Scientists have discovered the earliest known Hebrew writing–an inscription dating from the 10th century B.C., during the period of King David’s reign. The breakthrough could mean that portions of the Bible were written centuries earlier than previously thought…. Until now, many scholars have held that the Hebrew Bible originated in the 6th century B.C., because Hebrew writing was thought to stretch back no further. But the newly deciphered Hebrew text is about four centuries older, scientists announced this month. ‘It indicates that the Kingdom of Israel already existed in the 10th century BCE and that at least some of the biblical texts were written hundreds of years before the dates presented in current research,’ said Gershon Galil, a professor of Biblical Studies at the University of Haifa in Israel, who deciphered the ancient text. BCE stands for ‘before common era,’ and is equivalent to B.C., or before Christ. The writing was discovered more than a year ago on a pottery shard dug up during excavations at Khirbet Qeiyafa, near Israel’s Elah valley. The excavations were carried out by archaeologist Yosef Garfinkel of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.” Liberal Bible scholars have been proven wrong time and again. For example, they once denied the existence of the city of Ur, but that was before the ancient city with its magnificent library was excavated!

(Friday Church News Notes, Feb 26, 2010, www.wayoflife.org)