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Lesson 42 Hope of Israel Ministries BIBLE Correspondence Course 19

evidence had been found. Then in 1961, Italian on his return to Rome. If true, it may have been
archaeologists excavating the theater at Caesa- because he had fallen into disfavor, although
rea found this stone inscription of Pontius Pilate. there is no reason why he should have. The
Coins have also been found dating from Pilate’s Christian author Eusebius, who tells the story,
rule as governor. thinks that the former governor felt remorse for
The inscription is in a block of limestone the execution of the Messiah (History of the
82 x 68 x 20 cm. Although the left-hand side of Church, 2.7.1). The Ethiopian church, however,
the words are missing, they can be reconstructed thinks that Pilate became a Christian and was
as follows: martyred. These Christians have canonized the
governor of Judaea, whose saint’s day is June
....]TIBERIEUM 25. The tradition of Pilate’s martyrdom was
[PON]TIUS PILATUS known in the West, where people thought that he
[PRAEF]ECTUSIUD...E died at Vienne in France, where his tomb was
incorrectly identified.
The inscription appears to be about a
temple that Pilate built at Caesarea in honor of Is YEHOVAH God Able to Preserve His
the Roman emperor (called a Tiberieum). Book?
We may never know what happened to
Pilate after his dismissal. There is an old tra- Critics today challenge the accuracy of
dition, however, that Pilate committed suicide copies of the Bible in their original Hebrew and
Greek languages. Can we be sure that the Bible
Limestone block discovered in 1961 with Pilate’s has not been corrupted? How can we know that it
tribute in Latin to Tiberius. The words [...]TIVS still is the REVELATION of YEHOVAH God
PILATV[...] can be clearly seen on the second to man? Has it been so changed and corrupted by
line.
myth since the original writing as to be highly
doubtful, if not altogether altered?
We must understand the answers to these
questions before we can really acknowledge the
Bible as the foundation of truth.
Here are the facts:
For years the critics claimed the Hebrew
Bible was of no authority. “A late and altered
form of earlier Hebrew writings,” they claimed!
Then came the year 1947.
In the summer of ‘47 a sheer coincidence
led to the discovery of the oldest manuscripts of
the Bible so far known. Among a collection of
literary works found in a cave in Wadi Qumran
on the north side of the Dead Sea, a 23-foot lea-
ther scroll was found to contain the complete
text of the book of Isaiah in Hebrew! Expert ex-
amination of the document revealed beyond
doubt that this Isaiah text dated from about 100
B.C.
This COPY of Isaiah, now about 2000
years old, is unique proof of the reliability of the

Archaeology and the Bible