Jim Fletcher: The Supporting Role of Biblical Archeology; Israel Matters
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3, 2, 1, 0 From the studios of WORQ in Wisconsin, this is the Stand Up For The Truth Podcast. Today's issues, overlooked headlines, and biblical observations equipping the remnant around the globe. Got your sword handy?

This is Stand Up For The Truth. Crash Connell here Thursday, October 12, 2023 on the calendar. Fresh new podcast. I need to mention that if you go to StandUpForTheTruth.com, you're going to get a CloudFlare intercept page. We are officially in under attack mode on our website, so there's going to be an intercept page when you go to StandUpForTheTruth.com and you just check the box and say, I'm a human. It's just...

A little thing that we have to go through. Last night, I had a big bot farm attack on the website, on our Israel post. So I just want to make you aware of that if you go to the website. My guest today is Jim Fletcher, someone I consider very knowledgeable on so many levels regarding Israel.

We want to talk today about biblical archaeology, and I think it might be a first for Stand Up, and we'll look at why that is important. But first, we're going to talk about what's going on over there. My heart is over there right now, and I know many of you feel the same. When we scheduled Jim about at least six weeks ago, maybe, that was on the docket. But now we have something else to talk about, so we're going to try and get all that in today. So let's go right to the scripture, Psalm 44, 1 to 3.

We have heard with our ears, O God, our fathers have told us the deeds you did in their days, in days of old. You drove out the nations with your hand, but them you planted. You afflicted the peoples and cast them out. For they did not gain possession of the land by their own sword, nor did their own arm save them. But it was your right hand, your arm, and the light of your countenance, because you favored them.

Let's pray this morning. Lord, we do pray for Israel, for your people, and we know and trust that your perfect will and plan are unfolding for them and for the nations as well. We pray that the church at large would wake up to the significance of these times, and we lift up all those who are suffering through this difficult time there for wisdom, for those in leadership, and for those grieving loss, and for those awaiting news of loved ones.

Oh Lord, our hearts are heavy, but we pray with the psalmist who says, and in the shadow of your wings, I will take my refuge until these calamities have passed by. Lord, I pray you'd guide our conversation today, protect our technology, continue to lead us.

and empower us through your Holy Spirit. Lord, we look forward to your return with all of our hearts. We lift up Jim to you today. Thank you for the wisdom and understanding you've given him and the grace throughout his many years of ministry. Bless his labors for you and keep him and his loved ones safe and in good health. In Jesus' name, amen.

Jim Fletcher, Jim's a longtime supporter of Israel, an independent researcher, writer, Bible prophecy teacher. His work can be seen at thegodthatanswers at patreon.com. You can go to patreon.com and just put in Jim Fletcher or thegodthatanswers and that will come right up. Jim, welcome to Stand Up For The Truth. Welcome back. Thanks, Mary. Good to be with you. Great to have you. Again, like I said, when we decided to do this program today, we had no idea it was going to transpire less than a week ago.

Thank you.

Um, that, uh, Israel is not just under military attack, but a propaganda attack and it's multi-pronged in actually, I think fairly complex. And so that's going to be something that they're dealing with, uh, for a long time too. But of course the, the, the main priority now is, uh, to stop the threat and, uh,

And, you know, the hostages that were taken by Hamas, I know that's uppermost on everyone's mind. We can pray for them, but that's a really, really difficult situation. So, you know, the physical safety of Israel right now is uppermost.

When I think about those hostages with each passing day or even hour, I know I tend to get more anxious. I can't imagine what they're going through. I can't imagine what it's going to take to get them out. It's really, really hard to bear. And I think some people, too, a nagging question, and this is more of a historical question possibly, is,

All the tunnels, rockets, and ammunition that are stockpiled in such a degree so close to Israel, right there in their land. This perplexes me a little bit. On their border, people are asking questions. How...

How is this just be allowed to happen? I know it's more complicated than that. It goes back to Arafat and Oslo, right? Oslo Accord? Yeah. Is that who we have to thank for a lot of this continuing agitation and throw the Clintons in here? Jim, tell us about that. Where's the connection there with how the Palestinian Authority actually came to govern that region?

Yeah. I mean, it goes back even farther than that in the sense that, you know, in the 60s, the PLO was formed, Palestine Liberation Organization. In 68, Arafat was named head of the PLO. He was never anything but a terrorist. But by the late 80s,

The PLO was on life support. People were tired of them, tired of the violence and things. And almost inexplicably, it was Western diplomats that brought them back from the brink and set Arafat up as a statesman.

And, you know, clean him up for the cameras a bit. And then, yes, Clinton, it started with the last year or so, George Herbert Walker Bush's term. They were the ones that really brought Arafat out. And Bush felt that he had a lot of political capital from the war victory in Iraq and Kuwait

And his advisors felt that this was now the time to get the Israelis and Palestinians together and negotiate a settlement, negotiate a peace. You know, from the very beginning, major fundamental flaws in that thinking, because, again, Arafat had never signaled that he wanted peace. He was never going to be about state building.

He was always about killing Jews. And so, you know, whether it was naive diplomats or whether they were more complicit, I actually think it's a little darker, more sinister. I think a lot of people in Washington hate Israel. It's not helped by a guy like Barack Obama. But your question about the Clintons, yes, it accelerated under Clinton. And so...

I think the first negotiations took place in '91 in Madrid, and then by '93 they signed that famous document on the White House lawn with Clinton standing between Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin of Israel. I know certainly that Rabin was sick to his stomach to be standing there and shaking hands with Arafat, but the pressure from Western diplomacy is what caused all that.

And from the very beginning, I mean, the PLO never changed their stripes. They were set up as the new Palestinian Authority. Nothing changed. They preached hate in their schools, in their streets. And so now for 30, exactly 30 years, they have fomented violence against Jews 24-7. It didn't stop Clinton from

Bush, Obama, all of them. Clinton had Arafat in the White House 13 times. He slept in the Lincoln bedroom. Wow. Really? Yeah. And so in the last days of the Clinton administration, all presidents...

I mean, you have to be an egomaniac to want to be president anyway, but they all want to be the guy that cemented a final peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians. And so Clinton forced the Israelis again to come in, and they met at Camp David. It was Ahab Barak as prime minister, Arafat again. But this time, this is in the end of 2000, Clinton,

Clinton had put together this deal where the Palestinians would get, I think it was 97% of the West Bank and East Jerusalem as capital, everything they wanted publicly. And, of course, Arafat walked away. Now, that was very telling.

and it meant that arafat and the palestinians had never intended to make peace with israel bill clinton actually admitted this later and after he left office he realized he knew they'd been played and uh and yet for all the terrorism you know the late 90s they started the the i call them uh homicide bombers not suicide bombers they started that in the streets of jerusalem

and then the second Intifada in the early 2000s and all that. All through that violence, that regular cycle of violence, the West, particularly the Americans, just continued down this Oslo road, just continued this two-state solution nonsense, this land for peace, quote, and all it did was get more Israelis killed. Right.

Trump stopped all that in his brief term, but it's ramped back up again. And so I consider Western diplomacy to be as big a villain as anyone else in this story because the Palestinian terror organizations would not exist today without it. Wow.

Yes, I remember the Oslo Accords well. And I actually remember also when Anwar Sadat was assassinated, I had just become a believer and I had just been learning about prophecy in the Middle East and why I should care. And all of a sudden Sadat was assassinated and I was calling everyone I could think of who had been in the Lord even 10 minutes longer than I was to ask me what that meant. And I don't know if we still know today, but it's just part of the process. Is that right? And who

Who was responsible for the death of Sadat? Do you have that in your memory bank there? Yeah, the Muslim Brotherhood. Muslim Brotherhood, okay. They killed him. He was at a reviewing stand watching military hardware go by, and several of them just ran up and mowed him down. And, you know, Sadat wasn't, I wouldn't exactly call him a friend of Israel, but he was much more centrist than,

And in fact, that's what got him killed. You know, the Brotherhood, Hamas, they're all the same. Those terror groups have an ideology in them that is racist, full of hate, violence. The Muslim Brotherhood is actually the father of all those terror groups. And so, yeah, that ended...

Sadat's rule in Egypt, but the whole terrorist structure is the same as it was the first day they were organized.

Yeah, well, I remember it so well. And in that, it caused me to keep an eye on the Middle East. From that moment on, I decided I was going to keep an eye on these things. And here we are. You were saying that the... Do you know the numbers on the wounded and dead in Israel? Because I think it's gone up considerably in the last day or so. Yeah, it's going to be over 5,000 now. I think the last figures I saw were...

1,200 to 1,500 dead and 3,500 wounded. Okay. All right. You know, you talk about the presidents, too, and it seems to be this is the...

the trophy they want. This is politically motivated. It's personally motivated. It's a legacy that they want to say, yes, I was responsible for peace in the Middle East, and now we have the Abraham Accords. And you and I have talked about this before on the program, and they're saying this is going to be shoved away in the back burner. What do you see as anything with the deal with the Saudis? Yeah, that's all fluid now. And the fact that it's fluid...

me that the Abraham Accords were never quite as rosy as we hope they are. I don't think it's based at all on

a willingness of the Arabs to get along and recognize Israel. I think it was about economic opportunities. Now, I think people, even people in the U.S. that realize that, the hope was that, you know, 50 years down the road as new generations emerge, they won't be, the hate ideology won't be there anymore. Well, you know, you can't count on that. Right. But to your question, I,

Saudi Arabia is sitting in the middle and they're watching Iran and they're watching us at Israel and they're trying to decide who's going to emerge stronger. And whoever emerges stronger is who they'll align themselves with. But the fact that this has been in the news a lot lately is probably a major trigger to this whole attack. Hamas...

All of them in the region that didn't want the Abraham Accords, Iran. They started this largely because they wanted to put a wedge between Israel and any Arab states in the region, the Gulf states. And, you know, I think they're probably going to accomplish a lot of their goal now. I think it's the UAE is the only one to date that has condemned the atrocities from Hamas.

Again, the fact that the others won't is pretty telling. They're trying to play both sides of the fence and see how it shakes out. But the Abraham Accords are very much on the back burner now. And, you know, that's obviously another tragedy in this whole thing. Yeah.

You have an article from October 9th called Northern Exposure. And this is about something we've been watching, you know, I think all summer really, the efforts in the north by Hezbollah to destabilize on another front. Can you connect the dots for us between Lebanon and Hezbollah? And who exactly is Hezbollah? Like you said, they're kind of all the same creature, you know, different tentacles of the same creature. But because Lebanon doesn't seem very stable right now,

Is this just going to become an all-out regional blow-up? I know we don't know the future, but who is Hezbollah exactly? Yeah, Hezbollah is another terror organization in the region. They're actually probably stronger than Hamas. Hamas was created in 1987, and I think in Arabic it means the party of God, which of course is...

you know, not laughable, but absurd. But Hezbollah means essentially the same thing. They're just two...

Two heads of the same coin as far as terror. They're every bit as committed to Israel's destruction as Hamas or any of the rest. Now, Hezbollah, though, came out of the destabilization of Lebanon going back to the 70s. And Lebanon, and this is another tragedy, Lebanon is a beautiful country.

And I think a lot of the Lebanese people would live in peace with Israel if it were possible. But the PLO, when they were kicked out of Jordan in 1970, Arafat landed in Lebanon and immediately began destabilizing the country.

And this is about 1975. By 82, it had gotten so bad, the cross-border raids into Israel. And by the way, Lebanon and Syria border Israel in the north. So Lebanon would be on the Mediterranean coast. They're directly north of Israel on the Golan Heights. And so Israel invaded Lebanon and pushed as far as Beirut.

And it was at that time Lebanon had, believe it or not, a Christian fellow who was elected president. And let's see, his name is Bashar Gamial, I think. He was a young guy. He had already been making back-channel talks with the Israelis, you know,

And so I think that was going to open up a new era of goodwill among those two countries. And, of course, Syria's Hafez Assad had him assassinated. And Lebanon ever since for 40 years plus has been a hellhole that's controlled by Hezbollah, which is controlled by Iran. Hezbollah is a proxy of Iran. They're funded by them, logistical support Iran.

Hezbollah would not exist without Iran's backing. They also have, unfortunately, a massive stockpile of rockets. That has been a concern and even a fear for the pro-Israel crowd for years because the thinking is if Hezbollah launched all their rockets there,

There's no defense for that. The Iron Dome basically couldn't keep up with it. But in the last few days, obviously, there's concerns that this will be another war front that Israel will have to fight. I would say, though...

Israel has a lot of experience fighting multi-front wars. They have fought literally on all sides more than once simultaneously and won. The thing about – actually, I'm going to break my rule. I shouldn't speculate, but my hunch is that Hezbollah won't launch another war in the north.

They want to see how this war with Hamas plays out. Hezbollah, Sheikh Nasrallah controls him. He's not stupid, and he also doesn't want to die. You know, I mean, that seems like an obvious thing, but he's rational in the sense he's a bit more...

about how he's going to go about this. They know that Israel has the capability to destroy Hamas. They also have the capability to destroy Hezbollah if they need to. And so I think he's literally going to keep his powder dry until he sees how this plays out. Now, they have made... There's been some...

You know, a couple of little things. Yesterday they thought a drone had been sent over and all of Israel's northern population went in shelters. That turned out to be false. A couple of rockets lobbed and things like that. But for right now, Hezbollah has not entered this war. I suspect that Western governments are applying all the pressure they can, ironically, including the Americans themselves,

I think Biden has told them to stand down. And so that'll keep them at bay for a while. Interesting. Also, Hamas and Hezbollah, one is Sunni and one is Shiite Islam. Is that right? Yeah, I may have these mixed up. I want to say, well, let's see here.

I thought Hezbollah was Shiite because of Iran. Oh, they're both backed by Iran. Correct. Yeah, I think that's right. And Hamas would be Sunni, which, you know, that's a good point because in a lot of these cases, they literally do have like a Hatfield and McCoy competition going, you know. And it's been said many times, if Israel didn't exist, the Middle East would be in flames anyway because all these tribal groups keep fighting each other. Right.

Right, and it's all about, my understanding at the base of it, it's all about who is a direct descendant of Muhammad and therefore has inherited the right to be true Islam. And I think the Sunnis are the ones who believe they are directly descended from Muhammad, and everybody else is just a player. Yeah, it's absurd, obviously. But that is also...

confirmation that the people we're dealing with there in the Middle East on the other side, they are 7th century people. They are still stuck in the 7th century and they can't modernize it.

That's a good point. And my other understanding, too, about Hamas, I read this years ago, is they see themselves as the social services arm of the people who live in Gaza, that they were helping them to get medical care and just sort of a social justice arm over there so that the people would...

trust them and rely upon them for basic things in life. Have you ever heard that? Yeah, yeah, except that's purely in practical terms. So, you know, Israel pulled out of Gaza completely in 2005, and it remains a very troublesome legacy of Ariel Sharon's.

They pull out in 2005, pull out all the Israelis that lived down there, I think 8,000 people, took the army out. Well, of course, you know, who's going to fill the vacuum? By 2007, Hamas had taken over. Now, Hamas' quote, humanitarian aid is pure political calculation, and it's part of the way they formalized control of Gaza.

After this weekend, I think even leftists understand that Hamas has no, they don't care about human life whatsoever, most especially their own people. So by giving them aid and, you know, a little bit of money and enough to live on as their, quote, protectors,

All they are, if I can say it this way, it's the biggest mafia organization in the world. I mean, they go in and they threaten people, and it's why there hasn't been a serious challenge to Hamas power in Gaza. The other thing I would say about that is,

If, and you can't, but if you were able to ask a regular rank-and-file resident of Gaza what they think about Hamas, they would scream, please save us, please get us out of here, please take them down. I don't believe that some of the Gazans want to live under Hamas rule. It has to be hellish.

But they have no option. Now, having said that, my concern is, and the tragedy here is, that after a couple of generations are raised on Jew hatred, on hatred of America,

It's who they are. And this is very difficult. Maybe you shouldn't say this, but there are reports that when they took the captives into Gaza, that the children took part in whatever they were doing, spitting on them or kicking them or whatever. I mean, you're talking about six- or eight-year-old kids. These children are raised from births.

on a steady diet of hate. And so, you know, Hamas as providing humanitarian aid, they only do that so that they keep the people controlled. Wow. What's the population of Gaza, Jim? Do you have a general ballpark number for that? It's one and a half to two million. Oh, that's more than I thought. Okay. I think Gaza City is about 600,000.

Wow, it must be very crowded, one of the most crowded areas with that many people in it in the world. Very, which makes the upcoming urban warfare is going to be horrific.

Wow, things will spiral down there. I guess you can pretty much set your clock by that. We only have two minutes left in this half, and we're going to switch gears in the second half a little bit. But this has just been very enlightening. A couple quick things. Israel forms emergency government for war against Hamas. Also, I reported the other day about how only 2% of Israelis are allowed to own a gun. Well, that has changed. As far as what I have heard anyway, Israel's National Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gavir, just dropped gun control.

These conditions include citizens who meet the test for carrying a private firearm due to self-defense and serving security forces without a criminal or medical record will be required to undergo a phone interview instead of in person, and they can receive a permit to carry a firearm within a week. Most Israeli citizens have not had the opportunity to be armed, and that just...

Yeah, that's really unfortunate. Go ahead. We have a minute. Yeah. I guarantee, I promise you, every Israeli has a weapon. Okay. Okay. So gun laws notwithstanding. Notwithstanding. All right. Well, that does make perfect sense.

So, yeah, we're looking at some very, very, very interesting things going on over there. Again, the emergency government for war against Hamas. And I don't have those names in front of me, but I think we're not going to get to that in this particular half. But my name is Mary Danielson. You're listening to Stand Up For The Truth. We're talking today to Jim Fletcher. And he has his materials, his writing is on patreon.com, The God That Answers. I really encourage you to go and look at that.

So many great things. Jim has such a great insight into a lot of what is going on over there. And it's going to be a long stretch. I think we're going to be in for the long haul here. We don't know what it brings. We don't know who will become involved. But we really want to encourage believers to understand prophecy, to understand the Middle East.

Get a crash course, find out what's going on, and keep an eye on that. So in the second half, again, we'll be with Jim. We're going to talk about archaeology as an apologetic. A lot of people maybe don't think of it that way, but there's so much to learn about Israel just through that. So we're going to take a two-minute break here, and we will be right back with Jim Fletcher. Stay with me. And remember, you can use the search box at StandUpForTheTruth.com at the very top of the page, the search box. Type in Israel for more podcasts on that topic. ♪

Hi, this is Scott Shera, Grace's dad. I am going to be guest hosting Stand Up For The Truth on Monday, October 16th. Dr. Brian Artis is my guest. Dr. Artis is going to take questions. Email your questions ahead of time to comments at standupforthetruth.com. Monday, October 16th at 9 a.m. Comments at standupforthetruth.com.

Our social media pages are shadowbanned. Thanks for your prayers and sharing our posts at StandUpForTheTruth.com. Welcome back to Stand Up For The Truth for this Thursday. My name is Mary Danielson. I'm talking to Jim Fletcher, and you can find his posts at Patreon.com, The God That Answers. A lot of great insights there. In the first half, we did talk about...

Things that were foremost on our minds, on Jim's mind. And if you missed the first half, catch the podcast. Because we're going to switch gears here. We're going to talk about biblical archaeology. And there are a lot of reasons why a believer can learn volumes from that. Once in a while, I'll think about...

what profession I would have gone into if I'd been a believer, say, when I was 18 years old. And I keep coming back to digging in Israel for a living and finding pieces of pottery, pieces of mosaic or an inscription that would help us better understand a culture or even reconstruct a culture. Because if you've been to Israel any number of times, each time you go, there's more to see. And it's amazing what they find as time goes on. I haven't been there since 06. And I

I know I'm missing an awful lot. But like I said earlier, archaeology is an arm of apologetics. It can be an enormous help when people say that the Bible is just a collection of myths and fables and has no connection whatsoever to eternal truth. So archaeology speaks to us. Archaeology testifies.

And we really should care about that because I think anywhere you point a shovel downward in the land, you're going to find something that speaks to us. It speaks to the inerrancy of Scripture. It speaks to a history that can be verified about a God who has already spoken and is active in the affairs of men to this day. And Jim, I'd kind of like to start with the city of David. And for a little bit of background, the city of David began its existence in the days of Abraham.

as a fortified Canaanite city around the Gihon Spring of ancient Jerusalem. About 3,000 years ago, David went up to Jerusalem in order to unite Israel around one capital city. And after the conquest of Jerusalem by the Jebusites, David made it the capital of a prosperous and powerful kingdom. This was the birthplace of Jerusalem. And the very spot Jerusalem was founded can be known today as

due to incredible findings over the years. Jim, you've been to the City of David. You've been to Israel ten times. What are your impressions at this point of that incredible revelation of what that was and where it was? Yeah, I was there in May, and the first time I had been to the City of David,

was in 2012. And so they've, of course, uncovered much more now. And to help you understand the location, they believe that they have found David's palace, King David. And it is, throwing the proverbial rock, you could hit the old city walls from the site. It's literally right across the street.

And it's on the southern end, and it's also high up on a point. And this is just an aside. But when you're up there at the summit of this thing, you can well imagine, you can look down and

And it goes into a valley, and then across the valley is an Arab village of Silwan. And in your mind's eye, you can absolutely see how David could have looked and seen Bathsheba, because the citizens' dwellings would have been below him on the slope. And so it all fits, and to see that is really interesting.

But they're constantly uncovering new things, and it's now a full-fledged archaeological park. I mean, you walk in the entrance, you pay your fee, there's a gift shop, there's a snack bar. But then you go into the site itself, and you see how massive it was. And it took the whole – I mean, it's just a huge area –

And then it goes down the hill, and you will eventually end up, at the end of the tour, you end up really in Sill 1. But the Spring of Gihon is down there. I think they've now uncovered all of it. And it's, you know, I have to say, before I had been there, and like everyone else, you have no real understanding of the geography there.

and where these things are. But to give you a perspective, if you were in Jerusalem's old city and you were looking down, it's down a long, long hill, and you can see how this would have been a perfect vantage point for them to see everything for miles. It opens up into valleys. David would have been able to see for miles. They could see who was approaching Jerusalem. Mm-hmm.

And so it's a pretty amazing sight that they're still uncovering. Yeah, absolutely. And I know there needs to be three things in a settlement or in a city. You have to have a water supply, a means of industry or trade, and then it needs to be a place of natural protection to defend against invaders. And when I look at the City of David today, as you see it in the Kidron Valley, it doesn't seem...

Very steep. But there originally were very steep slopes is my understanding. But there are layers. Tell us about layers in Israel, Jim, because you talk about a tell, which just is like tell of the tell has many, many layers of conquest because that particular area would have had water. It would have been defensible. They could put up more walls. And so they built up and up and up.

Do we happen to know how many times Jerusalem has been partially or wholly destroyed and rebuilt and all that? And is that the reason why it seems like it's not very as steep as I would have expected? Yeah, you know, probably a half a dozen times at least over the centuries it's been destroyed and rebuilt. And as you said, in ancient cultures, they would simply begin building on top of

who was there previously. And so you mentioned those tells. Starting in about the 19th century, they started, that's when modern archaeology in the region really took off. And what happened was, it was usually a military occupation. Say the British were there. And so, you know, you would go out for a stroll out in the desert, and you come upon this hill

And it just looked like a natural hill. But what they did was they started finding pottery shards sticking out and different things. And so they excavated and they discovered there's whole towns and cities under these tells. And so Jerusalem has been conquered and rebuilt several times. And as to the...

the fortress-like layout, it very much is that. And to give you a little bit of perspective, when I was there, once you make your way through the entire park and you come out at the bottom, you're coming, you know, you literally stand on a street, you

there are a lot of people who wouldn't, this wouldn't have been a problem for them. But I was, I was looking up back at the old city where I wanted to go back to. And that was going to be such a daunting, steep walk that I got a taxi. I mean, it's, it's, you know, it's hundreds of yards back up the hill, very steep hill to the old city. So it was, it was a,

The location was a perfect spot for a king to control who comes and goes in the city. And by the way, the city of David, if you're standing there, just to the east is the Mount of Olives and the Kidron Valley. And so that's kind of the layout of it. But the palace itself would have...

They would have been able to look west for a very long time. So, you know, for example, if Celestines or whoever wanted to send an invading army, they would see them coming a long ways away. Hmm.

And several things have been found there that are so interesting. A city wall of Jerusalem that the Babylonians would have encountered back in 565 B.C. There are carved canals from 2,800 years ago, and they admit they still don't really know what those are. There's a new excavation along the Pilgrim Road, which was the main thoroughfare of Jerusalem during the Second Temple period.

Remnants of buildings that had collapsed during the destruction were uncovered alongside the road. Charred wood beams for when the Romans sacked Jerusalem. Fragments of stone vessels, coins, handles, grinding bowls, burnt stones. Talk about archaeology speaking to us. They speak to us about the final days before the siege of Jerusalem 2,000 years ago and

And if people are interested, they can go to cityofdavid.org.il, and there's just a tremendous website about that there. And also I want to note that Charles Warren, he was sent out by Queen Victoria.

He was the first to discover the water source in the 19th century, back in the 19th century, of original Jerusalem, and it goes way down. But that would have been where, so now you can see just how far up Jerusalem is now from where it originally was. And so that's absolutely fascinating, too. I want to talk a little bit about Acre, because this is right nearby. Is that right? What is Acre, A-C-R-A? What is that, Jim?

Yeah, Acra is the fortress that was built by Antiochus Epiphanes in the 2nd century BC, the Greek ruler who was brutal. He's the one who went into the temple and sacrificed, I think, a pig. And so Acra is the fortress that he built. Now, the interesting thing is,

everything's close together in Israel. It's a small country. But if you were standing at the entrance of the city of David and you turned around and look, there's a very narrow street, just one car traffic. Akra is on the other side of this temporary wall that they put up. I mean, it's just right there. So he built this thing right next to or as an extension of

David's palace and also the vantage point, you know, it's the same location. So he did it there specifically so he could see the Jewish army coming, which was, of course, the Maccabees. And the Maccabees were, for people who don't know, they were a Jewish family that lived at Modien,

which is today between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. They were warriors in the likeness of Joshua. Judah Maccabee led his brothers, and they formed an army, and they actually defeated the invaders. They defeated Antiochus. But Acre itself...

And this is, I think, the most fascinating part of this. Like other archaeological sites that critics of the Bible, including scholars, had claimed never existed, such as the Hittites, and then, oh, by the way, in the 19th century they find the Hittite Empire that confirms the Bible. The same thing with Acre. Acre was kind of a legendary, almost mythological site.

In antiquity, it had been written about, but nobody had ever found it. And so every time in Israel they haven't found something, you know, it's almost like the argument from silence in the Bible is it's not talked about and it didn't exist. Same thing with archaeology. The critics in Israel's enemies try to say, well, you know, there's not evidence of David or there's not evidence of this or that. Well, there certainly is. And so...

I was in Israel in 2017, and I was just taking a walk around the old city with a friend of mine one day, and he's pointing out different things, and he said, look over there. And he pointed, and I saw these ruins that these archaeologists were working in. It had this big metal temporary fence around it. Now, that's Acre. And he told me what it was, and I was just blown away. And he said, that was a parking lot.

Of course. It was a modern parking lot, but then, as they always do in Israel, just like the pottery shards sticking out of the tell, they find something, they take up the pavement, and they dig down, and there's Acre. And so it confirmed...

ancient sources that said Antiochus built that fortress there. So that is a fascinating site, and it's ongoing dig. But there's another example that biblical history is true. Now, a slight technical point here. That is the period that there is no Bible record in our Bibles. However...

Daniel certainly wrote about this period. And so a lot of the prophecies have to do with

the time of the Greeks in the Maccabees and things like that. But Acre is a really interesting spot. Very. And Antiochus is, of course, the villain of the Hanukkah holiday. He sought to ban the religious rites, so it's directly related to Hanukkah. And one article said that this is a solution to one of the great archaeological riddles in the history of Jerusalem. So,

It would seem that they have been looking for something like this for a long time. And it's also my understanding that no find anywhere in Israel ever has contradicted the scriptures. And so what's fascinating about this particular segment of the podcast today and what we talked about before is that

Who owns the land again? Remind me, right? I mean, it's impossible to entertain any Palestinian Arab claims when all you have to do is walk across the border to Israel and put a fork in the ground, and you will see that there's more proof than you could possibly dream of in your wildest dreams that the Jews are the ones with the history, and it's more easy to verify with each passing year. Yes, it reminds me of a Joni Mitchell song, They Paved Paradise.

and put up a parking lot. I can't help but think about that one. So, Acra, yes, absolutely fascinating. Modine, what about, you have another article here about Sodom and Gomorrah, and this is fascinating. You say, archaeology comes through again.

and there's no question, it seems like, with historians of the time frame of Sodom and Gomorrah and the fact that Sodom and Gomorrah existed, and now they're finding something that has to do with destruction due to extreme heat. How interesting, because we know that God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, and they are finding, they're reevaluating, actually, the biblical narrative on that, and they had signs of extreme heat happening

on skeletons that they found in the area. And they're suggesting a possible impact from an asteroid. Jim, what more can you tell us about the Sodom and Gomorrah finding? Yeah, you know, there's been a hunt on for the site for quite a few years, several decades. And to give you perspective of what location we're talking about, if you look at a map,

the country immediately to the east of Israel is Jordan. And you have the Jordan River, of course, which empties into the Dead Sea, dividing them. And so Sodom and Gomorrah was somewhere on the southern tip of the Dead Sea,

whether it was in modern Jordanian territory or whether part of it was in Israel is disputable, but it was right there straddling that line. Now, they have found every once in a while you'll see some report where they think they found some evidence, but this one that you cited is the most evidence they've found of all these charred remains. But as you said,

the destruction was from a heat so intense that it's not the norm. And so, you know, I found it interesting that they cited an asteroid because...

I have to tell you, a lot of times I don't have a lot of patience with the view that you can explain a biblical miracle by natural processes. You know, like the plagues in Egypt, it wasn't really blood in the Nile, it was iron oxide or whatever. But in this case, you know, the biblical record is that

This came from the heavens. This came from above. God sent, you know, quote, hailstones down. So an asteroid, why not? I mean, if it fits, and if it more importantly fits the biblical narrative, then, you know, maybe that's what it was. Because again, this was a, this was, quote, an attack on,

much more intensity than even like a conquering army could have been capable in those days. You know, like launching these planes

weapons they had that could launch fiery stones and things like that. This was far more intense. And so this article, I think, is describing the biblical narrative. And so that kind of a dig will go on for years, but they'll eventually, no doubt, find a city there. But again, this is on the southern tip of the Dead Sea.

And it says here in your article, among these discoveries were pottery shards coated with trinitite, a glassy substance formed when an atomic bomb detonates in a desert. So, you know. Yeah. And remember, in the biblical account, Abraham described it as smoke from a furnace.

rising from the plains. This was a very widespread destruction and it must have been an absolutely awesome sight to see. You know, there was no doubt just smoke rising hundreds of feet into the air for a long, long distance. Wow.

Wow, absolutely fascinating. I think, because we only have about five minutes left, I would love to talk about the Temple Mount. I know that the Islamic Authority has been digging around up there for, I don't know, maybe 20 years even and throwing things away, and that always made me scratch my head a little bit. But what can you tell me about what they're finding up on the Temple Mount? And is Israel digging up there, or is it still just the Islamic Authority?

Yeah, it's still the Islamic Authority, and I would make a distinction that they're not doing an archaeological dig. Okay. They hollowed out the Temple Mount underneath to build us two mosques in the last 20 years, or 25 years. Okay. Which sounds insane, and it was because they damaged the structural integrity of the Temple Mount itself, and if it hadn't been for...

Jordanian and Israeli archaeologists repairing the walls, the retaining walls. The whole thing would literally have slid into the Kidron Valley. I'm not kidding you. And there would have gone the Dome of the Rock, the Al-Aqsa Mosque. It would all have gone away because they dug so much dirt out underneath that was stabilizing it.

that they imperiled their, quote, holy shrines. And so what happens is the Israelis have given the Palestinians really pretty much control of the Temple Mount.

And so they brought in bulldozers and they would then haul all this dirt out and dump it in the valley. Well, Israeli archaeologists were sitting there waiting for it and they would sift through these ruins. So very obviously, they found evidences for the first and second temple periods. But there's still plenty of debris and material left on the Temple Mount itself.

You can walk around and in several places, usually at the base of olive trees or whatever there is, there are these gorgeous marble columns and the cap pieces. There's a group of these cap pieces stacked next to the aloxone. Those are all temple period things. And it's just literally lying around. And it has been for years. I've seen it for years.

at least the last 10 years. Every time I go up there, stuff hasn't been moved, it's in the spot, but those are remains of Jewish structures. Yes. But the Palestinians want to try to get rid of any of that, or marginalize it however they can, because, and I want to make this point, there's not a single physical piece of evidence

linking them to an ancient Palestinian civilization. And I can prove this to you. Go look. The first time Palestinians in the context of Arabs are mentioned is after the Six-Day War.

Go look at the New York Times articles, starting at about '68, '69, you start seeing the "Palestinians" discussed as a political Arab entity. Before that, they were all just Arabs. They were Arabs, part of the Pan-Arab nation throughout the Middle East. The Palestinians were created as a political weapon against the Jews, against Israel.

From the north to the south, east, west in Israel, there's literally mountains of evidence of Jewish culture stretching back 4,000 years. There's nothing about a Palestinian culture. Now, Arafat always, he knew that. And so his next line was that he claimed that the Palestinians today are the direct descendants of the Canaanites.

Hmm. Which is absurd. It sure is. So anyway, confirmation, a glow of Jewish ancient culture. Yeah. Wow. And I understand that Palestinians are calling this particular war the Al-Aqsa force. You know what's on their mind? Even though we know a temple will be rebuilt up there, Israel will have some control. I don't know how that's going to happen.

But I know that's something that believers are watching. You have the Temple Mount Institute and all manner of things are just moving along swimmingly on all those things. Jim, we are out of time, and I'm so grateful you had some time for us today. Thank you. Jim Fletcher, patreon.com, and go to The God That Answers, or you can look up Jim Fletcher, too.

Wow, lots to talk about, lots to think about, lots to do homework on. And people say, I wish I'd lived in Bible times. You are living in Bible times because we're going to go home and watch what's happening to the Jews today over the divide of thousands of years because God keeps his promises. Tomorrow, Carl Kirby, Reasons for Hope, will be live in the studio. We're looking forward to that.

Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor in the Lord is not in vain. 1 Corinthians 15, 58. You can take that with you today, no matter what's going on in your life. Have a great day on purpose.