Archaeological Views: At the Interface of Archaeology and Texts

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In his First Person column in the July/August 2011 issue of BAR, Hershel Shanks responded to a critique that Ronny Reich had leveled against Eilat Mazar’s proposal that the structural remains she had exposed in her excavations at the City of David should be identified as remains of the palace of King David.^a According to Reich, Mazar’s archaeological conclusions were predetermined by her prior interpretation of Biblical texts and as such are methodologically unsound. Shanks defended Mazar’s approach, arguing that archaeologists ought to make use of the Bible to formulate hypotheses that can then be tested through archaeological investigation. In his Archaeological Views column in the recent September/October 2012 issue of BAR, Kevin McGeough joined in the debate, arguing that instead of using archaeology and texts to “prove” or “disprove” one another, we should rather view the two kinds of evidence as complementary sources of information about the past, and try to understand how the differences and similarities in the evidence can make sense together.^b

The issue is really a pressing example of a larger subject of recent scholarly discourse surrounding the potential opportunities and constraints inherent in any quest for meaningful correlation between archaeology and texts—Biblical or otherwise. This methodological introspection has taken place in practically every field where archaeological remains have been found in contexts for which we have access to contemporaneous written material.

McGeough was certainly on the mark in highlighting the fact that archaeology and texts provide fundamentally different kinds of information. By nature, all texts are authored from a particular viewpoint and are written with the intent of conveying certain information. Archaeological finds, on the other hand, generally reflect the unintentional material by-product of human behavior, and as such can be viewed as essentially unbiased and without agenda. Frequently, archaeology can be used together with texts to shed light on different aspects of the past, thus providing a richer, more multifaceted view of earlier times. This, however, is by no means the only way in which archaeology can be used productively together with texts.

As Shanks argued, archaeological data can and should be used to test hypotheses formulated through textual analysis—and vice versa. Since the past is beyond the limits of our immediate experience, we require evidence, whether textual or archaeological, to support any claims we wish to make about the past. Such evidence must be shown to be both reliable and accurate; no evidence for claims about the past is above the need for accountability.

Since archaeology and texts tend to report on different types of information, using data conveyed through different types of mechanisms, evidence culled from one field can serve as an independent accounting claim for evidence from the other. An example that illustrates the point is the often-raised question regarding the accuracy of various details found in the historical writings of Josephus Flavius. Archaeological excavations at first-century C.E. sites such as Jerusalem, Masada, Jotapata (Yodfat) and Gamla have provided important material evidence that corroborates, and in some cases discredits, Josephus’s textual evidence.

Another important way that archaeology can be used together with texts relates to our interpretation of the evidence. While both texts and archaeological finds provide evidence about the past, the meaning of this evidence is not always self-evident. Questions regarding how a certain artifact was once used or what a specific settlement pattern represents from a sociohistorical perspective are not uncommon in archaeology. Texts as well are seldom immune from ambiguity, as any reader of the Bible and its myriad commentaries knows only too well. Texts can be invaluable in the interpretation of archaeological finds, and archaeological material often provides vital information for the proper interpretation of texts.

I can share an example of this from my own work on archaeological finds relating to the observance of Jewish ritual purity laws during the late Second Temple period. Beginning in the second half of the first century B.C.E., various types of vessels made 074 of chalkstone were in widespread use at Jewish sites throughout Judea and Galilee, as demonstrated in the archaeological record. These stone vessels served as both domestic tableware and storage containers for food and liquid, supplementing the usual ceramic vessels.^c This was a uniquely Jewish phenomenon; remains of chalkstone vessels are conspicuously absent from contemporary non-Jewish sites. These vessels almost completely disappear from the archaeological record after the failure of the Bar-Kokhba Revolt in 135 C.E. Why did Jews during this period choose to produce vessels made of chalkstone, which were undoubtedly more unwieldy and costlier to produce than pottery? Textual sources provide the only satisfactory explanation. Ancient Jewish law, as related in early rabbinic literature, considered stone to be a material immune to ritual impurity. According to these sources, vessels made of stone were used on various occasions when ritual purity was to be ensured. This practice appears to lie behind the Gospel of John’s explanation that the stone water jars featured in the wedding at Cana narrative were associated with “the purity (laws) of the Jews” (John 2:6). Here texts have provided the medium that allow the “mute” stones to speak.

Admittedly, potential methodological pitfalls lie in the path of any attempt to correlate artifacts and texts. Scholars are sometimes too quick in trying to find intersections between archaeology and texts where in fact none exists. Archaeological finds should never be forced into the straitjacket of textual sources. A careful approach, which seeks to take advantage of the many and varied mutual benefits to be found at the interface between archaeology and text, can only bring us closer to a fuller and more accurate understanding of the past.

In his First Person column in the July/August 2011 issue of BAR, Hershel Shanks responded to a critique that Ronny Reich had leveled against Eilat Mazar’s proposal that the structural remains she had exposed in her excavations at the City of David should be identified as remains of the palace of King David.a According to Reich, Mazar’s archaeological conclusions were predetermined by her prior interpretation of Biblical texts and as such are methodologically unsound. Shanks defended Mazar’s approach, arguing that archaeologists ought to make use of the Bible to formulate hypotheses that can then be tested through archaeological investigation. […]