Archaeology and the Bible—Understanding Their Special Relationship

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The following article has been adapted from Recent Archaeological Discoveries and Biblical Research, by William G. Dever (Seattle: Univ of Washington Press, 1990). As a matter of principal Professor Dever does not write for BAR (see his letter, “Bill Dever Responds,” Queries & Comments, BAR 13:04). He does not object, however, to our printing material otherwise written by him, but not for us. He also requests that his name appear at the end of the article instead of at the beginning. We are happy to comply with Professor Dever’s request.

Despite my love for it, archaeology does have its limitations. One of these is that it can comment only on historical questions, not theological ones—and indeed even then only on certain kinds of historical problems.

The Bible, too, has its limitations as a historical document. It is a composite of diverse genres—myths, folktales, epics, prose and poetic narratives, court annals, nationalist propaganda, historical novellas, genealogies, cult legends, liturgical formulas, songs and psalms, private prayers, legal corpora, oracles and prophecy, homily and didactic material, belles lettres, erotic poetry, apocalyptic and on and on.

To what extent is history embedded in these diverse genres? The myths of Genesis 1–11, comprising the “primeval history,” which deal with the creation, the flood and the distant origins of the family of man, can be read today as deeply moving literature, with profound moral implications. They inform us about the thought-world of ancient Israel, but they can hardly be read in the literal or modern sense as history. The legitimate archaeologist (in contrast to the “raider of the lost ark”) will therefore not attempt to date the creation, or set out to locate the Garden of Eden and excavate the bones of Adam and Eve, or establish flood levels and dig up the timbers of Noah’s ark. These are memorable, indeed universal tales, whose primary purpose and place in the Hebrew Bible is theological, not historical; they are clearly intended as the prolegomenon to the story that follows, of “God’s saving acts” on behalf of his chosen people Israel.¹

When we come to the later portions of Genesis and to the Book of Exodus—the story of the patriarchal and Mosaic eras—there are obviously more properly historical data, such as connected narrative supported by numerous details that ring true in the light of what we actually know of the second millennium B.C. in Syria-Palestine and Egypt. But even in this material there persist elements of legend—heroic figures who live for hundreds of years, casual appearances of angels and miracles of all kinds—not to mention anachronisms of style that date the writing to a period centuries after the events they purport to record. After a century of modern research, neither Biblical scholars nor archaeologists have been able to document as historical any of the events, much less the personalities, of the patriarchal or Mosaic eras.²

On the other hand, for the emergence of Israel in Canaan in the 12th to 11th centuries B.C., we have in the books of Joshua and Judges much more contemporary records and eyewitness accounts, especially in archaic poems such as the “Song of Deborah” (Judges 5), cultic material still close to its Canaanite sources and territorial and tribal lists (Joshua 15–21 and Judges 1). Yet even here it must be stressed that Joshua and Judges give differing accounts of the so-called conquest and settlement of Canaan—accounts that 053cannot be readily reconciled, especially when newer archaeological evidence is considered. Which is true? Both? Neither? How shall we choose? And what role should archaeological evidence play in the decision?

Scholars have long recognized that only with the United Monarchy, beginning in the early tenth century B.C., do we have reasonably reliable historical sources, such as the “Court History of David” contained in the Books of Samuel (2 Samuel 9–20; also 1 Kings 1–2). Following that, in the Divided Monarchy, we have in the Books of Kings (and, to a lesser degree, in the parallel accounts in Chronicles) similarly reliable sources, which can now be checked against contemporary records from Egypt and, especially, from Assyria and Babylonia.

Finally, the prophetic books of the eighth through sixth centuries B.C. (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Amos, Hosea and Micah) and the wisdom literature (Job, Proverbs and Ecclesiastes) are full of invaluable social and political commentary and also contain many vivid, detailed descriptions of everyday life in ancient Israel.³ Yet even these present certain problems of interpretation.

Whatever degree of historical reliability we encounter in the various literary genres of the Hebrew Bible, it is evident that all require careful critical interpretation before they can be used by the historian of ancient Israel. The Bible cannot simply be read at face value as history (nor, of course, can any other ancient text). Our task is made even more difficult, some would say impossible, by the nature of our literary sources—even the properly historical sources—and the writing traditions they incorporate.⁴

The Bible contains no real historiography in the modern sense; indeed, the word “history” does not appear in the Hebrew Bible. The Biblical writers rarely claim to base themselves solely on factual records, to be totally objective or to cover the whole story. They are concerned not with the question, “What really happened?” but with the larger question, “What does it mean?” For them and for their original readers, the Bible is “his story,” rather than “history,” the interpretation of certain happenings as seen through the eyes of faith. To be sure, the Bible is historical in the sense that it contains an account of particular peoples and occurrences at particular places and times, and in this respect it contrasts sharply with some of the mythological literatures of other ancient religions. But concrete events are important in the Bible only as they illustrate God’s actions and their consequences for people here and now. The modern notion of a disinterested secular history would have been inconceivable to Biblical writers.⁵

Because of the radical theological nature of even the descriptive, historical portions of the Bible, the writers were highly selective about what they included. They simply do not tell us many things that we “moderns” wish to know. For instance, the eighth century B.C. writers portray on a grand scale the dramatic public actions of great kings, priests, reformers and prophets, but they tell us next to nothing about the daily life of the average Israelite or Judahite. The Bible is concerned with political history, not social or economic history, much less individual history (except for biographies of certain “great men”). Nowhere in the Bible do we have more than a passing hint about what most people looked like, what they wore or ate, what their houses and furniture were like, what went on in the streets and plazas of the average town, how agriculture and trade were conducted, how people wrote and kept records, how they went about their daily chores and entertained themselves, how long they lived and what they died of or how they were buried. These are precisely the details that archaeology can supply. The Bible describes public life and the “world of the spirit;” archaeology fills in a knowledge of everyday life and culture. Both are necessary if we are to comprehend ancient Israel in its full variety and vitality.

Virtually all of the Bible’s reports, in their present written form, are later than the events they describe, often centuries later. Thus, the supposedly Mosaic legislation of Deuteronomy stems from a school of reformers in the eighth and seventh centuries B.C., at the earliest. The idealistic descriptions of the priesthood and the sacrificial system in Leviticus, supposedly set in the period of the judges and the monarchy, are the product of the priestly school during the Exile and the return, when the Temple and its establishment had long since been destroyed. There is, to be sure, genuinely archaic material in all the above and other Pentateuchal sources. But modern scholarship has shown beyond doubt that it is encrusted with much later tradition; and, above all, that it is heavily edited by the late redactors or editors who assembled the Hebrew Bible in its present form, the last portions dating no later than the second century B.C. Archaeology offers the possibility of getting beyond these late, reworked sources to contemporary, firsthand records and other remains that may, under the right circumstances, illuminate certain events directly.

Finally, not only are the historical texts in the Bible late, but they are “elitist.” They were written by and for the upper classes, and they were interpreted, preserved and transmitted by them. Ultimately, the Bible as we have it is almost entirely a product of the royal court and the priestly establishment in Jerusalem. Even the classical prophets like Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel—usually thought of as populist reformers who had risen from among the people—were cult officials; without exception their biographies and collected works, as we have them, were reworked and passed on by literary schools bearing their names.

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For all its “democratic” touches, the Bible in its portrayal of religion is largely elitist; it presents a highly idealized, spiritualized picture of normative religion—what people should have believed and practiced in the name of Yahweh. Fortunately, not all dissenting views were suppressed, so that in the Biblical literature we also have a glimpse of the counterculture, of folk religion and of unorthodox schools of thought that did not survive in the long run. Archaeology is uniquely equipped, however, to view this other side of the coin, and thus supply a corroborative picture.

It ought not be controversial to state that the Bible is an artifact—that is, something fabricated by the human brain and hand. It is a shaped material object that, like any other artifact, reflects the human thought and behavior that produced it. It is thus a symbol, the visible reality that points to an invisible reality beyond it, as the Catechism has it, the “outward sign of an inward truth.” This concept of the Bible as an artifact is not as revolutionary as it may first seem, nor does it necessarily detract from it as Scripture (that is, a divine rather than a merely human document). It simply highlights what most of us instinctively know, that the Bible, like all great literature, is best read not in a literalistic but in a symbolic sense. More than other language, this “God-language” is symbolic—it is only an approximation of ultimate reality. The Bible is not the “word of God” in itself (as the Fundamentalist doctrine of verbal inspiration holds), but rather may become the “word of God” insofar as it points beyond itself, to the God who stands above all human description.

The Bible as an artifact (although not simply that) presents problems of interpretation that are remarkably similar to those of archaeological artifacts.

Think of it this way. The study of all artifacts, including texts, is subject to certain restrictions. To begin with, artifacts do not come conveniently labeled as to what they are or what they mean; in theory, the message is there, but it is in a code that we must decipher. That is as true of a Biblical passage as of an ancient object.

For the archaeologist, an artifact may be found either in situ, in which case the context should yield clues to its original use, or in secondary context, in which case we say that it is “curated.” By that we mean essentially that the artifact has been deliberately preserved, repaired and/or altered, and usually put to a somewhat different use from that for which it was originally intended.⁶ In the case of such a curated artifact, the archaeologist must try to discover both what the object was, as well as what it has later become. For example, a broken pot may become an oil lamp; a discarded limestone mortar, a door socket; a fragment of an inscribed stone, a building block. In more extreme cases, a ruined temple may be partially reused as a stable. Which is the true use, the original or the secondary? The answer is obviously both.

On analogy, the Bible is also a curated artifact. It was never discovered in situ, in its original context in the soil of ancient Palestine, because it was never lost. It is unique in being the sole, surviving relic of the ancient Near East that has been continuously preserved, refurbished and transmitted by a living community, instead of having been dug up by archaeologists centuries after its discard. Thus the Bible is not simply what it was for its original readers in ancient Israel, but that plus what it has become over the long centuries of its continual reworking and reinterpretation by both the Jewish and Christian communities in the constantly changing situations of religious life all around the world. The Hebrew Bible is a venerable artifact, polished and burnished by loving use over 30 centuries until it has taken on a rich, subtle patina that cannot be stripped away without damaging what is beneath.

This special character of the Bible is a handicap to the historian, for it means that if we are confined to the text we cannot expect simply to penetrate behind the tradition and get directly to the events that gave rise to it. In its present form as a “curated artifact,” it more readily reveals its secondary use in late antiquity and in medieval and modern times as a sourcebook of theology and morality—especially in the Western world. It is evident that we can recover its original use as historical commentary in the oriental world of the first millennium B.C. only if we can put the text back into its original context. And that is precisely the contribution that archaeology can make. It alone has the potential of turning up evidence “frozen in time,” not subject to later interpretation. Archaeology offers a contemporaneous and more objective account of conditions and events in the ancient world. Tradition, by its very nature, colors the original events by filtering them through experience and faith. But archaeology allows us a fleeting glimpse of past reality without some of the filters, so that it may be seen in its true colors.

But here too there are limits. Recently, I was asked to compile a bibliography of articles on the background of the patriarchal period. I set out thinking that perhaps it was possible to locate the patriarchs within a particular archaeological-historical phase in Palestine (i.e., the Middle Bronze I, or perhaps II, period). After an exhaustive survey of the evidence and of recent scholarly opinion, however, I had to conclude that we are farther than ever from a solution to this problem. On the one hand, the narratives of Genesis are a composite of many layers of oral and written tradition, from many different time periods and social circumstances. It is thus impossible to isolate a kernel of truth and assign that to one specific period on the basis of historical “fit.” On the other hand, while archaeology has been able to document in general the pastoral nomadic life-style depicted in Genesis throughout the second millennium B.C. (and other periods), it has not brought to light any direct evidence 055to substantiate the story that an Abraham lived, that he migrated from Mesopotamia to Canaan or that there was a Joseph who found his way to Egypt and rose to power there. The point is not that archaeology has disproved the historicity of the patriarchs, but simply that it has not gotten beyond the literary tradition that we had all along in the Hebrew Bible. The tradition is made up of legends that still may be regarded as containing moral truths, but until now they must be regarded as of uncertain historical provenance.⁷

On the subject of “Moses and monotheism,” the silence of archaeology is even more profound. Absolutely no trace of Moses, or indeed of an Israelite presence in Egypt, has ever turned up. Of the Exodus and the wandering in the wilderness—events so crucial in the Biblical recitation of the “mighty acts of God” we have no evidence whatsoever; nor are we likely to have any, since slaves, serfs and nomads leave few traces in the archaeological record. Recent Israeli excavations at Kadesh-Barnea, the Sinai oasis where the Israelites are said to have encamped for 38 years, have revealed an extensive settlement, but not so much as a potsherd earlier than the tenth century B.C.

The origins of Israelite monotheism, while no doubt much earlier than some Biblical critics had first thought, are as much a mystery as ever. And archaeology, by its very nature, cannot be expected to enlighten us much on this question, since archaeology deals largely with material cultural remains, or at best with patterns of behavior, not with ideology per se.

Finally, the Israelite settlement in Palestine has received intense scholarly attention in the last two generations. Dozens of late-Canaanite and early-Israelite settlements have been excavated, and hundreds more have been surveyed in surface exploration. Yet here again the evidence is largely negative. In particular, the “conquest model,” derived principally from the Book of Joshua, has been largely discredited. That Israel did emerge in Canaan in the early Iron Age is beyond doubt. But archaeology has not shown that the settlement followed a series of destructions, miraculous or otherwise.

Having focused on archaeology’s limitations, let me now turn to its achievements. First, archaeology has restored the Bible to its original setting by recovering the forgotten peoples, places and cultures of the ancient Near East—the long-lost world in which Israel originated and her life and literature took form and meaning. The Bible is no longer an isolated relic from antiquity, without provenance and thus without credibility. Archaeology may not have proven the specific historical existence of certain Biblical personalities such as Abraham or Moses, but it has for all time demolished the notion that the Bible is pure mythology. The Bible is about real, flesh-and-blood people, in a particular time and place, whose actual historical experience led them irrevocably to a vision of the human condition and promise that transcended anything conceived in antiquity.

Beyond illustrating the Biblical world generally, however, archaeology has made more specific contributions. The cumulative discoveries of archaeology over the past century have brought back to life Israel’s neighboring ancient Near Eastern cultures. This has given us a context in which we can study Israel comparatively, and thereby appreciate more fully both her similarities to other peoples and her distinctive differences. More recently, multidisciplinary archaeology has begun to recover not just isolated events in ancient Israel, but the larger context in which they took place. We now can reconstruct Israel’s environmental setting—topography, climate, land and water resources, subsistence systems, exchange networks, settlement patterns, demography and the like. Thus, at last, archaeology begins to have the potential to deal with “the ecology of socioeconomic change.” These environmental factors in the shaping of culture we may call “ecofacts,” largely ignored until recently, but just as important as artifacts of textual facts. Rather than focusing simply on the impact of the actions of great kings and priests, or the role of religious ideology, looking at sites in their natural and historical setting can lead us to an understanding of the total dynamics of cultural change. We can now see Israel in another of its aspects, as a secular society. For us moderns to appreciate Israel’s uniqueness and her evolution as a society, this secular approach is absolutely essential. But it is not made possible by the information that the Bible itself supplies, only by the external evidence brought to light by archaeology.

Next, even in the narrower, more traditional context of comment on Biblical texts, archaeology still provides an invaluable service. Countless hitherto enigmatic passages have been clarified by the discovery of either parallel non-Biblical texts or artifacts that actually illustrate the text for the first time. The translation of the term pim in 1 Samuel 13:19–21 was pure guesswork until archaeologists brought to light small stone balance weights inscribed in paleo-Hebrew with the word pim, which we now know designates a silver shekel fraction of about 7.8 grams (.28 ounces).

The discovery of dozens of 14th-century B.C. mythological texts from Ugarit, on the coast of Syria, from 1929 onward has revolutionized translation and understanding of the Book of Psalms, as well as the early Hebrew poetry of the Pentateuch. At Ugarit we are suddenly transported back into the conceptual world of Canaanite culture from which ancient Israel emerged, and we can glimpse Israel’s poetic literature from a viewpoint at least six centuries closer to its source. We can thus strip away layers of accretions to the Biblical text, seeing how later copyists and commentators perpetuated mistaken or misleading interpretations, or, in some cases, deliberate alterations to the text. 056Indeed, one of archaeology’s most significant contributions to Biblical studies in the 20th century has been in the field of textual and form criticism.

Even where certain Biblical passages are correctly understood, they may remain unappreciated as historical sources simply because they are unconfirmed. To take one example—the passage in 1 Kings 9:15–17, describing Solomon’s takeover of Gezer after an Egyptian destruction and his refortification of the site, along with Jerusalem, Hazor and Megiddo. This detail, scarcely of interest to the Biblical chronicler, passed almost unnoticed until modern archaeologists uncovered similar Solomonic city gates and walls at Hazor and Megiddo, and then discovered an Egyptian destruction and nearly identical city walls and gate at Gezer.⁸ Here we have confirmation of a neglected, rather laconic footnote to Biblical history, the more dramatic because it was totally unexpected: No one had set out to prove the historicity of this text. How many more such surprises await us as archaeology progresses? My point is that even if archaeology cannot confirm the ultimate religious meaning of the Bible overall, it can nevertheless clarify the historical circumstances of numerous individual texts and the events they describe.

Next, archaeology cannot comment on all or even the majority of Biblical texts, but it can sometimes supply missing elements of the story, and in some cases even an alternate version. It can add matters in which the Biblical writers were simply not interested, or events of which they may have been unaware. This supplementary or corrective (rather than corroborative) aspect of archaeology is often neglected, but in reality it is one of its most valuable features for amplifying and illuminating the Biblical text. An example of supplementary evidence is seen in the fall of Judahite Lachish to Sennacherib in 701 B.C.—an event of devastating importance to Judah, but not even alluded to in the one reference in 2 Kings 18:14, which simply states that the Assyrian king was “at Lachish” during a campaign through Judah. Archaeology has uncovered, however, two extra-Biblical sources that dramatically confirm a severe destruction of Lachish at this time: (1) Eyewitness pictorial representations in the famous Lachish reliefs, actually mentioning Lachish, have been found in the palace of the Assyrian kings at Nimrud; and (2) the vivid evidence of the destruction of level III found by both the British and the current Israeli excavations at Lachish itself—some of the most eloquent and moving remains of a destruction ever found. Why do the Biblical writers make no mention of this event? It may, of course, be partly due to the fact that for them the real story concerned the miraculous lifting of Sennacherib’s later siege of Jerusalem. The silence may also be due to an understandable reluctance to give coverage to a shameful defeat. Yet without the contribution of archaeology, we would know nothing whatsoever of the fall of Lachish.

An example of corrective evidence is seen in the rich material remains of the local cults, some semi-pagan, that archaeology has uncovered in ancient Israel—this despite the picture the Biblical writers usually give us of a centralized Yahwistic cult in Jerusalem.

Finally, although archaeology cannot necessarily illuminate ancient theology, much less create modern belief, it can and does reveal material culture—the common everyday life of the average Israelite or Judahite, the stuff of real life. This is not to downplay the role of ideology or the otherworldy aspects of Biblical religion. It is simply to affirm the astute observation of Norman Gottwald in his magnum opus, The Tribes of Yahweh: “Only as the full materiality of ancient Israel is more securely grasped will we be able to make proper sense of its spirituality.”⁹ The Bible’s preoccupation with ideas is complemented perfectly by archaeology’s capability of bringing to light realia.

Yet any survey of the standard treatments of Israelite history and religion during the past 30 years would show that Biblical scholars have made scant and largely inept use of the archaeological dam. Recent archaeological discoveries have cast particularly interesting and surprising light on the identification of various deities and rituals in ancient Israel. Yahweh, the god of Israel, was unattested outside the Bible until modern research and excavation placed this deity in the context of ancient Near Eastern history and religion through parallel textual discoveries, including the first actual occurrence of the name “Yahweh” in Hebrew inscriptions only a few years ago. But archaeology now confirms (as the Bible hints) that other deities, specifically Canaanite fertility gods, were revered in ancient Israel. Chief among them were the “Mother Goddess” Asherah and the “Storm God” Ba’al, whom the Israelites apparently regarded as Asherah’s consort. Thus it is clear that in ancient Israel, until the Exile, Asherah and Ba’al were not shadowy numina, dead and discredited gods of old Canaan. Rather, the pair were potent rivals of Yahweh himself, and for the masses their cult, with its promise of integration with the very life-giving forces of Nature, remained an attractive alternative to the more austere religion and ethical demands of Yahwism.

Archaeological illumination of the pervasiveness of the Canaanite fertility cults in Israel is not revolutionary; actually, it merely confirms what the Bible suggests—but downplays. Indeed, archaeology only brings to the surface a strong undercurrent throughout the Hebrew Bible: the eloquent prophetic protest against the ever-present threat of idolatry. Archaeology supplies the social and religious context of the period. In short, it demonstrates that 057the prophets knew what they were talking about.

It has long been suspected that the early Israelite cult was monolatrous (the worship of one god, while conceding the possibility of the existence of other gods), but certainly not monotheistic in the philosophical sense. This syncretistic cult can now be illustrated directly by archaeological finds that antedate most of the Biblical texts and therefore constitute primary evidence. A summary of the discoveries discussed above, taken together with the texts in Joshua, Judges and Samuel, shows that the primary features of the pre-monarchic Israelite cult were as follows: (1) Worship was a localized affair, with open-air sanctuaries or even simple household shrines serving most ordinary folk in everyday practice. There were few, if any, actual temples, and no centralized worship. (2) In the rarity of elaborate clerical or priestly institutions, any individual Israelite (males at least) could officiate in worship. Anyone could build an altar, plant a sacred tree, erect a stela or offer sacrifices—the characteristic (and probably exclusive) cultic activities. (3) The most prominent rituals were simply the frequent presentation of food and drink offerings—grains, cereals, olive oil, wine and sacrifices of sheep or goats—the principal agricultural products of Canaan centuries before the appearance of the Israelites. (4) There may have been more periodic public festivals; the ones that we know of were also borrowed from Canaan and followed the Canaanite agricultural year. These were: the spring pastoral feast, when lambs were slaughtered, identified quite naturally by Israelites with the Passover (or Pesach), when their firstborn were spared in Egypt; the early summer agriculture feast, coinciding with the grain harvest, or “Weeks/Pentecost” (Shavuot), when food offerings were brought to Yahweh; and the fall festival, or “Booths” (Succot), when fruits and other produce were ripe and whole families camped in “booths” in the fields to complete the joyful harvest at year’s end, followed shortly by the onset of the winter rains and the beginning of the new year (Rosh ha-Shanah, followed by Yom Kippur and rites of atonement). It is true that all of these festivals may later have been demythologized to some extent, in keeping with Israel’s characteristic historicizing tendencies—i.e., incorporated into the recitation of Yahweh’s saving acts in her own history. But their Canaanite origins and connections remained clear to many, especially in early Israel.¹⁰

Later, in the monarchy, the Israelite cult was of course more highly centralized and institutionalized by the Jerusalem priesthood. But, as we have seen, the official version of Israelite religion enshrined in the Hebrew Bible produced by these circles is sometimes more pious fiction than fact. The archaeological discoveries make it indisputably clear that local shrines and even rival temples continued in use after Solomon, and that Ba’al and Asherah were commonly worshipped down to the very end of the monarchy. Monotheistic Judaism was a product of the Exile, not earlier, as both the Bible itself and Jewish tradition strongly suggest. Until then, the ancient fertility cults of Canaan held powerful sway; indeed, all the old gods and goddesses of Canaan survived into Persian and Phoenician times (sixth through second centuries B.C.), finally reincarnated in the familiar deities of Greece and Rome; El is Kronos, Ba’al is Zeus, Asherah is Aphrodite, Anat is Athena, and so on.¹¹

The similarities of Israelite religion to the religions of greater Canaan have long been known, and indeed are assumed by one strand of the tradition in the Hebrew Bible. But the degree of affinity and of actual continuity with Canaan have been minimized by scholars, both Jewish and Christian, to emphasize the uniqueness of ancient Israel. Recent archaeological discoveries redress the balance by showing that in terms of material culture and the behavior it reflects, there was very little distinction between Canaanite and Israelite religion, at least in practice. The rituals were virtually the same, even if one assumes that Israel’s Yahwistic theology was an innovation.¹²

To sum up: archaeology, insofar as it is a historical discipline, is uniquely equipped to help answer such questions in Biblical studies as: What likely took place? When did it occur? Who were the principal participants? How did it happen? But here archaeology reaches the limits of its inquiry. It cannot, and is not intended to, answer the question, Why?—certainly not in terms of ultimate or divine causes. Such questions call for judgments of faith, whose validity archaeology seeks neither to prove nor to disprove.

I have always found it helpful to separate two tasks facing me as a scholar and as an individual. First is the descriptive-historical task, the business of the historian, who must be as objective as possible in finding out what happened and in asking, “What did it mean?” Then there is the normative-theological task, part of the process of reaching a value judgment when asking, “What does it mean?” One person can function at both levels, but not simultaneously. Questions of faith, while paramount to me, are not necessarily related to my historical research, nor are my conclusions authoritative for anyone else. It is, however, incumbent on me to suspend judgment on questions of faith while I, as archaeologist and scholar, pursue the historical quest for which I have been professionally trained.

Ultimately, the Bible is not history, but rather an account of God’s miraculous intervention in human history. Whether one accepts this premise, the Bible’s central claim is a personal, not a scholarly matter. It is a choice that may be based on social conditioning, personal predilection or individual experience—but it is not a rational choice based on irrefutable proof of specific historical events.

Archaeology never sought to make a convert of a nonbeliever, nor surely ever did so. Nothing could be clearer 058evidence of the modern lack of faith than our exaggerated expectations and demands for archaeological “proof.” It is perhaps misleading to insist that we have asked too much of archaeology. Rather, we have been asking the wrong questions.

An illustration may help mark the boundary between history which archaeology can flesh out, on the one hand, and theology, on the other. Imagine that a certain Canaanite site in central Palestine could be positively identified as one of the principal cities said by the Book of Joshua to have been destroyed by the incoming Israelites. Excavations there reveal a heavy destruction layer that dates indisputably to about 1200 B.C. Immediately above these ruins there is a new occupation level, entirely different in its style of houses and pottery, burial customs and other aspects of material culture—clear evidence of the appearance of a new ethnic group. Finally, imagine that excavations are crowned by the discovery of a victory stela in this newly established town, inscribed in early Hebrew, documenting in detail the conquest of the site and specifically naming Joshua and the Israelites.

Is this concrete evidence of the historicity of the Book of Joshua? Is this the long-sought proof that “the Bible is true”? Not at all. The significant message of the Bible is not, after all, that the Israelites took Canaan by military might. Its essential claim is that God miraculously gave them the land of Canaan as an unforgettable sign that he had chosen Israel as his own special people. That is a theological claim—not a documentation of events, but an interpretation of them.

We may or may not someday be able to demonstrate that all the events recorded in the Bible did or did not take place, but in the end it matters very little. Religious consciousness leaps beyond event to meaning. Claims for truth of a higher order are simply not amenable to historical or archaeological investigation; nor do they benefit by historical or archaeological confirmation. These are, in the end, matters of faith.

The following article has been adapted from Recent Archaeological Discoveries and Biblical Research, by William G. Dever (Seattle: Univ of Washington Press, 1990). As a matter of principal Professor Dever does not write for BAR (see his letter, “Bill Dever Responds,” Queries & Comments, BAR 13:04). He does not object, however, to our printing material otherwise written by him, but not for us. He also requests that his name appear at the end of the article instead of at the beginning. We are happy to comply with Professor Dever’s request. Despite my love for it, archaeology does have its […]