37 Bible Characters Found Through Archaeology

Hi, I'm Matt Baker. A few weeks ago I made a video about the complete Bible family tree using our new Bible Family Tree Poster. I didn't talk about whether the

characters

were historical or not. I just checked the tree as it is. described by the Bible now, while this video was overall very well received, I received several comments like this fun fact, this is based on completely made up fiction, amazing graphic fiction, all fiction, this has nothing to do with the story, well, this is what the Bible is not. fiction or non-fiction, those categories simply did not exist back then, when the ancients wrote they often mixed stories designed to make a point with certain details based on reality and, furthermore, it is important to remember that the Bible was written by many authors in several different genres over a long period of time, so it's ridiculous to try to use a word like fiction to describe the whole thing and it's even more ridiculous to say that the Bible has nothing to do with history;

There are actually many historical figures mentioned in the Bible, so what I thought I would do in this video is show you 37 biblical

characters

that are absolutely 100% non-fictional in all cases, these are individuals whose names have been

found

in the record archaeological, in other words, outside of The Bible, basically, ancient history can be divided into three main periods: the Bronze Age, the Iron Age and Classical Antiquity. The Bronze Age runs from around 3300 to 1200 BC. C., so in terms of biblical history, this covers everything from shortly after Adam and Eve until now. of Moses and Joshua, the Iron Age goes from around 1200 BC.

C. to 500 BC. C., so it covers everything from the period of the judges to the destruction of the kingdom of Judah by the Babylonians, finally, everything from 500 BC. C. onwards is what we call Classical Antiquity. So that's the rest of the picture in this video, we're only talking about the Hebrew Bible or what Christians call the Old Testament, so really only the Bronze Age and the Iron Age are of interest to us, this is because almost all the stories

found

. in the Hebrew Bible occur during these two periods, in contrast, everything from the Apocrypha and the New Testament occurs during Classical Antiquity.

Maybe you'll see characters from those sections of the Bible in a future video. Let me use this table to highlight the 37 Biblical Characters that have been found in the archaeological record. What do you notice? Almost all of them are from the Iron Age. There are some from the beginning of classical antiquity but there are zero. I repeat. Zero of Bron Bron's age. This is a very important point. That for some reason doesn't get the attention it deserves, but it's absolutely crucial to understanding the Bible. You see, the Hebrew Bible is basically an Iron Age book, so it should come as no surprise that the Iron Age parts of the Bible are filled with characters whose names can be found in the archaeological record, while the of the Bronze Age are not, ironically at some point it became popular in certain atheist circles to claim that the Bible was written by a group of Bronze Age goat herders, which is ridiculous because the Bible was actually written by a group of Iron Age inhabitants, sure those Iron Age City inhabitants wrote that their ancestors were Bronze Age shepherds, but the people who wrote were actually from the Bronze Age.

Iron. Now, lest you think that the difference between the Bronze Age and the Iron Age is no big deal, let me clarify how important the distinction is during the Bronze Age, the eastern part of the Mediterranean Sea saw the rise of many great civilizations such as the Egyptians, the Hittites and the Greeks, but around 1200 BC. C. something strange happened, archaeologists. Refer to it as the collapse of the Bronze Age because suddenly the Egyptian Hittites and Greeks went into decline. What followed was a period from about 250e known as the Greek Dark Ages. What exactly caused the collapse is debated.

It may have been a volcano that caused ash. to fill the sky that led to the drought or it could have been a pandemic or a major war or migrations or a combination of all these things, but the fact is that the event caused a clear line to be drawn in the sand between the previous times and times past. After the times, when the people of the Iron Age began to record things once again, their memory of the previous times was blurred, which is why ancient Greek accounts of what happened during the Bronze Age, such as the stories found in The Iliad and the Odyssey, are very Unlike ancient Greek accounts of what happened during the Iron Age, such as the stories written by Herodotus, the same is true of the Bible, everything from the Bronze Age , like the Flood, the Patriarchs, and the Exodus read more like myth and legend, while everything since the Iron Age, like the various kings of Israel and Judah, read more like history.

Now in this video I'm not going to explain why I think the Bronze Age parts of the Bible should be understood as more literary than literal. I'm going to focus on the 37 characters from parts of the Iron Age that archeology has shown were real because I want to very specifically debunk the idea that the Bible is completely fictional. Let's start with someone, the Bible barely mentions him beyond the fact. who became king of Israel and founded the city of Samaria, but is extremely important to this discussion because he is the oldest Israelite person for whom we have an additional biblical record for dates close to when he lived according to the Moabit Mishi which was discovered in 1868 and now located in lra omry was in fact a real person.

It describes how Omry and the Israelites conquered the nearby Moabites, but then how, after Omri's death, Misha, the king of Moab, managed to expel the Israelites and restore independence, so I go. place a check mark next to omry to indicate that his name has been found in the archaeological record according to the

bible

the next israelite king after omry was his son ahab the

bible

has much more to say about ahab who was married to jezebel and who reigned during the time of the prophet Elijah; However, Ahab is also mentioned outside the Bible according to the Assyrian Kirk style discovered in 1861 and now located in the British Museum.

Ahab the Israelite was one of the 11 kings who allied themselves to fight against the Assyrians in 853 BC. C., that same style also mentions Ben Hadad II, the king of Aram Damascus in Syria, who also appears in the Bible as sometimes an enemy, sometimes an Ally of Ahab according to the Bible. Ahab was eventually followed by his son Joram, while Benh Hadad II was followed by a usurper named Hile, once again the archaeological record confirms this to be true. The name Ha has been found on at least two objects dating from this period; in fact, this ivory carving may even depict his image and it was almost certainly the king who commissioned the T danan style discovered in 1993 and now located in the Israel Museum, the tan s is now in pieces, but one piece describes How the king of Aram Damascus defeated both Jehm the king of Israel and Azijah of the House of David is important for two reasons: the first is that the Bible also describes the exact same event and the second is that this is the first mention of the House of David who ruled in the south of the Kingdom of Judah; however, note that the tell Dan style still does not reference King David specifically, rather it simply references the House of David Azijah being a member of that house and a descendant of David who reigned approximately 130 years after his death , so again note that the tan style is not a contemporary record of David nor does it give us any information about any events that occurred during David's life that would say that if there was indeed a House of David, we can presumably assume that there was at least someone named David who founded that house, but since the tan s was not made near David's house for life I'm going to have to give David a question mark, not a check, now we come to juu, who ruled Israel after the defeat of Jehoram by H. juu is important because not only is his name found in the archaeological record, but so is his image, so whether we are guided by the chosen criteria or it did not happen in this case, we actually have photographs of the Black Obelisk of Sheler III discovered in 1846 and now located in the British Museum.

Juu is actually shown bowing to Shel Maner III there. The Assyrians labeled him Yu of the house of Omry according to the Bible. The hail of Aram Damascus was followed by his son benh Hadad, who became benh Hadad III. This has also been confirmed by archeology in the zakar, but several of the later kings of Israel appear. in Assyrian records also includes Jehoash, whose name appears in Assyrian Tel Ala as Jees, the Samara Jeroboam II whose name appears on a seal belonging to someone called Shamama, Jeroboam's servant, and Menahem Pekka, and HOSA, all of whom appear in Assyrian records as if they had paid homage to Tiglath Piser III also mentioned in Tiglath Pisser's tributary records is resented the last king of Aram Damascus who appears in the Bible in both Second Kings and Isaiah now Tigo Peser himself also appears in the Bible in fact, he is the first Assyrian king in He is mentioned in Second Kings, he is called P, which is short for piser, but in 1 Chronicles his full name tiglath piser is used and we have a lot of archaeological evidence of him , including many depictions like this one shown here that are also mentioned in the Bible.

Two Assyrian kings, Tiglath, the sons of Pacer, Shalmaneser I 5 and Sargon II, helped destroy Samaria and bring about the end of the Kingdom of Israel. Sargon II's son Sagb turned his attention to the Kingdom of Judah, so now let's go there and take a look. After Ahaziah, who was mentioned in the Tan S, the next two kings of Judah to appear in the archaeological record are Jotham and Ahaz, their names appearing together on a seal discovered in 1995 that is said to belong to Ahaz, son of Yoram, king of Judah, which brings us to Hezekiah, one of the most important kings of Judah according to the Bible, Jerusalem was able to contain the Assyrians during Hezekiah's reign, allowing Judah to survive when Israel did not.

This is confirmed in the Taylor prism discovered in 1830 and now located in the Israel Museum. record the annals of sakb that describe the situation like this, since for Hezekiah the Jew did not submit to my yoke. I besieged 40 six of his strong cities and conquered them himself. I took prisoner in Jerusalem his royal residence as a bird in A cage was also found with Hezekiah's name on a seal that includes a depiction of the sun with its wings down, which was presumably Hezekiah's royal seal because it says it belongs to Hezekiah. , the son of Ahaz, king of Judah.

It was found in Jerusalem in 2015 and just a few years later, at the same site another seal was found that this time said it belonged to Isaiah the navi. Now this one is controversial because Navi is the Hebrew word for prophet, but at the time it was also simply a common name, so it is possible that it is evidence of the existence of Isaiah the prophet who, after all, lived at exactly the same time that Hezekiah was a member of the royal family; however, it could also refer to a guy named Isaiah Navi, so once again I'm going to use a question mark Manasseh, Hezekiah's son, however, gets a check mark.

He is mentioned in the prism of Saradan for having given tribute to Assyria. Saden, of course, is mentioned in Prism 2 as well as in the Bible, so that's yet another check mark. The Bible even gets a little detail about the transfer of power between Sakb and Mr. Hoden. It says that one of Mr. Hodan's brothers, named Adram Melik, murdered his father. Sakb. This fact is recorded in several contemporary sources, making him another historical person mentioned in the Bible and another historical event. That the Bible is correct, the last Assyrian king mentioned in the Bible is Asher Banipal after his reign, the Assyrians actually decreased in power, which was of great benefit to Judah because it allowed Judah to truly prosper.

This occurred during the reign of Josiah, which is when the initial version of the biblical book of Kings was probably written. Unfortunately, we do not have any archaeological evidence of Josiah, but we do have evidence of the high priest who served under his Hilaya command in 1980. Archaeologists They found a ring with a sign saying it belonged to Hanan the son of Hilaya the priest because the ring could have been eaten in the time of Josiah and because the word priest appears on it, this is almost certainly evidence that the hilaya of the Bible was in fact a real person up to this point.

I didn't mention any Egyptian pharaohs because I already made a whole video on the pharaohs mentioned in the Bible which I will link to in the description, but let me quickly summarize that there are exactly five pharaohs mentioned by name in the Bible andI know the Pharaoh of the Exodus is not one of them, the Bible simply refers to him as Pharaoh, which actually makes sense because, as I said before, the Exodus took place during the Bronze Age and therefore was a distant memory in the time of the Iron Age. the Bible mentions Shashank whom he calls shishak who reigned during the time of rabom and Jobo also mentions oos sorin ivth whom he calls King so and tahara whom he calls ter Haka these two pharaohs reigned around the time of Hezekiah, then there is the Pharaoh Neco II who according to the Bible was responsible for killing King Josiah, finally there is Neko's grandson Hophrah who reigned around the time Judah fell to Babylon, which brings me to the most famous foreign ruler mentioned in the Bible, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, his name, of course, appears in the Book of Daniel, but he also appears in 2 Kings and Jeremiah and we have several archaeological artifacts that provide evidence of his existence, such as the inscription plaque found on the famous gate of Ishar which Nebuchadnezzar had built in Babylon but which is now located in Berlin. as well as the Babylonian Chronicles recorded on a series of clay tablets.

Babylonian records from Nebuchadnezzar's time also mention Haniah, king of the Jews, who was a prisoner in Babylon and received rations according to the Bible. Jeenah was held prisoner for 37 years and was only released. by AML Marduk who succeeded his father as king of Babylon in the Bible AML Marduk is called evil Marduk although note that this has nothing to do with the English word evil evil was simply an alternative way of spelling AML again, the succession described in the Bible matches the succession described in the Babylonian records because Amal Marduk was in fact the next Babylonian king after Nebuchadnezzar now the next Babylonian king that appears in the Bible is bazer the Bible refers to him as son of Nebuchadnezzar but according to sources extra-biblical he was most likely his great-grandson, in fact, Belshazzar probably wasn't even the greatest king according to Babylonian sources, he was simply the crown prince who ruled alongside his Nabonidus father, but one thing both the Bible and the Bible agree on Like other sources, it was during the reign of Belshazzar. rule or co-rule that Babylon fell to the accented Persians and the leader of the accented Persians who conquered Babylon was Cyrus the Great, the book of Isaiah actually refers to him as the Messiah because it was Cyrus who decreed that The Jews could return to Jerusalem. and rebuild the Temple the book of Ezra describes the decree of Cyrus so that any of the people of the Lord among you can go up to Jerusalem in Judah and build the Temple of the Lord the god of Israel The God who is in Jerusalem and may his God be with 1879 archaeologists found the Cylinder of Cyrus originally located in Babylon but now housed in the British Museum.

He describes Cyrus's decree as being on the other side of the Tigres River where many sanctuaries had been abandoned for a long time. I returned their gods to their places. and I let them dwell in eternal dwellings and I gathered all their inhabitants and returned them to their dwellings, so this is a very good example of how the Bible is definitely not all fiction, the Bible records this very important historical event that occurred right around of the transition. Between the Iron Age and Classical Antiquity, from this moment on we no longer have to rely exclusively on archaeological finds to learn about the past because, starting in the Persian period, the ancients began to record history in a different way, More direct, with fewer embellishments and more details, the best example of this is the Greek writer Herodotus, who is called the father of history and who lived at this time.

Herodotus was born shortly after the reign of Darius I and died during the reign of Artus Xerxes I, the first two Persians. Kings are mentioned in both the Bible and the works of Herodotus, bringing our total to 37 37 biblical characters who were his royal historical people and that's just the Old Testament or Hebrew Bible, let me know in the comments if you want . to watch a similar video on the New Testament and don't forget to visit Dante Labs by clicking the link in the description or in the pinned comment, thanks for watching.