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Why Biblical Archaeology? by Rev. Raymond Parnell The study of archaeology has fascinated millions for millennia. Narrowing it down to Bible related materials is nonetheless exciting. J. A. Thompson has written a delightful book, The Bible and Archaeology, which helps one to understand why there are rewards from such activity. We can understand and interpret the Holy Book better in four ways: (1) It provides the general background of the history of the Bible; (2) it provides a large amount of non-Biblical material to supplement the Bible accounts; (3) it provides reliable assistance in the translation and explanation of many passages in the Bible that are hard to understand; (4) it provides helpful support for affirming the over-all historicity of the Old Testament tradition.
Moses related facts of the creation and we know he is accurate for the prophet David said, “He made known his ways unto Moses” (Psalms 103:7). Jesus validated David, thus Moses, when he said, “O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken: ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory? And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself” (Luke 24:25-27). Moses cited a history of the whole world in eleven chapters, and quickly went to Abraham, father of Israel, progentator of Jesus, in chapter twelve. Evidence has been found of a Babylonian-Sumerian epic, Enuma Elish, which says that Apsu and Tiamat were commingled in a single body from which came the gods. One of the younger gods, Marduk, finally overthrew Tiamet, cut her in two and formed heaven and earth from her body. He then created man, as well as the rest of the universe. A Babylonian tablet contains a flood story. The hero Ut-napishtim was saved in a ship with people and animals from a great flood.
Dr. C.I. Scofield offers an excellent commentary to these accounts. “That Babylonian and Assyrian monuments contain records bearing a grotesque resemblance to the majestic account of the creation and of the flood is true, as also that these antedate Moses. But this confirms rather than invalidates the inspiration of the Mosaic account. Some tradition of creation and the Flood would inevitably be handed down in the ancient cradle of the race. Such a tradition, following the order of all tradition, would take on grotesque and mythological features, and these abound in the Babylonian records. Of necessity, therefore, the first task of inspiration would be to supplant the often absurd and childish tradition with a revelation of the true history, and such a history we find in words of matchless grandeur, and in an order which, rightly understood, is absolutely scientific” (Scofield Bible, page 2). Abraham was born 1996 B.C. and died 175 years later in 1821 B.C. Archaeology provides evidence of the home of Abraham in lower Mesopotamia, in the region of Ur. The royal tombs of Ur, dating to about 2500 B.C., produced a collection of magnificent golden vessels which are still the delight and wonderment of the students of the ancient world. “Ur was a town with a complex system of government and a well-developed system of commerce, one with writing in common use for the issue of receipts, the making of contracts, and many other purposes. There were town drains, streets, two-storied houses, a great temple tower (ziggurat), trade routes joining the town with other great towns to the north and the south, and various other evidences of a highly developed civilization” (J.A. Thompson, page 15). Interesting Biblical Archaeology indeed!!
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