The Letter and the Scroll:
What Archaeology Tells Us About the Bible
by Robin Currie
For 2,000 years and more, the Bible and its precepts have shaped world culture and civilization, whether Judeo-Christian or not. The Bible is a touchstone of religious belief, literary accomplishment, morality, and history unlike any other. Biblical interpretations have changed over the millennia, but the past 100 years have witnessed some of the most important transformations in our perspective, and no recent influence has been greater than archaeology.
In the mid-20th century, the unearthing of the Dead Sea Scrollsโ€”to cite just one of many modern findsโ€”deepened our understanding of the Biblical world, its peoples, and their beliefs. Since then, new evidence has appearedโ€”the Tel Dan inscription, the Merneptah Stele, and the Gabriel Revelationโ€”with each revelation providing richer insights into the scriptural narrative and the way these stories were written and handed down, confirming the details of historical events and personages, or clarifying the meaning and chronol...