God is Speaking Back to Us Through Ancient Seals, Inscriptions, and Stones

I'm back with Zev Ornstein director of international Affairs of the city of David foundation in Jerusalem this is an organization doing very important work in not only in archeology but also in education and Zeb we were talking about these Amazing Discoveries of seals and coins now the city of David sort of tourist office if you will was was right up there and and people I guess would stop by to get information but then an anthropologist named Elliot Mazar came up to you and told you you got to move this office right talk about that and talk about why and what she was getting at so 2005 Dr elat Mazar world-renowned archaeologist our world-renowned archaeologist she comes into our Visitor Center and she says to us you need to move your offices we ask her why she says Beneath Your Feet you will find the Palace of King David that's one of those moments what do you what do you say to that so he said Dr Mazar people have been digging in the city of David for the last nearly 100 150 years no one's ever said that before what makes you so certain this is the place she says very simply the city of David is a city on a hill and if you're going to have a palace in a city on a hill where will you find the palace the top of the hill says this is the top of the city of David this is where you'll find the Palace of King David who said Dr Mazar with all due respect maybe three thousand years ago in the time of David maybe people build their palaces at the bottom of the hill maybe in the middle of the Hill we're not going to move our Visitor Center simply because for you to be Queen today you would build your Palace right here so what else do you have to support your theory she shows us something found about 60 years before a royal Phoenician Capital that would have stood atop an ancient columnar pillar and she says this proves that this is the location of King David's Palace so what's the connection he said well if you know the Bible you wouldn't ask questions like that and we said well help us out and she says well the first thing David does after conquering Jerusalem and making his capitals he reaches out to his neighbors in the north the Phoenicians and in second Samuel chapter 5 verse 11 it speaks of how the Phoenicians are the ones who come and build King David's Palace which is why we find Phoenician stone masonry in the city of David so she now begins to dig with the Israel Antiquities Authority and they find at the base of the walls massive thick walls 20 feet thick thicker than the walls of the White House pottery and other organic material which she dates at the time of King David other state to shortly a period right after David but there is near consensus this was the royal government center of the davidic dynasty the original Capitol Hill going back to the time of King David in the same excavation a few years later Dr manzar finds two seals in Hebrew dating back 2500 years ago which bear the names of two of the four advisors who tell King saidakaya the last king of the davidic dynasty to kill the Prophet Jeremiah we find their seals in the palace in an ash layer with Antiquities dating back to the period of the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem so you have the right people at the right place at the right time all in an excavation that just a few years ago was still underground now not that long ago I hosted a delegation of European Union officials and they said well what do the Palestinians think about about all this stuff they said well their leadership they hate the city of David they said well why is that I said well the story that the Palestinians have been telling for for many many decades now is that uh Jerusalem is a colonial project your occupiers and colonizers you have no Heritage here you don't belong here and I said what's the problem with that the problem with that is the city of David because every single day we are an earthing Heritage that is showing that simply as a matter of Faith but a matter of fact that the Jewish and Christian Heritage in Jerusalem is real you could see it you could touch it uh it's what you might call An Inconvenient Truth and I said to them you know if you want to separate the archeology from the politics I have a simple foolproof guaranteed way to do that they were very excited what is it I said all that has to happen you could still put out your peace plans and whatever you want the heads of the European Union the heads of the United Nations the heads of the Palestinian leadership just have to acknowledge one thing that the Jewish people and by extension Christians have been in Jerusalem for thousands of years that the archeology incontrovertibly shows that this is not a big ask just recognize it and now call for whatever peace plans you want and one of that heads of the European Union looks at me and says they will never agree to that well you know what do you want from us we are uncovering the heritage and again it's our shared Heritage for Americans this is your heritage too that is actively at the United Nations throughout Europe college campuses Palestinian leadership being actively denied and attempted to erase and let me comment this from a little different angle which is that for we're talking about events that occurred Not Just 2 000 years ago which would be Christ but when you go back to David what are we talking about 3000 years ago 3 000 years ago stuff that you would think would have been absolutely washed away by this by the by the sands of time and and for centuries there was I think I'm right in saying no independent confirmation outside of the Bible that these people were real it seemed in fact in many Skeptics and peop even Scholars that look this is sort of like you know the kings of Troy the Trojan War yeah I mean we're not we don't expect to find you know the bones of Achilles as Achilles was made up by Homer this is a The Bard was passing on a legend and the Bible was seen to be in that category but what we're now seeing is that whether you're not you accept the supernatural aspect of the Bible the historicity of it there was a king Hezekiah that was a King David he had a palace and he had successors and they lived right here and these are their seals I mean this is like kind of bone chilling stuff and the amazing part about it is up until about a century ago certainly in the west it was taken for granted that the Bible was true people believed a hundred years later you could hardly find University campus anywhere in the west where there isn't a whole department about biblical criticism where uh Believers are oftentimes mocked and scorned by the culture and yet at a time with unprecedented denial we have unprecedented Discovery taking place showing that the biblical Heritage of Jerusalem is not simply a matter of Faith but a matter of fact and people now have the freedom to make a decision on their own do you have the Skeptics you have the denial but you also have the discovery amazing let's take a pause we'll be right back