Welcome to Expedition Bible. My name is Joel Kramer. I’m sure that many of you know that the name of the God of Israel is Yahweh. And the name Yahweh is mentioned in the Old Testament 6,823 times. And it’s been found several times in inscriptions through archaeology. But today, I want to talk about the oldest Yahweh inscription that’s ever been found. [music] Now, I first learned about this inscription when I was reading a book by a well-known Egyptologist named Donald Redford. And he was writing about a site called Solib, which is today located in the country of Sudan, but in ancient times it was part of the kingdom of Egypt. And uh here the pharaoh Aman Hoteep III built a temple and made a list of his foreign enemies. And the name of his book is Egypt, Canaan and Israel in ancient times. And so he was discussing these inscriptions when he wrote. For half a century it has been generally admitted that we have here the name of the Israelite God Yahweh. And if this be the case, as it undoubtedly is, the passage constitutes a most precious indication of the whereabouts during the late 15th century BC of the enclave revering this god. I was shocked. You You mean to tell me that there is an inscription mentioning Yahweh that dates to the end of the 15th century BC? That’s that’s amazing. So I went to the library. I found the solub excavation report. This uh site was excavated in the 1950s and there was the temple and there was the inscription and the translation of the inscription. The inscription is written in Egyptian hieroglyphics. The first hieroglyph is uh is the hieroglyph for land. The next three hieroglyphs sound out the word shazoo, which is translated nomads, land of the nomads. And then the last four hieroglyphs uh sound out a name. The first hieroglyph is the Y sound. Then the house hieroglyph is the H. The noose is the W, and the bird is the A, the way. So together in the excavation report they uh translate this name as Yahe, land of the nomads of Yahweh. This I had to go see for myself. So I traveled to Sudan. I rented a four-wheel drive and a driver. Uh, crossed the Nile River on a local ferry and spent the next three days driving on and off road, camping in the desert, all to get to this temple and all to see this inscription. Heat. Heat. N. [music] [music] Okay, I’m here at the temple. Temple of Solib. I’ve traveled all the way to Sudan to come to this temple. This temple was built by Aman Hoteep III. And you can see these inscriptions [music] that are covering these pillars. Uh let me find a really good one here. These are the ones that Ammon Hotep III is bragging about defeating. this man with his arms [music] um bound behind him and then the name of that people where they’re from and many many place names all in the same style. The one that I came all the way to see isn’t as in good a shape as that one, but uh but it’s the most significant in my opinion of them. And it’s on this pillar right here on the back side. It’s right here. I’ve come a very long way to see this inscription which from the Egyptian hieroglyphics reads, “Land of the nomads of Yahweh.” Uh, it dates to the end of [music] the 15th century BC. It’s over 3,400 years old. And that makes it the oldest mention in an inscription of the name of the God of Israel. Here we have a perfect example of something that [music] was found through archaeology correlating perfectly with what we read in our Bibles. In this case, according to biblical chronology, the Bible says that the Israelites are wandering in the wilderness for 40 years at the latter half of the 15th century BC. Here we have an [music] inscription from the Egyptian Pharaoh Aman Hoteep III that dates to the end of the 15th century BC. The Bible describes the wandering Israelites, the nomadic Israelites, as moving around with their god Yahweh, who is with them by day in a cloud, at night in a pillar of fire. And so, what better way for the Egyptian Pharaoh, Aman Hoteep III, to describe this people than the way that he does right here, nomads of Yahweh. [music] Heat. Heat. [music] [music] [music]