Can you believe the Bible? And does it really matter? How can you be sure that the Bible is all it's cracked up to be? Join David Curry, a pastor, author, and worldwide traveler, as he shares his knowledge of many biblical places throughout the Middle East. He will take you on a journey through numerous archaeological finds that prove the validity of the biblical narrative, showing that you can believe what many have rejected. Welcome to the biblical wonders in the Middle East.
Here is your host, Pastor David Curry. Welcome to our presentation. Today when we are taking you to the Biblical Wonders of the Middle East, we're going to talk today about the very old country of Egypt.
It's rather interesting how this country comes into the Bible a number of times. On my first visit to Egypt, we flew in from Iraq with Iraqi Airways. It was a very comfortable trip, though we were traveling at nighttime.
We had booked into the Everest Hotel in Cairo, and we found ourselves on the 17th floor. For the rest of the night. We could hear cars with their horns blaring out in the streets below.
The Egyptians appear to have the idea that since you have paid for the horn, it should be used, and those horns kept us awake most of the night. One of the first places we visited in Cairo was the Archaeological Museum. This is a very large museum, and it encapsulates much of old Egypt.
In the grounds outside of this place is a pool containing papyrus plants. Do you know that this plant was plentiful in old Egypt? Today you can see them right there in front of the museum, but in no other place. Many of the ancient records of Egypt were written on papyrus, and many of these can be seen inside the museum.
Papyrus grew very well along the banks of the streams that flowed into the Nile River, especially up near Luxa. We'll talk about that more when we come to Luxa and show that even the scriptures predict the future of the papyrus reeds of Egypt. Amazing.
Inside the big doors of the museum is, first of all, a shop selling all kinds of books about Egypt and replicas of artifacts found inside the museum. You can also purchase some replicas of the old papyrus that we've mentioned. These today have pictures on them, as well as the hieroglyphic writings.
Just past the shop is a huge statue of Rameses II. He was the greatest builder among the pharaohs of Egypt. At another time, I was visiting with a group, and we came to the museum and we were stopped outside because Princess Diana was visiting at the same time.
Of necessity, because she was royal, we had to wait outside until her visit was finished. Happily, we were able to get a few pictures of her coming out of the museum. I then rushed into the rooms of Toot and Carmen's treasures.
I wanted to get some pictures of the bust and head of Tudankarman through the glass cases without getting reflections of other tourists, which were always a problem in times before. And they crowded this area because they too want to see Tudankarman. Well, I had about 2 minutes to myself, enough time to get some fine pictures.
One of the nicest artifacts in the Tudankamen's rooms is his throne. On the portion of the chair where the king's back would rest against is a lovely picture of his young wife Ancesman. She is putting some perfume on his collar.
Over the years it doesn't seem to have faded. The throne is not large, but I suppose it's like a big armchair made of wood and covered with gold. The largest items in the Tutankhaman's rooms are three funerary boxes, each a little smaller than the other.
These also are covered in gold. Inside the third box was the death mask of Tudankarmen, now displayed in one of the glass cases that I mentioned a little earlier. There's a great large gilded wooden box which contained another chest made of alabaster and which in turn contained four alabaster jars having their tops fashioned after the death mask of Tudankarman which we mentioned a moment ago.
Inside of each vase were kept some of the viscule remains of the king, such as the heart, the lungs, the intestines and all the internal organs. These were preserved as the ancient Egyptians were known to do, so that they could preserve the kings as mummies. There's a separate room for some of the mummified kings and one of the outstanding mummies and also very well preserved is that of Romses II.
I mentioned him a little earlier. He's often regarded as the greatest, the most celebrated and most powerful pharaoh of the new kingdom. He also is known as the one who built many great temples and other buildings in Egypt.
One of those temples, very much to the south of Egypt is at Abu Symbol. This temple is well known for it was built in the valley of the Nile when the Aswan Dam number two was being built. In order to save this temple from being under the water of the new lake to be formed, the temple was raised about 300 meters to higher ground.
This can be visited a day about an hour's flight to the south of Aswan. My first visit to Abbeysimbal was by Launch which we boarded at Aswan. Before we boarded you could see the captain putting out his mat on the wharf and bowing and praying towards Mecca.
Well, you know that Launch travelled very fast but it still took us 5 hours. Travelling along Lake Nassar to get to Abu Simul. We could see the raised temple long before we arrived at the wharf, which in fact was very close to the temple.
Outside the temple are four statues of Romses. Nearby is a temple made to his wife Nefertari. Both of these temples are raised about 300 meters and constructed with steel bracings so that they don't move.
It's a very wonderful feat of engineering, how they just cut all this with very fine saws and then put them together. The first temple of Romses II has two rooms, and they say the first is the holy place and the second the most holy. Now, Ramesses lived after the time of the children of Israel, after they had left Egypt and gone back to Palestine.
And I've wondered whether the shape of this sanctuary and the size of it was very similar to the sanctuary that Israel built before Ramses came on the scene. Maybe he was impressed by the way that Israel's God had blessed them, and so he wanted a sanctuary very similar to the sanctuary that they had built. Well, we flew back north.
We landed at the airport at Luxa. But before we landed, the pilot flew over the city and gave the passengers out of both sides of the airplane some very good views of the Karnak Temple and the area around the city. I was pleased to also photograph some of the dry tributaries that once flowed into the Nile and produced great quantities of papyrus plants.
We get our word paper from these ancient plants. The stalks of the plant were cut to the right size, were hammered out, and then rolled and formed into sheets of Paparis. Some of these were quite large, some were just small, like our a four size paper.
When dried, the sheets were covered with hieroglyphic writings. This writing was quite different from what we use today, and very different from the cuneiform that we mentioned in our last presentations. Hieroglyphic is often called picture writing.
Even the walls of the tombs of the kings and nobles are covered in hieroglyphics, or picture writing. Why did God prophesy against the papyrus plant and also against the rivers that flowed into the Nile? Let me share with you the prediction. We find it in Isaiah 19 six and seven.
The rivers will turn foul. The brooks of defense will be emptied and dried up. The reeds and rushes will wither the papyrus reeds by the mouth of the river.
And everything sown by the river will wither be driven away and be no more. Now, did you notice those words? The rivers will be dried up and the reeds will wither and be no more. Why did God have Isaiah write this prediction? Normally, predictions are made against nations or individual people.
Why then against the papyrus reads? This is quite unusual, but an outstanding prediction. As I mentioned, I photographed some of those dried rivers that carried an abundance of water, which in turn fed the papyrus reeds. Indeed, they're not carrying water to the Nile anymore, and there are no more papyrus reeds growing there.
Why should this have happened? The answer may be found in the basement of the Egyptian Museum that we mentioned earlier. Very few people are allowed into this basement. But the late Dr.
Siegfried Horn, under whom I studied archaeology, he has been there. He reads hieroglyphics and in fact received his doctorate in the discipline of Egyptian hieroglyphics. He said that the basement of the museum is almost full of hieroglyphics that are totally pornographic.
Did you get that? The basement is full of pornographic hieroglyphics. Those on display in the museum are not pornographic, but the basement is full of those that are. Did God see that this was happening and did not wish for this evil to be perpetrated further than Egypt? Was God putting a stop to this sin and evil? We do not know for sure, but Dr.
Horn believed this to be so. Whatever the unusual prediction about the rivers drying up and the reeds withering away is remarkably fulfilled. As I mentioned earlier, we landed at the Luxor airport.
From the township. We traveled by ferry over the Nile River. There are no bridges at this area, so these ferries are very important.
On the west side of the river there are lush agricultural lands growing sugar, coconuts and maize. We took a bus that carried us to the Valley of the Kings. On the way we passed a temple built by Romses II.
As a part of this temple is a wall containing a large relief depicting a war between the Egyptians and the Hittites. Well, this is quite remarkable, for just over 100 years ago it was believed by many that the Hittites mentioned in the Bible over 60 times were a mythological and not a real nation. But then Karkemish in southern Turkey was found.
This is just near the border to Assyria. This was the first town of Hittites ever found. Do you know that now we have discovered in Turkey over 30 Hittite cities that have been dug up or found soon after Karkemis was found.
Then it was discovered that this Egyptian war against the Hittites mentioned on the mural was discovered. When Tudin Carmen died at the early age of 19 or 20 by Egyptian law. His wife Anakesimum was required by Egyptian law to be remarried within 90 days.
Can you imagine that after having the grief of losing a husband, she had to get a new one within 90 days? If she didn't find anybody, then a new husband would be found for her by the priests anchors. And Ammon did not want an arranged marriage by the priests and she rode hurriedly off to the king of the Hittites, at that time asking him for one of his several sons. When the request arrived at the Hittite palace, the king thought that this was some ruse against his empire.
He made extensive inquiries and eventually found that it was a genuine request. Alas, his research took too long and Aches and Amen was forced to marry the successor of her husband, an old and big fat priest called I. Poor Akhasanaman.
In our next presentation we'll talk about the Hittites when we come to the land of Turkey? Well, we visited the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings. In fact, I've been there a number of times, and each time they modernized the entrance and made available less of the tombs to visit. As mentioned earlier, the tomb walls were covered in the hieroglyphic language.
How did we learn to read this ancient type of writing? It began to happen when Napoleon brought a team of wouldbe archaeologists across the Mediterranean Sea to Egypt. In 1799. One of his officers was digging near Rosetta, a small town in the delta region of Egypt.
He found what is known as the Rosetta Stone, which now can be found in the British Museum. This stone has three languages written on it. There's Greek, which, of course, many people could read.
There's a portion of Egyptian demotic script and hieroglyphics. Today we are very grateful for the genius of Jung Chimpoleon, who worked long hours to translate it. While inscription is a decree by the Egyptian priest to commemorate the crowning of Ptolemy, Epiphanes V.
The most valuable part of the deciphering of this stone was the understanding that it gave to the world of hieroglyphic writings. And because of that hard work of Jean Chimpoleon, today many people can read this ancient writing. In the Valley of the Kings, there are three important tombs to visit.
One is of SETI. I this contains very fine drawings of the king talking to some of the gods of the day. By the way, he was the father of Romses II.
And in the ceiling of the tomb, it is covered with astrological figures that Egyptians believed they could discern in the heavens. The tomb of Ramesses VI has a ceiling covered with the course of the sun. Through the heavens, you can see the sun as red discs traveling through the heavens.
Alongside the course of the sun are 36 constellations that the Egyptians believed in the heavens. Well, we know today that there are just billions more. These tombs help us to understand that astrology, rather than astronomy, was important to the Egyptians.
Maybe our modern astrologers have followed Egyptian beliefs. Probably the most visited tomb is that of Tutankhamen. It was the Englishman Howard Carter who found his tomb in the mid 1920s.
He had seen the statue of Tudankarman in the Carnac complex and he believed he was buried in a tomb in the Valley of the Kings. Well, he looked and looked, and then finally one day, he dug inside a caretaker's hut and he found a step. And then he found 16 more steps that led and closed to the door of the tomb.
When he opened this door, inside there were all the treasures of Tudankarman. Some of them were wrapped up as though thieves had been there, ready to take them, but they were still there. This was the first tomb in the world and the only one that had been found with all the treasures of the king intact.
If a young king had all these treasures in his tomb, what could have been in the tomb of Romussies II and other great kings? The problem is that while their tombs have been found, the treasures have all been stolen long past centuries. After visiting these tombs in the Valley of the Kings, we climbed a fairly high peak of the hills surrounding the valley. From the top we got a magnificent view of the Nile, some of the agricultural areas below, and also right below us was the tomb of Queen Hat Shepset.
This was located in what is known today as the Valley of the Queens. We then climbed down alongside the temple and could then visit inside. Much of it has been rebuilt to the credit of modern archaeologists.
There's a wall inside having a very interesting relief of the Queen as a young princess. There she is drinking milk. She's drinking milk directly from the utter of a care.
It reminds me of what we did when we were young. Also, there are also a number of statues of the Queen. Well, who was Queen Hat shepherd.
You may recall the story of Moses as a baby being found by a princess. It's well believed and supported that Queen Hat Shepherd was the princess who took Moses into her palace. He was just twelve years old.
In the meantime, he was cared for by his mother and she could bring him up in the knowledge of the true God of heaven. At this time, most of the boy babies were killed because the Pharaoh felt very strongly that they may overtake the kingdom. You know, the name Moses is revered by Christians, Jews and Muslims alike.
In Hebrews 1124 to 26. In the New Testament of the Bible, it reads by faith. Moses, when he became of age, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasure of sin, esteeming the reproach of Christ, greater riches than the treasures of Egypt, for he looked to the reward.
Just think of that. The great riches of Egypt that we've just spoken of were less and important to Moses than being with the people of God and to suffer affliction. Hatsheps had co reigned with Tutmos II.
He was one of the longest rulers of Egypt. He ruled for about 54 years, but he also destroyed most of her mortuary temple and was probably the Pharaoh who died in the Red Sea when pursuing Israel after they had left the land of Egypt. So once again, archaeology and history are seen to be supporting the Bible story.
I want to take you down to Memphis. Memphis is an amazing city, not all that far from Cairo. I think we traveled about 1 hour to get there.
And it's rather interesting that Memphis had a great city where they worshipped many gods. In fact, archaeologists have found about 2500 gods that were in not only in Memphis, but in other parts. But notice what Ezekiel 30 and verse 13 says I will destroy the idols and put an end to the images in Memphis.
Just notice that. I'll destroy the idols and put an end to the images of Memphis. You know, when I tried to go to Memphis, the first taxi I got didn't know much about the place and took me to a little museum where there's a big statue of Ramesses II.
That's all that we could find. I had to go back three or four times on various visits before we found some of the ruins of old Memphis. But, you know, the prophecy not only says he'll destroy the idols and put an end to the images of Memphis, but it says a little later that there will be no longer a prince of the land of Egypt.
Just imagine that all these great kings, the Romsies, and there were at least six of those. There were the Tutmos, the Armanhotps, but there'd be no more prince of the land of Egypt. How could Ezekiel say this? You know, when King Alexander the Great conquered Egypt, he placed on the throne of Egypt a European.
The last of the kings of Egypt were from Albania, as some of you may remember the name. King faruk of Egypt. Well, he too was an Albanian.
The present rulers of Egypt are not kings or princes. While they're Egyptians, they are rulers, but not kings or princes like Ramses, like the other kings that we've just mentioned. Well, you know, one of the great places of Egypt is the Karnak temple.
Many of the kings have added to this temple. And when you go through the gates of the temple after paying for your ticket, you see on the left hand side a big statue of Aman RA. Aman RA was the sun god of Egypt.
He was the most important of the gods. Of all the 2500 gods, Amen RA was the greatest. Then just opposite Amanra, on the other side of the pathway, is a statue of Constantine the Great.
Constantine the great. What did he do here? Well, he also bought in an altar that he put between Amunra and himself. But you say, wasn't Constantine a Christian? Well, many historians have declared that Constantine had 1ft in Christianity and the other in sun worship.
After all, he was the first Caesar to make a law in 321 that all of the Roman Empire should worship on Sunday, the first day of the week. This wasn't the first time this happened because the Persians introduced Sunday to the Roman Empire when they brought Mithraism into Rome. And so Sunday was a day of worship for many years.
But as Christianity began to grow and brought in Sabbath worship, Constantine decided he had to make a change. And he brought in this law that all the empire should worship on Sunday. So further on in the complex you can see a big wall and there is what is known as a Shishach inscription.
This mentions the children of Israel when she Shack was the victor when he went into the land of Egypt. But you know, it's very interesting that there's only one other place in Egypt where Israel is mentioned and that's on the manepta steel manepta also was victorious. The ancient Egyptians would not show any defeats.
Even the children of Israel leaving Egypt is not mentioned because that would be a defeat against the gods. Well, today we have shared with you some interesting facts about Egypt and Bible prophecies. We encourage you to look at our website 3abnaustralia.org.au
Click on the listen button and you'll find this and many other interesting programs. Through our program today we can again take confidence in the reliability of scripture.
We look forward to having you in our next presentation of Biblical Wonders in the Middle East with Pastor David Curry. If you have any comments or questions, send an email to
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