Last month, ABC TV’s Compass screened a controversial new documentary questioning the history of the Old Testament. But PAUL WILLIAMSON says It Ain’t Necessarily So was a case of more style than substance.
To suggest that past and present conflict in the Middle East is the result of believing a ‘fairy-tale’ is a bold claim. If the sensational packaging of It Ain’t Necessarily So is not enough to arouse our interest, the fact that presenter John McCarthy is himself a victim of this particular conflict makes us want to know the basis for such an extraordinary conclusion.
The rationale, however, is rather less persuasive than McCarthy’s program suggests.
Biblical scholars and professional archaeologists are sharply divided over how much of the Old Testament material can be historically verified. But the full extent of this division was not clearly reflected in the recent Compass series, which gave the impression that the historicity of biblical traditions is undermined by a general archaeological consensus.
Archaeological evidence is necessarily incomplete. It provides us with pieces of a complex historical and sociological puzzle. But missing pieces are to be expected. It’s worth remembering a point made several times by the program itself: ‘The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence’. We need to be more careful about the way we correlate the biblical testimony and ‘hard scientific data’.
Indeed, the language of science is potentially misleading. The ‘archaeological facts’, like the biblical traditions themselves, are often open to various interpretations, as evidenced by the sharply conflicting views of many professional archaeologists. We must distinguish between the objective evidence unearthed by archaeologists and their own subjective explanations.
Given the nature of the material involved (artefacts that are rarely unambiguously labelled), archaeology necessarily involves speculative reconstruction of the ‘facts’. Common sense dictates that we think long and hard before giving any such highly speculative theories priority over the biblical testimony. Clearly, sobering lessons of the previous century have been lost on some of today’s experts. For example, up until the 20th century the archaeological ‘map’ had no place at all for the Belshazzar, mentioned in Daniel 5. The fact that similar ‘gaps’ in the archaeological record are still known to exist (such as the highlighted lack of material evidence for Byzantine Jerusalem) should make us think twice before relegating biblical sites to the realm of fiction on similar grounds.
Moreover, recently discovered inscriptions force the unbiased observer to acknowledge that David and his Jerusalem were certainly more than a figment of later imagination.
Significantly, there are plausible explanations for most, if not all, of the specific historical ‘problems’ raised by It Ain’t Necessarily So. For example, while evidence for the occupation of Jericho is lacking in either the 15th or the 13th century BC, such absence of evidence can be explained by site erosion where the elements remove archaeological layers. Whether a charred layer should be expected at this and other identifiable sites might be questioned on the basis of a careful reading of the Joshua texts.
In other words, one must ensure that a misreading of Joshua has not produced a ‘straw man’ impossible to defend on archaeological grounds. The question of a comprehensive military ‘conquest’ is a similar straw man, as a careful reading of Joshua illustrates. Moreover, given Israelite willingness to adopt Canaanite religious practices, the adoption of Canaanite domestic appliances shouldn’t surprise us. It seems unwarranted to conclude from this, as McCarthy did, that ancient Israelites and Canaanites were one and the same race and so dismiss the idea of military invasion. Astute watchers will have detected that evidence actually supports some form of conquest.
To judge what biblical writers did or did not know seems rather bold, to say the least. Clearly they included in their writings only what they considered relevant to their theological agenda. Sometimes, however, such incidentals as Egyptian campaigns or territorial claims can be inferred from the biblical texts.
Even more ludicrous is the suggestion of some sort of ‘cover-up’ regarding the nature of Israelite religion. Readers of the Old Testament will find nothing sensational about evidence of widespread idolatry within Israelite society. Ezekiel 8 and Jeremiah 44 provide evidence of goddess worship. Prophetic denunciations (see Hosea and Isaiah) make it clear that popular religion seldom conformed to the Mosaic ideal, and that fertility cults were commonplace.
McCarthy also suggests that orthodox Israelite religion involved the worship of a female deity. But this is as misleading as suggesting that the veneration of Mary is a feature of orthodox Christian worship – yet archaeologists might mistakenly reach such a conclusion on the basis of statues unearthed millennia from now.
Archaeological research must certainly not be ignored. Very often it throws important light on the social, political, religious and cultural world against which the Old Testament must be read. But it must not be used superficially, whether to ‘prove’ or – as more often in the current post-modern climate of hyper-suspicion – to ‘disprove’ the biblical testimony.
Incontestable evidence that God has acted in history is beyond the expertise of the archaeologist. But indisputable proof that he has not, or that the testimony of his word is unreliable, probably lies outside the archaeologist’s domain also.
In any case, we must carefully distinguish between alleged proof that the biblical testimony is false, and evidence which informs and sometimes challenges our (mis-)understandings of the biblical testimony. Given the lack of objective data which irrefutably disproves the Bible, the burden of proof remains with those who insist on putting Scripture in the dock.
In any case, Christian confidence in the Old Testament does not rest primarily on archaeological evidence but on the testimony of Jesus, the one of whom it ultimately speaks and through whom it certainly has been fulfilled.
Dr Paul Williamson lectures in Old Testament at Moore College.
