Episode 245 – Archeology and the Bible – Part 1 - Affirmation

Welcome to Anchored by Truth brought to you by Crystal Sea Books. In John 14:6, Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” The goal of Anchored by Truth is to encourage everyone to grow in the Christian faith by anchoring themselves to the secure truth found in the inspired, inerrant, and infallible word of God.

Script:

Goliath … wore a bronze helmet, and [a] bronze coat of mail ... He also wore bronze leg armor, and he carried a bronze javelin on his shoulder. … The shaft of his spear was … heavy and thick … His armor bearer walked ahead of him carrying a shield.”

1 Samuel, Chapter 17, verses 5 through 7, New Living Translation

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VK: Hello and Happy New Year! I’m Victoria K. Welcome to Anchored by Truth brought to you by Crystal Sea Books. We’re excited to be with you at the start of this New Year and we pray that this year will be a year of joy and blessings to all our listeners. We pray especially that this year will see us all grow in our knowledge and adoration of our Lord Christ Jesus. Today on Anchored by Truth we’re going to start the new year with a new series. As just about everyone knows, the Christian faith in America has been subjected to more challenges in the last decade than probably in the first two centuries of the country’s existence. So, as we open up this New Year we want to revisit a subject that has particular relevance in our day and time –being able to demonstrate that the Christian faith has a firm basis in reason and evidence. RD has entitled this series “Archeology and the Bible.” So, we have RD who is an author and the founder of Crystal Sea Books, in the studio today. RD, why did you decide we need to take a special look at the topic of archeology?

RD: Well, I’d also like to say Happy New Year to everyone who is joining us here today. As we begin a new year I wanted to take several episodes of Anchored by Truth focusing on archeology because it seems like in the last few years the number of times I’ve heard the Bible criticized as a book of “myth and fairy tales” has increased dramatically. This is sad but it’s also silly because it is a criticism that is so easily disproved. The Bible is a book that is set in place and time. While the Bible contains a large variety of literary genres, a large part of the Bible is the history of those places and times. As such we can validate the accuracy of the Bible’s reporting through other ancient documents that also contain reports about the same places and times. And we can also affirm much of the Bible’s reporting through the findings of archeology.

VK: As Anchored by Truth listeners know at Crystal Sea Books we believe that there are two criteria that would have to be true for any book that claims to be the word of God. First, the book would have to be consistent with what we know about human and natural history. How could you trust a book that claims to be the product of a divine and infinite mind if it contains easily demonstrable errors? Second the book would have to contain evidence of supernatural inspiration. After all, humans write books all the time. And even human beings can produce books that accurately report history and contain meaningful insights about life and society.

RD: Yes. There are other criteria that some people might think are appropriate when considering whether a particular book is the word of an almighty, everlasting God but we would submit that those two criteria would have to be true at a minimum. And we would urge that anyone who is trying to decide whether one book or another is God’s word should apply their minds as well as their hearts to the decision. Many people think that faith is believing in something in spite of reason and evidence, but it’s not. Becoming a Christian and embracing faith in Christ Jesus doesn’t require us to suspend the use of our minds. To the contrary, knowing and loving Jesus means we should increase our efforts to grow in knowledge as well as trust. Real faith is far more likely to arrive by placing trust in something or Someone after careful consideration of the truth claims at issue. This includes being able to explain why some truth claims are true but others false. Reason and evidence are an essential part of doing that.

VK: So, just to ensure that’s clear, at Anchored by Truth we believe that any book claims to be the word of God must be consistent with what we know about human and natural history and must contain marks of supernatural inspiration. Well, we also believe that are four lines of evidence that demonstrate that the Bible meets those two criteria and is, therefore, the inspired, inerrant, and infallible word of God. First, the Bible is historically reliable. Second, the Bible displays a remarkable unity for a book that was composed by over 3 dozen human authors who wrote over a span of 1,500 years. Third, the Bible gives evidence of supernatural origin, especially through a large body of fulfilled prophecy. And the 4th line of evidence is that the Bible has resulted in an untold number of lives that have been positively changed by its transcendent message. So, what you are saying – and what we are going to be talking about during this series - is that archeology can be a useful to aid to helping affirm the historicity of the Bible.

RD: Yes. For those of us who are concerned about helping people understand that the Bible is the inspired word of God archeology can have two roles. First, as we mentioned we started this discussion archeology can help demonstrate that the Bible is not, in fact, filled with myth and fairy tales. Archeology can help us demonstrate that Bible accounts of certain exploits that may seem legendary are historically accurate.

VK: Why don’t you give us a quick example of what you’re thinking about?

RD: Many people might think that the encounter between David and Goliath is some kind of myth and legend.

VK: Because the idea of a short, teenage boy defeating a heavily armed and armored warrior with only a sling and stone does seem improbable doesn’t it?

RD: It might but it’s not. And one of the reasons that we can have confidence about what the Bible says about the encounter is the large number of details that the Bible gives us about the fight. For instance, the Bible describes in great detail – as you put it – Goliath’s arms and armor.

VK: And among many archeological finds that have confirmed the accuracy of the Bible’s description of Goliath’s equipment is a depiction of Philistine warriors in a temple in Egypt, right?

RD: Right. Let’s start by reminding everyone that while the Bible is mostly concerned about the activity of the Philistines in their interactions with ancient Israel, the Philistines came into contact with all of the civilizations of the ancient Mideast including Egypt. The Egyptians fought the Philistines on many occasions. The Egyptians called the Philistines the “Sea Peoples” because the Philistines had come to Palestine from Mycenae which was located in modern day Greece. This means they would have arrived on the coast of Palestine by way of ships crossing the sea.

VK: So, the Egyptians were very familiar with Philistine warriors like Goliath.

RD: Yes. According to an article in Biblical Archeology Society website one of the most vivid depictions of the Philistine warriors is in a “mortuary temple at Medinet Habu in Thebes. The battle scenes depicted on the walls of this temple are our most precious and most graphic representation of the Sea Peoples’ dress, weaponry, chariotry, naval equipment, and battle tactics. The Philistine infantry is shown fighting in small phalanges of four men each; three men are each armed with a long, straight sword and a pair of spears, the fourth with only a sword.” Notice that the Egyptian drawings show the Philistine infantry armed with a pair of spears exactly like Goliath – although the Bible is more precise and notes that the second spear is a javelin which was used for throwing. The spear that Goliath carried in his hands was actually more like a long club. It was used for smashing and bashing …

VK: Smashing and bashing … really?

RD: Really. Every infantryman knows that one of the keys to victory is break through the enemy lines. And the David encounter notwithstanding, that’s what Goliath’s job was – to create holes in the enemy’s front lines that the soldiers behind him could exploit. Homer referred to such soldiers as “first men.”

VK: That explains why the Bible tells us that Goliath’s spearhead weighed 15 pounds. A 15 pound piece of iron on the end of a heavy and thick spear – the Bible says it was as thick as a weaver’s beam – is to going to be good for, as you said, “smashing and bashing.” And it’s also important to note that in the Biblical description of Goliath’s armor his helmet and coat of mail are said to be made of bronze, as was his javelin. The battle between David and Goliath took place just as the Iron Age was beginning. At that time there would still have been a lot of bronze weapons and armor in use. Bronze had been in common use since about 2500 BC. Iron would later become far more common and the Philistines were very proficient at shaping and forming iron but this battle occurred before that transition was complete. And even at that time bronze was easier to form into weapons. Bronze has a much lower melting point than iron – about 1000 degrees Celsius. Iron’s melting point is closer to 1600 degrees Celsius. So, on first blush, the Bible’s description of the fight between David and Goliath might seem to be legendary but the details that the Bible provides and archeological discoveries show us that it is not. So, what is the second role that archeology plays for those who are interested in the Bible?

RD: Archeology can help shed new light on the history the Bible contains and it can also help us understand the Bible text as well. We’ll get more into this as we move through the series, but one quick example of how archeological finds can improve our understanding of the Bible’s texts are clay tablets referred to as the Ugaritic texts. These came from an archeological excavation in Syria. The tablets dated over a thousand years before Jesus and contained cuneiform writing in a variety of languages. Cuneiform writing was a writing form common in ancient Mideast languages and used wedge shaped characters typically impressed into soft clay. The Ugaritic texts were helpful to Bible scholars because some of the tablets were written in an alphabetic script that recorded a northwest Semitic language that overlapped with Biblical Hebrew. The Ugaritic language shared a number of words with Biblical Hebrew so this has helped scholars better understand some words contained in the text of the Bible, especially words that occur only once in the Bible.

VK: So, one important role that archeology plays is to help affirm the reliability of the Bible’s historical reports. And a second important role that archeology plays is actually to amplify our understanding of the Bible’s texts as well as increase our understanding of the times, cultures, and places recorded in the Bible This second role is true for those of us who accept the Bible as the inspired word of God as it is as for those who don’t regard the Bible as being inspired. The first role of archeology can be especially important in the Christian work of apologetics which is a defense of the Christian faith. But in this first role you say that it is important for Christians to not say things like, “archeology proves the truth of the Bible.” Why is that?

RD: Yes. It is not proper to say that archeology proves the Bible is true because doing so carries the risk of both over claiming and under claiming at the same time.

VK: Ok. Over claiming and under claiming at the same time would seem to be a bit of a mystery. Why is saying that “archeology proves the Bible is true” an “over claim?”

RD: Archeology, like any human endeavor, has limits in the amount of certainty it can provide. Archeologists are always looking at artifacts from the past and they do their best to derive information from those artifacts. But, the archeologists were not present at the time the artifacts were created. So, their interpretation is exactly that. It’s an interpretation not a history based on first hand observation. And archeologists will differ in their interpretations and it is not at all uncommon for subsequent discoveries to necessitate revising previous opinions. None of this is to suggest that archeology is valuable and can’t be conducted with rigor. It certainly can. But archeology, while it can and does provide important support for the Bible, cannot “prove” the Bible is true.

VK: That makes sense. The Miriam Webster online dictionary defines archeology as “the scientific study of material remains (such as tools, pottery, jewelry, stone walls, and monuments) of past human life and activities.” It’s important to note in that definition that archeology is concerned with “past human life and activities.” So, while we can do much to try and determine what actually happened in the past we will always fall short of absolute certainty. Why is saying that “archeology proves the Bible is true” an “under claim?”

RD: Well, simply put the Bible is true because it is God’s word. It would be true regardless of whether any human being were to accept as being true or not. Now, I’m well aware that a critic would accuse me of circular reasoning in saying this. The Bible is God’s word and it is true because God is all-knowing and all-powerful. But it is the Bible that tells us that God is all-knowing and all-powerful. But that is not what I am saying. Anything that is true – that is that it corresponds to reality – is true regardless of agreement or acceptance of the truth. The man who decides he doesn’t like having cancer and rejects the doctor’s report will still have cancer regardless of whether he accepts the report. The Bible is or is not the inspired, revealed word of God regardless of whether we accept it as such. So, when we say that archeology “proves” the Bible we are, in effect, turning the truth of the Bible over to archeological judgment. Again, I’m not saying that archeology cannot be a valid and important venue for obtaining evidence that helps us understand the Bible but we don’t need archeology to establish the Bible’s truth.

VK: I think I see the point you’re making. Some theologians will refer to the Bible as being self-authenticating. The Bible’s truth will pierce through all the fog and distractions of the world and the inward witness of the Holy Spirit will confirm its truth to us. Sometimes people will say, “most of the time we judge books, but the Bible is a book that judges us.” You’re not disagreeing with this position are you?

RD: I’m not disagreeing with this position but I am trying to look at the question from all angles. One of the reasons I believe God will be able to hold all people accountable because He has given sufficient witness of Himself through His creation and His superintendence of history. The Bible tells us this explicitly in Psalm 19, verses 1 through 4 and in Romans, chapter 1, verse 20. God has given all humanity ample witness of His existence and attributes. Well, I believe something similar is true about the Bible. We can use reason and evidence to evaluate whether the Bible can be legitimately considered the word of God. We laid out our criteria and lines of evidence for doing so at the start of today’s episode. In considering those lines of evidence, especially whether the Bible contains reliable history, archeology can be an important source of information and support. But this role of archeology is ministerial not magisterial. If we made our opinion about whether the Bible is true based on the findings of archeology, that would make archeology magisterial not ministerial.

VK: What you’re saying is that the Bible is true and was true before archeology ever entered the scientific dialogue. Like all science, when properly used and properly understood, archeology sheds important light on questions of truth. And there are literally thousands, or maybe tens of thousands of archeological findings, that confirm the accuracy of the Bible text and the history recorded in the Bible. So, saying archeology “proves the Bible is true” is an under claim because it suggests the Bible’s truth was uncertain until archeology came along.

RD: Right. As we’ve said archeology can play two very important roles in our study of the Bible and that’s why we’re doing this series. Archeology can help skeptics see that the Bible is not, in fact, a book of “myth and fairy tale.” It is a book firmly set in place and time and its reports of those places and times are trustworthy. Archeology can also help us expand our understanding of the places and times of the Bible and of the people, societies, and cultures that the Bible describes. This helps us understand the Bible’s messages more clearly.

VK: Regardless of how old anyone living is, the reality is that the Bible’s text was completed two thousand years before they were born. And the Bible was written in and to cultures and countries that are much different from those with which we are familiar. Archeological findings help us understand the people that the Bible was written to and about so we can get closer to standing in their shoes, seeing the sights they saw, and thereby know exactly what the Bible writers meant to communicate.

RD: Yes. So, before we close, let’s go back to our David and Goliath example for just a second to amplify how archeology increases our confidence that this incident is accurate historically. One simple fact that has been confirmed by archeology is that Goliath’s home city of Gath was a real city. Gath was one of the 5 major cities of the Philistines. Its existence has been confirmed by Egyptian inscriptions. It is thought to be located at Tel Zafit (in Hebrew) which is located inside Tel Zafit National Park in modern day Israel. So, this is a finding of archeology that is consistent with the Bible. Another detail of the story that has been confirmed is the Bible’s description of Goliath’s armor. The Bible tells us that Goliath wore a coat of scale armor. The fact that Philistine warriors wore such armor coats has been confirmed by an archeological find. In 2006, bronze scale armor was discovered in a Mycenaean palace on the island of Salamis. Remember that the Philistines were thought to have originated in Mycenae.

VK: This finding was especially relevant because some scholars who were critical of the Bible’s account of the fight between David and Goliath alleged that the story was just a fictional account probably made around the 6th or 7th century BC. Their assertion was that the story was concocted to make the Hebrews have a greater sense of national pride. The Hebrew pride supposedly needed a boost at that time because the Hebrews were either still captives in Babylon or had only recently returned to Israel. Part of the reason critics made that assertion was because the shirt of scale armor the Bible reports that Goliath wore was not thought to be typical of Mycenaean soldiers. Mycenaean soldiers were often armored by wide bronze bands connected by hinges. It was thought that scale armor had gone out of use before the Mycenaean heyday, around 1400 B.C.E. So, the critics alleged, that the Bible’s description of Goliath’s armor was inaccurate. But archeologists finding a coat of scale armor in a Mycenaean palace shows that their soldiers did use scale armor at least part of the time.

RD: Yep. The Bible reported that Goliath wore a type of armored coat that had not been commonly associated with the Philistines. This was a detail that the Bible writer knew that would have been unknown to a writer who wrote three or four hundred years later. Writers in the 7th or 6th century would have had little to no idea how Philistine warriors had been armored in the earlier Bronze Age. So, this is another discovery from archeology that supports the Bible’s account of David and Goliath. And let’s mention just a couple of more items to complete our discussion. We now have prolific evidence that the kind of “contest between champions” was common in combat between Bronze Age armies. Single combat to determine the outcome of battles spared bloody casualties. The armies of the Bronze Age were willing to do this because wars were thought to actually be contests between the gods of the respective armies. The armies believed that each side’s god would fight on their behalf to determine the outcome that would have resulted anyway. Archeologists have unearthed texts from this time that provide numerous examples of this belief. Examples include the Egyptian account of Sinuhe, the Babylonian Epic Enuma Elish, and the famous duel between Paris and Menelaus in Homer´s Iliad.

VK: And the Bible even records this detail in its account. In 1 Samuel, chapter 17, verse 43 the Bible says, “And the Philistine cursed David by his gods.” Then in verses 45 and 46 The Bible tells us that David said to the Philistine, “You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This day the Lord will deliver you into my hands, and I’ll strike you down.”

RD: Yep. So, the big idea that we wanted to introduce today is that archeological finds can be a valuable source of support for the accuracy of the history that the Bible reports. Actually, for decades the relationship between the Bible and archeology has been mutually supportive. Many scholars, including ones who weren’t Christian, used the Bible as a source document when planning or conducting their excavations. The Bible was and is widely regarded as an important source of information about ancient peoples and cultures. This symbiotic relationship was well known. The trend to dismiss the Bible’s accuracy in matters of dates and places in the Mideast has become popular among skeptics but it is completely out of sync with how the Bible was viewed among professionals. The Bible’s history has been shown to be accurate even when doubted and we’ll get more into that in later episodes in this series.

VK: Well, sounds like we’re in for quite a thought-provoking journey. Hopefully, listeners will let others know about this series. It really can be a valuable resource to the skeptic and the believer alike. This sounds like a great time to pray. Today let’s listen to a prayer of praise of Adoration for the Creator God who set the cosmos into motion and established a home on the earth for His people as He prepares them for an eternity with Him in heaven.

---- PRAYER OF ADORATION FOR THE CREATOR

VK: We’d like to remind our audience that a lot of our radio episodes are linked together in series of topics so if they missed any episodes or if they just want to hear one again, all of these episodes are available on your favorite podcast app. To find them just search on “Anchored by Truth by Crystal Sea Books.”

If you’d like to hear more, try out crystalseabooks.com where “We’re not perfect but our Boss is!”

(Bible Quotes from the New Living Translation)

1 Samuel, Chapter 17, verses 5 through 7, New Living Translation

https://www.baslibrary.org/biblical-archaeology-review/8/4/1

https://patternsofevidence.com/2018/10/26/david-battles-goliath/)