Tyndale Open Bible Dictionary

ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE BIBLE*

Simply defined, archaeology is the science that recovers and studies the relics of human antiquity. Biblical archaeology is concerned with the remains scattered across the Near East. Some lie buried at different levels in mounds; others survive as ruins or weathered monuments to past grandeur. Many of the artifacts bear inscriptions of sorts in a variety of ancient languages, some of which still need much study to be understood properly. Other artifacts comprise the material remains of everyday life; broken pottery bowls, charred timbers, trinkets, toys, ornaments, occasional fragments of cloth, rusted weapons, perhaps only the imprint of a woven mat. All must be interpreted carefully in the light of what is known about the period of history from which the objects have been recovered.

Many outstanding archaeological discoveries have been entirely accidental. At Ras Shamra in Syria, a peasant’s plow struck a tomb that led to the discovery of the ancient site of Ugarit. A Bedouin in search of a lost goat discovered the cave at Qumran that contained the Dead Sea Scrolls. In 1887 an Egyptian woman found the Amarna tablets while seeking decomposed bricks for use as fertilizer. In 1945 Egyptians hunting bird manure in caves near Nag Hammadi discovered important Coptic Gnostic manuscripts. Such chance finds, however, are no substitute for systematic surveys.

In modern archaeology potential sites are surveyed carefully, generally photographed from the air, and tested for metals and other underground anomalies by the use of complex electronic equipment. Recovered artifacts are dated according to the level where they occurred in the site and by other methods, including radiocarbon dating. The purpose is to present a chronologically accurate picture of the artifacts and also of the site itself.

The archaeologist and the Near Eastern scholar look at this testimony to ancient life in the realization that they are dealing with factual, objective data. Although there is obviously room for some speculation or difference of opinion, the objects being handled are silent but nevertheless real witnesses to people and events of the past. The relics, therefore, need to be understood in their own right as evidence and must not be manipulated to suit the fancies of some speculative interpretation of history, culture, or religion. Near Eastern archaeology is able to help us understand Scripture by providing objective background data. If, for example, an artifact containing pictographic or other forms of writing can be dated to around 3000 BC, that alone tells us that written communications in the locality date back to at least that period. The antiquity of writing is now known to be such that all the early authors of OT material could easily have composed and written down all the narratives credited to them. Thus it is no longer necessary to suppose that Moses could not have written the Pentateuch (first five books of the Bible) on the ground that writing had not been invented in his day. In fact, archaeological discoveries have shown that Moses could, and probably did, write in Egyptian hieroglyphics, Babylonian cuneiform, and several Canaanite dialects (of which biblical Hebrew is one). Any theory of Pentateuchal composition that ignores such factual information is obviously wrong in a fundamentally important area.

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• Archaeology and Daily Life

• Archaeology and Religion

• Archaeology and Warfare

• Archaeology and Literature

• Archaeology and Language

Archaeology and Daily Life

The kind of housing in which the ancients lived has been revealed from excavations at many Near Eastern sites. Neolithic (late Stone Age) dwellings were often simple “wattle-huts” of interwoven sticks, though some showed evidence of artistic interior decoration. The elegant middle-class home at Ur in the time of Abram was attractive even by modern standards. The magnificence of ancient palaces at such sites as Knossos, Persepolis, Mari, and Qantir is abundantly evident even from the ruins. Weaving is now known to be one of the oldest human crafts; the two types of knots used today in making oriental rugs originated in Mesopotamia in the remote past. Of similar antiquity was the manufacture of pottery, glazed and unglazed, some plain and some decorated.

Obscure social customs in Scripture have been illustrated by archaeological discoveries. Abram’s procreation of a child by Hagar, his wife’s servant, was in conformity with local customs at Nuzi and was not regarded as immoral. The adoption of Eliezer by Abram (Gn 15:2-4) is clarified by texts from Nuzi that permitted childless couples to adopt sons who, in return for certain duties to the parents, would inherit the family estate. Such children had the inheritance rights of the firstborn, but their rights could be modified if the adopting parents subsequently had their own children. Texts from Nuzi, Ugarit, and Alalakh show that heads of families could disregard the natural order and choose any one of the sons to inherit firstborn rights (cf. Gn 48:13-22; 49:3-4). Nuzi tablets indicate that such rights could be traded between various members of the family, which accounts for the transaction between Esau and Jacob (Gn 25:31-34).

Work of all kinds in the biblical period has been illustrated from many sources. The Beni Hasan tableau (1900 BC) shows traveling Semites bringing goods to Egypt. On one of the animals is a set of portable bellows, suggesting that the travelers may have been metalworkers. Other trades and occupations illustrated from monuments and paintings include hunting, fishing, brick making, various types of agricultural work, pottery making, and other domestic crafts. Such sources also provide valuable information about the way the ancients dressed. Men pictured on the Beni Hasan tableau were bearded and wore short skirts and sandals. Women had long, multicolored dresses fastened at the shoulder with a clasp. They wore shoes and kept their flowing hair in place by means of bands. Another Egyptian painting, dated 500 years later and showing Semites bringing gifts to the pharaoh, indicates that clothing styles had barely changed at all. These illustrations come from lands other than Palestine; the Israelites were forbidden to make representations of human beings or God.

The most common traces of everyday life are potsherds, broken pottery pieces that were discarded in great quantities in settled areas and that can still be found today. Such fragments were often used as materials on which short messages were written, as illustrated by an important group of letters dating from the time of the prophet Jeremiah. The “Lachish letters” were actually military dispatches written in 587 BC from an outpost north of Lachish to one of the officers defending Lachish itself. Centuries later in NT times potsherds were still popular as writing materials because they were more durable than Egyptian papyrus and more convenient than waxed writing boards. Rectangular wooden palettes with a slot for the rush pens and rounded hollows for the little tablets of red and black ink have been found in Egypt. Remains of some of the ink actually used in writing the Dead Sea Scrolls have been recovered from the settlement at Qumran.

In antiquity, various games were played by children and adults alike. From a tomb at Beni Hasan (c. 2000 BC) came a painting of pigtailed Egyptian girls keeping several balls up in the air at once. A relief in a temple at Thebes showed Ramses III playing draughts (checkers) with a concubine. Egyptian children of a later period played a game using pebbles that was perhaps the ancestor of backgammon. From Megiddo came an ivory gaming board with holes, presumably for pegs (c. 1200 BC). Children’s toys recovered from Near Eastern sites include whistles, leather-covered balls, model chariots, and animals on wheels, showing that tastes have changed very little over the ages. Adult sports such as wrestling, archery, and running were depicted in Egyptian tomb paintings.

The embalming of Jacob and Joseph (Gn 50:2-3, 26) represented a social custom of long standing in Egypt and is thoroughly consistent with the background of the narrative. Jacob was buried in the cave of Machpelah with Sarah, Abraham, and others; although the site is well known, it cannot be excavated because it is venerated by the Arabs as the sacred resting place of their ancestor Abraham.

An inscription associated with an ancient Hebrew burial site was found in the Russian Museum on the Mt of Olives in 1931. At some point it had been removed from the grave site. It reads, “Hither were brought the bones of Uzziah king of Judah—do not open.” The inscription came from Christ’s time, suggesting that the original tomb of the great ruler had been found during excavations in Jerusalem and that the remains had been transferred to another site. Archaeologists have shown that the kind of stone door covering the entrance to Christ’s tomb was in fashion chiefly from about 100 BC to about AD 100, which is consistent with the Gospel records.

Archaeology and Religion

Archaeological excavations have done much to indicate the nature of biblical religion and worship. Long before Abram left Ur at the command of the one true God, pagan Mesopotamian peoples worshiped individual gods and recognized them as celestial deities or “sky gods.” There is thus nothing inherently impossible or improbable about the relationship of the Hebrew patriarchs to the God whom they served and venerated. The worship of heathen deities in portable shrines has been illustrated from a relief of Ramses II, which showed the divine tent in the middle of the Egyptian encampment. In addition, seventhcentury BC Phoenician writings referred to a portable shrine pulled by oxen. The Israelite wilderness tabernacle thus fits properly into that kind of background and is not of comparatively late origin, as was once supposed.

The tradition of singers participating in preexilic worship has been verified by archaeological discoveries indicating that for centuries the Palestinians had been noted for their musical abilities. Tablets from Ras Shamra (Ugarit) are full of religious poetry, some of which contains phrases similar to expressions in the Hebrew psalms. Solomon’s temple was built by Phoenician (Canaanite) workmen according to a ground plan (cf. 1 Kgs 6) similar to that of the eighth-century BC chapel found at Tel Tainat in Syria. The Wailing Wall in Jerusalem is thought to contain stones going back to Nehemiah’s time, but no traces of Solomon’s foundations have yet been uncovered in the city. Pieces of masonry from Herod’s temple, demolished in AD 70, have come to light and furnish interesting factual information about the appearance of contemporary pillars and supporting structures. Though there were supposedly many synagogues in Palestine in Christ’s time, few remains of any significance have survived.

Archaeology and Warfare

Understanding of ancient warfare, a prominent biblical theme, has been assisted greatly by the work of archaeologists. Ancient Near Eastern peoples regarded war as conflict between the gods of the opposing nations. Military service was therefore regarded as a sacred calling, and soldiers were members of an honored profession. In his capacity as Lord of hosts, God was the commander in chief of the Hebrew army; he could order a city to be given up to the “ban,” that is, to complete destruction (cf. Jos 6:17, 24). War was waged according to well-understood rules. An enemy threatening the safety of a city would normally send its inhabitants a demand for surrender. If it was accepted, all lives were spared, though property would be plundered. If the demand was rejected, the besieged city dwellers knew that if their defenses were breached, they might all be killed. Frontal assaults, spies, ambushes, and armed patrols were all used in warfare. Sometimes battles were decided by the outcome of combat between champions (1 Sm 17:38-54).

Ancient armor was pictured widely on reliefs and monuments, supplementing the artifacts that have been recovered. A magnificent golden helmet from Ur is an outstanding example of Sumerian military equipment, contrasting with the much smaller Hittite helmets depicted on a tomb wall at Karnak. Metal helmets (cf. 1 Sm 17:38) were worn initially only by leaders in the Israelite armies, but by Seleucid times all Hebrew soldiers were issued bronze helmets (1 Macc 6:35). Roman legionnaires commonly wore either leather or bronze helmets. The Hebrews used two kinds of shields: a large one protected the whole body and was designed for use by infantry; the other, smaller one was carried by archers (cf. 2 Chr 14:8). Such shields were generally of wood-and-leather construction, though occasionally made of bronze. Coats of scale armor (cf. Jer 46:4) were used in the Near East from at least the 15th century BC, as indicated by the recovery of such scales from Alalakh and Ugarit. Swords and spears, a normal part of Hebrew weaponry, came in a variety of shapes and sizes, as illustrated on monuments and bas-reliefs. Furnaces used for manufacturing swords were found at Gerar; Bronze Age daggers have been recovered from Lachish and Megiddo. The compound Asiatic bow, made of wood, horn, and tendons attached to iron limbs, was the successor of the Semitic weapon depicted on the Beni Hasan tableau. Discovery of names inscribed on arrowheads dating between 1300 and 900 BC seems to indicate the existence of companies of archers (cf. Is 21:17). Very little is said in the NT about contemporary military equipment.

Archaeology and Literature

Many types of biblical literature have been paralleled in counterparts discovered in the Near East. Excavators at Ras Shamra found poetic and prose tablets that contain grammatical and literary forms occurring in the Hebrew psalms. It is now incorrect to suppose that detailed law codes such as those in the Pentateuch were not compiled until after the time of Moses, because fragmentary Sumerian codes dating from about the 19th century BC exhibit the same legislative tendencies. The code of the Babylonian ruler Hammurabi (18th century BC), based on earlier Sumerian legislation, expanded the principles of justice into nearly 300 sections. Hammurabi’s code was an attempt to stabilize contemporary society on the basis of law and order. Its style is interesting; it commenced with a poetic prologue, followed by the prose legal section, and concluded with a prose epilogue. This three-part literary pattern also appears in the book of Job (prose-poetry-prose), as well as in more modern writings.

The covenant structure of Exodus 20:1-17 and its fuller form in Deuteronomy have been examined in light of the literary structure of second-millennium BC Hittite vassal treaties from Boghazkôy. The treaties were drawn up according to a standard pattern, the elements of which occur wholly or in part in the various OT covenantal passages (Ex 20:1-17; Lv 18:1-30; Dt 1:1–31:30; Jer 31:31-37).

What appear to be 11 Mesopotamian tablet forms in Genesis can be isolated by the recurrence of the phrase “these are the generations of” in the KJB and some modern versions. The phrase and its accompanying material correspond to the colophon (notation about a publication, often found on the very last page of modern books) of undamaged Mesopotamian tablets. Genealogical material such as occurs in Genesis was also found on clay tablets from Nuzi. The terse style of the earlier Genesis historical accounts is reminiscent of Sumerian history writing.

Hebrew wisdom literature such as Proverbs has been paralleled from Egypt by the “Instruction of Amenemope,” where Proverbs 22:17–24:22 in particular is close in content to the Egyptian material. Scholars have yet to decide if one depended on the other, or if both went back to an even earlier source that has not survived.

The epistolary (letter) form was a common feature of the ancient world (2 Sm 11; 1 Kgs 21; 2 Kgs 5:10, 20; Ezr 4:6-7; Neh 2:7). Many collections of Egyptian papyri, such as the Zenon documents, consisted of letters. Among the Greeks the letter form dated back to Plato. His Seventh Letter (c. 354 BC) is interesting because it attempted to rebut contemporary misunderstandings of his teaching and personal behavior. Certain of the apostle Paul’s letters (Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, Thessalonians) also stand in that general tradition. Paul’s Letter to Philemon corresponds closely to papyrus letters from Egypt of a purely personal nature.

Archaeology and Language

Recovery of many ancient Near Eastern languages has done much to clarify our understanding of the OT. Expressions now known to be Sumerian and Akkadian occur not only in Genesis but elsewhere in the Scriptures. Thus in Genesis 1:1 the phrase “the heavens and the earth” is a Sumerian expression (an-ki) meaning “universe”; the pair of antonyms (words opposite in meaning) expresses totality. Revelation 22:13 uses this literary device to express the same concept in three different ways.

Ugaritic and Eblaic, both west Semitic dialects, are closely related to Hebrew and contain striking literary similarities. Reference to archaic Ugaritic expressions has made it possible to translate properly some obscure Hebrew poetic language that is now seen to have preserved genuine ancient Canaanite phraseology.

Aramaic, another northwest Semitic language, was spoken in the third millennium BC, and is represented in the OT principally by chapters in Ezra and Daniel. These were written in imperial Aramaic, as are the Elephantine papyri of the fifth and fourth centuries BC. It is now known, on the basis of the Aramaic used, to be linguistically incorrect to assign a late date to either Ezra or Daniel.

The NT was written in koine, or “common” Greek, the language of the Near East and the Roman Empire. NT common Greek differs from other Greek dialects in containing underlying Semitic expressions, which are frequently unrecognized and therefore mistranslated by the unwary.

From the foregoing it is evident that archaeological discoveries have done much to enlarge our knowledge of the ancient world. Even with the limited data at our disposal it is possible to see the men and women of Scripture as real persons, living mostly in times of stress and uncertainty but often enjoying a high degree of culture unmatched until modern times. We see such persons as they should be seen—not as mythical or legendary figures, but as true children of their age, grappling with life’s problems and catching periodically a vision of God as all powerful and all holy, guiding the destinies of individuals and nations and bringing his purposes to pass in history. Archaeology has shown that the Hebrews must never be studied separately from other ancient Near Eastern peoples but instead must be seen as one element of a vast cultural complex that included such diverse peoples as the Sumerians and the Aegeans.

Such study must be pursued in a consistently objective fashion, arguing from relevant evidence to a proper understanding of biblical events and life. It is sometimes difficult to reconcile certain accepted interpretations of archaeological data and the evidence of Scripture. Such conflicts are few in number, however, and tend to diminish noticeably as new information is forthcoming. In principle the archaeologist has no particular interest in “proving the truth” of the Scriptures, and it is obviously impossible for a spade or a trowel to prove or disprove the spiritual revelations and assertions of Scripture. But it is fair to say that archaeology validates Hebrew history and explains many formerly obscure terms and traditions in both the OT and NT. It thus provides an authentic background for the prophecies culminating in Jesus Christ.