Historical Biblical Archaeology and the Future: The New Pragmatism, ed. by Thomas E. Levy (original) (raw)
For over a century, the archaeology of the Land of Israel went hand in hand with the Bible. Biblical Archaeology, the outcome of this interaction, has been normally conceived as the handmaiden of the biblical texts, authenticating and illustrating them. Whether motivated by theological or secular agenda, the main tenet of Biblical Archaeology was political history. In spite of recent claims for the emancipation of archaeology from the tyranny of the biblical texts, the archaeological agenda is still biblical, pursuing questions related to biblical historiography. Paradoxically, however, due to its problematic nature, the use of the Bible in archaeological discourse is considered today almost illegitimate. We envision a different integration between archaeology and the Bible. On the one hand, an archaeological agenda, independent of the biblical text, will open a much wider range of social and cultural questions. On the other, using the Bible as a cultural document to answer these questions will restore its central place in the archaeological discourse of the biblical period. Conceiving of both biblical texts and ancient material artifacts as cultural documents, we believe that their inspection will be fruitful and enlightening. Words and artifacts can give us access to the mindset of the people of the biblical period. Encapsulated in both are the worldviews, cosmology, perceptions of landscape, ideology, symbolism, etc. of the people who produced them. The insights gained by this approach will eventually result in a better understanding of biblical political history.
The Relationship between Archaeology and the Hebrew Bible
Journal for the Study of Biblical Literature, 2018
The flow of time can be divided into three aspects: past, present, and future. It is often believed that the past creates the present, and thus the future. Yet, the quest for the past is always motivated by perspectives from the present, and writing past events is an action inevitably related to the present of the authors/readers. In this sense, the present creates the past. Investigating archaeology’s past relating to the Hebrew Bible is nothing more than an examination of the contemporary situation of archaeology and the Hebrew Bible. To understand the current situation and proceed to the future, it is necessary to collect information from what happened in the past. This paper will present a history of the relationship between archaeology and the Hebrew Bible, from the origin of biblical archaeology to the era in which biblical archaeology was lauded as proving the historicity of biblical story, through the fall of biblical archaeology, and the rise of archaeology independent of the Hebrew Bible, and finally to a future where these two disciplines have the potential to work in harmony with each other.