Implicit in accepting the Bible’s inerrancy is accepting it as history. Those who separate theological truth from historical truth, as it turns out, create an acid that destroys everything it touches. The Bible simply cannot be right about marriage, or human dignity, or justification if it’s wrong about the history of man’s creation or Christ’s resurrection. For that reason, we should have every incentive to investigate the historical evidence. This issue, we’re taking a look at the Zondervan Handbook of Biblical Archaeology by Randall Price and H. Wayne House, to better understand how archaeology relates to the Bible.
When it comes to biblical archaeology, there are two dangers—fakery and fear:
Fakery comes in the form of sensational claims that seem to confirm the Bible, but with questionable or non-existent evidence. (Noah’s ark found! Chariot wheels discovered at the bottom of the Red Sea!) Sensational discoveries can happen. But they’re sensational because they are rare. “There is the need for greater discernment with regard to archaeological claims,” say Price and House, “if a claim seems too good to be true, it often is” (16).
On the other hand, fear can keep us from looking at the evidence at all. When the Bible seems to contradict the historical record, what do we do? The authors give several wise answers to this. First, only a tiny fraction of human history survives; only a fraction of that is discovered, excavated, and published. “Archaeology should not be expected to answer every question , as though all the remains of history were waiting to be unearthed and all the archaeologist needed to do was to find the right place” (24). Furthermore, making sense of archaeological finds requires (fallible) interpretation. The Bible and archaeology both tell us select details about human history, and we should not expect corroborating evidence for every biblical story. What’s important is that where the two intersect, we find agreement.
Price and House make a strong case for the benefits of biblical archaeology. First, it confirms the historicity of the Bible by providing evidence of incidental details; second, it helps us to clarify the Bible’s wording both by discovering more manuscripts and the definitions of unknown words; and finally, it enriches our understanding of the Bible’s cultural context, helping us to see important details we might have missed.
The authors did not intend to include every discovery. Instead, they focus on finds that are most important or most recent. Of course, important discoveries like the Dead Sea Scrolls and the fallen walls of Jericho make the cut. Yet they also show how small details confirm that the Bible was an eyewitness account and not a later fabrication—details like whether a biblical name was common or whether nations had their borders at the right places in the right times. The book works its way from Genesis to Revelation, arranged so that it’s easy to look up relevant archaeological discoveries by scripture passage. Plenty of maps, detailed notes, and hundreds of color photographs make this book a great study reference, but don’t be surprised if you find yourself reading the whole thing instead.