Ancient Hebrew Curse Reveals True Name of God! - Archaeologist Scott Stripling finds Curse Tablet

1
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:06,960
This is John Matarazzo with Charisma News and I am having the privilege today of talking

2
00:00:06,960 --> 00:00:10,320
to a real life Indiana Jones.

3
00:00:10,320 --> 00:00:18,920
And literally, I'm going to say it here that one archaeologist trash is Scott Stripling's

4
00:00:18,920 --> 00:00:23,580
treasure and you're going to explain, you're going to understand what we mean by that and

5
00:00:23,580 --> 00:00:27,920
how God has given him the wisdom to find some amazing, amazing things.

6
00:00:27,920 --> 00:00:30,000
So I'm not going to waste any time.

7
00:00:30,000 --> 00:00:31,960
I'm going to bring Scott on right now.

8
00:00:31,960 --> 00:00:35,480
Scott, Dr. Scott Stripling, it's great to have you here.

9
00:00:35,480 --> 00:00:43,860
I know you have an amazing discovery, an amazing find that really helps validate what we see

10
00:00:43,860 --> 00:00:45,000
in scriptures.

11
00:00:45,000 --> 00:00:47,580
And so I'm going to let you talk about that.

12
00:00:47,580 --> 00:00:53,600
So welcome to be here on Charisma News and it's great to be able to have you here.

13
00:00:53,600 --> 00:00:54,880
Hey, John, thanks.

14
00:00:54,880 --> 00:00:57,020
It's great to be with you also.

15
00:00:57,020 --> 00:01:00,680
And there's a lot of exciting things happening in the field of archaeology.

16
00:01:00,680 --> 00:01:04,040
I kind of see this as the golden age of archaeology.

17
00:01:04,040 --> 00:01:09,920
We're just less than a century and a half old really as a science and we're in a period

18
00:01:09,920 --> 00:01:14,600
now where I think we know what we're doing and our technologies are improving and we've

19
00:01:14,600 --> 00:01:17,960
got a really good grasp on the stratigraphy of the ancient world.

20
00:01:17,960 --> 00:01:20,760
So lots of exciting stuff taking place.

21
00:01:20,760 --> 00:01:21,760
Wonderful.

22
00:01:21,760 --> 00:01:28,440
So I led this off by saying that one archaeologist trash is Scott Stripling's treasure.

23
00:01:28,440 --> 00:01:35,200
And I want you to explain what I mean by that, because as you were explaining this new process

24
00:01:35,200 --> 00:01:39,220
to me, that's just kind of how I was able to summarize it.

25
00:01:39,220 --> 00:01:42,720
So tell us about what you call wet sifting.

26
00:01:42,720 --> 00:01:47,240
Yeah, well, we archaeologists love trash, love garbage.

27
00:01:47,240 --> 00:01:50,780
We can talk trash with the best of them.

28
00:01:50,780 --> 00:01:57,840
What I have discovered, John, this last 20 years is examining old dump piles at archaeological

29
00:01:57,840 --> 00:01:58,840
sites.

30
00:01:58,840 --> 00:02:04,780
So after an archaeologist excavates in the square and then dry sifts or sieves the material

31
00:02:04,780 --> 00:02:09,420
so the dirt falls through and to make sure they're not missing anything, then they discard

32
00:02:09,420 --> 00:02:10,960
the remaining matrix.

33
00:02:10,960 --> 00:02:16,400
And over time, that forms a huge pile, a dump pile, and they're left behind at the sites.

34
00:02:16,400 --> 00:02:20,520
And so virtually every archaeological site that you visit, if you know what to look for,

35
00:02:20,520 --> 00:02:22,540
you'll find the dump pile there.

36
00:02:22,540 --> 00:02:30,520
And what I discovered was that for every one scarab, which is like a shape of a beetle,

37
00:02:30,520 --> 00:02:38,000
has the iconography of a pharaoh on it, very common from that earlier time period, or bula,

38
00:02:38,000 --> 00:02:39,440
which is like a seal impression.

39
00:02:39,440 --> 00:02:44,040
Well, for every one that the archaeologist in charge of the dig had published, I was

40
00:02:44,040 --> 00:02:46,940
finding four in the dump piles.

41
00:02:46,940 --> 00:02:51,520
So that means we were throwing away by far the majority of the evidence from the small

42
00:02:51,520 --> 00:02:52,520
finds.

43
00:02:52,520 --> 00:02:53,520
Okay.

44
00:02:53,520 --> 00:02:54,520
And what's catastrophic?

45
00:02:54,520 --> 00:02:55,680
What sizes are we looking at?

46
00:02:55,680 --> 00:02:59,720
Well, they're very small, like the size of a quarter, something like that.

47
00:02:59,720 --> 00:03:04,160
But when they're covered with dirt and you're seeing thousands of small rocks and dirt clods

48
00:03:04,160 --> 00:03:08,560
as you're working and your volunteers, you know, their minds wander, their eyes are tired,

49
00:03:08,560 --> 00:03:12,840
and even a trained archaeologist, I mean, a scarab that's covered in dirt just looks

50
00:03:12,840 --> 00:03:14,400
like a rock.

51
00:03:14,400 --> 00:03:18,680
And so in a sense, we're lucky when we find those things or when volunteers find them

52
00:03:18,680 --> 00:03:21,320
in the squares.

53
00:03:21,320 --> 00:03:25,040
So I knew that these old dump piles were full of material.

54
00:03:25,040 --> 00:03:31,120
And so in December of 2019, I took a team, my Associates for Biblical Research team,

55
00:03:31,120 --> 00:03:36,360
and kind of picked out a Navy SEAL team, if you will, from my group.

56
00:03:36,360 --> 00:03:37,880
So the best of the best there.

57
00:03:37,880 --> 00:03:41,240
Yeah, this is the skill set that I'm looking for.

58
00:03:41,240 --> 00:03:47,240
And long story short, we were able to go to Mount Ebal, which is where Joshua 830 says

59
00:03:47,240 --> 00:03:49,480
that Joshua built an altar to the Lord there.

60
00:03:49,480 --> 00:03:54,120
Adam Zeratall had excavated that site in the 1980s, done a very good job on it.

61
00:03:54,120 --> 00:03:56,360
I wanted to check his dump pile there.

62
00:03:56,360 --> 00:03:59,760
And then I wanted to check an old dump pile at Shiloh from the 1980s.

63
00:03:59,760 --> 00:04:03,680
And then I was going to publish the findings and essentially a boring methodological paper

64
00:04:03,680 --> 00:04:10,480
to my colleagues, encouraging them to adopt this new technology, whereby we wash the matrix,

65
00:04:10,480 --> 00:04:14,080
we take another step before we get started.

66
00:04:14,080 --> 00:04:16,880
And we wash that matrix and remove all the dirt.

67
00:04:16,880 --> 00:04:21,540
And then lo and behold, you can see things that you never would have imagined before.

68
00:04:21,540 --> 00:04:23,760
And so that's what we did in December of 2019.

69
00:04:23,760 --> 00:04:24,760
Wow.

70
00:04:24,760 --> 00:04:31,160
So in December of 2019, so we're talking three, four years ago now.

71
00:04:31,160 --> 00:04:37,280
And so you've been sitting on some of these findings officially for a while.

72
00:04:37,280 --> 00:04:42,760
Why can't you just come out and say, hey, everybody, I found this and just take pictures

73
00:04:42,760 --> 00:04:45,480
of it and put all over the internet?

74
00:04:45,480 --> 00:04:49,080
What's this process and why are things taking so long to announce this?

75
00:04:49,080 --> 00:04:51,620
Well, OK, let me explain what happened.

76
00:04:51,620 --> 00:04:56,620
Because in December of 2019, we recovered this small lead folded tablet, which I'll

77
00:04:56,620 --> 00:05:00,080
talk about more in a moment.

78
00:05:00,080 --> 00:05:01,080
We left Israel.

79
00:05:01,080 --> 00:05:03,080
I had to put the project was over.

80
00:05:03,080 --> 00:05:07,200
So I put everything in storage, assuming I would be back in a few months to then.

81
00:05:07,200 --> 00:05:12,440
And take the research project through the normal protocols in March of 2020.

82
00:05:12,440 --> 00:05:13,720
The world turned upside down.

83
00:05:13,720 --> 00:05:14,720
Yes, it did.

84
00:05:14,720 --> 00:05:15,720
Yes, it did.

85
00:05:15,720 --> 00:05:20,880
And so I was locked out of the country for, you know, so I lost two years in that process.

86
00:05:20,880 --> 00:05:28,480
So once I was finally able to get access to the tablet again, I got it to a lab in Prague

87
00:05:28,480 --> 00:05:34,520
where I had formed a collaborative partnership there and they have expertise in scanning

88
00:05:34,520 --> 00:05:37,480
tomographically through lead.

89
00:05:37,480 --> 00:05:39,440
Now that's something I didn't even know you could do.

90
00:05:39,440 --> 00:05:42,280
And well, we couldn't do it until very recently.

91
00:05:42,280 --> 00:05:47,920
But you can now scan through lead and we were able to recover writing from the inside of

92
00:05:47,920 --> 00:05:53,160
the tablet and see something that was about three thousand four hundred years old.

93
00:05:53,160 --> 00:05:58,420
The world's Hebrew writing that had ever been found in a proto alphabetic script.

94
00:05:58,420 --> 00:06:03,360
So that predates biblical Hebrew or paleo Hebrew, which is what we think of from the

95
00:06:03,360 --> 00:06:06,400
first temple period, those earliest writings that we have.

96
00:06:06,400 --> 00:06:12,760
This is the ancestor of that, the very first morphing of Egyptian hieroglyphs into an alphabetic

97
00:06:12,760 --> 00:06:14,240
system.

98
00:06:14,240 --> 00:06:19,180
And it had, you know, these inscriptions have been found before in the Sinai and so forth.

99
00:06:19,180 --> 00:06:22,520
But people called them proto-Sinaitic or proto-Canaanite.

100
00:06:22,520 --> 00:06:25,760
Nobody had the guts or proof, I guess, to call it Hebrew.

101
00:06:25,760 --> 00:06:30,480
Well, in this inscription, we actually have the covenant name of God twice.

102
00:06:30,480 --> 00:06:31,480
Wow.

103
00:06:31,480 --> 00:06:32,480
Wow.

104
00:06:32,480 --> 00:06:36,280
So there was no doubt that it was Hebrew because there's only one group of people in the ancient

105
00:06:36,280 --> 00:06:38,120
world worshiping Yahweh.

106
00:06:38,120 --> 00:06:39,560
And that's the Israelites.

107
00:06:39,560 --> 00:06:40,840
So that's amazing.

108
00:06:40,840 --> 00:06:42,560
That's why this is so phenomenal.

109
00:06:42,560 --> 00:06:44,820
So how big was this?

110
00:06:44,820 --> 00:06:46,040
How big was this?

111
00:06:46,040 --> 00:06:47,840
This this tablet that you found?

112
00:06:47,840 --> 00:06:52,480
Because I'm thinking, you know, Ten Commandments tablets, you know, like something that Moses

113
00:06:52,480 --> 00:06:53,480
would carry down.

114
00:06:53,480 --> 00:06:55,080
But you're saying you found this wet sifting.

115
00:06:55,080 --> 00:06:57,480
So it couldn't very it couldn't be very big.

116
00:06:57,480 --> 00:06:58,480
Right.

117
00:06:58,480 --> 00:07:01,940
About the size of a business card folded in half.

118
00:07:01,940 --> 00:07:04,760
So it's a small lead strip.

119
00:07:04,760 --> 00:07:09,560
And what they did in antiquity, think about the Book of Job, for example, probably the

120
00:07:09,560 --> 00:07:11,320
oldest book in the Bible.

121
00:07:11,320 --> 00:07:12,680
And listen to what Job said.

122
00:07:12,680 --> 00:07:13,680
Job 1924.

123
00:07:13,680 --> 00:07:18,320
Oh, that my words were written on a lead tablet with an iron pen.

124
00:07:18,320 --> 00:07:24,480
You see, it's very ancient way of thinking when you write it on lead and you seal it,

125
00:07:24,480 --> 00:07:27,680
those words become binding in their minds.

126
00:07:27,680 --> 00:07:30,140
And so hundreds of these have been found in Israel.

127
00:07:30,140 --> 00:07:33,320
We call them defixios or curse tablets.

128
00:07:33,320 --> 00:07:38,080
And usually they're very petty, stupid sorts of curses like she stole my boyfriend, made

129
00:07:38,080 --> 00:07:40,360
her hair fall out or something like that.

130
00:07:40,360 --> 00:07:43,920
But that in this case, this was a very serious thing.

131
00:07:43,920 --> 00:07:45,320
Is that a real one that you found?

132
00:07:45,320 --> 00:07:46,800
No, I'm just giving you an example.

133
00:07:46,800 --> 00:07:47,800
Okay.

134
00:07:47,800 --> 00:07:49,200
I was going to say that's that's pretty amazing.

135
00:07:49,200 --> 00:07:50,200
If that's the case.

136
00:07:50,200 --> 00:07:51,200
No, it's great.

137
00:07:51,200 --> 00:07:52,200
They're usually very petty sorts of things.

138
00:07:52,200 --> 00:07:53,200
Gotcha.

139
00:07:53,200 --> 00:07:54,200
Okay.

140
00:07:54,200 --> 00:07:55,200
More like amulets.

141
00:07:55,200 --> 00:08:01,280
But in this case, this is a judicial type of a curse and it's self imprecatory.

142
00:08:01,280 --> 00:08:05,560
They are bringing a curse upon themselves, which is exactly what they did at the end

143
00:08:05,560 --> 00:08:06,560
of Deuteronomy.

144
00:08:06,560 --> 00:08:11,920
They pronounce blessings from Mount Gerizim and self imprecatory curses from Mount Ebal.

145
00:08:11,920 --> 00:08:15,760
And here what do we find on Mount Ebal in the altar, by the way, on Mount Ebal, the

146
00:08:15,760 --> 00:08:22,160
one that Joshua built, we find a tablet with a curse inscription on it.

147
00:08:22,160 --> 00:08:23,440
Wow.

148
00:08:23,440 --> 00:08:29,420
And so you in this area that we read about in the Bible, this is where it's still called

149
00:08:29,420 --> 00:08:30,880
that today.

150
00:08:30,880 --> 00:08:36,760
And you are literally going through other people's trash and you find this ancient inscription

151
00:08:36,760 --> 00:08:39,840
that's 3400 years old.

152
00:08:39,840 --> 00:08:40,960
That's what we think.

153
00:08:40,960 --> 00:08:46,200
So I on my collaborative team, John, we have the the scientists from Prague who did the

154
00:08:46,200 --> 00:08:52,040
tomography and then two epigraphers, Peter van der Veen from University of Mines, Johannes

155
00:08:52,040 --> 00:08:57,440
Gutenberg University in Mines, Germany, and then Gershwin Galil from University of Haifa.

156
00:08:57,440 --> 00:08:59,280
So two experienced epigraphers.

157
00:08:59,280 --> 00:09:03,840
I wanted two people to independently verify what they were seeing before I stuck my neck

158
00:09:03,840 --> 00:09:05,400
out on this.

159
00:09:05,400 --> 00:09:07,760
And so I was leading the consortium.

160
00:09:07,760 --> 00:09:14,000
And think about the new technologies, wet sifting, tomographic scanning.

161
00:09:14,000 --> 00:09:20,460
Without those two things, we would not have this inscription.

162
00:09:20,460 --> 00:09:24,080
Because had Adams or tall recovered this tablet, he wouldn't.

163
00:09:24,080 --> 00:09:27,720
Well, had he had he found it, he wouldn't have been able to do anything with it back

164
00:09:27,720 --> 00:09:28,720
in the.

165
00:09:28,720 --> 00:09:29,720
Oh, wow.

166
00:09:29,720 --> 00:09:34,480
So you from what something that you said earlier was the inscription on the inside of this

167
00:09:34,480 --> 00:09:35,480
folded tablet.

168
00:09:35,480 --> 00:09:38,280
Yeah, that's the point is to seal it.

169
00:09:38,280 --> 00:09:40,680
Once they say, OK, it becomes binding.

170
00:09:40,680 --> 00:09:43,640
OK, now, would you like to know what it said?

171
00:09:43,640 --> 00:09:45,200
Absolutely, I do.

172
00:09:45,200 --> 00:09:47,960
But first, I want to know, like, how did you know that there was something inside it?

173
00:09:47,960 --> 00:09:50,520
Did you open it up or explain this?

174
00:09:50,520 --> 00:09:51,520
Explain what happened?

175
00:09:51,520 --> 00:09:53,360
No, you can't open them.

176
00:09:53,360 --> 00:09:54,360
That's the thing.

177
00:09:54,360 --> 00:09:55,360
The lead is brittle.

178
00:09:55,360 --> 00:09:57,400
It's madly right on it.

179
00:09:57,400 --> 00:09:59,280
But then over time, it becomes brittle.

180
00:09:59,280 --> 00:10:00,660
And that was the point.

181
00:10:00,660 --> 00:10:01,860
That's what they wanted.

182
00:10:01,860 --> 00:10:02,860
It's sealed.

183
00:10:02,860 --> 00:10:03,860
It's forever.

184
00:10:03,860 --> 00:10:04,860
It can't be undone.

185
00:10:04,860 --> 00:10:05,860
OK.

186
00:10:05,860 --> 00:10:08,260
And I knew that it couldn't be open.

187
00:10:08,260 --> 00:10:14,520
We tried in our lab in Jerusalem just to put a tiny bit of pressure and the tiny bit of

188
00:10:14,520 --> 00:10:16,220
the corner broke off.

189
00:10:16,220 --> 00:10:17,340
And so it's not worth it.

190
00:10:17,340 --> 00:10:18,340
We stopped.

191
00:10:18,340 --> 00:10:24,320
But we took that little piece that broke off and we tested it in our labs at Hebrew University.

192
00:10:24,320 --> 00:10:28,860
And we were able to determine where the lead came from, which was Lavrion, Greece.

193
00:10:28,860 --> 00:10:35,340
So it was actually exported from Greece into Israel, Canaan, Israel at the time.

194
00:10:35,340 --> 00:10:42,180
And that's another interesting piece of evidence because we know that mine, Lavrion, was in

195
00:10:42,180 --> 00:10:44,820
use at the time.

196
00:10:44,820 --> 00:10:49,960
The lead from that mine has a chemical signature that is unique, as all mines do.

197
00:10:49,960 --> 00:10:53,220
So the mines were in use during the Late Bronze Age.

198
00:10:53,220 --> 00:10:59,420
And then everyone who's in the field of archaeology knows that around the year 1200, exports from

199
00:10:59,420 --> 00:11:05,220
that part of the world into Israel, Canaan, ceased with the collapse of the Late Bronze

200
00:11:05,220 --> 00:11:06,220
Age civilization.

201
00:11:06,220 --> 00:11:13,860
So again, suggesting a date pre 1200 BC, making it far older than any Hebrew inscription that

202
00:11:13,860 --> 00:11:14,860
we have.

203
00:11:14,860 --> 00:11:20,980
So what was the oldest Hebrew inscription that we had before this find?

204
00:11:20,980 --> 00:11:25,060
That's agreed on by all would be the Kermit, Caiapha, Ostracon.

205
00:11:25,060 --> 00:11:28,300
And that's about 1000 BC.

206
00:11:28,300 --> 00:11:32,540
That's a site down in the Elah Valley where David and Goliath fought.

207
00:11:32,540 --> 00:11:36,420
There are some recent inscriptions that have been found, but they haven't been studied.

208
00:11:36,420 --> 00:11:39,200
They've gone through peer review yet.

209
00:11:39,200 --> 00:11:45,780
So we can be certain that this is several hundred years older than the earliest version

210
00:11:45,780 --> 00:11:46,860
that we have.

211
00:11:46,860 --> 00:11:48,660
And it includes the name of God.

212
00:11:48,660 --> 00:11:49,660
Wow.

213
00:11:49,660 --> 00:11:54,820
So this thing that includes the name of God, what does it actually say?

214
00:11:54,820 --> 00:11:56,860
We talked about that earlier and I cut you off.

215
00:11:56,860 --> 00:12:01,340
I want to hear what you actually are able to read in this inscription.

216
00:12:01,340 --> 00:12:05,220
Well, all my life, John, I wanted to be known as a blessing.

217
00:12:05,220 --> 00:12:08,300
But turns out what we found was a curse.

218
00:12:08,300 --> 00:12:12,260
And the curse, as you'll see, is actually a blessing in disguise.

219
00:12:12,260 --> 00:12:15,260
So let me kind of talk you through it.

220
00:12:15,260 --> 00:12:22,420
It says essentially there's 48 very small letters and the curse reads like this.

221
00:12:22,420 --> 00:12:28,100
Cursed, cursed, cursed, cursed are you by the God Yahweh or Yahud, the three letter

222
00:12:28,100 --> 00:12:30,540
spelling of the name of God.

223
00:12:30,540 --> 00:12:32,020
Cursed you will surely die.

224
00:12:32,020 --> 00:12:33,500
Cursed you are by Yahweh.

225
00:12:33,500 --> 00:12:35,140
Cursed, cursed, cursed.

226
00:12:35,140 --> 00:12:37,660
Essentially what it says.

227
00:12:37,660 --> 00:12:39,700
So it has a literary structure to it.

228
00:12:39,700 --> 00:12:41,580
It's what we call a chiasm.

229
00:12:41,580 --> 00:12:43,100
Some of the Psalms are written this way.

230
00:12:43,100 --> 00:12:46,980
You say it one way and then you invert it and say it a different way.

231
00:12:46,980 --> 00:12:50,220
Same thing a different way.

232
00:12:50,220 --> 00:12:51,420
So that's the reading.

233
00:12:51,420 --> 00:12:56,620
It is a self-imprecatory curse that the Israelites, just like Deuteronomy says, were bringing

234
00:12:56,620 --> 00:12:58,100
upon themselves.

235
00:12:58,100 --> 00:13:02,420
May this happen to us if we don't keep the terms of God's covenant.

236
00:13:02,420 --> 00:13:08,580
Now what your listener may find very interesting is that the Abrahamic covenant was cut just

237
00:13:08,580 --> 00:13:10,140
a stone's throw from there.

238
00:13:10,140 --> 00:13:15,500
So El Amore, where Abraham cut covenant with God, is a stone's throw from Mount Ebal.

239
00:13:15,500 --> 00:13:19,740
And I think that's why Moses told the Israelites to go back to that place because they're going

240
00:13:19,740 --> 00:13:25,020
to reaffirm the Abrahamic covenant, this land pact that they had made.

241
00:13:25,020 --> 00:13:29,420
And there's blessings associated with it and there are curses associated with it.

242
00:13:29,420 --> 00:13:33,380
Now we found the tablet from the matrix of the altar itself.

243
00:13:33,380 --> 00:13:36,300
To make a long story short.

244
00:13:36,300 --> 00:13:39,780
And so imagine what happened.

245
00:13:39,780 --> 00:13:41,860
And Joshua and Moses are literate, incidentally.

246
00:13:41,860 --> 00:13:47,820
Did you know most scholars in places of higher criticism and higher learning, they deny the

247
00:13:47,820 --> 00:13:50,540
literacy of Moses and Joshua.

248
00:13:50,540 --> 00:13:53,400
The Bible couldn't have been written until a thousand years later.

249
00:13:53,400 --> 00:13:55,420
There was no alphabet with which they could write.

250
00:13:55,420 --> 00:13:57,740
Well, now we know there was.

251
00:13:57,740 --> 00:13:58,740
They were illiterate.

252
00:13:58,740 --> 00:13:59,740
The Israelites were illiterate.

253
00:13:59,740 --> 00:14:01,300
Well, then why is God telling them to write?

254
00:14:01,300 --> 00:14:02,900
Why is he telling the people to read?

255
00:14:02,900 --> 00:14:03,900
Yeah, yeah.

256
00:14:03,900 --> 00:14:06,700
You don't write things down if nobody can read it.

257
00:14:06,700 --> 00:14:11,940
So there's this assumption of literacy and now we have proof of it.

258
00:14:11,940 --> 00:14:15,780
So the tablet is written.

259
00:14:15,780 --> 00:14:17,780
It's then laid on the altar.

260
00:14:17,780 --> 00:14:19,420
What happens next?

261
00:14:19,420 --> 00:14:23,220
An innocent animal is slaughtered.

262
00:14:23,220 --> 00:14:26,920
And the blood of the innocent covers the curse.

263
00:14:26,920 --> 00:14:28,700
So this starts way back in Genesis.

264
00:14:28,700 --> 00:14:30,860
The shedding of innocent blood to cover the guilty.

265
00:14:30,860 --> 00:14:31,860
Wow.

266
00:14:31,860 --> 00:14:34,300
And so this blood covers the tablet.

267
00:14:34,300 --> 00:14:40,740
And now the man who will come to the altar, in other words, repent, accept responsibility

268
00:14:40,740 --> 00:14:42,380
for his actions.

269
00:14:42,380 --> 00:14:44,480
Those curses are not going to come to him.

270
00:14:44,480 --> 00:14:50,660
It's only the man who will not repent, who will have those curses in order to him.

271
00:14:50,660 --> 00:14:56,220
And the curse is a big problem, John, because it doesn't say cursed you are by Satan.

272
00:14:56,220 --> 00:14:58,220
We could deal with that.

273
00:14:58,220 --> 00:15:01,020
This is cursed you are by Yahweh.

274
00:15:01,020 --> 00:15:02,020
That's checkmate.

275
00:15:02,020 --> 00:15:04,020
OK, there's no getting out of this curse.

276
00:15:04,020 --> 00:15:05,020
Exactly.

277
00:15:05,020 --> 00:15:06,020
Except through the blood.

278
00:15:06,020 --> 00:15:10,940
So Leviticus 17 11 says that the shedding of blood, there is forgiveness of sin.

279
00:15:10,940 --> 00:15:11,940
Yeah.

280
00:15:11,940 --> 00:15:16,460
So you found this piece by the altar.

281
00:15:16,460 --> 00:15:20,540
And so this you know that this would have been placed on the altar and would have had

282
00:15:20,540 --> 00:15:23,740
actually this innocent animal's blood on it.

283
00:15:23,740 --> 00:15:26,380
Like you just described.

284
00:15:26,380 --> 00:15:30,220
This piece is that old that this would have happened during the time that we have what

285
00:15:30,220 --> 00:15:32,700
we read in right in Joshua.

286
00:15:32,700 --> 00:15:36,940
So think of what an epigraph is a handwriting expert.

287
00:15:36,940 --> 00:15:40,060
So I was recently in Washington, D.C. just 10 days ago.

288
00:15:40,060 --> 00:15:46,140
And so looking at our founding documents, Declaration of Independence, Articles of Confederation,

289
00:15:46,140 --> 00:15:48,060
we don't write that way anymore.

290
00:15:48,060 --> 00:15:49,500
Our handwriting style has changed.

291
00:15:49,500 --> 00:15:52,060
A lot of our syntax has changed as well.

292
00:15:52,060 --> 00:15:56,600
I wish we did still write that way or speak that way to a large degree.

293
00:15:56,600 --> 00:16:03,060
My point is that an expert in epigraphy can tell you whether the handwriting, the style

294
00:16:03,060 --> 00:16:06,060
of making the letters is from a certain time period.

295
00:16:06,060 --> 00:16:08,180
This is why I have the two epigraphers.

296
00:16:08,180 --> 00:16:13,820
So this style of writing no longer exists after the year 1200.

297
00:16:13,820 --> 00:16:20,500
OK, it would be like looking at old English, say, Cade Montelm or then Beowulf, Middle

298
00:16:20,500 --> 00:16:25,260
English, like Chaucer's English of the Canterbury Tales and then modern English.

299
00:16:25,260 --> 00:16:26,900
So they're very distinct.

300
00:16:26,900 --> 00:16:30,660
So this script is from that earliest time period.

301
00:16:30,660 --> 00:16:33,740
And it's at the site where the Bible says that they were writing and that they were

302
00:16:33,740 --> 00:16:35,220
pronouncing curses.

303
00:16:35,220 --> 00:16:36,220
Wow.

304
00:16:36,220 --> 00:16:37,220
Wow.

305
00:16:37,220 --> 00:16:41,540
So what did it feel like whenever you found this and you realized what this was?

306
00:16:41,540 --> 00:16:43,140
Well, it was a little surreal.

307
00:16:43,140 --> 00:16:50,220
I have to tell you, when I was sitting there at the altar site, I did have a sense as a

308
00:16:50,220 --> 00:16:55,180
Christian, I've never felt the need to bifurcate my faith or to try to hide what it means to

309
00:16:55,180 --> 00:16:56,180
me.

310
00:16:56,180 --> 00:16:59,460
I mean, I'm a very scientific archaeologist.

311
00:16:59,460 --> 00:17:06,260
But as far as a human being, it was very profound for me to sit there and realize that Joshua

312
00:17:06,260 --> 00:17:08,420
Ben Nun was at this site.

313
00:17:08,420 --> 00:17:09,700
The ark was here.

314
00:17:09,700 --> 00:17:10,700
God was here.

315
00:17:10,700 --> 00:17:11,940
And something important happened here.

316
00:17:11,940 --> 00:17:15,820
And I had a sense that we were destined to find something important.

317
00:17:15,820 --> 00:17:17,660
And lo and behold, we did.

318
00:17:17,660 --> 00:17:21,100
When I first saw the tablet, Frankie Snyder was the one who found it.

319
00:17:21,100 --> 00:17:22,100
It was in her tray.

320
00:17:22,100 --> 00:17:25,500
And she was our most experienced wet sifter.

321
00:17:25,500 --> 00:17:30,260
She'd worked for over a decade on the Temple Mount Sifting Project in Jerusalem and is

322
00:17:30,260 --> 00:17:31,520
our small finds expert.

323
00:17:31,520 --> 00:17:34,260
So providentially, it was in her tray.

324
00:17:34,260 --> 00:17:35,780
Frankie recognized it.

325
00:17:35,780 --> 00:17:39,300
She called me over and said, Scott, you better come see this.

326
00:17:39,300 --> 00:17:43,000
And when I saw it, I thought my heart was going to jump out of my chest because I knew

327
00:17:43,000 --> 00:17:44,000
what it was.

328
00:17:44,000 --> 00:17:48,180
So I looked at her and that called Abigail over, who is our assistant director.

329
00:17:48,180 --> 00:17:51,500
And the three of us just sat there staring at each other going, you got to be kidding

330
00:17:51,500 --> 00:17:56,660
me, a curse tablet from the mountain of the curse.

331
00:17:56,660 --> 00:17:59,620
At that point, I had no idea that we were going to be able to recover the text from

332
00:17:59,620 --> 00:18:01,220
the inside.

333
00:18:01,220 --> 00:18:03,620
But fortunately, we were.

334
00:18:03,620 --> 00:18:04,700
That's so cool.

335
00:18:04,700 --> 00:18:05,700
That's so cool.

336
00:18:05,700 --> 00:18:07,500
So there was a mountain of curse.

337
00:18:07,500 --> 00:18:10,020
There's also a mountain of blessing.

338
00:18:10,020 --> 00:18:15,540
Did they do something similar that you could maybe find blessing tablets?

339
00:18:15,540 --> 00:18:18,220
We have never found a blessing tablet.

340
00:18:18,220 --> 00:18:24,020
There's over 300 curse tablets that have been found, usually from later time periods like

341
00:18:24,020 --> 00:18:26,860
second pit bull period.

342
00:18:26,860 --> 00:18:28,480
Never have we found a blessing tablet.

343
00:18:28,480 --> 00:18:29,880
So it's very interesting.

344
00:18:29,880 --> 00:18:35,360
The closest corollary would be the silver scrolls from Jerusalem, where you have the

345
00:18:35,360 --> 00:18:37,060
number six priestly blessing.

346
00:18:37,060 --> 00:18:38,060
Right.

347
00:18:38,060 --> 00:18:43,580
We have the silver scroll, which is a blessing dating to say the seventh century BC, sixth

348
00:18:43,580 --> 00:18:45,660
seventh century BC.

349
00:18:45,660 --> 00:18:48,780
And then we have the curse tablet from Mount Ebal.

350
00:18:48,780 --> 00:18:53,620
And I think if you juxtapose those two, it's a really powerful image, isn't it?

351
00:18:53,620 --> 00:18:54,620
Yeah.

352
00:18:54,620 --> 00:18:56,860
And notice that it's the metals that are surviving.

353
00:18:56,860 --> 00:19:01,580
Paper, vellum, animal skin, things that are written on that, which they did write commonly

354
00:19:01,580 --> 00:19:03,360
on those things.

355
00:19:03,360 --> 00:19:08,380
They don't survive the ravages of time unless they're in an extremely dry climate, like

356
00:19:08,380 --> 00:19:10,420
down by the sea or down in Egypt.

357
00:19:10,420 --> 00:19:14,060
But in the wet hill country where we are, those things decompose.

358
00:19:14,060 --> 00:19:17,580
So it's only the metal or pottery.

359
00:19:17,580 --> 00:19:20,500
Sometimes we do get inscriptions that survive there.

360
00:19:20,500 --> 00:19:21,500
Wow.

361
00:19:21,500 --> 00:19:27,140
So you've been able to find and discover a lot of very unique things.

362
00:19:27,140 --> 00:19:32,460
And I know you also were the director of excavation at Shiloh.

363
00:19:32,460 --> 00:19:34,220
Am I saying that correctly?

364
00:19:34,220 --> 00:19:35,220
Yes.

365
00:19:35,220 --> 00:19:37,380
In fact, I still am the director of excavations at Shiloh.

366
00:19:37,380 --> 00:19:38,620
That's our main project.

367
00:19:38,620 --> 00:19:42,900
This was a side project we were doing that turned out to be extremely interesting.

368
00:19:42,900 --> 00:19:43,900
Wow.

369
00:19:43,900 --> 00:19:44,900
Okay.

370
00:19:44,900 --> 00:19:48,420
So I want to hear what you have found at Shiloh.

371
00:19:48,420 --> 00:19:54,100
I mean, that's stuff that we've talked about before, but I know that some of those finds

372
00:19:54,100 --> 00:19:57,140
there have been just absolutely incredible.

373
00:19:57,140 --> 00:20:02,620
So I just want to take a little bit of time and hear you say what are these things that

374
00:20:02,620 --> 00:20:08,580
you've found in Shiloh and what's the importance of that for somebody that doesn't quite remember

375
00:20:08,580 --> 00:20:10,020
their Bible history that way.

376
00:20:10,020 --> 00:20:11,020
Yeah.

377
00:20:11,020 --> 00:20:12,300
Well, both sites are part of the conquest.

378
00:20:12,300 --> 00:20:13,300
Let me just say that.

379
00:20:13,300 --> 00:20:19,460
So Joshua's conquest begins with Jericho and then I, and of course we excavated I, spent

380
00:20:19,460 --> 00:20:21,020
21 years there.

381
00:20:21,020 --> 00:20:24,100
And then the next place they went was Mount Ebal.

382
00:20:24,100 --> 00:20:28,620
And then at the end of the conquest, Joshua 18 once says Joshua erected the tabernacle

383
00:20:28,620 --> 00:20:29,620
at Shiloh.

384
00:20:29,620 --> 00:20:34,720
So that's my area of research focus of these conquest sites.

385
00:20:34,720 --> 00:20:39,420
So what we have uncovered so far, we started excavating in 2017.

386
00:20:39,420 --> 00:20:43,700
I'm about to leave for another season of excavation.

387
00:20:43,700 --> 00:20:48,800
We are uncovering a monumental building from the period of the tabernacle that appears

388
00:20:48,800 --> 00:20:53,980
to match the dimensions given in the Bible and it's east-west.

389
00:20:53,980 --> 00:20:58,700
And the text itself suggests that they did build a permanent structure at Shiloh that

390
00:20:58,700 --> 00:21:03,020
at some point it was more than a tent that was there.

391
00:21:03,020 --> 00:21:11,020
And we have a massive bone deposit, what we call a fabisa due east of this building with

392
00:21:11,020 --> 00:21:17,340
tens of thousands of animal bones, clean bones, kosher bones, and mixed in with pottery from

393
00:21:17,340 --> 00:21:20,740
the late Bronze Age going to the time of Joshua.

394
00:21:20,740 --> 00:21:25,780
And it's very beautiful pottery and there's all like gold offerings, gold stars, and other

395
00:21:25,780 --> 00:21:27,180
things that are mixed in there.

396
00:21:27,180 --> 00:21:32,000
So there's no doubt that it's cultic, that it's a fabisa.

397
00:21:32,000 --> 00:21:36,900
Around our monumental building, we're finding things like ceramic palm granites, tiny palm

398
00:21:36,900 --> 00:21:41,060
granites, which the Bible says that on the hem of the priest's garments, they have bells

399
00:21:41,060 --> 00:21:42,840
and palm granites there.

400
00:21:42,840 --> 00:21:45,780
So it's a motif of the tabernacle.

401
00:21:45,780 --> 00:21:48,020
We are finding a demolished altar.

402
00:21:48,020 --> 00:21:52,340
We have three horns so far of a four-horned altar that we have gathered.

403
00:21:52,340 --> 00:21:57,940
And we have storage rooms immediately to the north, which is where tithes would be stored,

404
00:21:57,940 --> 00:21:58,940
for example.

405
00:21:58,940 --> 00:22:02,900
So to make a long story short, we haven't reached floor level yet in this building.

406
00:22:02,900 --> 00:22:05,040
Hopefully this summer we will.

407
00:22:05,040 --> 00:22:08,660
So I haven't made an official announcement, but people have heard me talk about it, but

408
00:22:08,660 --> 00:22:14,260
I haven't published it yet because I just want to check some things before we do.

409
00:22:14,260 --> 00:22:19,780
But if you were to ask me right now, it appears that we have found the place of God's dwelling,

410
00:22:19,780 --> 00:22:23,820
where literally we're working in the Holy of Holies right now.

411
00:22:23,820 --> 00:22:28,180
And for me, that's pretty phenomenal.

412
00:22:28,180 --> 00:22:32,420
You get busy working during the day and you kind of forget what you're doing.

413
00:22:32,420 --> 00:22:33,780
It's a pretty special place.

414
00:22:33,780 --> 00:22:34,780
Wow.

415
00:22:34,780 --> 00:22:41,500
So you found three horns of the four-horned altar that the Bible talks about.

416
00:22:41,500 --> 00:22:42,980
We assume it's that altar.

417
00:22:42,980 --> 00:22:47,620
Yeah, I mean, it's pretty remarkable.

418
00:22:47,620 --> 00:22:54,260
And I've seen pictures of that, and it is a very unique stone shape, and it definitely

419
00:22:54,260 --> 00:22:55,260
stands out.

420
00:22:55,260 --> 00:22:59,860
So it's not something that would get overlooked necessarily.

421
00:22:59,860 --> 00:23:05,140
But that's amazing that you're able to say that you're probably working in the area of

422
00:23:05,140 --> 00:23:09,300
the Holy of Holies, before the Solomon's temple.

423
00:23:09,300 --> 00:23:10,300
Right.

424
00:23:10,300 --> 00:23:14,060
I mean, you have to remember, for 300 years, Shiloh was the capital of Israel.

425
00:23:14,060 --> 00:23:16,180
Jerusalem was still a pagan city.

426
00:23:16,180 --> 00:23:19,820
And if people wanted to connect with God, they went to Shiloh.

427
00:23:19,820 --> 00:23:22,220
Yeah, and that's remarkable.

428
00:23:22,220 --> 00:23:26,860
So I got to ask, these things that you're finding, what happens with them?

429
00:23:26,860 --> 00:23:27,860
Where do they go?

430
00:23:27,860 --> 00:23:32,860
Where are they kept after you've found them and it's been categorized, you've talked about

431
00:23:32,860 --> 00:23:35,380
it, you've written about it?

432
00:23:35,380 --> 00:23:38,660
Are people able to go see these in a museum somewhere?

433
00:23:38,660 --> 00:23:42,220
How can people find out more about the work that you're doing too?

434
00:23:42,220 --> 00:23:44,380
Well, thanks for asking.

435
00:23:44,380 --> 00:23:47,420
Everything we excavate belongs to the state of Israel.

436
00:23:47,420 --> 00:23:51,940
So the antiquities authority licenses me, and I excavate.

437
00:23:51,940 --> 00:23:57,420
I'm able to take things out of the country with an export permit to study them, publish

438
00:23:57,420 --> 00:24:00,180
them, even display them at times.

439
00:24:00,180 --> 00:24:03,460
But ultimately, everything returns to Israel.

440
00:24:03,460 --> 00:24:08,580
Now, what makes it into a museum, say the Israel Museum in Jerusalem?

441
00:24:08,580 --> 00:24:13,780
It's got to be huge because they have so many things that have been excavated that it's

442
00:24:13,780 --> 00:24:17,380
really got to be big time to end up there.

443
00:24:17,380 --> 00:24:21,620
This tablet may be one of those things or these palm granites may be one of those things.

444
00:24:21,620 --> 00:24:24,020
It's a slow process.

445
00:24:24,020 --> 00:24:25,020
Wow.

446
00:24:25,020 --> 00:24:29,420
So how can people find out more about your work?

447
00:24:29,420 --> 00:24:34,660
Of digshiloh.org is where they can follow along with the excavation and I'll be in Israel

448
00:24:34,660 --> 00:24:39,740
from May 17th to the end of June, I have a large team.

449
00:24:39,740 --> 00:24:43,300
So pray for us and follow us at digshiloh.org.

450
00:24:43,300 --> 00:24:46,900
If they want to donate to help, they can also do that there.

451
00:24:46,900 --> 00:24:53,540
My personal website is scotstripling.net and people can follow me there.

452
00:24:53,540 --> 00:24:58,900
And then my school is the Bible Seminary, thebibleseminary.edu.

453
00:24:58,900 --> 00:25:04,500
If someone wants to study archaeology, they can study Bible and archaeology together with

454
00:25:04,500 --> 00:25:08,780
my students here under my guidance at the Bible Seminary.

455
00:25:08,780 --> 00:25:09,780
That's very cool.

456
00:25:09,780 --> 00:25:10,780
Very cool.

457
00:25:10,780 --> 00:25:13,240
So I got to ask one more time, one more thing.

458
00:25:13,240 --> 00:25:18,780
We talked about how you had these big discoveries right before the pandemic.

459
00:25:18,780 --> 00:25:22,440
Then obviously you couldn't go back to Israel for a while.

460
00:25:22,440 --> 00:25:27,860
What was it like after having to take a break and not being able to dig in the dirt again

461
00:25:27,860 --> 00:25:29,580
and sift through other people's trash?

462
00:25:29,580 --> 00:25:35,320
What was it like feeling or what did it feel like to get back there again and get back

463
00:25:35,320 --> 00:25:36,560
to work?

464
00:25:36,560 --> 00:25:43,440
It was brutal to be not able to dig because so much of our lives and our routine revolves

465
00:25:43,440 --> 00:25:45,200
around that.

466
00:25:45,200 --> 00:25:47,900
But we used the time to work on publications.

467
00:25:47,900 --> 00:25:48,900
I finished the Kerb et al.

468
00:25:48,900 --> 00:25:55,560
McArthur publications and other articles that we cranked out during that period of time.

469
00:25:55,560 --> 00:26:01,980
All this stuff we're finding has to be researched and thought through, digested, put into a

470
00:26:01,980 --> 00:26:06,060
matrix until it ultimately comes through in publication.

471
00:26:06,060 --> 00:26:09,340
So that's what I used the time for, but I wasn't happy about it.

472
00:26:09,340 --> 00:26:11,760
But that was kind of an upside of it.

473
00:26:11,760 --> 00:26:16,580
We were thrilled to be back in the field last summer and to again be going back this year.

474
00:26:16,580 --> 00:26:19,060
And listen, none of us have a guarantee.

475
00:26:19,060 --> 00:26:23,180
Political situations can change and we could lose access to these sites.

476
00:26:23,180 --> 00:26:25,380
Pandemic, something we never thought about.

477
00:26:25,380 --> 00:26:27,420
For two years we lost access.

478
00:26:27,420 --> 00:26:32,060
So we're grateful for the access that we do have and we want to take full advantage of

479
00:26:32,060 --> 00:26:33,060
it.

480
00:26:33,060 --> 00:26:34,060
That's really cool.

481
00:26:34,060 --> 00:26:38,280
Well, Dr. Scott Stripling, it's great to be able to talk with you and to hear about the

482
00:26:38,280 --> 00:26:41,660
things that God has enabled you to uncover.

483
00:26:41,660 --> 00:26:46,060
As we've been digging in the scriptures, you're digging in the dirt, but using the scriptures

484
00:26:46,060 --> 00:26:52,220
as your source and finding these real life things that confirm what the Bible was talking

485
00:26:52,220 --> 00:26:57,260
about and confirm that our faith is true and our faith in God.

486
00:26:57,260 --> 00:27:01,020
And that's just an amazing, amazing discovery.

487
00:27:01,020 --> 00:27:03,340
So thank you so much for sharing that.

488
00:27:03,340 --> 00:27:10,460
And check out the links in the description below so that you can follow Dr. Scott Stripling

489
00:27:10,460 --> 00:27:16,460
and all the things that he's been mentioning about and read his peer reviewed article.

490
00:27:16,460 --> 00:27:19,940
And so definitely recommend all of those things.

491
00:27:19,940 --> 00:27:23,920
So Dr. Scott, it's great to have you here on Charisma News.

492
00:27:23,920 --> 00:27:24,920
Thank you.

493
00:27:24,920 --> 00:27:50,900
I'm with you, John.