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The Bible and Archaeology

Tue, 2008-06-24 13:38 — godlessokie07
Question:: 
This is a somewhat detailed question and I do hope to find a satisfactory answer. I am new to atheism, having been an atheist for just over a year. I read a book by Israel Finkelstein and Neil Silberman called The Bible Unearthed that basically says that the stories in the Old Testament are mostly fiction. For example, they say there is no evidence for an Exodus from Egypt or the Conquest of Canaan under Joshua etc. Here is my question. The authors, for example say that the site for biblical Ai which fell to Joshua shows no evidence of destruction by Joshua and so it among other cities in Canaan were not destroyed by Joshua. Then Bryant Wood comes along and says they do show destruction and the site identified as biblical Ai by most archaeologists (Et-Tell) is not Ai, but another place Khirbet El-Maqatir is more likely Ai and shows evidence of destruction. Are most archaeologists looking in the wrong place? I mean, is there evidence that events like the Conquest of Canaan happened and archaeologists just weren't looking in the right spot? And what to make of this claim about Khirbet El-Maqatir being Ai, or Khirbet Nisya (made by Dr. Livingston I think) being Ai? Hope my question makes sense.
Atheist Answer: 

It's always possible that there is evidence for the events in the Bible which hasn't yet been found. That doesn't mean it's definitely out there, and the uncertainty does not imply a 50% chance either. Extraordinary claims demand lots of real evidence.

Bryant Wood is better known outside the apologist community for another claim he made in 1990. He dated the destruction of the ancient city of Jericho to a period which meant that part of the Biblical chronology is accurate.

He was up against another dating by revered archaeologist Kathleen Kenyon. In the 1950s she placed it 150 years earlier. Wood's claims were immediately regarded as highly suspect, and eventually debunked completely by further discoveries in 1995. The evidence still supports Kenyon's date, which in turn supports the idea that the Old Testament is out of whack.

Wood's latest claim rejects the widely accepted site of Ai, Et-Tell, which was evidently completely unoccupied at the supposed time of its conquest, and substitutes another site where apparently there was a population and a battle around the right time. It's currently difficult to find any mention of this claim at all outside of religious books and websites, and even they are waiting for more evidence before really shouting about it.

If and when a full archaeological case for Khirbet El-Maqatir as Ai is presented for approval by the larger scientific community, other archaeologists will do their best to rip it to pieces. That's not because it's Bible-related, it's because they do that to everything. That's how they find out what truly stands up to scrutiny.

If in fact Khirbet El-Maqatir were generally accepted as Ai, and there was a battle when the Bible says there was, it would be a very general boost in credibility for the historical aspects of the Old Testament. However it wouldn't say a thing about who did the fighting, where the people went afterwards or whether God and his chosen marauders had anything to do with it. The hypothesis that the stories of conquest are mythology loosely based on real local events would likely be advanced as much as the probability of the Biblical account's veracity.

It remains to be seen whether Wood's new claim will get that far.

- SmartLX

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Wed, 2008-06-25 15:34 — Rook_Hawkins

For a very detailed

For a very detailed response, please see my blog article on ancient Israel.

http://www.rationalresponders.com/ancient_israel

Wed, 2008-07-16 00:04 — worg (not verified)

Straw Man

The original question is, I suppose, interesting, but is tangential to the real question of whether there is a god, and whether or not the bible has bearing on that question.

Let's say I have a book on Napoleon. Let's say that all the history in that book is true, and at the end it happens to say "There is a god."

The fact of the correctness of all the other history in the book has nothing to do with the end postulation, for which there is no evidence. Setting up the bible as proof of the existence of god is an errand for fools.

Good thing there are plenty of them. They go to church every sunday.

Wed, 2008-07-16 10:11 — SmartLX

Sure, but...

Yes, it is a tangential line of inquiry, but a valid one.

This isn't about proof of God, though many are prepared to make that illogical leap. Believers are entitled to gather circumstantial evidence for the accuracy of their sacred texts, especially since concrete evidence has been hard to come by. Of course, the rest of us are entitled to check that circumstantial evidence.

Sun, 2009-05-31 10:30 — The GreatIAM (not verified)

Who is the fool and who is not the fool...

First off, my errrant fool, Sunday is not the only day that is considered by many Bible believers to be the day of the sabbath. In fact there are over 2.9 million Bible believers out there who worship my Father on Saturday rather than Sunday. This number does not include all the Jews throughout the world on which the Old Testament is founded.

Second off, my errant fool, it is the fool which says in his heart, There is no God. The Jews were protected from the Black Plague during the dark ages. Why? It is because many medically held scientific principles that are held today were common knowledge to them back when the Gentiles knew nothing of the sort. Not only was this information known to the Jews but they practiced it. They washed their hands before eating, they would not drink of the blood of the animals because they knew that the life of the animal was in the blood, a fact that was not known to the Western world until the past 100 years.

Many many places have already been discovered and many more will be discovered that will show the truth of the scriptures. It will not show the strength of religion since that is man made but the scriptures are written of, by and for the Father.

Sun, 2009-05-31 19:27 — SmartLX

If he isn't Jewish he's a 7DA.

Yes, thankyou, we've read Psalms 14 and 53 already. The Bible threatens unbelievers with much worse than foolishness; if atheists don't believe the rest of it, why would we pay any attention when it (and you) flat out insults us?

The choice of day of worship has jack to do with this topic, and I don't care when you go anyway, so I'll let that bit stand.

The Black Plague first emerged in the 1300s, well after the years which were regarded as the Dark Ages before the term went out of fashion. By then, while the function of blood was not fully understood, it was common medical knowledge that we and animals need a certain amount of the stuff to live. This was a lesson learned on battlefields thousands of years ago. Bandages have been around for a long time.

The Jews, like the Muslims who similarly perform their ablutions, did not understand the actual reason to wash; their ancestors would simply have observed over generations that people who didn't wash their hands tended to get sick and die more often. They figured that God therefore likes clean hands, and thus a genuinely beneficial ritual was instituted. The reasoning was false or at least incomplete, but the result was good.

Biblical instructions to wash one's hands are like Biblical instructions to love one's neighbour as oneself. They were written in because they're good advice regardless of whether there's a god, as the authors had experienced for themselves. Good advice need not be divinely inspired, even if this is claimed.