One of the things about archaeology that I (and every other archaeologist I know) find deeply annoying is the sheer number of… I’ll call them enthusiastic amateurs (That’s a nicer term than “kooks”), who think they’ve discovered something that will completely overturn our understanding of the past. Whether it’s ancient aliens, African migrations to Central America, Atlantis, or pre-Columbian Vikings in Minnesota, they seem to pop up everywhere. And as an archaeologist who follows Jesus, I find bad archaeology relating to the Bible to be especially obnoxious.
As I pointed out in a previous article, a bad argument that ends in a correct conclusion is still a bad argument. Bad arguments are likely to make your listeners significantly less likely to take seriously anything else you say. If your goal is to be an effective witness of Jesus, this is a big problem. Bad arguments will undermine your attempt to share the truth.
I could make a list of fake and debunked discoveries that supposedly “prove” the Bible is true, but it would be a very long list, and getting longer all the time. So instead, I want to talk about what all these “finds” seem to have in common, so that you’ll be better equipped to recognize when you’re dealing with bad archaeology.
Using the Bible to Interpret Archaeological Findings
One of the hallmarks of bad Biblical archaeology is that every find is immediately related to something in the Bible. I’m sure somebody is going to tell me that it’s a good thing for Christians to be guided by the Bible, and that’s certainly true when you use the Bible as God intended it to be used. But the Bible was not given to us to be a guide to archaeological interpretation. Let me explain how I know that.
To start with, we have to understand that only a tiny fraction of the things that have happened in the past have left any archaeological evidence. More than that, the evidence that has survived is not a random or representative sample of what once existed. For example, only a very small amount of papyrus scrolls from Old Testament times have been discovered. The vast majority of ancient Hebrew writing is on sherds of broken pottery called ostraca (singular ostracon). Messages were scratched onto broken pottery simply because it was cheaper and more readily available than papyrus. But although this kind of message was common in the ancient Near East, the proportion wasn’t nearly as overwhelming as you’d think, if you only looked at what archaeologists have uncovered. The reason for this should be obvious: pottery lasts a lot longer than papyrus, so much more of it has survived. This is an example of what we call preservation bias. (The term “bias” here does not refer to human bias, but simply the fact that, by the very nature of things, some outcomes are more likely than others.)
Further, only part of what has survived has been uncovered so far. And this isn’t random either. A lot of archaeological sites are discovered during construction, which tends to be more common in cities than in open country. There are likely to be many undiscovered archaeological sites in places where no one has looked, either because nobody thought to look there, or because it’s impractical for one reason or another. This is called discovery bias. There are other types of bias as well, but these two are especially important for my point.
On the other hand, the Bible doesn’t record everything that happened either. Most people who lived in the ancient Near East are never mentioned in Scripture at all. And even for the people who are mentioned, only a small portion of what they did in their lives was recorded. This is even true for Jesus, as John 21:25 tells us. The Biblical authors, inspired by the Holy Spirit, wrote down only what they thought would be useful for their specific purposes. We might call this significance bias.
Putting all these sources of bias together, it’s clear that the chances of any particular thing we find in the ground being related to something recorded in the Bible are small (although they’re not zero). Any connection between an archaeological finding and a passage of Scripture is a hypothesis to be tested, not an assumption to be built on.
Keep in mind also that, because archaeologists only recover a small, biased sample of the evidence about the past, the science of archaeology does a much better job of investigating cultural patterns than unique historical events. For that reason, when a connection can be drawn between the Bible and the archaeological evidence, it’s most commonly in the area of cultural practices. Thus, for example, the study I cited in a previous article about land use in ancient Israel, and what that implies for understanding some of the prophetic warnings in the Old Testament.
Going Beyond the Evidence
Not long ago, I read about a team using ground penetrating radar (GPR), that claimed to have found some buried straight lines and corners near a large rock formation in Turkey. With nothing more than that, they announced that they had found Noah’s Ark. Not even the Incredible Hulk jumps that far.
But what did they actually find? GPR detects the boundaries between areas that differ in their ability to be polarized by electromagnetic radiation (a trait called permittivity). Usually this is because there is a difference in material, for example, stone or wood buried in soil. But differences in soil type and water content can show up on GPR as well. Without excavation, or historical records that tell us what was once there, the best we’re likely to get from GPR alone is an indication that some buried pattern is more likely than not to be artificial. To determine any more than that requires excavation.
Now suppose, hypothetically, that somebody does someday excavate this site and discovers that what the GPR was imaging was the remains of a wooden wall. Wouldn’t that prove that it was Noah’s Ark? Of course not! All it would show is that there was once a wooden wall at that location. Walls have been built for many different reasons, most of which have nothing to do with boats of any kind.
If you’re thinking that I’m undermining somebody’s faith right now, you’ve misunderstood what archaeology is all about. Archaeology is not a subset of apologetics. The goal is not to show that the Bible is true (or, for that matter, to show that it isn’t). Rather, the goal of archaeology is to understand past human cultures. For all the reasons I discussed in the previous section, anything we find archaeologically is most likely not connected to any of the events recorded in the Bible, although it may be evidence of the typical practices of one or another of the cultures that are mentioned in the Bible.
Making a claim about an archaeological finding that goes well beyond what the evidence actually shows, while dismissing or ignoring every other possible explanation for that evidence, is another hallmark of bad archaeology.
Grandiose Claims
The third hallmark is closely related to the second one in that, not only does the claim being made go far beyond what the evidence will support, but it’s also something that would, if it were true, be incredibly interesting well outside the field of archaeology.
One way to think about this is to imagine that I’m walking through the Arizona desert and I find an empty bullet casing that appears old. Examining it more closely, I see that it’s a .45 Colt cartridge, first manufactured in 1872. This was the type of ammunition used in (among many other guns) the Colt Buntline Special. Suppose that, on the basis of this evidence, I declare that the casing must have come from a bullet fired by Wyatt Earp, who carried such a gun according to his 1931 biographer Stuart N. Lake (a claim that many modern historians dispute).
I would be an idiot if I made such a claim. Large quantities of .45 Colt ammunition have been manufactured. It’s being made today. I’ve presented absolutely zero evidence that the specific casing I picked up was ever associated with Wyatt Earp. Claiming an association with a famous gunfighter makes the find much more interesting than it would otherwise be, but it should be a red flag that I might be more interested in promoting my own pet theory than in finding out the truth
Similarly, the practitioners of bad archaeology don’t just claim without sufficient evidence that what they found has a connection to the Bible, the connection is most often something spectacular, such as the city of Sodom, the Ark of the Covenant, or even Noah’s Ark, as mentioned above.
Press Releases Instead of Peer Review
The fourth hallmark of bad archaeology is that it inevitably appears in the form of press releases and articles in popular Christian magazines and websites. You never find it published in any of the peer reviewed journals. And that’s not because Christians are being excluded – there are quite a few legitimate archaeologists, who are Christians and take the Bible seriously, who have no problem getting their work published. To get through peer review you don’t have to convince skeptics that you’re right, but you do have to convince other archaeologists that you know enough to be able to contribute something intelligent to the ongoing conversation. If your work is riddled with errors of logic and fact, and you demonstrate that you don’t know the first thing about interpreting archaeological evidence, you’re simply not going to make it though peer review.
There are usually other problems with bad archaeology as well. Bad exegesis – misunderstanding what the Biblical text is actually saying – in widespread. But since I’m an archaeologist, not a Bible scholar, I’ll leave that for others to discuss.
Unfortunately, the popular press does a very poor job of reporting on technical matters. This means that it’s often hard to tell when something you read or hear about is bad archaeology. That’s why the fourth hallmark is important. Whenever you hear about an interesting archaeological discovery, you should make a careful note of the source of the information. This may require a bit of searching, although usually not too much. If the only thing you can find is a press release, that’s a red flag. If somebody reports that the find was originally published in a journal of some kind, do an internet search on the name of that journal. You should be able to find out pretty quickly whether or not it’s peer reviewed. Even if you don’t want to actually read the original article (most of them are pretty dry), or if it’s behind a paywall, simply knowing what kind of a journal this is will give you valuable information about how trustworthy the report is likely to be.
Beyond that, question everything. If we’re told in Scripture to even test prophecies (1 Thessalonians 5:20-21), how much more should we test claims of archaeological discoveries that relate to something in Scripture? In particular, you should seriously consider whether the evidence that is presented actually shows what it is claimed to show. Don’t assume that there is more evidence than you’ve been told about. Practitioners of bad archaeology often imply, and sometimes even state outright, that there are things they’ve held back for one reason of another. The burden of proof is on the person making the claim. If the evidence they present is not sufficient to support that claim, then their claim should be rejected until such time as better evidence comes to light (if it ever does).
Archaeology is a very useful tool to help us understand what life was like in Biblical times. Sometimes it can help us to understand all the nuances of what a Biblical author was saying. But archaeology is not particularly good at investigating unique historical events, including the unique historical events recorded in the Bible. And it certainly can not prove, or disprove, the claim that the Bible is God’s word. While good archaeology can help us to better understand the Scriptures, bad archaeology can make people less likely to take the Bible seriously. As a Christian, I don’t want to get carried away with wild speculation, but instead I want to boldly speak only what I have tested and found to be true.