1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:06,960 This is John Matarazzo with Charisma News and I am having the privilege today of talking 2 00:00:06,960 --> 00:00:10,320 to a real life Indiana Jones. 3 00:00:10,320 --> 00:00:18,920 And literally, I'm going to say it here that one archaeologist trash is Scott Stripling's 4 00:00:18,920 --> 00:00:23,580 treasure and you're going to explain, you're going to understand what we mean by that and 5 00:00:23,580 --> 00:00:27,920 how God has given him the wisdom to find some amazing, amazing things. 6 00:00:27,920 --> 00:00:30,000 So I'm not going to waste any time. 7 00:00:30,000 --> 00:00:31,960 I'm going to bring Scott on right now. 8 00:00:31,960 --> 00:00:35,480 Scott, Dr. Scott Stripling, it's great to have you here. 9 00:00:35,480 --> 00:00:43,860 I know you have an amazing discovery, an amazing find that really helps validate what we see 10 00:00:43,860 --> 00:00:45,000 in scriptures. 11 00:00:45,000 --> 00:00:47,580 And so I'm going to let you talk about that. 12 00:00:47,580 --> 00:00:53,600 So welcome to be here on Charisma News and it's great to be able to have you here. 13 00:00:53,600 --> 00:00:54,880 Hey, John, thanks. 14 00:00:54,880 --> 00:00:57,020 It's great to be with you also. 15 00:00:57,020 --> 00:01:00,680 And there's a lot of exciting things happening in the field of archaeology. 16 00:01:00,680 --> 00:01:04,040 I kind of see this as the golden age of archaeology. 17 00:01:04,040 --> 00:01:09,920 We're just less than a century and a half old really as a science and we're in a period 18 00:01:09,920 --> 00:01:14,600 now where I think we know what we're doing and our technologies are improving and we've 19 00:01:14,600 --> 00:01:17,960 got a really good grasp on the stratigraphy of the ancient world. 20 00:01:17,960 --> 00:01:20,760 So lots of exciting stuff taking place. 21 00:01:20,760 --> 00:01:21,760 Wonderful. 22 00:01:21,760 --> 00:01:28,440 So I led this off by saying that one archaeologist trash is Scott Stripling's treasure. 23 00:01:28,440 --> 00:01:35,200 And I want you to explain what I mean by that, because as you were explaining this new process 24 00:01:35,200 --> 00:01:39,220 to me, that's just kind of how I was able to summarize it. 25 00:01:39,220 --> 00:01:42,720 So tell us about what you call wet sifting. 26 00:01:42,720 --> 00:01:47,240 Yeah, well, we archaeologists love trash, love garbage. 27 00:01:47,240 --> 00:01:50,780 We can talk trash with the best of them. 28 00:01:50,780 --> 00:01:57,840 What I have discovered, John, this last 20 years is examining old dump piles at archaeological 29 00:01:57,840 --> 00:01:58,840 sites. 30 00:01:58,840 --> 00:02:04,780 So after an archaeologist excavates in the square and then dry sifts or sieves the material 31 00:02:04,780 --> 00:02:09,420 so the dirt falls through and to make sure they're not missing anything, then they discard 32 00:02:09,420 --> 00:02:10,960 the remaining matrix. 33 00:02:10,960 --> 00:02:16,400 And over time, that forms a huge pile, a dump pile, and they're left behind at the sites. 34 00:02:16,400 --> 00:02:20,520 And so virtually every archaeological site that you visit, if you know what to look for, 35 00:02:20,520 --> 00:02:22,540 you'll find the dump pile there. 36 00:02:22,540 --> 00:02:30,520 And what I discovered was that for every one scarab, which is like a shape of a beetle, 37 00:02:30,520 --> 00:02:38,000 has the iconography of a pharaoh on it, very common from that earlier time period, or bula, 38 00:02:38,000 --> 00:02:39,440 which is like a seal impression. 39 00:02:39,440 --> 00:02:44,040 Well, for every one that the archaeologist in charge of the dig had published, I was 40 00:02:44,040 --> 00:02:46,940 finding four in the dump piles. 41 00:02:46,940 --> 00:02:51,520 So that means we were throwing away by far the majority of the evidence from the small 42 00:02:51,520 --> 00:02:52,520 finds. 43 00:02:52,520 --> 00:02:53,520 Okay. 44 00:02:53,520 --> 00:02:54,520 And what's catastrophic? 45 00:02:54,520 --> 00:02:55,680 What sizes are we looking at? 46 00:02:55,680 --> 00:02:59,720 Well, they're very small, like the size of a quarter, something like that. 47 00:02:59,720 --> 00:03:04,160 But when they're covered with dirt and you're seeing thousands of small rocks and dirt clods 48 00:03:04,160 --> 00:03:08,560 as you're working and your volunteers, you know, their minds wander, their eyes are tired, 49 00:03:08,560 --> 00:03:12,840 and even a trained archaeologist, I mean, a scarab that's covered in dirt just looks 50 00:03:12,840 --> 00:03:14,400 like a rock. 51 00:03:14,400 --> 00:03:18,680 And so in a sense, we're lucky when we find those things or when volunteers find them 52 00:03:18,680 --> 00:03:21,320 in the squares. 53 00:03:21,320 --> 00:03:25,040 So I knew that these old dump piles were full of material. 54 00:03:25,040 --> 00:03:31,120 And so in December of 2019, I took a team, my Associates for Biblical Research team, 55 00:03:31,120 --> 00:03:36,360 and kind of picked out a Navy SEAL team, if you will, from my group. 56 00:03:36,360 --> 00:03:37,880 So the best of the best there. 57 00:03:37,880 --> 00:03:41,240 Yeah, this is the skill set that I'm looking for. 58 00:03:41,240 --> 00:03:47,240 And long story short, we were able to go to Mount Ebal, which is where Joshua 830 says 59 00:03:47,240 --> 00:03:49,480 that Joshua built an altar to the Lord there. 60 00:03:49,480 --> 00:03:54,120 Adam Zeratall had excavated that site in the 1980s, done a very good job on it. 61 00:03:54,120 --> 00:03:56,360 I wanted to check his dump pile there. 62 00:03:56,360 --> 00:03:59,760 And then I wanted to check an old dump pile at Shiloh from the 1980s. 63 00:03:59,760 --> 00:04:03,680 And then I was going to publish the findings and essentially a boring methodological paper 64 00:04:03,680 --> 00:04:10,480 to my colleagues, encouraging them to adopt this new technology, whereby we wash the matrix, 65 00:04:10,480 --> 00:04:14,080 we take another step before we get started. 66 00:04:14,080 --> 00:04:16,880 And we wash that matrix and remove all the dirt. 67 00:04:16,880 --> 00:04:21,540 And then lo and behold, you can see things that you never would have imagined before. 68 00:04:21,540 --> 00:04:23,760 And so that's what we did in December of 2019. 69 00:04:23,760 --> 00:04:24,760 Wow. 70 00:04:24,760 --> 00:04:31,160 So in December of 2019, so we're talking three, four years ago now. 71 00:04:31,160 --> 00:04:37,280 And so you've been sitting on some of these findings officially for a while. 72 00:04:37,280 --> 00:04:42,760 Why can't you just come out and say, hey, everybody, I found this and just take pictures 73 00:04:42,760 --> 00:04:45,480 of it and put all over the internet? 74 00:04:45,480 --> 00:04:49,080 What's this process and why are things taking so long to announce this? 75 00:04:49,080 --> 00:04:51,620 Well, OK, let me explain what happened. 76 00:04:51,620 --> 00:04:56,620 Because in December of 2019, we recovered this small lead folded tablet, which I'll 77 00:04:56,620 --> 00:05:00,080 talk about more in a moment. 78 00:05:00,080 --> 00:05:01,080 We left Israel. 79 00:05:01,080 --> 00:05:03,080 I had to put the project was over. 80 00:05:03,080 --> 00:05:07,200 So I put everything in storage, assuming I would be back in a few months to then. 81 00:05:07,200 --> 00:05:12,440 And take the research project through the normal protocols in March of 2020. 82 00:05:12,440 --> 00:05:13,720 The world turned upside down. 83 00:05:13,720 --> 00:05:14,720 Yes, it did. 84 00:05:14,720 --> 00:05:15,720 Yes, it did. 85 00:05:15,720 --> 00:05:20,880 And so I was locked out of the country for, you know, so I lost two years in that process. 86 00:05:20,880 --> 00:05:28,480 So once I was finally able to get access to the tablet again, I got it to a lab in Prague 87 00:05:28,480 --> 00:05:34,520 where I had formed a collaborative partnership there and they have expertise in scanning 88 00:05:34,520 --> 00:05:37,480 tomographically through lead. 89 00:05:37,480 --> 00:05:39,440 Now that's something I didn't even know you could do. 90 00:05:39,440 --> 00:05:42,280 And well, we couldn't do it until very recently. 91 00:05:42,280 --> 00:05:47,920 But you can now scan through lead and we were able to recover writing from the inside of 92 00:05:47,920 --> 00:05:53,160 the tablet and see something that was about three thousand four hundred years old. 93 00:05:53,160 --> 00:05:58,420 The world's Hebrew writing that had ever been found in a proto alphabetic script. 94 00:05:58,420 --> 00:06:03,360 So that predates biblical Hebrew or paleo Hebrew, which is what we think of from the 95 00:06:03,360 --> 00:06:06,400 first temple period, those earliest writings that we have. 96 00:06:06,400 --> 00:06:12,760 This is the ancestor of that, the very first morphing of Egyptian hieroglyphs into an alphabetic 97 00:06:12,760 --> 00:06:14,240 system. 98 00:06:14,240 --> 00:06:19,180 And it had, you know, these inscriptions have been found before in the Sinai and so forth. 99 00:06:19,180 --> 00:06:22,520 But people called them proto-Sinaitic or proto-Canaanite. 100 00:06:22,520 --> 00:06:25,760 Nobody had the guts or proof, I guess, to call it Hebrew. 101 00:06:25,760 --> 00:06:30,480 Well, in this inscription, we actually have the covenant name of God twice. 102 00:06:30,480 --> 00:06:31,480 Wow. 103 00:06:31,480 --> 00:06:32,480 Wow. 104 00:06:32,480 --> 00:06:36,280 So there was no doubt that it was Hebrew because there's only one group of people in the ancient 105 00:06:36,280 --> 00:06:38,120 world worshiping Yahweh. 106 00:06:38,120 --> 00:06:39,560 And that's the Israelites. 107 00:06:39,560 --> 00:06:40,840 So that's amazing. 108 00:06:40,840 --> 00:06:42,560 That's why this is so phenomenal. 109 00:06:42,560 --> 00:06:44,820 So how big was this? 110 00:06:44,820 --> 00:06:46,040 How big was this? 111 00:06:46,040 --> 00:06:47,840 This this tablet that you found? 112 00:06:47,840 --> 00:06:52,480 Because I'm thinking, you know, Ten Commandments tablets, you know, like something that Moses 113 00:06:52,480 --> 00:06:53,480 would carry down. 114 00:06:53,480 --> 00:06:55,080 But you're saying you found this wet sifting. 115 00:06:55,080 --> 00:06:57,480 So it couldn't very it couldn't be very big. 116 00:06:57,480 --> 00:06:58,480 Right. 117 00:06:58,480 --> 00:07:01,940 About the size of a business card folded in half. 118 00:07:01,940 --> 00:07:04,760 So it's a small lead strip. 119 00:07:04,760 --> 00:07:09,560 And what they did in antiquity, think about the Book of Job, for example, probably the 120 00:07:09,560 --> 00:07:11,320 oldest book in the Bible. 121 00:07:11,320 --> 00:07:12,680 And listen to what Job said. 122 00:07:12,680 --> 00:07:13,680 Job 1924. 123 00:07:13,680 --> 00:07:18,320 Oh, that my words were written on a lead tablet with an iron pen. 124 00:07:18,320 --> 00:07:24,480 You see, it's very ancient way of thinking when you write it on lead and you seal it, 125 00:07:24,480 --> 00:07:27,680 those words become binding in their minds. 126 00:07:27,680 --> 00:07:30,140 And so hundreds of these have been found in Israel. 127 00:07:30,140 --> 00:07:33,320 We call them defixios or curse tablets. 128 00:07:33,320 --> 00:07:38,080 And usually they're very petty, stupid sorts of curses like she stole my boyfriend, made 129 00:07:38,080 --> 00:07:40,360 her hair fall out or something like that. 130 00:07:40,360 --> 00:07:43,920 But that in this case, this was a very serious thing. 131 00:07:43,920 --> 00:07:45,320 Is that a real one that you found? 132 00:07:45,320 --> 00:07:46,800 No, I'm just giving you an example. 133 00:07:46,800 --> 00:07:47,800 Okay. 134 00:07:47,800 --> 00:07:49,200 I was going to say that's that's pretty amazing. 135 00:07:49,200 --> 00:07:50,200 If that's the case. 136 00:07:50,200 --> 00:07:51,200 No, it's great. 137 00:07:51,200 --> 00:07:52,200 They're usually very petty sorts of things. 138 00:07:52,200 --> 00:07:53,200 Gotcha. 139 00:07:53,200 --> 00:07:54,200 Okay. 140 00:07:54,200 --> 00:07:55,200 More like amulets. 141 00:07:55,200 --> 00:08:01,280 But in this case, this is a judicial type of a curse and it's self imprecatory. 142 00:08:01,280 --> 00:08:05,560 They are bringing a curse upon themselves, which is exactly what they did at the end 143 00:08:05,560 --> 00:08:06,560 of Deuteronomy. 144 00:08:06,560 --> 00:08:11,920 They pronounce blessings from Mount Gerizim and self imprecatory curses from Mount Ebal. 145 00:08:11,920 --> 00:08:15,760 And here what do we find on Mount Ebal in the altar, by the way, on Mount Ebal, the 146 00:08:15,760 --> 00:08:22,160 one that Joshua built, we find a tablet with a curse inscription on it. 147 00:08:22,160 --> 00:08:23,440 Wow. 148 00:08:23,440 --> 00:08:29,420 And so you in this area that we read about in the Bible, this is where it's still called 149 00:08:29,420 --> 00:08:30,880 that today. 150 00:08:30,880 --> 00:08:36,760 And you are literally going through other people's trash and you find this ancient inscription 151 00:08:36,760 --> 00:08:39,840 that's 3400 years old. 152 00:08:39,840 --> 00:08:40,960 That's what we think. 153 00:08:40,960 --> 00:08:46,200 So I on my collaborative team, John, we have the the scientists from Prague who did the 154 00:08:46,200 --> 00:08:52,040 tomography and then two epigraphers, Peter van der Veen from University of Mines, Johannes 155 00:08:52,040 --> 00:08:57,440 Gutenberg University in Mines, Germany, and then Gershwin Galil from University of Haifa. 156 00:08:57,440 --> 00:08:59,280 So two experienced epigraphers. 157 00:08:59,280 --> 00:09:03,840 I wanted two people to independently verify what they were seeing before I stuck my neck 158 00:09:03,840 --> 00:09:05,400 out on this. 159 00:09:05,400 --> 00:09:07,760 And so I was leading the consortium. 160 00:09:07,760 --> 00:09:14,000 And think about the new technologies, wet sifting, tomographic scanning. 161 00:09:14,000 --> 00:09:20,460 Without those two things, we would not have this inscription. 162 00:09:20,460 --> 00:09:24,080 Because had Adams or tall recovered this tablet, he wouldn't. 163 00:09:24,080 --> 00:09:27,720 Well, had he had he found it, he wouldn't have been able to do anything with it back 164 00:09:27,720 --> 00:09:28,720 in the. 165 00:09:28,720 --> 00:09:29,720 Oh, wow. 166 00:09:29,720 --> 00:09:34,480 So you from what something that you said earlier was the inscription on the inside of this 167 00:09:34,480 --> 00:09:35,480 folded tablet. 168 00:09:35,480 --> 00:09:38,280 Yeah, that's the point is to seal it. 169 00:09:38,280 --> 00:09:40,680 Once they say, OK, it becomes binding. 170 00:09:40,680 --> 00:09:43,640 OK, now, would you like to know what it said? 171 00:09:43,640 --> 00:09:45,200 Absolutely, I do. 172 00:09:45,200 --> 00:09:47,960 But first, I want to know, like, how did you know that there was something inside it? 173 00:09:47,960 --> 00:09:50,520 Did you open it up or explain this? 174 00:09:50,520 --> 00:09:51,520 Explain what happened? 175 00:09:51,520 --> 00:09:53,360 No, you can't open them. 176 00:09:53,360 --> 00:09:54,360 That's the thing. 177 00:09:54,360 --> 00:09:55,360 The lead is brittle. 178 00:09:55,360 --> 00:09:57,400 It's madly right on it. 179 00:09:57,400 --> 00:09:59,280 But then over time, it becomes brittle. 180 00:09:59,280 --> 00:10:00,660 And that was the point. 181 00:10:00,660 --> 00:10:01,860 That's what they wanted. 182 00:10:01,860 --> 00:10:02,860 It's sealed. 183 00:10:02,860 --> 00:10:03,860 It's forever. 184 00:10:03,860 --> 00:10:04,860 It can't be undone. 185 00:10:04,860 --> 00:10:05,860 OK. 186 00:10:05,860 --> 00:10:08,260 And I knew that it couldn't be open. 187 00:10:08,260 --> 00:10:14,520 We tried in our lab in Jerusalem just to put a tiny bit of pressure and the tiny bit of 188 00:10:14,520 --> 00:10:16,220 the corner broke off. 189 00:10:16,220 --> 00:10:17,340 And so it's not worth it. 190 00:10:17,340 --> 00:10:18,340 We stopped. 191 00:10:18,340 --> 00:10:24,320 But we took that little piece that broke off and we tested it in our labs at Hebrew University. 192 00:10:24,320 --> 00:10:28,860 And we were able to determine where the lead came from, which was Lavrion, Greece. 193 00:10:28,860 --> 00:10:35,340 So it was actually exported from Greece into Israel, Canaan, Israel at the time. 194 00:10:35,340 --> 00:10:42,180 And that's another interesting piece of evidence because we know that mine, Lavrion, was in 195 00:10:42,180 --> 00:10:44,820 use at the time. 196 00:10:44,820 --> 00:10:49,960 The lead from that mine has a chemical signature that is unique, as all mines do. 197 00:10:49,960 --> 00:10:53,220 So the mines were in use during the Late Bronze Age. 198 00:10:53,220 --> 00:10:59,420 And then everyone who's in the field of archaeology knows that around the year 1200, exports from 199 00:10:59,420 --> 00:11:05,220 that part of the world into Israel, Canaan, ceased with the collapse of the Late Bronze 200 00:11:05,220 --> 00:11:06,220 Age civilization. 201 00:11:06,220 --> 00:11:13,860 So again, suggesting a date pre 1200 BC, making it far older than any Hebrew inscription that 202 00:11:13,860 --> 00:11:14,860 we have. 203 00:11:14,860 --> 00:11:20,980 So what was the oldest Hebrew inscription that we had before this find? 204 00:11:20,980 --> 00:11:25,060 That's agreed on by all would be the Kermit, Caiapha, Ostracon. 205 00:11:25,060 --> 00:11:28,300 And that's about 1000 BC. 206 00:11:28,300 --> 00:11:32,540 That's a site down in the Elah Valley where David and Goliath fought. 207 00:11:32,540 --> 00:11:36,420 There are some recent inscriptions that have been found, but they haven't been studied. 208 00:11:36,420 --> 00:11:39,200 They've gone through peer review yet. 209 00:11:39,200 --> 00:11:45,780 So we can be certain that this is several hundred years older than the earliest version 210 00:11:45,780 --> 00:11:46,860 that we have. 211 00:11:46,860 --> 00:11:48,660 And it includes the name of God. 212 00:11:48,660 --> 00:11:49,660 Wow. 213 00:11:49,660 --> 00:11:54,820 So this thing that includes the name of God, what does it actually say? 214 00:11:54,820 --> 00:11:56,860 We talked about that earlier and I cut you off. 215 00:11:56,860 --> 00:12:01,340 I want to hear what you actually are able to read in this inscription. 216 00:12:01,340 --> 00:12:05,220 Well, all my life, John, I wanted to be known as a blessing. 217 00:12:05,220 --> 00:12:08,300 But turns out what we found was a curse. 218 00:12:08,300 --> 00:12:12,260 And the curse, as you'll see, is actually a blessing in disguise. 219 00:12:12,260 --> 00:12:15,260 So let me kind of talk you through it. 220 00:12:15,260 --> 00:12:22,420 It says essentially there's 48 very small letters and the curse reads like this. 221 00:12:22,420 --> 00:12:28,100 Cursed, cursed, cursed, cursed are you by the God Yahweh or Yahud, the three letter 222 00:12:28,100 --> 00:12:30,540 spelling of the name of God. 223 00:12:30,540 --> 00:12:32,020 Cursed you will surely die. 224 00:12:32,020 --> 00:12:33,500 Cursed you are by Yahweh. 225 00:12:33,500 --> 00:12:35,140 Cursed, cursed, cursed. 226 00:12:35,140 --> 00:12:37,660 Essentially what it says. 227 00:12:37,660 --> 00:12:39,700 So it has a literary structure to it. 228 00:12:39,700 --> 00:12:41,580 It's what we call a chiasm. 229 00:12:41,580 --> 00:12:43,100 Some of the Psalms are written this way. 230 00:12:43,100 --> 00:12:46,980 You say it one way and then you invert it and say it a different way. 231 00:12:46,980 --> 00:12:50,220 Same thing a different way. 232 00:12:50,220 --> 00:12:51,420 So that's the reading. 233 00:12:51,420 --> 00:12:56,620 It is a self-imprecatory curse that the Israelites, just like Deuteronomy says, were bringing 234 00:12:56,620 --> 00:12:58,100 upon themselves. 235 00:12:58,100 --> 00:13:02,420 May this happen to us if we don't keep the terms of God's covenant. 236 00:13:02,420 --> 00:13:08,580 Now what your listener may find very interesting is that the Abrahamic covenant was cut just 237 00:13:08,580 --> 00:13:10,140 a stone's throw from there. 238 00:13:10,140 --> 00:13:15,500 So El Amore, where Abraham cut covenant with God, is a stone's throw from Mount Ebal. 239 00:13:15,500 --> 00:13:19,740 And I think that's why Moses told the Israelites to go back to that place because they're going 240 00:13:19,740 --> 00:13:25,020 to reaffirm the Abrahamic covenant, this land pact that they had made. 241 00:13:25,020 --> 00:13:29,420 And there's blessings associated with it and there are curses associated with it. 242 00:13:29,420 --> 00:13:33,380 Now we found the tablet from the matrix of the altar itself. 243 00:13:33,380 --> 00:13:36,300 To make a long story short. 244 00:13:36,300 --> 00:13:39,780 And so imagine what happened. 245 00:13:39,780 --> 00:13:41,860 And Joshua and Moses are literate, incidentally. 246 00:13:41,860 --> 00:13:47,820 Did you know most scholars in places of higher criticism and higher learning, they deny the 247 00:13:47,820 --> 00:13:50,540 literacy of Moses and Joshua. 248 00:13:50,540 --> 00:13:53,400 The Bible couldn't have been written until a thousand years later. 249 00:13:53,400 --> 00:13:55,420 There was no alphabet with which they could write. 250 00:13:55,420 --> 00:13:57,740 Well, now we know there was. 251 00:13:57,740 --> 00:13:58,740 They were illiterate. 252 00:13:58,740 --> 00:13:59,740 The Israelites were illiterate. 253 00:13:59,740 --> 00:14:01,300 Well, then why is God telling them to write? 254 00:14:01,300 --> 00:14:02,900 Why is he telling the people to read? 255 00:14:02,900 --> 00:14:03,900 Yeah, yeah. 256 00:14:03,900 --> 00:14:06,700 You don't write things down if nobody can read it. 257 00:14:06,700 --> 00:14:11,940 So there's this assumption of literacy and now we have proof of it. 258 00:14:11,940 --> 00:14:15,780 So the tablet is written. 259 00:14:15,780 --> 00:14:17,780 It's then laid on the altar. 260 00:14:17,780 --> 00:14:19,420 What happens next? 261 00:14:19,420 --> 00:14:23,220 An innocent animal is slaughtered. 262 00:14:23,220 --> 00:14:26,920 And the blood of the innocent covers the curse. 263 00:14:26,920 --> 00:14:28,700 So this starts way back in Genesis. 264 00:14:28,700 --> 00:14:30,860 The shedding of innocent blood to cover the guilty. 265 00:14:30,860 --> 00:14:31,860 Wow. 266 00:14:31,860 --> 00:14:34,300 And so this blood covers the tablet. 267 00:14:34,300 --> 00:14:40,740 And now the man who will come to the altar, in other words, repent, accept responsibility 268 00:14:40,740 --> 00:14:42,380 for his actions. 269 00:14:42,380 --> 00:14:44,480 Those curses are not going to come to him. 270 00:14:44,480 --> 00:14:50,660 It's only the man who will not repent, who will have those curses in order to him. 271 00:14:50,660 --> 00:14:56,220 And the curse is a big problem, John, because it doesn't say cursed you are by Satan. 272 00:14:56,220 --> 00:14:58,220 We could deal with that. 273 00:14:58,220 --> 00:15:01,020 This is cursed you are by Yahweh. 274 00:15:01,020 --> 00:15:02,020 That's checkmate. 275 00:15:02,020 --> 00:15:04,020 OK, there's no getting out of this curse. 276 00:15:04,020 --> 00:15:05,020 Exactly. 277 00:15:05,020 --> 00:15:06,020 Except through the blood. 278 00:15:06,020 --> 00:15:10,940 So Leviticus 17 11 says that the shedding of blood, there is forgiveness of sin. 279 00:15:10,940 --> 00:15:11,940 Yeah. 280 00:15:11,940 --> 00:15:16,460 So you found this piece by the altar. 281 00:15:16,460 --> 00:15:20,540 And so this you know that this would have been placed on the altar and would have had 282 00:15:20,540 --> 00:15:23,740 actually this innocent animal's blood on it. 283 00:15:23,740 --> 00:15:26,380 Like you just described. 284 00:15:26,380 --> 00:15:30,220 This piece is that old that this would have happened during the time that we have what 285 00:15:30,220 --> 00:15:32,700 we read in right in Joshua. 286 00:15:32,700 --> 00:15:36,940 So think of what an epigraph is a handwriting expert. 287 00:15:36,940 --> 00:15:40,060 So I was recently in Washington, D.C. just 10 days ago. 288 00:15:40,060 --> 00:15:46,140 And so looking at our founding documents, Declaration of Independence, Articles of Confederation, 289 00:15:46,140 --> 00:15:48,060 we don't write that way anymore. 290 00:15:48,060 --> 00:15:49,500 Our handwriting style has changed. 291 00:15:49,500 --> 00:15:52,060 A lot of our syntax has changed as well. 292 00:15:52,060 --> 00:15:56,600 I wish we did still write that way or speak that way to a large degree. 293 00:15:56,600 --> 00:16:03,060 My point is that an expert in epigraphy can tell you whether the handwriting, the style 294 00:16:03,060 --> 00:16:06,060 of making the letters is from a certain time period. 295 00:16:06,060 --> 00:16:08,180 This is why I have the two epigraphers. 296 00:16:08,180 --> 00:16:13,820 So this style of writing no longer exists after the year 1200. 297 00:16:13,820 --> 00:16:20,500 OK, it would be like looking at old English, say, Cade Montelm or then Beowulf, Middle 298 00:16:20,500 --> 00:16:25,260 English, like Chaucer's English of the Canterbury Tales and then modern English. 299 00:16:25,260 --> 00:16:26,900 So they're very distinct. 300 00:16:26,900 --> 00:16:30,660 So this script is from that earliest time period. 301 00:16:30,660 --> 00:16:33,740 And it's at the site where the Bible says that they were writing and that they were 302 00:16:33,740 --> 00:16:35,220 pronouncing curses. 303 00:16:35,220 --> 00:16:36,220 Wow. 304 00:16:36,220 --> 00:16:37,220 Wow. 305 00:16:37,220 --> 00:16:41,540 So what did it feel like whenever you found this and you realized what this was? 306 00:16:41,540 --> 00:16:43,140 Well, it was a little surreal. 307 00:16:43,140 --> 00:16:50,220 I have to tell you, when I was sitting there at the altar site, I did have a sense as a 308 00:16:50,220 --> 00:16:55,180 Christian, I've never felt the need to bifurcate my faith or to try to hide what it means to 309 00:16:55,180 --> 00:16:56,180 me. 310 00:16:56,180 --> 00:16:59,460 I mean, I'm a very scientific archaeologist. 311 00:16:59,460 --> 00:17:06,260 But as far as a human being, it was very profound for me to sit there and realize that Joshua 312 00:17:06,260 --> 00:17:08,420 Ben Nun was at this site. 313 00:17:08,420 --> 00:17:09,700 The ark was here. 314 00:17:09,700 --> 00:17:10,700 God was here. 315 00:17:10,700 --> 00:17:11,940 And something important happened here. 316 00:17:11,940 --> 00:17:15,820 And I had a sense that we were destined to find something important. 317 00:17:15,820 --> 00:17:17,660 And lo and behold, we did. 318 00:17:17,660 --> 00:17:21,100 When I first saw the tablet, Frankie Snyder was the one who found it. 319 00:17:21,100 --> 00:17:22,100 It was in her tray. 320 00:17:22,100 --> 00:17:25,500 And she was our most experienced wet sifter. 321 00:17:25,500 --> 00:17:30,260 She'd worked for over a decade on the Temple Mount Sifting Project in Jerusalem and is 322 00:17:30,260 --> 00:17:31,520 our small finds expert. 323 00:17:31,520 --> 00:17:34,260 So providentially, it was in her tray. 324 00:17:34,260 --> 00:17:35,780 Frankie recognized it. 325 00:17:35,780 --> 00:17:39,300 She called me over and said, Scott, you better come see this. 326 00:17:39,300 --> 00:17:43,000 And when I saw it, I thought my heart was going to jump out of my chest because I knew 327 00:17:43,000 --> 00:17:44,000 what it was. 328 00:17:44,000 --> 00:17:48,180 So I looked at her and that called Abigail over, who is our assistant director. 329 00:17:48,180 --> 00:17:51,500 And the three of us just sat there staring at each other going, you got to be kidding 330 00:17:51,500 --> 00:17:56,660 me, a curse tablet from the mountain of the curse. 331 00:17:56,660 --> 00:17:59,620 At that point, I had no idea that we were going to be able to recover the text from 332 00:17:59,620 --> 00:18:01,220 the inside. 333 00:18:01,220 --> 00:18:03,620 But fortunately, we were. 334 00:18:03,620 --> 00:18:04,700 That's so cool. 335 00:18:04,700 --> 00:18:05,700 That's so cool. 336 00:18:05,700 --> 00:18:07,500 So there was a mountain of curse. 337 00:18:07,500 --> 00:18:10,020 There's also a mountain of blessing. 338 00:18:10,020 --> 00:18:15,540 Did they do something similar that you could maybe find blessing tablets? 339 00:18:15,540 --> 00:18:18,220 We have never found a blessing tablet. 340 00:18:18,220 --> 00:18:24,020 There's over 300 curse tablets that have been found, usually from later time periods like 341 00:18:24,020 --> 00:18:26,860 second pit bull period. 342 00:18:26,860 --> 00:18:28,480 Never have we found a blessing tablet. 343 00:18:28,480 --> 00:18:29,880 So it's very interesting. 344 00:18:29,880 --> 00:18:35,360 The closest corollary would be the silver scrolls from Jerusalem, where you have the 345 00:18:35,360 --> 00:18:37,060 number six priestly blessing. 346 00:18:37,060 --> 00:18:38,060 Right. 347 00:18:38,060 --> 00:18:43,580 We have the silver scroll, which is a blessing dating to say the seventh century BC, sixth 348 00:18:43,580 --> 00:18:45,660 seventh century BC. 349 00:18:45,660 --> 00:18:48,780 And then we have the curse tablet from Mount Ebal. 350 00:18:48,780 --> 00:18:53,620 And I think if you juxtapose those two, it's a really powerful image, isn't it? 351 00:18:53,620 --> 00:18:54,620 Yeah. 352 00:18:54,620 --> 00:18:56,860 And notice that it's the metals that are surviving. 353 00:18:56,860 --> 00:19:01,580 Paper, vellum, animal skin, things that are written on that, which they did write commonly 354 00:19:01,580 --> 00:19:03,360 on those things. 355 00:19:03,360 --> 00:19:08,380 They don't survive the ravages of time unless they're in an extremely dry climate, like 356 00:19:08,380 --> 00:19:10,420 down by the sea or down in Egypt. 357 00:19:10,420 --> 00:19:14,060 But in the wet hill country where we are, those things decompose. 358 00:19:14,060 --> 00:19:17,580 So it's only the metal or pottery. 359 00:19:17,580 --> 00:19:20,500 Sometimes we do get inscriptions that survive there. 360 00:19:20,500 --> 00:19:21,500 Wow. 361 00:19:21,500 --> 00:19:27,140 So you've been able to find and discover a lot of very unique things. 362 00:19:27,140 --> 00:19:32,460 And I know you also were the director of excavation at Shiloh. 363 00:19:32,460 --> 00:19:34,220 Am I saying that correctly? 364 00:19:34,220 --> 00:19:35,220 Yes. 365 00:19:35,220 --> 00:19:37,380 In fact, I still am the director of excavations at Shiloh. 366 00:19:37,380 --> 00:19:38,620 That's our main project. 367 00:19:38,620 --> 00:19:42,900 This was a side project we were doing that turned out to be extremely interesting. 368 00:19:42,900 --> 00:19:43,900 Wow. 369 00:19:43,900 --> 00:19:44,900 Okay. 370 00:19:44,900 --> 00:19:48,420 So I want to hear what you have found at Shiloh. 371 00:19:48,420 --> 00:19:54,100 I mean, that's stuff that we've talked about before, but I know that some of those finds 372 00:19:54,100 --> 00:19:57,140 there have been just absolutely incredible. 373 00:19:57,140 --> 00:20:02,620 So I just want to take a little bit of time and hear you say what are these things that 374 00:20:02,620 --> 00:20:08,580 you've found in Shiloh and what's the importance of that for somebody that doesn't quite remember 375 00:20:08,580 --> 00:20:10,020 their Bible history that way. 376 00:20:10,020 --> 00:20:11,020 Yeah. 377 00:20:11,020 --> 00:20:12,300 Well, both sites are part of the conquest. 378 00:20:12,300 --> 00:20:13,300 Let me just say that. 379 00:20:13,300 --> 00:20:19,460 So Joshua's conquest begins with Jericho and then I, and of course we excavated I, spent 380 00:20:19,460 --> 00:20:21,020 21 years there. 381 00:20:21,020 --> 00:20:24,100 And then the next place they went was Mount Ebal. 382 00:20:24,100 --> 00:20:28,620 And then at the end of the conquest, Joshua 18 once says Joshua erected the tabernacle 383 00:20:28,620 --> 00:20:29,620 at Shiloh. 384 00:20:29,620 --> 00:20:34,720 So that's my area of research focus of these conquest sites. 385 00:20:34,720 --> 00:20:39,420 So what we have uncovered so far, we started excavating in 2017. 386 00:20:39,420 --> 00:20:43,700 I'm about to leave for another season of excavation. 387 00:20:43,700 --> 00:20:48,800 We are uncovering a monumental building from the period of the tabernacle that appears 388 00:20:48,800 --> 00:20:53,980 to match the dimensions given in the Bible and it's east-west. 389 00:20:53,980 --> 00:20:58,700 And the text itself suggests that they did build a permanent structure at Shiloh that 390 00:20:58,700 --> 00:21:03,020 at some point it was more than a tent that was there. 391 00:21:03,020 --> 00:21:11,020 And we have a massive bone deposit, what we call a fabisa due east of this building with 392 00:21:11,020 --> 00:21:17,340 tens of thousands of animal bones, clean bones, kosher bones, and mixed in with pottery from 393 00:21:17,340 --> 00:21:20,740 the late Bronze Age going to the time of Joshua. 394 00:21:20,740 --> 00:21:25,780 And it's very beautiful pottery and there's all like gold offerings, gold stars, and other 395 00:21:25,780 --> 00:21:27,180 things that are mixed in there. 396 00:21:27,180 --> 00:21:32,000 So there's no doubt that it's cultic, that it's a fabisa. 397 00:21:32,000 --> 00:21:36,900 Around our monumental building, we're finding things like ceramic palm granites, tiny palm 398 00:21:36,900 --> 00:21:41,060 granites, which the Bible says that on the hem of the priest's garments, they have bells 399 00:21:41,060 --> 00:21:42,840 and palm granites there. 400 00:21:42,840 --> 00:21:45,780 So it's a motif of the tabernacle. 401 00:21:45,780 --> 00:21:48,020 We are finding a demolished altar. 402 00:21:48,020 --> 00:21:52,340 We have three horns so far of a four-horned altar that we have gathered. 403 00:21:52,340 --> 00:21:57,940 And we have storage rooms immediately to the north, which is where tithes would be stored, 404 00:21:57,940 --> 00:21:58,940 for example. 405 00:21:58,940 --> 00:22:02,900 So to make a long story short, we haven't reached floor level yet in this building. 406 00:22:02,900 --> 00:22:05,040 Hopefully this summer we will. 407 00:22:05,040 --> 00:22:08,660 So I haven't made an official announcement, but people have heard me talk about it, but 408 00:22:08,660 --> 00:22:14,260 I haven't published it yet because I just want to check some things before we do. 409 00:22:14,260 --> 00:22:19,780 But if you were to ask me right now, it appears that we have found the place of God's dwelling, 410 00:22:19,780 --> 00:22:23,820 where literally we're working in the Holy of Holies right now. 411 00:22:23,820 --> 00:22:28,180 And for me, that's pretty phenomenal. 412 00:22:28,180 --> 00:22:32,420 You get busy working during the day and you kind of forget what you're doing. 413 00:22:32,420 --> 00:22:33,780 It's a pretty special place. 414 00:22:33,780 --> 00:22:34,780 Wow. 415 00:22:34,780 --> 00:22:41,500 So you found three horns of the four-horned altar that the Bible talks about. 416 00:22:41,500 --> 00:22:42,980 We assume it's that altar. 417 00:22:42,980 --> 00:22:47,620 Yeah, I mean, it's pretty remarkable. 418 00:22:47,620 --> 00:22:54,260 And I've seen pictures of that, and it is a very unique stone shape, and it definitely 419 00:22:54,260 --> 00:22:55,260 stands out. 420 00:22:55,260 --> 00:22:59,860 So it's not something that would get overlooked necessarily. 421 00:22:59,860 --> 00:23:05,140 But that's amazing that you're able to say that you're probably working in the area of 422 00:23:05,140 --> 00:23:09,300 the Holy of Holies, before the Solomon's temple. 423 00:23:09,300 --> 00:23:10,300 Right. 424 00:23:10,300 --> 00:23:14,060 I mean, you have to remember, for 300 years, Shiloh was the capital of Israel. 425 00:23:14,060 --> 00:23:16,180 Jerusalem was still a pagan city. 426 00:23:16,180 --> 00:23:19,820 And if people wanted to connect with God, they went to Shiloh. 427 00:23:19,820 --> 00:23:22,220 Yeah, and that's remarkable. 428 00:23:22,220 --> 00:23:26,860 So I got to ask, these things that you're finding, what happens with them? 429 00:23:26,860 --> 00:23:27,860 Where do they go? 430 00:23:27,860 --> 00:23:32,860 Where are they kept after you've found them and it's been categorized, you've talked about 431 00:23:32,860 --> 00:23:35,380 it, you've written about it? 432 00:23:35,380 --> 00:23:38,660 Are people able to go see these in a museum somewhere? 433 00:23:38,660 --> 00:23:42,220 How can people find out more about the work that you're doing too? 434 00:23:42,220 --> 00:23:44,380 Well, thanks for asking. 435 00:23:44,380 --> 00:23:47,420 Everything we excavate belongs to the state of Israel. 436 00:23:47,420 --> 00:23:51,940 So the antiquities authority licenses me, and I excavate. 437 00:23:51,940 --> 00:23:57,420 I'm able to take things out of the country with an export permit to study them, publish 438 00:23:57,420 --> 00:24:00,180 them, even display them at times. 439 00:24:00,180 --> 00:24:03,460 But ultimately, everything returns to Israel. 440 00:24:03,460 --> 00:24:08,580 Now, what makes it into a museum, say the Israel Museum in Jerusalem? 441 00:24:08,580 --> 00:24:13,780 It's got to be huge because they have so many things that have been excavated that it's 442 00:24:13,780 --> 00:24:17,380 really got to be big time to end up there. 443 00:24:17,380 --> 00:24:21,620 This tablet may be one of those things or these palm granites may be one of those things. 444 00:24:21,620 --> 00:24:24,020 It's a slow process. 445 00:24:24,020 --> 00:24:25,020 Wow. 446 00:24:25,020 --> 00:24:29,420 So how can people find out more about your work? 447 00:24:29,420 --> 00:24:34,660 Of digshiloh.org is where they can follow along with the excavation and I'll be in Israel 448 00:24:34,660 --> 00:24:39,740 from May 17th to the end of June, I have a large team. 449 00:24:39,740 --> 00:24:43,300 So pray for us and follow us at digshiloh.org. 450 00:24:43,300 --> 00:24:46,900 If they want to donate to help, they can also do that there. 451 00:24:46,900 --> 00:24:53,540 My personal website is scotstripling.net and people can follow me there. 452 00:24:53,540 --> 00:24:58,900 And then my school is the Bible Seminary, thebibleseminary.edu. 453 00:24:58,900 --> 00:25:04,500 If someone wants to study archaeology, they can study Bible and archaeology together with 454 00:25:04,500 --> 00:25:08,780 my students here under my guidance at the Bible Seminary. 455 00:25:08,780 --> 00:25:09,780 That's very cool. 456 00:25:09,780 --> 00:25:10,780 Very cool. 457 00:25:10,780 --> 00:25:13,240 So I got to ask one more time, one more thing. 458 00:25:13,240 --> 00:25:18,780 We talked about how you had these big discoveries right before the pandemic. 459 00:25:18,780 --> 00:25:22,440 Then obviously you couldn't go back to Israel for a while. 460 00:25:22,440 --> 00:25:27,860 What was it like after having to take a break and not being able to dig in the dirt again 461 00:25:27,860 --> 00:25:29,580 and sift through other people's trash? 462 00:25:29,580 --> 00:25:35,320 What was it like feeling or what did it feel like to get back there again and get back 463 00:25:35,320 --> 00:25:36,560 to work? 464 00:25:36,560 --> 00:25:43,440 It was brutal to be not able to dig because so much of our lives and our routine revolves 465 00:25:43,440 --> 00:25:45,200 around that. 466 00:25:45,200 --> 00:25:47,900 But we used the time to work on publications. 467 00:25:47,900 --> 00:25:48,900 I finished the Kerb et al. 468 00:25:48,900 --> 00:25:55,560 McArthur publications and other articles that we cranked out during that period of time. 469 00:25:55,560 --> 00:26:01,980 All this stuff we're finding has to be researched and thought through, digested, put into a 470 00:26:01,980 --> 00:26:06,060 matrix until it ultimately comes through in publication. 471 00:26:06,060 --> 00:26:09,340 So that's what I used the time for, but I wasn't happy about it. 472 00:26:09,340 --> 00:26:11,760 But that was kind of an upside of it. 473 00:26:11,760 --> 00:26:16,580 We were thrilled to be back in the field last summer and to again be going back this year. 474 00:26:16,580 --> 00:26:19,060 And listen, none of us have a guarantee. 475 00:26:19,060 --> 00:26:23,180 Political situations can change and we could lose access to these sites. 476 00:26:23,180 --> 00:26:25,380 Pandemic, something we never thought about. 477 00:26:25,380 --> 00:26:27,420 For two years we lost access. 478 00:26:27,420 --> 00:26:32,060 So we're grateful for the access that we do have and we want to take full advantage of 479 00:26:32,060 --> 00:26:33,060 it. 480 00:26:33,060 --> 00:26:34,060 That's really cool. 481 00:26:34,060 --> 00:26:38,280 Well, Dr. Scott Stripling, it's great to be able to talk with you and to hear about the 482 00:26:38,280 --> 00:26:41,660 things that God has enabled you to uncover. 483 00:26:41,660 --> 00:26:46,060 As we've been digging in the scriptures, you're digging in the dirt, but using the scriptures 484 00:26:46,060 --> 00:26:52,220 as your source and finding these real life things that confirm what the Bible was talking 485 00:26:52,220 --> 00:26:57,260 about and confirm that our faith is true and our faith in God. 486 00:26:57,260 --> 00:27:01,020 And that's just an amazing, amazing discovery. 487 00:27:01,020 --> 00:27:03,340 So thank you so much for sharing that. 488 00:27:03,340 --> 00:27:10,460 And check out the links in the description below so that you can follow Dr. Scott Stripling 489 00:27:10,460 --> 00:27:16,460 and all the things that he's been mentioning about and read his peer reviewed article. 490 00:27:16,460 --> 00:27:19,940 And so definitely recommend all of those things. 491 00:27:19,940 --> 00:27:23,920 So Dr. Scott, it's great to have you here on Charisma News. 492 00:27:23,920 --> 00:27:24,920 Thank you. 493 00:27:24,920 --> 00:27:50,900 I'm with you, John.