Merry Christmas, dear reader! As part of your celebrations today, we thought we’d share some of the most incredible Biblical discoveries of 2023.
Good news started early in 2023, after the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), Israel National Parks Authority (INPA) and the City of David Foundation (CDF) announced the Pool of Siloam will officially be opened to the public for the first time in 2,000 years. And while this isn’t necessarily a discovery, it did start off the year with Jesus in mind. (RELATED: One TV Show Could Finally Bring The World Together. Here’s Why)
The Pool is Siloam was described in John 9:1-11 as the location where Jesus healed a blind man with mud. It also appears in 2 Kings 20:20, when King Hezekiah forged the pool to bring water to Jerusalem. It’s considered one of the “most significant sites affirming Jerusalem’s Biblical heritage,” Ze’ev Orenstein, director of International Affairs, City of David Foundation, told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
The Pool of Siloam has been buried for over 2,000 years https://t.co/On5Lo2VDzL
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) January 3, 2023
Shortly after this incredible announcement, two French scholars claimed they’d deciphered the Mesha Stele, revealing a reference to the “House of David,” well before the days Jesus Christ joined us on Earth. The Mesha Stele, or Moabite Stone, is a basalt rock tablet thought to date back to the 9th century B.C. and is believed to confirm the Old Testament’s account of King David, who founded ancient Israel’s legacy of kings.
The 34 lines of text on the tablet tell of King Mesha of Moab’s victories over Israel and Judah, according to Biblical Archaeology.
Everyone Needs To Watch And Then Do A ‘Jesus Revolution’ | @DailyCaller
I said what I said. https://t.co/A9BA0vfT7V
— KAY SMYTHE (@KaySmythe) May 9, 2023
Another major Biblical headline this year came from the Tell el-Hammam archaeological site in Jordan, which researchers now believe is where the ancient city of Sodom once stood. The site is eastwards of Bethel and Ai, where Lot traveled from to reach the city in Genesis 13:10, and there are “25 known pieces of geography [in Scripture] that you can triangulate between to take you to the city of Sodom,” Trinity Southwest University’s Dean of Archaeology Steven Collins said.
Previous studies suggest the site was absolutely vaporized by a meteor impact roughly 4,000 years ago, with the geological record revealing a “charcoal-rich destruction layer.” And some of the ancient pottery recovered from this time appears to have been glazed, similar to objects found at nuclear test sites. (RELATED: Dennis Quaid Somehow Tops Christian Charts With His Latest Album)
This ancient site could be where Sodom once stood and was “wiped out in the blink of an eye,” Collins claims.
‘Wiped Out In The Blink Of An Eye’: Archaeologist Claims He Has Found The Biblical City Of Sodom | @DailyCaller https://t.co/Jt9fExPtC0
— KAY SMYTHE (@KaySmythe) July 11, 2023
One of the weirdest stories of 2023 comes from the Bible itself. Austrian Academy of Sciences historian Grigory Kessel announced in May that he found a secret chapter hidden within an old version of the bible, visible only by ultraviolet photography, according to Business Insider.
Apparently, the text was a longer version of Chapter 12 from the Book of Matthew. The text was part of the original Old Syriac translations of the Bible roughly 1,500 years ago but has since been removed. Which begs the question, what else has been removed over the last 2023 years?