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Bible & History

Worn Around the Neck: The Oldest Bible Words Ever Found

The oldest known words shared with the Bible were not found in a scroll jar or a library. They were rolled up inside two tiny silver amulets in a Jerusalem tomb, worn by someone who lived in the days of Jeremiah, just before the city fell.

YESHVA Editorial6 min readEditor: Luciano Olguin

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Bible & History7 min read

Found by a Broken Pipe: The Pool Where a Blind Man Washed

For centuries, pilgrims honored the Pool of Siloam at the wrong spot. Then, in 2004, a pipe repair in Jerusalem exposed a set of worn stone steps, and the real pool from John 9 came back into the light.

Bible & History6 min read

A Thousand Years Closer: The Isaiah Scroll a Shepherd Found

Before 1947, the oldest complete Hebrew copy of Isaiah was about a thousand years younger than Jesus. Then a shepherd threw a stone into a cave by the Dead Sea, and a 24-foot scroll let scholars test how faithfully the prophet's words had been copied.

Bible & History7 min read

The Boat in the Mud: A First-Century Fishing Boat and the Gospels

In 1986 a drought shrank the Sea of Galilee, and two fishermen spotted a line of ancient nails in the mud. What they found was a patched, much-repaired fishing boat from the time of Jesus, and it changes how you picture every Gospel scene on the lake.

Bible & History6 min read

The Erastus Pavement: A City Official's Name Cut Into Corinth's Stone

Paul's list of greetings in Romans names a city treasurer called Erastus. In 1929 diggers in Corinth found a first-century paving stone with a Latin inscription naming an Erastus who paid for it himself. Is it the same man?

Bible & History6 min read

The Emperor's Letter That Dates the Apostle Paul

Neither Acts nor Paul's letters mention a single calendar year. So how do we know when Paul was in Corinth? The answer lies in a few broken stones at Delphi, carved with a letter from Claudius about a town that needed more citizens.

Bible & History6 min read

The Credit-Card-Sized Scrap of John in Manchester

In a library in northern England lies a scrap of papyrus you could cover with your palm. It carries a few Greek lines from the trial of Jesus, and for ninety years it has been at the center of the question of how early the Gospels were copied and how far they had already traveled.

Bible & History6 min read

No Innkeeper, No Barn: The Bethlehem House Behind Luke 2

The Christmas pageant has an innkeeper and a stable, but Luke's account has neither. A single Greek word, and the layout of an ordinary village house, paint a warmer and more surprising picture of the night Jesus was born.

Bible & History6 min read

Lydia, the Dealer in Purple, and the First Church in Philippi

A businesswoman from Thyatira, far from home, sat by a river in Philippi and heard Paul. What she did next put the first European church in her living room.