28 DAYS UNTIL ISRAEL FILMING! - "HOUSE OF DAVID" ARCHAEOLOGY FINDING DEMONSTRATES KING DAVID DID EXIST! - The Story of Redemption is designed to tell the overall biblical story and build faith seekers and hopefully strengthen this faith in long time believers. While this series primarily draws upon the power of the biblical story well told to build faith, many skeptics and believers do look for extra-biblical evidence that corroborates the Bible.

For these reason and others, the finding of the "House of David" fragment in Tel Dan in Northern Israel (an archaeological site) is significant. Up until 1993, there were no extrabiblical references to King David. This caused some historians to state that David's kingdom never existed, that it was just a fanciful myth of Israel.

The finding of this inscription, therefore, was particularly important because it showed that those historians who made this claim that David's kingdom never existed--which would have, of course, clearly contradicted a central figure in the Bible--were wrong. You can read more about the Tel Dan inscription here.

Now, to the Story of Redemption filming. Lesson 4 in the Story of Redemption opens with the book of Matthew, which begins with a genealogy of Jesus, saying: "This is the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah the son of David, the son of Abraham . . . ."

We will have already drawn in Abraham, mentioned in this genealogy in the story of Abraham sacrificing Isaac in Gen. 22 on Mt. Moriah--the site of the future temple in Jerusalem, where we will be filming this. But in this opening we need to establish who David is--not only historically, but because Matthew is portraying Jesus as the Messiah in the line and type of David.

In this teaching section, I will talk about how Jerusalem was a city that David won, that he established his kingdom there--and that there is the Tel Dan fragment--housed right there in Jerusalem in the Israel Museum.

While the Tel Dan inscription does not "prove the Bible," it does show that there is extra-biblical historical evidence that confirms the biblical account in many places. And it also shows that historians often are quick to make pronouncements about the Bible that are not well informed that have to be retracted--a common occurrence over the years. For me, this shows that you don't have to throw your brain away to be a Christian, and that one ought not to automatically have their faith shaken when someone comes out and makes broad skeptical statements about the Bible not being true or accurate in one place or another.

What do you think of the role of archaeology in building / affirming / challenging faith? How much of this would you like to see in this series?