An ancient Biblical location that once housed the Ark of the Covenant is being unearthed for the first time in 3,000 years, revealing more than 100,000 bones of sacrificial animals.The archeological project in Shiloh, Israel was the subject of a recent Christian Broadcasting Network News episode of Jerusalem Dateline. Dr. Scott Stripling is in charge of the excavation taking place 33 km north of Jerusalem.“There’s a sense of awe, I just have to tell you,” said Stripling.“We’re dealing with real people, real places, real events. This is not mythology. The coins that we excavated today–we're talking about coins of Herod the Great, Pontius Pilate, Festus, Felix, Agrippa the First, Agrippa the Second, the Bible talks about these people.”Although these coins were from the Roman era of the First Century A.D., Shiloh had a greater significance in the late Bronze Age. According to the Biblical records, the city was Israel’s first capital from and worship centre for 369 years starting in the time of Joshua, the successor to Moses, and ending about 1050 B.C. The city hosted the Tabernacle, which hosted the Ark of the Covenant, a chest containing the Ten Commandments made famous in more recent times by the movie Indiana Jones.Stripling said he once wrote an academic paper suggesting the Tabernacle was at a place nearby, but was “as surprised as anyone” to be proven wrong. The stone structure he has uncovered has the same dimensions as the Biblical Tabernacle.“The Bible talks about the door of the Tabernacle; there's the door post, still in situ. And when you leave this building and go to the east, you come to the bone deposit...with the remains of the sacrificial system — 100,000 bones,” he said.“Bone on top of bone on top of bone. We have microstratigraphy in this area. So we can see that the deposition is laid down over a long period of time, just like the Bible says.”The bones are of sheep, goat, and cattle, as commanded to ancient Israel in the Bible. Leviticus 17:11 states, “Without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sin.” In Christian interpretation, the sacrificial system of ancient Israel typified and foretold the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross to forgive the sins of all who believe.“Just this morning, we're seeing disproportionate jaw bones from the right side as opposed to the left,” Stripling said.“The priests are the ones who live here. And Leviticus 7 tells us that the right side of the animal is the priests’ portion. So, I can't make this stuff up.”The Ark of the Covenant left Shiloh when the Israelites took it into battle against the Philistines. The Israelites lost, and the Ark fell into foreign hands, causing sickness in the foreign cities where it was hosted. The Philistines returned the Ark to Israel, but it would never be housed in Shiloh again.The excavation team includes people from 13 countries and 16 universities. According to Stirling they unearth 2,000 pieces of pottery per day, their distinctive styles revealing what era they are from. He showed a handle of a first century stone jar discovered at Tel Shiloh, just like the ones found on in jars that held the water Jesus turned into wine.“You can read the Bible, you can walk the Bible, but the ultimate is to dig the Bible…As we dig into the soil, we connect with God and with each other, I think, in a very important way,” Stripling said.“This idea that the Bible is not a reliable historical source is a fantasy…Time and time again, we find a correlation between what we have in the text and what we find in the material culture.”Abigail Leavitt, assistant director of the excavation and one of the students helping with the project, said the experience has adds context and evidence to the Biblical record.“It's tiring and exhausting, but it's really rewarding. It's exciting to find ancient things, things that have been laying in the dirt, just waiting for us for thousands of years,” she said.“I read the Bible totally differently than I did before I came here... When we dig here, we find that everything matches; you read it in the Bible, you dig in the dirt, and there it is.”
