Archaeology and the Bible? It's Stones and Stories
Combining religion and science is impossible unless you're willing to get err... creative? Not quite true: although they might quarrel about the details, archaeologists and the scriptures do quite agree on major historical facts such as the destruction of Jericho, the rule of Herod the Great as well as King David's. Archaeology can help determine the lifestyle and practices of people living in biblical times and such shed light upon the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament. The biblical archaeology school focusses on doing exactly this, and Professor Don Benjamin in his book 'Stones and Stories: An Introduction to Archaeology and the Bible' presents an overview of what archaeology has shown us regarding the worlds of the Bible. From the introduction of the book:
Archaeology is not the plunder of the treasures of ancient cultures, nor proving that the Bible’s descriptions of people and events are historically accurate, nor a legal remedy for determining which people today have a legal right to the land.
Archaeology in the world of the Bible does not prove the Bible wrong, anymore than biblical archaeology proves the Bible right. Archaeology offers new ways of defining the Bible in relationship with its own world, and using it more effectively in the world today. Archaeology provides different perspectives on the way the people of ancient Israel responded to their experiences, and consequently provides models for responding differently to experience today.
Culture is the tool that humans use to understand and respond to their experiences – good and bad. Every stone tells a story about how a now gone people looked at their world, and responded to their experiences. Archaeologists are the curators of this amazing legacy.
The book describes how archaeologists listen to the stories that stones - like architecture, art, pottery, jewellery, weapons and tools - have to tell, what they are hearing, and what a difference it makes for understanding the Bible. In his introduction Don Benjamin also teaches about both the 'minimalistic' and 'maximalistic' approaches to how much 'historical truth' the Bible holds, touches on practical examples from the field such as the excavations at Qumran and clearly sketches the history and current practices of the biblical archaeology school as well as makes predictions for the future of biblical archaeology.
Biblical scholar Jim West has a great review of the book and on his website doncbenjamin.com the Professor offers a some large excerpts from the publication, for those who of you who want to sample before they buy.
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I suppose I am presumptious in writing this as I have read only Dr. West's review. On Dr. Benjamin's site there is a link to a PDF file which I gather is a large proportion of the book. I have yet to download it successfully.
I have been and still am in many discussions on other groups about the value of the Bible as a historic record. The most heated one is on the James Randi Foundation's Forum, which is supposed to be for skeptics. Many members quote from "Biblical Archaeologists" most of whom are Apologists for the Bible and approach their work with a Bible and Spade in hand: prove their idea that the Bible is historically accurate.
As I have stated I have not yet read "Stones and Stories". Dr. Benjamin's site at the Arizona State Uni is very comprehensive ahd contains a 10 page PDF CV of him. He was educated at the Catholic University of America which means he might be Christian with the usual Christian biases. His nane is Jewish. Is he of the Jewish Faith. I want to gauge if he is truly a non-baised biblical scholar. I do know that the ASU is a very renown institue with a good dept. of Archaeology.
The Bible seems to be a Book that "thou shalt not question" especially in the United States of America. Has Dr. Benjamin been game to question?
Archaeology reveals the major events that took place on earth and the life style of people who lived in ancient times. Bible stories are the main inspiration source for this science, and even if there were few cases that contest the bible accuracy, some of its stories proved to be true. For example one of them is Noah's Flood , although it had a smaller scale comparing the bible description, archeologists found proves that something similar had happened.
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