The Importance of Biblical Archaeology

A POPULAR subject for a Christadelphian lecture is “Archaeology Proves the Bible True”, or similar wording, yet there is always a slightly uneasy feeling about the use of such a title. The Bible does not require the findings of archaeologists to prove it to be true, for, being the inspired and infallible Word of God, it is the ultimate standard of truth, and it has been observed with some justification that “The Bible Proves Archaeology True” would more accurately represent the position.

Yet “there is not in every man that knowledge” (1 Cor. 8:7), to quote an apt phrase rather out of context, and we believe that the findings of archaeology have their place in convincing people that our claim that the Bible is indeed true, even down to the facts of history which it gives, is not an unreasonable one. And surely we are all thrilled to know of archaeological findings which are exactly in accordance with what the Scriptures have said all along, especially when these findings force those who have maintained that the Bible is incorrect to admit that they are wrong.

That archaeological findings have frequently confounded critics of the Bible is known to all who read these words. But what is Bible criticism, and how did the Bible come to be doubted?

During the Middle Ages, when the Roman Catholic Church was supreme, it was heresy, punishable by death, openly to throw doubt upon what the Bible said, or rather what the Roman Catholic Church believed it said. Thus the factual content of the Bible, the actual existence of individuals named in the Bible, or the reality of the events it recounts, had to be accepted by all. When the stranglehold of Roman Catholicism over men’s beliefs was released it gradually became possible, more quickly in the countries of the Protestant Reformation than in those lands which remained firmly Catholic, to cast doubt upon the Scriptures. This began to be done in a more systematic way in the eighteenth century, the so-called Age of Reason, when prominent thinkers like Voltaire or Thomas Paine were openly sceptical of the truth of the Bible.

Beginning in the eighteenth century, and with its heyday in the nineteenth, came what is commonly known as the Higher Critical School. We commonly talk about archaeological discoveries confounding the higher critics, and sometimes we say, “the so-called higher critics”, in the apparent belief that the noun ‘critics’ refers to those who find fault with the Bible, and the adjective ‘higher’ to their claims to intellectual superiority. This is not at all what the term ‘higher criticism’ means, however, and, since this Special Issue will inevitably be thought of as ‘showing how archaeology confounds the higher critics’, it will be as well to consider carefully just what Biblical criticism is.

One definition runs as follows: “Biblical criticism is the application to the biblical writings of certain techniques which are used in the examination of many kinds of literature in order to establish as far as possible their original wording, the manner and date of their composition, their sources, authorship and so forth”.(Footnote 1) The term ‘criticism’ therefore does not mean ‘finding fault’, as we now commonly take it to mean.

There are in fact two types of criticism. One is called ‘textual criticism’, and refers to the process of establishing precisely what is the correct text of Scripture in the original languages. This involves the careful consideration of all available manuscripts, and other material such as ancient translations into other languages and ancient quotations from the Bible in other books. Textual criticism has also been called ‘lower criticism’ because it is the foundation or lowest level of criticism; before the text of Scripture can be studied one must know exactly what that text consists of.

Very few of us are able to carry out textual criticism, not having either knowledge of the original languages or access to the various manuscripts. However, we do in a sense perform it from time to time; for example, when declaring that the Trinitarian formula of 1 John 5:7 is not part of the original text.

The other form of criticism is called literary criticism’, and it concerns such questions as the date, the authorship, the circumstances of writing and the sources. It is literary criticism which is also called ‘higher criticism’ because it is built on the top of textual or lower criticism. We are all higher critics to some degree or another because, when we read and study a book of Scripture, we have views about the date of writing and the circumstances in which it was written which affect the way we interpret the text. In some cases we might exercise a view on the authorship, where this is not specifically stated in the text, as for example with the Epistle to the Hebrews. We might even consider the question of sources, because some historical books of the Bible, such as Proverbs or Chronicles, appear to be inspired compilations of earlier inspired material.

Nevertheless, although the term ‘higher criticism’ has the meaning above, there did arise what is known as the Higher Critical School, a school of thought noted for casting doubt upon the truth of the Bible. This school of thought was part of the explosive growth in man’s intellectual achievements which began in the eighteenth century. The Higher Critical School originated in German universities and had its heyday in the mid-nineteenth century, and it coincided with, indeed depended on, the newly respectable idea that the world was not the product of God’s creative hand, as revealed in Genesis, but had evolved over billions of years.

The natural corollary of this was that the history of man was a matter of evolution from primitive societies with primitive beliefs, first a belief in many gods, then a belief in one. With such ideas in mind the Higher Critical School examined the Bible text and maintained that many books of the Bible were not written by those who purported to have written them, but were written much later on. Many of the theories propounded then are still widely accepted today: the books of the Law are alleged to be a fusion of several different documents written at different times; Isaiah is supposed to have been the product of two (or more) authors; and Daniel a product of Maccabean times, for example.

Although many Higher Critical theories are still widely accepted, however, many of the things they originally said about the Bible have been shown to be wholly untrue. It was said that the great emperors of Assyria and Babylon did not really exist, that the Law of Moses could not have been written in those times because people could not write then, that Genesis is just myth and legend with no historical basis at all, and that Luke’s writings are riddled with factual errors regarding the historical background of the first century A.D. All these allegations have been shown to be without foundation, and evidence is presented in this Special Issue which confirms that.

How was it possible to show that these, and many other criticisms of the Bible, are not true? The answer, in a word, is archaeology. Men developed their theories about the Bible, and God caused them to be overthrown by the discoveries of the archaeologist. That same spirit of intellectual inquiry which brought about the development of the critical schools also caused men to seek to unearth the secrets of the past from the land of the Near East(Footnote 2) (as it was then called), and in the providence of God they made many remarkable discoveries, discoveries which showed that many extreme statements about the Bible were totally untrue.

This is an appropriate time to ask what is meant by archaeology. The word was first used in the early seventeenth century to mean the study of antiquities, and is derived from two Greek words: archaia, meaning ‘ancient things’ (another English word from the same source is ‘archaic’), and that familiar Greek word logos, which carries a number of meanings including, to the student of classical Greek if not Biblical Greek, that of study.

In practice the term has come to mean to most people the study of that which is unearthed by excavation, although this is rather too narrow a meaning since archaeologists also study that which is above the surface such as buildings or the remains of buildings for information about the past. Nor is the word strictly related to ancient times these days, for there is industrial archaeology, the study of that which remains from the Industrial Revolution which occurred in the relatively recent past.

In terms of the archaeology of the ancient world of the Bible it will perhaps be helpful to consider it as the study of the remains of the past to gain more information about those times. Information about those times is already known from the writings which have survived down the ages, and the study of these writings is not in itself considered to be archaeology. However, if hitherto unknown writings from the past are discovered then this tends to be regarded as archaeology, for example in the case of the non-Biblical writings discovered in the Dead Sea caves.

Techniques of archaeology have developed enormously over the years. The original purpose of digging was simply to find things like inscriptions or reliefs or coins. Archaeology has now become much more scientific. By carefully noting the different layers of habitation at a site, and by carefully noting the style of pottery used, much chronological information can be built up about a site; and when this information is compared with other sites much can be deduced. The remains of buildings are very carefully studied to enable them to be pictured as they once were. The scientific analysis of remains can also provide much information. All these things, however, leave much scope for interpretation, and the interpretations which archaeologists choose to make are not necessarily in accordance with Scripture.

What is the relationship between archaeology and history? Archaeology is the raw material of history, and the further back in time one goes, as a general rule, the more history depends on archaeology. Hence those who maintained that the Bible is not historically accurate were able at one time to make such claims without there being much evidence to refute them. The discoveries of archaeology have changed all that; quite detailed histories of Babylon, Assyria and

Egypt

, for example, have now been written.

Archaeology has its limits in establishing the truth of the Bible, however. There is nothing about the discoveries of the archaeologist which compels us to believe that the Bible is the Word of God. Some respect the Bible as a work of historical accuracy and reject it as the inspired Word of God. It is prophecy, not archaeology, which compels (or should compel) people to believe that the Bible is the Word of God, for man cannot predict the future accurately as the Bible has done. What we can say is that archaeology has now made it much more difficult for people to say that the Bible cannot be what it claims to be, the infallible Word of God, because it is historically inaccurate. Nothing has ever been discovered that proves the Bible is wrong in any respect, and much that has been discovered is fully in accordance with what the Bible states.

Although we say, quite correctly, that no archaeological discovery has proved the Bible to be false in any respect, we must admit that to say this is not in fact to say very much. Most archaeological discoveries have to be interpreted, and if they are interpreted in a way that does not agree with the Bible we simply say, and quite rightly, that the interpretation is wrong, not the Bible. Sometimes inscriptions do not agree exactly with the Bible, but again we say that it is the inscription that is wrong, not the Bible, for inscriptions are the work of men, and men sometimes lie, or distort the truth, for their own ends, or simply make errors. We interpret archaeological findings in accordance with what the Bible says, for to us the Bible is truth. This may well lead us to disagree with commonly accepted archaeological findings, which are sometimes presented as showing the Bible to be wrong.

However, fashions change, and what is regarded by one generation as being not in accordance with the Bible is accepted by the next as agreeing with it. Jericho is a case in point. As is shown in more detail later, John Garstang in the pre-war period said his excavations fitted the Bible picture; Kathleen Kenyon came along and said they did not; but now, when the full story is examined again, the idea that they do fit the Bible after all is being revived. After a long period in which it was alleged that the Exodus and the conquest of the land must have taken place in the thirteenth century B.C. the idea that they took place in the fifteenth, as the Bible says they did, is now being revived. This is not to say that in these matters everyone will come round to an interpretation of findings which is in accordance with the Scriptures, merely that there are different schools of thought and different ways of interpreting evidence, and we must take that which is in accordance with the Scriptures.

Archaeological findings not only serve as evidence that the Scriptures are historically reliable, they also give us much information about the historical background to the Scriptures and about the sort of lives people lived. Indeed, in some cases archaeological findings can help to confirm the meaning of a passage.

To the purist the use of such information to illuminate and explain the text of Scripture may seem to be unnecessary, indeed dangerous. Are not the Scriptures sufficient in themselves without outside interpretation? Indeed, we are right to be careful in how we use outside information to interpret the Scriptures, for the best interpreter of Scripture is Scripture itself, and outside information cannot be set against clear guidance from within Scripture as to how a passage should be interpreted. Certainly no fundamental doctrine of Scripture is dependent on outside information for its correct understanding.

Nevertheless, there is much to be gained from correctly understanding the background against which Scripture is set. Besides the historical records it contains the Scripture also contains works of prophecy and epistles which are set against particular backgrounds of history and which concern real people living in real situations. The better we can understand the background and the situations the more real the people concerned will become to us, and the more easy it will be for us to grasp the meaning of the scriptures concerned. And with the historical records of Scripture, archaeology also fills in the backcloth so that the events become more real to us.

Take, for example, Jerusalem. Here it is possible to inspect the gutter up which Joab and his men conquered the city, walk through the tunnel through which Hezekiah diverted the waters of the Gihon Spring, see evidence of the idolatry which kings like Josiah and Hezekiah valiantly but ultimately unsuccessfully attempted to eradicate, inspect the remains of the walls built by Hezekiah to strengthen the city, see steps where the feet of Jesus and the apostles trod when they went up to the temple, marvel at the mighty building work of Herod, or go underground and see the remains of the sumptuous houses of the Sadducees whom Jesus condemned. To one who has seen these things the Scriptures live, and it is hoped that the pages of this magazine will help readers who have not seen these things to gain some idea of what has been discovered.

2. In the nineteenth century the Middle East was

India

, and what we now call the Middle East was the Near East. Why the change? Perhaps it is the American influence; whilst to a European the countries of Western Asia are the Near East, to an American Europe is the Near East.

In the past forty years a new subject has entered the curriculum of Bible colleges and theological colleges. It is Bible Archaeology. Its importance is beyond dispute. It is a vital branch of general biblical research, which has made tremendous progress in recent years ... Biblical archaeology has all the fascination of the science of archaeology, which seeks to unravel the story of past ages by digging up their material remains. But it has the added interest that through this study we are better able to understand and interpret the textbook of our faith. Of course, it is impossible to authenticate archaeologically all that is in the Bible. Many of its statements lie beyond the sphere of archaeological investigation. No excavator can comment, in terms of his science, on the simple statement: “Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness”. But in its own sphere this science does much for the student of the sacred record.

J. A. Thompson, The Bible and Archaeology, p. 3.

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