Does Bronze Age Archaeology Support the Bible? 

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Imagine being Amminadab, fresh into the iron-age, with your iron tools and your iron weapons, meanwhile your dad, Ram, is still living in the bronze-age, embarassing you in front of your friends with his inferior alloys.

What an honor to appear alongside so many great RU-vidrs! Thanks for the invite!

“We do have the name of someone from the Bronze Era you probably know” Me: “Ea-Nasir?????”

So silly of me to forget to take photos of the archaeological evidence I find when filming my history-changing documentary.

That “commemorative plaque” in Saudi Arabia says right on it that it is “Red Sea Coastal Survey”. So it is what it says a survey marker, not a commemorative plaque.

With the Egyptian Pharoah being the oldest confirmed person on this list, does it make it "Shoshenq's Redemption"?

Thanks so much for having me! Had a lot of fun researching Mat the miner! Good company to be in.

Most ambitious crossover since Endgame.

I really liked this and love the collaboration, but I have some quibbles as someone trained in Archaeology. Matt Baker should point out that thinking you can find archaeological evidence of someone specifically from the Bronze age is just really Bizarre. Egypt and Babylon were almost unique on having writing as a common-ish technology. We don't have names from the Minoan Civilization, or really from Mycenaeans either. The Homeric Epics are from Mycenaean origins, but don't provide a name list. I think this point should be framed as the kind of evidence of individuals that exist from the Iron age was a result of the shift to all sorts of new technologies. It just wasn't a thing in the Bronze age. Any evidence of Moses should be treated with the greatest skepticism on simple dating. It's is as bad as wondering why you don't find steel, because it's the Bronze age and they didn't do that then.

This is like Woodstock for no-nonsense educational Biblical archaeology. Now we just need to get Miniminuteman in here.

About the disarticulated bones from the sea floor, I was under the impression that they dissolve in about 5 years, but I just looked it up and they can dissolve in about 1 years time.

You could do a collab with Esoterica channel for a timeline chart of Yahweh.

So Ron found a 3000 year old pillar in Egypt that had carvings when he found it, and in the same location within a few years all the carvings had eroded away? 🤔🤔

17:24 “people erect religious monuments all the time”. Although not religious, Hans Brinker immediately crossed my mind. He was made up by an American author, based on an older story. It’s about a boy that saved the day by putting his thumb in a hole in a dyke. A lot of Americans thought it really happened, so when they visited the Netherlands asked where it happened. So the Dutch put up a statue of made up Hans near Haarlem, a city close to Amsterdam. It’s now imported Dutch folklore. There is actually a real story that is a bit similar. In 1953, with the North Sea Flood, a piece of a dyke near Rotterdam was destroyed by the water. Thousands of lives were in danger. A captain nearby drove his boat in the gap and saved Rotterdam and environment. This is also what really happens when a dyke break through. When you see water coming through the dyke, it’s already too late. That part of the dyke will collapse soon.

Religious Studies Justice League! Academic Avengers Assemble!

The search continues, I really appreciate these videos. I grew up with a few people encouraging me to read Ron Wyatts Books, even as a kid I smelt something fishy. Just his story about "finding the Ark of the covenant, with living blood of Jesus" was way too fantastical. Then recently after a crisis of Faith someone tried to say how Ron Wyatts books will help me "Believe" more deeply, and while the person was good natured I nearly laughed in his face, but I thanked him and politely said not to worry I KNOW who Ron is. Great breakdown, you just keep brining me in. :P I love this because, while I am 100% open to Biblical figures being historic, I hate the Lying and misdirection many people use to pretend there's more solid evidence than we actually have. I personally see that as very immoral as it, 1) warps peoples perception on how Science works 2)Makes people assume there's a major cover up on the "Obvious evidence" causing a lot of hostility.

6:07 - It actually doesn't say 'the Shaddai gods' on the inscription, but rather, 'the Shaddaiyin' or, if we actually translate it, 'the Almighty Ones'. It's the Aramaic masculine plural of Shaddai, translated 'Almighty' usually in the Bible. The language of this remarkably underappreciated inscription has many similarities to the Book of Job, which is credited to Moses. The Septuagint version of Job even says that Job is written about in an Aramaic (Syriac) book. Ah, I spoke too soon. 6:12 🧐😎

For what it’s worth, the story of Aladdin is beloved by many Americans. There’s even an American movie with Robin Williams as the voice of the genie. However, I don’t think it would be accurate to claim “One Thousand and One Nights” is an American folk tale. Same thing applies to Jewish stories about locations like the Cave of the Patriarchs. While I don’t for a second believe it’s the actual burial place of any Patriarchs, it seems weird to describe a story that predates the birth of Muhammad by hundreds of years as an “Islamic tradition.”

So the old axiom “If Ron Wyatt said it, it isn’t true” still holds up! 😅

Ron Wyatt got his Ph.D. from Pareidolia University. Their mascot is an image of Jesus on a piece of toast.

I always thought that Judeans/Israelis being "slaves in Egypt" and then being "freed" might just be some memory of Egypt conquering them before they regained their independence.

3 of my favorite channels in a colab. This must turn out good.

So much bad history boils down to “just because something looks like something doesn’t mean that it is that something.”

4:10 I love that this came out in time for parshat Balak, the weekly Torah reading where Balaam makes his appearance!

~10:20 Small correction, while Proto-Sinaitic is ancestral to many Alphabetic scripts, it is not technically an Alphabetic script itself, instead being an Abjab like its Phoenician and Paleo-Hebrew descendants (the Phoenician script is often erroneously called an alphabet itself, so this kind of confusion is pretty common)

This was very interesting! Some religious people don't seem to understand that even if all of the people in their religious texts were historical figures thats not evidence that anything supernatural happened.

I was absent from watching RU-vid vids on a regular-basis for a good 12 years. Now that I've discovered your channel I'm back to it, keep it up!

"We couldn't bring up the artifacts because they don't tell the story we like" - Story of History

I look forward to watching your new video, at last, simple and easy English to non-native like me❤❤❤

Most ambitious crossover since the Doctor Who Series 4 finale

First topic was Balaam, just in time for Parashat Balak. Well done!

Great video! It's allway a pleasure to see Raven.

11:04 those translations are so wildly different that it brings in to question if they even know how to teanlste that language

Great video, I love having all of the different voices from their backgrounds, I found ravens critique, to be disappointing and more of her just explaining what she found on a few quick Google searches

Dr David Falk has a large Playlist discussing ancient Egypt and the Exodus on his channel "Ancient Egypt and the Bible". Any comments on his work?

What about the Pharoah?, he’s mentioned in the exodus as well. We know a lot about the late Bronze Age Pharoahs of the New Kingdom. Many people have pointed to Ramses II or Thutmose III to be this person. However, just like Hammurabi, there’s no 100% concrete mention but these Pharoahs may have ruled around 500 years before Shoshenq I.

What a feast of history, religion and archeology!!❤😍 totally enjoyed the vid thx for it

I think Wyatt made some interesting discoveries especially in Midian to be fair He did say the Saudi Arabian Authorities took his camera equipment for that Pillar I don't think it's conclusive evidence of anything but interesting none the less

What an epic episode!! So enjoyable

When @DigItWithRaven was on, the captions were wonked up compared to the rest of the video.

For some reason i can't explain.. such topics fills me with pride and nostalgia to the good old days when I was a kid living in peace with my family in Syria

When you said Matt Baker it made me think of Boney M's Ma Baker hahaha! Don't anybody move, the money or your lives! Freeze, I'm Ma Baker. Put your hands in the air and gimme all your money!

I was hoping you would mention the alleged mention of the "Ishmaelites" in the Sennacherib Annals (the "Sumu'ilu") on Column VII Row 96.

At about 22:00 you write off Moses as a literary character. The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. It would most likely be safer to say that he has not been attested to in the archeolgical record. On the other hand, you omit a huge Bronze Age Biblical reference which was not attested to in the archeological record -- until it was. This is the Hittites. Until the mid-19th century, the only references to the Hittites were in the Bible. This Bronze-age culture was lost to the Greeks and the Romans. Yet the Bible not only mentions them at the appropriate times, but also accurately alludes to their changing political structures - something that would have been virtually impossible for Babylonian-exile-era writers to do in an age before archeology..

13:48 Ron Wyatt has 'discovered' or 'found' every biblical artifact ever mentioned. 😂

Babe wake up, new video on Biblical archeology just dropped

Fascinating! Thank you for the scientific process and for inviting specialists for each domain!

Can you all do a video on David Rohl's New Chronology and whether or not you believe in it or not? Also, good video btw, I hope you do more of these soon.

32:36 The only real conclusion I can draw from this is. How poorly we have recorded our own history. We are truly a species of amnesia. But, honestly that's the only constant besides time you can count on. The fact that what is written and recorded doesn't do what really happened justice. Even, now days with cameras. They don't do it justice.

Dr. Joshua Bowen is freaking handsome. I had no idea. Excuse me while i go tribute Ishtar and ask her for a little favor.

Phenomenal video, as always. Was lovely to hear some different intelligent voices I never would’ve heard otherwise.

One thing that annoys me is the whole Red Sea thing. It's a mistranslation or a typo. In Hebrew, the term is "yam soof". "Yam" means a body of water and "soof" means reeds. So it's the reed sea, not the red sea. My opinion is that the story refers to a coastal marsh. As for the sea opening, then rushing back, that sounds like elements of a real tsunami being incorporated into the story, possibly memories of the catastrophic explosion and tsunami that destroyed the Minoan civilization of Crete. Many biblical literalists must believe that the KJB is the literal word of God, or they wouldn't make this red/reed mistake.

Following up on an earlier comment, I'm not ascribing any ill intent to Syawish Rehman for attributing the association of the Cave of the Patriarchs to "the traditions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam." Whether Abraham was buried in this cave or if he even existed is a question of theology and belief. However, the reason this site is known as the Cave of the Patriarchs has nothing to do with Christian or Islamic tradition, as Syawish claimed. I don't think anyone disputes that it's a historical fact supported by archeological evidence that Jews were claiming this to be the location where Abraham was buried for literally thousands of years before Christianity or Islam existed. I certainly agree with the larger point that the existence of this tradition about where Abraham is buried is by no means evidence of Abraham himself. However, while Christianity and Islam may share this tradition, it is simply incorrect to say the association with the Patriarchs is in any way "because of" those traditions, as it significantly predates them. It would sort of like saying "according to Christian tradition, the Colosseum in Rome was the site of mock battles and fights among gladiators." Maybe not "wrong," but highly misleading, and I hope we can agree that getting the order of events right is an important aspect of archeology.

This collab is huge. I've watched a few videos from each of those channel, and seeing them collaborate is incredible 🥲

I may have missed it, but I do not yet see a link to Raven's book. Where could I (pre-)order that?

Why no mention of the Ipuwer papyrus that talks about the plagues and calamities brought on Egypt through Moses? Also archaeologist Joel Kramer has a channel here called Bible expedition with solid archaeological evidence for the events in the old testament.

Christian here. The Bible is not a science document. Even St. Augustine and other church fathers said as much. And while it is fun to dunk on evangelical literalist nonsense like this, James Hoffmeier is an Egyptologist that has produced well-reviewed, highly cited, peer-reviewed papers for decades. So let’s make sure we highlight the believing scientists/archaeologists that produce good work too. I just hate it when the charlatans make us all look bad.

I love these occasional collabs between all my favourite religious studies channels!❤

I just want to personally thank you Matt. As someone who recently (within the last few years) left a Christian cult your videos have given me such clarity and direction. You are truly doing more than presenting facts, you are offering a “healing balm” of sorts for those of us most deeply wounded by the fanatically religious. 🙏

First and For all I think that this was a splendid idea. Several People introduced, always by a "special youtuber". That was a great watch.

History the thing people think is not that important but is.

Thanks for the update and great collaboration here just saying

Maybe I'm misunderstanding a part here. When Matt Baker says that the Bronze age sections were written in the Iron age does he mean created or transcribed? Religions "stories", or "texts", are famous for being very persistent over centuries even in oral traditions which is what Bronze age would have been. We can trace Aboriginal American stories back though images for centuries. I would assume that if we had a Time Machine we could take our story of Ruth back to the 12th or 14th century BC and Priests would be completely familiar with it in detail. I would also assume they would have the same knowledge of its Historicity as we do. Which ain't much. I think we can also assume they would have "stories" that weren't preserved and different versions of "stories" that were. I also would not be surprised to find a few of the "stories" of that period were created new during the exile.

Great video, really enjoy the format where you bring in various other scholars

Saudi Arabia has always taken its role as the guardian of Islam against all other religions seriously. Since Islam was created after Mohammed was not allowed to convert to Judaism, it has a hatred of Judaism (and its off-shoot Christianity) from its beginning, so the Saudis have blocked official archaeology studies of areas under their control that support acts mentioned in the Hebrew Tanakh (a.k.a. "Old Testament"). The primary one is the area that meets ALL the descriptions of the Mt. Sinai encampment listed in the Old Testament/Tanakh.

What a banger episode!!! Several of my fave RU-vidrs joining their scholarly forces for the good of all YT! Plus some people who are new to me expanding the range of perspectives on this topic. Will be exploring those channels, too. 🙂

We need to stop conflating Jewish tradition with Christian and Islamic tradition. Christian and Islamic traditions are either direct copies of the Jewish Tradition or even include slight alterations. For example, it can’t be said that the Quran, which was written in the 7th century, is to be seen as equally legitimate when discussing the stories found in ancient Jewish tradition.

I appreciate you Matt. Been watching for almost 3 years now. I watch every video multiple times.

Ramesses II belongs to the 19th, not the 18th dynasty.

finally! A usefulcharts and religionforbreakfast crossover!!!

Crossover episode awesome

This is great. It was a treat to have Digital Hammurabi on.

Always funny when these videos bring out both the "The bible is 100% literally true" Christians AND the "The bible is 100% completely false and made up" Atheists. There's the real ambitious crossover

The crossover episode I didn't think of but now realize I greatly needed!

I am disappointed that perspective of this video implies if there are no actual names from the Bronze Age verified in outside sources that Biblical material set in the Bronze Age is inauthentic. Consider: 1. Ancient names are notoriously difficult to ascertain between cultures and languages - especially ancient. 2. Mat or Maat is an ancient Egyptian goddess/concept. It would make sense for her to be mentioned in Sinai. However, the "W" like letter in the Sinai inscriptions is indeed very like that which makes the "S" sound in modern semitic languages. 3. There is much cultural evidence in the Bible that fits with the Bronze Age which would not have been known in later ages, until rediscovered in the 19th-21st centuries (personal name styles, customs, laws, etc.) 4. Archaeological evidence such as the Mount Ebal tablet, Hittites and strata of Jerico (beyond Kathleen Kenyon's conjecture) sets the milieu of accuracy for Bronze Age Biblical stories. This is disregarded. 5. TREND is the operative word. The trend in archaeological discoveries tends to confirm, rather than contradict, settings and situations, and at times people, in the Bible.

This was a very good one, Thanks a lot!

The last 11 verses were not included in the early manuscripts of Mark.

So important that we have such scientific discussions.

My two favorite channels - religion for breakfast and usefulcharts in one video 🦄

Excellent Matt, as always 👏👏

I love ReligionForBreakfasts segment

MSI vs MAT: it seems honestly inconclusive and it would be difficult to prove either interpretation of the letter is correct. It easily falls within a margin of error for analog physical writing that isn't industrialized and standardized by machine. Extrapolating "Hathor" out of "Lady" seems like it uses the same flawed logic of making up your mind first and fitting things to make sense to you. Red Sea Pillar: Very annoying no photos exist. Technically interesting that Saudi Arabia has some political and religious motivation to censor it, but that can only be a theory with no proof. Inconclusive. Chariot Wheels at the bottom of the sea: I really like this explanation. I also realize that while it seems very likely to me there are obstacles to proving it. Inconclusive. At 20 minutes into the video what I think I'm looking at is "hey these are neat. This is some cool interesting stuff. I guess it's very soft Bayesian evidence that increases the probability that beliefs corresponding to the Biblical narrative are very old. One might not have expected the Iron Age authors anything older with any accuracy. They seem though to be referring to something older than themselves that some small pieces are fitting and a lot of key supporting evidence seems to be destroyed by time or garbled by uncertainty. It's premature to call these things slam dunk proofs. A proof would need a lot more substance and corroboration. Finding some things that look suggestive that are very old convinces me of just exactly this much: That it is worthwhile doing more exploring and more digging hoping to find more artifacts. Had it been conclusively proved it would be harder to argue in favor of funding more digs. I think that you and your friends are perhaps a bit hasty to rush to thinking "this doesn't even count as any kind of anything", but I can understand also why it doesn't persuade you fully either as it is obviously very very incomplete to say the least. I think among academics there is room for those who are skeptical the Exodus did not happen and for those who believe it did happen but academics should be willing to admit the conversation just isn't over and the proofs are not conclusive. We don't Know for sure. We have Suggestive but Conflicting clues that leave room for reasonable doubt.

can you do a timeline chart of the nations of the Near East? Like, when was Moab called Moab?

What a crossover, thanks!

I am very appreciative you do not hesitate to post this and certain recent videos despite the events we are all living through. Let's keep it at that and not spend any more words on the elephant in the room. As a former history teacher, history student and now philosopher, I can't express how useful for mind mapping (not the written kind) your charts are

How many Bronze Age figures from literature do we have contemporary archaeological proof for? And how few of those in the levant?

There is no evidence at all of a large population of people wandering around the Sinai for 40 years. However, there is evidence that the Canaanites are actually the people who became known (around the time of the Late Bronze Age collapse) as Israelites.

Another interesting Hammurabi connection is that he was a west Semitic Amorite King of Babylon, which was an Amorite governed polity in Mesopotamia. Different groups of Amorites went from the area that's now northern Syria and southern Turkey, close to biblical Haran (and Gobleki Tepe), and conquered both Mesopotamia and Egypt. The rulers of the Old Babylonian Empire were Amorites and the names of Pharaohs of the foreign 14th dynasty of Egypt were West Semitic, at least one Amorite. These were both roughly at the same time, and at roughly the same time Abraham would have existed (if he existed), as well as Moses whose story makes more sense in a similar historical context as Abraham, rather than being descended from Abraham 400 years later, as the biblical narrative suggests. To me this suggests the possibility that Abraham and Moses could have both been of Amorite descent, lived at around the same time (if at all), in different places, and founded unique cultures which later re-mixed into what eventually became Israelite culture during the transition period between the bronze age collapse and the beginning of the iron age. I think it's also worth noting, getting back to your mention of how during the Babylonian exile, exiled Judaeans would have been exposed to Mesopotamian history, legend, and myth, which could have given them access to all the Mesopotamian mythology adapted into Genesis, that Abraham is mentioned as being from Ur Kasdim. Ur is a very ancient Sumerian, then Akkadian, then Babylonian city. If Abraham lived in the 1800s BCE, Ur was already a 2000 year old city when he lived there. The route he took northeast to Haran was a well established trade route, as well as the route taken by the Amorites when they conquered Mesopotamia after the fall of the Third Dynasty of Ur, to found the Old Babylonian Empire, which didn't last too much longer after the time of Hammurabi and Abraham. Ur was already abandoned before the end of the OBE, being resettled later. It could be that both the stories of Abraham and Moses have a plot thread of being part of a foreign people who temporarily conquered the older empires of Egypt and Mesopotamia, but then were chased back towards their north Levantine homeland when they were reconquered by the locals. Kasdim is usually spelled in English Chaldea. The Chaldeans were the rulers of the iron age Neo-Babylonian Empire who conquered Iron age Judah and initiated the Babylonian Exile of the Judahite aristocracy and priestly castes. Thus when the stories about Abraham from Ur Kasdim were written down, along with all the other Mesopotamian myths and legends added to the bible during the exile, the Kasdim were the current rulers of Babylon, not the rulers from Hammurabi's bronze age Amorite Old Babylonian Empire of 1000+ years before. By the reign of the Achaemenid Persian conquest of Nebuchadnezzar's Neo-Babylonian Empire, Ur was in decline and was uninhabited by the early 5th century BCE.

What years are the Bronze Age and Iron Age and classical age please?

Hi Mr Baker @usefulcharts, I’m a great admirer of your work. Thanks for educating us. I have a question regarding Your comment in 21:10 re: Joseph. In the Patterns of Evidence “Exodus” film (2014), that I’d think you’ve probably have seen, they explain additional evidence that leads to believe it was actually Joseph’s house (pyramid like tomb, a house with 12 pillars and 12 tombs, etc). Wouldn’t this movie pose a solid case for the evidence of the Exodus?… I’m not an expert; just curious. Thanks for your consideration.

I am no linguistic/religious scholar but why is the association with the Ugaritic word for twin and not the Egyptian Goddess Maat?

The thing I would say is that a lot of the Bronze Age part of the Bible borrows much from the Bronze Age literature. I am not saying that the Bronze Age section is history, but it does follow Bronze Age texts.

Very interesting. thanks

Battle of siddim, described in genesis 14 takes places “in a place which is now the dead sea". This refers to the southern part of the lake. The southern part of the lake was filled with water for approx. 200 years, between the 13th to the 11st century bce. This is the only timeframe the book of genesis could have been written.

One also has to be careful treating the Bible as a unified publishing house … it’s a collection of sources. For example, the New Testament is a collection of texts that say the Resurrection happen. It’s nonsensical to then say there are no sources affirming the Resurrection outside of the New Testament. As soon as they’d affirm such a thing, they’d be labeled “Biblical sources” and labeled biased. It’s circular logic.

Muslim kingdoms *have* discriminated against Jews. The special tax on Jews for example

Would love to see a followup that explores archaeological evidence for bronze age events in the Bible (i.e. where archaeology supports the narrative of early Biblical events without explicit reference to people). I've seen people talk about archaeoligical evidence for stuff like the fall of Jericho and destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah matching the Biblical descriptions, though I don't know how accurate they are and how much they're trying to force the narrative onto the archaeology. As a Christian myself, I don't need the early Bible to be 100% historically accurate (I always say, I don't worship Moses, I don't care if the real Moses, if there was one, was who the Bible says he was), but I'm fascinated by how actual historical events got filtered and retold in the Biblical text. Was a little disappointed this video focused only on written references to people, but I appreciate what it is and I'm not gonna knock it for what it's not. Fascinating video, always love learning this kind of stuff!

While the name is unknown from genetics, the fact remains that Y-Chromosomal Aaron's existence shows that people claiming patrilineal descent from the Biblical Aaron do have a common patrilineal ancestor dating to the time when Aaron is said to have lived. While not archeological, I find this fact to be worthy of mention somewhere in this series.

Would you consider doing a video or something similar critically analysing the historic claims made in the "Patterns of the Exodus" documentary?