The more recent research and discoveries in the land of Israel confirm the accuracy of Bible history.
The story about it was told in a fascinating way by the Science writer in a widely circulating magazine1. The publishers made a special feature of the article, with a front cover picture of the archaeologist whose work was under review; remarking that archaeology was a rare subject”ancient history usually has to yield to current history”—but the subject has an interest and one editor had decreed that there should be frequent review.
The writer refers to “the decade of discoveries and extended knowledge” from archaeological research, aided by modern science and equipment. Long hidden ancient sites of human life were uncovered by extensive operations in lands stretching from China to Peru; the busiest being those in the Near East, where in many ways “the Palestine of the Old Testament is the world’s most interesting focus of world history”. And in the writer’s opinion the Bible “is an extraordinary book of ancient history, as well as beautiful literature”.
This, too, expressed the mind of the chief archaeologist whose work in Palestine was more particularly mentioned; a person with something different, we thought, from others we had heard about; reminding us also of the Israeli archaeologist, Yigael Yadin, who in a large scale excavation found the ancient city of Hazor, near the Sea of Galilee2. A full page illustration shows a Cult Mask and potter’s wheel recovered from that site. Amongst the other coloured pictures we noticed with keen interest that of a tablet from the Syrian city of Ugarit, of the 14th century B.C. This is inscribed with an alphabet of 30 characters. There is also the picture of a mosaic floor in a Galilean synagogue of the 4th century, featuring the design of a seven branched lampstand, the ram’s horn, and other items. It is exciting to see the “first archaeological proof of Pontius Pilate”—a dedication stone that was found in 1961 A.D., bearing his name and the title, “Praefectus ludaeae.
But leaving relics, interesting though they are, let us turn to the person who was the “discoverer”: Dr. Nelson Glueck, now 63, a Jew who has ranged
“the Holy Land with Bible in hand off and on for 36 years” . . . “to him the Bible is an indispensable guide as he goes about his work of filling blank areas on the world’s historical maps and bringing lost nations to vivid life.”
Educated in the United States and joining the Palestine School of Oriental Research in 1927, he became a student under the noted Palestinian archaeologist, Dr. W. F. Albright, and was engaged in the sorting out, checking, deciphering and classifying of the potsherds from Palestine.
“Glueck recognised at once the magic of Albright’s system and for three years served as his professor’s pottery man, studying every potsherd from Albright’s excavations, and thus developed an insight based on extensive scholarship.”
Glueck, it is reported, leans heavily on a source that many an expert considers undependable—the Old Testament stories that make up “the amazing historical memory of the Bible”. He claims that the “one great breach in the wall of silence about the ancient world is the Old Testament”. This “extraordinary Book pulses with the record of stirring events” that took place 1,500 years before the Greek historian wrote of early history in 450 B.C.
With the help of his “indispensable guide”, Glueck has discovered more than 1,000 ancient sites in Trans-Jordan, and 500 more in the Negev. He has wandered, in later years, through the ancient desert lands on the far side of Jordan—”Bible in hand”—finding everywhere traces of ancient people, and from the pottery fragments found on the site–the potsherds of the archaeologist—he could usually tell who they were; “always accepting the evidence of the Bible in relation to Israel’s journeys, sites of cities, their wars and way of life”, Of Glueck’s remarkable ability, it is said that he could hold in his hand
“a fragment of pottery from a dull grey desert and hear in the mind’s ear an echo of some forgotten language. . . . He has won fresh understanding of the age of Abraham . . . and clarified the socio-economic history of the Judean kings.
Some of the important finds were located from clues in his Hebrew Bible, as for instance the passage that describes the Promised Land as a place “whose stone are iron, and out of whose hills thou mayest dig brass”,3 a which incited Glueck to keep on looking for the site; and also the port of Ezion-Geber, where King Solomon made a navy of ships, “which is beside Eloth, on the shore of the Red Sea in the land of Edom”.
The first signs were found when an expedition was led in the waterless, hot desert depression that extends south from the Dead Sea to the Gulf of Aqaba. It was noticed that there were many ruins of fortresses on the eastern foothills, and the potsherds found there dated the site about B.C. 961-922—in the Solomon era. But why, reasoned Glueck, should such a barren waste be worth protecting?
In the closer inspection of the place that local people said was Khirbet Nahas, meaning “copper ruin”—a name handed down in their families without knowing what it meant—much slag was found, with indications of copper smelting. Excavations on the site revealed massive walls pierced “with intricate holes and channels through which the prevailing wind still whistles”-the blast that made the site an elaborate copper smelter for Solomon and worth the fortifications. From the pottery finds on this site Glueck was led to make an investigation that finally identified the excavated ruins of the seaport at the head of the Gulf of Aqaba.
From the arid waste and ruins of the past this intrepid explorer has turned his attention to what we must conclude is the most important of all his discoveries. Convinced that the barren sandy wastes of Israel’s southlands—the Negev—can provide an expansion place for the growing nation, he has made a close survey of the area, finding that this now uninhabitable region once had, centuries ago, peoples, roads, forts, wells of water and cultivated walled fields with definite evidence of fertility.
The relics and pottery fragments recovered from these desert sands showed that there had been a settlement there of a talented Arabian people—the Nabataeans —a little earlier than the 1st century A.D. They were skilled and prosperous, indicated by the remains of their cities, roads and forts, all over the Trans-Jordan lands. They were skilled irrigationists and their water systems were found intact, seldom used or recognised by the modern inhabitants. They had a method of preventing flash floods and had carved out enormous cisterns, made water-tight with heavy plastering.
These cisterns still exist by the thousands and are only waiting to be cleaned out. They are, Glueck consider, “more dependable than the common Israeli pipelines which can be cut by Arab saboteurs…
So he has young pioneers from Israel already putting the Nabataean waterworks back into use repairing dams, cleaning cisterns and planting crops in the walled fields”. The report is that now the populations there is rising and extending beyond the ends of the pipelines. “Some day”, the magazines writer says, “IT MAY PASS THE LEVEL THAT IT REACHED AT THE TIME OF ABRAHAM.”
We, with all who know the bible to be trustworthy, are assured that the future resettlement in this land will certainly exceed that of the past. For our confidence that the Living God of Israel speaks through and watches over His Word to perform it is securely based on demonstrable facts.
1 “Time” Magazine, Dec 13th, 1963; “The search for Man’s past”.
2 “Christadelphian” Magazine, Jan. 1963, page 6.
3 Deut 8:9; 1 Kings 9:26
“The Archeology of Palestine”, W. F. Albright. A survey of the Ancient people and cultures of the Holy Land.
“Rivers in the Desert”, Nelson Glueck.
A Perspective on how Archaeology can help us understand the Bible