| Re: .0
Hoo Boy! As if it isn't hard enough to find incontrovertible evidence
of what happened this century(*), you want to know for sure what happened
several millenia ago!
Part of the problem is tying the archeological evidence to the textual
account. In Genesis 14 there is a story about Abram and an invasion of
the Jordan valley. There is archeological evidence that is consistent
with the idea that a war took place in the area about four thousand
years ago, but whether the Genesis story is an accurate description of
that event we have no way of knowing.
More reliable, perhaps, is the attribution, in 2Kings 20, of the
building of a water conduit, to King Hezekiah. The conduit has been
found, along with a plaque that seems to confirm the biblical account.
The fact that something is more recent, however, does not necessarily
mean that we have better non-textual evidence for it. There are
traditional accounts of the Maccabean revolt, but I'm not sure there is
any evidence, outside of the texts, that the events happened as
recorded. There are other literary sources that tend to support that a
war of some sort was fought, but some scholars think it was primarily
a civil war among Jews.
Or, consider what evidence there is for the existence of Jesus.
Outside of the accounts in the Gospels and Acts, I know of no evidence
that he existed.
You might find it worth visiting your local public library and looking
through back issues of Biblical Archaeology Review to get an overview
of some of the work that has been going on.
Aaron
(* E.g. At last summer's Republican Convention, Reagan quoted several
lines that were supposed to be from Lincoln--and were cited as such in
some reference books--but were actually written by a New York clergyman
who put out a collection quotes from both Lincoln and himself. Others
reprinted the collection but failed to make the distinctions in
authorship. In fact, in the 1940s the Rep National Ctte apparently
reprinted the collection, attributing everything to Lincoln.)
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| I'm looking for a higher standard than "consistent with". If there's
evidence of a war, it doesn't mean that it contributes evidence to the
Biblical account.
The water conduit (a culvert?) is a good point.
As for accounts of Jesus, there's references to his followers that date
back to the decade of 40 A.D. in Roman histories.
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| > I'm looking for a higher standard than "consistent with". If there's
> evidence of a war, it doesn't mean that it contributes evidence to the
> Biblical account.
That's my point. There are very few things where we can compare the
text with specific archeological evidence and say with any degree of
assurance that there is a direct relationship. Hezikiah's water tunnel
is one of the few.
> As for accounts of Jesus, there's references to his followers that date
> back to the decade of 40 A.D. in Roman histories. ^^^^^^^^^
Again, that is not direct evidence for *his* existence, just for the
existence of some form of early Christianity. There is considerable
evidence for the existence of the later Hasmonean rulers, but I don't
know of any concrete evidence for the existence of Judah Maccabee,
outside the apochryphal books.
We have a certain amount of material that have names on them that
correspond to names mentioned in the Bible, but we cannot say that they
belonged to the people mentioned. A few years ago a seal turned up in
the pre-exilic stratum in Jerusalem with the name "Baruch," which
corresponds to the name of Jeremiah's secretary. Did this seal belong
to that particular individual? Who knows?
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