No Corroborating Archiological Evidence

The Truth is …

No archeological discoveries corroborate any of the EVENTS that are described in the bible.

The central events in the history of the Israelites are not corroborated in any archaeological findings. Many archaeologists, including Israel Finkelstein (1), Zahi Hawass(2), Ze’ev Herzog (3) and William G. Dever (4), regard the Exodus as non-historical, at best containing a small germ of truth.

More than a century of archaeological research has discovered nothing which could support the narrative elements of the book of Exodus – the four centuries sojourn in Egypt, the escape of well over a million Israelites from the Delta, or the three months journey through the wilderness to Sinai. Archaeological research has found no evidence that the Sinai desert ever hosted, or could have hosted, millions of people, nor of a massive population increase in Canaan, estimated to have had a population of between 50,000 and 100,000 at the time.
The wilderness of the southern Sinai peninsula shows no traces of a mass-migration such as Exodus describes, and virtually all the place-names mentioned, including Goshen (the area within Egypt where the Israelites supposedly lived), the store-cities of Pithom and Rameses, the site of the crossing of the Red Sea, and even Mt Sinai itself, have resisted identification.
The archaeology of Palestine has equally failed to substantiate the Bible’s account of the invasion of Canaan by the Israelites arriving from Egypt some forty years later – of the 31 cities supposedly conquered by Joshua, only one (Bethel) shows a destruction level that equates to the Biblical narrative, and there is general agreement that the origins of Israel lie within Canaan itself.[3] Even those scholars who hold the Exodus to represent historical truth concede that the most the evidence can suggest is plausibility.

To Reiterate and Clarify…

  • There is no archeological evidence that 1.5 million Jews were ever enslaved in ancient Egypt.
  • There is no archeological evidence that over 1.5 million Jews ever trekked in the Sinai desert for over 40 years.
  • There is no archeological evidence that over 1.5 million Jews ever descended en masse in Cannon.
  • There IS archeological evidence that Jericho was already in ruins at the time Joshua was alleged to have caused the walls to come tumbling down merely by blowing a ram’s horn.
  • There is no archeological evidence that a million Ethiopians, or even hundreds of thousands of Amorites, et al. were killed in huge battles.
  • There is no archeological evidence for the stones of the 10 commandments,  or the Ark of the Covenant; both of which are sacred relics writ by GOD that would be preserved if they ever existed.
  • There is no archeological evidence for Noah’s Ark despite centuries of searching.

Many of the PLACES mentioned in the Bible have been located by archeologists.

A New Truth Has Emerged

“A new generation of archaeologists has emerged…they are challenging the intellectual assumptions of their predecessors…The expected discoveries of specific biblical artifacts and buildings were simply not being made…Discrepancies between the biblical account and the ever increasing archaeological record become more noticeable and harder to ignore…Rather than using the Old Testament as a field guide, the current crop of archaeologists is increasingly putting the Bible aside…The very term biblical archaeology has become tainted, and is now rejected by many academics…The old quest to confirm the historical truths of the events in the Bible has been replaced by a new agenda: to build a full and detailed picture of life in the ancient Near East. If the Bible is consulted at all, it is approached with varying degrees of skepticism. The onus of proof has shifted: the text [of the Bible] is now considered historically unreliable until proven otherwise”.
Matthew Sturgis, It Ain’t Necessarily So (2001)

QED

References… People, two of whom teach at Tel Aviv University,  who should know the Truth.

1. Israel Finkelstein – A Jew, Professor of archaeology in the Department of Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern Civilizations, Tel Aviv University.

2, Zahi Hawass – Egyptian archaeologist, an Egyptologist, and former Minister of State for Antiquities Affairs in Egypt.

3, Ze’ev Herzog –  Israeli archeologist, professor of archaeology at The Department of Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern Cultures at Tel Aviv University

4. William G. Dever – American archaeologist, specializing in the history of Israel and the Near East in Biblical times. He was Professor of Near Eastern Archaeology and Anthropology at the University of Arizona in Tucson from 1975 to 2002. He is a Distinguished Professor of Near Eastern Archaeology at Lycoming College in Pennsylvania.

New Evidence? Comments?