The Hebrew Bible: New Insights and Scholarship

Bible, Archaeology, and the Social Sciences:The Next Generation

Chapter 2 Bible, Archaeology, and the Social Sciences The Next Generation Elizabeth Bloch-Smith Compared to the venerable discipline of biblical interpretation, which has been practiced for thousands of years, biblical archaeology is a relative newborn, only about eighty years old. Yet it offers fresh perspectives on the Bible, producing new information on virtually a daily basis and providing the realia of daily life that are often missing from the biblical text. Moreover, archaeology gives us evidence in the equivalent of an unedited form, so that in the best of cases we can determine the date and location of archaeological finds—a standard that is largely elusive for specific passages of the Bible. Archaeologists bring methods and questions arising from the social sciences , including history, architecture, and anthropology, as well as, increasingly , the hard sciences to the study of ancient Israel. Taking a multidisciplinary approach, they also utilize written evidence, including the Bible, to elucidate material remains. Most American archaeologists do not dismiss the biblical text as ahistorical or unreliable; rather, they view it as an artifact with a long history that should be interpreted just as we would any other “heirloom” that has been preserved and reworked over time. History of Biblical Archaeology The first scientific excavations in the territory of ancient Israel were conducted by Sir William Flinders Petrie more than a hundred years ago. He tried to understand the nature of archaeological deposits and to excavate accordingly; he also articulated the principles of interpretation. Petrie’s 24 work laid the foundations for scientific excavation and the modern discipline of archaeology. William Foxwell Albright harnessed this new, scientifically grounded discipline for theological purposes. His “Biblical Archaeology” had an essentially American agenda of countering challenges to the historicity of the Bible posed by literary-historical criticism.1 Both his research agenda and the criteria for evaluating the finds were driven by a desire to verify biblical history. While director of the American Schools of Oriental Research Center in Jerusalem (1920–29, 1933–36), now called the Albright Institute of Archaeological Research, Albright supported excavation projects intended to elucidate biblical issues. These were largely funded by Christian institutions (mainly Protestant) and staffed by Christian clergy and seminarians as well as biblical scholars.2 Albright’s tenure as director there and as editor of the Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research (1930–68) set the course for most American excavations in the region. Among his students were the field archaeologists G. Ernest Wright, Nelson Glueck (an American rabbi trained in the Reform movement), and Avraham Biran (working in Israel). Wright and Biran trained most of the American archaeologists working in Israel and Jordan today. Albright’s theological mantle fell to his student Wright, who continued to promote “biblical archaeology.” As spokesperson for the Protestant “Biblical Theology Movement,” Wright argued for the historicity of the Bible. Although his historical conclusions are no longer accepted, Wright’s enduring legacy remains the introduction of the physical sciences, notably geology, into field projects that were focused on the Bible.3 A secular tradition of American excavation existed alongside this theologically inspired approach. Major research institutions, such as Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute, sponsored and continue to sponsor excavations at important biblical sites but without a theological agenda. However, it has been seminary -funded, biblically inspired excavations that have had the greatest impact on the largely Christian lay audience and among seminary-trained American practitioners.4 Beginning in the 1970s American archaeologists shifted the focus from a biblical orientation to a more social-science–informed approach. Several factors contributed to this shift. American “new archaeology” nudged her more conservative biblical cousin toward a more anthropological and scienti fically based orientation. The groundwork was laid by Lewis Binford’s 1962 article “Archaeology as Anthropology,” which advocated studying Bible, Archaeology, and the Social Sciences 25 archaeological remains from social-scientific perspectives.5 It was not until 1985 that the archaeologist Lawrence Stager effectively integrated social science inquiry and biblical archaeology in his seminal article on the family .6 Drawing on conceptual categories of the social sciences, Stager created a paradigm for secular archaeologists’ use of biblical texts. Thereafter, biblical archaeologists drew on various disciplines in order to elucidate culture in general, often focusing on social organization and changes that could be defined by quantifiable data. Now conceived as a...