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Out of context: Reply #152
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Great examples of Historical Revisionism. Notice how those passages list very little in the way of specifics regarding archaeological findings? Get the facts from those without a secular bias. Like Dr. Paul Maier:
False Claims:
Abraham a Myth? Early critics in the 1800s denied the existence of Abraham’s hometown, Ur of the
Chaldees (Gen. 11:31). This continued until Sir Leonard Woolley’s systematic excavations from l922–34
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uncovered the immense ziggurat or temple tower at Ur near the mouth of the Euphrates in Mesopotamia.
The name “Abraham” appears in Mesopotamian records, and the various nationalities the patriarch
encountered, as recorded in Genesis, are entirely consistent with the peoples known at that time and
place. Other details in the biblical account regarding Abraham, such as the treaties he made with
neighboring rulers and even the price of slaves, mesh well with what is known elsewhere in the history of
the ancient Near East.4
No Migration from Mesopotamia? Semitic tribes of the time were continually moving into and out of
Mesopotamia. In fact, Abraham’s recorded trek into the Promised Land along a route up the Euphrates
valley to Haran in southern Anatolia, which has also been identified and excavated, and then down
through Syria to Canaan is geographically accurate. Using that Fertile Crescent route was the only way to
travel successfully from Mesopotamia to the Mediterranean in those days.
The Patriarchs? Nothing in the Genesis account contradicts the nomadic way of life, replete with flocks and
herds, that was characteristic of life in the nineteenth or eighteenth centuries BC. The agreements and contracts
of the time, such as finding a bride from members of the same tribe and other customs, are well known
elsewhere in the ancient Near East. To argue that the patriarchs did not exist because their names have not
been found archaeologically is merely an argument from silence — the weakest form of argumentation that
can be used. As fair-minded historians put it, “Absence of evidence is not necessarily evidence of absence.”
No Israelite Sojourn in Egypt or Exodus Therefrom? Critics make much of the supposed “fact” that
there is no mention of the Hebrews in hieroglyphic inscriptions, no mention of Moses, and no records of
such a mass population movement as claimed in the biblical account of the Exodus from Egypt. This
“fact” is questionable. The famous Israel Stele (an inscribed stone or slab) of Pharaoh Merneptah
(described more fully below) states, “Israel — his seed is not.” Furthermore, even if there were no
mention whatever of the Hebrews in Egyptian records, this also would prove nothing, especially in view
of the well-known Egyptian proclivity never to record reverses or defeats or anything that would
embarrass the majesty of the ruling monarch. Would any pharaoh have the following words chiseled
onto his monument: “Under my administration, a great horde of Hebrew slaves successfully escaped into
the Sinai Desert when we tried to prevent them”?
The ancient Egyptians, in fact, transformed some of their reverses into “victories.” One of the most
imposing monuments in Egypt consists of four-seated colossi of Rameses II overlooking the Nile (now
Lake Nasser) at Abu-Simbel. Rameses erected the colossi to intimidate the Ethiopians to the south who
had heard correctly that he had barely escaped with his life at the battle of Kadesh against the Hittites,
and so they thought Egypt was ripe for invasion. The story told on the walls inside this monument,
however, was that of a marvelous Egyptian victory!
No Moses? The very name Moses is Egyptian, as witness pharaonic names such as Thut-mose and Rameses.
The ambient life as described in Genesis and Exodus is entirely consonant with what we know of
ancient Egypt in the Hyksos and Empire periods: the food, the feasts, everyday life, customs, the names
of locations, the local deities, and the like are familiar in both Hebrew and Egyptian literature.5
No Exodus? It is true that few remains of encampments or artifacts from the Exodus era have been
discovered archaeologically in the Sinai, but a nomadic, tribal migration would hardly leave behind
permanent stone foundations of imposing buildings en route. Hardly any archaeology is taking place in
the Sinai, and if this changes, evidence of migration may very well be uncovered. Again, beware of the
argument from silence.
No Conquest of Canaan by Joshua? The “Battle of Jericho” continues to be fought! When Dame Kathleen
Kenyon excavated at Jericho in the 1950s, she claimed not to have found any collapsed walls or even
evidence of a living city at Jericho during the time of Joshua’s invasion — nothing for him to conquer. She
did, indeed, find an earlier, heavily fortified Jericho that c. 1550 BC was subject to a violent conquest with
fallen walls and a burnt ash layer a yard thick, indicating destruction by fire. That, in her view, was
before Joshua and the Israelites arrived.6 Critics immediately seized on her interpretation as solid
evidence that Joshua’s conquest of Jericho must have been folklore.
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Archaeologist Bryant G. Wood, however, editor of Bible and Spade, found that Kenyon had misdated her
finds and that the destruction of Jericho actually took place in the 1400s BC when Joshua was very much
on the scene, according to earlier (1400 rather than 1200 BC) datings of the Israelite invasion. In a brilliant
1990 article in BAR, Wood based his chronology on stratigraphy, pottery types, carbon-14 datings, and
other evidence, including collapsed walls, to show a rather surprising archaeological confirmation of the
biblical detail recorded in Judges 6 and following.7
Kings David and Solomon Barely Historical or Even Mythical? The critics again rely much too heavily
on the argument from silence or absence. They contend that for all the wealth and grandeur of the reigns
of David and Solomon, some of the golden goblets and other luxurious items from their palaces should
have come to light in the excavations, but they have not. Lazare complains, “Yet not one goblet, not one
brick, has ever been found to indicate that such a reign existed. If David and Solomon had been
important regional power brokers, one might reasonably expect their names to crop up on monuments
and in the diplomatic correspondence of the day. Yet once again the record is silent.”8
This contention, however, is hopelessly flawed because of one simple fact: Jerusalem has been destroyed
and rebuilt some 15 to 20 times since the days of David and Solomon, and each conquest took its toll on
valuable artifacts. What, moreover, did Belshazzar set out as tableware for his famous feast in Babylon
(Dan. 5:2–3)? Gold and silver cups that Nebuchadnezzar had plundered from the Temple in Jerusalem!
As for David’s name itself, the record is no longer silent. In 1993, archaeologist Avraham Biran, digging at
Tel Dan in northern Israel, discovered a victory stele in three stone chunks on which David’s name is
inscribed, the first archaeological reference to David outside of the Old Testament. The Aramaic
inscription contains a boast by the king of Damascus (probably Hazael) that he had defeated the king of
Israel (probably Joram, son of Ahab) and the king of “the house of David” (probably Ahaziah, son of
Jehoram, c. 842 BC).9
This discovery alone should have quieted minimalist claims that there was no David, but never
underestimate the rigidity of minds locked onto a course of revisionism. They are still desperately trying
to retranslate the message on the stele or even claim that the name David is a forgery — folly
compounding folly!
King Ahab of Israel As the Master Builder of the Temple Rather than David and Solomon? This is a
favorite conclusion of archaeologist Finkelstein, but his archaeological time grid differs from the standard
model by some 150 years, which is — not surprisingly — precisely the difference between David at
1000 BC and Ahab at 850 BC.
One is also struck by the sudden silence of the revisionist critics concerning the record from about the
time of King Hezekiah (fl. 700 BC) on. At that point, evidently, the Old Testament instantly becomes
“more historical” for them. This concession, of course, is forced on them because of the overwhelming
number of correlations from archaeology, records of surrounding nations, and ancient history in general
that fully corroborate the biblical evidence. The Assyrians did not conquer mythical northern Israelites in
722 BC, nor did Nebuchadnezzar deport into the Babylonian captivity a legendary, folkloric band of Jews
who never existed. We leave it to the critics to explain how fact suddenly emerges out of supposed
fantasy in the Old Testament.
Wrong Methodology
In dealing with specifics such as the above, the errors in content, procedure, and even logic employed by
the revisionist critics are apparent and might be listed as follows:
1. Overusing arguments from silence or absence of archaeological evidence. Such arguments
have often been rendered moot by subsequent discoveries that provide such “missing”
evidence.
2. Assuming that archaeology can tell us more than is warranted by the finds. Archaeology is
not the only source of evidence, for it must also be supplemented by relevant data from both
sacred and secular history.
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3. Assuming that archaeology is dispassionate and objective, when, in fact, some excavators are
quite the opposite; unfortunately, recent political pressures have also impinged on the
discipline.
4. Assuming that there is agreement among archaeologists as to time grids involving uncovered
strata and the artifacts therein. In fact, their interpretations of excavated evidence often differ
widely.
5. Suggesting that revisionist criticism represents the latest and best scholarly and
archaeological research on biblical origins today. In sober fact, recent issues of journals such
as BAR and Bible and Spade are crammed with criticism of the minimalist position, and the
debate between traditional and radical views among biblical scholars continues to rage.
6. Condoning reports, such as Lazare’s in Harper’s, that are so hopelessly one-sided that bias
screams out in every other paragraph.
7. Opting for sensation rather than sense, as is the case with extremists in any discipline.
8. Using results very selectively rather than accounting for all the evidence. Failure to evaluate
evidence on the “other side” or even misrepresenting it results in torque, not truth.
This is not to claim that there are no problems in the Old Testament record; even traditionalists will admit
that there certainly are. We can all fondly wish that the author of Genesis had given us the names of more
contemporary associates of Abraham so that the whole patriarchal era could be dated with more
precision; and why, oh, why, don’t we have the actual names of the Egyptian kings involved in the
Oppression and the Exodus rather than only their generic title, “pharaoh”? Later on, the Old Testament
readily gives us the proper names of pharaohs such as Shishak (fl. 920 BC, 1 Kings 14:25 f.) and Necho (fl.
600 BC, 2 Kings 23:29 ff.). Had such individual names appeared in Exodus, we would have been spared
hundreds of tomes and thousands of articles debating their identity. We all crave, moreover, far more
specific detail about the Hebrews in the period pre-1000 BC and would likely sacrifice several chapters of
Jewish ceremonial law in Leviticus and Deuteronomy in exchange for this description.
Perhaps, though, we are asking too much of early sacred records. No religion or culture on earth has, in
fact, more specificity in its earliest historical records than the Torah, and it is always the case that the earliest
records of any peoples will be more spotty and compressed than the later ones. We certainly see in the Old
and New Testaments, not a progressive historicity in the sense that the earlier records are not historical
and the later records are — as the radical revisionists claim — but rather a progressive historical specificity.
THE FACTUAL EVIDENCE
Archaeological finds that contradict the contentions of biblical minimalists and other revisionists have
been listed above. There are many more, however, that corroborate biblical evidence, and the following
list provides only the most significant discoveries:
A Common Flood Story. Not just the Hebrews (Gen. 6–8), but Mesopotamians, Egyptians, and Greeks all
report a flood in primordial times. A Sumerian king list from c. 2100 BC divides itself into two categories:
those kings who ruled before a great flood and those who ruled after it. One of the earliest examples of
Sumero-Akkadian-Babylonian literature, the Gilgamesh Epic, describes a great flood sent as punishment
by the gods, with humanity saved only when the pious Utnapishtim (AKA, “the Mesopotamian Noah”)
builds a ship and saves the animal world thereon. A later Greek counterpart, the story of Deucalion and
Phyrra, tells of a couple who survived a great flood sent by an angry Zeus. Taking refuge atop Mount
Parnassus (AKA, “the Greek Ararat”), they supposedly repopulated the earth by heaving stones behind
them that sprang into human beings.
The Code of Hammurabi. This seven-foot black diorite stele, discovered at Susa and presently located in
the Louvre museum, contains 282 engraved laws of Babylonian King Hammurabi (fl. 1750 BC). The
common basis for this law code is the lex talionis (“the law of the tooth”), showing that there was a
common Semitic law of retribution in the ancient Near East, which is clearly reflected in the Pentateuch.
Exodus 21:23–25, for example, reads: “But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life, eye for eye,
tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot...” (NIV).