Dating in Archaeology: Challenges to Biblical Credibility
by Garry K. Brantley, M.A., M.Div. [EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the second of a two-part series on “Dating in Archaeology.” Part I is titled “Dating in Archaeology: Radiocarbon and Tree-Ring Dating.”] “Biblical historical data are accurate to an extent far surpassing the ideas of any modern critical students, who have consistently tended to err on the side of hypercriticism” (1949, Albright, p. 229). “Archaeologists now generally agree that their discoveries...have produced a new consensus about the formation of ancient Israel that contradicts significant parts of the biblical version” (Strauss, 1988). These statements represent the conflicting messages that characterize the field of archaeology. In Albright’s era, archaeologists’ interpretations of field excavations ordinarily corroborated biblical information. It was common for prominent archaeologists such as Nelson Glueck to confidently affirm: “...no archaeological discovery…