Introduction: Part 1

This article appeared in the December 18, 1995 issue of TIME magazine.

After discussing recent archaeological finds in Israel and surrounding areas, the article categorizes people into 3 groups based on how they would respond to the finds.
...Jewish and Christian Ultra-conservatives who would say that "nothing in the Bible is fiction"
...Atheists who would say that "everything in the Bible is fiction"
...The Moderate Majority who would say that "we must make sure that the Bible is scientifically grounded in truth"

What do WE believe? What do WE accept as TRUE? Is God's word TRUE in its entirety all the time? Or do we only accept it when it is "verified" by science? Have we allowed science to be our source of TRUTH?


Psalms 119:128 says this: And because I consider all your precepts right, I hate every wrong path. Is that our attitude?

Let's look at a couple of examples of the type of archaeological finds covered in that article in TIME.

The book of Joshua, chapter 6, records the destruction of the walls of Jericho, allowing the Israelites, under the leadership of Joshua, to conquer the city.

TIME tells us that after extensive excavations at the site of ancient Jericho, archaeologists have determined that the site was abandoned for 400 years during the supposed time of Joshua. According to them, no walled cities existed during this time in this area of Canaan. The skeptics doubt that Joshua even existed. Without a battle, who needs a general, right?

How do they know? Were they there?

They published their theories. They debated...and accepted this conclusion as true. Unless and until some new evidence comes along, the modern science of archaeology has determined that the Israelite conquest of Canaan as described in the book of Joshua is fiction...Joshua didn't fight the battle of Jericho. This is an archaeological "truth", or more accurately, a testing by archaeological research methods of a Biblical story, and the Bible fails the test.

We would disagree, but we would be accused of religious bias. So let's look at another example, one that has no religious significance.

In about 800 BC, a blind Greek poet named Homer composed the first, and arguably the greatest, poem of European literature: The Iliad. This epic tells of the great war fought about 400 years earlier between a number of Greek city-states and the rich and powerful city of Troy, on the coast of what is now Turkey.


Perhaps you recall the story. Paris, a royal prince in Troy, carried off Helen, the queen of Sparta. This outraged the Greeks, and they combined forces and sailed off to Troy. The city was under seige for 10 years without result. So subterfuge was planned. They built the famed hollow wooden horse and made a present of it to the city.

A group of Greek soldiers hidden inside then left the horse in the middle of the night and opened the gates to the Greek army. Troy was burned entirely. The victorious Greeks sailed home with Helen, the cause of it all, "the face that launched a thousand ships".


Ever since Roman times, scholars have debated The Iliad. Does it describe real events, or is it a myth? If it is real, how accurate is the tale? In the mid-1800's, modern archaelogy took up the debate when the site of Troy was discovered. The city contains 50 levels of continuous occupation, nine of which show total, violent destruction.

If Homer's tale is true, which level is the one described in his work? Each excavator working on the dig has provided his own explanation for the same artifacts. Each successive archaeologist has thrown out the conclusions of his predecessor and provided his own tale.

To be continued in the next post.