Biblical archaeology

Biblical archaeology involves the recovery and scientific investigation of the material remains of past cultures that can illuminate the periods and descriptions in the Bible. As with the historical records from any other civilization, the manuscripts must be compared to other accounts from contemporary societies in Europe, Mesopotamia, and Africa; additionally, records from neighbors must be compared with them. The scientific techniques employed are those of archaeology in general including excavations as well as chance discoveries.

Artifacts from documented excavations

• Arad ostraca (#18 mentions the Temple in Jerusalem)
• Balaam texts (ink/paint on plaster found at Deir 'Alla in Jordan that parallels Numbers chapters 22-24)
• Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III, which depicts Jehu, son of Omri, and also mentions Hazael of Aram/Damascus/Syria (2 Kings 8-10)
• Caiaphas (Qafa) family ossuaries (discovered in 1990 at the Jerusalem Peace Forest)
• Ebla (Tell Mardikh) cuneiform archives
• They reportedly contain references to the same five cities mentioned in the book of Genesis: Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, Zeboim, and Bela/Zoar in the same order as in Genesis 14. Also reported are references to people with Semitic names and gods similar to those in the Bible. They include a king of Ebla named Ebrum, who some identify as the Biblical patriarch Eber (or Heber), after whom the Hebrews were named. The government of Syria continues to withhold complete publication of the texts, and this story remains a rumor. Quoting Paolo_Matthiae:

The tablets cover a thousand years before Abraham, and a thousand years, even in the fourth millennium before Christ, was a very, very long time. They tell us much, but what they don't tell us - what they can't tell us - is whether the Bible is true or not. They have nothing to do with the Bible, at least not directly, and what we have here is not a biblical expedition. If we have tablets with legends similar to those of the Bible it means only that such legends existed round here long before the Bible." ( C. Bermant and M. Weitzman, Ebla: A Revelation In Archaeology, Op. Cit., p. 2.)

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• Ekron inscription (discovered in 1993 at Tel Miqne)
• GBON (גבען) jar handles recovered from the Gibeon pool
• Some inscribed "Hananiah" may have been associated with the person mentioned in Jeremiah 28:1
• Other incised names on Gibeon jar handles: Amariah, Azariah, Domla, Geder, Hananiah, Neri, Shebuel
• Gemariah the son of Shaphan seal impression stamped on bulla
• Found during Yigal Shiloh's excavations of Jerusalem in 1983, it probably belonged to the person recorded in Jeremiah 36:10
• Hezekiah's tunnel inscription (removed from Jerusalem in 1880)
• House of "Dwd" inscription on Tel Dan Stele (three fragments discovered in 1993)
• Jehucal, the son of Shelemiah, the son of Shobi (יהוכל בן שלמיהו בן שבי) seal impression stamped on bulla
• Found during Eilat Mazar's excavations of an alleged palace of King David in 2005, it probably belonged to the person recorded in Jeremiah 37:3 and 38:1 (photo published in the August 6, 2005 edition of the Taipei Times)
• Kurkh Monolith of Shalmaneser III found by J.E. Taylor (British Consul at Diyarbekir) in 1861, which mentions "2,000 chariots, 10,000 foot soldiers of Ahab the Israelite" (incident not mentioned in the Bible)
• Lachish ostraca
• Most of these terse texts were discovered in the 1930s. They depict conditions at Lachish during the end of the 7th century BCE shortly before the Chaldean invasion. One mentions signal fires from a nearby village, another mentions a warning from the prophet.
• Lachish reliefs from Sennacherib's palace at Nineveh (depicting his conquest of it)
• Mesha stele
• A Moabite inscription discovered at Dhiban, Jordan, in 1868 that mentions an Israelite king, Omri. It also records vessels of YHWH as tribute.
• Merneptah stela (Egyptian reference to Israelites in the land of Canaan)
• Sargon II's Conquest of Samaria inscription (ANET 284) found by P.E. Botta at Khorsabad in 1843: "I besieged and conquered Samaria, led away as booty 27,290 inhabitants of it. ... The town I rebuilt better than it was before and settled therein people from countries which I myself had conquered." (2 Kings 17:23-24)
• Tiglath-Pileser III's inscriptions found by A.H. Layard at Nimrud:
• ANET 282: "I received the tribute of ... Jehoahaz of Judah" (incident not mentioned in the Bible)
• ANET 283: "As for Menahem I overwhelmed him ... I placed Hoshea as king over them." (alternate perspective in 2 Kings 15:19 and 17:3)