ARCHEOLOGY AND THE BIBLE

From the National Post, circa 2000, Reuters. Archeology shows the Bible is true concerning what it says. Every time this happens we are not astonished. We are happy to be reminded that we have believed the right thing. We have not believed the Bible in vain. The Bible is historically accurate.

The ancient Assyrian Empire occupies a comparatively substantial portion of Scripture’s historical narrative. It is mentioned, sometimes at large, in over a dozen Old Testament books. The Bible speaks of this Empire; archeology has often echoed what the Bible says about it; now we hear this echo again. 

Pay special attention to the notice of these ‘winged lions’ that were discovered. Are these statues just a representation of some figure in Classical Mythology? Encyclopaedia Britannica tells us that “mythological and epic themes are…found in Geometric Art of the 8^th century BC.” But the idea for these winged lions came from somewhere else than mythology. And much of mythology derives from facts laid out in the Bible.

Objects comparable to the winged lions were brought to light by a Dr. Layard just over a century ago from the same ruins of ancient Nineveh in Nimrud, Iraq. In his Inhabitants of Heaven (1862; 1877) James Killen demonstrates by careful research that sculptures like those referred to in our article are nothing else and nothing less than distorted depictions of the Cherubim of Ezekiel, Isaiah, and Revelation. “And this was their appearance…every one had four faces…four wings…the face of a man, and the face of a lion” etc. (Ezekiel 1.5, 6, 10.) Since “Paganism…is but a corruption of Patriarchism [the cultural paradigm during the time of the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob when Cherubic figures and images were already popular]…we need not be surprised to find, amongst the objects of Pagan superstition, forms more or less nearly resembling the Cherubic symbols” (Killen, p. 275.) In like manner, have we not found variations of the biblical Flood account among pagan civilizations?  

Myth and legend originate from some truth more often than we realize. A biblical explanation for fabulous-looking creatures is satisfying and convincing. Compare Encyclopaedia Britannica’s take on the origin of the Minotaur (a half human, half bull) idea: “could have arisen from exaggerated accounts of bull leaping in ancient Crete.” How likely is that?

Discoveries of winged lions are exciting and fascinating because the idea for their creation came down through oral tradition and artistic representation of what the Cherubim guarding the entrance to the garden of Eden looked like! This is like a piece of heaven right here on the ground of history! “We have in these Assyrian remains, those winged figures…an evident and striking representation of the Paradisiacal Cherubim as the guardians of the tree of life in Eden” (Killen, p. 288.) Archeology corroborates the biblical narrative.

MAD SCIENCE

This frightening piece of news is taken from the National Post some time near the turn of the second millennium. Certain blind or ignorant optimists would scoff at the notion that the potentiality spoken of in the headline could soon become a reality. Others, because they already benefit financially from runaway science, will try and convince us that human laws will prevent scientists from going too far. But concocting human embryos in a petri dish has already been allowed when such a thing would have been outlawed by more cautious generations.

Godless peoples will unite their ideas and forces to do creator-like things. No power but the true God is able to prevent the monstrous machinations of man. “Behold, the people is one,” said the LORD one time, “and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do” (Genesis 11.6.) The principal ‘one language’ the world is using today to build its tower up to heaven is called science. But it is a science gone mad. How high God will permit this Babel to ascend we do not know. But we know that Bio-Medical Research, even if it were restricted to operate within the bounds of propriety and righteous conduct, will not be the dialect by which man achieves any sort of immortality. Only the word of God through Man the Word can do that. Jesus Christ is the life-giving word.

This scientific mixing of man and beast is a sophisticated form of that confusion spoken of in Leviticus 18.23. A sexual union between man and beast is there called confusion: an ‘unnatural mixture.’ A union of the same by the use of a petri dish is confusion too. In one sense, the latter is worse, for science might bring about some offspring by its deeds. Soon, we hope, God will once again bring his own confusion upon mad scientists. “Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language…So the LORD scattered them” (Genesis 11.7, 8.) We pray God to hurry up because many confusions (though less horrific than a ‘half-human, half-chimp’) have already been created. The appended article goes on to say, “The little white mice in Keith Humphries’ lab are part human. They carry genes for human blood components and pass them on to their young…Such hybrids…invaluable for studying…disorders.”

Some newspaper browsers won’t even muffle their giggles when they read about the next abomination man may actuate. These are they who are content to do what they must to survive, and spend the rest of their time and energy listening and looking for any new thing that might feed their lust for amusement and shock. They would be the first to approve of the creation of a man-beast just so they could get a look at it. They don’t doubt that man may be able to make a ‘half-human, half-chimp.’ But will they believe that God will yet raise cadavers from the grave to unite them to the souls they once belonged to? No, a Grander Science by the Highest Power they will not believe. Imagine, a body resurrected to be thrust away from God and good, a risen body reunited to a half-despairing, half-longing soul that is condemned to feel alienated for ever! Is that a monstrosity for the idle reader to giggle at? There will be a resurrection. Only those who believed and trusted in Jesus will be given glorified bodies. Therefore, pray that you will soon be able to say with the sincerity of a real Christian, “But we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead” (1 Corinthians 1.9.)