Well, greetings everyone. I'm your host, Dr. James Dobson, and I'm so glad you joined us today for Family Talk. In the 19th chapter of the Gospel of Luke, Jesus provides a strong word picture about the stones and about how they sing God's praises. In fact, I have that quote with me. Jesus answered, "I tell you, if these become silent, the stones will cry out." And that was meant apparently as a metaphor, but maybe not, and this phrase is now becoming true. Many archeological discoveries, the rocks, if you will, throughout the Middle East have solidified this strong case for the accuracy of the Scripture and the reliability of it. Every word is God breathed, and today we're going to be talking primarily with a woman, but also with her husband, who has compiled a book of artifacts and excavated ruins that show us the validity and existence of ancient biblical characters.
It's fascinating to talk about the places throughout the modern day world and what's going on there today. Her name is Lisette Brody and she's an author and a journalist, and she did her work, actually her first published work was in the Christian archeologist magazine, the Bible and Spade, and also a newspaper here in Colorado Springs of all places, called the Briargate Edition. Lisette earned her bachelor's degree in foreign language from Syracuse University and a master's degree in biblical studies from Capital Bible Seminary. That was in 2013. Her husband David is here with us today. He's the chief political analyst for the Christian Broadcast Network, and they've been married for 30 years and they tell me that you were the primary researcher and facilitator for Lisette as she worked on this book.
David Brody: Definitely a hundred percent supporter, researcher as well, but Lisette was the one that really had a lot of the artifacts already, ones that she wanted to display or talk about, and so it was my job to kind of go find those money quotes as we call them. That's what we do in journalism.
Dr. James Dobson: Yeah.
David Brody: So I figured I could go find the money quotes to validate the artifact.
Dr. James Dobson: Well, Lisette, what a fascinating subject to get interested in. What drew you to an archeological perspective on Scripture?
Lisette Bassett-Brody: Well, it started back in 2000, when David and I went to Israel with our church, McLean Bible Church pastored by Lon Solomon, and he toured us around the country. And on a particular day he brought us to the Israel Museum, and while we were there, he showed us a lot of biblical artifacts that were on display. And I had already been a Christian for about 18 years and I had no idea that any such artifacts existed. So I thought, "I'm going to go to the bookstore and get a book on this." When I went, they didn't have one. I said, "That's okay. When I get back to the States, I'll get one there." When I got back, I got on the internet, I looked everywhere and there was nothing that showed these different artifacts in a simple way. So I said, "Okay, I'll write the book myself." And that's how it started.
Dr. James Dobson: Now you've written this book. It was released in 2018, called Etched in Stone, and Mike Huckabee wrote a comment for the cover. Let me read it. "A refreshing look at how God's word stands the test of time. Lisette Bassett-Brody has just provided every Bible believing Christian with a valuable witnessing tool that should be required reading for every church goer today." That's a pretty good recommendation, I would say.
Lisette Bassett-Brody: Yes.
Dr. James Dobson: All right, let's get into the heart of it.
Lisette Bassett-Brody: Okay.
Dr. James Dobson: There's a whole lot more that's known about archeological findings and digs and things that support the existence of characters within the Bible. Let's start with King David. He's one of the most interesting persons in the Bible for me. Of course, Abraham and Moses and the rest of them. But my wife Shirley and I went to Israel in 1993, the first time we'd ever gone, and Ray Vander Laan took us. I don't know if you know who he is, but he-
Lisette Bassett-Brody: Yeah, Vander Laan.
Dr. James Dobson: ... takes a lot of people to Israel.
Lisette Bassett-Brody: I originally wanted to go with him and we were on an eight-year waiting list. Yeah.
Dr. James Dobson: Well, I don't know how we got in, but we loved it and I learned so much. But at that time, they told us that there was no evidence that David ever existed. I don't know if that is true or if there has been. I know there have been recent findings that validate his place in history.
Lisette Bassett-Brody: Yeah.
Dr. James Dobson: Tell us about him.
Lisette Bassett-Brody: Well, basically a basalt stone slab was discovered in 1993.
Dr. James Dobson: And what did it say?
Lisette Bassett-Brody: And it was the Aramean king of Damascus. He was commemorating a victory over the house of David, and it was the first time that the name of David appeared anywhere outside of the Bible. So this was a big find because it validated someone that we know, King David, a pretty big name.
David Brody: And I think what's also interesting is that this was in U.S. News and World Report, so it wasn't in some sort of Christianity book that just Christians will be reading and, "Oh, of course the Christians would believe that." No, this was in U.S. News and World Report, obviously a secular magazine. And so there was an author, Jeffrey Sheller, who Lisette quotes quite often in the book, who was an author of a book and wrote for U.S. News and World Report. Not a Christian, but a guy that really developed and had a lot of his life story in all of this and made sure that this got into secular magazines.
Dr. James Dobson: How about King Herod? Is there any evidence of his having lived?
Lisette Bassett-Brody: Yes. In terms of King Herod, there was also a pottery shard that was found that came from a wine jug. It's dated to about 19 BC and it was found in a garbage heap that was at Herod's palatial refuge, atop of Masada. And the Latin inscription reads either "Herod, King of Judea" or "Herod, King of the Jews." So again, an unexpected find in a garbage heap. No one was looking for it, and it has his name on it.
Dr. James Dobson: The detractors to the Bible have been pointing to things that don't exist for many years, saying this is only referenced in a book that we don't have any validity for if you don't believe that it's God breathed. And yet these things are showing up. David, what else do you know of that you've found?
David Brody: Well, there's so many. I just thought the Hittite civilization was kind of neat. You can actually get a degree at the University of Pennsylvania in Hittite civilization, which I thought was interesting because this was a civilization that was lost for forever really until just the turn of the century. And I think that was a big, well, at least that was interesting to me.
Dr. James Dobson: That entire civilization was completely lost till the 20th century?
Lisette Bassett-Brody: 1906 is when they started to discover the text fragments.
Dr. James Dobson: And yet there are many references to it in Scripture.
Lisette Bassett-Brody: Yes, so the Hittites descended from Ham, and then Esau and King Solomon had many Hittite wives and Abraham purchased a cave in the Hittite territory where he, his son Isaac, his grandson Jacob and their wives are buried. These are the things that we know from Scripture. And so when this group was lost to time, this is where the naysayers will tell you, "You see, the Bible's wrong, there's no evidence." And then suddenly, 30,000-
Dr. James Dobson: There it is. There it is.
Lisette Bassett-Brody: ... fragments.
Dr. James Dobson: I saw a television program on Egypt and there's a lot known about the Hittites because they were at war with Egypt, so I don't know when all that came to light, but it's now an absolutely established that the Hittites were a powerful nation. And at one time I think controlled a good part of that, of the Middle East. What do we know about Jesus that might be linked directly from that time?
Lisette Bassett-Brody: They did find two things. One is affectionately called the Jesus boat. What happened was there was a two-year drought in Israel and the water levels had been lowered and it exposed part of the boat from out of the water. The people that found it, they were two brothers, Moshe and Yuval Lufan. They happened to be on the beach that day because they liked to go and look for artifacts that would wash up on the shore. They would often find coins and things. And when they saw it, they immediately contacted the Department of Antiquities, and the department started an emergency excavation. So through carbon-14 dating and the way the boat is constructed along with pottery that was found nearby, they've been able to determine that the boat was probably in use from 100 BC to 67 AD, which of course is when Jesus was around and that's why they call it the Jesus boat.
We've actually seen it in person and it's one of the best preserved boats because it's so old. I mean, somehow the water maybe whatever it was, it was preserved in the water, which is odd because wood and water don't necessarily go together.
Dr. James Dobson: Yeah, it usually rots.
Lisette Bassett-Brody: Exactly.
Dr. James Dobson: In your book you indicate there is one reference to Jesus family. Tell us about that. That, I think fascinated me as much as anything else in the book.
Lisette Bassett-Brody: Yeah. Well, we know that Mary and Joseph were Jesus' parents, of course Joseph being the stepdad. And James was one of his half-brothers, and James wrote the Book of James in the New Testament and he was also a leader in the Jerusalem church. And so what was discovered was a bone box, which had written on the side of it, "James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus."
And usually the only time you might put someone else's name on a bone box maybe besides your own would be if that person was well known in the community. So although many would question the authenticity, anything that has to do with the Bible, people question it. We have a renowned paleographer, Andre Lemaire, who authenticated the lettering on the box, and this lettering was used only a very short period of time from 10 AD to about 70 AD, so it would seem and has been authenticated that this bone box did belong to Jesus' brother.
Dr. James Dobson: Lisette and David, I told you that Shirley and I went to Israel in 1993, and in fact, June the 16th, 1993. But I had the opportunity to go again in June. I went with a committee of religious leaders, pastors that people would know, and it was an absolutely fascinating journey. But one of the things we saw there was the right near the Sea of Galilee, an archeological dig revealing Mary Magdalene's synagogue where she actually attended. I don't know how they know that, but there is a church there, the Church of Mary Magdalene, and it was very emotional because right in front of that synagogue, and of course it's only about two feet high because they've had to excavate it, was a pathway that Jesus undoubtedly walked on, on his way down to the Galilee. There were things like that. There was one other thing that stood out to me from the 1993 trip and that was the city of Megiddo. Have you ever been to Megiddo?
Lisette Bassett-Brody: Yeah, I don't think we were actually in Megiddo. No, but we did see it as we were driving by.
David Brody: Yeah.
Dr. James Dobson: There I have a photograph-
Lisette Bassett-Brody: Yeah, in the taxi.
Dr. James Dobson: ... there. I have a photograph of a round stone temple sacrifice area where children were burned and it's about four feet high and it's round, and the Baal was worshiped there by sacrificing children there. And what was most fascinating, I've never heard anybody mention this, over on both sides about 50 yards was a pile of rocks. And I went over there and I saw that mingled among them were little bones, little tiny bones, two or three inches high, and I brought a sack full of them home and took them to a pathologist here in Colorado Springs and I asked him to tell me if these were human. And he would not absolutely say that it was, but he said it very easily could have been. And these are baby bones.
Lisette Bassett-Brody: Right.
Dr. James Dobson: These are not more than two or three inches long. And there we stood in front of the ancient place where people worshiped Baal and probably other gods and killed babies right there.
Lisette Bassett-Brody: Right.
Dr. James Dobson: That was, I think one of the most fascinating and emotional things that we saw while we were in Israel. You were there 18 years ago?
Lisette Bassett-Brody: Yes.
Dr. James Dobson: Did you see things that moved you and touched you and drew you toward this study?
Lisette Bassett-Brody: Well, one of the things that stands out to me is there's a pathway right by Robinson's Arch and there was an archeological dig going on at the time, but because there was turmoil, I mean there's always turmoil over there, but in this particular time, the country, a lot of tours had canceled and decided not to go. Even our tour, which was supposed to have about 210 people on it, only 90 of us went. So we had a lot more freedom to move about and so we were allowed to go down onto this pathway where there was still a dig going on. These were original stones back in Jesus day and that would've been a path that Jesus would've taken during the night that he was on trial. And there were six trials, illegal.
Dr. James Dobson: And they have completed the excavation and we stood there and saw the place where Jesus was right near the Wailing Wall.
Lisette Bassett-Brody: Right.
Dr. James Dobson: And it was very emotional for all of us.
Lisette Bassett-Brody: Exactly, because being original, you have the idea that Jesus walked there for sure 100%, and maybe your foot is touching a spot that his foot touched, and I don't know, it's just very moving.
Dr. James Dobson: Well, I encourage all of our listeners to go to Israel if they can possibly-
Lisette Bassett-Brody: Absolutely.
Dr. James Dobson: ... afford to do so.
Lisette Bassett-Brody: Yep.
Dr. James Dobson: Because the spirit of that era and the spirit of Jesus Christ hangs heavy over that place.
Lisette Bassett-Brody: Yeah, it's still very palatable even today.
David Brody: There are so many stories that are emotionally jarring and wonderful and etched in stone so to speak, in people's memories. But I understand you had one as well when you flew over the Mount of Transfiguration. I'm curious about that.
Dr. James Dobson: That was a highlight for me. We were on helicopters. They gave us eight helicopters provided by the Israeli government and it was a fascinating experience. We flew over all of Jerusalem and Northern Israel and over the Galilee and then we came back and flew over the Mount of Transfiguration. That's where Jesus was transfigured. Obviously, it's just not far from Jerusalem and we flew right over it. It's a pointed, looks like it might have been a volcano at one point. But to think that we're looking down right on the place where Jesus went upward and three disciples were with him, I think everybody knows that story. Everywhere you look was something historic, something relevant to our Scripture. And I tell you, if you have reason to question the validity of Scripture, go to that place echoing the history and all that has taken place through the centuries. You just think of all the things that occurred right there on that place.
Lisette Bassett-Brody: Absolutely.
David Brody: That's wonderful.
Lisette Bassett-Brody: I mean, even if you are not a Christian. I had a roommate, she was Jewish and she went to Israel for a year and she lived on a kibbutz and she said, "I don't know, but I definitely feel something here. There's definitely something in this country that is special that is not found anywhere else." She couldn't really name it, but she felt it.
Dr. James Dobson: Lisette, let me end with this question because there's nothing more interesting in the way of artifacts than the Dead Sea Scrolls. Explain to everybody who doesn't know what they are and what the linkage is to what you found in your biblical search.
Lisette Bassett-Brody: What's so amazing about the Dead Sea Scrolls is that it's the oldest version of Scriptures that we have and they match so perfectly with what-
Dr. James Dobson: Isaiah, especially.
Lisette Bassett-Brody: ... we have today. Exactly, the book of Isaiah. Because what critics will say is, "The Bible is so old, it's got to be full of mistakes, misinterpretations, all kinds of problems." And then we find the Dead Sea Scrolls and find out, nope, there are no inconsistencies whatsoever and the Bible can be trusted. And not only the Dead Sea Scrolls, I do want to mention one very minor character-
David Brody: I was just about to say that.
Lisette Bassett-Brody: ... that most people probably don't even know exists or realize they may have read his name, and that's Gemariah. We really don't know anything about Gemariah except for that he was the son of a man named Shaphan. And Shaphan was the temple secretary, and therefore we can infer that he was from a noble family. During an excavation of a building that Nebuchadnezzar had destroyed in 586 BC, a bulla was found. So a bulla is a lump of clay that they used to use to seal documents with string, and often the person's name would appear on this bulla. And the bulla had, "Gemariah, son of Shaphan."
And what's so compelling about this is that something so small and insignificant, a person that has no other information besides who his father was, was corroborated with archeology. And if something so small and insignificant can be supported by Scripture and can be trusted, then the bigger truths of the Bible certainly can be trusted.
Dr. James Dobson: Well, I'm so glad you came to be with us and gave us an opportunity to learn about your book, Lisette. And are you writing anymore on this subject?
Lisette Bassett-Brody: Not at the moment, although the idea has come up a few times, but we'll see what happens in the future. We'll see if God calls me to write another one.
Dr. James Dobson: Let me tell you what Jay Sekulow had to say. He's Jewish also, isn't he?
Lisette Bassett-Brody: Yes.
Dr. James Dobson: "Lisette Brody hits the mark perfectly as she demonstrates how the validity of the Bible has been clearly etched in stone since the beginning of creation." That's a beautiful statement and that's what you were trying to say, isn't it?
Lisette Bassett-Brody: Exactly. I wanted to let people know that there's physical evidence that supports Scripture and for the Christian, this can strengthen their faith and for the non-Christian, it at least gives them something to think about.
Dr. James Dobson: Yeah. Well, I hope that our listeners will get a copy of this and give it to their friends. Maybe their Jewish friends.
Lisette Bassett-Brody: Exactly.
Dr. James Dobson: Or anyone who doesn't know Christ and to see the validity. David?
David Brody: Well, I was just going to say something funny to show that God has a sense of humor. When you go to Barnes and Noble and you look to see where Etched In Stone is located, it's in the Judaism section.
Lisette Bassett-Brody: So true.
David Brody: Go figure.
Dr. James Dobson: Is that right?
Lisette Bassett-Brody: Yeah. At least in Maryland, that's where we found it.
David Brody: That's where we found it.
Dr. James Dobson: Thanks for being with us today.
Lisette Bassett-Brody: Thank you. This was great.
David Brody: Thank you, Dr. Dobson.
Roger Marsh: It's quite remarkable when we get to see the proof of what we already believe and know is true solidified before our eyes. Biblical artifacts inspired Lisette and David Brody and ignited a deeper faith within them as they shared that knowledge and passion with you in her book, Etched In Stone. I'm Roger Marsh, and if you enjoyed today's program, consider downloading the latest version of the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute official app for your smartphone. It allows you to personalize the content you receive and easily listen to or share the latest Family Talk radio broadcasts.
Please note that you will need a mobile connection or wifi internet to access the content on the app. To download, just visit the app store on your smartphone and search "James Dobson Family Institute." You'll be glad you did.
Another great new resource to check out is the new "Defending Faith, Family and Freedom" podcast with Gary Bauer, our senior vice president of public policy here at the JDFI.
Gary shares his perspective on current public policies through the lens of the US Constitution and an unapologetic biblical worldview. To listen to the podcast, just visit our homepage drjamesdobson.org and then select the "Defending Faith, Family and Freedom" podcast icon. From there, you'll be directed to the podcast page and then you can choose your favorite listening platform and begin the episode of your choosing.
I'm Roger Marsh, thanks for listening to us today here on Family Talk. May God continue to richly bless you and your family and be sure to join us again tomorrow for another edition of Dr. James Dobson's Family Talk.
Announcer: This has been a presentation of the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute.