THE BIBLE VERIFIED

Evening Star, Issue 22106, 13 August 1935, Page 12

THE BIBLE VERIFIED

UNEARTHED POTTERY WRITING Writings belonging to the days of Jehoiakim, King of Judah, who reigned from 610 b.c. to 599 n.c., and which constitute a contemporary record of an incident described in the twenty-sixth chapter of the Book of the Prophet Jeremiah, have been uncovered at Tell Duweir by J. L. Starkey, of the Wellcome Archaeological Research Expedition, according to Sir Charles Marston, internationally known British archeologist. The discovery affords another evidence of the historic truthfulness of the Old Testament, Sir Charles said, in a broadcast address.

The writings, Sir Charles said, are in ink, and are inscribed on pieces of pottery. They are in the form of letters written, obviously by a junior officer to his captain in Lachish. “ They are likely to prove the most important eyidence yet discovered in connection with the Bible,” he declared. “ They are important because their characteristics and spelling suggest that the Hebrew Old Testament was written by scribes during the time in which the evidence they chronicled actually occurred, and that the scribes were eyewitnesses of the incidents theyreported. Tiffs, of course, disproves the conjecture that the earlier books of the Old Testament were transmitted by oral tradition. These pottery pieces were found in one of the ruined rooms of the Gate Tower of the city of Lachish. They lay beneath the burned debris on the floor left by the soldiers of Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, when they destroyed the city by . fire nearly 600 years before the Christian era. One of the writings contains a list of five names—Ghmariah, son of Hasadiah; Jaazaniah, son of Tobshalem; Hagab, son of Juazaniah; Mibtahiah, son of Jeremiah, and Mataniah, son of Neriah. “ Five of these names occur in the Bible itself,” Sir Charles continued; “others, I am informed, in the Apocrypha. They belong to men who lived just before Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Jerusalem.” One of these writings has been translated as follows, Sir Charles continued: “ It has been told me that the commander of the army, Ashhor ben el Nathan, has gone down to Egypt, taking with him certain men from here (Lachish).” , . „ The line that follows this refers to a letter from a man described as “ the prophet,” saying, “Beware!” Sir Charles declared that tins constitutes a contemporary record of the incident described in the twenty-sixth chapter of the Book of the Prophet Jeremiah, beginning at the twentieth verse. „ , “That passage tells us how a prophet named Uriah fled. to Egypt to escape the wrath of Jehoiakim, King or Judea, and how the King Elnathan, the son of Achbor, sent certain men after him,” Sir Charles said. Another piece of writing refers to an inspection of signal stations, and .tells how the writer and those associated with him observed the fire signals transmitted from Lachish. “ We know from the Bible that when Nebuchadnezzar fought against Jerusalem,” Sir Charles\ continued, Lashish ’and Azebah were the only other fortified cities left. The Hebrew word for signal (nasath) apparently appears but once in the Bible. It occurs in Jeremiah 6:1: ‘ O, ye children of Benjamin, gather yourselves to lice out ol the midst of Jerusalem, and blow the trumpet in Tekoa, and set up a sign ol fire in Beth-baccerem: for evil appeareth out of the north, and great destruction.’ _ u This particular Lachish letter gives us a glimpse of those days of doom when the signal stations, or watch towers, of Judea were hourly receiving news of the invaders’ progress, whether it wore the Egyptians from the south or the Babylonians from the north The writings were deciphered by Professor Noah Harry Torczyner, of the Hebrew University, in Jerusalem, recently*