Everyone agrees on one thing: Already in the Middle Bronze Age (1550-2000 BC) Jerusalem was a significant city that is also mentioned in non-biblical writings. Was the city surrounded by a wall already in the Bronze Age? Is Jerusalem indeed a "walled city from the time of Joshua bin-Nun?"
Read more: How Old Are Jerusalem's Walls? Experts Say Parts Date Back To The Bronze Age
After over a century, researchers have verified with a considerable degree of certainty that the “Mesha Stele”, an engraved stone slab discovered in 1868 east of the Dead Sea in modern-day Jordan, in fact, does contain explicit references to King David and events that correspond to biblical writings. Also known as the Moabite Stone, the Stele has provided historians and linguists with the greatest source of the Moabite language to date, a Canaanite dialect, once spoken in the region described in the Bible as Moab in the early first millennium BC.
Read more: Researchers Confirm Biblical Story Using Oldest Reference To King David & YHWH
The work of the archaeology patrol unit is typically uneventful, some have even used the word boring to describe the role that requires employees to drive from one archaeological site to another seeking out anything out of the ordinary. Given the fact that Judea and Samaria are particularly rich with biblical era sites, there are a lot of places to scope out, but rarely is anything amiss. That changed earlier this week near the Tel Dotan area in northern Samaria, when the patrol came across two thieves trying to rob the ancient cemetery of Tel Dotan just a few miles south of the Palestinian Authority-run city of Jenin.
Read more: Two Men Caught Looting Site Where Joseph's Brothers Sold Him Into Slavery
A church, with spectacular mosaic floors preserved from the Byzantine period, was uncovered by the Archeology Unit in the Civil Administration near the ancient city of Jericho. The Civil Administration, which is legally responsible for most excavations within Judea and Samaria, said that the church was probably established during the 6th century AD, and continued to exist even during the early Muslim period.
Read more: Byzantine Era Church That Survived Muslim Destruction Found Near Jericho
One of the things academics use to try and discredit the bible is the reliance on silver by the pre-Israel Israelites. In Genesis, it is written that Jacob came to Shechem (today's Nablus) and paid 100 pieces of silver for a plot of land, the same land where it is believed Josephs's tomb lies. The problem was there was no evidence that the precious metal was used in Canaan and only came into the land 400-600 years later. However, new research shreds that theory as it appears the Canaanites did in fact deal in Silver.
Read more: Proving The Bible: Archaeologists Reveal Silver Was Used As Currency In Canaan
