"Helena pulled down the pagan monument and built a church on the revered location. It was later replaced by another church built in the Crusader period. Today the Church of the Holy Sepulchre occupies the site, and remarkably we can see underground the outlines of rock-cut tombs."
"The power of biblical archaeology is that it proves the historicity of the Bible. It also confirms the presence of the Jews in their ancestral homeland. And it supports the founding pillars of America — such as the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution — and also of Western civilization.
"The philosopher Leo Strauss said the West was built on two pillars: Athens and Jerusalem. Athens represents classical reason, free speech, and democracy. Jerusalem represents the idea of divine creation and a divine source for rights, the Exodus as a model of liberation from tyranny, and the Ten Commandments and the teachings of the prophets as a code and recipe for the good life.
"Athens, in a sense, needs no defense, but Jerusalem does. And yet the West is no less dependent on Jerusalem than on Athens. To consider just America, where would this nation be without Jefferson’s tracing of our fundamental rights to our Creator? Why, if not for their divine source, are our rights “unalienable”?
"How immeasurable is the impact of the Exodus narrative on black slaves anticipating their freedom? How much inspiration and knowledge have we gained from the great figures of the Bible, such as Abraham and Moses, from the Hebrew prophets like Isaiah and Jeremiah, and from the Jewish messiah named Jesus? And how much more chaotic our society would be without the guiding influence of the Ten Commandments, the Psalms, and the wisdom literature of the Bible?
Archaeology and Biblical Historicity
"Since the Enlightenment, and even more since the 19th century, the Bible has come under fierce attack. Skeptics insist the Bible was written long after the events it describes, and that much of it is based on myth and fable. Archaeology refutes that attack by confirming the historicity of the Bible. Biblical archaeology is not concerned with the miracles or the theology, but if the people, places, and events of the Bible are shown to be true, that increases the credibility of the narrative as a whole.
"My new book, The Stones Cry Out, covers the entire sweep of biblical history, from the patriarchs who lived around 2000 B.C. to Moses who lived around 1500 B.C. to the Hebrew prophets who lived from the eighth to the fourth centuries B.C. to the life, ministry, and death of Jesus and also the first-century A.D. movement of early Jewish and Christian followers of Jesus the messiah." . . .More...
