Day 25 Devotion – The Dispersion of Nations

Therefore its name is called Babel, because there the LORD confused the language of all the earth; and from there the LORD scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth. Genesis 11:9

Picture 1: Gebel Arak knife excavated in Egypt.

I want to spend today on one of the most fascinating archaeological finds I have ever read about. Most people have probably never heard of it but once again I have to thank David Rohl for his information in his book called Legend. This artifact is known as the Gebel Arak Knife. This knife was discovered in Egypt but is so ancient it actually gives clues as to where the ancient settlers of Egypt came from. You are probably familiar with Egyptian dress from pictures of pharaohs you have seen. Now look at the close up picture of the engraving on the knife. It doesn’t look Egyptian at all. Actually, the man engraved on the knife looks very Mesopotamian. Canyons in eastern Egypt have also revealed carvings of Mesopotamian peoples migrating into Egypt. This is great evidence that the earliest people groups dispersed exactly as the Bible pictures here and they came from Mesopotamia.

Picture 2: Closeup view of the knife's handle. Notice the man does not look Egyptian but looks very Mesopotamian. This man is called the "Master of Animals" and the animals are occuring in pairs.

There is one other thing to note about this close up engraving on the knife. Notice that the animals occur in pairs. Also notice that he is controlling two huge lions by grasping their throats. Archaeologists have nicknamed this man the “master of animals”. Is it just a coincidence that the Bible tells us that shortly after the flood that people migrated out of Mesopotamia and then here we find evidence of Mesopotamians settling in Egypt? Is it just a coincidence that the Bible tells us that Noah controlled pairs of animals just before this dispersal? Although we do not know all the details we can show that there is archaeological evidence to support the basic stories of the Bible such as the Garden of Eden and Noah’s Ark. So many people write these off as myths and fairy tales. Our children grow up now in an age where you are viewed as stupid if you believe these stories are real. There is plenty of evidence to hold to the inerrancy of scripture; we need to equip our young people with this information. You may be looking at an engraving of Noah.