Biblical archaeology

Biblical archaeology involves the recovery and scientific investigation of the material remains of past cultures that can illuminate the period described in the Bible. As with the historical records from any other civilization, the manuscripts must be compared to other accounts from contemporary societies in Europe, Mesopotamia, and Africa; additionally, records from neighbors must be compared with them. The scientific techniques employed are those of archaeology in general including excavations as well as chance discoveries.

By contrast Near Eastern archaeology is simply the archaeology of the Ancient Near East without any particular consideration of how its discoveries relate to the Bible.

Biblical archaeology is a controversial subject with differing opinions on what its purpose and goals are or should be. Professional opinions of Biblical archaeology have been set aside in a separate commentary section.

Contents
1 Biblical texts
2 Confirmed Biblical structures
3 Artifacts from documented excavations
4 Artifacts with unknown, disputed, or disproved provenance
5 Professional commentary
6 See also
7 External links
8 Further reading

Biblical texts

Charles Warren conducted the first formal excavations in the Holy Land under the auspices of the Palestine Exploration Fund in 1867, a time when the oldest complete Hebrew scripture only dated to the Middle Ages. Warren discovered the first Israelite inscriptions on several jar handles with LMLK seals found near the southeast wall of the Temple in Jerusalem.

The Dead Sea Scrolls, discovered shortly before Israel gained statehood in 1948, and other ancient copies of the Bible manuscripts do not qualify as artifacts representing something mentioned in the Bible, although they are an important testimony to the antiquity of the texts, and the reliable manner in which they were preserved through the centuries. The first seven scrolls had initially appeared on the antiquities market, but when their enormous importance was recognized, archaeologists eventually found their source in a series of caves above the Dead Sea, and subsequent searches located thousands of similar fragments.

The famous silver scrolls discovered in 1979 at Ketef Hinnom uniquely preserve Biblical texts dating to at least the 6th century BCE, possibly decades before the Jews were exiled to Babylon, thus disproving some theories of later Torah composition. Both of these amulets contain the Priestly blessing from the book of Numbers; one also contains a quote found in parallel verses of Exodus (20:6) and Deuteronomy (5:10 and 7:9). The same verses appear again even later in the book of Daniel (9:4) and Nehemiah (1:5).

Confirmed Biblical structures

Artifacts from documented excavations

Artifacts with unknown, disputed, or disproved provenance

Items in this list mostly come from private collections via the antiquities market, but also from chance finds prior to the establishment of antiquities laws. Their authenticity is highly controversial and in some cases has been demonstrated to be fraudulent.

Professional commentary

"The purpose of Biblical archaeology is the clarification and illumination of the Biblical text and content through archaeological investigation of the Biblical world," wrote J.K. Eakins in an essay in Benchmarks in Time and Culture [3].

Bryant Wood wrote, "The purpose of Biblical archaeology is to enhance our comprehension of the Bible, and so its greatest achievement, in my view, has been the extraordinary illumination of the... time of the Israelite monarchy" (in Biblical Archaeology Review, May-June, 1995, p. 33). According to those who follow this view, the purpose of biblical archaeology is to establish the historical accuracy of Biblical texts and refute the theory that these books contain myths or legends composed by Jews exiled in Babylon during the 6th century BCE and later.

In a statement of a more nuanced opinion of Biblical archaeology, Robert I.Bradshaw notes, "It is virtually universally agreed that the purpose of biblical archaeology is not to 'prove' the Bible, however ...in as much as archaeology sheds light on that history it is important to biblical studies" [4]

The American archaeologist William Dever contributed to the article "Archaeology" in The Anchor Bible Dictionary (see Anchor Bible Series). There he assessed several negative effects of the close relationship that has existed between Syro-Palestinian archaeology and the Biblical archaeology of the Holy Land, which have especially caused American archaeologists in this field to lag behind the new "processual archaeology" in the region, generally considered: "Underlying much of the skepticism in our own field [about the adaptation of the concepts and methods of the "new archaeology"], one suspects, was the assumption (albeit unspoken, or even unconscious) that ancient Palestine, especially Israel in the biblical period, was unique—somehow 'superhistorical' not governed by the normal principles of cultural evolution," and he claims "...the 'new archaeology' of the 1970s-1980s became passé before we had even caught up with it" (p 357). Dever finds that Syro-Palestinian archaeology in American institutions has been treated as a subdiscipline of Biblical studies. American archaeologists in this region were expected to try "to provide historical validation for episodes in the biblical tradition." According to Dever, "[t]he most naïve [misconception about Syro-Palestinian archaeology] is that the rationale and purpose of "biblical archaeology" (and, by extrapolation, Syro-Palestinian archaeology) is simply to elucidate the Bible, or the lands of the Bible" ( p 358) ant304/projects/projects97/kingp/kingp.html.

See also

External links

Further reading

See also: Biblical archaeology, 1867, 1868, 1880, 1930s, 1948, 1955, 1979, 1983, 1990