The Value and Limitations of Archaeology, Part 1 (The Covenant & the Cross #6)

Today's quote about the Bible is from Charles Spurgeon. He said: "Some people like to read many [Bible] chapters every day. I would not dissuade them from the practice, but I would rather lay my soul a soak in half a dozen verses all day than rinse my hand in several chapters. Oh, to be bathed in a text of Scripture, and to let it be sucked up in your very soul, till it saturates your heart!"

Today, we are going to continue our overview of some topics that will help us as we study the Bible throughout future episodes.

Our topic for today is titled: "The Value and Limitations of Archaeology (Part 1)” from the book, "The Promise and the Blessing" by  Michael A. Harbin.

As we have noted, one of Wellhausen’s weaknesses was that he did not take archaeology into account as he developed his theories. Archaeology as a science developed in the last half of the 1800s. Since then it has made many contributions to our understanding of the Bible. The key contributions have come from various ancient libraries that have been found. As a result of these discoveries, we are better able to place biblical studies within cultural contexts. We have come to realize that biblical history fits within an overall Ancient Near East historical context, although there is some debate on how the pieces fit in.

However, archaeology has both strengths and weaknesses. On the one hand, we cannot ignore it, but on the other hand, we must be careful not to expect too much from it. For example, archaeology does not prove the Bible. As part of our groundwork, we need to look at some of the limitations of this discipline.

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