Biblical Archaeology Quotes

biblical history did not take place in either the particular era or the manner described. Some of the most famous events in the Bible clearly never happened at all.

If you find that you're going through hell, keep moving. You will get to the end eventually.

The linguistic and literary reality of the biblical tradition is folkloristic in essence. The concept of a benei Israel ... is a reflection of no sociopolitical entity of the historical state of Israel of the Assyrian period

The most important of these texts are the Nuzi tablets from northern Iraq, which date to the fifteenth century B.C.E. To cite just a few examples, in Nuzi a barren wife is required to provide a slave woman for her husband to bear his children—a clear parallel to the biblical story of Sarai and Hagar in Gen 16.

is now evident that many events of biblical history did not take place in either the particular era or the manner described. Some of the most famous events in the Bible clearly never happened at all.

a conditional element associated with it, since it

Peshat is the plain sense reading. It looks to the surface meaning of the text, drawing on knowledge of word meanings, grammar, syntax, context, cognate Semitic languages, archaeology, and history. Remez is the allegorical, or symbolic, reading. It looks for parallels between the scriptural text and more abstract concepts. This kind of reading sees biblical characters, events, and literary compositions as standing for other truths. Derash is the inquiring or interpretive reading. It looks for further layers of meaning. Midrash, the Jewish tradition of interpreting the scripture through creative storytelling, derives from this way of reading. Sod is the mystical reading. It looks at the biblical text as a symbolic code, which with piety and effort will yield hidden wisdom and personal connection with the Divine. The Jewish mystical tradition known as Kabbalah relies on complex symbolic interpretation of each individual letter of the biblical text.

Far from offering structures to any history of the past, this kind of desert emptiness and exile is akin to the wilderness traditions of the monastery and the desert fathers.

Respected Mormon archaeologist Professor Dee F.Green has said: The first myth we need to eliminate is that Book of Mormon archaeology exists.... If one is to study Book of Mormon archaeology, then one must have a corpus of data with which to deal. We do not. ... No Book of Mormon location is known with reference to modern topography. Biblical archaeology can be studied because we do know where Jerusalem and Jericho were and are, but we do not know where Zarahemla and Bountiful (nor any location for that matter) were and are. ... A concentration on geography should be the first order of business, but we have already seen that twenty years of such an approach has left us empty-handed.30

Stager then concludes his discussion of the Solomonic kingdom with the following remark: “With an accurate chronology established by Egyptian sources through Shishak’s campaign in Palestine in 925 B.C.E., an adequate understanding of what statehood entails through historically generated typologies, rich symbols from biblical and inscriptional sources, and a ripe field of archaeological remains from these symbols, we can declare with some confidence that the United Monarchy of Israel already existed by the 10th century B.C.E. and flourished even after its division.” (Stager, 2003, 71).

Egalitarians often claim that we cannot look to the Bible to settle these types of disputes; rather, we should look to church history or elsewhere. Most of the new egalitarian arguments are rooted outside of the Bible and instead seek credibility through history, archaeology, and manipulation of original Bible language. Each of these arguments is an attack on one of the perfections of Scripture: its authority, sufficiency, verbal plenary inspiration, and clarity. When these areas are undermined, the inerrancy of Scripture is ultimately at stake.

The assessment of the impact of the Babylonian exile must make far more use of nonbiblical documents, archaeological reports, and a far more imaginative use of biblical texts read in the light of what we know about refugee studies, disaster studies, postcolonialist reflections, and sociologies of trauma. (p. 33)

But the reason why this is all so important is because the standard interpretation of Biblical archaeology is increasingly that the events of the Bible did not happen because they do not line up with the artifactual evidence of archaeology. There is simply no current evidence of a crushing defeat of Egypt or the resultant wandering of the Jews in the desert around the traditional date of 1445-1400 B.C. (or the more critical late date of 1275 B.C.) There is no current evidence of the cities of Ai or Jericho being inhabited, much less destroyed around the dates that Biblical scholars say they must have happened. Aardsma shows that there is however archaeological evidence of all of the above occurring about one thousand years earlier than normally attested by Bible scholars. With a thousand year shift backwards, all the Biblical history falls into place with known external evidence.

Like David uniting Judah and Israel, but to no avail, Bright’s textbook facilitated an uneasy union between theology and history that has not held among most historians today. Two histories, one biblical (Geschichte) and the other the product of archaeology and sociological reconstruction (Historie), have for the time being seemingly gone their separate ways.40 For Bright, however, genuine history and genuine theology, as evidenced in Israel’s faith, were one and the same.

and has a B.A. degree from Phillips University in Enid, Oklahoma. He has an M.A. degree from Eastern New Mexico University in Portales, New Mexico, an M.A. degree from the University of Texas at Austin, and a Ph.D. in Hebrew Studies from the University of Texas at Austin. From 1968 to June 1974, he was an instructor in Hebrew, Biblical History and Biblical Archaeology at the University of Texas at Austin. Dr. Blizzard is today a professor at the American Institute for Advanced Biblical Studies in Little Rock, Arkansas. Dr. Blizzard has spent much of his time in Israel and the Middle East in study and research. He has hosted over 500 television programs about Israel and Judaism for various television networks and is a frequent television and radio guest. He is

9God, who has called you into fellowship with his Son Jesus Christ our Lord,† is faithful.†

The discovery confirms Israel as a powerful/important nation in the 8th century BC. If you want to show yourself as powerful to other kings/dignitaries you will mention someone powerful whom you defeated. No one is impressed if you steal candy from a baby. Yet if you steel candy from an Ultimate Fighting Champion, you have my attention. Many critics argue the nation of Israel was not great during the time of the kings (David, Solomon, etc…). Critics will say Israel was a sparsely populated country full of poor farmers. The Assyrian relief, in support of the Bible, proves Israel was a powerful country during the period of the kings.

Liam began to dance from leg to leg, feeling alive, the burning nobility of words still coursing their flame through him. “We have to go, Boyoh. This is the reason why we went into archaeology. Science has laid before us a mystery and we can’t insult it by not accepting its invitation.” ~ Chapter 6 The Garden of Souls

Crucifixion was usually intended to provide a death that was particularly slow, painful (hence the term excruciating, literally “out of crucifying”),

WHAT CAN BE EXPECTED OF ‘BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY’? The question is an important one, because sometimes exaggerated claims have been made, of the ‘archaeology proves (or disproves) the Bible’ type. It is perhaps because archaeology has been thought to be more ‘scientific’ than other critical, exegetical, and theological approaches that words like ‘proof’ have been used. But it is essential to bear in mind that there is often as much interpretation involved in the understanding of an archaeological discovery as there is in the understanding of a biblical passage. The ancient identity of a site may be unknown or uncertain. A piece of ancient writing may be fragmentary, difficult to read or translate, and even if the translation is clear the precise significance may not be. The purpose or function of an artefact or structure may not always be easily or correctly understood.

Extra-biblical texts and the Bible The rich variety of types of written material from the ancient Near East enables the world from which the Bible emerged and in which the Bible is set to be seen in clearer focus. Much attention has been paid to the myths and legends of the Mesopotamians and the Canaanites, not least because of the Bible’s own suggestion that the people of Israel and Judah emerged from Mesopotamian ancestry, settled among Canaanites, and were exiled in Babylon. But the mythology of other ancient peoples such as the Egyptians and the Hittites, now known as a result of archaeological activity,

Many of the characters in this novel are based on historical figures. These include Daniel, Cyrus, Harpagus, Astyages, Cambyses, Mandana (the Persian pronunciation of Cyrus’s mother’s name), and Nebuchadnezzar. The Bible is silent on whether Daniel was married or single. Some historians have even concluded that he might have been a eunuch. I saw no evidence of this and chose to give him a family. While this novel is a work of my imagination, where possible I have tried to remain faithful to historical and archaeological details. If you are interested in further reading, I recommend the classic textbook From Cyrus to Alexander: A History of the Persian Empire by Pierre Briant and Discovering Cyrus: The Persian Conqueror Astride the Ancient World by Reza Zarghamee. The events of chapter 54 surrounding the disputed coat are based on a story told by the Greek historian Xenophon about Cyrus’s childhood, which I found in Zarghamee’s book, Discovering Cyrus. Although Otanes is a fictional character, the general story felt like a perfect fit for this thread of the novel. Biblical references to Cyrus include Isaiah 44:28–45:7; Jeremiah 51:11, 28-29; 2 Chronicles 36:22-23; Ezra 1:1-11 and 5:14-15. Some of these verses were written decades before Cyrus was born and are considered prophetic in nature, while others describe the return of the Jewish captives to Jerusalem and Cyrus’s role in those events.

Schloen comments: “Tempting as it may be to avoid explicit theorizing, the fact remains that contestable choices are embedded in even the most ‘obvious’ and innocent-looking of ‘common sense’ interpretations in archaeology and socio-economic history.

I do not know if my mother broke off her studies at Charles University only because her parents’ money had run out. How far was she pushed to emigrate to Palestine by the violent hatred of Jews that filled the streets of Europe in the mid-1930s and spread to the universities, or to what extent did she come here as the result of her education in a Tar-buth school and her membership in a Zionist youth movement? What did she hope to find here, what did she find, what did she not find? What did Tel Aviv and Jerusalem look like to someone who had grown up in a mansion in Rovno and arrived straight from the Gothic beauty of Prague? What did spoken Hebrew sound like to the sensitive ears of a young lady coming with the refined, booklearned Hebrew of the Tar-buth school and possessing a finely tuned linguistic sensibility? How did my young mother respond to the sand dunes, the motor pumps in the citrus groves, the rocky hillsides, the archaeology field trips, the biblical ruins and remains of the Second Temple period, the headlines in the newspapers and the cooperative dairy produce, the wadis, the hamsins, the domes of the walled convents, the ice-cold water from the jarra, the cultural evenings with accordion and harmonica music, the cooperative bus drivers in their khaki shorts, the sounds of English (the language of the rulers of the country), the dark orchards, the minarets, strings of camels carrying building sand, Hebrew watchmen, suntanned pioneers from the kibbutz, construction workers in shabby caps? How much was she repelled, or attracted, by tempestuous nights of arguments, ideological conflicts, and courtships, Saturday afternoon outings, the fire of party politics, the secret intrigues of the various underground groups and their sympathizers, the enlisting of volunteers for agricultural tasks, the dark blue nights punctuated by howls of jackals and echoes of distant gunfire?

No archaeological discovery has ever controverted a biblical reference.

As an archaeologist who deals with material evidence along with ancient Near Eastern cultures and texts, and who is also an evangelical Christian, I often find the debate about biblical inerrancy puzzling, if not irritating. For me, the concept of inerrancy is tied to divine intent. It is clear to me that Scripture has come to us as God’s unique representation of reality, an aggregate of authentic ancient records and eyewitness accounts driven by divine selectivity toward the ultimate goal of bringing forth the final record of the New Covenant through Messiah, Jesus. Because it is self-evident that God does not superintend error, ‘doctrinal’ inerrancy is axiomatic. Further, on the pragmatic side of the issue, my 45+ years of examining biblical texts in the light of archaeology and history (and vice versa!) have given me unequivocal confidence in the Bible’s ‘inductive’ inerrancy; i.e., I have yet to identify anything in it that I would consider to be in error. In my mind, an errant Scripture is an affront to logic, science, and faith.

Kaiser, Walter, and Duane Garrett. Archaeological Study Bible: An Illustrated Walk through Biblical History and Culture

Biblical archaeology is defined as the investigation of ancient material cultures with a view to illuminating the cultural milieus of biblical narratives.

The books of what is now the Old Testament thus probably came into existence between the ninth and the second centuries BCE. This does not necessarily mean that the records of earlier ages are pure fiction, but it makes it hard to press their details as solid historical evidence. Many readers of the Bible would recognize that the stories of the early history of the world – Noah’s Ark, the Tower of Babel – are mythical or legendary, but it may be more challenging to think that the stories of Abraham or Jacob or Moses are also essentially legends, even though people bearing those names may well have existed. No one is in a position to say they are definitely untrue, but there is no reasonable evidence that would substantiate them. This is also the case with the early kings, Saul, David and Solomon, even though the stories about them do make sense within a period (the eleventh and tenth centuries BCE) about which we know something, from the archaeological record. With the later, eighth- and seventh-century kings (for example, Hezekiah and Jehoiachin) there is definite corroboration from Assyrian and Babylonian records, and we are less in the dark. But even some of the stories of life after the exile, in the Persian period, may be fictional: most biblical scholars think that the book of Esther, for example, is a kind of novella rather than a piece of historical writing. A later date does not of itself mean that a given book is more likely to be accurate: much depends on its genre, as we shall see in the next chapter. The biblical books of the Old Testament thus probably span a period of about eight centuries, though they may incorporate older written material – ancient poems, for example – and may in some cases rest on older, orally transmitted folk-memories. But the bulk of written records in ancient Israel seem to come from a core period of the sixth and fifth centuries BCE, with heavy concentrations in some particular ages: most think, for example, that the period of the exile was particularly rich in generating written texts, as was perhaps the early Persian age, even though we know so little about the political events of the time. The flowering of Israelite literature thus came a couple of centuries earlier than the classical age in Greece. The Old Testament, taken by and large, is thus older than much Greek literature, but not enormously so. Compared with the literature of ancient Mesopotamia or Egypt, however, Israelite texts are a late arrival.

I see induction and analytical reasoning as part of one process of interpretation. I would therefore engage in historical apologetics. (I do not personally do a great deal of this because my colleagues in the other departments of the Seminary in which I teach are doing it better than I could do it.) Every bit of historical investigation, whether it be in the directly biblical field, archaeology, or in general history, is bound to confirm the truth of the claims of the Christian position. But I would not talk endlessly about facts and more facts without challenging the unbeliever's philosophy of fact. A really fruitful historical apologetic argues that every fact is and must be such as proves the truth of the Christian position.