A recent YouTube video on the Age of the Kingdom Series channel was viewed by more than 2,000 people, which is a new record for the channel, which was started in August, 2024. I know a lot of other channels get A LOT more views than that, but it’s a milestone for my channel.
You can watch the video here: https://youtu.be/iTDpOA9EI5A
Here’s the transcript of the video:
Today there are a lot of people shouting, “From the river to the sea, Palestine should be free.” I’m not convinced a lot of those people know what river and what sea they mean, but the question is who are the real Palestinians? Who was living there first? I recently got to see an important piece of evidence that the Jews were living in what is now Israel 3,000 years ago. Let’s have a look.
I was travelling over the holidays and so it’s been a while since I posted, but I wanted to do a quick video because I got the opportunity to visit a small museum in Edmond, Oklahoma, just outside Oklahoma City, which was privileged to host a very important archeological artifact: the Tel Dan Stele.
What is the Tel Dan Stele and why is it so important to the question of whether the Jews belong in Palestine? A Tel is a mound where a city was destroyed and Dan is a city in Galilee in Israel. And, by the way, how do you pronounce “Stele” anyway. I’ve heard it pronounced Stee-lee, Stee-lai, Stee-lay, Stella and Steel, all by people who should know. Dictionary.com is no help either.
Anyway, I talked at length about the Tel Dan Stele in this video, but in a nutshell, this engraved stone is the first archeological evidence outside the Bible that King David existed and was a real person. Before it was discovered in 1993, most scholars believed King David was a mythical character invented to boost Jewish nationalism after the Babylonian captivity, 500 years before Christ or about 2500 years ago. So even secular scholars agree that the Jews lived in Palestine more than 2,000 years ago.
But King David is believed to have lived and reigned 3,000 years ago. This stone, which is inscribed with the story of a glorious victory by a Syrian king, mentions that he defeated “the king of Israel and the king of the House of David.”
Again, this discovery was the first time anyone had found evidence of the existence of King David outside the Bible. It confirmed the Bible two different ways:
First: It mentions David as the first king of a dynasty, so we know he existed, because dynasties aren’t named after fictional characters and the stone was engraved only about 100 years after King David’s son Solomon died; long before the Babylonian captivity.
Second: It says “House of David” and that confirms what the Bible says, that all the kings of the southern kingdom of Judah were descendants of David for 500 years.
After the reign of David’s son, Solomon, the united kingdom of Israel split into a northern kingdom called “Israel” and a Southern kingdom called “Judah.” Judah and “House of David” are synonymous.
I wanted to visit this museum because I’m writing a series of novels about the united kingdom of Israel under King Saul, King David and King Solomon called “The Age of the Kingdom.” Two novels are available so far.
So why was this priceless artifact in Oklahoma? Armstrong University played a role in working with Jewish archeologist the late Eliat Mazar, who found and excavated the city of David in Jerusalem. Because of that connection, the Israel Museum in Jerusalem granted Armstrong University’s request to host the real Tel Dan Stele for two months. Full disclosure: the real artifact was on the way back to Jerusalem by the time I was able to go to Oklahoma, so I got to see a very good replica.
The museum is very small and resides actually in the lobby of the University’s Armstrong Auditorium, a concert and event space. I was fortunate to get to talk to Brent Nagtegaal, professor of archaeology at Armstrong University and host of “Let the Stone Speak,” the department’s video channel and magazine.
One exhibit I was particularly interested in was the replica of the Phoenician capitals that scholars believe were used in King David’s palace. The Bible tells us that King Hiram of Tyre, in what is now Lebanon, provide materials and workmen for the construction of David’s palace as well as Solomon’s temple. An actual Phoenician capital was discovered in Jerusalem in the place Eliat Mazar identified as David’s palace; another confirmation of the Bible.
The third novel in my Age of the Kingdom series is almost finished and is titled “The Eternal Kingdom.” The cover will have a representation of what some scholars believe David’s palace looked like.
It’s amazing that we have so much knowledge from archaeology now about things that existed 3,000 years ago. The discoveries of archeology have confirmed what the Bible says to the point that in my novels I stay as close as possible to the timeline and events as they are in the Bible.
So, since I believe the Bible, I believe the Jews have been in what is now Israel and Palestine for 4,000 years, because that’s when the father of the Jews, Abraham, emigrated there from what is now Iraq. Abraham had two sons, Ishmael, who is the father of the Arabs, including those who call themselves Palestinians today, and Isaac, who is the father of the Jews. Ishmael went to what is now Saudi Arabia and Isaac stayed in Canaan or what is today called Israel and Palestine.
The Tel Dan Stele confirms that the Jews had kings ruling in the same place as modern Israel for 500 years. The Arabs would not come to the land until the Moslem religion spread more than a thousand years later.
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