Joshua said to all the people, Behold, this stone shall be for a witness against us, for it has heard all the words of the LORD which He spoke to us; thus it shall be for a witness against you, so that you do not deny your God. Joshua 24:27 · NASB

### What this catalog claims — and what it does not

Each entry follows one pattern: Scripture named a real person, people, place, or text; the claim was doubted because nothing outside the Bible confirmed it; later, something was dug out of the ground that did. The Scripture is cited by chapter and verse. The discovery is named with its site and date. Where a claim is still debated among archaeologists, that is said plainly — this page does not need to overstate the evidence, and it will not.

Be clear about what archaeology can do. A seal proving Hezekiah was a real king does not, by itself, prove the Bible is inspired — it proves the Bible is telling the truth about history. That is no small thing: it removes the charge that Scripture is myth, and it has changed honest minds. Joined to fulfilled prophecy and the witness of the text itself, it is one strand in a cord that holds.

People & Kings

### A people called the Hittites

Once dismissed as a biblical exaggeration · confirmed at Hattusa, excavated from 1906

What Scripture Records
Genesis 23:3–20; 2 Kings 7:6
… they said to one another, ‘Behold, the king of Israel has hired against us the kings of the Hittites and the kings of the Egyptians, to come upon us.’
The Hittites run through the Old Testament from beginning to end. Abraham buys the cave of Machpelah from the sons of Heth (Gen 23); Esau marries Hittite wives; Uriah the Hittite serves in David’s army; and 2 Kings 7:6 names the kings of the Hittites as a military power feared alongside Egypt.
What the Spade Uncovered
Boğazköy, north-central Turkey from 1906
For much of the nineteenth century no record of a Hittite empire was known outside the Bible, and critics treated the biblical Hittites as inflated or invented. Excavations beginning in 1906 uncovered Hattusa — a fortified Hittite capital with a royal archive of thousands of clay tablets. Among them was a copy of the Treaty of Kadesh (c. 1259 BC), a peace between the Hittite king and Egypt that ranks the two as equal superpowers — exactly the pairing 2 Kings 7:6 assumes.
The Lion Gate of Hattusa, capital of the Hittite empire — a people once thought legendary. Photo: Bernard Gagnon, CC BY-SA 3.0
In one line A people the Bible names from Abraham to Elisha, dismissed for want of outside record, now documented from their own capital and their own archives.
People & Kings

### The house of David

Argued to be a later literary invention · confirmed by the Tel Dan Stele, 1993

What Scripture Records
2 Samuel 7:16; 1 Kings 12:19
So Israel has been in rebellion against the house of David to this day.
After Solomon, the kingdom split, and Scripture speaks again and again of the house of David — the royal dynasty of Judah (1 Ki 12:19; Isa 7:2). David is the hinge of the Old Testament’s royal hope, the king whose throne is promised to endure.
What the Spade Uncovered
Tel Dan, northern Israel 1993
In the late twentieth century a school of scholars argued that David’s united monarchy was a construction of much later writers — that no David had left any mark on history. In 1993, excavators at Tel Dan unearthed a ninth-century BC victory monument erected by an Aramean king, carved with the letters BYTDWD — “the house of David.” It is the earliest mention of David outside the Bible, and it names his dynasty exactly as Scripture does, within roughly a century of the kings it describes.
The Tel Dan Stele — an enemy king’s monument naming “the house of David.” Photo: Liadmalone, CC BY-SA 4.0
In one line The dynasty on which the Bible hangs its royal hope, called fiction in the lecture hall, found named on an enemy’s victory stone.
People & Kings

### Hezekiah, son of Ahaz, king of Judah

A named king of Judah · found on his own seal in Jerusalem, published 2015

What Scripture Records
2 Kings 18:1; 2 Chronicles 32
… Hezekiah the son of Ahaz king of Judah became king.
Hezekiah is among the most documented kings of Judah — his reforms, his deliverance from Sennacherib, and the tunnel he cut to bring water inside Jerusalem’s walls (2 Ki 20:20). Scripture names him precisely: Hezekiah, son of Ahaz, king of Judah.
What the Spade Uncovered
Ophel excavation, Jerusalem found 2009, published 2015
At the foot of the Temple Mount, excavators recovered a bulla — a small clay seal impression — reading “Belonging to Hezekiah, son of Ahaz, king of Judah.” The name, the father’s name, and the title match 2 Kings 18:1 word for word. It is the first seal impression of a king of Judah recovered in a controlled scientific excavation — the king’s own signature pressed into clay.
Hezekiah’s seal impression in the Israel Museum, with a drawing of the seal and the museum’s reading of its inscription: “(Belonging to) Hezekiah (son of) Ahaz king of Judah.” Photo: Gary Todd, CC0 / public domain
In one line The Bible gives the king’s name, his father, and his title; the clay gives back the same three, in the same order.
People & Kings

### Sennacherib’s own account of the siege of Hezekiah

The Assyrian king’s boast in clay — and the one victory he never claims

What Scripture Records
2 Kings 18:13; 19:35–36; Isaiah 36–37
Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and seized them… the angel of the LORD… struck 185,000 in the camp of the Assyrians… So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed and returned home, and lived at Nineveh.
Sennacherib of Assyria overruns Judah’s fortified cities and surrounds Jerusalem, taunting the LORD. Isaiah promises the city will be spared; that night the angel of the LORD strikes the Assyrian camp, and Sennacherib withdraws to Nineveh — where his own sons later kill him (2 Ki 19:37).
What the Spade Uncovered
Nineveh c. 690 BC · British Museum
Sennacherib’s own hexagonal clay prism records the campaign in his words. He boasts of capturing 46 of Hezekiah’s strong walled cities — matching the Bible’s “all the fortified cities” — and of shutting Hezekiah up “like a caged bird” in Jerusalem. But for all the boasting, he never claims to have taken Jerusalem. The one city Scripture says God spared is the one the Assyrian king conspicuously cannot add to his list.
The Taylor Prism — Sennacherib’s annals, boasting of the campaign against Hezekiah but never of taking Jerusalem. Photo: David Castor, public domain
In one line The enemy king carved his own version of the war into clay — and it confirms the campaign the Bible records and, by its silence, the rescue.
People & Kings

### Cyrus and the decree to send the exiles home

A Persian king’s repatriation policy · recorded on the Cyrus Cylinder, found 1879

What Scripture Records
Ezra 1:2–3; 2 Chronicles 36:22–23
Thus says Cyrus king of Persia, ‘The LORD, the God of heaven… has appointed me to build Him a house in Jerusalem… Let him go up to Jerusalem… and rebuild the house of the LORD.’
Ezra opens with Cyrus of Persia issuing a decree that releases the Jewish exiles to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the temple — a strikingly tolerant policy for a conquering empire.
What the Spade Uncovered
Babylon found 1879 · British Museum
A baked-clay cylinder dug from the ruins of Babylon records Cyrus’s own policy in his own words: that he returned conquered peoples to their homelands and restored their temples. The cylinder does not name the Jews or Jerusalem — but it documents exactly the kind of decree Ezra describes, from the very king Ezra names, confirming as authentic a royal policy critics had doubted.
The Cyrus Cylinder — the king’s own record of returning exiles and rebuilding their temples. Photo: Daderot, CC0 / public domain
The other half of this story — Isaiah naming Cyrus by name a century and a half before he was born — is traced in the Prophecies spoke.
People & Kings

### Mesha, king of Moab, and his revolt against Israel

A neighboring king’s victory stone — naming Moab, Israel’s dynasty, and Israel’s God

What Scripture Records
2 Kings 3:4–5
Now Mesha king of Moab was a sheep breeder… But when Ahab died, the king of Moab rebelled against the king of Israel.
2 Kings names Mesha king of Moab, his heavy tribute of lambs and wool to Israel, and his revolt against Israel after Ahab’s death — the war that fills 2 Kings 3.
What the Spade Uncovered
Dibon (Dhiban), Moab found 1868 · Louvre
A black basalt stele, set up by Mesha himself around 840 BC, tells the same war from Moab’s side. It names Mesha king of Moab, his god Chemosh, and Omri king of Israel and his house — and it carries the divine name YHWH, the earliest mention of it yet found outside the Bible. (Many scholars also read a damaged line as the House of David, which would make it a second witness to David’s dynasty — though that reading is debated.) Moab, Mesha, the house of Omri, and the very revolt of 2 Kings 3, in Moab’s own words.
The Mesha Stele (the Moabite Stone) — King Mesha’s own account of his revolt against the house of Omri. Photo: Tangopaso, public domain
In one line The Bible tells of Moab’s revolt; Moab’s own king carved the same war in stone — naming Israel’s dynasty and Israel’s God.
People & Kings

### Two of Jeremiah’s opponents, named in one verse — found in the City of David

Not a king this time, but two of his officials — pulled from the ground of Jerusalem

What Scripture Records
Jeremiah 38:1
… Gedaliah the son of Pashhur, and Jucal the son of Shelemiah… heard the words that Jeremiah was speaking to all the people…
As Babylon closed in, Jeremiah names — in a single verse — four court officials who urged the king to silence him. Two of them are Jehucal (Jucal) son of Shelemiah and Gedaliah son of Pashhur: minor figures, mentioned almost in passing.
What the Spade Uncovered
City of David, Jerusalem excavated 2005–2008
In controlled excavations a few meters apart, archaeologist Eilat Mazar recovered two clay bullae: one reading “belonging to Yehuchal son of Shelemyahu” and another “belonging to Gedalyahu son of Pashhur.” Two of the four men named together in Jeremiah 38:1 — their personal seal impressions, lifted from the soil of the very city, in the layer of its fall to Babylon.
Ancient Hebrew seals and bullae like these — the personal signatures of a literate kingdom (Israel Museum). Photo: Chamberi, CC BY-SA 3.0
In one line It is striking to confirm a king; it is astonishing to pull from the ground the seals of two of his clerks — named together in one verse of Jeremiah.
Roads & Places

### The Way of the Sea and Solomon’s gates

An international highway and the cities that guarded it · the matching gates of Hazor, Megiddo, and Gezer

What Scripture Records
Isaiah 9:1; 1 Kings 9:15
… by the way of the sea, on the other side of Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles… King Solomon… [built] Hazor, Megiddo, and Gezer.
Isaiah names the way of the sea — the great international road through the Jezreel Valley linking Egypt and Mesopotamia. And 1 Kings 9:15 records Solomon fortifying, in one breath, the three cities that stand astride it: Hazor, Megiddo, Gezer.
What the Spade Uncovered
Hazor, Megiddo, Gezer 20th-century excavations
Excavations at all three cities uncovered massive six-chambered gates of strikingly similar design and date, each positioned to control the Way of the Sea — the same three cities Scripture pairs in a single verse as a single building program. The exact decade of the gates is debated; what is not debated is that the three cities the Bible names together share one fortification plan guarding one road.
The six-chambered gate at Tel Gezer — one of the three cities 1 Kings 9:15 names together. Photo: Ian Scott, CC BY-SA 2.0
In one line Three cities the Bible names in one verse, found guarding one ancient road with one matching gate.
Roads & Places

### The King’s Highway and the kingdoms east of the Jordan

Edom, Moab, and Ammon doubted as later legends · confirmed by the road and the forts along it

What Scripture Records
Numbers 20:17; 21:21–22
We will go along the king’s highway, not turning to the right or left, until we pass through your territory.
On the march to Canaan, Israel asks Edom — and then Sihon the Amorite — for passage along the king’s highway, the established route running the length of the high country east of the Jordan. The request takes for granted organized kingdoms with kings and borders.
What the Spade Uncovered
Modern Jordan ongoing surveys
Critics argued that the highlands east of the Jordan held no organized states until centuries after Moses, making the Edom and Moab of Numbers anachronisms. Wide-ranging surveys across Jordan have since mapped Bronze and Iron Age settlements and fortresses, and the trade corridor itself — later repaved by Rome, whose milestones still stand beside it. How early Edom became a fully centralized kingdom is still debated; that the road and a settled, organized population along it are ancient is not.
In one line A road and its kingdoms called too early to be real, traced today in fortresses and Roman milestones along the very route Numbers names.
The Text Itself

### The Great Isaiah Scroll

The faithful copying of the text across a thousand years · the Dead Sea Scrolls, found 1947

What Scripture Records
Isaiah 40:8
The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever.
Isaiah makes a claim about his own words: that while everything else passes, the word of God endures. The scroll that carries this verse became, by accident of history, a test of it.
What the Spade Uncovered
Qumran, by the Dead Sea 1947
Before 1947, the oldest complete Hebrew copy of Isaiah dated to about AD 1000. Among the first scrolls found in the caves at Qumran was a complete Isaiah dated to roughly 125 BC — more than a thousand years older. When the two were laid side by side, the text proved essentially the same: a millennium of copying had altered nothing of substance. The scroll a skeptic might have used to expose a corrupted Bible instead showed how carefully it had been kept.
The Great Isaiah Scroll, c. 125 BC — a thousand years older than any Isaiah manuscript known before it. Photo: Ardon Bar-Hama; the scroll itself is in the public domain
In one line The oldest copy of Isaiah ever found could have proved the text corrupted across a thousand years; instead it proved it preserved.
No finds match this filter.
Notes, honest caveats, and image credits

#### The single pattern

Every entry here is a place where Scripture made a checkable claim about history — a people, a king, a road, a manuscript — the claim was doubted because nothing outside the Bible had yet confirmed it, and then something was recovered that did. The point is narrow and strong: the Bible keeps proving to be telling the truth about the world it describes.

#### What archaeology proves — and what it does not

A find that confirms Hezekiah, or David’s dynasty, or the Hittites, establishes historical reliability. It does not, by itself, prove that Scripture is inspired by God — a true history is not yet a holy one. What it does is remove a specific objection: that the Bible is legend dressed as history. Honest skeptics have changed their minds on exactly this ground. Set beside fulfilled prophecy and the preservation of the text, it forms part of a cumulative case, not a single knockdown proof. This page is content to claim what the evidence actually bears.

#### On the Cyrus Cylinder

The cylinder records Cyrus’s general policy of returning conquered peoples to their lands and rebuilding their temples. It does not mention the Jews or Jerusalem specifically. It confirms that the kind of decree Ezra 1 describes was authentic Persian policy under the very king Ezra names — which is what the entry claims, and no more.

#### On the Solomonic gates

The six-chambered gates at Hazor, Megiddo, and Gezer share one design and stand exactly where 1 Kings 9:15 places Solomon’s building work. Whether they date precisely to Solomon’s reign or to a generation or so later is debated among archaeologists (the “high” versus “low” chronology). The entry rests only on what is agreed: three cities the Bible pairs, one gate plan, one road.

#### On naming the skeptics fairly

The doubts described here were real scholarly positions, not strawmen — the nineteenth-century view that the Hittites were a biblical embellishment, and the late-twentieth-century “minimalist” argument that David’s monarchy was a later invention. This page states those positions in summary rather than quoting individual scholars, so as not to put words in any person’s mouth. The positions are accurately represented; the discoveries answered them.

#### Finds we left off — and why

The presentations that prompted these entries include a few finds we deliberately did not give full cards, because this page holds to uncontestable ground:

- The “Isaiah” bulla — a seal impression found near Hezekiah’s that may read “Isaiah the prophet,” but the deciding word sits on a broken edge, and the reading is genuinely disputed.
- The “Jerubbaal” (Gideon) inscription — a jar inscribed with the name Jerubbaal (Gideon’s other name, Judg 6–8), from roughly the right period; intriguing, but it cannot be tied to the Gideon.
- Royal seals from the antiquities market — seals bearing the names of kings such as Ahaz, Uzziah, and Manasseh exist, but most surfaced through dealers rather than controlled digs, so their authenticity is debated. The excavated bullae — Hezekiah, and Jehucal and Gedaliah — stand on firmer ground, which is why those are the ones on this page.
- Jericho — that an ancient walled Jericho existed and was destroyed is not in question; what is debated is the date of that destruction, and therefore whether it lines up with Joshua. We have left the question where the evidence leaves it.

#### Into the New Testament

The same pattern continues past the Old Testament — the Pilate Stone found at Caesarea in 1961, naming the very governor of the Gospels; the Forum of Appius and the Three Taverns of Acts 28 still traceable along the Appian Way. Those belong to a New Testament study; this spoke keeps to the Old Testament timeline it serves.

#### Image credits

- Lion Gate, Hattusa — photo by Bernard Gagnon, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0.
- Tel Dan Stele — photo by Liadmalone, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.
- Seal (bulla) of Hezekiah, Israel Museum — photo by Gary Todd, Wikimedia Commons, CC0 / public domain.
- Six-chambered gate, Tel Gezer — photo by Ian Scott, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0.
- Cyrus Cylinder — photo by Daderot, Wikimedia Commons, CC0 / public domain.
- Great Isaiah Scroll — photograph by Ardon Bar-Hama; the scroll is in the public domain, Wikimedia Commons.
- Taylor Prism (Sennacherib’s Annals), British Museum — photo by David Castor, Wikimedia Commons, public domain.
- Mesha Stele (Moabite Stone), Louvre — photo by Tangopaso, Wikimedia Commons, public domain.
- Ancient Hebrew seals, Israel Museum — photo by Chamberi, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0.

#### Where this came from

This spoke was occasioned by “I Am Convinced,” a lesson on the evidences that the Bible is the word of God, presented by Charles Willis at the New Caney church of Christ in June 2026. Further entries — Sennacherib’s Prism, the Mesha Stele, and the two officials of Jeremiah 38 — were drawn from that congregation’s 2024 “Bible Evidence You Can Believe” archaeology presentation. The Scripture quotations have been checked against the NASB; the archaeological claims against standard references on each site.