Hittite Empire
"Old Testament empire verified by discovered ruins"
The rock relief shown here was found in Turkey, just outside of what was once Hattusa, capital of the Hittite Empire. It depicts twelve Hittite gods of the Underworld. The Hittite Empire described within the Bible used to be considered a fabricated empire. Critics claimed that the Old Testament made up stories about a non-existent Hittite Empire of which there was no other historical record. They had theorized all sorts of reasons why the writers would be theologically motivated to fabricate an entire empire. Yet, within the last few decades, archaeologists have discovered that there was indeed a Hittite Empire, just as described by the Bible, with a highly defined language.
Pilate Stone
Currently displayed at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, the stone's inscription reads: “building in honor of Tiberius, Pontius Pilate, Prefect of Judea”.
Pontius Pilate was a Roman Procurator of Judea from 26–36 CE. In the New Testament account, he sentenced Jesus to be crucified. The artifact here, called the “Pilate Stone”, is the only object from his time that contains his name.
House of David
The "Tel Dan Stele" fragment was discovered in 1993 by Gila Cook in Tel Dan. This fragment contains writing in Aramaic referring to the "House of David" (ביתדוד).
Before the discovery of the “House of David” inscription at Dan in 1993, professors and scholars dismissed stories of King David in the Bible as an invention of priestly propagandists who were trying to dignify Israel’s past after the Babylonian exile. But as Tel Aviv University archaeologist Israel Finkelstein observes, “Biblical nihilism collapsed overnight with the discovery of the David inscription.” (Jeffery L. Sheler, “Is the Bible True?”)