The Stones Are Crying

One of the most significant archaeological discoveries of all time is the Rosetta Stone, housed in the British Museum since 1802.

Some scholars say that the stone was found on July 15, 1799, by the French captain Pierre-François Bouchard. Others argue that it was discovered on July 19 or even in August. Despite the minor discrepancies, we do know that it was found in July or August 1799 in the village of Rosetta, in the Nile Delta, during Napoleon’s Egyptian campaign. The Rosetta Stone is an ancient Egyptian granodiorite stele with a decree from 196 BC honoring Ptolemy V as a god. The inscription is engraved in three languages: ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics, demotic, and Greek. Thomas Young decoded the demotic script, which helped Jean François Champollion decipher the hieroglyphs in 1822.

This provided the key to reading many other hieroglyphic inscriptions of ancient Egypt, where the Israelites had lived and been held captive for centuries. This, along with other archaeological discoveries, allowed the stones to “cry out” at a critical moment in world history. At the time, the method of higher criticism (later known as the historical-critical method) was bringing into question the divine origin of the Bible and denying many of its historical accounts. On the other hand, archaeological discoveries in the Middle East began to confirm the historicity of several of those accounts.

Some might ask, Does the Bible really need to be endorsed by external sources? Accepting the Bible as the self-authenticated Word of God, one should allow it to critically evaluate all other sources of knowledge, not the other way around.

Nevertheless, archaeology has contributed significantly to helping reconstruct the historical and cultural background of biblical events and to understanding how people lived in biblical times —how they built their houses, how they worked, how they got married, and more. For instance, Martin Hengel’s insightful book Crucifixion detailed the methods of Roman crucifixion, shedding new light on Jesus’ cruel death on the cross.28 Thank You, Lord, for the archaeological discoveries that support the historicity of the Bible and help us better understand its historical and cultural background!