By the term "archaeology" I mean to say "material culture" apart from the texts that are found by archaeology. Here's my basic argument.
Liberal historians of ancient Israel currently employ a methodology of skepticism toward the Bible's record of history. Anything that is not proven by either material culture or extrabiblical texts is doubted. In many cases, material culture is interpreted in such a way as to contradict the biblical text. It would be interpreted to contradict the biblical text en toto, but extrabiblical texts have helped support the existence of these events and people more often than not. But herein lies the problem.
It is clear that when extrabiblical texts are removed from verifying biblical history in some way, the material culture is almost always interpreted in a way that contradicts the biblical history. So when historians talk about the patriarchal period, the exodus, the conquest, etc., since we have no texts, other than the Bible, that support this history, the material culture is used to say that these things did not happen in the way the Bible describes. In fact, the very existence of the events and people is called into question.
But this was/is also true for those people and events when only current skeptical theories using the material culture was applied apart from extrabiblical data that proved otherwise. Before Tel Dan, many scholars who applied this methodology did not believe in a united monarchy or in the person of David. Some minimalists still believe the concept of an Israelite nation was made up by Jews in the Persian period, and they interpret the material culture accordingly. This methodology thus verifies for them that there was no historical Israel before the exile.
The problem is that when we actually have texts, i.e., things that speak and can tell us if we are wrong about the existence of certain events and people, they contradict this conclusion.
So here is my argument. If the texts contradict the conclusions of the current methodology of inquiry, and the texts are more reliable than contemporary theories and guesses about potherds and burn layers, then the conclusions brought about from that particular methodology are wrong even in the periods dealing with people and events where we don't have extrabiblical texts informing us of their errors.
Now, that doesn't mean that all of the biblical persons and events are proven to exist. It just means that the current methodology and ideology has no way of figuring that out apart from text. Hence, we are back to the oldest extant text commenting on those persons and events, and that would be the Bible in many cases. It contradicts an obviously flawed methodology, and I have no reason, therefore, to reject it based on the conclusions of that obviously wrong methodology.
To put it plainly. When X concludes Y, but Y is shown to be false by Z, then when X concludes Y, and Z is not present, there is no warrant to trust X.
Would happen to know if archaeology shows a preponderance of evidence in one direction or the other between a global flood or a local flood?
ReplyDeleteThat would be out of archaeology's department and more along the lines of geology. Archaeology is really confined to specific areas. I guess one can pull all of that together and assess whether a global flood occurred, but that would be a massive undertaking, and so much is debated in terms of chronology and what strata and material belongs to what period that I doubt such is possible. Currently geological opinion is a definite on a local flood and not so much on the global, but all sciences dealing with historical reconstructions are highly interpretive.
ReplyDeleteSo the bible must always be right even if there's a preponderance of scientific, historical and archaeological evidence that says otherwise. I suppose that's why they call it "faith". It seems to me that your best defense is to attack archaeology itself and not the evidence it has produced.
DeleteReading is power, My Friend. You ought to try it sometime.
ReplyDeleteRegardless of whether the Bible is right or not, what I said above stands. The current methodology being used is CLEARLY flawed by virtue of the fact that its conclusions are often rendered false when we have textual witnesses to the people or events. Ergo, there is no warrant to believe it when there is no textual witness to the contrary. I would say that if I were an atheist (as long as I were an honest one and not one who was merely an apologist looking for whatever I could to discredit my opponents).
How can you be sure that a supposed textual witness to an event is reliable, especially when the physical evidence says otherwise? You're saying modern archaeology can't be relied on AT ALL, and that's nonsense. I doubt you'd be attacking archaeology if it had corroborated all the biblical stories. But whatever, I don't care enough about biblical historicity to engage in a lengthy debate. I am perfectly justified concluding that the bible is largely mythical if its stories have no archaeological, geological, scientific and historical corroborations outside their texts. Same is true for all other religious texts.
DeleteAll of archaeology did conclude that the Bible and the extrabiblical texts were reliable. The shift isn't in data that changes our minds. It's largely in a reinterpretation of the data. So the material culture doesn't say otherwise. Interpreters of the material culture say otherwise, and most biblical historians view those extrabiblical texts as reliable. Hence, it's their contradiction, not mine.
ReplyDeleteSecond to this, you clearly don't understand the field. The textual witness is more reliable because it involves less speculation than an interpretation of material culture does. Like most atheistic apologists, you put to much certainty in uncertain fields of thought. You are not justified in concluding that. You believe that, but you don't have justification for it, because there is plenty of corroborations outside the biblical text. Again, you are not familiar with what archaeologists and biblical historians actually say, so you just conclude that the Bible must all be made up. Most biblical historians and scholars, even liberals, believe that a ton of the Bible is verified by archaeology. They just don't believe that all of it is.
Well look, I don't really want to engage in a debate on the historicity of the bible. I have never heard or read anything that corroborated a great deal of the OT stories, and most of the evidence is to the contrary. Textual witness is extremely unreliable, and not nearly enough to base a worldview on.
DeleteSo I would like to know what archaeological or extrabiblical evidence or information do you have or know of that corroborates the bible? I don't want to debate you on it, I'm just curious since you seem so confident and I want to learn more.
That's like asking me what evidence corroborates the reports concerning the Civil War. What parts of the Bible? There is literally a ton of archaeological and textual evidence that can be interpreted to support it. But that's not my point. My point is that a methodology employed that is refuted by the texts (and most scholars agree that those texts are more valuable than material data, sorry) is not reliable when the texts are absent.
ReplyDeleteTextual witness is extremely unreliable?! What?! I'm sorry, but you don't know what you're talking about. Textual witness is the most reliable source of evidence we have for any historical event. If you don't believe that then you must not believe in a host of history.
But let me know what area of the Bible you want archaeological data for. It's simply too much to cover the entire Scripture.