KING DAVID MENTIONED IN A STELE

Original title: Is the Old Testament an accurate historical text?
By Jeff Benner (20+ years teaching Biblical Hebrew and Bible interpretation).

There are many instances where critics of the Bible have claimed that certain events, persons, and places mentioned in the Bible never existed as there was no evidence of them found outside of the Bible.
An example is King David. It was universally accepted by critics of the Bible that King David never actually existed because there was no mention of this key Biblical figure outside of the Bible.
In 1994 a stele was discovered in Northern Israel at the ancient site of Tel Dan that dates to c 840 BCE, about the time of King David.

In the blue box is the phrase מלך ישראל (melekh Yisrael), which means ‘King of Israel’. In the red box is the phrase בית דוד (beyt David), which means ‘House of David’.
Once this stele was discovered the critics had to admit that King David did in fact exist.

This same scenario has occurred time and again and many events, people and places thought to be fabrications have been discovered in the archaeological record, some of which are documented at Biblical Archaeology: Factual Evidence to Support the Historicity of the Bible – Christian Research Institute.

NAZARENE NOTES