Is there archaeological evidence for the Bible?

Answer 1

Yes. A great deal. Archaeologist Dr. Clifford Wilson has published a multi-volume work which documents 4000 of these and the number is growing daily.

One of the major issues is the dating of the Exodus. In some cases no evidence is found because archeologists are looking in the wrong time-frame, contrary to what chronological statements the Bible itself makes about this event. When the correct time reference is used evidence is striking, particularly for things such as the destruction of Jericho.

Many details of the New Testament have also been verified by archeology.

Answer 2

There is a huge amount of evidence which supports the Bible from the field of archaeology. The archaeologist Dr, Clifford Wilson has documented over 4000 of these discoveries in a muli-volume work.

Particularly striking discoveries such as that at Jericho correspond in a striking manner to the details of the Bible account of events.

In order to answer this question it would first be necessary to detail the actual evidence that might be expected to be found were the Biblical account to be true. This is not to say that this would necessarily be found, but that if found, as part of a correctly understood chronology of the site, it would add credence to the Biblical record.

1. A strongly fortified city as recorded in Joshua 2:5,7,15; 6:5, 20

2. That the attack occurred just after harvest time in the spring as indicated in Joshua 2:1; 3:15; and 5:16.

3. The inhabitants had no opportunity to flee and remove their food as indicated in Joshua 6:1.

4. The seige was short as in Joshua 6:15 (together with 2 and 3 above, abundant remains would indicate that the inhabitants were not 'starved into surrender')

5. The walls were destroyed, possibly as the result of an earthquake. see Joshua 6:20

6. The city was not plundered of its material goods and food etc as detailed in Joshua 6:17 and 18.

7. The city was burned with fire as in Joshua 6:24.

8. Possibly a portion of the wall remained intact, as in Joshua 6:17,22 and 23.

In the early 1990s, there was a startling report by Dr. Bryant G. Woods, who was then at the University of Toronto, of finding remnants of Jericho from Joshua's time. Previous excavations had been in a different section of the mound of ancient Jericho.

Woods found a layer of ash 3-foot deep over his entire excavated area. This appears to be clear evidence of largescale destruction by fire. Large stores of spring harvested wheat that were barely touched were also discovered. The city seems to have fallen after a very brief siege, whereas a walled city would usually have been expected to hold out until starvation. The account in the Book of Joshua matches all the evidence. The fact that Jericho was conquered in the spring (deduced from the spring wheat) also correlates to the biblical account that it was right after Passover, the spring holiday.

Dr. Lawrence Stager, the respected professor of Archaeology in Israel from Harvard University said this about Woods' work at Jericho: "On the whole the archaeological assessment is not unreasonable. There is evidence of destruction and the date isn't too far wrong."

In addition to the excavations by Bryant Wood, earlier excavations by John Garstang and Kathleen Kenyon, as well as an earlier excavation by a German team established that all of the expected evidence was found. This is quite striking and amazing to find that people still question this when the evidence is 'on the record'.

The Ai of Joshua The City of Ai as proof of Bible's historicity. See link.

Answer: Yes. In 1990 a burial chamber dating back to the first century two miles south of the Temple Mount. Inside the chamber, archaeologists found twelve limestone ossuaries. One of the boxes contained the bones of a sixty year old man and bore the inscription Yehosef bar Qayafa- "Joseph, son of Caiaphas." Caiaphas was the high priest who presided of the religious trials of Jesus.

Archaeologists have uncovered a tomb schematic showing Semitic slaves making mud bricks at the Egyptian city of Thebes on the Nile. A well-known inscription at the private tomb of Rekhmire, the highest ranking official under pharaohs Tuthmosis III and Amenophis II, depicts slaves making mud bricks during the construction of the Karnak Temple Complex. Egyptian-born professor of Old Testament and Ancient Near Eastern history and archaeology James Hoffmeier points out that "the practice of using forced labor for building projects is only documented for the period of 1450 to 1200, the very time most biblical historians place the Israelites in Egypt."

The "mixed multitude" described being liberated from Egypt in Exodus 12 accords well with the archaeological record as well. A line in an Egyptian document dubbed Leiden Papyrus 348 contains a directive that food be distributed to "the Apiru" dragging materials to a great pylon. Dr Frank Moore Cross, professor of Hebrew and other Oriental languages at Harvard, points out that the "Apiru is the origin of the term Hebrew." As such, Papyrus 348 seems to provide contextual evidence for a mixed multitude of Semitic people who are described as being liberated from bondage in Exodus 12:38. An archaeological discovery known as the Merneptah Stele, inscribed in Egyptian hieroglyphics, boasts of the military conquests of Pharaoh Merneptah, son of Ramses II where he boasts "Israel is wasted, bare of seed." The Merneptah Stele, inscribed shortly before 1200 BC, demonstrates that as of 1230 BC Israel was already in the land of promise as a significant socioethnic entity meriting the attention of Merneptah.

The Dan Stele, discovered by Israeli archaeologists in 1993, was a fragment of a stone monument with inscriptions bearing the the first known reference outside the Bible to King David. Dr. Avraham Biram, head of the Institute for Archaeology at Hebrew Union College in Jerusalem had unearthed a record commemorating a military victory by Ben-Hadad, king of Damascus, over the king of Israel and House of David.

The Moabite Stones. In 1994, French scholar Andre Lemaire reported the results of an exhaustive seven year study of the Moabite Stone housed in the Louvre Museum in Paris. In line 31 he identified a previously indiscernible letter as the D in the moniker "House of David. He said "The missing part of the inscription described how Mesha also threw off the yoke of Judah and conquered the territory south east of the Dead Sea controlled by the House of David." The Moabite Stone was discovered August 19, 1868, in Dhiban, Jordan, twenty miles east of the Dead Sea. The Moabite victory monument consisting of thirty four lines memorializes the repression of the Moabites under "Omri King of Israel" (one of the most significant kings of the Northern Kingdom, 1 Kings 16:30) and revolt under Mesha king of Moab. Furthermore, in, line 14, Mesha boasts that Chemosh (chief god of the Moabites, in whose honor the Moabite Stone was erected) directed him to attack the town of Nebo originally captured by the tribe of Rueben (Numbers 32:3). This Moabite reference validates one of the most significant sites in all of Scripture. Mount Nebo was not only the site from which the Lord showed Moses "the land I promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob" (Deuteronomy 34:4) but the very place in Moab where Moses died and was buried (Deuteronomy 34:5-6). Lines 17 and 18 chronicle the earliest known extrabiblical reference to Yahweh, God of Israel "I took the vessels of YHWH and I dragged them before Chemosh."

The Pilate Stone, discovered while excavating at the ruins of an ancient Herodian theater at Caesarea, the Roman capital of Judea, bears the inscription Tiberieum Pontius Pilatus praefectus Judaea. Dr. Paul Maier, professor of ancient history at Western Michigan University, rendersthe complete inscription "Pontius Pilatus, Prefect of Judea, has presented the Tiberieum to the Caesareans." The Pilate Stone corroborates the biblical assertion that Pilate was the Roman authority in Judea at the time that Christ was crucified (Mark 15:1, John 18:28).

The Pool of Siloam (where Jesus cured the blind man in John 9:6-7) was unearthed during construction to repair a large water pipe south of Jerusalem's Temple Mount. Archaeologists identified two ancient stone steps in an area adjacent to the King's Garden. Further excavation demonstrated these to be the steps into the very pool described in John's Gospel. Professor Ronny Reich, chief archaeologist of Jerusalem, was the first to authenticate the steps as belonging to the Pool of Siloam. Archaeologists have excavated three sets of stairs, each containing five steps, and unearthed a pool the shape of a trapezoid 225 feet wide overlooking the Kidron Valley. Encased in the plaster were four coins of Alexander Jannaeus, king and high priest of Judea (103 to 76 BC), strongly suggesting that the Pool of Siloam was constructed during the reign of the Hasmonean kings. Also found was the Siloam tunnel, the very tunnel that channeled waters of the Gihon spring into the Pool of Siloam (2 Kings 20, 2 Chronicles 32, Isaiah 37).

Excavations of The Pool of Bethesda (John 5:3-4) in 1956 revealed that it was located exactly where John said it was, bounded on the sides with four colonnades and spanned across the middle by a fifth. Israeli archaeologist Shimon Gibson points out that the Johannine details fit well with the archaeological remains of the pool as they exists in the present.

Sennacherib's Prism, discovered in the ruins of Nineveh, has included in the eight military campaigns inscribed on this hexagonal clay prism, Senecherib's assault on the Southern Kingdom of Judah. The prism squares with the biblical account of 2 Kings respecting Sennacherib's siege, capture, and despoiling of Judah's fortified cities.

Shalmaneser's Black Obelisk was discovered south of Nineveh in 1946. Sir Henry Layard unearthed a seven foot, four sided, black alabaster obelisk etched with 190 lines of cuneiform script and replete with myriad images. Three thousand years ago the Assyrian king Shalmaneser III erected the black obelisk as a testament to his victories. It represents the oldest ancient depiction of an Israelite in the celebrated history of biblical archaeology. Engraved in the obelisk is an image of King Jehu kneeling at the feet of the great Shalmaneser. Etched in cuneiform below the engraved pictorial is the Assyrian facsimile of the following word; "The tribute of Jehu, son of Omri. I received from him silver, gold, a golden bowl, a golden vase, golden tumblers, golden buckets, tin, staff and spears." This is the very king of Israel who fulfilled one of the most graphic and ominous prophecies in the Old Testament (2 Kings 9:36-37)

Answer 3

There are no archaeological evidences which clearly refute the historicity of The Bible when rightly understood and interpreted. Instead archaeologist Dr. Clifford Wilson has documented over 4000 individual discoveries which demonstrate the accuracy of the Bible record of events. This evidence is in the museums of the world today for all to see.

Archaeologists ignore what the bible says about the events of, for example, the conquest of Canaan and when it happened and then allege they have disproved the Bible when they have not addressed the record of what the bible says, including putting the conquest into the wrong time period and so finding no evidence since it did not happen then.

Some of the alleged refutation of the historicity of the Bible actually provides some of the most striking and detailed support for the Bible account of events. The details of the conquest of Jericho is one example.

In order to demonstrate how strikingly similar to the account is the evidence 'on the ground' it would first be necessary to detail the actual evidence that might be expected to be found were the Biblical account to be true. This is not to say that this would necessarily be found but that if found, as part of a correctly understood chronology of the site, it would add credence to the Biblical record.

1. A strongly fortified city as recorded in Joshua 2:5,7,15; 6:5, 20

2. That the attack occurred just after harvest time in the spring as indicated in Joshua 2:1; 3:15; and 5:16.

3. The inhabitants had no opportunity to flee and remove their food as indicated in Joshua 6:1.

4. The seige was short as in Joshua 6:15 (together with 2 and 3 above, abundant remains would indicate that the inhabitants were not 'starved into surrender')

5. The walls were destroyed, possibly as the result of an earthquake. see Joshua 6:20

6. The city was not plundered of its material goods and food etc as detailed in Joshua 6:17 and 18.

7. The city was burned with fire as in Joshua 6:24.

8. Possibly a portion of the wall remained intact, as in Joshua 6:17,22 and 23.

In the early 1990s, there was a startling report by Dr. Bryant G. Wood, who was then at the University of Toronto, of finding remnants of Jericho from Joshua's time. Previous excavations had been in a different section of the mound of ancient Jericho.

Woods found a layer of ash 3-foot deep over his entire excavated area. This appears to be clear evidence of large scale destruction by fire. Large stores of spring harvested wheat that were barely touched were also discovered. The city seems to have fallen after a very brief siege, whereas a walled city would usually have been expected to hold out until starvation. 'The fact that Jericho was conquered in the spring (deduced from the spring wheat) also correlates to the biblical account that it was right after Passover, the spring holiday.

Dr. Lawrence Stager, the respected professor of Archaeology in Israel from Harvard University said this about Woods' work at Jericho: "On the whole the archaeological assessment is not unreasonable. There is evidence of destruction and the date isn't too far wrong."

In addition to the excavations by Bryant Wood, earlier excavations by John Garstang and Kathleen Kenyon, as well as an earlier excavation by a German team established that all of the expected evidence was found. This is quite striking and amazing to find that people still question this when the evidence is 'on the record'.

Why Is the Evidence of Jericho's Destruction by Joshua questionedThe main reason is that, due to widespread acceptance of a date of 1250 BC as the date of Joshua's attack, there is no evidence found for that date, because he did not conquer Jericho then, and indeed there most likely was no city for him to conquer then because he had already done so in around 1400 BC, as the Bible says, and destroyed it. In addition, exactly as the Bible records, the city was not rebuilt for around 500 years after its destruction because it was cursed. Kenyon, in particular, noted this gap in the occupational levels.

Another reason is that Kenyon dismissed the investigations of John Garstang, even though he found pottery to date his findings (pottery which she was looking for but did not find - an argument from silence) and dated the walls which fell as being from an earlier time. In addition to this, she referred to the time of the construction of the walls but not necessarily to the time of their destruction. It is known that some ancient walls remained for centuries ancient Jerusalem being a good example of this.

When archaeologists deny evidence which actually exists then it could be siad that they are dliberately seeking to refute the historicity of the Bible. This is demonstrated when they deny things which exist or when they use faulty reasoning in reaching their conclusions.

The statement 'absence of evidence is not evidence of absence' certainly applies if the location of an archaeological site is unknown. Archaeologists of all persuasions are aware of the practice of materials from one site being used on another. Thus, particularly when a city was not burned, but only destroyed the materials could be re-used.

Regarding Gibeon there are a number of possibilities which could explain a lack of evidence 'in that place.' The excavators could have the location wrong is one. Their chronology could also be wrong is another. And, as mentioned above the materials could have been taken away.

Hazor actually has evidence which supports the Bible account as it was burned with fire and evidence was also found of 'cultic desecration.' The invaders deliberately mutilated the idols of the inhabitants. It has been pointed out that this would be extremely unlikely if the attackers had been locals as they often shared deities. This makes it more likely that the invaders at this time were the monotheistic Israelites.

Summary: Evidence which allegedly refutes the Bible needs to be carefully examined in the light of all the facts.

Answer 4

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.

Archaeological evidence has arisen to support some biblical stories, for example the tunnels that supplied water to Jerusalem. A stele that some believe to mention the "house of David" could be circumstantial evidence for the existence of King David. However, no evidence archaeological evidence has yet been found for the legendary patriarchs or of the glorious United Monarchy of David and Solomon. The majority of archaeological evidence to date is unsupportive of the Bible.

Answer 5

There are parts of the Bible that are fully consistent with the archaeological record - particularly during the period from the divided kingdom onwards.

There are other parts of the Bible where there is some archaeological evidence that may support the biblical account, but there are disputes about the dates. For example, there is some archaeological material that was thought to be consistent with the biblical accounts of a rich United Kingdom during the time attributed to Kings David and Solomon, but which some scholars now believe to belong to a later era, during the time of the divided kingdom.

One artefact has been found that refers to the defeat of the "House of David", which means that at the time of the defeat, there had been a former King David, or at least Judahite tradition held that there once had been a King David.

Much of the earlier biblical tradition is not supported by archaeological evidence, and in fact some of it is clearly inconsistent with the archaeological evidence. A later book that is certainly not consistent with the archaeological record is Daniel, whose author even confused Kings Cyrus and Darius in his account.

Professor Finkelstein said, "Today more than 90% of scholars agree that there was no Exodus from Egypt, 80% feel that that the Conquest of the Land did not take place as described in the Bible, and about 50% agree that there was no powerful United Monarchy." Others who support the views expressed by Finkelstein include Ze'ev Herzog, "Perhaps even harder to swallow is that the united monarchy of David and Solomon, which is described by the Bible as a regional power, was at most a small tribal kingdom. "

The archaeological evidence in respect to the supposed conquest of Canaan is telling. Archaeologists have established that the city of Jericho was abandoned in 1550 BCE, long before the time attributed to the conquest, at which time there was at most only an unwalled, mud-brick village on the site of the ancient city. The second city 'conquered' by Joshua was Ai, but this had been abandoned even earlier. The name 'Ai' is telling, because it means 'ruins', showing that the Hebrews did not even know the name by which it had once been known, merely being aware of some city ruins at that location. Clearly, the Israelites simply created a story to explain the existence of those 'ruins''.

Answer 6

Yes, there is evidence for some things and some events described in the Bible, but no evidence for many other things and events. There is no evidence for the creation stories, Noahs Flood, Abraham, Isaac or Jacob, nor of the Exodus from Egypt or the military conquest of Canaan. The archaeological evidence from Canaan is of a gradual influx of rural settlers, from the middle of the thirteenth century onwards, not a unified military conquest.

There is no evidence outside the Bible for the United Monarchy of Saul, David and Solomon. A stele known as The Tel Dan Stele was discovered in 1993–94 and, according to the most widely accepted translation, refers to the "House of David", evidence that King David had lived some time before the inscription was written, or at least that the people believe that he had. Archaeologists say that Saul, David and Solomon could only have been local warlords, not kings of a great and powerful empire. There is evidence for the later monarchy in Israel and Judah, the Assyrian conquest of Israel, the Babylonian Exile and the Return from Exile.

On the other hand, archaeology provides evidence that Esther was never the wife of King Xerxes and queen of Persia, as well as that the Book of Daniel is historically inaccurate.