The Archaeology of the Bible

By James K. Hoffmeier PhD.

For the past 200 years archaeological work has provided new information that allows us to peer into the past and open chapters of human history that have not been read for centuries, or even millennia.

In The Archaeology of the Bible James K. Hoffmeier provides the reader with an incisive account of archaeology's role in shaping our understanding of the biblical texts.

Fundamental issues addressed throughout include how archaeological discoveries relate to biblical accounts, and the compatibility of using scientific disciplines to prove or disprove a religious book such as the Bible.

This work is an ideal introduction to the societies and events of the Ancient Near East and their relation to our interpretation of the Bible.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lion Scholar
• Release date: Mar 22, 2019
• ISBN: 9781912552214

James K. Hoffmeier PhD.

James Hoffmeier served as Professor of Archaeology and Old Testament at Wheaton College and was chair of Wheaton’s Department of Biblical, Theological, Religious and Archaeological Studies. From 1996 to 1999, he was also director of the Wheaton Archaeology Program. He directed excavations at Tell el-Borg, Sinai, from 1998-2008, and has appeared in and served as a consultant for television programs on the Discovery, History, Learning, and National Geographic Channels. Dr. Hoffmeier currently teaches archaeology at Trinity International University Divinity School, USA. He teaches and lectures regularly across the USA and internationally.

Book preview

PART 1

Introduction to Archaeology and its Application to the Old Testament

CHAPTER 1

THE BIRTH OF ARCHAEOLOGY

Travelling in Time

Knowing the past (history) is the key to understanding the present and the forces that continue to shape cultures, languages, national boundaries and political associations. In the smash hit movie Back to the Future, the eccentric scientist Dr Emmett Brown built a time machine-car that was capable of going back in time or launching forward into the future. Since time machines are not viable, how does one open the door to the past and pursue the history, adventures and mysteries that lurk in ancient times?

In fact we do have such a vehicle to take us back in time. For the past 200 years archaeological work has provided new information that allows people in the twenty-first century to peer into the hoary past and open chapters of human history that have not been read for centuries, or millennia in some cases. One area in which archaeology has played a critical role in making the past come alive is in the Middle, or the Ancient, Near East. Classical Greek writers, from Homer to Herodotus, wrote about the nations of the eastern Mediterranean. Because of these writings, Westerners had long been intrigued by the pyramids and temples of Egypt – her mummies and papyri – and the monuments and tablets of Babylon. In the Holy Land, centuries old churches and mosques are built over spots where important events of Bible history purportedly happened, and ancient ruins can be seen across the region. The archaeological remains from the Near East raise the following questions: Does this have anything to do with the Bible, the book that has profoundly influenced Western culture? Is there archaeological evidence that bears on the Bible? Are the narratives of the Bible, especially those from 3,000 and more years ago, myth or history? Is a scientific discipline like archaeology even compatible with an obviously religious book like the Bible? These are relevant questions that this book will seek to answer.

A casual reading of the Bible reveals that the setting for the events and peoples encountered in the pages of the Old and New Testaments is the Middle East. Going from east to west in the period covered by the Old Testament, this region includes the present-day lands of Iran, Iraq, eastern Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Israel/Palestine, Jordan, Egypt and northern Sudan. These lands are also known as the Fertile Crescent, and the birthplace of civilization. In the Christian era, the setting of the Bible shifted west to include western Turkey, Greece, Italy and a number of Mediterranean islands. It stands to reason, then, that if one were to study and better understand the histories, languages, literature, architecture, art and geography of these regions, there would be a connection with the Bible. After all, the Bible is set in these regions, and names rulers such as Shishak and Tirhakah, Tiglath-Pileser and Sargon, Cyrus and Darius, Caesar Augustus and Herod. And they are also attested outside of scripture. Archaeology, then, can serve as a time machine for the reader of the Bible, opening doors of inquiry and lighting paths so that one can navigate through the darkness caused by the chasm that separates the present from the past.

The Origins of Archaeology in the Biblical World

Archaeology, as the word suggests, is the study of ancient things, especially cultures and societies. Since the European academic world has always been interested in classical history, languages (Greek and Latin), literature and art, it is not surprising that archaeological excavations began in Italy over 250 years ago at the sites of Herculaneum (1738) and Pompeii (1748). This development, naturally, would prove beneficial to the study of the New Testament, but this was not the motivation behind these early excavations. Heinrich Schliemann (1822–90), the son of a German minister, grew up with an enduring interest in Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey. This passion, along with the hope of verifying the historicity of Homer’s works, took him to Greece in the late 1860s where he began excavating various sites. Eventually he discovered the site of what is widely held to have been Troy, in western Turkey. Schliemann is regarded as a critical player in the development of more scientific methods of digging.

Thanks to Schliemann, some biblical scholars thought that archaeology could likewise serve their study of the Bible and its world. Indeed, it is generally acknowledged that it was interest in the Bible and its history that motivated many of the early explorers and archaeologists to travel to the Middle East to investigate and excavate ancient sites.

Archaeology in Mesopotamia

Nearly 400 years ago, Pietro della Valle (1586–1652), an Italian poet, soldier and traveller, visited the mounds or tells (as they are called in Arabic) that made up ancient Babylon. There he obtained bricks with curious wedge-shaped writing incised in the mud. These were the first examples of what scholars would call the ‘cuneiform’ (wedge-shaped) script to make their way to Europe. But no one could read them. During the next 250 years increasing numbers of intrepid scholars, diplomats and clergy travelled to the Middle East to explore biblical sites. Travelling from Europe to the Middle East and within these lands was in itself challenging in the seventeenth through to the early twentieth centuries, and disease and hostile locals proved dangerous to these earlier archaeologists.

The British and French were also active in the pioneering days of archaeology in Iraq. Sir Henry Rawlinson was appointed consul in Baghdad in 1843, providing him with the opportunity to begin excavations. Other pioneer archaeologists in Iraq were Paul-Emile Botta (1802–70) and Austin Henry Layard (1817–94). The former was the French consul in Mosul in northern Iraq from 1842, and he excavated at the ancient Assyrian capitals of Nineveh and Khorsabad where he discovered the palace of King Sargon II, who is mentioned in Isaiah 20:1. Many of the fine sculptures he discovered were taken to the Louvre in Paris. Layard, a British antiquarian, also worked in Nimrud and Khorsabad during the 1840s. His major discoveries were taken to the British Museum in London. Thus by the second half of the nineteenth century, the discipline of Assyriology was advancing with the decipherment of the cuneiform script and the discovery of ancient capitals such as Nineveh and Babylon, which were known from the pages of the Bible. Another renowned biblical city in Mesopotamia, Ur of the Chaldees, the home of Abraham (Genesis 11:28, 31), was excavated by Sir Leonard Woolley (1880–1960) between 1922 and 1934. Woolley discovered the royal tombs of the First Dynasty of Ur (c. 2650–2500 BC), which contained exquisite jewelry, golden utensils and various implements. Today these treasures grace the British Museum, while a portion of jewelry and the body of Pu-Abi, a queen or priestess of Ur during the First Dynasty, is on display in the University of Pennsylvania Museum. Inspired by the discovery of the royal tombs at Ur, Agatha Christie wrote her famous murder mystery, Murder in Mesopotamia, and also married Max Mallowan, Woolley’s assistant. Later Max and Agatha excavated at Nimrud in northern Iraq.

Archaeology in Egypt

Egyptology can trace its roots to the collecting of antiquities from the Nile Valley in the sixteenth century. Egypt was known through classical literature and the travels of Herodotus in the fifth century BC. The mystique of Egypt led many in Europe to think that esoteric and occult knowledge could be obtained through contact with Egyptian objects, and that the mysterious writings contained magical powers. These fanciful notions gave way to more scholarly investigations in the nineteenth century. Giovanni Belzoni (1778–1823), a one-time circus giant and hydraulic engineer by training, travelled to Egypt in 1816 hoping to sell his irrigation techniques to Muhammad Ali, the ruler of Egypt. There he met the British Consul General, Henry Salt, who was himself a collector of antiquities. This led Belzoni to spend many years exploring Egypt, opening tombs in the Valley of the Kings and exploring the Giza pyramids. He took it as a personal challenge to haul his larger finds back to England. Despite his reputation for using cavalier methods, he also made careful drawings of temples and statues that could not be moved, showing that he recognized the intrinsic value of the monuments.

One aspect of French colonialism in the Mediterranean was Napoleon’s campaign to Egypt. Standing before the great pyramids of Giza, Napoleon is reported to have announced to his troops that 5,000 years of history were looking down on them. Beginning in 1798, his host of scholars fanned out across Egypt recording information about the monuments. It was under the aegis of this French effort that the Rosetta Stone was found in 1799, a discovery which paved the way for the decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphics by the philologist Jean François Champollion.

The Rosetta Stone contained an edict by Ptolemy V (196 BC), inscribed in hieroglyphs as well as in Demotic, the highly advanced hieroglyphic shorthand used in Greco-Roman Egypt. It was, however, the presence of the third text, the Greek translation of the Egyptian portion, that provided the key to unlock the meaning of the cryptic signs. This advance paved the way for the reading and comprehending of hieroglyphic inscriptions from tombs, temples, stelae and papyri. Today the Rosetta Stone is in the British Museum, having been surrendered by Napoleon after his loss at Waterloo.

The Decipherment of Cuneiform

Looking at a cuneiform text, one might be inclined to think that the signs are completely unintelligible! Today, however, there are scores of trained scholars who can make sense of this curious script. Many great minds and countless hours of study led to the decipherment of this important script, and this in turn opened a door to understanding the ancient languages of Mesopotamia, which provide valuable background information for numerous Bible stories.

Carsten Niebuhr (1733–1815) is the person often credited with initiating further scientific investigations in the Orient. German by birth, Niebuhr was a mathematician who learned to survey, which gave him the credentials to join a team of Scandinavian and German scholars who were sent to explore the Middle East by the Danish monarch, Frederick V. His team included a linguist, a botanist, a zoologist and an artist. He spent time in Egypt, Sinai, Iraq, Syria and Persia (now Iran) between 1761 and 1767, and copied reliefs and cuneiform inscriptions at Persepolis (one of the capitals of the Persian empire), made drawings at Nineveh, and drew maps of various sites. Early on in this expedition, one by one all his team died; but he pressed on, paving the way for others to follow. At Persepolis, he studied the enigmatic texts, rightly concluding that three different systems of writing were used. While this was an important development, a more significant breakthrough came in 1802 when George Grotenfend correctly identified the names of three Persian kings on tablets, which resulted in the identification of thirteen Old Persian signs.

The key to completely comprehending the cuneiform script was the realization that the Behistun or Bisitun inscription from western Iran contained a trilingual text. This inscription contained the report of King Darius’s earlier years as ruler and was written in Elamite, Babylonian and Old Persian cuneiform. Henry Creswicke Rawlinson (1810–95), a British military officer, took advantage of being in Persia in 1833 to begin his study of the Behistun monument. Building on the foundation laid by Niebuhr and Grotenfend, Rawlinson’s painstaking work resulted in the complete decipherment of all three languages. This achievement was extremely important for the study of many ancient Near Eastern languages as many nations utilized this script. Although in the fourth millennium BC the Sumerians developed the cuneiform script in southern Mesopotamia, it was borrowed and used by the Babylonians, Assyrians, Hittites and Persians. During the second millennium BC, scribes from Ugarit in present-day Syria took the cuneiform script a step further by developing an alphabet system.

Archaeology in Palestine/Israel

The third major area of the world of the Near East – the heartland of biblical archaeology – is Palestine/Israel, often known as the Holy Land. It is widely acknowledged that Edward Robinson (1794–1863), an American biblical scholar and seminary professor, is a significant figure in the origins of biblical archaeology, a discipline that only came into full bloom in the twentieth century. Beginning in 1837 Robinson travelled through Egypt, Sinai and Palestine, accompanied by an American missionary from Beirut, Eli Smith, who was fluent in Arabic. Robinson’s monumental three-volume work, Biblical Researches in Palestine, was published in 1841. The main goal of his exploration was to identify sites known from the Old and New Testaments. In many cases he successfully achieved his aim by correlating the Hebrew and Greek names in the Bible with surviving Arabic toponyms (place names). Robinson’s belief that the Bible contained accurate information that could be squared with the ruins and sites of Palestine became one of the trademarks of biblical archaeology for over a century.

The Palestine Exploration Fund (PEF) was established in Britain in 1865 to investigate the natural history, archaeology and geography of Palestine. The earliest expeditions under the PEF (now known as the Palestine Exploration Society) were devoted to surveying and mapping key sites, such as that of Jerusalem by Captain Charles Warren. Also working under the authority of the Ottoman empire in Palestine was Charles Clermont-Ganneau who, among other things, helped rescue the famous Mesha or Moabite Stela that had been discovered at Dhiban (biblical Dibon) in Trans-Jordan in 1868. Clermont-Ganneau also studied early Hebrew inscriptions such as the Siloam Tunnel Inscription, discovered in 1880. But Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie (1853–1942) is normally credited with moving archaeological excavations in a more scientific direction. Trained as a surveyor and engineer, young Petrie studied and measured monuments in Britain – in 1880 he published a book on Stonehenge. When he went to Egypt, Petrie used engineering and surveying techniques to measure the great Giza pyramids in Egypt.

Fresh from nearly a decade of excavations in Egypt, Petrie worked briefly at Tell el-Hesi in southern Judah in 1890 under the auspices of the PEF. There he sought to apply the stratigraphical (study of deposited layers) method that Schliemann had used in Greece and Troy, thus leaving an enduring mark on the archaeology of Palestine despite the brevity of his tenure at Tell el-Hesi. Geology had already determined that the earth’s layers, or strata, were laid by the forces of nature in a chronological sequence, the newer strata covering earlier deposits. Known as the law of superimposition, this principle was transferred to the discipline of archaeology, proving to be most helpful in dating the layers of human remains on the mounds of the Near East. In this case, it was the contents within the layers that enabled the archaeologists to offer precise or absolute dates for the various civilizations. Even where there was uncertainty about the date of a level, the excavator could be certain of the relative chronology: the lowest strata would be the oldest and the uppermost layers the most recent.

Other archaeologists followed Petrie, working at biblical sites in the region, such as R. A. S. Macalister (1870–1950) at Tell es-Safi (probably Philistine Gath) and Gezer between 1902 and 1908. Other biblical sites, such as Taanach, Jericho and Megiddo, were excavated by German archaeologists at the beginning of the twentieth century.

Not far behind the early European archaeologists came American scholars, with the establishment of the American Schools of Oriental Research in 1900. George Reisner of Harvard University, who previously worked in Egypt and Sudan, directed work at Samaria beginning in 1909. This work and other projects in the region were curtailed by World War I, but the fall of the Ottoman empire and the subsequent British mandate in Palestine gave rise to a new era of archaeological work in Palestine. The leading biblical archaeologist G. Ernest Wright dubbed it ‘a golden age’. The most renowned scholar of this era was William Foxwell Albright (1891–1971) of Johns Hopkins University. Albright surveyed Tell Beit Mirsim, followed by four seasons of excavations between 1926 and 1932. The importance of Albright’s work was the attention he gave to pottery and establishing a typological sequence for dating purposes. While Petrie had recognized basic principles of ceramic chronology, such as using various shapes and decorations of pottery for dating purposes, it was Albright who refined this analysis, carefully dating specific forms and types of wares with those at other sites – thus permitting scholars to date levels at other sites in southern Palestine.

G. Ernest Wright (1909–74), one of Albright’s most distinguished students, was well known for his work in biblical theology and archaeology. From Albright he learned the importance of pottery analysis, first learning field methods in 1934 with his mentor at Beitîn, thought to be Bethel of the Old Testament. Wright in many ways paved the way for a multi-disciplinary approach to archaeology, thanks to his association with the anthropologist Robert Braidwood of the University of Chicago. While he anticipated seeing the fruits of his new vision in the excavations he directed at Shechem, his lofty goals were only realized in the work of his students such as William Dever, Joseph Seger and John Holladay. They worked at Gezer in the 1960s and 1970s, pioneering more scientific and multi-disciplinary approaches to excavations in order to provide a more comprehensive picture of life in ancient Canaan and Israel (see page 21).

The formation of the state of Israel in 1948 marked the beginning of Israeli excavation of their ancestral land, although some had worked in previous decades alongside Western excavators. One young scholar who had worked at Tell Beit Mirsim with Albright in the 1930s was Benjamin Mazar (1905–95), considered by some to be the father of Israeli archaeology. From 1936 to the late 1970s Mazar excavated at a number of Israeli sites, including the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. One of Albright’s PhD students at Johns Hopkins University was Avraham Biran, who has directed excavations at Tell Dan for decades, remaining active well into his nineties. Other pioneering archaeologists in Israel include: Yohanan Aharoni (1919–76), a student of Mazar, who excavated at Arad, Ramat Rachel and Beer Sheba; and Yigael Yadin (1917–84), a general, politician and academic, who excavated at Hazor, Megiddo and Masada. Today the students of these early Israeli archaeologists are actively excavating the tells of ancient Israel and Canaan.

During the middle third of the twentieth century, British archaeologists were also at work in Israel and Jordan. Excavating at Jericho and Jerusalem, the English archaeologist Kathleen Kenyon (1906–78) introduced the more rigorous methods developed in British archaeology. She adapted her field techniques from Sir Mortimer Wheeler. Perhaps her greatest contribution to Syro-Palestinian or biblical archaeology was her introduction of what is called the ‘Wheeler-Kenyon’ method to the Near East. Careful attention is given to studying the occupational layers and the baulks; that is, the walls created by the excavation of the areas or squares. The excavated squares or rectangles are situated in a grid system established by a surveying instrument. Furthermore, Kenyon was careful to isolate the pottery and other objects found in a stratum. By thoroughly recording finds and producing detailed drawings of the baulks, one would always know the context of an object.

Modern Archaeological Methods

From the 1960s onwards, archaeological work throughout the Middle East has become increasingly multi-disciplinary. Traditionally, archaeologists in the Near East emphasized examining ancient written sources, architecture, artifacts and art objects of various types as the basis for reconstructing the past. While such a humanities-based approach remains the backbone of archaeology, we have broadened our interests and are asking new questions and employing new methods of investigation.

Most excavations are concerned with paleo-environmental study of the region within which the site is located. Archaeologists can now survey their sites with a laser surveying instrument or ‘theodolite’ that can record data on computers. This allows one to produce extremely accurate maps. Surveying a site by magnetometer and ground penetrating radar (GPR) permits one to see features below the surface, thus guiding the archaeologist to excavate particular features of interest. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) computer programs enable one to superimpose satellite images, regional maps and archaeological site maps, resulting in data that can assist the archaeologist in the study of an archaeological site and its relationship to other features and sites. Carbon14 is regularly used to date floral or faunal remains.

Pottery is no longer studied merely for dating purposes, but also to determine the types of clay and marl used, which can be traced to different points of origin. For example, at the site I excavate in North Sinai, we have determined that a large vessel used for transporting products came from the Dakhla Oasis region in Egypt’s Libyan desert, while another originates in Ugarit on the Mediterranean coast in present-day Syria. Archaeologists are eager to determine the function of vessels: how they were used, what they contained or transported, and what they can tell about the economy of a site or region. Containers will rarely be discovered with their contents intact, but the presence of residues offers a clue to what was inside.

Anthropological concerns figure in the work of modern archaeologists. This includes osteology – the study of human remains – and paleo-zoology, which determines the types of animal at a site from bones. From careful study of human remains, the archaeologist learns about the people who lived at a site – their ethnicity as well as their health and the diseases they may have had. Animal bones shed light on the diet of the residents as well as the environment. For instance, in our work at Tell el-Borg at Sinai we have uncovered remains of cows, sheep, goats, pigs and fish. All of these indicate the site’s residents had a robust and varied diet.

Ethno-archaeology, a branch of anthropology, involves studying contemporary local or regional cultural or social information in order to shed light on ancient practices. At Tell el-Borg we have discovered ancient reed huts that had been burnt to the ground thousands of years ago, and yet we have gleaned useful information on how such huts were built and how settlements were patterned by studying the huts of nearby Bedouin. Databases are employed to record and organize the artifacts and other finds, and to facilitate access to information for purposes of study and publication.

Consequently the archaeology of the Near East, once a treasure-hunting enterprise of antiquarians, is