To the Egyptian peasant rifling through discarded materials long ago in the Nile Delta, the odd black stone was nothing more than another piece to the jigsaw puzzle of a wall for his modest home. After all, good building stones, like sturdy timbers, were always welcome finds in a land where sand and mud bricks lie parched under the relent less sun.

But to the troops of Napoleon Bonaparte who would come to dismantle the lifeless building in 1799, the smooth patina of hand-worked antiquity revealed mysterious letters and symbols—shapes that beckoned with a whisper of stories that had remained tantalizing secrets for too many centuries.

It was clear to everyone, even Napoleon himself, that the “Rosetta Stone” held great importance; it displayed some kind of text, not once but three times over. The first part was chiseled in long-forgotten Egyptian hieroglyphs; the next part appeared to be some ancient Egyptian script; while the final, to everyone’s relief, transcribed the presumably identical inscription using widely-known Hellenistic Greek. This was no mere building block. It was a stele (pronounced STELL-a), a stone monument that re corded a message or decree from the distant past.

The Greek portion of the Rosetta Stone made it immediately clear this was a decree issued by Egyptian priests just after 200 13.C. Various societies produced multilingual inscriptions, so it was reasoned that the other two portions of mysterious text were reporting the same thing. Scholars immediately directed their attention to the middle portion of the stone text. They suspected, correctly, that this was an alphabetic version of the decree. It converted the picture symbols of the ancient hieroglyphs contained in the first part into symbols that were analogous to our alphabet in the second part. One character would represent one vowel or consonant, but it used a style of script that could finally he deciphered for the first time.

However, it was to the credit of a brilliant young linguist named Jean Francois Champollion that the course of translation could be pushed to its ultimate conclusion some years later. If the Greek in the third portion explained the middle section (the Egyptian cursive), then together those portions held the key to explaining the first part—the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs. Champollion observed that the cartouche (kar-TOOSH) of Egyptian King Ptolemy V appeared in the top portion of the text. A cartouche was the stylized name-symbol of Egyptian royalty: the royal’s name was encircled in an ornate, oval-shaped ring that set off the name from the common words sur rounding it. Since the Greek text at the bottom of the Rosetta Stone mentioned King Ptolemy, the cartouche in the top portion must surely indicate the same person. From that point, Champollion painstakingly recreated the remainder of the text! He was so precise that all decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphs since then has been based on his system.

Capturing Imagination

The 19th Century was to become a watershed era for archaeology. Euro pean and North American government and military personnel, along with pilgrims and tourists, were travelling in greater numbers to the Middle East, Near East, and North Africa. They would de scribe in their journals or sketch and paint on notepads their amazement and delight at seeing strange and wonderful, even exotic, scenes for the first time. Some sights would become so famous that even postcard tourists and armchair archaeologists could identify them: the pyramids and sphinx at Giza, the temple mount in Jerusalem, the ziggurats of Mesopotamia. Yet others portrayed things less glorious, more gentle, even subtle: painter David Roberts depicted camel caravans or rugged Bedouins sitting pensively amid rocky valleys scattered with stone ruins that breathed the aura of biblical antiquity. The imagination of the Western world was hooked!

Such were the beginnings of a great movement that fueled the fire of Britain’s and America’s “love affair” (as historian Barbara Tuchman called it) with things that pertained to Bible lands. Eager visitors of all types thronged to the ancient sites. Some, like the Italian circus strongman Giovanni Bellinzoni, were little more than amateur plunderers who knew how to swipe a good Nile antiquity eyes for a quick profit. This was an age in which British aristocrats would hold parties that featured the unwrapping of discarded mummies for the thrill of curious guests. This was an age when quacks ground up mummy remains to sell as medicine while more mundane, practical-minded railroad engineers used the discards to ignite the coal engines in their trains. “Archaeology” could he crude business.

Others were more disciplined, more noble for the cause. A young British lieutenant named Charles Warren, an engineer by training, was one of them. In 1867, the Palestine Exploration fund of London sent Warren to Jerusalem to explore the foundations of the Haram es Sharif, the temple complex originally built by Herod the Great. The site is one of the best known in the world: it is mentioned in John 2:18-21, and today is recognized widely because of the famous Golden Dome that graces this Moslem-controlled “holy site.”

Warren sank various exploratory shafts around the area, one of which accessed the now-famous water tunnel of Hezekiah (2 Chron. 32:30). But Warren was only one of many European and North Ameri can explorers who would begin serious archaeological study of the biblical terrain. Men like Edward Robinson, Flinders Petrie, Austen Henry Layard and Howard Carter (who discovered the famous tomb Of Tutankhamen) were laying the ground work for the disciplined study of archaeology, and quite often they were inspiring the popular imagination as well.

Archaeology Explosion

“Biblical archaeology” as a full-fledged discipline would blossom during the first half of the 20th Century, in large measure due to a handful of stellar researchers. William Foxwell Albright of Johns Hopkins University was key among them. In the decades leading up to World War II, Albright pioneered in the theory and method of archaeological research, all the while adhering to the general historicity of the Bible’s records. His exceptional brilliance and faculty position at a prestigious university permitted him to influence a generation of scholars, some of the earliest being John Bright (author of A History of Israel) and G. Ernest Wright (founder of the scholarly journal Biblical Archaeologist, now entitled Near Eastern Archaeology); and, in the next generation, Lawrence Stager (Harvard University). who was featured in the January 2001 issue of National Geographic for his excavations at the Philistine city of Ashkelon.

These archaeologists and the subsequent generation of scholars would stand on the shoulders of Albright, though most would also forge brave new directions. It has been said recently that not one claim Albright ever made about archaeology substantiating the Bible still holds sway in the academic world. While this claim may he overstatement, it shows that significant shifts in the scholarly winds were indeed taking place.

Archaeologists were now aligning within distinctively separate camps, and a ferocious rivalry was brewing that is very much alive and well today. On the far left of the spectrum are so-called “biblical minimalists’ (Philip Davies of Sheffield University is one example). These scholars claim that the Old Testament records are all late creations of post-exilic people (i.e. after 6th Century ac.), if not late Persian period (i.e. 4th Century bc.), or perhaps even Hellenistic (3rd Century bc. and later). They allege that wishful Jews fabricated historic and prophetic traditions in order to legitimize their faith, projecting their alleged fiction backward into a fabricated “history.”

A little further from that fringe are scholars who have claimed that their research effectively disproves the Bibles historicity, particularly of the Old Testament, at this or that point. Israel Finkelstein (Hebrew University, Jerusalem), for example, has argued energetically that the apparent lack of materials dating to 10th Century bc. Israel militates against the historicity of King David, at least as he is portrayed in 2 Samuel. A little more conservative were some like Kathleen Kenyon, who performed celebrated excavations at the ancient site of Jericho in the 1960s, concluding that there was no destruction layer found at Jericho that could substantiate Joshua’s invasion.

Somewhere around that central part of the spectrum appears William Dever (University of Arizona), who has aimed to separate the study of archaeology from biblical interests altogether. lie says the role of archaeology is neither to affirm nor contradict documents pertaining to religion: he wants to let the two fields stand (or fall) on their own merit.

Further to the right are conservative Jews such as David Ussishkin, who frankly admits the keen religious interests that motivate his research. Ussishkin expresses a willing ness to hold out for more evidence when data—or the lack of data—appear to undermine the Bible’s accounts. Yet further to the right would he someone like Bryant Wood, an evangelical Christian who is aiming to verify that the site of Khirbet al-Makhater is indeed the Ai of Joshua 7—8 (in contrast to the more widely accepted site Et-Tell), thereby comporting with the historicity of the Bible. Such would align with the biblical accounts of a “heap of desolation until this clay” (Josh. 8:28).

Scattered somewhere amidst these positions is a cadre of archaeologists from various sectors, Jewish and Christian (with various shades of definition!), which says that a growing number of archaeological discoveries indeed help to underscore the accuracy of the Bible’s history. Whether they are working with material evidence (artifacts made of clay, stone, wood, or metal) or epigraph/c evidence (e.g., writings on stone, baked clay, metal, or leather), certain things are seen to be verifying the accuracy of the Bible. For ex ample, a carved ivory scepter head in the shape of a pomegranate may indeed he a priestly leftover from the era of Solomon’s temple, while many clay seals from official documents depict the names, in old Hebrew script, of biblical persons such as Baruch, a scribal assistant to Jeremiah (Jer. 32:12).

Arguments emanating from all these positions appear in various archaeology magazines, one of the most popular being Biblical Archaeology Review, an engaging and well-illustrated journal written mostly by professional archaeologists—from all points of the spectrum I have described above. The number of sites under investigation in the Middle East has proliferated wildly in recent decades, a phenomenon made possible because man’ people are now willing to volunteer their efforts each summer at their own expense. As more discoveries are being made and commitments to this or that view of the Bible are passionately argued, it would appear that, even after two centuries of biblical archaeology, “we have only just begun to fight.”

Sifting the Sands

What is an evangelical Christian to think about archaeology? Does modern archaeology really prove or actually disprove the accuracy of the Bible? After having studied the subject (admittedly in armchair fashion) for about 20 years, here is my current state of thinking. I am convinced that the presuppositions one holds predispose a person toward certain conclusions: If one is inherently set against the Bible as history, one will gravitate toward evidence that seems to undermine the Scriptures. Conversely, if one believes in the integrity of the Bible. he is able to enjoy discoveries that substantiate. or illuminate, its pages. Life is religion; therefore, one’s thoughts (or academics) follow one’s heart. This surely holds as true for the professional re searcher as it does for the layman. What we think in our heart, we will affirm with our scholarship.

It seems to me that we do not need empirical proof of the Bibles historicity, and ought to be careful about yearning for it too much. Indeed, the indicators for actual events are sometimes there to be found, but after millennia have passed, the lines of evidence may be fine, dotted, or even erased. Unlike laboratory experiments, history is not repeatable. Historical evidence, unlike pure scientific evidence, may not he readily accessible. Real events and real people of past ages did not always leave behind a trail of crumbs for 21st Century Hansels and Gretels to follow and savor. I am quite certain of the historicity of the life and death of Alexander the Great, for ex ample, even though his burial place has yet to be substantiated and no foreleg hone of Bucephalus (his war horse) has ever surfaced on the antiquities market.

On the other hand, I would expect that historical evidence of real events will indeed surface. Sometimes, annals from extrabiblical accounts accord with what we read in the Bible. For example, on display at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem is a hexagonal clay prism a little larger than a half-gallon milk carton that records the military conquests of the Assyrian King Sennacherib against Judaea about seven centuries before the time of Christ. It aligns—though not in every detail—with the accounts pertaining to King Hezekiah in 2 Kings 18—19. This is a delightful confirmation of the biblical account, though it should be accepted with or without the presence of archaeological discovery.

When we find those crumbs of history that interlock with the Bible, we can celebrate. When we do not, or when the fragments that have been found appear to pose a problem for our understanding of the Bible, there is no crisis; we can wait until the picture is rounded out. Our commitment is this: Whatever God testifies to be truth stands as truth, with or without human affirmation. When limited human capacities are able to affirm what God has said, then we can rejoice in that as well.

By its own definition, archaeology is a self-limiting inquiry. It involves the recovery and interpretation of ancient materials, written or material. The data are limited (in contrast to all that once existed); sites may have been disturbed by natural or man-made violence; clean and tidy diachronic (across time) connections are often lacking; and the process of analysis itself is always subject to refinement and correction. Scholarship is constantly changing its mind; and while it has much to offer, it should never be treated as canon—by its practitioners, or by evangelicals.

When we do come across information that interacts in some way with the Bible, we can also use archaeological evidence to challenge those of our presumptions that are not central to scriptural faith. For example, there is much discussion these days over the so-called ‘patriarchal era,” the time of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Some writers date it as early as 2200 B.c., others place it as late as 1600 nc., while still others question whether it is even proper to speak of this as a historical era in any developmental sense. Evangelicals should accept the historicity of these biblical persons while remaining flexible as to their precise time frame. Perhaps future discoveries may clarify matters like this for us.

In the meantime, there is a plethora of discoveries that we can latch onto, though we ought to use them in a different way. Life in Bible times is often illustrated by new discoveries. For example, recent excavations at Bethsaida on the north shore of Lake Galilee have told of a powerful city that stood during the time of the Hebrew monarchy—eight centuries before Jesus’ day! It boasted an enormous four-chamber defensive entry gate that was complemented by masseboth (mats-tsay-vot) standing stones of a cubic nature) and a pagan “high place’ that adorned the approach to this Jewish city. The city was violently destroyed, according to carbon dating of grain left in the city gate, in 732 bc.— right around the time of increasing military threats from the Assyrians, as described in 2 Kings 15:19-22 and 17:1-6.

Not far to the west, the oldest inland discovery of a wooden boat took place on the lakeshore of Galilee in 19$6. permitting curious museum visitors to imagine what it might have been like to go fishing with Peter, Andrew, James, and John. We can imagine them heaving a chiseled stone anchor over the edge of their modest wooden vessel, boat and anchor fastened together by a crude rope that passed through a central hole in the stone, as the men readied their nets in hopes of catching some of the forty-odd kinds of fish that may have populated the harp-shaped freshwater lake. The shadow of barren cliffs looms in the east where ‘Legion” once stumbled and cursed, while the serenity of grassy hills to the north west suggest Jesus uttering 1-us Sermon on the Mount. Roman soldiers enjoying the hot springs at Tiberias to the west, or pagan herdsman caring for their pigs at Gerasa to the east, may have looked on as Jesus forged “fishers of men.”

But this is elucidation, imagination, illumination. Historical evidence holds a qualified value, while “those whom the Father has called hear his voice’ and inevitably will be drawn toward Him by virtue of naked truth.