The Library
1774 works catalogued century by century, from the literature the Bible was written among to the present — each with a note on what it is, why it lasted, and where to read it.
1300–1201 BC
1 work
1208 BC
Egyptian
The Israel Stele
The court of Merneptah
A victory hymn on a granite slab listing what the pharaoh has destroyed in Canaan — Ashkelon carried off, Gezer seized, Yanoam made non-existent — and then, written with the determinative for a people rather than a place, Israel is laid waste, his seed is not.
900–801 BC
2 works
c. 840 BC
Moabite
The Moabite Stone
Mesha of Moab
A king of Moab records that Omri of Israel oppressed his land because Chemosh was angry with it, and that he has now taken the towns back, slaughtered seven thousand as a devotion to Chemosh, and dragged the vessels of Yahweh before his god.
c. 840 BC
Aramaic
An Aramean king, probably Hazael
Three broken fragments of a basalt victory monument found reused in a wall at Tel Dan in 1993 and 1994. The surviving lines claim the killing of a king of Israel and a king of the house of David.
700–601 BC
2 works
c. 700 BC
Hebrew
The tunnellers of Hezekiah
Cut into the rock where two teams digging from opposite ends met beneath Jerusalem. It records the moment the last three cubits were breached and each team heard the other's voices calling through the stone, and the water ran to the pool.
691 BC
Akkadian
The Taylor Prism
The court of Sennacherib
A six-sided clay prism recording the king's campaigns, including the third: forty-six walled cities of Judah taken, two hundred thousand people counted as spoil, and Hezekiah himself shut up in Jerusalem like a bird in a cage.
600–501 BC
4 works
c. 650–600 BC
Hebrew
Anonymous
Two tiny rolled sheets of silver worn as amulets, found in a burial chamber above the Valley of Hinnom in 1979 and unrolled over three years. Both carry a version of the priestly blessing: may the Lord bless you and keep you, may the Lord make his face shine upon you and give you peace.
c. 589–587 BC
Hebrew
Hoshaiah and the garrison of Lachish
Ostraca found in the burnt gate-chamber of a fortress destroyed by the Babylonians. An officer writes that they are watching for the signal fires of Lachish, because they can no longer see the ones from Azekah — and complains of a prophet whose words weaken the hands of the people.
c. 750–300 BC; the Judah entries c. 550 BC
Akkadian
The scribes of Babylon
Terse year-by-year records of what the king did. One tablet notes that in the seventh year of Nebuchadnezzar he encamped against the city of Judah and on the second day of Adar captured the city and seized its king, appointing one of his own choice and taking heavy tribute back to Babylon.
539–538 BC
Akkadian
The court of Cyrus the Great
A clay barrel buried in the walls of Babylon after Cyrus took the city, declaring that Marduk sought a righteous ruler and took him by the hand — and that he has returned the gods of the sacked cities to their sanctuaries and settled their peoples back in their homes.
9 of 1774 works