K. A. Kitchen, Lecturer in Egyptian and Coptic in the School of Archaeology and Oriental Studies at the University of Liverpool, was certainly correct when he wrote that the Bible and archaeology "remains a theme of unending fascination."1 Biblical archaeology is fascinating both for what it studies (the Bible and ancient remains) and the results (how these fit together in the belief system of Christians).

Human interest in things of the past has existed since there has been history. Indications of "archaeological" or antiquities interest goes back into very early times. Nabonidus, king of Babylon, with his co-regent son Belshazzar, was actively involved in archaeological research when Babylon fell to the Persians more than 500 years before Christ’s birth. Assyrian kings collected tablets from earlier times and Ashur-bani-pal (died 626 b.c.) boasted of his ability to read and understand ancient cuneiform script. Modern involvement with what became known as "biblical archaeology" did not become a serious activity until the famous Assyrian palaces began to be excavated in the 1840s, continuing up to present times. The establishment of the nation of Israel led to a great increase in archaeological activity in Israel.2 Since that time there has been somewhat of an explosion of interest in biblical archaeology, with numerous scholarly journals and periodicals devoted to the subject.3 Even marine or underwater archaeology is now a scientific discipline.

In Archaeology, Artifacts and the Bible, British scholar P. R. S. Morey even wrote, tongue-in-cheek, that "Archaeology is the study of durable rubbish."10 The New American Standard Open Bible defines biblical archaeology as "a study based on the excavation, decipherment and critical evaluation of the records of the past as they affect the Bible" (1978, p. 1257).

There has been much interest in biblical archaeology among Christians whose attention to archaeology is primarily apologetic; that is, to explore how it confirms the biblical record. In this discussion we will address this theme, explaining why, on the one hand, it is logically impossible for archaeology to prove everything true in the Bible while, on the other hand, archaeology does provide amazing confirmations of Scripture. Such confirmation is hardly surprising to the one who knows the Bible is the inerrant Word of God, but it has been an unexpected occurrence to those who have believed the Bible is merely the record of fallible men. Such critics had expected archaeology would "disprove" Christian claims in many areas. But Kitchen is correct in stating that, as far as orthodox Christianity is concerned, it has nothing to fear from any "soundly-based and fair-minded intellectual inquiry" from archaeology or any other field.11 (As Kitchen observes, anything less than a soundly based and fair-minded investigation is invalid by definition.)

Consider the comments of Dr. Walter Kaiser, Jr., concerning chronological uncertainties in one Old Testament passage: "This solution does not help us with the synchronisms given with Hoshea in 2 Kings 18:1, 9, 10. In fact, Edwin Thiele, that great solver of every other synchronism and chronological fact in the chronologies of the Hebrew kings simply gave up when he came to this one in his doctoral study submitted to the University of Chicago."12 We use this as an example to show that we do not have solutions to every historical problem. What we do have is the knowledge that there are no final or finally unsolvable problems because the Scriptures are the inerrant Word of God. Future archaeological work will continue to prove the Scriptures are trustworthy.

The significant point is this: when sufficient factual information becomes known, and is properly interpreted, it always confirms the biblical record. In cases where a discovery initially seems not to confirm the Bible, sufficient factual data is never encountered in order to disprove a biblical statement. Given the thousands of minute details in the Bible that archaeology has the opportunity to disprove, this confirmation of the biblical record is striking. As scientist and Christian apologist Dr. Henry M. Morris points out, "It must be extremely significant that, in view of the great mass of corroborative evidence regarding the biblical history of these periods, there exists today not one unquestionable find of archaeology that proves the Bible to be in error at any point."13