gudanov

I have several family members who pretty frequently say that archaeology continues to find more and more evidence that the Bible is historically accurate. However, I'm not sure where this comes from. Just probing the Internet, I find information that seems highly biased one way or another. Is there anyplace to find some at least somewhat objective data?

Diogenes the Cynic

The short answer is that very little of the historical claims in the Bible have been confirmed by archaeology while much has been refuted. The obligatory book to read in this area is The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of its Sacred Texts by Israel Finkelstien and Neil Asher Silberman. Finkelstein is one of the leading Middle Eastern archaeologists in the world and is chairman of the archaeology department at Tel Aviv University. The Bible Unearthed presents a lot of information that has long been known to Israeli archaeologists but which had not heretofore been greatly publicized in the US. To summarize some of what is now known, the archaeology shows that the cultural group which became known as the Israelites was an indigenous Canaanite population which did not migrate in from the outside (ala Abraham) and (more controversially) was never enslaved in Egypt, never escaped in an Exodus, never wandered the Sinai, never conquered Canaan and never established a unified Kingdom of David and Solomon. There were no patriarchs, no Moses, no Joshua and possibly no David or Solomon. If either of the latter two figures did exist in some form, they were much less important than the Bible describes them. At best, they would have been minor local chieftains.

Another good book which covers some of this same material is called It Ain't Necessarily So by Matthew Sturgis.

Typically, on the apologetic web you will find spurious conclusions drawn from minimal evidence. William Ramsay, for instance, is a favorite among apologists because he confirmed a few irrelevant geographical claims made in Acts.

Amaleq13

I suggest you ask for a single, specific example along with the specific evidence supporting the claim. It would not be at all unusual if your family was only repeating a claim they learned from an authority figure and had no personal knowledge of the evidence, themselves. Then come back here and run a search on the subject to see if it has been discussed. Then, if you have questions, start a new thread on the specific subject to ask them.

Don't forget that, while the evidence is objective, the interpretation of that evidence is essentially always subjective.

robto

Another good book, more scholarly and so a bit more difficult reading than The Bible Unearthed, is Egypt, Canaan, and Israel in Ancient Times by Donald Redford. Not specifically focused on checking Bible accuracy, but not shy about pointing out the contradictions when appropriate.

Steven Avery

Hi Gudanov. A lot of times the NT focus is on Luke's historicity, and you probably have seen some good web pages that discuss his detail and accuracy, and cases where previous 'gotchas' were weakened , disassembled or refuted.

A simple case was the embarrassment of the archaelogical find showing Jewish priests going to Nazareth post 70-AD (some say 135 AD) after so many arguments had been built on its lack of historical reference other than the NT in writings like Josephus and the Talmud. Another case we recently discussed was the attempt to hand-wave the very unusual Jewish ossuaries from about AD 50 which, if one takes the simplest Occam explanation, provide a one-find refutation of most all mythicist theories through its confirmation of the Jesus movement in very early Israel.

Now a lot of times the Tanach focus is on the Exodus, and that is greatly hampered by the tendency to look in the look place (and perhaps time as well).

Back to the NT, here is an interesting quote I saw last night, in reesarching the thread about the Gospel of John and the fall of Jerusalem.

The Priority of John (pdf)
The Priority of John, and Some Implications

"The topographical details of the gospel have been used to support an early date of composition. The numerous place names mentioned in the gospel were once considered to be fictional inventions. The detailed knowledge of Palestinian geography by the author of the gospel is not now seriously disputed, however....."

I would like to see a paper that discusses this in more depth.
Anybody have any resources ?

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Ben, oopss. missed your earlier reference to "The Priority of John" even when quoting it Apologies.

Gudanov, finding web pages or even books that are broad-based and not apologetic for the Bible or against is going to be difficult. An excellent request, though.

Shalom,
Steven Avery
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic

Steven Avery

"wrong place" scribal error !

Vorkosigan

You mean the third-fourth century reference to Nazareth, right? You're a strange one, prax. Nothing embarrassing about that.

Actually, not a single mythicist theory is refuted by such a find. Are you not familiar with even the most basic tenents of any of the modern mythicist views?

Vorkosigan

Diogenes the Cynic

It was once believed that Troy was a mythical city. Schliemann discovered that it was real. Does that prove that Homer was an accurate "historian" and that the Iliad must be true?

King Kong climbed up the Empire State Building. The Empire State Building is real! Therefore King Kong must have really existed!

Luke was a crap historian, by the way.

Steven Avery

Which specifically says, from Jewish sources, that the 18th course of priests went to Nazareth .. hmmm.. at 70 AD (some say 135 AD). Which would be a town in existence at that time, and not a new Levittown.

Ironically, for some reason the approximately fifth century Talmud is supposed to be a strong evidence of silence for Nazareth (the Talmud and Josephus together listing about a third of the towns in Galilee) and then when the silence is broken by a direct statement from Jewish sources about the city, close to the time of Jesus, the hand-wavers work overtime.

A weak evidence from silence (which is the most this ever was, since the NT is essentially a refutation, as even some skeptics acknowledge) is simply refuted by a counter-evidence from expression, much as light expels darkness.

Shalom,
Steven Avery
Queens, NY
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic

Diogenes the Cynic

The tourist site now identified as Nazareth didn't exist in 70 CE.