Stand atop Tel Megiddo, and you are, as Prof. Israel Finkelstein says, “standing at the center of the universe.”
For nearly 30 years, the veteran archaeologist has excavated the mound many Christians call Armageddon. Speaking on the ILTV Podcast, Finkelstein laid out what may be the most provocative claim of his career: that recent finds at Megiddo bring the world closer than ever to the biblical account of King Josiah’s death in 609 BCE.
“Armageddon is a corruption in Greek of the Hebrew Har Megiddo,” he explained, referring to the New Testament’s site of the final battle between good and evil. But the roots of that apocalyptic vision, he argues, may lie in a very real political execution.
According to the Book of Kings, Egypt’s Pharaoh Necho killed Judah’s reformist king, Josiah, at Megiddo. Finkelstein believes archaeology now supports that memory.
After years of searching for seventh-century BCE remains, his team struck gold.
“Bingo, we managed to uncover … remains … into the late seventh century,” he said.
What did they find? An unusually large cache of authentic Egyptian pottery, manufactured in Egypt and shipped north. Even more striking: East Greek pottery in the same layer.
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Why does that matter?
Ancient sources describe Greek mercenaries serving Pharaoh Necho.
“The fact that we had a combination of East Greek pottery with the Egyptian pottery” may point to a garrison at Megiddo, Finkelstein said. Add biblical hints that Greeks were involved in Josiah’s death, and “there you go.”
Is it definitive proof? Not quite.
“It’s not 100% proof, in my opinion,” he acknowledged. “But we are, in my opinion, as close as possible to having a proof without a text, by looking at the material culture.”
Yet for Finkelstein, the real drama is not only in the dirt. It is inside the delicate space where archaeology and theology collide.
When confronted with the question so many religious viewers ask, "Is the Bible true?” Finkelstein did not hesitate.
“For me, the Bible is always true,” he told ILTV. “Okay, that’s first and foremost, because of my identity. I’m also a Zionist, a strong one.”
But then he drew a careful distinction.
“The historical parts of the Bible cannot be understood in the modern sense of history,” he said.
The biblical narrative, Finkelstein argues, is not simply a chronicle of events but a theological work concerned with “the relationship between the God of Israel and the people of Israel,” the centrality of Jerusalem and the Davidic dynasty.
The task of the archaeologist, therefore, is not to preach and not to debunk, but to test.
“The only way to do this properly is to stick to research,” he said. “You will never hear me expressing political thought or ideas in relation to archaeological finds.”
That balance helps define his focus at the University of Haifa, where he serves as the head of the School of Archaeology and Maritime Cultures. Under his watch, the school has combined land archaeology, maritime civilizations, archaeological sciences and cultural heritage into one multidisciplinary framework. Students work with radiocarbon dating, molecular archaeology and computational methods alongside traditional excavation.
If Megiddo connects text and spade, Haifa connects past and future.
In Finkelstein’s view, understanding ancient Israel is not about scoring points in modern ideological disputes. It is about identity.
“It is important to know the past to establish our own identity, who we are,” he said.
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