Is there historical evidence that verifies what the Bible says historically?

Please give specific examples where you feel this type of evidence does exist, or doesn't exist.

NOTE: This can also serve as a springboard for discussing specific examples/cases as separate topics here in this forum.

You mean like this(from another forum I'm on)?

The Use Of Covenants and Treaties
Among the tablets discovered in the ruined Hittite capital city at Boghazkoy are the texts of at least two dozen treaties, some very badly preserved. One of them is the famous agreement made between Ramesses II of Egypt and Hattusil III of the Hittites in 1259 BC. This is a parity treaty. The kings are brothers: they will respect each other’s interests not fight each other, help each other against mutual enemies and send back fugitives.

In Egypt the counterpart of this treaty was carved in hieroglyphics on the wall of a temple of Karnak. Suzerainty treaties were more common.

A careful analysis of these treaties was made in 1931. All followed the same basic pattern. After an introduction, there is an account of events leading up to the making of the treaty, then the requirements of the treaty, arrangements for its safekeeping and public reading, the names of the witnesses, blessings on all who kept it and fearful curses on those who broke it. This was not a cast-iron pattern; some elements could be left out or put in a different order. It is, however, clearly the normal arrangement.

It was not until 1954 that an Old Testament scholar, G.E. Mendenhall, realized that the pattern also occurs in the OT. Treaties as such are not quoted there, but they are reported at length. The accounts of the treaty, or covenant, which God made with Israel and which established the people as a nation under his care, are especially extensive. Parts of this appear in Exodus 20-31; and Deuteronomy presents a complete renewal. Joshua 24 also shows the basic elements the treaty pattern, and they appear in Genesis 31:43-54 and in other passages.

What is significant about the emergence of this pattern in the Hittite and in the Hebrew Texts is the dating. Shortly after 1200 BC the Hittite Empire ended. When other treaties become accessible to us, in Assyrian and Aramaic texts of the 18th Century BC and later, the pattern has changed. At that time the introduction was followed by the names of the witnesses, then the requirements, and curses, with variations in order. The account of events leading up to the making of the treaty is missing (there is one very poorly preserved tablet that may have had it), and blessings are all but absent.

Despite various attempts to undermine it, the strength of the comparison between the Hittite treaties and those in the first five books of the bible remains. It odes not prove that they were written at the same period, but it makes it very possible. To suppose that the Biblical texts did not come into being in their present form until 600 years later, requires the survival in Israel of an old fashioned pattern, a pattern different from that of the treaties which Israelite and Judean kings accepted with the Aramaean kings of Damascus and with the kings of Assyria and Babylon.

That is a good example of the type of facts I am looking for in this particular forum.

One thing though, if we can also document this somehow from secular sources, that would be even better.

I've always felt like the search for higher learning and needing scientific fact negated faith in God personally. But maybe it's just me.

When one asks for historical evidence that substantiates the Biblical record, there is one major obstacle to overcome. It has become increasingly clear in recent years that the chronology of Egypt has been stretched from four- to six-hundred years beyond true chronology which is the chronology of Israel and therefore the chronology of scripture. As traditionally outlined, there is no place in Egyptian history for the Exodus, for instance. Or Joseph's famine or Abraham's visit. In Canaan, the fall of Jericho and the conquest of Canaan don't fit either.

Actually, all the above events are recorded in the history of Egypt and Canaan but at a much earlier date than the Biblical record would allow. D.J.Conklin, above for instance, placed the date of Ramesses II at 1259 BC. There were a number of Pharaohs with the name of Ramses or Ramesses but the one usually labeled Ramesses II of Dynasty XX probably actually ruled from 793-726 BC (see Courville, The Exodus Problem and its Ramifications, p 302), a difference of about 500 years. The Exodus probably occurred at the end of Dynasty XII in 1445 BC and Joseph's famine during the reign of Sesostris I about 200 years earlier where Egyptian history actually records a great famine. This chronology, by the way, allows 400 years or so for the period of the judges just like the Bible indicates.

Once the chronology of the ancient world is straightened out, one will find an almost complete set of "historical" evidence in the interaction between Egypt and Israel that substantiates the Biblical record.

Bob Lee

Historical error, what is it?

In a Bible class I learned that the Children of Israel built, according to the Bible, a certain city in Egypt, while slaves there. Then I learned that this was an error (or was it?). The name mentioned in the Bible was a modern name given to that city long after it had been built by the Children of Israel.

In a class on US History, I learned that the Dutch founded New York city. Then I learned that the name New York was a name given to that city after it had been founded by the Dutch. Here was an obvious historical error, or was it? The Dutch founded New Amsterdam, which at a later time was changed to New York.

By the way it may be easy to confuse people who do not know the culture, background and other stuff about something. As an example, in a math class I once learned that 1 + 2 = 11.

That is a true statement. The equality does not have the same base numbering system that the first part of the equation has. One has a base ten system, and the other has a base two system.

Perhaps some of the percieved errors in the Bible are due to our lack of understanding of what has been said.

By the way, I might have had some fun if I had included a base sixteen number in the above.

Here's a good one! http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/magazines/tj/docs/v12n3_sumerian.asp

The author suggest that whoever wrote the Sumerian king list had a copy of the antediluvian list of eight of the patriarchs and assumed that it was written in a base 60 system and thus we have the extra-ordinary long lives of the Sumerian kings.