Tolle Lege

The unparalleled dominance of Christianity in Western society since the fourth century and the paucity of extra-Biblical textual records from the ancient Near East has meant that for many centuries the Jewish-Christian Scriptures held a monopoly on what academia knew about the history of Israel and Palestine. From early on, the field of archaeology played a background role in reconstructing these histories and was often employed to corroborate and enliven the Biblical narrative[1]. To the chagrin of modern archaeologists, the field was thought to be “of peripheral concern to early Christian studies,”[2] providing only a backdrop for Scripture.

Since the 20^th century, however, archaeology has risen in importance, with several key discoveries shedding light on the value the discipline can add to our understanding of the political, cultural and religious aspects of life in antiquity. Some scholars have taken this shift as an opportunity to challenge the Bible’s version of the past, relying heavily on archaeological findings to achieve their aim – “to undermine and destroy”[3] the historical Biblical record. These scholars deliberately and systematically ignore the textual records of life in antiquity found in the Jewish-Christian Scriptures and only selectively allow these records to inform their interpretations of their archaeological findings.

But this so-called ‘dependence’ on archaeological evidence in reconstructing history merely points us to the fundamental problem of the archaeological method: the fact that ruins, statuettes, and shards of an item of unknown function do not speak. They do not come labeled with the captions we read in museums, and their significance is comprised of meanings attributed to them by their interpreters. Any attempt by anti-Bible scholars like N.A. Silberman to reconstruct Palestinian society by depending solely on archaeological artifacts is doomed to multiple, conflicting interpretations. Thus, categorically excluding contemporaneous textual evidence claiming to explain these findings, such as the testimony of Jewish and Christian writings, these scholars thereby exclude the possibility of ever mediating between these hypotheses, leaving behind only value judgment that masquerades as scholarship.

Even within Silberman’s own compilation, The Jerusalem Report, the authors illustrate this irresolvable tension. According to Silberman, most archaeological evidence suggests that Israelite settlements began on the desert fringe and underwent a sweeping population movement into the richer valleys southward and westward. But in their desire to rule out the Biblical explanation for this movement (divine revelation to the Abraham of history), multiple scholars have offered several contradicting theories. Some suggest that ‘Israel’ was really a class group and the ‘conquest’ recorded in Joshua was really a mass peasant revolt of Canaanite peasants internal to the land of Canaan. Others argue that the movement was an economic (i.e. production-motivated) migration consistent with that of nomadic tribal migration. A minority, like Adam Zertal, continue to insist that the Israelite settlements (like the one at Menasseh), indicate that the Israelites were indeed an arriving group with a distinct culture[4], in line with what is suggested by the Bible.

The difference between these hypotheses is not the evidence – they all point to similar (limited) remains left over from 3200 years ago to make their case.  It is simply the assumptions used in making their judgments. Anti-Bible scholars like Israel Finkelstein choose to merely employ sociological assumptions to limited evidence. Observing, as sociology does, that class tensions often provided the propulsion for major shifts in history, The Jerusalem Report scholars suppose that similar forces would have shaped early Israel. Other scholars, who view the same evidence as in favor of the Biblical narrative, choose to adopt a set of assumptions in which a divine command is a possibility. Both explanations are possible – so long as one holds the ‘right’ set of assumptions. And this is the issue: whereas textual records like the Bible do literally ‘speak,’ making a claim from a situated point of view, archaeological records do not, and the conclusions drawn from the same evidence vary widely because they reflect the archaeologist’s set of assumptions more than they do the so-called historical truth.

Scholars who refuse to consider the possibility of a divine command on the grounds that the acts of God are unfalsifiable and who thus turn instead to employing sociological assumptions are making equally unfalsifiable claims. The responses that shape human behavior are complex and varied, and to draw conclusions about Bronze Age social behavior from sociological observations made centuries later is to reduce human behavior to social forces observed in much more recent experience. To retro-apply modern economic migration and a revolution-age understanding of class tensions to a radically different time period is simply to float a possibility: it is no more provable or falsifiable than the claim that God intervened in history. In both cases, the archaeologist’s own assumptions and worldview inform and transform the documentation of archaeological remains. Ultimately, scholars who try to draw up entire civilizations while referring only to the ruins they find are creating entire worlds in their own image. Archaeology has value, but it can only contribute this value only within an integrated pursuit of knowledge that involves and dialogues with the textual and historical records of the period.