Evidence of 'Amos’s Earthquake' discovered in Jerusalem

[rogue06]

In any case, archaeologists working on the eastern slope at Jerusalem's City of David site have discovered what they think is the first evidence of a catastrophic 8th cent. B.C. earthquake mentioned in the Old Testament's Book of Amos after finding a "destruction layer" containing collapsed buildings with shattered pottery (including bowls, jars and lamps) as well as scattered utensils inside. There was also the complete skeleton of a piglet, which had been crushed alive when the building collapsed on top of it.

That the damage was the result of an earthquake and not military conquest is evidenced by the lack of a burn layer or remains of weaponry.

Zechariah also mentions the earthquake as well some two centuries later demonstrating that the event left a deep impression in the collective memory of the citizens of Jerusalem.

The pertinent verses:

Scripture Verse: Amos 1:1

The words of Amos, who was among the shepherds of Tekoa, which he saw concerning Israel in the days of Uzziah king of Judah and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel, two years before the earthquake

© Copyright Original Source

Scripture Verse: Zechariah 14:5

And you shall flee to the valley of my mountains, for the valley of the mountains shall reach to Azal. And you shall flee as you fled from ithe earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah. Then the Lord my God will come, and all the holy ones with him

© Copyright Original Source

And even some six centuries after that, Josephus referred to the earthquake in his Antiquities, where he linked it to King Uzziah's usurping the authority of the priests to make sacrifices in the temple.

Previously, the earthquake has been linked to one from around 750 B.C. that probably had its epicenter in Lebanon Amos's earthquake: An extraordinary Middle East seismic event of 750 BC. I recognized the lead author, Steve A. Austin, as a young earth creationist who has published some dodgey stuff in the past, but looking through this paper (and while I'm no geologist, I do have a fairly good understanding of the subject), it seems legit.

Source: Archaeologists unearth 1st Jerusalem evidence of quake from Bible’s Book of Amos

8th century BCE tremblors recorded by biblical prophet get new proof from current excavations in the City of David; scholars hope it will help them crack the city’s timeline

The multi-year coronavirus pandemic is now firmly branded as a benchmark in modern memory. Likewise, in the first verse of the Book of Amos, the 8th century BCE biblical prophet referred to "two years before the earthquake" as an anchor to the events he was about to relate. Two centuries later, the prophet Zechariah again referred to this destructive earthquake period, so deeply was it ingrained in the collective psyche.

Now, for the first time, a team of Israel Antiquities Authority archaeologists in Jerusalem’s City of David report that they have found unprecedented concrete evidence of this 8th century BCE earthquake in the ancient capital.

In an upcoming research paper, the archaeologists chart, for example, that in one particular 8th century BCE structure the destruction layer did not show signs of fire, yet other factors suggested the building had been damaged in a traumatic event, apparently an earthquake. "This was most notable on the earliest floor of the southernmost room," they write. "In this room, a row of smashed vessels was uncovered along its northern wall, above which fallen stones had been found. It appears that these stones were the upper part of the walls of the room, which had collapsed, destroying the vessels which had been set along the wall."

Until now, the earliest destruction layer of Jerusalem comes from the Babylonian conquest of 586 BCE. For archaeologists, an earlier historical anchor -- if proven through hard, securely dated evidence -- serves as an important stratigraphical benchmark for scientific excavations in Jerusalem.

According to Tel Aviv University Prof. Israel Finkelstein, who was not involved in the current research, "destructive earthquakes in Jerusalem are possible, as shown by the well-recorded earthquake of 1927… The early layer of the book of Amos includes materials which relate to the 8th century and hence it is possible that a devastating earthquake left a strong impression and was recorded."

Through decades of research, archaeologists and seismologists have successfully documented the historical veracity of such an earthquake event that spread throughout the Kingdom of Judah 2,800 years ago. For example, at Finkelstein’s Tel Megiddo site, a similarly dated earthquake has been established after years of research tracing seismic activity in several periods, "including Stratum IVA which indeed dates to the first half of the 8th century BCE," Finkelstein said.

But only in recent excavations led by Dr. Joe Uziel and Ortal Chalaf was this destruction layer discerned in Judah’s capital, Jerusalem. And it could be a real game-changer.

"It’s not that per se we’re providing here a way to date, but rather an anchor that we can compare what comes before and what comes after," cautiously explained IAA excavation co-director Uziel. It is not a new tool or technology to independently date an object or layer, such as carbon-14 dating. However, "if I know I should be looking for some kind of destructive event in the middle of the 8th century then I know what comes before and after," said Uziel, who today also heads up the IAA Dead Sea Scrolls Lab.

Uziel told The Times of Israel that although his team was the first to identify this destruction layer, in reviewing previous excavation reports, they have concluded that other areas of the eastern slope near the Gihon Spring where the team is excavating also exhibited similar destruction. A research article and lecture on these findings will be available to the public on September 2 at the City of David’s Megalim Conference.

According to Uziel, an additional contemporary 8th century BCE earthquake destruction layer can be found less than 100 meters south of the area being now excavated. It was excavated by Yigal Shiloh in the 1970s and published by Alon de Groot. There, the archaeologists discovered a building collapse that accorded with what Uziel saw in his area.

"It was never described as destruction but what they found sounds very similar: a bunch of vessels shattered and restored, fallen stones, the possible collapse of the 2nd floor," Uziel noted.

"We can draw a line and say these are probably two separate buildings showing the same evidence," said Uziel. "I feel pretty secure about it: one reason is the archaeological evidence, which at other sites has been found dating to the same time period, and two is the archaeological evidence at other sites which very clearly shows 'earthquake' and not military acts of destruction," he said, citing Tell es Safi/Gath and Hazor, among other locations.

Recent geological work on sediment in the Dead Sea region by a team led by Prof. Amotz Agnon of Hebrew University’s Institute of Earth Sciences indicates that there were at least two major earthquakes in the Land of Israel in the mid-8th century BCE.

Agnon told The Times of Israel that while it is rare to pinpoint such a temporally distant event at such high resolution -- to the century level -- in the middle of the 8th century, his team sees a record of several earthquake events at the Dead Sea. As such, he said, this earthquake event discovered in Jerusalem "has potential" to be considered as a new dating anchor for archaeologists.

Whether it was one earthquake or a series is up for debate. It is not uncommon, said Agnon, to see earthquake clusters spanning over even decades of time: one big tremblor can trigger a sort of delayed domino effect of destruction.

So while it may be impossible to link the earthquake destruction layer in Jerusalem with one specific event, in combination with the contemporary clear earthquake evidence found elsewhere in the Land of Israel, one could consider the group of potential tremors as one earthquake event, said Agnon.

The earthquakes' epicenters were focused in the Jordan Valley, he said, and there is ample evidence of destruction at ancient sites in modern Jordan, where they had even more destructive impact.

"There were events that destroyed the entire country -- or half of it," said Agnon. "So the event at Hazor could be connected to the event in Jerusalem."

Agnon did not participate in the current City of David study, but is a co-author on research on ancient earthquake destruction throughout the country.

One such site is Tell es-Safi/Gath, where Agnon said he saw, during a rare unsettled period, that a big wall had fallen from a force that "couldn’t have been anything other than an earthquake."

According to Bar-Ilan University Prof. Aren M. Maeir, the director of the Tell es-Safi/Gath Archaeological Project, the proof of earthquake is "based on specific ways that walls collapse -- in our case evidence of the 'waves' of energy that hit after an earthquake."

Maeir was able to date the earthquake layer based on the levels below, including the securely dated Hazael destruction of 830 BCE. Above the ample signs of battle and conquest was "a period of abandonment with windblown sediments, then the earthquake, and then above it, two levels dating to the late 8th cent BCE."

For his part, the new evidence of earthquake destruction in Jerusalem makes sense.

"I'm not surprised at all about these finds in Jerusalem. First of all, mid-8th century BCE earthquakes are mentioned/hinted to in the contemporary books of Amos, Isaiah and the much later Zecharia. Second -- Jerusalem is much closer to the assumed epicenters (Jordan Valley) of earthquakes than Gath," Maeir told The Times of Israel.

Uziel and Chalaf write in their upcoming research paper that the importance of this new evidence goes beyond the historical fact of an earthquake having occurred in ancient Jerusalem and even "beyond the linkage between archaeology and the biblical text."

"This provides an archaeological anchor for Jerusalem, which can now begin to be developed for the relative dating of assemblages before and after this anchor. In this sense, the Amos earthquake may serve Jerusalem’s archaeology in the same manner as the destruction of Lachish in 701 BCE," write the authors.



Source

© Copyright Original Source

The article above contains numerous pictures as well as a short video.

[Sparko]

neat.

[Cow Poke]

Cool!

[One Bad Pig]

[rogue06]

neat.

Cool!

When the actual paper is released I'll try to link to it, or at least the abstract.

[Cow Poke]

When the actual paper is released I'll try to link to it, or at least the abstract.

My last trip in Israel, my guide would point out several construction sites that "had been halted for years", because they had to notify Jewish Antiquities of a discovery....

I asked, "do they always notify Jewish Antiquities?", and she smiled and indicated that, even though there are great penalties for not doing so, it is often cost prohibitive enough to take the chance.

[3 Resurrections]

Yeah, agreed, this is all of the above - "neat", "cool", and I love it when archaeology only confirms what scripture has already stated.

I have done some study before now on the earthquake rubble layers present in the Kidron Valley today. Some VERY interesting observations are given on page # 330 and 332 at the following link ( https://www.jstor.org/stable/3140665 ) which describe a curious phenomenon: that is, the current level of the Kidron Valley at its lowest southeastern point of Jerusalem's wall is currently MUCH shallower than the 300 ft. depth it was back in Christ's days. Likewise, that lowest point of the Kidron Valley is now also about 70 feet further away from the wall than it was before. In other words, archaeologists have identified that much rubble and debris that has filled up the Kidron Valley due to earthquake landslide material being dislodged from the Mount of Olives' slopes that was not there in the bottom of the Kidron Valley in Christ's days on earth.

The question would be: What would have caused so much debris and rubble to fill up the Kidron Valley in the time since Christ's ministry? Do we have any scripture that speaks about this event beforehand? Yes, we do, but one has to look in the LXX to find it. The version of the Zechariah 14:5 verse as posted above is translated incorrectly. The LXX and various other translations say absolutely nothing about anyone "FLEEING to the valley of my mountains" when a future earthquake would occur at Christ's return. Zechariah 14:5 reads this way instead. "The valley between the hills will be FILLED IN, yes, it will be BLOCKED AS FAR AS AZAL, it will be FILLED IN as it was by the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah." If someone wants to read further on this difference of translations, here is the link: http://www.gracecentered.com/christi...-flee-to-azal/

What Zechariah 14:5 was predicting was a landslide taking place at Christ's return, (similar to the earthquake event in King Uzziah's days), and described as the Mount of Olives "leaning" in all directions on that occasion. This resulted in earthquake rubble sliding downhill to collect at the bottom of the Kidron Valley, blocking up the Valley as far as Azal.

So just where IS Azal, anyway? The name "Azal" is preserved for us today in Arabic on the map by the name of the "Wadi Yasul" - the etymology matching the Hebrew name of "Azal". It is located past the southeastern corner of Jerusalem's wall; the very location where archaeologists have analyzed the notable difference in the shallower depth of the Kidron Valley today, as compared to Christ's days on earth (which immense depth Josephus made note of also in his writings - Antiquities 15.11.5 ).

In other words, Zechariah 14:4-5 is already fulfilled, including Christ's second coming return to the Mount of Olives. He left his "calling card" lying in the Kidron Valley as a sign that He has already come and gone back to heaven with the resurrected saints. Anybody want to argue with a pile of rocks?

[rogue06]

When the actual paper is released I'll try to link to it, or at least the abstract.

Looks like they're supposed to publish early in September.