Welcome to Watchman on the Wall, a daily outreach of Southwest Radio Ministries and SWRC.com. Today, archaeologist Scott Stripling is here to reveal what digging in Israel is really like, and why what is discovered there is important to Christians around the world. Friends, we continue to need your help. Historically, summertime giving is always slow, but this year, giving is at a critical level. Unfortunately, we're having to further cut expenses, including reducing the number of radio stations we're on and eliminating staff. We need your help. Please continue to pray for Southwest Radio Ministries. Ask the Lord to provide the needed funds so that we can continue to proclaim the good news that God is still on the throne and prayer changes things. And as you are led, would you please consider giving a gift to our summer relief effort? Your one-time and monthly gifts are truly needed this month. You can give when you call 1-800-652-1144. That's 1-800-652-1144. You can also give at our website, SWRC.com. Thank you, friends, for your prayers and continued financial support. Director of Affirm Apologetics Clayton Van Hus recently sat down with archaeologist Scott Stripling in Israel to discuss biblical archaeology and its importance to you and me as Christians. So glad you joined us on today's program. I am Clayton Van Hus, director of Affirm, the apologetics branch of Southwest Radio Ministries. And I'm joined today by a very special friend of mine. He's my friend. He's my mentor. He's somebody I really look up to. And what's really cool is we are actually sitting in the city of Jerusalem. while we bring you this. So I would like to introduce to you someone you've probably heard on the program before, Dr. Scott Stripling. Dr. Stripling, welcome to the program. It's great to be with you, Clayton. And we really are sitting in an interesting spot. This is, we believe where Alexander the Great scoped out the city. And that's why we have the term Mount Scopus, because he saw the city from, from here. Okay. That was something I did not know. I did not know I was called Mount Scopus. So here we are. Dr. Stripling, he is the president of the Near East Archaeological Society. He is the director of excavations for Associates for Biblical Research. That means he runs the dig at Tel Shiloh, which is what we've been doing. It's why we're here. That has been exciting. Also, he is the provost for the Bible Seminary in Katy, Texas, where he is my mentor. I'm a student there. And just wrapping up, but I have learned so much from Dr. Stripling, and I want you to learn from him as well. Scott, let's get into this. Okay, I'm looking forward to it. Okay, so you wrote a book called The Trowel and the Truth. This is an interesting book. I read it before I went to the seminary. I mean, I was already planning on going, so I thought I'd better read it. And it's the sort of book that I was fascinated with. I was able to actually sit down in one day and read through the whole thing. It's a textbook. So tell us about the book. Who is this for? And what is it about? Well, you were my target audience. I mean, when I wrote it, I wanted something that was academic, but user-friendly. The organization was simply chronological. I deal with methodology at the beginning and with personalities in the background of biblical archaeology. But then I just take it age by age, the Neolithic, Catholic, early Bronze, middle Bronze, late Bronze, and all the way through up into the modern era. so that there was a logic for the reader to follow. These things have continuity from one period to the next, and these things don't. So this book, while it is a textbook, again, I read it before I was a student, before I knew Bronze Age, Iron Age, you know, all these things, Chalcolithic, who's ever heard of that? Before I knew this stuff, yet I got it, it made sense, and I couldn't put it down. I remember I had to take someone to the dentist's office, and I sat, and I read, and I read, and I read, and I read a lot while they were in there. Tell us who you are. I've introduced you as an archaeologist. I've introduced you as the provost. What is a provost? That's what my mother said. Congratulations on being the provost at the Bible Seminary. What exactly is a provost, she said. It just simply comes to us from the medieval university. It's a term still used in academia. To refer to the head of an academic program. So, basically, I oversee curriculum, students and student services, library, faculties, so anything dealing with students, faculty, curriculum, library, that's all my purview. Everything. Well, the finance, you know, I don't have the governance end of the burden of budget and some of, you know, working with the board of directors and so forth. But yeah, everything besides that is sort of my purview. Very cool. So what is the Near East Archaeological Society? This is an amazing organization that's been in existence for about 60 years. We are a society of conservative scholars who believe that the Bible is a reliable historical source. We come together once a year. We have an annual meeting attended by somewhere, you know, two or 300 people usually each year. Each session varies, but it's a total each year somewhere around that. And then we have a membership of around 600 members right now and growing, rapidly growing. We publish a peer-reviewed journal called Near East Archaeological Society Bulletin, and we also have a popular magazine called Artifacts. And we're also doing a festriate right now, which is a volume in honor of our former president Edwin Yamauchi, who's turning 90 and is a legend sort of in our field. So it's a series of chapters and articles that members of our society are putting together, being published by a major publisher that will be in his honor. So we do academic publications, we do conferences, and we train young scholars. I mean, people like you, Clayton, as a student at TBS, you were able to come to NEAS and make your first academic presentations and begin to prepare your first publications, which you now have. Congratulations, by the way, your first academic article coming out. Well, that's all thanks to your mentorship and The seeds of that actually came from something I did for you in a class, and so you've given me opportunities. Yes, NEAS, the Near East Archaeological Society, that meeting, that annual meeting, it's with the Evangelical Theological Society meeting every year, and it's always a joy to attend. You hear the newest and the most interesting things in Bible archaeology. So let's talk about that. You're the director. The excavation director for the Associates for Biblical Research. There's a lot there. Who are the Associates for Biblical Research? ABR is a consortium organization which was founded by David Livingston in the 1970s. He was attempting to address what he called the problem of I. He was being told that the archaeological evidence contradicted the biblical account. This is the place in Sunday school we all call AI. So what was the problem with the city of I? Well, the city of I didn't have a problem, but apparently they had excavated the wrong city and thought that it was I and thought that there was contradictory evidence. Livingston knew that that wasn't correct. And so that led him to go back to school. to Andrews University where he earned a PhD in Ancient Near Eastern Archaeology and as an evangelical believer, now with the knowledge and the degree, he came back over here and in 1979 launched the first ABR excavation. He designed the program so that other schools, universities, institutions, colleges could be a part of that umbrella organization because Southwest Radio Church can't just come over and apply for a DIG license. But, as being part of the consortium under the umbrella of ABR, you can play a significant role, and people like you do. Absolutely. So, that's what it is. It's an umbrella organization that has a 45-year history here in Judea and Samaria of excavating at four biblical sites. So, what four biblical sites has ABR excavated? Our first dig was at Kerbet Nisya, a place called Tzogot today, and Livingstone was investigating that as a candidate for I. Didn't meet the criteria and did a long term excavation there. And then was the 2nd excavation from 95 to 2016. 21 years in there. Then we began at Shiloh in 2017, and we just completed our sixth season. And then we also did our project for two seasons at Mount Eba. So all in the highlands, all focused on this time of the conquest and settlement. Yeah, so you're very focused on this specific period. Why is the time of Joshua's conquest important to the believer? I think the battle for the Bible begins there. When we're talking about higher critics, great schools like Princeton and others that have now taken the stance that the Bible is not a reliable historical source, they're attempting to undermine, in my view, the reliability of the biblical text. The Bible is guilty until proven innocent, in other words. When we're dealing with the conquest, we're talking about the foundational issues. Was Moses a real person? Was Joshua a real person? The Bible says they were literate, that they could read and write. Modern scholarship, for the most part, says that that's not possible. There wasn't an alphabet with which they could have written. It wasn't until a thousand years later, during the Babylonian, or maybe even as late as the Hellenistic period, that the Bible was redacted and put together. Therefore, we should not take this all too seriously. We don't have any eyewitnesses. That's why we have focused on the period of the Conquest, because I think that's where it begins. I know one particular Egyptologist wrote that the Conquest and the Exodus, they stand or fall together. That's right. I agree with him. Good. Good. So in the excavations that you've done as director of excavations, you dug it. We'll talk about the Mountie ball project here in a minute, because that's fascinating. And I think a lot of our listeners have heard about that. That tells Shiloh at these places, you're finding things in the ground. And you can talk about some of them, and some of them I think are waiting for publication. And some of them we're still trying to figure out. That's what we spent a lot of this summer doing, trying to figure out some things. So when you dig, and you read the Bible, are you finding the same thing in both places? I find a real consistency between the two. I've never set out, Clayton, to prove the Bible. I mean, I don't think the Bible needs to be proven, but what I have found happens is that when we dig ancient sites and we do it well, then we illuminate the background of the biblical text. These are biblical sites. Of course the Bible is relevant. And, you know, I just feel sorry for my colleagues who haven't read the Bible and are excavating at these sites. I mean, I could give you a bunch of examples of how they would miss important evidence because of that. Right. So how is scholarship amongst biblical archaeologists? Are they all believers? No. Interestingly, even people who would identify as a biblical archaeologist, not all are believers. I know some who are agnostic. They just, they believe that the Bible is a reliable source, but they haven't, there's not a personal faith commitment that is connected to that. The majority, however, who would consider themselves biblical archaeologists, a term that Bill Deaver three decades ago said was out of vogue or biblical archaeology is dead. I told Bill recently we spoke at the same conference together I said I've got news for you it's alive and well okay resurrected if you will. Yeah yeah and he's done some interesting work I've been impressed with some of the things that he said that really match up with what we think. Well a diva being 90 years old now says. Well, really, he's always viewed himself as sort of the arbiter. He's going to let both sides have it. He's going to let the liberals straighten them out, and then he's going to try to straighten us out on the other side. Yeah, interesting stuff. So let's talk a little bit about the book. Okay. All right. So we've got the trowel and the truth, the title. What are we talking about here? Well, when I was looking for a title, I thought the Bible is truth, not just fact, but I believe it's truth, propositional truth. The oldest fragment we have of the New Testament, the John Rylands fragment P52, is the portion where Jesus is before Pontius Pilate and Pilate asks him that question, what is truth? And very interesting, that's our oldest portion of the New Testament that has survived from the first generation. I wanted to talk about truth, and I wanted to talk about archaeology. And it's the trowel we use as our primary tool to peel back the layers of time. And that's what I wanted to do, was to set the two side by side and see how there could be a dialogue between trowel and truth. It comes out very well. I find it very interesting. You use a word. Heard you use it many times. Verisimilitude. What is that? And how does that relate to biblical archaeology and what you put in the book? The V word. Yes. Well, verisimilitude is really the key that we're looking for. When we go into the field as archaeologists, we have keen eyes and we have research questions that we want to answer. Really verisimilitude is what we're trying to establish. Normally the Bible, because these are biblical sites, but sometimes we have other ancient texts like the Amarna letters, for example, that also deal with Shiloh. And I'm looking to see if there is a consistency between the two. Do I find what I would expect to find if it were a reliable source? And I'll give you an example. Both the Bible and Elamarna 288 talk about the Gate of Shiloh, or the Gate of Silu. It tells us that three people died in the Gate of Silu. So we have Eli in the Bible, and then in Ea 288 we have Turbasu and Yathihada. They are slain in the Gate of Silu. So we would expect then, at a place like Shiloh, to find a gate, a substantial gate, with a view of the highway, according to the Bible, if we're taking that as a criteria screen. It wouldn't be required that we would find human remains because they may have buried these people, but it would not surprise us if we did find human remains in a gate. Well, as you know, we have uncovered a very substantial gate on the north of the site that looks down on the Patriarchs Highway. Just two weeks ago, we found a human cranium. there in the gate. When I say there's verisimilitude, that doesn't surprise me. Now, if I found something that was really weird, let's say Ethiopian pottery in the gate, that would not be verisimilitude. There would be no reason to expect that to occur. With the Jerusalem city-state in the south, the Shechem city-state in the north, you had boundaries between these areas. When the Israelites came in, they kept some of those same boundary lines in place. So the line between Shechem and Jerusalem became the border between Benjamin and Ephraim, for example. These are important boundary lines, and the geography then informs some of the actions taking place in the Bible. We understand why did Jesus move from one side of the Sea of Galilee to the other? Well, there's one political jurisdiction here, Herod Antipas, and on the east, it's Herod Philip. Well, it says they sought to kill him, therefore he crossed over. Okay, it's a different political jurisdiction. Fascinating things. We don't think about that today. We have a kind of a Sunday school vision of the Bible, which is great. I had some great Sunday school teachers. I'm a Sunday school teacher myself. But think how kids and other adults would eat their Sunday school class. They would bring their friends if they were getting this type of information. Sure, I mean, and that's one of the things I love about digging with ABR, is we get out there, you put your hands on things, and you pull items out of the ground, and you see things, pottery, that has not been touched since the time of Jesus. And you can look at it and you see, let's say, a Roman cook pot. We say Roman, of course, being the era, but this cook pot from the time of Jesus, and I can recognize those now because of your teaching. But to sit down and look at that, and it's got burn marks on it, and you think, you know, some mother put something in this pot and cooked it for her child at the time of Jesus, and they probably knew his name. They'd probably heard of him. His fame went around, and it makes these things come alive. I want to talk about some of your other writings and some of the stuff you've done, learn a little more about your background and your current project here at Shiloh. We want to talk about Mount Ebal tomorrow. While we're looking at this, is this the sort of book that could be used, say, as supplemental for teaching Sunday school or even for writing sermons? I think if you bought a copy for your pastor, for your Sunday school teacher, that would be the best gift that you could ever give them. I mean, seriously, they already love this stuff, but empower them with more information, with accurate information, scholarship from a conservative perspective. I think it would be their best friend. Real quickly, Clayton, I wrote the first version in 2007. I wrote the second version in 2017. And now I'm thinking seriously about in 2027 writing a third edition because archaeology, there's so much to update. Sure. Things are always changing in the ground. Well, they're staying the same in the ground, but as we pull them out, we change our views. We change, right? We need to be flexible like that. It's interesting. You know, we talk about verisimilitude. When you read something in the Bible, what you pull out of the ground illuminates that text. It gives us a new context, a new understanding. And things aren't always what we assume that they are. Right. One of your classmates, Brent Hofling, once excavated an Iron Age 2A oil lamp at Shiloh, and immediately I thought of Psalm 119, 105, your word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. Yeah, you know David didn't know what Abraham's land looked like or what Jesus is a blue type But his the basis of this metaphor was that land listen Brent will never look at that no say no And I use that in when we do conferences, but now interesting side note you mentioned Brent I Understand he's our our valedictorian this year Brent wrote an article for our magazine prophecy in the news and so how exciting yes our archaeology edition and Your students are out there doing some cool things. I love this. But some people think they have trouble with me. Wait till they get my students. We've been talking today with Dr. Scott Stripling. He is the president of the Near East Archaeological Society, provost at the Bible Seminary, and he's the director of excavations for Associates for Biblical Research. Dr. Stripling, thank you so much for being on the program today. We'll talk again tomorrow. Thanks, Clayton. It's been a joy. We have more coming up from Clayton Van Hus and Scott Stripling on our next program. In our resource spotlight today, we are featuring Scott Stripling's excellent book, The Trowel and the Truth, a guide to field archaeology in the Holy Land. This book gives readers a masterful treatment of the how and why of biblical archaeology. Order your copy today when you call 1-800-652-1144. That's 1-800-652-1144. You can also order this book on our website, swrc.com. The Trowel and the Truth is an important and timely book for at least two reasons. First, archaeological work in the Holy Land continues to make good progress, resulting in exciting discoveries and fresh insights. Dr. Stripling's book informs readers of many of these recent and important discoveries. Secondly, archaeology greatly aids in the interpretation of scripture. So be informed and have your faith encouraged and affirmed when you dive into the pages of Scott Stripling's book, The Trowel and the Truth, a guide to field archaeology in the Holy Land. Order this outstanding book today when you call 1-800-652-1144. Clayton Van Hus returns now with a friend from Jerusalem to talk about the latest Holy Land treasures that we have ready for you. We're so glad you joined us today on the program. I'm your host, Clayton Van Hus, the director of Affirm Apologetics. And today we're coming to you from the streets of the old city of Jerusalem. I'm meeting once again with my friend, Zach, Zach Mishricky, who is an expert in all things ancient and also in gifts from the Holy Land. And that's what we're offering is our treasures from the Holy Land. Zach, welcome to the program. Thanks so much. Thank you, thank you. Can't wait to hear about this one because I dig up a lot of things out of the ground. One of my favorite things to find, and I always just find pieces, are the old oil lamps that come out of the ground, especially the ones from the time of King David. And the reason for that is I love to teach Psalm 119, 105. which says, your word is a light to my feet and lamp to my path. And these lamps are exactly what David was thinking about when he wrote that passage. Zach, you have these replicas made. It's a good quality work. So the oil lamps that were made during the time of King David, they were a bowl. like a clay bowl, and they were pinched on one end. And if you put your thumbs in that pinch, you can feel the potter's thumbs. And so what you've done is you've made a replica of those Iron Age lamps, the 3,000-year-old type of lamp. Are they usable? Very usable. How do you use one of those ancient oil lamps? Well today, when we use the oil lamps, we have a wick. Back then, the people, the ancient people, the ancient Israelites, they would bring hay and wrap it with lamb wool and that would be their wick. So hay and wool? Yeah, hay and wool, you know, like wrap it. Lay it down on the pinched side. And wait till it soaks the oil, olive oil or any kitchen oil, and light it, and it will give you, you know, like two feet of light in your home. Yes, okay, so David, when he lit his oil lamp, he could see what, one or two steps ahead of him? Probably. So he says that God's word is like a lamp to his path. Yes, I love that. So he's not lighting the whole path. He goes day by day. Day by day, God tells him the next step, because with these lamps, He just stays faithful on that day and trusts God for the next day. Exactly. Natural weakness is we want to know what's the future. We shouldn't know. No. We should do it by day. Trust God for each step. With those lamps as you walk at night, you're not going to step in a hole. You're not going to step on a rock. You're not going to step on a scorpion. You can see where you're stepping and that's all you can see. Yes. Today has enough evil and tomorrow it will take care of itself. Who makes these lamps? I have another, you know, a few potters also in this area here. Yes. Who work for me and does it. And they do it around Jerusalem? Yep. You know, I have an original lamp from the time period of King David. It's light. Yeah, this lamp was just like it. And it's secure. Wow. And it comes with wakes. Oh, well, that's important. All you need to supply is the olive oil. Yeah, you can use any kitchen oil. light it and enjoy and remember you know what the ancient people you know in the bible used to have of light. Yeah. So we can understand what they're talking about. Right. You know, today if I have, you know, like a big fluorescent, you know, I don't understand. Right. What light means, you know. Same as, you know, in many places in America, it rains every day. So they cannot understand what that rain is blessing or the late rain or early rain. Here in the Middle East, It rains, you know, short period in winter, sometimes if we're lucky. Right. So same, you know, if you don't come in onto the land and understand, you know, have things from the Bible, you know, we can understand the Bible. What does it mean? What light means? You know, what, you know, your world is a light unto my feet. It's a day by day, you know? Yes. Just like... Some people believe that they used to put it on their feet. That seems like it would slosh. You know, just put it on their feet, and when they go to a cave or a dark area, they have a sword and a shield in their hands, so they can go little by little and defend themselves. Exactly. He illuminates our path step by step. And what's cool is these kinds of replicas that you do, they illuminate the Bible for us. They shine light on the Bible. You know, I do it to not try to let people understand the Bible and the objects in the Bible and have it in their home for an affordable price so they can understand and get connected to the Bible. It's part of the Bible. We're selling Bible parts. right and you're giving us a good understanding of of what the bible teaches exactly yes we tell people enough of china it's made here and connects you to the bible to this to the truth the conservative you know where to what is a priority for us you know and what we want and need is things conservative in the Bible that helps us to understand God more and have peace from him, not from anything else. Well, Zach, thank you so much for your time today. God bless you and your workers who are working so hard to make these items and what they do to teach us as Christians. And I tell people, get parts of the Bible in your home. In our resource spotlight today, we are featuring Scott Stripling's excellent book, The Trowel and the Truth, a guide to field archaeology in the Holy Land. This book gives readers a masterful treatment of the how and why of Biblical archaeology. Order The Trowel and the Truth today when you call 1-800-652-1144. That's 1-800-652-1144. Tomorrow, more insight from Scott Stripling on archaeology from the Holy Land. Be sure to tune in on your favorite radio station by downloading our SWRC mobile app or by subscribing to our daily Watchman on the Wall podcast. Watchman on the Wall is a production of Southwest Radio Ministries and is supported by faithful friends like you. Please visit our website SWRC.com.