Not bad for the most verified work in existence:

http://channels.netscape.com/ns/news...biblicaltunnel

Part of the Old Testament Proven True

Read 2 Kings 20:20 and 2 Chronicles 32:30 in the Old Testament and you'll find a reference to a tunnel that was built in 700 B.C. by order of King Hezekiah to protect Jerusalem's water supply against an Assyrian siege. Long considered an engineering feat for that day and age, the serpentine tunnel ran 1,750 feet long and moved water from the Gihon spring across the entire city of ancient Jerusalem to the pool of Siloam.

Fast forward to modern-day Jerusalem. The Siloam Tunnel in that city matches the biblical description of King Hezekiah's tunnel. But is it really the same one? That question has stumped scholars for years, many of whom insisted the Siloam Tunnel was built centuries later than the Bible suggested in Kings and Chronicles. The only clue that survived for more than 2,700 years is an inscription discovered in 1880 on a tunnel wall that supported the link to King Hezekiah, although it did not name him specifically, reports The Associated Press.

Now geologists from the Cave Research Center at Hebrew University in Jerusalem think they have solved the mystery. By using radiocarbon testing to analyze the age of stalactite samples from the ceiling of the Siloam Tunnel and plant material recovered from its plaster floor, the biblical record and the tunnel's age have been confirmed, the researchers wrote in the journal Nature. The Siloam Tunnel is the one built by King Hezekiah.

This is also significant because it is the first time that a well-identified biblical structure has been subjected to extensive radiocarbon dating.
Even with all our modern-day technology and scientific knowledge, very little testing of biblical structures has been done to prove or disprove their age or authenticity. Why? The experts told AP such testing is difficult because it's often hard to identify such structures, they may be poorly preserved, or they may be restricted for various political or religious reasons.

The Siloam Tunnel is different. It's long been a tourist attraction. Anyone can wander in it and see the pick marks the original builders made in the walls to adjust their course so the tunnel would meet with a second team of workers who were heading toward them from the opposite end of the city. AP notes that those pick marks tell us how difficult it was to connect the two ends of the tunnel. "The tunnel is extraordinary, but these guys didn't know where they were going a lot of the time," Hershel Shanks, an expert on the history of Jerusalem who writes for the Biblical Archaeology Review, told AP. Still, he added, "It's nice to have scientific confirmation for what the vast majority of biblical scholars and archaeologists believe."

I don't see what's so special about this. I don't think people have problem accepting the setting of the old testament, I think the thing that need to be proven is a lot different...

[ 09-22-2003, 02:27 AM: Message edited by: Luvian ]

many parts of the old testament have been proven it has even been proven that a person named Jesus existed as in the one written about in the bible, wheather he was the son of God is not known.

Well, I think it's a nice find. It's always pleasant when your hypothesis matches with hard evidence.
Yet it's somewhat funny how christian scientists view radiocarbon dating as all well and good when it supports the structure of their church and beliefs, yet is viewed as frivolous and transitory when applied to theories of evolution.

[ 09-22-2003, 03:11 AM: Message edited by: The Hierophant ]

I agree with Luvian here. I'd like to add though, that the Bible we know today is totally different from the one we knew in the Middle Ages (to name an example). Things have been changed so thoroughly that IMHO you still cannot trust these kinda facts.

What are you on about? There are very few people left who don't believe in evolution. 99% of Christians believe in it, there is just a small camp who don't.

Anyway, thanks for posting this Yorick, nice to hear about things like this.

[ 09-22-2003, 06:01 AM: Message edited by: Vaskez ]

<font color=deepskyblue>By the same token, <font color=silver>Heirophant</font>, most non-believers dismiss the Bible as "nothing more than a book of fables" and claim they only believe in those things that can be scientifically proven. Then science comes along and verifies that a specific portion of the Bible is true and non-believers dismiss this as being meaningless also.

Tit for Tat. ;) </font>

they also disregarded the carbon dating of the shroud which supposedly wrapped Jesus.

Exactly. I am not a believer in God, still I do believe that Jesus lived and "preached" a nice message. On the other hand I don't believe he was the son of God rather an ordinary, gentle man.

On the other hand I really don't see what this proves. So Jerusalem existed 700BC. Is that news? [img]graemlins/confused2.gif[/img]

[ 09-22-2003, 07:38 AM: Message edited by: WillowIX ]

Whew, bit of a strong reaction to what I posted, maybe I should have taken more time to clarify my thoughts, anyway, here goes...

Maybe these things differ from region to region (what am I saying, of course they do), but where I live there are numerous christian lobbysist who dismiss the theory of evolution and want to have it banned from schools (and considering religious studies has ben removed from the curriculum I guess that may be fair enough). A main criticism that these lobbyists offer is that carbon dating cannot be irrefutably ratified, and thus evolution is not based upon fact, and thus should not be taught in the public curriculum. Now I'm not agreeing, nor disagreeing with that statement, just relaying it on [img]smile.gif[/img]

I never said evolution was scientific fact, I never even said that I believe it myself (but I do). I don't want to start a religious debate and I apologise if what I said detracted from the core of the thread. I only said that it can be amusing to see how some people hold particular data in a positive light when it says what they want it to say, and ignore/debunk it when it 'disagrees' with their hypotheses.