King David: Man or Myth? Digging for Truth Episode Two

[Music] hi this is Scott Lancer the director of associates for biblical research and I'm here with my colleague Henry Smith and Henry and I here today on the second episode of digging for truth and we are so excited to be here today to to join with you and to share about the things of scripture the things of archaeology and how archaeology upholds the Bible Henry welcome good to have you here with us today it's great it's great to be here together to talk about the wonderful world of archaeology in the scriptures and today we're going to be focusing on King David man or myth and of course when believers in Jesus believers in the Bible when they think about King David they don't even have a thought that King David might not have exists existed we assume he exists but for those outside of the Bible who don't believe the Bible there's a lot of skepticism out there in the world skepticism and the academic world skepticism among people everyday life who just don't know that these things actually existed could you talk a little bit about why we believe King David existed why is it important that David existed that the David that is mentioned in the Bible yeah that's right David is of course after the the famous King of the Old Testament the the second King on the throne he took place of Saul right around a thousand BC so we're talking about a thousand years before the coming of Jesus and he's a he's the most important figure in terms of kings in the Old Testament so and he is vital to the big picture of the Bible so we have a couple of verses very very easy verses that are mentioned in Scripture the first one we have is 2nd samuel verse 5 3 so David is anointed as king the elders of Israel came to the King and Hebron and King David made a covenant with them before the Lord and they anointed David king over Israel so we know that David has been anointed according to the scriptures right then we have an incredible promise that's given in second Samuel and it says promise given by God God is speaking to David your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me your throne shall be established forever so this is a prophecy that's given in the Old Testament that not only establishes David's kingship at that time but it points to a future kingdom that that will come and a greater king will come and that king is Jesus who comes into the world right to establish his kingdom forever so there's a direct connection this is important point yeah direct connection between historical King David and King Jesus yeah that's that's exactly right this is a lot of times people struggle with the connection between their walk with Jesus Christ Christians who love Jesus and why are we talking about archaeology in the Bible the stuff that happened in the Old Testament way back then I want to walk with Jesus I want to I want to I'm saved by him I've been I've been delivered from my sins and so on but the Bible connects him to all of Scripture and this this figure of David who lived in history is vitally connected here we see a concrete example the implication is so great for the gospel if David was not a real person if he wasn't a real king in a real city of Jerusalem he had a real Kingdom and a real throne that's connected to the proclamation of Jesus coming to fulfill that promise that David was given the implications for David not being real are enormous for the gospel yeah yeah and you know it makes us wonder you know what the motivations are of some skeptics because I see in some cases you know they're looking they're there they're speaking out of their scholarly academic backgrounds they're saying well we have questions about historical David but it does sometimes suggest there could be a real world view difference here yes yes it's definitely a world view clash where you have the the Christian world view which is the which is found in the scriptures right it's articulated in the Bible and then this other world view part of that is the insistence that the archaeology what's recorded in the Bible must be authenticated by archaeology so if we don't have any evidence for David concrete evidence then we have to be skeptical about the text of the Bible and this happens all the time and other in other areas of the Bible but particularly when we're talking about David we have to have we must have separate evidence the text is an ancient text it should stand on its own not just as the Word of God but just as an ancient text it comes down to us from a very long time ago so it's a question of worldview it's also a question of method and what what is the structure of how these two things relate to one another yeah now now some some of the skeptics they're they're going after no ed of it evidence for David because for them when they they look in the Bible well first of all they may not look in the Bible because this gives back to this worldview clash because for some they dismissed the Bible as a religious text it's not historical you shouldn't even look at it right you should just only be looking for evidence in archaeology you know how should we respond to that sort of issue yeah you know there's a number of things that I think as the church that we've we've got to look at where there's a worldview clash in terms of how we view an ancient text and the kind of skepticism that's that's put upon it the Bible is treated as suspect so it's guilty before it's proven innocent as opposed to the other way around we would say at minimum that it ought to be given a fair hearing because it is an ancient text and there's good reasons to treat it as historical the other part of it is all writing from the ancient world has a worldview that's been intertwined with it other writings outside the Bible they had other gods that they worshipped and that theology informed the way that they wrote modern people are informed by their worldview and how they write and what they share so the idea that the archaeologist is neutral and the Christian is not is a false argument yeah yeah the secular person has their own worldview that informs the way they look at things and the Christian has a worldview that informs their way and there's a worldview clash that goes on so we've got to acknowledge that yeah and then look at at that so it's it's more than just evidence yeah there's something that goes on that's deeper than that that's right and see we're talking here about archaeology we're talking about discoveries and we're comparing we're thinking about that but now what you're discussing is the historical realities of David and yes for various people in the Bible and there's an inconsistency it seems to me and how all this is discussed and we can talk about that some more but you know the religious texts that the scholars investigate they treat them with fairness they come to the Bible the Bible's like like they'll quote it all day long all these other religious texts and how they they bring knowledge into the historical just pursuit but when it comes to the Bible you're not allowed to do that now we we only have a little bit of time here in this segment Henry how can we address this whole issue of this unfairness as Christians I think twofold one is I think we critique it at the worldview level point out how each worldview informs the way that evidences looked at and try to get people to be more cognizant of it and then second actually talk about the evidence which is what we're gonna do in our next segment talk about actual discoveries that are sometimes ignored or dismissed okay well we're talking about King David man or myth and we're talking about these large areas of and negation surrounding david the falafel Asafa chol approach to understanding history but what we're really looking at is you know where does the evidence take us we know what the Bible says but where does the evidence take us and we'll talk about that when we come back welcome back to digging for truth and I'm Scott Lancer with my friend and colleague Henry Smith and we're talking today about King David was David a historical figure ultimately the question is can we trust our Bible and of course we are proclaiming very loudly that yes indeed we can trust the Bible because it is the Word of God but the archaeological evidence strongly affirms David's existence as well but we're talking about some of the criticism the critiques of David being a historical person Henry one of the arguments that's made about David is that he's he's really a fictitious person yes how would you address that statement yeah as I talked about in the previous segment the first way I would address it is challenging the idea that we should not take the biblical text seriously so that's at one level you would challenge it you would say I don't accept the idea that you must have archaeology to support what's in the ancient text so that would be the first way then the second way would be to actually talk about evidences that have been found that actually affirm David before we do that let's just show a couple of quotes standard kind of quotes that you can find you just go out on the Google search and you can find this here's King David it's fictitious there could not been of a United Monarchy with the saul or David or Solomon in Jerusalem during the 10th century BC that's a thousand years before the time of Jesus and this is fairly typical or that his reign is exaggerated so we have you know it's highly unlikely that David ever conquered territories of people more than a days are to march from the heartland of Judah we will suggest that Solomon's Jerusalem was not extensive or impressive and so on these are very standard typical view points of many scholars Merl critical scholars in the academic world as it relates to david now but there are some evidences that have been found some incredible evidences that actually mentioned david that are either dismissed or rationalized around but in my view they're very clear yeah now Henry you just read a couple of quotes here yes from some fairly well-known established scholars critical scholars right now this kind of approach people might say who were who were viewing this show today they they're gonna say well maybe this doesn't affect us maybe maybe this is just in those you know lofty positions of the academic world the reality of it is that these arguments filter their way down into our culture they show up on popular cable television shows absolutely there's lots of different cable shows that are dealing with topics related to the to the Bible and to its history so and and it eventually finds its way all the way down into the church so why should we take these issues seriously yeah you're exactly right that's exactly what happens it'll makes it way on popular TV programs so people watch them and if they don't have enough knowledge of the subject they're not sure how to grapple with it now a lot of times intuitively Christians will say that that doesn't sound right and that often is the leading of the Holy Spirit or they're their own knowledge of the Scriptures and that's a good thing but that is not always the case this stuff can lead people astray lead them away from the gospel lead them away from the scriptures and also it's made its way into the seminaries we've seen in our experience established Christian seminaries where these ideas make their way into it and then begin to affect the teaching in seminaries pastors are trained so there's a very serious problem and one that we have to confront with gentleness and respect of course right so let's talk about a little bit about one discovery that mentions David on it tell Dan steel we'll see on the screen here here's a discovery that was found in the early 1990s and it mentions on it the house of David written in the ancient Aramaic script mentions the house of David now it's from about a hundred and fifty years after the time of David so what's really interesting about it in in this respect is this stone if you want to call it that inscription is a victory inscription from a king from a ROM where we get the word Aramaic the Aramaic kingdom is mentioned in the Bible in various places and the conflicts that they had with Israel so this King is declaring victory over the king of Israel now at that time it's not David it's 150 years later and it says house of David so I defeated the king of Israel the house of David so here we have an enemy of Israel acknowledging that the king that he defeated allegedly in battle is of the lineage of David if you want to say he's a hostile witness he's not defending Israel by any stretch he wants to defeat Israel and he's referring to the king as the house of David so not only does it mention David but it's an extraordinary acknowledgment by the enemies of Israel that the current king is descended from King David yeah yeah that's a it's it's an amazing and amazing discovery the Tel Dan Stila you know I think about some of these discoveries and some people say well okay that's just one discovery that they sometimes set the whole the weight of the scholarly community against these discoveries why is a discovery like this so significant yeah you look at that there's another one we're gonna talk about in the next segment called the Moabite stone extraordinary discovery also mentions David but we'll save that for then there's always a conflict about the interpretation of these things so so the scholars are debating the inscription says house David it's pretty clear that that's that's what it says you know one scholar says no it says it's not David it's the word for uncle so in the context you read it you're said I defeated the king of Israel the house of uncle now we could see the sort of absurdity of that in the content and there are other absurd yes doesn't interpretation the house of kettle yeah okay so these are these are the the lengths that sometimes critics will go to to try to get around the evidence as it stands it's pretty clear secular and Christian scholars have examined it it says house of David and it's pretty it's pretty unlike the Isaiah seal that we shared in a previous episode this is more of a slam dunk yeah see you know for all the vaunted objectivity that sometimes scholars project sometimes you see some of the most ridiculous efforts yes to avoid what seems to be painfully obvious evidence no we don't have an enormous amount of discoveries that mentioned David or the house of David but we have some very important finds and as we move into our next segment we're going to talk about them but it is amazing isn't it that there is a resistance to what the Bible to have credibility that's the thing I observed more than anything else yes they they do not want the Bible to have credibility because of the spiritual message of the Bible yes we have a few seconds here what are you no I'm just gonna say the the in the Christian worldview says that man without Christ is trying to escape from God and that's a spiritual reality that scholars also deal with very good very good Henry well we'll be back in just a minute to continue this interesting conversation about the about David Mann or myth and of course we believe that the Scriptures have told us exactly who David is and that he indeed existed and lived the kingdom of David is very very real we'll be right back hi we're back once again with digging for truth and I'm here with my friend and colleague Henry Smith and we're talking about King David we're talking about whether or not David actually existed and of course we believe that he that he certainly did and that he was a historical figure but we're gonna talk some more about the evidence that upholds and supports the fact of David's historicity so Henry there's a very important discovery that was made called the Moabites stone also known as the Mesha stele ax could you tell us about how this connects with our discussion about David yeah we talked in the last segment about they tell Dan stealer which mentions the house of David and it right it's a it's a description written by a foreign King from Aram here we have another incredible discovery this is from the 19th century actually called a Moabite stone it's written by the king of Moab Mesha who's mentioned in the Bible and so this is his perspective of the events recorded in second Kings 3 so in second Kings 3 you have the biblical perspective the perspective of Israel and here you have the same events being recorded in this stone giving his perspective his twist on the conflict that was taking place at that time it's quite extraordinary if you look at the picture on the screen you can see that you can see where it's been broken and what's interesting is just as a funny aside the Bedouin who had had found this thought they could get more money from the archaeologists so they smashed it to pieces thinking that they could they could get more money for it's really really kind of funny they misunderstood how incredible this discovery yeah but beyond that that sort of funny story not only does this incredible discovery mention the house of David like the Tel Dan steal it but it also mentions other asked things in the Bible that are confirmed in the stone it mentions Omri king of Israel okay one of the kings during the divided Kingdom period incredibly mentions the name Yahweh yea the covenant and a personal name that God revealed to Moses at the burning bush Yahweh so here we have the people of Moab the king of Moab knows who the God is that the Israelites worship or at least are supposed to worship right so we have the Covenant name of Yahweh of course we have Mesha king of Moab right mentioned in the stone we have his God shamash or Hamas mentioned eleven times quite extraordinary kamesh is mentioned in the Bible so the local authors were familiar with this God that the Moabites worshipped so you see a contemporary authorship of the biblical account not written centuries later and this is an important thing Scot right we often hear we talked about programs before like the History Channel and that kind of thing so often they will say the biblical accounts were written centuries supposedly after they took place usually during the Babylonian exile but really that's it that's impossible in many ways because here you have the biblical author talking about a Moabite God centuries later there's no way they could have known that it would have been beyond their knowledge now beyond that it also mentions the tribe of GAD which is one of the tribes of Israel twelve tribes of Israel so that's mentioned in the stone and something quite graphic and horrific as mentioned in the stone and that is that the king of Moab sacrifices his own son to his God because of what's happening in terms of this battle very gruesome but extraordinary and of course child sacrifice is mentioned in the Bible and recorded in the Bible and forbidden by Yahweh for the Israelites to engage in that practice now I know that's a lotta that's a mouthful of stuff I just shared but it just shows you one discovery yeah has all of this material in it that affirms the scriptures and of course what we're talking about is back to the house of David once again a foreign King saying the house of David I defeated the house of David yeah the Mesha stele is extraordinary because it is so how so much information and it and the whole story of that being broken into pieces and then you know parts of it were restored and other parts they took you know the impressions of it and originally they took impressions before that was broken by the better ones yes yeah it is extraordinary that it's all come back together it's a very important find well all this relates back to David and just briefly let's talk a little bit about just Jerusalem well obviously it's David's City yes maybe we could talk just about that it's important yeah very briefly I mean there's a lot Mazar the archaeologist is digging there in in Jerusalem and she has found a large structure that she believes is David's Palace and so it could be David's Palace we're not a hundred percent sure about that but it's very significant find because it's in the right place at the right time and you can see this drawing on the screen of the City of David how it may have looked in the ancient time what's interesting about it you see the couple of hills here's another piece from the Bible Jerusalem is written in the it's not a singular text but it's dual like Elohim is it has a multiplicity of some kind in it and that's probably because of the multiple Hills that Jerusalem consists of it's very very fascinating but her excavations in the City of David are quite interesting and it's possible that she has found David's Palace right place right time yeah yeah very exciting and she's digging at the ofall she's been involved in a number of important discoveries we there's a lot of lines of evidence to do with Jerusalem Connecticut connecting it to David and hopefully in a future episode of digging for truth we're going to be able to get into that in more detail because the evidence is quite extraordinary for in support of King David and poor in support of Solomon David's son Solomon and his kingdom and all the the entire historical history of the Kings yes and the monarchy that's right the monarchy so we're going to forward to that yes we we are we really are now we're down to the last minute here Henry how can we wrap up our discussion well we're gonna put a scripture on the on the screen and I'm just gonna hit the highlights real quick of it how important David is here from Acts chapter 2 Peter speaks he says first of all that David is dead but Jesus is alive but Jesus has been resurrected from the dead but that Jesus that David wrote about Jesus predicted his coming and is sitting on his throne and that there was great confidence we have seen the resurrected Jesus Peter and the Apostles witnessed the resurrected Christ this is an important dimension of how the Bible presents the gospel and how important David is to it amen well we're so glad you were with us today to join with join us in this important discussion at digging for truth we're so excited that you could be here and we're looking forward to what God will do and as we share together about the things of scripture and the Word of God thank you so much [Music]

Channel: Associates for Biblical Research

Views: 7,959

Rating: 4.875 out of 5

Keywords: King David, Moabite Stone, Tel Dan Stela, Archaeology, Bible, Christianity, Digging for Truth, Associates for Biblical Research

Id: ZsB61xNJxm4

Length: 26min 22sec (1582 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 26 2018