of of of assyria on the kirk monolith we get glimpses of the size and the importance and the power of the kingdom at this time because of the number of soldiers and and and uh and chariots that he had and all of this helps us to understand in better detail what the kingdom of israel was like uh in the 9th century bc and i think that it can build our faith in god's word but it also can help illuminate god's word i think that's how i would summarize how the archaeology really helps us as it relates to king ahab well brian thank you again for uh joining us and for sharing this remarkable information and friends we want to encourage you as we've shown in this program and many others you can trust the word of god every letter thank you for joining us today

Channel: Associates for Biblical Research

Views: 8,499

Rating: 4.8942733 out of 5

Keywords: Associates for Biblical Research, Digging for Truth, Bible, Archaeology, Archeology, Apologetics, King Ahab, Queen Jezebel, Kurkh Monolith, Samaria Ivories, Seal of Jezebel

Id: bdj2tkd10Rc

Length: 26min 5sec (1565 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 16 2020