How Has Archaeology Corroborated The Bible?

MISSING PEOPLES

Until Hugo Winckler discovered the Hittite Empire in 1906, many unbelievers doubted the Bible’s insistence that the Hittites were part of the land of Canaan (Gn 10:15; Jos 1:4). Now they are so well documented that a score of volumes has been necessary to build a Hittite dictionary based on the tablets left in their civilization.

Another mystery group were the Horites, descendants of Esau from Edom (Gn 36:20; Dt 2:12,22). But in 1995 Giorgio Buccellati discovered the Horite capital city beneath the modern Syrian city of Tell Mozan.

MISSING PLACES

First Kings 9:28 claimed King Solomon brought back sixteen tons of gold from Ophir. But where was Ophir and did it really exist? In 1956 at Tell Qasile in Israel, broken pottery was found with an inscription referring to a shipment of “gold of Ophir for Beth-Horon, thirty shekels.” Thus, Ophir was confirmed as known in the world of commerce with its trade in gold. Ophir is identified today as a port some sixty miles north of Bombay.

Another example is the disputed list of sites along the route of the exodus in Numbers 33. But Charles Krahmalkov noted three ancient Egyptian maps of the road from Arabah to the Plains of Moab, with the earliest of the three maps inscribed on the walls of Karnak in the reign of Thutmosis III (ca 1504–1450 BC). According to this list, the route from south to north follows precisely the way the Israelites listed in Numbers 33 with four stations especially noted: Iyyim, Dibon, Abel, and Jordan.

OTHER SENSATIONAL FINDS

Discovered by Grenfeld in Egypt in 1920, the “John Rylands Papyrus” yielded the oldest known fragment of a New Testament manuscript. This small scrap from John’s Gospel (Jn 18:31-33,37-38) was dated by papyrologists to 125 AD, but since it was so far south into Egypt, it successfully put an end to the then-popular attempt to late-date John’s Gospel to the second century rather than to the traditional first century date of AD 85–90.

The Dead Sea Scrolls, found in 1948 in caves at Qumran, near the northwest end of the Dead Sea, gave us some eight-hundred manuscripts of every book (in part or the whole) of the Old Testament except for Esther. Prior to that, the earliest Hebrew texts dated to around AD 1000, but the scrolls at Qumran are generally more than one thousand years older! These Hebrew texts illustrate that a thousand years of copying had provided us with an amazingly pure text, with one of the best examples being the book of Isaiah where only three words had slight modifications.

In 1990, a bone chest was discovered accidentally during work in Jerusalem’s Peace Forest. This “Caiaphas Ossuary” belonged to the high priest from AD 18–36 (see his cynical words in Jn 11:49-53). The inscription, found in two places, read: “Caiaphas” and “Joseph, son of Caiaphas.” First-century Jewish historian Josephus provided the full name, “Joseph, who is called Caiaphas of the high priesthood.”

Since space precludes discussion of the many more archaeological corroborations, such as the Pontius Pilate Inscription, the Pool of Siloam excavated in 2004, and the amazing Ketef Hinnom Amulets discovered in 1979 (with inscriptions of Nm 6:24-26 and Dt 7:9 perfectly matching the biblical Hebrew text—amazing since these seventh to sixth century BC amulets contain Old Testament texts skeptics argued could not have been written until the 400’s BC).

Archaeology, then, has illuminated and corroborated the Bible in numerous ways. The interpreter finds in archaeology a good friend for understanding and substantiating Scripture.