Wednesday, March 9, 2016

When most people think of archaeology, they probably picture harrowing scenes from Raiders of the Lost Ark replete with large creeping spiders and a well of snakes that lead to hidden, valuable relics. (Did you know that in the spider scene with Indy and his friend Satipo, the tarantulas covering Satipo’s back were dormant? Director Steven Spielberg asked the animal wranglers why the spiders were not moving, and they informed him that the males will not be aggressive unless they are around a female spider. A female tarantula was added to Satipo’s back, and the flurry of activity captured in the shot was the male tarantula’s response to the introduction of the female!)

Archaeologist William Dever writes about the misnomer of this science created by Hollywood productions. “Archaeology isn’t really like that…the chase rarely leads to anything spectacular, just bits and pieces of other people’s garbage...and the daily routine is long, hard, hot, dirty, and mostly dull—hardly ‘glamorous!’ Modern, real-life archaeology is not treasure-hunting; it is simply another kind of historical research. …an archaeologist is an anthropologist who deals with ‘the ethnography of the dead’…. Archaeology may thus best be thought of simply as a way of making inferences about ‘how it was in the past’ by examining material cultural remains.”[1]

What does it look like when the Bible and archaeology intersect? Are they complimentary or contradictory?

There are over 20,000 archaeological digs directly related to the names, dates, places, and events in the Bible, and many more that indirectly connect. Out of these 20,000 digs, none of them have been able to refute the Bible. On the contrary, most of them have only confirmed ideas previously thought to be errant, false, or legendary in Scripture. So let’s dig (pun intended) into the archaeological evidence for the Bible.

There is a very long list of Biblical cities that have been excavated and confirmed by archaeologists—cities that were once thought not to have existed.

§  Arad – Numbers 21:1, 33:40 – a Canaanite city

For years, Arad was believed to be a mythical, imaginary city invented by the writers of the Bible, because in all of the Canaanites excavations, archaeologists had never found any historical record, mention, or evidence that such a city existed. But in 1962, archaeologists discovered both the city itself and fragments of Canaanite history that referred to it as a previous capitol.

§  Chorazin – Matthew 11:21

Jesus mentions this city in one of the woes He gives to various cities. In the very early part of the 20th century, people thought Jesus had made up this city because there was no evidence of its existence. But in 1927, Chorazin was discovered along with historical fragments verifying its existence.

§  Dan (the city) – Judges 18:29 – discovered in 1966. It was formerly known as the city of “Laish”.

§  Hazor – Joshua 11:1; Jeremiah 49:28 – discovered in 1955

§  Jericho – Numbers 22:1

It was not disputed that Jericho existed (the modern city of Jericho exists to this day), but it was believed that the fall of the walls of Jericho was nonsense. At one point, there was no archaeological evidence that walls that large ever existed or that they fell in that manner. But in 1884, at a deeper excavation, they found that the city walls were much larger than any archaeologist had ever thought, and there was evidence found in the rubble that the cities walls collapsed inward.

Another way to establish the historical reliability of the Bible is to examine lists of names in the Bible that were previously unknown (or were believed not to exist), but that have since been confirmed.

§  Belshazzar – Daniel 5

In Daniel 5, Belshazzar is called “king of Babylon”, but when you look at the Babylonian historical records, the third king was named Nabonidus, not Belshazzar. This led some people to believe that the Bible is not historically accurate. In the early 1970s, however, an archaeologist discovered ancient cylinders that had historical inscriptions on them that served as royal records. On the cylinder, it was inscribed that Nabonidus appointed his stepson, Belshazzar, as co-regent.

§  King Sargon – Isaiah 20:1

No one believed that King Sargon existed until 1843 when the remains of his palace were discovered in modern day Iraq. The ancient inscriptions found in the dig reveal that King Sargon enjoyed talking about this military conquests. He even mentions the city of Ashod, written about in Isaiah 20:1!

§  Caiaphas – mentioned in the Gospels

His ossuary was discovered in 1990 with his (and his son’s) inscription. This was the first evidence that Caiaphas was a real person.

§  Hittites – the Hittites were once thought to be a legend until the capitol and historical records were discovered in modern day Turkey and Iraq.

Finally, the discovery of many tablets and scrolls containing fragments or portions of Scripture attest to its reliability. The greatest discovery was the Dead Sea Scrolls in Qumran near Masada. In 1947, a Bedouin shepherd boy with a herd of sheep was taking refuge in the mouth of a cave from an impending storm. To pass time, he began throwing rocks to the back of the cave. He hears the noise of something breaking, and goes back to investigate. He had inadvertently thrown the rock into an ancient clay jar and broke it, and heard that sound echoing. He then discovers that there were several of these jars, and inside these jars were ancient scrolls, which today we believe were preserved by the Essene community—a group of separatists.

Archaeologists discovered that the Dead Sea Scrolls contained 972 fragments/portions of 99% of the Old Testament. Every book of the Old Testament was represented (either in full or part) except Esther. And these scrolls went back 1,000 years earlier than any other copies of Scripture previously discovered!

Both Christian and secular scholars poured over these documents and found an infinitesimal number of errors, and ALL of them were punctuation and grammatical changes. NONE of them were doctrinal, theological, or content of meaning errors. Remember that this is in a day before the Internet, computers, and “cut and paste” in documents. This is the careful preservation of the Word of God for 1,000 years! When you hold a Bible in your hands today, you’re holding a reliable collection of historical documents written by eyewitnesses alive during other eyewitnesses. These eyewitnesses claimed to bear witness to supernatural events, and they claim that their origin is divine and not human.

Another discovery was the Ebla tablets in 1970 in Northern Syria. These were discovered dating from 2,000 B.C. These are not copies of biblical documents, but ancient tablets of ancient peoples that confirm parts of the Old Testament. The first five cities mentioned in the book of Genesis during the Patriarchal period are confirmed in the Ebla tablets to the T. These secondary sources confirm cities, dates, and events that take place during the patriarchs.

We have now given a look (albeit cursory) to the manuscript and archaeological evidence for the reliability of the Bible. Tomorrow, we will look at the prophetic evidence for the Bible—it’s predictive ability. We hope you will join us tomorrow as we continue to tackle the question, “Can I trust the Bible?”

Pastor Jeff Frazier

---

[1] Dever, William G. What Did the Biblical Writers Know & When Did They Know It?: What Archeology Can Tell Us about the Reality of Ancient Israel. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001, pgs. 53-54.