July-August 1997
DIGGING DEEPER
The Bible: Accurate and True
Can archaeology prove the Bible to be true?
by Greg Koukl
I have held for a long time that archaeology is a great ally of the Scriptures. But does archaeology prove the Bible? In the 20th anniversary issue of Biblical Archaeology Review (May/June 1995), archaeologists address the greatest achievements of biblical archaeology, its greatest failures and the challenges that are left.
Many of the scholars-some of them Jewish archaeologists, some Christian archaeologists (but not evangelical or conservative)--deplored the attempts of evangelicals and conservatives to prove the religious truth claims of the Bible with archaeology.
That's exactly what I had been doing! Yet here were world-renowned archaeologists saying that this annoys them, and it's a misuse of archaeology.
When I read more, I found something else that the same archaeologists said with equal conviction. They said the field of archaeology has indeed confirmed, by and large, that the history of the Bible is sound.
Confused Convictions
Menahem Mansoor, a professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, says: "Biblical archaeology's greatest significance is that it has corroborated many historical records in the Bible. Biblical archaeology has failed to deter people who seek to validate religious concepts by archaeological finds. These people should not confuse fact with faith, history with tradition, or science with religion."
Israel Finkelstein, co-director of excavations at Tel Megiddo and professor of archaeology at Tel Aviv University, says: "The most obvious failure [of archaeology] has been the abuse of the 'old Biblical archaeology' by semi-amateur archaeologists. I refer to the romantic days when a special breed of archaeologists roamed the Middle East with a spade in one hand and the Scriptures in the other. These were the times of desperate attempts to prove that the Bible was correct."
David Ussishkin, professor of archaeology at Tel Aviv University, makes a similar statement about the problems of making religious assumptions based on the historical evidence of the Scriptures. He makes this interesting comment: "A fundamental question asked all over the world during the last two centuries is, Is the Bible true? Do the narratives related in it represent real events and are the figures mentioned there real people who lived and acted as the Biblical text tells us they did? In general, the evidence of material culture fits the Biblical account beginning with the period of the settlement of the tribes of Israel in the land of Canaan and the establishment of the kingdom of Israel. Hence, archaeological data are consistent with the view that at least this part of the Biblical account is, in general, true and historically based."
Now, isn't this rather odd? These eminent scholars are saying that archaeological evidence demonstrates that the historical record of the Bible is reliable, by and large. But then they add a disclaimer and warn us not to draw religious conclusions from the fact that the Bible is historically accurate.
Why not? Because this would be confusing history with religion. But isn't this precisely the point of the biblical narrative, that its religious claims are rooted in history?
A Book of History
The Bible records the Passover as a historical event. If we prove that the Exodus happened as described in the Scriptures, that God sent 10 plagues culminating in the death of the firstborn of Ramses II, and that he led the Hebrews through the Red Sea with the Egyptian army destroyed in its wake, should this have no religious significance?
If we, using the accepted cannons of historical research, could demonstrate that Jesus rose from the dead as the Scriptures tell us, wouldn't this have religious significance? Paul says that if Jesus has not risen from the dead, then Christians of all people ought to be pitied (1 Corinthians 15:19). The truthfulness of Christianity is necessarily tied to historical events. You can't separate the two.
That's the reason why the Bible is a record of history and not merely a record of religious claims. God ties religious claims, which can't easily be tested, to historical events, which can be tested. This is why biblical archaeology is so important to Christians. God's power is evident through the historical Exodus and through the historical resurrection of Jesus Christ.
World-class archaeologists say, "Yes, the Bible's historicity has been supported by archaeology." Yet in the next breath they warn, "Don't draw the conclusion, then, that the Bible is true." In other words, the facts of history have nothing to do with the "faith" of religion.
Strange Schizophrenia
The late Francis A. Schaeffer described this strange schizophrenia in a fine little booklet titled Escape From Reason. The basic premise that Schaeffer develops helps us to understand why archaeologists can say that the Bible is accurate while continuing to assert that the Bible is not necessarily true.
Schaeffer explains how modern man has become schizoid in the way he views the world. He actually thinks about life on two different planes. Schaeffer calls them the upper story and the lower story. The lower story is where reality is--facts, science, laws of nature, the world as it really is. The upper story is where values, meaning, God, religion, faith and those kinds of things reside.
Modern man is split. On the lower story of reality, man is locked into a machinelike universe of cause and effect. We are just matter in motion. If there is to be meaning and significance, it must come from somewhere other than the real world. It must be invented in our imagination and believed against the facts through an irrational leap of faith.
Schaeffer calls this the second-story leap. Man invents significance, value and morality by making a blind leap of faith into the upper story.
An excellent example of this kind of reasoning was given by a writer published in the Los Angeles Times. Commenting about the pope and Catholicism, the writer gave the "fashionable" perspective: "Religions are concerned with spiritual matters that are subjective, personal and private. One need have no proof or justification for one's spiritual beliefs because no one has the right to presume to judge the validity of those beliefs."
This writer makes it clear that to him religious belief is in a separate category from fact. It is an invention of your own mind having nothing to do with the real world. There's no objective foundation from which to make judgments.
Belief can't be analyzed by fact or by argument because ultimately there is no relationship between beliefs and facts. There is no connection between beliefs one holds about values and God and ultimate meaning in the upper story, and the facts of the real world in the lower story.
Faith in the Real World
Stephen J. Gould, the famous paleontologist at Harvard University, essentially says you can believe in evolution and still be Christian because God "beliefs" are not in the real world of the lower story, but in the "faith" world of the upper story.
It's as if he's saying: "Don't suggest that your Christian faith has anything to do with the real world. The world evolved by natural laws. God had nothing to do with it. You're welcome to believe in God as long as you understand that your God language is in the upper story and has nothing to do with reality. It's just your belief, your faith, your religious placebo. In the real world we know better. We're just molecules clashing in the universe. Don't try to mix fact with fantasy, science with religion."
These archaeologists seem to be doing the same thing. They say that religious truth has nothing to do with reality--that the Bible is accurate where it touches history, but it is a misuse of archaeology to suggest that such things can substantiate your private, personal upper story leap of faith. This is a serious problem, the schizoid modern mind. It's ironic that Christians are often called hypocrites.
The history in the Bible is a unique kind of history. By its very nature, it has ramifications for transcendent truth. If the Exodus happened as recorded, and we can give historical evidence for such a thing, there are unavoidable theological ramifications. If Jesus Christ did rise from the dead, as a point of historical fact, then we are forced to concede that the Lord is God in heaven and on earth.
Radio talk show host Greg Koukl is the founder of Stand to Reason, a ministry dedicated to the logical defense of Christianity.