Evidence for the Reliability of the Old Testament

The Old Testament prophets claimed that they were speaking God’s words. More than four hundred times in the Old Testament they proclaimed with unabashed confidence, “Thus saith the Lord.” Besides these statements, the Old Testament records in hundreds of places that God said something or did something. Is it reasonable to believe these claims?

In this article we will survey some discoveries that point to men like Abraham and David once walking upon the earth. Then we will consider how the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple fulfilled the predictions of the prophets. Our hope is that believers will be encouraged by this evidence, and that skeptics will be challenged to consider that the Bible might be more accurate than they previously thought.

1. Archaeological Evidence for the Old Testament

The archaeological evidence for events that took place in the ancient Near East is limited. This is true for events recorded both in the Bible and in secular history. Thousands of years of human activity, natural erosion, and decay have destroyed much of the evidence. And many events (such as the nomadic life of Abraham) are archaeologically invisible; that is, the events are of the sort that would not leave a trace in the archaeological record. Also, when evidence is uncovered, it can be difficult to properly interpret and date the discoveries. But despite these challenges, solid evidence exists for the historical reliability of the Old Testament.

a. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (2000-1700 BC)

When most of the world had forgotten the Lord, God called one man to leave his home and go to a land that God promised to give him. God promised Abraham that through him “shall all the nations of the earth be blessed” (Genesis 22:18). Through this man and his descendants God chose to reveal Himself and give hope to mankind.

Though there is currently not any direct evidence outside of the Bible for the patriarchs, the stories about them fit precisely into the historical context of that period. Many of the events described in the life of Abraham could have only happened in the period between 2000-1500 BC. It would have been nearly impossible for a writer living many centuries later to recreate the world of Abraham in such an accurate way.

In this period (and not later) it would have been possible for Abraham to roam freely as he pastured his flocks, because there was no centralized government in Canaan to force him to stay out. It is also only during this period that Pharaoh had a palace in eastern Egypt where Abraham’s wife could have attracted Pharaoh’s attention, as described in Genesis 12:15.¹

Genesis 14:1-12 describes how four kings from Mesopotamia made war against five kings from near the Dead Sea. In the ensuing battle Abraham’s nephew Lot was captured. This story about an alliance of petty Mesopotamian kings would only make sense in a period when one of the great empires did not rule over all of Mesopotamia. Such was the case between 2000 and 1700 BC.²

Archaeology has confirmed that most of the towns that Abraham visited were indeed inhabited in Abraham’s day. Some later writer was not making up these stories and accidentally naming towns that did not exist in Abraham’s time. One scholar concludes, “It should be clear, finally, that the main features of the patriarchal narratives either fit specifically into the first half of the second millennium or are consistent with such a dating.”³

b. The settlement of Israel in Canaan (1400-1000 BC)

Abraham’s descendants moved to Egypt during a famine. Eventually Pharaoh enslaved them and caused them great suffering. After many generations, God raised up Moses to lead Israel out of Egypt. At Mt. Sinai, the Lord promised the children of Israel that they would be His people and He would be their God if they would obey Him. After wandering in the wilderness for forty years, the children of Israel entered Canaan, the land God had promised to give Abraham. Joshua led Israel in a military campaign against the main cities of Canaan.

Jericho was the first city destroyed by Joshua. In excavations at the site of ancient Jericho, archaeologists have found that the walls of the city had crumbled as if from an earthquake. The city had been destroyed by fire. And the remains of large stores of grain were found in the city. These findings fit with the description of Joshua’s conquest. In the biblical narrative, the wall fell down flat (Joshua 6:20). Joshua destroyed Jericho after Passover and at the time of harvest, so that there would have been fresh stores of harvested grain in the city (Joshua 3:15, 5:10-11). The siege was short, so that the inhabitants did not have time to consume the grain during a long siege. And the grain was not plundered by the conquering army, but instead the city and everything in it were burned with fire (Joshua 6:24).⁴

After the initial campaign, Joshua divided the land among the twelve tribes, who were to complete the conquest and settle in the land. Joshua warned Israel not to adopt the false religious practices of the people around them (Joshua 23). But after Joshua’s death Israel began to worship other gods, and the Lord allowed enemies to plunder Israel. When Israel repented, God raised up judges to deliver Israel.

One of the earliest witnesses of Israel’s presence in Canaan in the time of the judges is Merenptah’s Stela. This monument, dated to about 1210 BC, celebrates Pharaoh Merenptah’s victory over many cities and peoples in Canaan. It states, “Israel is laid waste, its grain is not.”⁵

Archaeologists have found that during the time of the judges there was a significant increase in the number of settlements in the central hill country of Canaan. This likely reflects the settlement process of the Israelites as they abandoned the nomadic life they had lived in the wilderness and built permanent houses. These new towns used pottery of a style different from their Canaanite neighbors. And while their Philistine neighbors enjoyed pork, the people of these settlements enjoyed sheep and goat meat, but not pig. This corresponds to the dietary laws in Leviticus 11.⁶

c. The kings of Israel and Judah (1000-500 BC)

After Israel had been in the land for many years, the Lord raised up David to be their king. God promised David that His mercy would never depart from his descendants. If his descendants turned away from the Lord, God would chasten them but not utterly reject them. David became the king from whom all the rest of the kings of Judah descended.

At Tel Dan (the site of biblical Dan) a monument was discovered that recorded the victory of an Aramean king over the kings of Israel and Judah. The names of the kings are damaged and difficult to read, but the monument clearly says that the king of Judah is “of the House of David.” This mention of David only about two hundred years after his reign is strong evidence that King David was not a fictional character invented by later writers.⁷

First Kings 14:25-26 states that Shishak (Shoshenq I) king of Egypt came against King Rehoboam and took away the treasures in the temple at Jerusalem. Shishak’s invasion of Judah is recorded in a triumph scene in an Egyptian temple in which many towns of Judah are named (compare 2 Chronicles 12:4).⁸

The Mesha Stela celebrated the victory of Mesha king of Moab over Israel. It stated, “Omri was king of Israel and he afflicted Moab many days.” In 2 Kings 3, the parallel biblical account records that Mesha rebelled against Omri’s grandson, King Jehoram, and in the end managed to repulse Israel’s attempt to subdue the rebellion.⁹

Second Kings 18:13 says, “Now in the fourteenth year of king Hezekiah did Sennacherib king of Assyria come up against all the fenced cities of Judah, and took them.” A large Assyrian army then besieged Jerusalem and demanded that the city surrender. But Hezekiah cried out to God for help and, according to 2 Kings 19:35, during the night the angel of the Lord destroyed a great portion of the Assyrian army. The once haughty Assyrians were forced to march home without capturing the city.

Sennacherib gives his version of the story in records that were discovered at Nineveh. He boasts that he conquered forty-six fortified cities in Judah and then confined Hezekiah in Jerusalem “like a bird in a cage.” Then the royal inscription moves quickly to King Hezekiah later sending tribute to Nineveh. What became of the siege? Why didn’t Sennacherib depose this rebellious king like he did other kings? He was not able to boast that he had captured Jerusalem or Hezekiah. The silence implies that some embarrassing setback aborted the siege of Jerusalem, paralleling the account in 2 Kings.¹⁰

Most of the kings of Judah and Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord. God sent prophets warning of judgment for their sin and calling the people to turn back to Him. But they did not. Finally God judged Israel and Judah. Assyria destroyed and carried away Israel in 722 BC, and Babylon conquered Judah in 586 BC.

One of the last kings of Judah was Jehoiachin. He was captured by Nebuchadnezzar and taken to Babylon (2 Kings 24:15). In Babylon, Jehoiachin was eventually released from prison and allowed to eat at the king’s court. According to 2 Kings 25:29-30, he was given a daily food ration. A striking corroboration to this is a ration tablet, discovered at Babylon, which records that “Jehoiachin, king of Judah,” received an allotment of oil.¹¹

Of the twenty kings and one queen of Judah, eight are named by ancient sources outside of the land of Israel. Of the twenty kings of Israel, nine are mentioned outside of Israel. And of twenty foreign rulers named in 1 and 2 Kings, all but two or three have been identified in external sources.¹²

The fact that there is no extra-biblical evidence for some events in the Bible does not prove that they did not happen or that evidence is not in the ground waiting to be uncovered. Critics once pointed out that though the Bible refers many times to the Hittites, no people group by that name was known to exist. That was, until 1906, when the capital of the Hittite empire was discovered, and it was found that not only did the Hittites exist, but that they were a major empire in the ancient world! For centuries the Bible was the only historical record of many persons, places, and events until archaeologists dug up more evidence.

2. Fulfilled Prophecies of the Old Testament

The Old Testament prophets sometimes foretold what God was going to do in the future. Some of these prophecies warned of judgment if the people did not turn from their sinful ways (Deuteronomy 28:63). These warnings were fulfilled when the Jews were carried away by Assyria and Babylon. Other prophecies promised that God would restore His people after they had been chastened for their sins. These prophecies were also fulfilled when Cyrus, king of Persia, permitted the people to return and rebuild the temple (Ezra 1:1-3).

The greatest promise that Israel expected was the coming of one called the Messiah, or the Christ, who would establish a kingdom of peace and blessing. The people awaited this promise throughout the centuries while they were subjugated by the Greeks and the Romans. But instead of Israel being restored, in AD 70, the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and the temple. After the Jews were again crushed in the second Jewish revolt (AD 132-135), the Romans rebuilt Jerusalem with a temple dedicated to Jupiter and renamed the city Aelia Capitolina. The Jews would remain a stateless people for nearly two thousand years.

But many believed that Jesus was the Messiah who had established God’s kingdom on earth in the hearts of those who believed in Jesus. God had not failed to keep His promises, but had in fact fulfilled them just like the prophets said. Notably, the prophets had indicated that the Messiah should have come before the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple and the Jewish state. The remarkable correlation between these predictions and the timing of Jesus’ first coming can hardly be explained by mere chance.

The patriarch Jacob prophesied, “The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be” (Genesis 49:10). In this verse the name Shiloh refers to the Messiah. The meaning of this prophecy is that a descendent of Judah would rule in Israel until the Messiah came, at which time the Messiah would establish His kingdom and rule forever. According to this prophecy the Jewish state could not end before the Messiah came.

One prophecy specifically points to the Messiah coming before the destruction of the Second Temple. After the return from captivity in Babylon, the Second Temple was built to replace the First Temple that Solomon had built. Concerning this Second Temple, Haggai 2:9 says, “The glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former, saith the LORD of hosts: and in this place will I give peace, saith the LORD of hosts.”

The glory of the Second Temple could not exceed the glory of the former temple unless it was filled with the glory of the Lord. At the dedication of Solomon’s temple, the glory of the Lord filled the temple (1 Kings 8:11). But the Second Temple was not filled with the glory of the Lord at its dedication (Ezra 6:16-18). God had promised, “I will fill this house with glory” (Haggai 2:7). Was this temple destroyed without ever being filled with glory? No. The glory of the Lord entered the temple in the person of Jesus Christ, who was God’s glory veiled in human flesh (John 1:14; Hebrews 1:3).

More prophecies point to the Messiah coming while the temple stood. Psalm 118:26 foretold the greeting the Messiah would receive in the temple: “Blessed be he that cometh in the name of the LORD: we have blessed you out of the house of the LORD.” And Malachi 3:1 says that the Messiah “shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant.”

Messiah should also have come before the city of Jerusalem was destroyed. Zechariah 9:9 pictures the Messiah being joyfully received by the inhabitants of Jerusalem: “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, thy King cometh unto thee: he is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon [a donkey].” Matthew 21:1-9 records Jesus riding into Jerusalem in precisely this manner.

Daniel 9:25-26 also speaks of the Messiah coming before the destruction of both Jerusalem and the temple: “From the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince, shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks . . . And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary.” This prophecy describes a precise order of events: the Messiah will come, then the Messiah will be cut off (killed), and then the people of the prince (the Romans) will destroy Jerusalem and the temple.

The sixty-nine weeks prophesied by Daniel point to the time of Christ’s death. The weeks refer to seven years rather than seven days (Leviticus 25:8). In 445 BC King Artaxerxes gave a command to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem (Nehemiah 2:1-8). Four hundred eighty-three years (sixty-nine weeks of years) after this date coincides with the time when Christ was “cut off.”¹³

Like Daniel 9:26, Isaiah also prophesied of a suffering Messiah who would be “cut off,” or killed: “For he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken” (Isaiah 53:8).

Jesus fits the descriptions given by the prophets. The prophets said that the Messiah would ride into Jerusalem, enter the temple, and suffer a cruel death before (not after) the destruction of Jerusalem, the Second Temple, and the Jewish state. Jesus fulfilled these prophecies while Jerusalem and the temple still stood. The destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70 was a historical marker before which the Messiah should have come—and did come in the Person of Jesus Christ.

In Christ Jesus all the hopes and promises of the prophets find their fulfillment. Christ is the Messiah spoken of by Daniel, the Suffering Servant pictured by Isaiah, the King riding on a donkey foretold by Zechariah, the Shiloh foreseen by Jacob, and the promised descendant of Abraham through whom “all nations of the earth will be blessed.”

In the Old Testament God acted in history to reveal Himself. The Old Testament records that some people listened to the message they heard from God. Others rejected that message.

God continues to reveal Himself as the God who offers peace and blessing to all of humanity through His Son Jesus Christ. Today He wants to reveal Himself to you. Will you listen to Him? His message is recorded for you in the Bible.