The stele, which was discovered at the site of the ancient Egyptian city of Thebes in 1896, contains 28 lines of text, mostly detailing the Egyptians’ victory over the Libyans and their allies. The medium on which the pharaoh chose to trumpet his martial prowess was a three-metre-high lump of carved granite, now known as the Merneptah Stele. And when he led his armies on a successful war of conquest at the end of the 13th century BC, he wanted the world, and successive generations, to know all about it. Like all good autocrats, Merneptah, pharaoh of Egypt, loved to brag about his achievements. In fact, the best corroborating evidence for the Bible’s claim that the Israelites surged into Canaan is Merneptah’s Stele. St Catherine’s Monastery in the shadow of Mount Sinai, where the Codex Sinaiticus came to scholars’ attention. In this podcast, biblical scholar John Barton considers the historical background to the most influential book in western culture, exploring its creation and how it fits into the histories of Judaism and Christianity: It’s been argued that Pi-Ramesses was the biblical city of Ramesses, and that the city was built, as Exodus claims, by Jewish slaves. Pi-Ramesses was the great capital built by Ramesses II, one of Egypt’s most formidable pharaohs and the biblical tormentor of the Israelites. That’s the question that some historians have been asking themselves since the 1960s, when the Austrian archaeologist Manfred Bietak identified the location of the ancient city of Pi-Ramesses at the site of the modern town of Qantir in Egypt’s Nile Delta. Nowhere is this theme more evident than in Exodus, the dramatic second book of the Old Testament, which chronicles the Israelites’ escape from captivity in Egypt to the promised land.īut has archaeology unearthed one of the sites of the Israelites’ captivity? The murderous history of Bible translationsįor centuries, the Old Testament has been widely interpreted as a story of disaster and rescue – of the Israelites falling from grace before picking themselves up, dusting themselves down and finding redemption.Perhaps the best place to start the story is in Sun-baked northern Egypt, for it was here that the Bible and archaeology may, just may, first collide. These findings may be incomplete and they may be highly contested, but they have helped historians paint a picture of how the Bible came to life. (Photo by Werner Forman/Universal Images Group/Getty Images) Where does the Bible originate?Īrchaeology and the study of written sources have shed light on the history of both halves of the Bible: the Old Testament, the story of the Jews’ highs and lows in the millennium or so before the birth of Jesus and the New Testament, which documents the life and teachings of Jesus. This delightful new edition to the NLT lineup will appeal to a segment of the market that is looking for something fresh in their Bible-reading experience.An illumination from a Byzantine manuscript depicting Jesus Christ. The pacing of the illustrations and variations (from full-page to column-wide to margin-size) will offer visual relief and interest, resulting in a Bible that users will want to leave open much like a coffee-table book. Artistic “portraits” of 150 of the most important people in the BibleĮach illustration is accompanied by a brief caption connecting the illustration to the Bible.Many flowers, plants and trees in the Bible.The illustrations cover three categories: The illustrations relate the Word of God directly to the world of God drawing visual relevance of the Bible to our world. NLT Art of Life Holy Bible features 450 original hand-drawn illustrations in a unique style that encourages contemplation and visual interaction with the Word. It effectively combines the characteristics of an easy-to-read Bible with the visual nature of a wide-margin Bible, and it offers journaling and artistic expression opportunities for readers. NLT Art of Life Holy Bible from 2K/Denmark is an innovative idea that makes the Bible accessible and fits the New Living Translation well.