Toto

There's already a long thread on this - hold on for the merger

Random Evil Guy

give me a specific example of which we have the person, the place and the event mentioned in the bible and corroborated by outside sources. then, i'd like you to explain how it would lend credibility to any of the supernatural claims in the bible. how does one historical fact mentioned in the bible prove, or even suggest, that any of the supernatural phenomenons were real?

not to mention, how does one accurate story lend credibility to other stories? if that is all what it takes, why aren't you a muslim or a mormon? real people, real places and corroborated by other sources.

Minimalist

The Babylonian army did overrun the area and hold it for 50 years. Even though the fighting front moved on towards Egypt there would have had to be a line of communication stretching through the area. They didn't abandon it.

It's really not much of a stretch to think that later building projects scraped up fill from the ground and dumped it inside new buildings. That's why it is hard to get too excited about the context of archaeological finds in the area. Simply too much continued human habitation and activity to mess up the stratigraphy.