In 1947 there was an amazing discovery: a Bedouin shepherd stumbling upon some ancient scrolls concealed in a cave by the dead sea. ibid.
Why aren’t the Dead Sea Scrolls part of the Bible today? ibid.
The Bible’s chapter divisions were created in the early 1200s. The Forbidden Book: History of the Bible, 1986
Jerome: In 382 he was commissioned to translate the Bible from the Greek into Latin: it became known as the Latin Vulgate. ibid.
The Church in Rome allowed only one language and that language was Latin. ibid.
The great unmentionable evil at the center of our culture is monotheism. From a barbaric Bronze Age text known as the Old Testament, three anti-human religions have evolved – Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. These are sky-God religions. They are, literally, patriarchal – God is the Omnipotent Father – hence the loathing of women for 2,000 years in those countries afflicted by the sky-god and his earthly made delegates. Gore Vidal
The Bible begins the plagues thus: the River shall be turned to blood. According to Exodus, the Nile River turned blood-red for seven long days, killing every living thing in the water. Can science explain this mysterious first plague? Red tides take place in rivers and oceans when green algae accumulates and blooms like a flower, turning red; it then emits a powerful toxin. Biblical Mysteries Explained: Exodus, 2006
Frogs: in Egypt millions of Nile River frogs leave the water and infest the land ... With no food to eat, the frogs quickly died causing the next two plagues. ibid.
According to the Bible there were gnats upon man and upon animals. ibid.
God says I will send swarms of flies upon thee and upon thy servants and upon thy people. ibid.
And then the fifth plague turns deadly: the Bible states upon the horses, upon the masses, upon the camels, upon the oxen, upon the sheep, shall be a deadly pestilence. The deadly livestock plague was a result of a pathogenic virus, spread by the biting gnats. ibid.
In the sixth plague, the flies spread disease to humans. The Bible states – festering boils shall break forth upon man and upon beast. Boils, infected puss-filled open sores, may have been the result of deep bites and open wounds from disease-carrying stable flies. ibid.
The seventh plague comes out of nowhere: a hailstorm of massive proportions. The Bible calls it the worst storm in the land of Egypt. ibid.
Locusts: as they still do today, 3,000 years ago in Egypt veracious desert locusts ... ate everything that grows, quickly causing famine and starvation. ibid.
The ninth plague is terrifying and seems unconnected to the others: the Bible says God sends three days of darkness. ibid.
The Bible says all the firstborn of the land of Egypt shall die. And all the firstborn beasts. How could this happen? At the hand of God or natural phenomena? ibid.
If the [Merneptah] Stele is correct, then it establishes that Hebrews were living in the Promised Land – the land of Israel – by 1211 BCE. Therefore the Exodus must have taken place prior to this date. There is no other mention of Israel or Hebrew slaves in the Egyptian records. ibid.
One of the most compelling tales of all the twenty-four books of the Old Testament concerns two ancient cities located by the Dead Sea: Sodom & Gomorrah: The Bible says they are so wicked that God destroys them dramatically, raining down fire and brimstone out of Heaven. Biblical Mysteries Explained: Sodom & Gomorrah s1e2
In 2008 an artefact from ancient Sumeria was translated for the first time. And it seems to provide startling correlation to the story of Sodom. ibid.
Could this ancient Sumerian disc provide the astronomical data that proves the Bible story of Sodom? ibid.
God decides to spare Lot if he can. God sends two angels disguised as men to visit Lot in Sodom and warn him of the impending destruction. ibid.
While they are fleeing, Lot’s wife breaks the one command of the angels: she looks back, and the Bible says she was turned into a pillar of salt. ibid.
The ruins of an ancient church built in the 7th century BCE. The tiles in the ruins directly label the church as the Sanctuary of Holy Lot. And archaeologists found one other fascinating detail: the cave seems to match the Bible’s description of Lot’s refuge. ibid.
Since the 1970s archaeologists have uncovered four different Bronze Age cities that eerily match the four cities the Bible says God destroyed with Sodom. And the city that corresponds most closely with the Biblical city of Sodom is Bab edh-Dhra, on the shore of the Dead Sea, fifty miles from Jerusalem. ibid.
The earliest burials date from approximately 3,000 BCE. The enormous number of tombs suggested an ancient Sodom-like catastrophe. And there is other tantalising evidence of fiery destruction. ibid.
Its date: June 29th 3123 BCE ... New evidence has recently emerged, and it’s not come from fire but ice. ibid.
An asteroid three-quarters of a mile wide would have created a debris plume and cloud of ash that would encircle the entire planet, blocking the sun for months and causing a massive world-wide climate collapse. ibid.
This Stele is what the Egyptians would have called a Triumph Stele, a Victory Stele ... The text reads ... ‘Israel has been shorn. Its seed no longer exists’. Donald Redford, Pennsylvania State University
Why did the Hebrew authors of the Bible omit all of the important historical names of Egyptian pharaohs? Why did they mix up historical fact with myths and legends? The big question is, What did they have to hide? Researchers of both Bible and Egyptian history have concluded that the Hebrew authors of the Bible covered up the fact that the Hebrews and Egyptians shared the same royal blood-line. But why? Why the cover up? Ring of Power, 2008
They worshipped Egyptian gods. Followed Egyptian laws. And violated Jewish-Hebrew laws. This meant they had to hide their Hebrew identity, not just from the Egyptian people but from the Hebrew people as well. They had to keep their royal Hebrew-Egyptian identity and their worship of Ah-men hidden within royal power circles and secret societies, just as they’ve done to this day. ibid.
It’s considered one of the most sacred places on Earth – the Holy Land ... Fought over by three of the world’s great religions. Bible’s Secrets Revealed II: The Promised Land, History 2013
What if the forty-year exodus as described in the Old Testament never happened at all? ibid.
There’s no mention of a promised land in the New Testament. ibid.
The Tower of Babel ... God stops Babel’s Tower being built. God creates language to disrupt humankind. Secrets of the Bible s1e8: Tower of Babel, Yesterday 2019
He goes back to college to pursue archaeology and Bible studies. [Bryant] Wood soon becomes an expert in Canaanite pottery. Secrets of the Bible s1e10: The Fall of Jericho
One of the greatest stories in the Bible: Joshua’s attack on Canaan, and the fall of Jericho. ibid.
Scholars are questioning the whole of Joshua’s conquest. ibid.
But Bryant [Wood] is steadfast that the archaeological evidence matches the Bible account of the city’s destruction. ibid.
The Tower of Babel: It’s one of the most dramatic stories in the Bible. It tells of the construction of a vertigo-inducing Tower that reaches to heaven. Babel: The Real Stairway to Heaven, Channel 5 2020
Experts now believe they know where the legendary Tower once stood. Could these be the remains of one of the greatest lost wonders of the ancient world? ibid.
King Nebuchadnezzar II: a ruler whose ambitions for Babylon that were on a scale that dwarfed any other city of its time. ibid.
The ‘Esagila’ Tablet [Louvre] reveals the dimensions for an entire structure. But was it actually possible to build a 90-metre Tower in Babylon, a city that was made almost entirely of mud bricks? ibid.
All the evidence suggests it was a Ziggurat design. ibid.
Babylon: The discovery of the foundations of a vast structure which ancient records suggest could have been the Tower of Babel. ibid.