The theme for our Sabbath School lesson this week is the proposition that archaeology has played a key role in affirming the veracity of the Bible. For Adventists, this notion was bolstered by the influential work of Adventism’s "Mr. Archaeology," Siegfried H. Horn, the first Adventist to get involved in any extensive way with field archaeology. Forty years ago, he founded the first "Adventist dig" in Jordan (at Heshbon), and crowned his career by teaching archaeology at the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary from the 1950s through the 1970s. The title of Horn’s first major book, The Spade Confirms the Book, published by the Review and Herald Publishing Association in 1957, pretty much sums up this view.

A typical quotation representing Horn’s thinking in the 1950s is found in his contribution to the formative 1952 Bible Conference held in Washington, D.C., by the General Conference:

The foregoing survey shows that there is much archaeological evidence at our disposal that we can use in support of the authenticity of the Biblical text and the veracity of the historical parts of the Bible. This material used in the right way can give tremendous strength to our fundamentalist position of accepting the whole Bible as God’s inspired word. The years of study in the field have profoundly strengthened my confidence in the sure foundation on which our faith is built. We do not need to be afraid to proclaim Bible truths that we cannot prove yet by outside sources, as long as we remain on that sure foundation that has never failed us yet, the infallible Word of God. (Our Firm Foundation, 1:116)

Was this popular notion that "archaeology proves the Bible true" always Horn’s view? I would argue that the title of his next book, published in 1963, again by the Review and Herald Publishing Association, conveys a subtle shift: Records of the Past Illuminate the Bible. In fact, Horn was forced to broaden his view by his own archaeological fieldwork. He went to Heshbon, in Jordan, first in 1967, expecting to find evidence that would help to "prove" the fifteenth-century B.C. exodus/conquest of the Israelites from Egypt to Palestine. After all, that site, the capital of Sihon, king of the Amorites, was destroyed by the Israelites in the conquest according to Numbers 21:21–31. But several years of thorough excavation at the site has not turned up this evidence. In fact, there does not appear to be evidence that the site was even occupied in the time of Moses! There are many ways to deal with this lack of evidence. That is a whole separate topic that I have tried to treat, for instance, in a 1983 article called, "Heshbon: The First Casualty in the Israelite Quest for the Kingdom of God," published by Eisenbrauns in honor of a biblical scholar named George Mendenhall, who taught for many years at the University of Michigan.

Such discoveries, or the lack thereof, have gradually helped Adventist archaeologists to shift in their view, relative to the way archaeology relates to the Bible, from "confirmation" to "illumination."

How can we today most helpfully talk about the way archaeological discoveries relate to the Bible?

First of all, archaeology has certainly been crucial in our understanding of matters related to the text and language of the Bible. In other words, archaeology has helped to establish the biblical text (such as with the Dead Sea Scrolls, various Egyptian papyrii, and so forth) and it has cleared up the meaning of many obscure words and phrases (such as the contribution of finds at Ugarit to the translation of 1 Kings 10:28, or my discovery at Khirbet el-Kom to the understanding of the Greek word, kapelos, in 2 Corinthians 2:17).

Second, archaeology has been crucial for the general understanding of the Bible as an ancient book. It has supplied the frame of reference for modern Bible students that the biblical writers presupposed and with which their audiences were presumed to be familiar (such as with the ancient Near Eastern creation and flood stories, legal codes, covenant forms, the literature, religious rites, and thought world, of Hittites, Philistines, and Canaanites).

Third, archaeology has illustrated scores of biblical customs, practices, artifacts, and so forth. For instance, Abraham’s relations with Sarah and Hagar or Esau selling his birthright (compare textual finds from the upper Mesopotamian cities of Nuzi, Mari, and Ebla), or the extrabiblical evidence for the use of asses’ jawbones, boiling a kid in its mother’s milk, keeping the Sabbath, and crucifixion in Jesus’ day—just to cite a few specific examples.

Fourth, archaeology may be used to illustrate specific historical data. It sometimes verifies, corroborates, or supports specific biblical data (such as Israelite kings in Assyrian and Babylonian sources, for example, Jehu on the Black Obelisk, Sargon in an inscription from Ashdod, and each of the enemies of Nehemiah turning up in archaeological texts, and so forth). Or archaeology may be used to supplement or complement historical data from the Bible (compare the Moabite Stone and 2 Kings 3, or the Taylor Prism and Isaiah 36–37, or the Siloam water tunnel inscription and 2 Kings 20:20).

In sum, I would say archaeology can illuminate the world of the Bible, but it cannot establish its claim to truth of a higher order. Archaeology can help answer the question of "what" happened in ancient times, but rarely "why." Archaeology can bring understanding, but it cannot create faith. Faith is the gift of God that comes to those who ask him for it. If students of the Bible come to their task without faith, they will find only interesting historical and religious documents. But to the believer, the Bible will become God’s Living Word ministering to his or her needs today. And as we properly use the archaeological data available, as believers, we will be encouraged to know that our Bible is not simply a patchwork of legends but rather remarkably reliable records of men and women who themselves have responded to the revelation of God in history.

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