Concept

Evidence Behind the Bible's Most Incredible Stories

Intro

People often say the Bible's big stories are just tales. This page takes twenty of the most astonishing ones, from a world-wide flood to a man walking out of his tomb, and asks a plain question about each: what has actually been found?

The answer is different for each story, so each one gets a grade. Some stories sit in a world that archaeology has confirmed in detail, with real kings, real cities and real inscriptions. Some have outside writers, even hostile ones, who report the same event. Some are still argued over by experts, and this page names the argument. And some, like a man surviving inside a fish, are miracles that no dig could ever prove or disprove. The page says so plainly, because an honest answer is a stronger answer.

The pattern that comes out is worth knowing. Again and again, the people and places in these stories turned out to be real, often after critics had said they were invented: Belshazzar, Pilate, Caiaphas, the House of David, Nineveh. The miracles themselves are a different question, and the evidence for those works differently, mainly through the historical case for the resurrection of Jesus.

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In full

This page is a graded survey of the historical, archaeological, textual and scientific basis for twenty of the most extraordinary narratives in the Bible. It sits between Biblical Archaeology, which catalogues finds by object, and the defeater pages that answer specific objections. Here the unit is the story.

Each entry gives the story and its reference, the outside evidence with its source, what that evidence does and does not show, and a grade on the fixed scale below. The grading separates two questions that popular debate runs together. Setting: are the people, places, customs and political events real? Event: is the extraordinary thing itself attested? A story can have a fully confirmed setting and a miracle at its center that no excavation could ever reach. That is not a weakness peculiar to the Bible. It is what the historical method can and cannot do with any report of the miraculous; see Miracles and Argument from Miracles, and on the philosophical side David Hume.

The grading scale

1. Confirmed. The people, places and events surrounding the story are independently attested by inscriptions, archaeology or non-biblical texts.
2. Strong corroboration. Independent sources attest the event itself, or its central non-miraculous facts.
3. Partial or circumstantial. The evidence fits the story's world and makes it plausible, but does not reach the event.
4. Contested. Real evidence exists, and qualified scholars disagree about what it shows. The debate is named.
5. Beyond direct evidence. The miraculous core is not the kind of thing a spade can find. This grade is about evidence, not about truth.

At a glance

The twenty stories

1. The universe has a beginning

Story. "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" (Genesis 1:1). For most of history the leading scientific and philosophical view was an eternal universe.

Basis. Georges Lemaître proposed an expanding universe from a primeval state in 1927 and 1931. The discovery of the cosmic microwave background by Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson in 1965 turned the expanding-universe model into the standard one. The Borde-Guth-Vilenkin theorem (2003) shows that any universe that has, on average, been expanding cannot be extended infinitely into the past. See Big Bang, Borde-Guth-Vilenkin Theorem and Kalam Cosmological Argument.

What it shows. That the universe, or at least our expanding phase of it, had a beginning, which is what Genesis claims and what the eternal-universe view denied. What it does not show. The order and days of Genesis 1, or by itself who the cause was. That step is philosophical, and the Kalam argument makes it.

Grade: Strong corroboration of a beginning.

2. The Flood

Story. God sends a flood that destroys humanity except Noah, his family and the animals on the ark (Genesis 6-9).

Basis. Mesopotamia preserves flood stories of its own. The Atrahasis epic, known from Old Babylonian copies, tells of a flood sent by the gods, a hero who builds a boat with animals aboard, and a sacrifice afterward (W. G. Lambert and A. R. Millard, Atra-hasis: The Babylonian Story of the Flood, Oxford, 1969). Tablet XI of the Epic of Gilgamesh gives the hero Utnapishtim a boat that grounds on a mountain, after which he sends out a dove, a swallow and a raven (Andrew George, The Epic of Gilgamesh, Penguin, 1999). Leonard Woolley's flood deposit at Ur (1929) shows that great floods struck southern Mesopotamia, though it is local.

What it shows. That a great flood stood at the start of the ancient Near East's own memory of its history, recorded independently of Genesis and earlier than the written form of Genesis. Christians read the parallels in two ways: as shared memory of a real event, or as Genesis answering its neighbors' story with a different God. What it does not show. A global flood. Whether the flood was global or regional, and how the geological record should be read, is argued within Christianity itself.

Grade: Contested. The debate: global (see Global Flood Evidence and Flood Geology) versus regional readings, and mainstream geology's rejection of a single world-wide flood deposit. See Genesis Flood and Noahs Ark Feasibility.

3. The Tower of Babel

Story. People in the land of Shinar build "a city, and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven" and God confuses their language (Genesis 11:1-9). The ASV reads: "Come, let us build us a city, and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven, and let us make us a name" (Genesis 11:4, ASV).

Basis. Southern Mesopotamia is full of ziggurats, stepped temple towers of baked brick set in bitumen, exactly the building method Genesis 11:3 describes. Babylon's own ziggurat, Etemenanki, "House, Foundation of Heaven and Earth", stood beside the temple of Marduk, and Herodotus describes a tower of eight stages there (Histories 1.181). See Ziggurats and the Tower of Babel.

What it shows. That Genesis describes a real kind of building, in the right place, built the right way. What it does not show. The event. No text records a tower abandoned when languages were confused.

Grade: Partial or circumstantial. See Tower of Babel Objection Defeater.

4. Sodom and Gomorrah

Story. Fire and brimstone destroy the cities of the plain, and the smoke rises "as the smoke of a furnace" (Genesis 19:24-28).

Basis. Two candidate regions. In the south, Bab edh-Dhra and Numeira, on the southeastern shore of the Dead Sea, were destroyed by fire at the end of the Early Bronze Age, with heavy ash layers (see Bab edh-Dhra and Numeira). In the north, Tall el-Hammam, excavated by Steven Collins, was destroyed abruptly in the Middle Bronze Age. A 2021 paper in Scientific Reports (Bunch and colleagues) argued that a Tunguska-sized cosmic airburst destroyed it. That paper received a figure correction in 2022 and an editor's note, and the journal retracted it in April 2025, saying the editors no longer had confidence in its conclusions; the authors disagree with the retraction (Retraction Watch, 23 April 2025). See Tall el-Hammam Sodom Airburst.

What it shows. That cities in the Jordan and Dead Sea region the Bible names were destroyed catastrophically by fire. What it does not show. Which site, if any, was Sodom, or the cause. The airburst mechanism no longer has a standing peer-reviewed basis.

Grade: Contested. The debate: southern versus northern location, the date of each destruction against the patriarchal period, and the retracted airburst study. See Sodom and Gomorrah Objection Defeater.

5. Abraham and the patriarchs

Story. God calls Abraham out of Ur and Haran and gives the land of Canaan to him and his descendants (Genesis 12-36).

Basis. No inscription names Abraham, Isaac or Jacob. That is what one would expect: nomadic herders leave no royal monuments. What survives is the patriarchs' world: West Semitic personal names of the right type, movement between Mesopotamia, Canaan and Egypt, and family customs that some scholars compared with the Nuzi tablets (see Nuzi Tablets and Ebla Tablets). Several of those parallels have been challenged since the 1970s, and the codex treats them with that caution.

What it shows. That the Genesis narratives fit a real second-millennium world. What it does not show. Abraham himself.

Grade: Partial or circumstantial. See Patriarchal Historicity Objection Defeater.

6. Joseph, a Semite ruling in Egypt

Story. Joseph, sold by his brothers, rises to be second only to Pharaoh, and Jacob's family settles in the eastern Nile delta (Genesis 37-50).

Basis. The tomb of Khnumhotep II at Beni Hasan (BH3), from the reign of Senusret II around 1890 BC, shows a procession of Aamu, West Asiatic foreigners in colored garments, led by a chief named Abisha, with a caption counting 37 people (Janice Kamrin, "The Aamu of Shu in the Tomb of Khnumhotep II at Beni Hassan", Journal of Ancient Egyptian Interconnections, 2009). At Tell el-Dab'a, ancient Avaris in the eastern delta, Manfred Bietak's excavations documented a large population of Levantine origin from the late Middle Kingdom onward, later the base of the Hyksos rulers.

What it shows. That Semites entered Egypt, settled in exactly the region Genesis calls Goshen, and could rise to power there. What it does not show. Joseph himself; no Egyptian text names him.

Grade: Partial or circumstantial.

7. The plagues of Egypt

Story. Ten plagues strike Egypt, from the Nile turned to blood to the death of the firstborn (Exodus 7-12).

Basis. The Egyptian Admonitions of Ipuwer laments a land in chaos and includes the line that the river is blood. It is often cited, and it should be handled carefully: Egyptologists generally date its composition to the Middle Kingdom, centuries away from any proposed Exodus date, and read it as a literary lament about disorder rather than a report of specific events. Natural-chain proposals (red sediment or algae, frogs, insects, disease) offer mechanisms, not evidence. See Plagues of Egypt.

What it shows. Nothing direct. What it does not show. The plagues. The codex does not lean on Ipuwer.

Grade: Beyond direct evidence. See No Archaeological Proof of the Exodus Objection Defeater.

8. The Red Sea crossing

Story. The LORD drives the sea back "by a strong east wind all the night" and Israel crosses on dry ground (Exodus 14:21-22).

Basis. Carl Drews and Weiqing Han modeled wind setdown in the eastern Nile delta ("Dynamics of Wind Setdown at Suez and the Eastern Nile Delta", PLoS ONE 5:8, 2010). In their model a 63 mph wind blowing for about 12 hours pushes water about six feet back and exposes mud flats roughly 2 to 2.5 miles long and 3 miles wide for about four hours, near an ancient branch of the Nile at the Lake of Tanis (NCAR and University of Colorado release, 21 September 2010).

What it shows. That the mechanism Exodus itself names, a strong east wind all night, is physically capable of opening a crossing in that region. What it does not show. That it happened. The model is a scenario. The route and the date of the Exodus are themselves disputed.

Grade: Contested. The debate: the location of the "sea of reeds" crossing, the date of the Exodus, and the lack of direct archaeological traces in Sinai. See No Archaeological Proof of the Exodus Objection Defeater, Moses Did Not Exist Objection Defeater, Merneptah Stele (Israel attested in Canaan by about 1208 BC) and Jabal al-Lawz (a minority proposal for Sinai).

9. The walls of Jericho

Story. Israel marches around Jericho and its wall falls down flat (Joshua 6).

Basis. John Garstang dug Jericho in the 1930s and dated a destruction with fallen walls to around 1400 BC. Kathleen Kenyon re-dug in the 1950s and dated the destruction of that city to around 1550 BC, at the end of the Middle Bronze Age. Bryant Wood argued from the pottery that Kenyon was wrong and that the destruction fits about 1400 BC ("Did the Israelites Conquer Jericho?", Biblical Archaeology Review 16:2, 1990). Piotr Bienkowski replied defending Kenyon, and Wood answered him in BAR 16:5 (September/October 1990). Radiocarbon dates on samples from Kenyon's excavation (Hendrik Bruins and Johannes van der Plicht, Radiocarbon 37:2, 1995) supported a date at the end of the Middle Bronze Age.

What it shows. That Jericho had walls that collapsed and a city that was burned. What it does not show. A settled date that matches Joshua; the radiocarbon evidence so far favors the earlier date.

Grade: Contested. See Jericho Conquest and Joshuas Altar at Mount Ebal.

10. The sun stands still

Story. At Gibeon, "the sun stood still, and the moon stayed... and hasted not to go down about a whole day" (Joshua 10:13, ASV).

Basis. Colin Humphreys and Graeme Waddington, publishing in the Royal Astronomical Society's Astronomy & Geophysics (2017), argued that the Hebrew verb can mean that the sun and moon ceased to shine, and identified the only annular solar eclipse visible from Canaan between 1500 and 1050 BC: the afternoon of 30 October 1207 BC (University of Cambridge news release, October 2017).

What it shows. That the text may preserve an observation of a real astronomical event, if the reading of the verb holds. What it does not show. A halted sun; and the proposal depends on a contested reading of the Hebrew and of the passage's poetic source, the book of Jashar.

Grade: Contested. The debate: whether the verse describes the sun stopping, darkening, or is poetic, and whether the eclipse proposal is correct.

11. David and Goliath

Story. The shepherd David kills the Philistine champion Goliath of Gath (1 Samuel 17).

Basis. The Tel Dan Stele (found 1993-94), a ninth-century BC Aramaic victory inscription, names the "House of David", the first mention of David outside the Bible (see Tel Dan Stele); the Mesha Stele of Moab is often read the same way. Gath, Goliath's city, is Tell es-Safi, where Aren Maeir's excavations show a large Philistine city of the period, and a potsherd of the tenth or ninth century carries two non-Semitic names related in form to the name Goliath (see Goliath Inscription Tel es-Safi).

What it shows. That David founded a real dynasty, and that Gath was a real Philistine power where names like Goliath were in use. What it does not show. The duel itself; the sherd does not name the Goliath of the story.

Grade: Confirmed (setting and people). See David and Goliath.

12. Elijah and the great drought

Story. Elijah announces a drought to King Ahab, it lasts until he prays for rain on Mount Carmel, and fire falls from heaven (1 Kings 17-18).

Basis. Ahab is attested outside the Bible: Shalmaneser III's Kurkh Monolith (British Museum) lists "Ahab the Israelite" with 2,000 chariots at the battle of Qarqar in 853 BC. Josephus quotes the Phoenician historian Menander of Ephesus for a drought in the reign of Ithobaal (Ethbaal) of Tyre, Jezebel's father according to 1 Kings 16:31: no rain fell for a year until the king's supplications brought heavy thunder. Josephus himself connects it with the drought of Ahab's day (Antiquities 8.324).

What it shows. That Ahab and Jezebel's royal house are historical, and that a Phoenician source independently remembered a severe drought in their generation. What it does not show. The fire on Carmel. Menander's year also does not match the Bible's three and a half years (Luke 4:25; James 5:17) without assuming his count covers only part of it.

Grade: Partial or circumstantial. See Josephus.

13. Sennacherib's army struck down

Story. Sennacherib of Assyria ravages Judah and besieges Jerusalem, "the angel of Jehovah went forth, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians a hundred fourscore and five thousand" (2 Kings 19:35, ASV), and Sennacherib goes home and is later killed by his sons (2 Kings 19:37).

Basis. Sennacherib's own annals (the Taylor and Oriental Institute prisms) claim 46 walled cities of Judah taken and Hezekiah shut up in Jerusalem "like a bird in a cage", but never claim Jerusalem was taken (see Sennacherib Prism). His palace reliefs show the siege of Lachish, and the siege ramp survives on site (see Sennacheribs Siege Ramp at Lachish); Hezekiah's water tunnel is still walkable (see Hezekiahs Tunnel and Siloam Inscription and Hezekiahs Bulla). Herodotus preserves an Egyptian tradition that Sennacherib's army was routed in one night when field mice gnawed through bowstrings and quivers (Histories 2.141). Sennacherib's murder by a son is recorded in the Babylonian Chronicle, and Simo Parpola (1980) identified the conspirator as Arda-Mulissu, matching the Adrammelech of 2 Kings 19:37; Andrew Knapp (Journal of the American Oriental Society, 2020) has argued instead for Esarhaddon's involvement.

What it shows. The campaign, the siege, the failure to take Jerusalem, a sudden reversal remembered even in Egypt, and an assassination by a son. What it does not show. The angel, which is the Bible's account of the cause.

Grade: Strong corroboration. One of the best-attested sequences in the Old Testament.

14. Jonah and Nineveh

Story. Jonah flees God, is swallowed by a great fish, and then preaches to Nineveh, which repents (Jonah 1-3).

Basis. Nineveh, unknown to Western scholarship before the 1840s, was excavated by Austen Henry Layard and others and proved to be the enormous Assyrian capital the prophets describe (see Nineveh Discovery). Jonah son of Amittai also appears in 2 Kings 14:25 as a prophet under Jeroboam II.

What it shows. That the city and its scale are real. What it does not show. The fish, which is a miracle claim, or the city-wide repentance, which no Assyrian text records.

Grade: Beyond direct evidence. See Jonah Swallowed By A Whale Fiction Defeater.

15. The writing on the wall

Story. At Belshazzar's feast a hand writes on the wall, Daniel reads it, and that night Babylon falls; Daniel is made "the third ruler in the kingdom" (Daniel 5:29, ASV).

Basis. For centuries the only known last king of Babylon was Nabonidus, and critics called Belshazzar an invention. In 1854 J. E. Taylor found cylinders of Nabonidus at Ur praying for "Belshazzar, the eldest son". The Verse Account of Nabonidus records that he entrusted the kingship to his eldest son while he stayed in Arabia for years. That explains the "third ruler": Belshazzar could offer no higher place than third, because he was second. See Nabonidus Cylinder and Belshazzar and Cyrus Cylinder for the fall of Babylon in 539 BC.

What it shows. That Daniel knew a detail of Babylonian court politics that later Greek historians had lost. What it does not show. The hand.

Grade: Confirmed (setting and people). See Daniel Was Written in the 2nd Century Objection Defeater.

16. The fiery furnace

Story. Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego refuse to worship Nebuchadnezzar's image, are thrown into a furnace, and walk out unharmed (Daniel 3).

Basis. Nebuchadnezzar is among the best-attested kings of the ancient world. Burning as a Babylonian punishment appears in the Bible outside Daniel (Jeremiah 29:22), and K. A. Kitchen, in the New Bible Dictionary, cites a Babylonian letter of about 1800 BC and a twelfth-century BC Assyrian court regulation in which people could be thrown into a furnace (G. R. Driver, Archiv für Orientforschung 18, 1957; E. F. Weidner, Archiv für Orientforschung 17, 1956).

What it shows. That the king and the kind of punishment are real. What it does not show. The deliverance.

Grade: Beyond direct evidence.

17. The star of Bethlehem

Story. Magi from the east follow a star to the newborn "King of the Jews": "we saw his star in the east, and are come to worship him" (Matthew 2:2, ASV).

Basis. Johannes Kepler proposed the triple conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in 7 BC. The astronomer Michael Molnar (The Star of Bethlehem: The Legacy of the Magi, Rutgers University Press, 1999) argued that the Magi were astrologers and that the sign was the Moon's occultation of Jupiter in Aries on 17 April 6 BC, Aries being, on his reading, the sign associated with Judea. The Harvard astronomer Owen Gingerich endorsed the book ("Astronomer Discovers Star of Bethlehem", Christianity Today, 1 December 1999), while other astronomers doubt that Aries was linked with Judea.

What it shows. That real celestial events of about 7 to 6 BC would have carried royal meaning for Babylonian or Persian astrologers, and that a date before Herod's death in 4 BC fits. What it does not show. That any of these was the star of Matthew 2, which in verse 9 also moves and stops over a house.

Grade: Contested. The debate: natural astronomical event, miraculous light, or theological narrative.

18. Jesus the miracle worker

Story. Jesus heals the sick, casts out demons and calms the sea in Galilee and Judea (the Gospels).

Basis. The setting is well attested: the first-century basalt foundations beneath the later synagogue at Capernaum (see Capernaum Synagogue), the Magdala synagogue stone (see Magdala Stone), and the Galilee boat exposed by drought in 1986 near Migdal, a fishing boat of about 8 meters dated by radiocarbon and associated finds to the first century BC or AD (Israel Antiquities Authority). More striking is that non-Christian and even hostile sources remember Jesus as a worker of wonders. Josephus calls him "a doer of paradoxical deeds" (Antiquities 18.63); the passage contains later Christian additions, but many scholars, including John P. Meier (A Marginal Jew, vol. 1, 1991), judge this phrase to be Josephus's own. The Babylonian Talmud says that Yeshu was hanged on the eve of Passover because he "practiced sorcery and enticed Israel" (b. Sanhedrin 43a). The pagan critic Celsus claimed Jesus learned magical powers in Egypt (reported by Origen, Against Celsus 1.28). Opponents explained the deeds away. They did not deny them.

What it shows. That friend and foe alike remembered Jesus as someone who did things they could not explain. What it does not show. That the acts were miracles; that is a judgment about their cause.

Grade: Strong corroboration of the reputation; the miracles themselves are beyond direct evidence. See Historicity of Jesus, Talmud and Josephus.

19. Darkness at the crucifixion

Story. "And when the sixth hour was come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour" (Mark 15:33, ASV).

Basis. Julius Africanus (early third century), in a passage preserved by George Syncellus, reports that the historian Thallus, in the third book of his histories, explained this darkness away as an eclipse of the sun, and Africanus objects that a solar eclipse cannot happen at the full moon of Passover. Africanus and Eusebius also cite Phlegon of Tralles for a great eclipse and earthquake in the fourth year of the 202nd Olympiad (about AD 32 to 33).

What it shows. If Thallus's date is early, that a non-Christian writer knew the darkness tradition and tried to explain it naturally. What it does not show. Much more. Thallus's date is uncertain, his work is lost, and the wording reaches us only through Christian writers quoting him; Phlegon may simply be recording a known eclipse and earthquake.

Grade: Partial or circumstantial.

20. The empty tomb and the appearances

Story. Jesus is crucified under Pontius Pilate, buried by Joseph of Arimathea, and on the third day the tomb is empty and he appears alive to individuals and groups, "then he appeared to above five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain until now" (1 Corinthians 15:6, ASV).

Basis. The setting of the death is among the best-attested facts of ancient history: Tacitus records that "Christus" was executed under Pontius Pilate (Annals 15.44; see Tacitus); the Pilate inscription from Caesarea names him prefect of Judea (see Pilate Stone); the ossuary of the high priest's family names Caiaphas (see Caiaphas Ossuary); and the heel bone of Yehohanan, found in Jerusalem in 1968 with an iron nail still through it, shows that Romans nailed victims and that a crucified man could receive a family tomb burial (see Crucifixion Remains of Yehohanan and Joseph of Arimathea). For the resurrection itself, the historical case rests on a small set of facts granted by most scholars across the spectrum: the death by crucifixion, the early creed of 1 Corinthians 15:3-8 dated to within a few years of the event, the sincere conviction of the disciples that Jesus appeared to them, the conversion of the skeptic James and the persecutor Paul, and, held by a majority, the empty tomb (see Minimal Facts Argument and Resurrection of Jesus - Minimal Facts Case).

What it shows. The death, the burial setting and the earliest Christian claim are historical facts; the explanation of those facts is where the argument lives. What it does not show. The resurrection directly; it is an inference to the best explanation, argued against the naturalistic alternatives on Resurrection of Jesus - Naturalistic Counter-Theories.

Grade: Strong corroboration of the core facts. See Resurrection of Jesus and James the Brother of Jesus.

Method notes

1. Setting is not event. A confirmed king, city or custom shows that a story belongs to real history. It does not by itself show that a miracle in the story happened. Equally, the absence of evidence for a miracle is what one should expect whether or not it happened, so it counts for little either way.
2. The track record matters. Belshazzar, Pilate, Caiaphas, the House of David and Nineveh were each treated by some critics as inventions before inscriptions or excavations confirmed them. A source that keeps proving right on checkable details earns a hearing on the rest.
3. Grade honestly. Popular apologetics has sometimes oversold finds, and some have collapsed: the Tall el-Hammam airburst paper was retracted in 2025. Overstating weakens the case; the strong cases do not need help.
4. The miracles stand or fall together. For the Christian, the hinge is story 20. If Jesus rose, a God who raises the dead can do the rest; if he did not, no amount of archaeology rescues the faith (1 Corinthians 15:14). That is why the historical case for the resurrection carries the most weight here.
5. Two further stories with strong outside support. The coming of the Spirit at Pentecost has a confirmed result, a Jerusalem church led by Peter and James that Paul visited within a few years (Galatians 1:18-19; see Pentecost), and Josephus records the death of "James, the brother of Jesus who was called Christ" (Antiquities 20.200). Paul's shipwreck on Malta (Acts 27-28) was studied by the yachtsman and scholar James Smith of Jordanhill, whose The Voyage and Shipwreck of St. Paul (1848) argued from winds, soundings and coastline that Luke's account reads like an eyewitness log; see Acts as History (Ramsay's Verification).

Scholarship

Published academic works this page draws on, each matched to a publisher, index or library catalog record.

• Hendrik J. Bruins and Johannes van der Plicht, "Tell Es-Sultan (Jericho): Radiocarbon Results of Short-Lived Cereal and Multiyear Charcoal Samples from the End of the Middle Bronze Age," Radiocarbon 37 (1995). doi:10.1017/s0033822200030666 open access
• Carl Drews and Weiqing Han, "Dynamics of Wind Setdown at Suez and the Eastern Nile Delta," PLoS ONE 5 (2010). doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0012481 PubMed 20827299 open access
• Colin Humphreys and Graeme Waddington, "Solar eclipse of 1207 BC helps to date pharaohs," Astronomy & Geophysics 58 (2017). doi:10.1093/astrogeo/atx178
• David Instone-Brewer, "Jesus of Nazareth’s Trial in the Uncensored Talmud," Tyndale Bulletin 62 (2011). doi:10.53751/001c.29322 open access
• Janice Kamrin, "The Aamu of Shu in the Tomb of Khnumhotep II at Beni Hassan," Journal of Ancient Egyptian Interconnections 1 (2010). doi:10.2458/azu_jaei_v01i3_kamrin open access
• Andrew Knapp, "Murderer of Sennacherib, yet Again: The Case against Esarhaddon," Journal of the American Oriental Society 140 (2021). doi:10.7817/jameroriesoci.140.1.0165 open access
• W. G. Lambert and A. R. Millard, Atra-Hasis: the Babylonian story of the Flood (Clarendon, 1969). Open Library
• John P. Meier, A marginal Jew (1991). Open Library
• James Smith, The Voyage and Shipwreck of St. Paul (1848). Open Library

See also

• Biblical Archaeology, the master catalogue of finds, object by object
• Bible Stories Are All Fiction Objection Defeater, the debate answer to "the Bible is all made up"
• NT Geographical Reliability and Acts as History (Ramsay's Verification), the New Testament's checkable details
• Historicity of Jesus, the case that Jesus existed
• Minimal Facts Argument, the historical case for the resurrection
• Miracles and Argument from Miracles, what history can and cannot say about miracles
• Patriarchal Historicity Objection Defeater, No Archaeological Proof of the Exodus Objection Defeater and Moses Did Not Exist Objection Defeater, the hardest Old Testament cases
• Daniel Was Written in the 2nd Century Objection Defeater, the date of Daniel
• Shroud of Turin, an adjacent material-evidence question