“Christians must understand that, scientifically, we cannot prove that the Bible is true, but that should not cause us to believe that it is not God’s absolute truth. Since God is the author of history, we are assured that His record of history is an accurate account of what happened. But we must also understand that not everything that happened was written in His record. Only those things were recorded that further God’s revelation of Himself.”
This is a tough pill to swallow for the scientist. Scientists want to be able to explain the world [at least theorize about the world]. I use the word theory on purpose due to the nature of the scientific method. Scientific knowledge is always open to question as current theory is replaced with new knowledge.
As new proven explanations happen, old knowledge is superseded.
It is also a tough pill to swallow for the Christian. From the Christian perspective we want to know all about God and we want science to confirm what we know. Science won’t do that. And God won’t reveal all about Himself. He doesn’t have to. He reveals only what He wants to reveal.
What do we have to do?
Accept what we know as God’s absolute truth and have faith that what we don’t know is God’s truth also.
“Archaeology is a science that studies ancient cultures by recovering and documenting materials from the past. Christian archaeology is the science of studying ancient cultures that have impacted Christianity and Judaism and the Jewish and Christian cultures themselves. Not only are Christian archaeologists trying to discover new things about the past, they are trying to validate what we already know about the past and advance our understanding of the manners and customs of the peoples of the Bible.”
Do Christian archaeologists have an “axe to grind?” Yes they do. You might say they have a definite bias. Their work is to confirm the Bible [Old and New Testament]. Secular archaeologists may not even regard a Christian archaeologist as a scientist.
Let’s try to draw a distinction between these two types of people, the secular archaeologist and the Christian archaeologist. For many years secular archaeologists used to say that King David was a legendary figure much like King Arthur in England.
How did David become a historical figure? Archaeologists found evidence of his actual existence; the Tel Dan Stela, a basalt stone dating from the 9th century B.C. bearing David’s name and identifying him as King of Israel.
What did this one stone do?
Now writings in the Old Testament about a man named David have a real live man attached to them. But would a secular archaeologist go so far as to say that David killed Goliath with single stone? Would a secular archaeologist go so far as to say David was the spectacular warrior who time and time again went to battle against neighboring kingdoms and won? Would a secular archaeologist go so far as to say that David had an affair with Bathsheba?
No, no and no…
A Christian archaeologist would want proof of these events and may search for that proof in a written record, a stone carving or some ancient mosaic. For them, the agenda is clear. Put some meat on the bones of David. All we have [the secular archaeologist would say of the Tel Dan Stela] are the bones.
As Christians we have to be patient. We don’t need to let our faith be undermined by lack of confirming physical evidence.
“Archaeology has never proved the biblical account to be wrong, although, in some cases, it has been unable to prove the biblical account right. As archaeologists continue to dig, we will have more and more external evidence to substantiate the historicity and truthfulness of the Bible’s record.”
What we have now is God’s word in His Bible.
Until He is ready to supply more evidence about Himself, we must be satisfied…
God’s word should be enough.*
*Helpful information about Christian archaeology was gathered from the [Gotanswers.org Website, 2016]
St. John Studies 