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     When one goes to Europe (now agnostic at best), the old cathedrals, some of which date to AD 1000, are evidence that at one time, Christendom thrived there.  Ravenna, Italy sports several Christian basilicas from the sixth century.  Some archaeological sites in Turkey reveal Christian basilicas dated to the fourth century.  They are the earliest because when Constantine legalized Christianity, he allowed Christians to build places dedicated to worship.  The archaeological evidence points to a Europe that had a history of worshiping Jesus of Nazareth.
     For some centuries critics have attacked the accuracy of the Bible in an attempt to denounce its divine inspiration.  In many instances archaeology has also affirmed and continues to affirm, people, places and events in the Bible, thus deposing the infidels attempts to destroy the Bible.  For example:  Hittites are mentioned over 50 times in the Old Testament.  Yet there was no material evidence that the nation ever existed, thus the critics railed against the Bible as being inaccurate, and thereby challenging the Bible’s own claim that it is inspired of God.
     In 1876 Hugo Winckler excavated a site east of modern day Ankara, Turkey.  He discovered Boghazkoy, the capitol of the Hittite kingdom during the time of Abraham.  One important find was a room with 10,000 clay tablets.  Winckler suspected that Boghazkoy might be a Hittite city, but in order to ascertain this, the language had to be broken.  In 1947 German and Turkish archaeologists unearthed a small Hittite fortress at Karatepe in south central Turkey.  Bi-lingual texts (Phoenician and Hittite) were discovered which were the key to decipher the language, thus Boghazkoy was confirmed to be the Hittite capitol, the critics were silenced and conversely the accuracy of the Biblical account was affirmed.
     Not only has archaeology confirmed existence of nations, but it has even confirmed the usage of certain words in the original biblical text.  When Paul was going to Rome for his trial, the boat he was on encountered a bad storm, the crew cast the ship’s anchors into the sea and they “loosed the rudder bands, hoisted up the foresail, and aimed the ship towards the beach” (King James Version – Acts 27:40).  However the original Greek text actually says that they “loosed the bands of the rudders” (plural).  The King James Bible translators apparently tried to harmonize the text with what they knew of ships in the 17th century AD – only one rudder.  However in 1969, an ancient ship was discovered submerged in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Cyprus.  An examination of the ruins gave evidence of dual rudder-oars by which the boat was steered, thus this archaeological find affirms the remarkable accuracy of the Book of Acts.  Archaeology has not only revealed the accuracy of the Bible but that its affirmation is always as the text states, it also points to the Bible’s divine inspiration.

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