Radio-dating backs up Biblical text

Nature Science Update is reporting:

An ancient waterway, described in the Bible, has been located and radiocarbon-dated to around 700 BC[1].

The half-kilometre Siloam Tunnel still carries water from the Gihon Spring into Jerusalem's ancient city of David. According to verses in Kings 2 and Chronicles 2[2], it was built during the reign of the King Hezekiah - between 727 BC and 698 BC - to protect the city's water supply against an imminent Assyrian siege. Critics argue that a stone inscription close to the exit dates the tunnel at around 2 BC.

To solve the conundrum, geologist Amos Frumkin, of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and colleagues looked at the decay of radioactive elements - such as carbon in plants and thorium in stalactites - in tunnel samples.

The plaster lining the tunnel was laid down around 700 BC, says Frumkin's team. A plant trapped inside the waterproof layer clocked in at 700-800 BC, whereas a stalactite formed around 400 BC. "The plant must have been growing before the tunnel was excavated; the stalactite grew after it was excavated," explains Frumkin.

The study "makes the tunnel's age certain", says archaeologist Henrik Bruins of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel. The Siloam Tunnel is now the best-dated Iron Age biblical structure so far identified.

The remains of buildings and structures described in the Bible are notoriously difficult to find. Specimens are rare, poorly preserved, hard to identify and often troublesome to access. Says James Jones, Bishop of Liverpool, UK: "This scientific verification of historical details in the Bible challenges those who do no wish to take it seriously."

References
1. Frumkin, A., Shimron, A. & Rosenbaum, J. Radiometric dating of the Siloam Tunnel, Jerusalem. Nature, 425, 169 - 171, (2003). |Article|
2. 2 Kings 20:20; 2 Chronicles 32:3,4.