Stories of Yesterday, Proven Facts Today

Part of living in the Holy Land is recognizing that this is a special land in so many ways. Holy to three major religions, the crossroads of the world in many ways, the land often gives forth the truth that so many want to deny. Dig in the ground here, and you are digging into history. Not mere decades or even centuries, but millenia peel away.

The Dead Sea scrolls are just one example but there are many others. Those who seek to deny Israel's past and the Jewish connection to this land are quickly defeated, not by the words of politicians, but by the land itself.

A recent article about yet another archeaological wonder confirming, yet again, the Jewish connection to the land was recently found in Israel.

From Israel National News:

Archaeologists have unearthed proof of another Biblical story at Jerusalem's ancient City of David, this time corroborating the Book of Jeremiah. A completely intact seal impression, or "bula", bearing the name Gedaliahu ben Pashur was uncovered. The bula is actually a stamped engraving made of mortar.

Gedaliahu ben Pashur's bula was found a bare few meters away from the site where a second such seal, this one belonging to Yuchal ben Shlemiyahu, an elder in the court of King Tzidkiyahu, was found three years ago, at the entrance to the City of David.

According to Professor Eilat Mazar of Jerusalem's Hebrew University, who led the dig, the ancient Hebrew letters "are very clearly preserved." The seal impression was found in clay, she said.

In the Book of Jeremiah (38:1-4), both men were ministers to King Tzidkiyahu, who reigned from 597-586 BCE. The two, along with another pair demanded the death penalty for the prophet Jeremiah in response to his plea for the king to surrender the city to the oncoming hordes of the Babylonian conqueror Nebuchadnezzer.