Preface

There is many excellently documented and researched works concerning the places that are described in the entirety of the Old and New Testaments that have been done.  It is fascinating to read about some of the investigations and research done by some, which lead to their greater Faith in God.  A personal favorite of this author is Lew Wallace, who is famous for writing the book Ben-Hur, where Wallace spent a great deal of time researching in the Library of Congress, USA on the Holy Land, Roman Empire and other facets, after realizing how much he didn't know from a friendly debate with Robert Ingersoll on a train ride.  Later Wallace did visit the Holly Land to see the places he read and wrote about.

Unfortunately, this author has to point out that it is blatantly hypocritical to hear some explanations in text books and even on WIKI sites that:

• Too often take historical information in the Old Testament regarding governments and places as wrong without investigation.
• That do not consider the Old Testament scriptures as additional ancient writings, (which they are), for the use in understanding the history of governments, places and peoples in the areas which the scriptures discuss.

An example of an attempt to discredit the Bible is dealing with Cyrus the Great's invasion of Babylon written about in Daniel chapter 5, that is explained and clarified below.  There are older text books and older websites by PhD historians, that state something as fact when there was already evidence readily available to the contrary. They wrongfully state the scripture is incorrect because Daniel states that Belshazzar is mentioned as ruler when the real King was Nabonidus.  The scriptures in Daniel 5 explains Belshazzar's authority as second-in-command by the comment made by Belshazzar being able to make Daniel the third ruler, as Belshazzar was the second ruler or co-regent.  (Note: Corrections as of 2021, show many sites correcting their mistakes.)

What is aggravating to this author is reading documentations where too often graduates of a doctoral program and the self-proclaimed historians, show that they have a clear agenda to try to discredit the scripture rather than report history.  The bias becomes always evident with antidotal comments that are not germane to the research work are made in their documentation.

Ancient Writings and Rigor

There are far too few ancient writings besides the Bible and the only other sources are hieroglyphics that are always too brief.  Besides the Bible, consider this list, shown below, of ancient writings that are useful for understanding the culture, language and history of an area. 

Notice:

• Date written.
• Gaps of time written after the events.
• Number of copies.

The rigor and discipline of preserving the original text, in the Bible, that was done by the ancient scribes of Israel is nothing short of phenomenal.  The history of the Bible and its translations is a very detailed research work that has been going on hundreds of years by almost countless individuals.   It is amazing the preservation done by people all over the world in making copies of the scriptures along with doing analysis on them.  Yes, there are known translation issues in the different versions of the Bible over time but these are usually dealing with small interpretation errors and spelling differences of names.

Before proceeding with the remaining parts of this topic, it can be essential to understand the Biblical Source Text topic.  Underneath the scriptures in the Old Testament are encryptions, codes and designs that were once partially known by the ancient Rabbis, but are now being rediscovered with computer algorithms in both the Old and New Testament, that authenticates the Bible as being written from outside of our Time Domain, which is God.   It is impossible to get over 40 different authors of 66 Books in the Bible, that are separated by multiple-centuries, to have conspired with one another to plant the encryptions in the scriptures.

List of Historical Writings

The list below is not a complete list of ancient works, but it is very interesting when compared against the surviving manuscripts of the Old Testament.  The dating is not always agreed upon by Historians and Archeologists.  In fact, the dates seem to be almost widely different depending upon what source of information that is researched which might be compared to others historic documents.

Notes on the chart:

1. This list is compiled from sources as of 2020, where new research from archeologist may yield more accurate and more discoveries.
2. Depending upon the source of information, there is widely different estimates on the dates of how old an item's age, how many earliest copies are preserved and how many copies were preserved.
3. The links provided, for the most part, are using WIKI because it is a secular source which will potentially have prejudices against the Judeo-Christian scripture, but those who read this topic will not feel a bias against secular sources.  Note that it is not hard to find secular sources always use earlier dates when dating something Christian but then use older dates for everything else.  In this author's opinion, it is deliberate.
4. Some dating is based on conjecture from websites that propose the dates are based on other works from the same period.
5. More information on some Christian Views regarding these ancient works along with some others are listed after the list.

Notes and Accuracy

4. Book Of Daniel Written When?

1. Septuagint Old Testament that date back to the period of 270 BC.
2. The Dead Sea Scrolls that were copies from at least 408 BC.
3. Periodicity of the Book of Daniel:
   (a) The grammar,
   (b) Etymology, and
   (c) Choice of words
   were specific for the time period that proves that the Book of Daniel was written between 604 and 532 BC
4. The primary point of old historical scriptural copies from several sources, besides the two noted, is the old parchments do not contradict one another.  The scribes, from different geographical areas which were COPYING scriptures, did not conspire with one another to make sure there were no errors.
5. The Book of Ezekiel in verse 28:3 mentions the Prophet Daniel where the Book of Ezekiel was written between 593 and 565 BC.

   Ezekiel 28:3

   Behold, thou art wiser than Daniel; there is no secret that they can hide from thee:

This author is indebted to the wonderful work done by the Christian Apologist, Florin G Laiu and many other wonderful research works.

Some of the key points from the Christian Apologist's work:

• Daniel, the writer of the book, refers to himself in the first person and establishes the date written.
• Words used are identifiable as only used in the 6th Century BC, in that period of time, and were no longer in use in the 2 century BC:

  excerpt screen capture from the link in point 3:

• Josephus in the book "Antiquities of the Jews" discusses the encounter with Alexander the Great in Jerusalem around 332 BC and where the Book of Daniel is mentioned.   Find this in this screen capture in this link.

5. Sumerian Kings List

The Sumerian Kings List is sometimes is sited by ancient alien believers, as proof that human kind have gone back 70,000 years prior to the Great Flood of Noah, based on the lineage list for age, which is spurious.  The link informs the reader that the lineages of verifiable kings are running congruently and date back to the bronze age.  Prior kings and eras, are supposedly associated to the antediluvian period which are considered myths because of impossible life spans that approach immortality.
Weld-Blundell Prism - Clay Prism that contains the Kings List.

6. Hand Writing on the Wall of Daniel 5

The history in the scriptures gives additional information to the invasion by Cyrus the Great, mentioned below.  The interesting collaboration and proof of the accuracy of the scripture reference of Belshazzar is in Daniel 5:16.

7. Cyrus Cylinder

The Cyrus Cylinder, also called the Stele of Cyrus, describes King Cyrus of the Medes and Persians, conquering Babylon.  The often-misquoted translation of The victor will always be the judge, and the vanquished the accused. is given as "History is written by the Victors", which applies to the Cylinder.  It gives Cyrus's version of events in acquiring the city of Babylon.  Most historians attribute this cylinder as a tradition of conquers to have a monument or something for future readers to have that proclaim the excellency, validity and majesty of a new ruler.  The point of the Stele of Cyrus is it confirms the scriptural reference in Ezra 1:1. The Book of Ezra then gives us more background to the event in history with the verses that follow.

8. Pontus Pilot Discovery on Stone

It is interesting that there is secular sources that describe Pontus Pilot as "Procurator" and not "Roman Governor of Judea."  Many people may not realize that the titles are almost interchangeable as a Governor in the ancient Roman Empire would also act as Procurator or Magistrate.  A Roman Procurator was in charge (authority) over financial and administrative matters in provinces or territories for the Empire.  A Magistrate is person, that is usually a civilian and not a military position, that administrates the law.

The ancient Roman writer Tacitus, lived AD 56 to AD 120, in his work "Tacitus's Annals", book 15 and chapter 44, there is information about Christians:

1. The origin of the Christians was the extreme penalty (inferred to the crucifixion) of the person who Christians were named.
2. The Procurator was Pontius Pilatus.
3. There was insurrection, labeled as criminaly setting fires, by Tacitus.
4. Tacitus most likely confuses the origin of the insurrection as being Christians, and as we know that Rome in approximately AD 70 conducted a siege of Jerusalem that led to the deaths of perhaps a million people, but according to some sources the Christian left before the siege because of the warning given by Jesus Christ before His Crucifixion (written in the scriptures) that were passed between Christians.

A few of the scriptural references:

9. Dead Sea Scrolls, Septuagint, and Masoretic

There is abundant information on the Internet to find all the details about the Dead Sea Scrolls.  The scrolls are also known as the Qumran Caves Scrolls.

The fascinating information about the Scrolls found are the following points.  Additionally there was a somewhat famously know Copper Scroll found that may be an influence to the Indian Jones movies.

1. Found in the time-period of 1946 through 1956.
2. Dating of the scrolls are from 3rd Century BCE to perhaps 1st century AD/CE.
3. Approximately 15,000 scrolls.
4. There was eleven caves that they were found in.
5. Most of the manuscripts were written in Hebrew, but some in Aramaic.
6. Most of the texts are on parchments, and others in papyrus, along with the noted above copper scroll.
7. Not all of the texts found are copies of the Old Testament Books.
8. The Essene community that lived in the area of the Qumran caves apparently collected manuscripts where they did not write or copy all of them.
9. Biblical Scholars state that the text is nearly identical to modern-day Masoretic Text.  When the process of translated the scrolls there are three
   (a) Transcribing,
   (b) Transliteration, and
   (c) Translated
   which is the difference between preciseness and taking educated approximate guesses from know vocabulary and word definitions for the time of the writing.
10. There are a few major differences from the scrolls found and the Masoretic Text.
11. Some Biblical Scholars and archeologists are asserting that the copies were sometimes written and redacted from the originals.
12. The Wikipedia reference lists the books found.
13. Every book of the Old Testament was found except for the Book of Esther.

The Biblical Archaeology Org (BAO), have the following points:

1. There are two established Old Testament Sources.
   (a) The Masoretic Text from 1000 AD/CE
   (b) The Septuagint in Greek Translation from approximately 300 BCE to 200 BCE.
2. There are no "lost books" of the Scriptures that were found in the Caves.
3. The Dead Sea Scrolls have more in common with the Septuagint Greek Translation than the Masoretic Text.

This author would state:

1. There are no differences in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Septuagint that would change any doctrine that Christians hold.
2. An example noted in BAO is in "1 Samuel 1;24" on a reference of bringing either one three year old bull or three bulls.  That is very incidental.

Significance of the Copper Scroll:

10. Sumerian Texts or Literature

This author believes many public speaking people that publicists of books and on social media are using the work of Zecharia Sitchin for their base proofs.  One book called the "12th Planet by Zecharia Sitchin", which this author read around 1983, had all kinds of claims about a people coming from a planet called Nibiru coming to seed human life on earth where among Zecharia Sitchin's sources was the Sumerian Texts, and his own translational research.  The evidence against Zecharia Sitchin is there no proof of his ability to read ancient Sumerian Texts.  

11. A Notable Reference from CRI

What to read next?

See: (a) Time and Time Travel, (b) Time Domains, (c) Kingdom of God, (d) Singularity and the Big Bang Theories, (e) E=mc ,  (f) Ten Dimensions of the Universe, (g) Age of the Earth, Periods that Developed Life, Heavens, (h) Evolution