Though old ruins had been documented and written about by a few upper class authors as far back as the 1500s, Archeology as an organized and credible science began in the mid 1800s. For the next hundred years, it was believed by many that Archeology had proven the Bible to be full of errors. Rulers mentioned in the Bible had no parallel in the archeological record. Many people groups mentioned in the Old Testament simply could not been found. There was little evidence that many of the miraculous events of the Bible had actually happened in real history. The Archeology of the day was leading people to one conclusion, and the Bible clearly taught a different one. What was the Christian to believe?
Fifty years later, the story has changed. Over the next several decades, archeology made a series of incredible breakthroughs. Many new cities, new inscriptions, and other new great discoveries were found. So what have these new findings done to criticism of the Bible? Of course, many archeologists will still say it’s a collection of fables, but they no longer have the same REASONS for doing so. Cities of the Bible have been found. Rulers mentioned in the Bible have been confirmed. Even miracles of the Bible have been evidenced. Whole books can and have been written on how modern archeology has vindicated the Bible’s claims in incredible ways. Rather than write you such a book here, I have included a link to a series of videos recorded on site in the British museum in London that actually SHOW you some of these finds and explain their significance! I strongly encourage you to watch them all, and see for yourself the wonderful truths of the Bible unearthed! The series is in 22 small parts, and some are much more striking than others, but is WELL worth you time to watch the whole thing.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEKoU1IbGjM
So what does that tell us? The more Archeology finds, the more the ancient world it unearths begins to look like the one the Bible told us about all along. So do we now start believing the Bible because of archeology? No, The Bible was clearly ahead of Archeology the whole time! The Bible has even been used as a source for Archeologists to FIND ancient cities! Am I saying that Archeology is bad? Not at all! Through archeology, we get to see and understand history in wonderful ways, and as Christians, get to rejoice and seeing all the great things God as done! I LOVE living in the age I do, when archeology has unearthed such amazing things about ancient people all over the world! I love getting to know details of ancient cultures, some of which can increase our understanding and appreciation of certain Biblical passages. Archeology can be a wonderful tool in the Christian’s hand. But, my love of Archeology is built on my foundation of Biblical truth. The sure and solid rock of divine revelation! Archeology may demonstrate Biblical truth today, but the Bible was just as true a hundred years ago when archeology did NOT demonstrate this. The archeological method of historical study is wonderful, but it only points to the fact the Bible is the more solid foundation of truth!
Can this be said of other “scriptures”? Those of you who watched the video series saw a few examples dealing with the Koran, so let’s look for a moment at the Book of Mormon. It was also written before the birth of archeology. In the same amount of time it has taken archeology to find the Bible to be powerfully accurate, the Book of Mormon has continued to come up wanting. While the Bible is used as a source of discovery by many researchers, even by those who don’t believe it to be God’s word, The Book of Mormon is still waiting for something to BE discovered. The more we have learned about the history of the North American continent, the more UNLIKELY the Book of Mormon events appear to be. The technologies, languages, ancestry, animals, geography, and culture presented in the Book of Mormon could not be more alien to what we actually find. Not a single place or event of the Book or Mormon has actually been found. Believers in the book will try and point to Mayan and Aztec ruins as evidence, but these are civilizations that arose over a thousand years after the Book of Mormon events are supposed to have occurred. There is not a shred of evidence that any great city building empires existed before them in these lands. We also DO find conflicting information. The Book of Mormon, for example, claims the honey bee was brought to the Americas by ancient settlers thousands of years ago, but in fact we KNOW who introduced the honey bee, and, well, it is much more recent history. Now, this does not PROVE the Book of Mormon wrong any more that 1920’s archeology that was in doubt about the Bible PROVED the Bible to be wrong. What it does is show a distinction. The Bible is known to be a SOURCE of truth, where the Book of Mormon is still unable to demonstrate that it CONTAINS truth. While we see Archeology have to give up its objections to the Bible one by one the more it learns, we see the objections to other scriptures only grow. While one can follow the details given in the Bible and make discoveries, scriptures like the Book of Mormon give us no clear road map, and the every place they do describe does not match up to anything we see anywhere. So, again, the Bible stands unique, and we can be confident that what we have in scripture is from God, and is our anchor of truth in a world of doubt! In my next post, we will broaden our scope and look at science in general, as many critics of Christianity today say that science has made the Bible irrelevant. It is vital for us to know that this is not the case, and that the Christian does not have to deny or fear science to remain confident in Biblical truth.
