The Smithsonian uses it as a reference book to find archealogical sites.
The Bible said that Pilate was tetriarch of Judea. No one believed it because there were no records of Pilate in Rome. Then they found the stone in Caesarea that confirmed it.
No records of a King David. They just unearthed a stone marker dedicated to him in the area of Dan in Israel.
The Bible spoke of a people that dwelt within the rocks. No one believed it until they discovered Petra.
Scholars have said that there wasn’t a Pool of Siloam and that John was using a religious conceit’ to illustrate a point. Workers repairing a sewage-pipe break uncovered the Pool of Siloam in Old Jerusalem.
The Siloam Inscription was discovered in 1880 on the rock facing near the opening of the tunnel leading from the Gihon Spring to the Pool of Siloam. It records the successful completion of the tunnel by Hezekiah (725-697 BC). 2 Chronicles 32:30
Several of Solomon's stables as noted in 2 Chronicles 9:25
Modern archeology has made numerous discoveries which confirm events recorded in The Bible, including bricks without straw at Pithon. Lower levels had good quality straw, middle levels had less (including much which was torn up by the roots, as someone in a rush to meet a quota would be inclined to do), and the top levels had no straw at all.
Bible critics had long sneered at references in the Bible to a people called the Hittites and that the Hittites were simply one of the many mythical peoples made up by Bible writers. Toward the end of the 19th century, Hittite monuments were uncovered at Carchemish on the Euphrates River in Syria, proving the Bible right. Later, in 1906, excavations at Boghazkoy in Turkey and uncovered thousands of Hittite documents, revealing a wealth of information about Hittite history and culture.
Critics claimed that the Babylonian captivity did not take place. The Bible gives specific details about the captivity of Judah by the armies of Babylon early in the 6th century B.C. Scholars have said it’s all just another Jewish myth. However, between 1935 and 1938, important discoveries were made 30 miles southwest of Jerusalem at a site thought to be ancient Lachish. Lachish was one of the cities recorded in the Bible as being besieged by the king of Babylon at the same time as the siege of Jerusalem (Jeremiah 34:7). Twenty-one pottery fragments inscribed in the ancient Hebrew script were unearthed in the latest pre-exilic levels of the site. Called the Lachish Ostraca, they were written during the very time of the Babylonian siege. According to the book of Daniel, the last ruler in Babylon before it fell to the Persians was named Belshazzar in Daniel 5:1-30.
Since there appeared to be no mention of Belshazzar outside the Bible, the charge was made that the Bible was wrong and that this man never existed. During the 19th century, several cuneiform cylinders were discovered in southern Iraq ruins. They were found to include a prayer for the health of the eldest son of Nabonidus, king of Babylon--Belshazzar. Another cuneiform document titled the “Verse Account of Nabonidus” reported: “He [Nabonidus] entrusted the ‘Camp’ to his oldest (son), the firstborn, the troops everywhere in the country he ordered under his (command). He let (everything) go, he entrusted the kingship to him.”
So Belshazzar was entrusted with the kingship.
This explains why Belshazzar, during that final banquet in Babylon, offered to make Daniel the THIRD ruler in the kingdom in Daniel 5:16.
Professor David Noel Freedman commented:
There is a magazine that has been in circulation since 1974 that deals with nothing but all the evidence in archeology related to the Bible.
http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org
It would take you a week to just walk through the Israel Museum to see all the evidence from all the digs. Scribal seals are my favorite...
Megiddo Seal - Jeroboam Inscription
Seal of Baruch, Jeremiah's Scribe
Seal of the City of David
Ezion-Geber Seal
Jerahmeel Seal
Elishama Seal
Hezekiah son of Ahaz Seal
Ahaz Seal
Amos Seal
Seal of Gemariah
The latest being the Temech Seal
And more...
http://www.specialtyinterests.net/seal_impressions_ostracon.html
