Mission Statement
Doctrinal Statement
"The Bible was written in an environment that is now unfamiliar to most of its
readers. The individual realization of the modern world with its new
facilities, products, and problems is quite different from the social and economic
conditions described in the Bible. Some of its language is puzzling, and can easily
be misconstrued if one does not have some explanation of the ancient
background."
- Merrill C. Tenney
My goal is to aid students and teachers of the Scriptures with Biblical and
historical information for the purpose of furthering the gospel of Jesus Christ.
It is our desire that He would be glorified and that He would equip the readers
with an insight into discerning truth from error seeing that Biblical and
historical studies delve into an area that has been researched by the scholarly
community, whom many are unbelievers and seem to be antagonistic toward the
evidence brought forth from the historical accuracy of the Biblical account, and
attempt to persuade the unlearned that the Bible cannot be substantiated by
history. On the contrary, historical evidence has brought many in scholarly circles to
an awareness that the wealth of documentation found in both the Old and New
Testaments, unparalleled in history, along with the insights of the recent scenes
discovered from the past, give a stirring hope to the soul that the Bible is
indeed a God-Breathed Book.
Thanks to Archaeology, our certainty of the accuracy of the Bible in the light
of historical evidence has been immeasurably enhanced. Ever since the American
scholar, Edward Robinson, laid the foundations of Biblical archaeology with
his work in Israel in the nineteenth century, the study of Biblical history and
ancient studies has been crowned with extraordinary success. After thousands of
years the forgotten world of the near east has come alive to us again, the
rulers and peoples of the lands that stretched from Mesopotamia to Asia Minor and
to the Nile and even the whole historical, cultural and religious background of
those ancient times, with which the Bible is concerned, have recently opened
our our eyes and shined a brilliant light bringing the world of the bible closer
to us.
Recent excavations of Mesopotamia have brought evidence of the dynasties of
Ur, which was mentioned in the Bible as the original home of Abraham, the first
Hebrew, who left Ur, the land of the Chaldeans, to go to a place that the Lord
would bring him, the land of Palestine. The Lord promised him a great number of
descendants who would dwell in that land and be a beacon to the whole world
surrounding them of the will and purposes of the One and Almighty God, and we know
them today as the Israelites. Their history, which the Bible records, is one
that touched the greatest empires in the history of the world, Egypt, Assyria,
Babylon, Persia, Greece, and even Rome.
Cities referred to in the Scriptures, like Nineveh, Ashur and Babylon, along
with their palaces and royal homes, city gates and walls, their sanctuaries and
temple towers, their statues of gods and monarchs, have been discovered and
excavated. The annals of the warrior kings of Assyria and Babylon, written on
cuneiform tablets, have been found in their thousands confirming and never
contradicting what has been handed down to us in the Hebrew Scriptures in the books of
the Kings and the Chronicles. Archaeology has brought us closer to the
Elamites, the Horites, and the Hittites (sons of Heth according to the Bible), and the
Philistines can be seen in real living shape on Egyptian temple walls. In fact,
Egypt is becoming very important to Biblical archaeologists in the light of
recent discoveries, as mentioned by professor William F. Albright:
"Biblical scholars are coming more and more to value Egyptology as a means to
a better understanding of the Bible. No where else have we anything remotely
corresponding to the mass of material on the walls of temples and in tombs with
which we can illustrate every aspect of life in Bible times."
What an opportunity for us today being alive in a time where modern
archaeology has, for the first time in three and four thousand years, illuminated us as
with a powerful searchlight, with scenes of the ancient Bible world and helping
us to understand what the Bible has to say in its historical and cultural
setting. The mission and hope of Bible History Online is to help in bringing the
work of writers, great scholars, research workers and excavators, who have devoted
their lives to gathering information, and bring their work to the readers
fingertips through the amazing technology of the Internet, and with this precious
information they would enrich themselves and others with a deeper appreciation
and understanding of the God-Breathed Word and the historical setting in which
it was written.
rusty@bible-history.com
Ancient Babylonia
Return to Bible History Online