Chapter 4
THE BRIDGE OF ARCHAEOLOGY
“No archaeological discovery has ever controverted a biblical reference.” ~ Jewish archaeologist Nelson Glueck1
In 1979, the National Aeronautical and Space Administration (NASA) launched two space probes known as Voyager I and II. Of the various items on board the spacecrafts was a notebook containing 118 photographs of people on earth, cassette tapes of music that was popular at the time (no doubt today they would have simply included an I-Pod), triangulated directions on how to get to planet Earth, and greetings written in 60 languages including Latin and Hittite. Voyager I spun out of the solar system in 1986, and its next stop is 40,000 years away when it reaches the nearest star, Alpha Centauri.
It is interesting to me that Hittite was one of the languages chosen by NASA to represent the cultures and people who have inhabited our planet. For many centuries the only reference to the once mighty nation of the Hittites was found in the Bible, and historians uniformly denied they ever existed.2
Then in December 1915, Professor Bedrich Hrozny, a Bohemian linguist and professor at the University of Prague, announced to the world that he had discovered the key to the Hittite language and that it related to Indo-European languages. The Hittites were then duly acknowledged and certified as a legitimate people, and gradually their great importance in relationship to Middle Eastern culture and their historic interaction were recognized.
The attitude, however, that something historically recorded in Scripture should be considered mythical or untrustworthy unless archaeology provides support for it is widely entrenched in academic circles.
Dr. James Hoffmeier, professor of Old Testament and Ancient Near Eastern History and Archaeology at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, contends that a growing number of secular scholars hold the Bible to an unreasonable standard, arguing that it “has to be substantiated by archaeological evidence” in order to be considered true.
They are known as “minimalists,” and are essentially doing the same thing that some revisionist historians are doing who deny that the Holocaust ever took place, and interpret world history with a national bias, presenting their fictional version as factual.
Furthermore, denying that the Bible is factual and historical also has a political twist to it as well. For example, Israel believes that the Scriptures contain a historical record of how God called Abraham and promised that they would be as numerous as the stars of the heavens, that his descendents would be given the land from the Mediterranean on the west to the Euphrates in the east, and from Egypt on the south to Lebanon on the north (note that the land once occupied by the Hittites is included in this promise). In other words, what Moses wrote is considered by many in Israel as a title deed to the property, something highly disputed by the Palestinians who say, “Hey, we’ve lived here for centuries. This land belongs to us.”
So at first, it seems simple enough. Discredit the documents that are used to support a claim to the land, and you have disenfranchised those who think they have a right to it. Understanding how important archaeology is in validating a claim to the land, the Palestinian Authority has encouraged archaeological exploration done by those who interpret their finds favorable to their claim that Palestinians were here as Canaanites, long before the Jews migrated from Egypt.
The Israelis, however, are convinced that archaeology, which is far from being a pure science,3 still weighs heavily in their favor. So convinced are they that they proposed a “horizontal division” in a peace settlement that would give Israel control of everything beneath the surface of the ground, and the Palestinians control of everything above ground.
The conflict intensified as Palestinians used bulldozers to excavate new openings to the al-Aqsa Mosque and Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. This infuriated Israeli archaeologists. Jeffrey Sheller explains, “Sifting through the earth the Palestinians dumped out, they found ceramics, glass, and other artifacts they say date from between the First Temple period (850-586 B.C.) through the 15 th century A.D.”4 There’s one thing which is indisputable: Once an area has been bulldozed, there is no reconstructing the evidence of what took place there for centuries. It’s gone forever.
Going back to my premise that secularists consider the Bible to be myth or fiction until it is proven accurate by archaeology and history, the vast findings of archaeology are either ignored or minimalized by some scholars who refuse to accept any kind of evidence.
I’m reminded of an acquaintance who was talking with a friend who rejected the authenticity and historicity of Bible. “And what kind of evidence would you accept to prove that the Bible is historical and factual?” he asked. The detractor, caught off guard, answered, “I don’t know. I’d have to think about that.”
Vast numbers of archaeological findings corroborate the context of the Bible historically in matters of data, names, places, customs, and practices. So archaeology proves that the Bible is true, right? But the fact is it is impossible to prove anything to someone who rejects the evidence; nonetheless, the development of scientific technology and superior methods to the “start digging for hidden treasure-Indiana Jones-style”—have done much to confirm the biblical record adding strength to the bridge of confidence that gives you assurance the Bible is to be trusted.
What is modern archaeology about?
Let’s begin with a working definition of archaeology as “the scientific study of the remains of the past.” The English word “archaeology” comes from two Greek words αρχιος and λογος meaning literally, “the study of ancient things.” In a broad sense it can be considered the scientific study of people, cultures, and civilizations which have been lost and recovered through a variety of disciplines and means.
Naturally the question rises, “How did cities as well as nations such as the Hittites get ‘lost’ anyway?” Some cities, such as Nineveh, had so completely disappeared that the army of Alexander the Great marched by and didn’t even know that they were passing the ruins of a once great city. Much later Napoleon Bonaparte and his army passed by the ancient city of Babylon and never knew it was there either.
Yet obviously some landmarks have not disappeared. The pyramids built as much as 1,000 years before Moses are relatively permanent. They have stood the test of time and are expected to continue standing for a long, long time. Geographic landmarks—such as Galilee, the Valley of Esdralon where Armageddon will be fought, Elisha’s fountain at Jericho, the vast fortress of Masada where 960 patriots took their lives rather than surrender to the Romans in 73 A.D., Mt. Hermon, the Kidron Valley, and the Mount of Olives—will remain very much as they are at the present time. But other landmarks, nations, and significant structures had all but vanished until they were resurrected by modern archaeology. Questions as “Why did they disappear and what happened?” are valid.
Modern archaeology takes away the conjecture and offers explanations as to what happened to nations and people as well as cities and places. It shows how a city may have been built in a certain location because it had an accessible water supply, or the site was readily defensible, or was located on a trade route or harbor insuring economic viability. Then hostility with a neighboring nation or people resulted in its destruction. After the war the buildings, having been constructed mostly of mud brick with little reinforcement, were leveled, and a new city was built on the ruins of the old, thus burying the previous level and everything in it.
Chapter 4: The Bridge of Archaeology
1Nelson Glueck, Rivers in the Desert, as quoted by Richard De Haan in The Book You Can Trust, ( Grand Rapids: MI: RBC Publications, n.d.) 7.
2 Twenty-two references to the Hittites are found in the Bible beginning with Genesis 15:20, where God made land promises to Abraham.
3 Wikepedia, an online dictionary, defines pure science as “the exact science of the development of scientific theories…. Pure science is sometimes used to refer specifically to physics and pure mathematics, but chemistry and biology may also be considered as examples.” Archaeology lacks the specificity of other scientific disciplines because it is less precise and often more subjective.
4 Jeffery Sheler, “Where history is all too alive today,” U.S. News and World Report, December 24, 2001, 42.
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Note: The preceding material is excerpted from the book Why You Can Have Confidence in the Bible and is copyrighted by the author, Harold J. Sala. It cannot be copied or reproduced without written permission of the author who may be contacted at guidelines@guidelines.org
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