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The Ancientzen
A man shoves a trader against a wall in an imagined city lane, date unstated

Filled With Violence: What Genesis 6:11 Says About the Flood

Genesis 6:11 gives the cause of the flood in a single word. The King James Version says the earth “was corrupt before God” and “was filled with violence”, and God repeats the word to Noah in verse 13. The Hebrew is chamas. The verse does not define it, and Genesis supplies no example under it. ...

Floodwater covers an imagined sandstone city, with one small hull on the horizon, date unstated

Everything That Breathed Died: What Genesis 7:21-23 Says

Genesis 7:21-23 records the death of nearly every living thing on dry land in three verses. The King James Version says that “all flesh died that moved upon the earth” and that “Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark”. The passage gives no count of the dead, no scene ...

A white-bearded man watches a crowded lane inside an imagined walled city, date unstated

Why God Grieved Before the Flood: What Genesis 6:5-6 Says

Genesis 6:5-6 gives the reason for the flood in two verses. The King James Version says that “God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth”, that every thought of the heart “was only evil continually”, and then that “it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth”. The ...

Judean families settle beside an irrigation canal under date palms, about 580 BCE

Jewish Exiles in Babylon After 587 BCE: Legend and Evidence

When Jerusalem fell, Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon carried part of Judah’s people to Babylonia. In Louis Ginzberg’s Legends of the Jews he makes the captives march naked while he and his princes celebrate on their vessels, and he has the handsomest youths massacred after Babylonian women are seized with passion for them. The Bible does not ...

A bound king kneels before a seated Babylonian ruler in a camp pavilion, 587 BCE

Zedekiah Blinded at Riblah: What the Bible Records

Zedekiah, the last king of Judah, was overtaken on the plains of Jericho, brought to Nebuchadnezzar at Riblah and made to watch his sons killed, and then he was blinded, bound with bronze fetters and carried to Babylon (2 Kings 25:4-7). The text does not say that he fled through an underground passage, it places ...

Babylonian soldiers raise a siege ramp against Jerusalem’s wall, 589 to 587 BCE

The Siege of Jerusalem, 589 to 587 BCE: What the Texts Say

The siege of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon began in the ninth year of King Zedekiah, and by the eleventh the city had no bread and its walls were broken. Scholars place the fall in 587 or 586 BCE. The Bible dates the breach to the ninth day of the fourth month and the burning ...

Three monks bar a forest path to a traveller beside his canoe, present day

Why the Monks of Tana Kirkos Will Not Say Where the Ark Is

The monks of Tana Kirkos, on an island in Lake Tana in northern Ethiopia, would not say where the Ark of the Covenant is, according to a photojournalist who says he asked them directly. The reason he was given is that invaders had tried to steal it. The account names no thieves and gives no ...

Uzzah lies beside the halted ox cart as David watches, around 1000 BCE

Why Did Uzzah Die Touching the Ark? What 2 Samuel 6 Says

Uzzah died on the spot after he took hold of the Ark of the Covenant. According to 2 Samuel 6, King David was bringing the Ark to Jerusalem on a new cart when the oxen shook it, and Uzzah put out a hand to it. The anger of the LORD was kindled against him, and ...

A traveller stops before an embroidered curtain as a priest raises a hand, present day

Does Looking at the Ark Mean Fire? Ethiopia’s Deadly Rule

A photojournalist who travelled in northern Ethiopia says believers there told him the power of the Ark of the Covenant can burn a person alive. He says he was told that anyone other than the guardian priest who looked at one of the sacred tablets would be consumed by fire at once, which is why ...

Egyptian war chariot sunk to its axle in wet mud as water rises, age of the Exodus, undated.

Egyptian Chariots Met Disaster on Unstable Seabed

Shallow water can still kill an army. The biblical script makes a direct, terrifying point about the physics of ancient warfare: while modern readers often picture the Israelites crossing a deep, oceanic abyss, the theory of a shallow lagoon or coastal lake does not require a mere puddle. Horses and heavy war chariots driven at ...

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