What can archeology contribute to biblical studies?

Answer 1

William Foxwell Albright began excavating in Palestine in the 1920's with the stated expectation that Archaeology would refute the critical claims against the historical veracity of The Bible stories. He was convinced that if the ancient remains of Palestine were uncovered, they would furnish unequivocal proof of the historical truth of the events relating to the Jewish people in its land. The biblical archaeology that developed following Albright and his pupils brought about a series of extensive digs at the important biblical tells: Megiddo, Lachish, Gezer, Shechem (Nablus), Jericho, Jerusalem, Ai, Giveon, Beit She'an, Beit Shemesh, Hazor, Ta'anach and others.

While many of the earlier expectations of the biblical archaeologists have not been met, archaeology has provided a wealth of information that has enabled scholars to understand the Bible and its background.

Extremely serious difficulties arose in the attempts to locate the archaeological evidence for the military conquest of Canaan. Various expeditions at Jericho and Ai, the two cities whose conquest is described in the greatest detail in the Book of Joshua, have proved that at the end of the Late Bronze Age, which is the agreed period for the conquest, there were no cities in either tell, and of course no walls that could have been toppled. Explanations offered for Jericho included that the walls around Jericho were washed away by rain, or that earlier walls had been used. It was claimed that the original story of Ai actually referred to the conquest of nearby Beit El and was transferred to Ai by later redactors. As more and more sites were uncovered and it emerged that the places in question died out or were simply abandoned at different times, the conclusion that there is no factual basis for the biblical story about the conquest by Israelite tribes in a military campaign led by Joshua was confirmed.

Meanwhile, archaeologists in Egypt found that the many Egyptian documents that we have make no mention of the Israelites' presence in Egypt and are also silent about the events of the Exodus. Generations of researchers have tried to locate Mount Sinai and the encampments of the tribes in the desert but not even one site has been found that can match the biblical account. The name "Israel" is mentioned in a single Egyptian document from the period of Merneptah, king of Egypt, dating from 1208 BCE: "Plundered is Canaan with every evil, Ascalon is taken, Gezer is seized, Yenoam has become as though it never was, Israel is desolated, its seed is not." Merneptah refers to the country by its Canaanite name and mentions several cities of the kingdom, along with a non-urban ethnic group. According to this evidence, 'Israel' referred to one of the population groups that resided in Canaan toward the end of the Late Bronze Age, apparently in the mountainous hinterland where the Kingdom of Israel would later be established.

When archaeologists realised that the Philistines had only arrived in Palestine during the thirteenth century BCE, they began to realise that the story of Abraham and the Patriarchs was not literally true.

Excavations in Syria, Mesopotamia and elsewhere have provided an understanding of the religions and cultures of the forerunners and neighbours of the Hebrew people. They now realise that the Israelites spoke a closely related language to that of the Canaanites and must have worshipped the same gods. Some scholars began to believe that the stories of the Patriarchs were adaptations of older stories about the gods.

For a long while, scholars noticed that there was nothing to be found that confirmed the existence even of King David. However, the Mesha Stele or "Moabite Stone", bearing an inscription by the ninth century BCE Moabite King Mesha and discovered in 1868, was re-examined recently and may refer to the "House of David". If this reading is correct, then it is circumstantial evidence that David had once existed, or at least that the Judahites thought he had.

Archaeologists had expected to confirm that the empire of David and Solomon stretched from the Euphrates River to Gaza just as it was described in the Bible (1 Kings 5:4), but no such empire existed. Large sections of Jerusalem have been excavated over the past 150 years, and impressive remains have been found from centuries earlier than the Hebrew period, as well as from later periods, but not from the time attributed to the earliest Hebrew occupation and the United Monarchy.

Answer 2

Archaeology can contribute to study of the Bible by informing us of the events that occurred in biblical times, their context, the probable sizes of armies and cities, whether nations were really as prosperous as indicated in the Bible, and often even the cultural and ethnic make up of a region.

If the biblical study is for the purpose of understanding the Bible and the background to events in the Bible, archaeology can be used to confirm or contradict the biblical account. The Palestine Exploration Fund was established in 1865 by a group of British churchmen and biblical scholars who sought to use archaeology to restore faith in the Bible. This led to biblical archaeology being regarded as a discipline in its own right. Basic to biblical archaeology as a discipline and field of study is a strong belief in the historicity of the Bible. For many biblical archaeologists, the field is geared primarily towards proving the accuracy of the biblical narratives.It is claimed that biblical archaeologists argue that when the evidence from an archaeological excavation does not fit that from the Bible, they should conclude that the archaeological evidence is incomplete or incorrectly interpreted.

Modern archaeologists have moved away from this narrow view of the purpose of archaeology and accept the evidence, regardless of its impact on literal interpretation of the Bible. This knowledge sometimes makes conservatives feel uncomfortable, but on the other hand enriches our understanding of the true meaning of the Bible.

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