My Akkadian is pretty seriously rusty, one might even say rusted out, so I was thinking of looking for good info on that new tablet discovery probably related to Jeremiah 39:3. But Chris Heard of Higgaion saved me all kinds of time by writing an excellent article, with links to a number of other good ones. I wanted to promote the link to his post to the top here so that you all can have a good place to continue your study.
Category: Archeology
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Valuable Evidence Found in Debate on Hebrew Scriptures
A tiny tablet has been found most likely confirming the name of one character in the Biblical book of Jeremiah. It is unfortunate that the Telegraph headlines it as Tiny tablet provides proof for Old Testament, though the text of their article is more accurate. Biblical archeologists generally do not go out attempting to prove that the Old Testament as a whole is true, and single connections to historical data do not prove the historicity of the whole.
What this tablet does appear to do is provide some challenge to the Biblical minimalist position, and suggests that the setting of the book of Jeremiah is precisely what it claims it to be, a document contemporary to the exile.
In the comments on the Telegraph story, one commenter asks how much third party evidence needs to be found to validate the Old Testament. That’s simply the wrong question. Historians and archeologists will continue to examine each document and each incident according to the evidence available.
Peter Kirk also provided a good perspective on this discovery.
HT: In the Word.
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Journalistic Duty and the Jesus Ossuary
Carl Zimmer has an excellent short post at The Loom commenting on the journalistic duties involved. Go read it–it will only take a few moments, but it makes a critical point.
One of the failures of the Christian response to this is to get over-the-top about attacks on Christianity, when what we are actually dealing with is an unscientific report irresponsibly presented. Zimmer has hit the nail directly on the head on this one.
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Is it a Hoax?
Rev. Rob Schenck of the National Clergy Council issued a statement attacking the forthcoming documentary on the grave of Jesus and his family. It was titled TV Special on Jesus’ Grave — a Hoax?. Though I have already commented on what I see is a completely unscientific and unscholarly hype, this is not terribly surprising in terms of the shallow reporting the media gives to historical projects. “Hoax” is probably too strong a word. One must, after all, take into account the standards (such as they are) of the industry before condemning a single individual. The documentary will probably have as much truth as one would expect–very little.
But Rev. Schenck himself engaged in some similarly unscientific and unscholarly rhetoric himself:
“Media outlets should exercise restraint in reporting Cameron’s Hollywood fiction masquerading as scientific fact. All of Jesus’ contemporaries recorded Christ rose after being dead for three days and ascended into Heaven. For 2,000 years people of faith along and countless scholars have pored over the Scriptures, confirming their veracity. A Hollywood director is the least qualified to render any determination of Biblical truth. Not only so, but the people Mr. Cameron has partnered with completely lack credibility. One has been discredited by experts as a charlatan. This is nothing more than a modern day circus sideshow. At best it is pure presumption. At worst, it is pure chicanery.” [Emphasis mine]
Instead of responding with a more reasoned approach to the evidence, Schenck responds with hyped rhetoric. It is plainly obvious that not every contemporary recorded that Jesus rose and ascended into heaven. That might be good advertising copy, but it is not good scholarship, nor does it do anything to promote a Christian understanding. The second sentence I emphasized simply affirms that Christians have believed in the resurrection. It is certainly debatable from a historical point of view. It’s interesting also that the National Clergy Council chooses to present a response from a person whose bio shows no signs of any qualifications in archeology or history at all.
For me, the resurrection of Jesus is an article of faith. I welcome neither careless documentaries, as this one will almost doubtless turn out to be (it’s claims are clearly excessive), nor do I welcome hyped and careless defense of my faith.
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Finding the Tomb of Jesus
A documentary to be shown on the Discovery Channel purports to have discovered the tomb and the ossuary of Jesus (CNN story here).
I’m amazed that something like this would be called a “documentary” since there is next to no possibility of sufficient evidence for such a claim. The sad thing is that archeological claims, when popularized, rarely resemble anything a trained archeologist would actually say. Archeology is not about searching for a specific person’s remains or some specific artifact, Indiana Jones movies notwithstanding.
This is not, however, solely a province of opponents of Christianity. When archeological discoveries have even the slightest relationship to the Biblical text, Christians will portray them as new “proofs” of the accuracy of the Bible. Inevitably they do no such thing, but each side contributes to this attitude of proving or disproving. Then of course others make discoveries that disprove Christianity, but later these prove to be no such thing either.
Scientific historical study doesn’t work this way. The point is not to prove or disprove an entire collection of documents, such as the Bible, but rather to determine historicity point by point and create a most probable reconstruction of historical events. That process involves a great deal of nuance, and a willingness to admit ignorance in many cases, or tentative conclusions in many others.
Both the statements “archeology proves the Bible” and “archeology disproves the Bible” are silly. The Bible is not a single source from the historical point of view, and sources are not proven or disproven, rather, individual elements of a story will be determined to be more or less probable.