Interest in digging Biblical sites is up, especially after a group of archeologists recently dug what they believe is the ancient sin city of Sodom in Jordan. In the US, the race for the GOP presidential candidate is being reshaped by Ben Carson, a retired neurosurgeon, who has claimed that the Egyptian pyramids were built by Biblical character Joseph not as burial grounds for Egyptian royals but as grain storage.

Actually, it is an old claim made by Carson 17 years ago that resurfaced on Wednesday. He told the graduating class of Andrews University – a school connected with the Seventh-Day Adventist Church – in 1998. BuzzFeed dug up the video and shared it online, reports Washington Post.

Carson then was quoted as saying, “Now all the archeologists think that they were made for the pharoah’s graves. But, you know, it would have to be something awfully big – when you stop and think about it, and I don’t think I’d just disappear over the course of time – to store that much grain.”

The granary that Carson was talking about has its roots in Genesis, the first book of the Christian Bible, where Joseph was ordered by God to build large storages for grain to anticipate seven years of famine. It was during those years when he finally revealed himself to his estranged brothers who treated him badly when they were younger because they were jealous since he was the favourite son of their father Jacob, the descendant of Isaac and Abraham. The story is the basis of the hit musical “Joseph, the Dreamer.”

Carson was laughed at then because of his claim. But Carson is known for his controversial statements in the past, including homosexuality being a choice and Obamacare as the worst thing to happen in the US since slavery.

On the same day that the video was posted on YouTube, Carson reiterated to CBS that he holds on to that belief – despite what scientists are saying otherwise, reports The Guardian.

Many Americans may find Carson’s theory about the pyramids as weird, if not downright crazy, but latest poll by Real Clear Politics says that Carson’s poll average rose to 24 percent from only 10 percent on Aug 30, while Republican frontliner and billionaire Donald Trump has a slim lead at 25 percent which grew only by 1.5 percent from 23.5 percent, reports the New York Post.

If Carson holds beliefs anchored on Biblical accounts, it is not surprising because according to his biography, the poor boy from Detroit was allegedly cured from a raging temper by reading the Book of Proverbs of the Bible. He later attended Yale and John Hopkins, became a neurosurgeon and could be the White House’s next occupant.

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