Episode 254 – Archeology and the Bible – Part 9 – As Old As the Bible
Welcome to Anchored by Truth brought to you by Crystal Sea Books. In John 14:6, Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” The goal of Anchored by Truth is to encourage everyone to grow in the Christian faith by anchoring themselves to the secure truth found in the inspired, inerrant, and infallible word of God.
Script:
The LORD possessed me [wisdom] at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of old. Ages ago I was set up, at the first, before the beginning of the earth.
Proverbs, Chapter 8, verses 22 and 23, English Standard Version

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VK: Greetings. Welcome to Anchored by Truth brought to you by Crystal Sea Books. I’m Victoria K. This is our 9th episode in a series that we are doing on archeology and the Bible. We’re 9 episodes into this brief overview of just a few of the thousands of archeological discoveries that support the accuracy of the Bible’s text. So often today we hear critics attempt to label the Bible as a book that has little connection to the real world. But when reviewed objectively it is obvious that the Bible is a book that is firmly set in time and place. And as a book set in time and place it is demonstrable that the human history that the Bible chooses to report is accurate. And archeology is very supportive of the Bible’s historical trustworthiness. That’s why we wanted to do this series. To help us continue to explore this topic, in the studio today we have RD Fierro. RD is an author and the founder of Crystal Sea Books. RD, today you said you wanted to begin to wrap up the series. So, what do you want listeners to begin to think about as we think about the series as a whole?
RD: Well, before we begin our summary I’d also like to greet everyone and welcome them to Anchored by Truth. As we have stressed throughout this series archeology is the study of the past. And the vast majority of archeological interest pertains to times and dates that occurred long before anyone currently living was alive. This means that anyone attempting to glean information about the past from archeological finds and artifacts is always looking at evidence that is available in the present and interpreting it. This is going to be true whether the person making the interpretation is a Christian or non-Christian. This means that it is likely and reasonable for similarly qualified experts to disagree on what a particular find means or tells us. In other words, we cannot obtain the same degree of certainty about past events from archeological science that we can from branches of operational science where the replication of results is possible. This certainly doesn’t mean that rigor and discipline aren’t possible in archeology. They are. And it doesn’t mean that we can’t rule certain possible explanations in or out based on the application of evidence and reason. But it does mean that alternative explanations are possible in many situations and we must therefore be prepared to sort among those explanations.
VK: What you’re saying is that as Christians we must always be aware that – no matter how convincing a Biblical explanation may be for a find, artifact, or site – that we must be aware that other explanations for that same evidence are possible. And we must be prepared to deal with those alternative non-Biblical explanations because the world is going to consider those explanations. Because if we can’t intelligently discuss why the Christian explanation is at least as reasonable as the non-Christian alternative we will be far less effective in our witness for Christ in the public arena. In other words, we have to know what “the other side” believes and we must be prepared to engage their arguments – kindly, compassionately, and sensibly – but firmly.
RD: Right. The old saying is that “there are two sides to every story.” But, while the saying has some truth to it that does not mean that each side is equally credible or reasonable. So, one of the things we need to talk about as we wrap up our series is to give a couple of examples where there are competing explanations for archeological sites that are the subject of Biblical accounts.
VK: Where do you want to start?
RD: Well, we spent the last couple of episodes of Anchored by Truth talking about the city of Jericho especially about God’s miraculous intervention in the Hebrews’ conquest of it at the end of their wilderness wanderings.
VK: This is the well-known story found in the book of Joshua, chapter 6. The Hebrews encountered Jericho just after crossing the Jordan River into the Promised Land. Militarily the Hebrews needed to conquer Jericho but it was a walled and heavily fortified town. And the Hebrews did not have the kind of siege equipment necessary to breach those kind of walls – at least not quickly. But, fortunately they didn’t have to. As God directed, they marched around the walls once a day for 6 days. Then, on the 7th day they marched around the walls 7 times, shouted, and the walls fell down. And, while we won’t go over the evidence that supports that account again – because we covered it in our two previous episodes – we will note that there is substantial archeological evidence that supports the Biblical account.
RD: Yes. There’s an abundance of archeological evidence that Jericho was located where the Bible says it was, at one time had large and imposing walls, and that the walls did in fact “fall down flat” as the English Standard Version puts it. Several excavators have determined that most of the walls collapsed flat likely due to an earthquake. But even though these facts are well known one topic that is hotly debated is when the walls fell down. There are various dating options for when the Exodus occurred and therefore when Jericho fell to Joshua. We don’t have time to go into all the options but there are two that often talked about – to so-called late date for the exodus and the early date for the exodus.
VK: So, the most commonly accepted date for the exodus in scholarly circles is the late date. That’s the dating theory that was used in Cecil B. Demille’s famous movie, The Ten Commandments, starring Charlton Heston as Moses. What time period is in view for the late date?
RD: Around 1290 BC. This would be referred to as early in the 13th century BC.
VK: And what time period is in view for the early date?
RD: Around 1445 or 1446 BC – about a hundred years earlier. This is the date that is arrived at by calculating the time periods that are referenced in the Bible in verses such as 1 Kings, chapter 6, verse 1.
VK: That verse in the English Standard Version reads: “In the four hundred and eightieth year after the people of Israel came out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign over Israel, in the … the second month, [Solomon] began to build the house of the LORD.”
RD: Yes. We know that Solomon’s reign as king of Israel began in 970 BC. That means his 4th year would have been 966 BC. That means that 480 years earlier would have been 1446 BC. But let’s remember that the Hebrew calendar is not the same as the Gregorian calendar that we use today. So, they didn’t use a January to December year. Also, in the Bible some numbers may have been rounded off. So, allowing for those factors orthodox, conservative Christian scholars have usually placed the date for the start of the exodus between 1447 BC and 1442 BC. It’s common to refer to Joshua’s conquest of Jericho as taking place late in the 15th century BC.
VK: The 15th century BC began in the year 1500 BC and ended in the year 1401 BC.
RD: Right. So, while there may be agreement on the fact that at some time around in the distant past the walls of Jericho did collapse as the Bible describes, there is a very clear division of opinion on exactly when the walls fell down.
VK: So, a Bible critic may acknowledge that there is archeological evidence that is consistent with major portions of chapter 6 of the book of Joshua but then immediately turn around and say the Bible still isn’t trustworthy because it got dates wrong. And as we started out saying, all any present day investigator can do is look at the available evidence and then interpret what that says about things like ancient dates. It’s not as though anybody 3,300 or 3,400 years ago chiseled dates into the sides of buildings to make it easier to assign precise dates.
RD: No, they didn’t. But that doesn’t mean that we don’t have some tools that can help us resolve our dating dilemma. And while we don’t have time to discuss all the ways dating is accomplished for archeological sites let’s just mention a couple. First, we can look to see what information can be gleaned from artifacts that are found at a site. Often, even if there aren’t written records that contain helpful references there may be jewelry, coins, or other decorative items that provide clues as to when that item was being used. This is particularly true with pottery pieces or even shards. It has been common throughout human history to decorate items even ones used for practical purposes like jars or lamps. And, just as today, decorative styles come and go. And since pottery is a lot more durable that items made out of cloth or paper pottery is often present at a site even hundreds or thousands of years after it was in use. In the case of excavations at the city of Jericho over 100,000 pottery fragments have been unearthed.
VK: So, what do the pottery fragments found at Jericho tell us?
RD: The pottery fragments favor the early date theory. This is because there is almost no pottery fragments at Jericho that are what would be labeled Mycenaean. As we mentioned in other episodes of Anchored by Truth Mycenae is another name for the region we think of as Greece. The Mycenaeans were a sea faring people and traveled widely including to the eastern coast of the Mediterranean which is where Israel is. As a consequence their pottery is found all over the Mediterranean coastal lands. And it began to appear in Palestine from about 1400 BC onward. Therefore, if the conquest of Jericho had been around 1290 BC as the late date theory posits then there should have been plenty of Mycenaean pottery fragments present. But there aren’t. The early date theory explains this absence easily. The Hebrews conquered Jericho before Mycenaean pottery became commonplace in Palestine. By 1290 Mycenaean pottery would had been circulating in Palestine for over 100 years. So, its absence at Jericho is hard to reconcile with the late date theory.
VK: How about other artifacts found at Jericho? What do they tell us about whether the late date theory or the early date theory is most likely to be correct?
RD: There are other archeological findings that point strongly to the early date. For instance, Palestine in the 15th century BC was connected to Egypt. Remember that at this time Egypt was the dominant power in that region. The Egyptians had mines and other economic interests in Palestine. Trade between the two regions was extensive. One common item that circulated in those days was scarabs.
VK: According to the Wikipedia entry “Scarabs are beetle-shaped amulets and impression seals which were widely popular throughout ancient Egypt. They still survive in large numbers today. Through their inscriptions and typology, they prove to be an important source of information for archaeologists and historians of the ancient world, and represent a significant body of ancient Egyptian art.” In other words, scarabs were like modern jewelry pieces. They were valuable and therefore were not thrown away or destroyed. They are frequently found in graves with their owners. Like some modern jewelry items they often contained images of royalty. Think about things like commemorative lockets made for the various milestones of Queen Elizabeth’s long reign. So, as the Wikipedia quote states, by looking at the images contained on scarabs we can get an idea about when they were produced and in circulation. What do the scarabs found at Jericho tell us?
RD: One of the best known archeologists who did extensive excavations at Jericho is John Garstang. After years after his excavations of a cemetery at Jericho not a single scarab was found that could be dated later than the reign of Pharaoh Amenhotep III who reigned from 1412 BC to 1376 BC.
VK: We probably should remind our listeners that in the time before the birth of Jesus the years are frequently labeled “BC” which simply means “before Christ.” Since these yearly designations get smaller as you approach the birth of Jesus the larger numbers are actually farther back in time. This is the opposite of how we assign annual dates today where it’s the smaller numbers that are older. So, for the years before Christ 1412 BC is older than 1376 BC. It can be easy to get confused.
RD: That’s a good note. So, Pharaoh Amenhotep III began his reign in 1412 BC and it lasted for 36 years. That’s plenty of time in which his cartouche would have put on decorative items.
VK: A cartouche is just a common graphic symbol. It’s an oval with a line at one end and it indicates that the name that is found within the oval is a royal name.
RD: Right. So, the absence of any scarabs with the cartouches of any pharaohs later than Amenhotep III means that later pharaohs weren’t known or represented at that site. That would be very strange if the late date theory was correct. The late date theory says that the pharaoh at the time of the exodus was Ramses II and there were a lot of pharaohs between Amenhotep III and Ramses II. This is a strong indicator that the early date theory about the date of the exodus and the destruction of Jericho by Joshua is correct.
VK: So, the really big point that we want to make by this discussion is that there may be competing explanations about how to correctly date events from the past. And even though no one living was present then we can look at the evidence available in the present and make reasoned determinations about which explanation is most likely to be true. And one way to do that is look at finds and artifacts and see what they tell us about what was going on in the world at that time. Who was in power? What trade was occurring? What building techniques were available and in use? Are there any written records from the period? Information can be gleaned from any sources. And, of course, some people will say that scientific measurements such radiocarbon dating can be helpful. Well, how about radiocarbon dating? Isn’t it frequently used to assign dates to ancient sites and artifacts?
RD: It is, but there are a lot of problems with radiocarbon dating which are well known in the scientific community. Radiocarbon dating depends on determining the ratio present in a specimen between carbon-14, which is radioactive, and carbon-12 which is not. We don’t have time today to go into all of the details of how carbon-14 is formed but here are a couple of big points. Radiocarbon dating can only be used on organic residue such as wooden artifacts because it must be absorbed by a living entity to be present at all. Next, radiocarbon dating depends on certain baseline assumptions which are unprovable. Third, the rate of formation of carbon-14 is affected by the strength of the earth’s magnetic shield which is known to decline through time. As such, the farther back in time we go – especially as we get closer to the flood of Noah – the more adjustments are necessary to compensate for the stronger magnetic shield. The net result of these issues – and there are others – is that, as you said, radiocarbon dates are assigned not measured. Radiocarbon dating can be a useful tool for certain things like determining relative dates but it has limitations in assigning absolute dates.
VK: In other words we simply don’t possess all of the information that would be necessary to precisely calculate a date by measuring the ratio of one substance and compare it to another. We can never be sure what the starting ratio was unless somebody had been there who reported it – which is never going to happen with archeology. We can never be sure about whether assumed formation rates are accurate or whether contamination occurred at some point. Dates assigned by measuring ratios of various elements often differ by tens of thousands or even millions of years. In such cases the scientists will often dismiss dates that don’t conform to their expectations but this just amounts to selecting data that reinforces an original hypothesis or bias.
RD: Right. Radiocarbon dating can be helpful for certain purposes but it is sometimes offered as if it settles all dating questions of ancient finds. It doesn’t and can’t. It rests on unprovable assumptions. This doesn’t mean it must be dismissed. It means we should bear its limitations in mind when it is used to offer evidence. The point that we want to drive home today is Christians must be prepared to hear explanations for archeological finds that the world will tell us “disprove the Bible.” But we need not accept such claims on face value. Certainly one of the best known explorers who did excavation at Jericho was an archeologist named Kathleen Kenyon. She disagreed with Garstang’s findings about the correct dating of the ruins at Tell-el-Sultan which is normally agreed to be the site of ancient Jericho. One reason she disagreed with Garstang was that she said the pottery shards she found in the collapsed wall that is believed to belong to the Joshua conquest were not from the mid-15th century BC.
VK: In ancient times, and even today, when builders are building walls they will throw scraps of unusable building material as part of fill. The builder knows the fill won’t be seen. So, it doesn’t matter whether its broken concrete, metal scraps, or old pieces of pottery. That’s a common building practice today and it was in ancient times. So, we can derive some dating information about when a structure was built if we find scraps that have some identifying information. Someone who tore down a fireplace and found a coin that had fallen into the cement would know the latest date the fireplace was built. But it seems to mean that Kenyon’s conclusion doesn’t necessarily follow her observation. There are houses in America that date from the Revolutionary War period that are still standing today 250 years later than they were built. If one of those houses fell over today it’s walls are still going to be composed of building material from 1776. The fact that the walls fell in the 21st century doesn’t change that the fallen material was from 250 years ago.
RD: That’s a very good observation. And it illustrates that we have to think carefully through the conclusions that are drawn from evidence. The evidence may be consistent with multiple and varying conclusions. Then we will have to look at other evidence to see if we can determine which of those conclusions is most accurate.
VK: And you say we need to be particularly vigilant when we examine conclusions about the dating of ancient ruins or artifacts.
RD: Right. Here’s a simple example. If you do an internet search on the oldest buildings in the world you will find that are a few buildings dated by secular science to be several thousand years older than the date the Bible tells us the great flood occurred. Often the reason the ruins are dated older is by using radiocarbon dating. But as we just discussed radiocarbon dating has real problems for assigning absolute (not relative) dates. So, if we step back from the radiocarbon dates we find that it is at least as likely, if not more likely, that all of the ruins that are assigned these pre-flood dates were actually built after the flood.
VK: In other words the question that occurs is whether the evidence from these sites is just as consistent with being built after the flood as before.
RD: Yes. So, let’s think about this for a second. Some of these sites display a remarkable degree of mathematical precision in their layout and construction. Yet, conventional science says that the people at that time were all hunter-gatherers. Why would people living off hunting game and gathering food from plants that grow wild all of a sudden divert a great deal of effort into building large structures that had no relevance to how they stayed alive. Isn’t it at least just as probable that these structures were built by people who had descended from a family that possessed a sophisticated knowledge of building techniques and who were now occupying land that was completely free of groups or tribes?
VK: Noah built a huge ark that survived a great flood. And we know from the Bible that Adam’s earliest descendants founded cities, worked with metal, and even made musical instruments. Said differently, rather than human beings having to learn everything by trial-and-error the human race was started with the kind of knowledge to build sophisticated structures.
RD: Yes. And then there’s the whole question of why – if the modern human race had been in existence for hundreds of thousands of years – all of a sudden one day they began building these complicated buildings and complexes. Remember there is absolutely no evidence in the world of human sites that existed tens of thousands of years ago. Dinosaur bones supposedly survived intact for millions of years. So, even if humans 20,000 or 50,000 years ago had built homes or communities it seems probable that some evidence would have survived. The evidence from the most ancient structures we know about on earth fits in very well with a Biblical narrative but runs into some significant difficulties with the secular explanation.
VK: And that is why we all need to know a little bit about archeology. There’s an old saying that “you better teach your kids about faith. Otherwise the only faith they will know will be what comes from the world.” Archeology may or may not interest us as a subject. But we must know enough to be able to help our kids understand and avoid the pits the world will put in their path. Knowing a little bit about archeology can help with this greater goal. God has given us ample evidence that His word is true. But He expects us to exercise our minds and wills to become familiar with the evidence and to incorporate into our lives and faith. This sounds like a time to go to God in prayer. Today let’s listen to a prayer for our nation. The Bible tells us that we are to be good citizens of the nation in which we find ourselves. And certainly part of doing that is to work for the common good, pray for our communities and states, and encourage everyone to grow in godliness. Only a Godly people will persevere and prevail in a fallen creation.
---- PRAYER FOR THE NATION
VK: We’d like to remind our audience that a lot of our radio episodes are linked together in series of topics so if they missed any episodes or if they just want to hear one again, all of these episodes are available on your favorite podcast app. To find them just search on “Anchored by Truth by Crystal Sea Books.”
If you’d like to hear more, try out crystalseabooks.com where “We’re not perfect but our Boss is!”
(Bible Quote from the English Standard Version)
Proverbs, Chapter 8, verses 22 and 23, English Standard Version
Göbekli Tepe shows evidence of geometric planning (creation.com)