Diggers for the truth have had a lucrative month. A Jewish archaeologist on Monday said that ancient fortifications recently excavated in Jerusalem, not only date back 3,000 years to the time of King Solomon, but attest to the authenticity of the biblical narrative.
If the estimated age of the stone structure is true, the finding is an indication that Jerusalem housed a strong government which had the resources and manpower to build massive fortifications in the 10th century B.C.
This certainly matches the Bible‘s account that the Hebrew Kings David and Solomon ruled from Jerusalem at about that time. The archaeologist behind the dig, Eilat Mazar belongs to that school of thought.
Other archaeological chuckle heads in the Jewish country claim that they know enough to prove that the kingdoms of David and Solomon are strictly mythical.
Dr. Mazar, from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, called her find
“the most significant construction we have from First Temple days in Israel.”
She also said
“it means that at that time, the 10th century, in Jerusalem there was a regime capable of carrying out such construction.”
The fortifications found, including a monumental gatehouse and a 77-yard (70-meter) long section of an ancient wall, are located just outside the present-day walls of the Old City in Jerusalem – right next to the compound known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary.
Archaeologists have previously excavated the fortifications, first in the 1860s and again in the 1980s. But Mazar claims that her dig was the first complete excavation and the first to turn up strong evidence for the age of the wall: a large number of pottery shards.
Professor Shmuel Morre, former head of the Arabic Language and Literature Department at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, had this to say:
Recent Comments