The Name Of The Creator Unearthed
One of the first
archeological finds was discovered during excavations in Arad,Israel
that took place during the 1960s and
1970s. Fragments of pottery were found at an Israelite sanctuary which
dated back to the days of King Solomon. Inscribed in Hebrew on one of
these is a reference to "the
House of Yahweh." This was reported in The
Jerusalem Post in an article entitled "Unearthing the Land" which
appeared June 29,1973. Here is an excerpt from that article and a
fragment of the pottery.
Mostly used for
business
transactions, these humble documents are a
mine of historic information. At Arad, excavated by Yohanan Aharoni,
reference is made to a "House
of YHWH".
Another
amazing find was
the very oldest
Scriptural text ever found, dating back almost 2,600 years. This is
found in a tiny silver amulet
which contains a
Seventh Century B.C. extract from the Book of Numbers (6:24-26),
the Priestly Blessing. The rolled up amulet was part of a
tresure hoard
found by a Tel Aviv University archeologist in a First Temple
Period family tomb in Jerusalem, Israel. When this amulet was written,
the Temple of Solomon still stood, the heirs of King David still ruled
on the throne, and the Dead Sea Scrolls would not be written for
another four hundread years.
It was three years after its discovery before the fragile amulet could be unrolled by technical experts at the Israeli Museum. On this amulet the Name of Yahweh could be clearly read in the original Hebrew language. Complete details of this maginificent find can be read in the June 28, 1986 and the August 9, 1986 issues of The Jerusalem Post, and the June, 1987 issue of The Readers Digest.