MARCH 26, 2007

ARTS & MEDIA
Biblical archaeology: facts, fiction & hype

From the Dead Sea Scrolls to the Gnostic Gospels, from new clues about the Exodus story to the “discovery” of the tomb of Jesus or the remains of Noah’s Ark, biblical archaeology is no longer a scholarly field of dusty research. Today it is headline-making news and megamillion-dollar entertainment, as The Da Vinci Code phenomenon showed.

The breadth of this “Indiana Jones” appeal is such that it seems that no major Christian or Jewish holiday can pass without a new theory or piece of evidence emerging that purports to confirm the accounts of the Bible or upend biblical tradition.

Debates over the authenticity and proper context of these and other discoveries regularly produce media sensations, but also pose challenges to reporters and editors who are called on to write about these newsworthy announcements. These stories require historical perspective and a knowledge of the best scholarship in order to provide the necessary balance to what are often astounding claims. They also demand an ability to distinguish the elements of fact and faith that are often bound up in controversial arguments. A good example is the much-debated discovery in late 2002 of the so-called James ossuary, which some claim contained the remains of the brother of Jesus. That would have made it the first physical evidence of the historical existence of Jesus of Nazareth.

This edition of ReligionLink provides background and resources to help journalists assess the latest claims as well as “discoveries” that are bound to emerge in the future.

Why it matters

Biblical archaeology’s shift from the ivory tower to the mass media has both fed and fueled an enormous public interest in the Bible and Jewish and Christian history. That interest has been welcomed by many religious leaders and scholars as an opportunity to educate a public that has a great stake in faith but often little knowledge of the history of religion. But this shift has also introduced elements of public relations and big money that require extra vigilance on the part of journalists who cover these stories. Moreover, the public’s fascination with religion, combined with its impact on so many areas of society — from culture to politics — is so great that various groups eager to push one agenda or another can try to exploit the latest discoveries to advance their particular viewpoint.

Click the map for interview sources in your state and region

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National sources
Organizations
Background

What's new

The eight-day Jewish feast of Passover, which recalls the Exodus story of the Israelites from bondage in Egypt, and Holy Week, the observances that mark the final days of Jesus Christ and conclude with the celebration of the resurrection on Easter, coincide this year. The first night of Passover is Monday, April 2. Easter follows on Sunday, April 8.

Both holidays have in recent years occasioned any number of archaeological discoveries or television programs claiming new evidence or insights to debunk or confirm the historicity of the biblical accounts. For example:
• In February 2007 Canadian filmmaker Simcha Jacobovici teamed up with movie mogul James Cameron on a documentary that claimed to feature several ossuaries, or ancient bone boxes, said to belong to Jesus and his family, including Mary Magdalene and their child. If authentic, the assertions in the film, The Lost Tomb of Jesus, would have exploded foundational Christian beliefs. The claims were met with widespread criticism. See a sampling of stories on the so-called Jesus tomb from Religion Newswriters and MSNBC.com.
• In 2006 Jacobovici produced a program, “The Exodus Decoded,” for the History Channel that claimed the Exodus took place at a different time than the Bible claims and that the plagues were the result of a volcanic eruption, as was the parting of the Red Sea.
• Just before Easter 2006, the National Geographic Society presented a reconstructed copy of an ancient text known as the gospel of Judas. The Judas gospel was the basis of a documentary and several books, some of which became best sellers. It also sparked a series of controversies over its interpretation and restoration. See a sampling of stories on the gospel of Judas here and here.

Exhibits are drawing crowds:
• A widely praised exhibit called “Cradle of Christianity: Jewish and Christian Treasures from the Holy Land” is on tour in the United States. Organized by the Israel Museum, the exhibit includes ossuaries, scroll fragments, structural remains and other items that have never been gathered together outside of Israel. The exhibit features an ossuary featured in “The Lost Tomb of Jesus” program. It reads, “Judah, Son of Jesus.” The exhibit is at the Museum of Art-Fort Lauderdale in Florida until April 15, 2007. It will then be on view at its final venue at the Michael C. Carlos Museum of Emory University in Atlanta from June 16 through Oct. 14, 2007.
• From June 29-Dec. 31, 2007, the San Diego Natural History Museum will host a major Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit. The museum says that this will be the largest and most comprehensive Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit ever. The Dead Sea Scrolls are ancient manuscripts discovered in caves east of Jerusalem, near Qumran on the Dead Sea. The scrolls date from the third century B.C. to the first century and contain some of the oldest known copies of biblical books.

National sources

• Darrell L. Bock is a professor of New Testament at Dallas Theological Seminary. He is a widely read author and commentator on popular controversies about biblical history. Contact 214-841-3715, dbockdts@aol.com.
• James H. Charlesworth is a professor of New Testament language and literature at Princeton Theological Seminary. He is a widely quoted expert who has written extensively about early Christian texts. Charlesworth is also the editor of an important volume of essays by a range of biblical scholars called Jesus and Archaeology (Eerdmans, 2006). Contact 609-497-7920, james.charlesworth@ptsem.edu.
• The Rev. Bruce Chilton is an Episcopal priest and executive director of the Institute of Advanced Theology at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, N.Y. Chilton is the author of Rabbi Jesus: An Intimate Biography (Doubleday, 2000) and other books aimed at popularizing the latest historical research on the Bible. Chilton is also rector of the Episcopal Church of St. John the Evangelist in Barrytown, N.Y. Contact 845-758-6822, chilton@bard.edu.
• Elizabeth A. Clark is a professor of Christian history at the religion department at Duke University in Durham, N.C. She is an expert on ancient Christianity and is past president of the American Academy of Religion and the American Society of Church History. Contact 919-660-3505, lizclark@duke.edu.
• Bart D. Ehrman is chairman of the department of religious studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a leading scholar, author and commentator on early Christianity and the Bible. Contact 919-962-3940, behrman@email.unc.edu. 
• Paula Fredriksen is a professor at the religion department at Boston University. She specializes in the social and intellectual history of ancient Christianity, from the Late Second Temple period to the fall of the Western Roman Empire. She has written and commented widely on modern biblical controversies. Fredriksen is on sabbatical during the spring 2007 semester but can otherwise be contacted at 617-353-4431, augfred@bu.edu.
• Richard A. Freund is a professor of history and director of the Maurice Greenberg Center for Judaic Studies at the University of Hartford. He is a field archaeologist and has written extensively on biblical archaeology, from the Exodus story to the origins of Christianity. Contact 860-768-4022, freund@hartford.edu.
• The Rev. Daniel Harrington, SJ, is a prominent biblical scholar at the Weston Jesuit School of Theology in Cambridge, Mass. Contact 617-492-1960, dharrington@wjst.edu.
• Julie Galambush is an associate professor of religious studies at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Va. She is a former Baptist minister who converted to Judaism and is author of The Reluctant Parting: How the New Testament’s Jewish Writers Created a Christian Book (HarperSanFrancisco, 2006). Galambush is on sabbatical for the spring 2007 semester but can be reached at jggala@wm.edu.
• The Rev. Robin Griffith-Jones is an Anglican priest and Master of the Temple Church in London. Griffith-Jones is a New Testament scholar and became a popular commentator in the wake of the success of The Da Vinci Code, which sets a key scene at the Temple Church. Griffith-Jones is the author of several books, including The Four Witnesses: The Rebel, the Rabbi, the Chronicler and the Mystic (HarperSanFrancisco, 2001). Contact 011-44-207-353-8559, master@templechurch.com.
• Karen L. King is the Winn Professor of Ecclesiastical History at Harvard Divinity School and a leading scholar and author on early Christianity. Her most recent book is Reading Judas: The Gospel of Judas and the Shaping of Christianity (Viking Adult, 2007), written with Elaine Pagels. Contact 617-496-3398, or through her faculty assistant Katherine Lou at klou@hds.harvard.edu.
• Amy-Jill Levine is the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Professor of New Testament Studies at Vanderbilt University Divinity School, department of religious studies, and graduate department of religion in Nashville, Tenn. She is a widely quoted Jewish expert on early Christianity. Contact 615-343-3967, Amy-Jill.Levine@vanderbilt.edu.
• Jodi Magness is a professor of religious studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an expert in the archaeology of early Judaism, especially the excavations at Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls. Contact 919-962-3928, magness@email.unc.edu.
• Scot McKnight is a professor of biblical and theological studies at North Park University, an evangelical college in Chicago. McKnight is a well-known author of books about Bible history. He is the co-editor, along with James D.G. Dunn, emeritus professor of biblical studies at Durham University in England, of The Historical Jesus in Recent Research (Eisenbrauns, 2005), a collection of essays by leading Bible scholars. Contact 773-244-5783, smcknight@northpark.edu.
• Marvin Meyer is the Griset Professor of Bible and Christian Studies and co-chairman of the department of religious studies at Chapman University in Orange, Calif. He is a widely quoted expert on early Christianity with special focus on the Gnostic gospels and other texts from the Nag Hammadi discoveries. Contact 714-997-6602, meyer@chapman.edu.
• Eric M. Meyers is the Bernice and Morton Lerner Professor of Judaic Studies and director of the Center for Jewish Studies at Duke University in Durham, N.C., and a widely published author on biblical archaeology. Contact 919-660-3517, emc@duke.edu.
• Elaine Pagels is a professor of religion at Princeton University in New Jersey, an expert on the Gnostic gospels and a best-selling author who comments frequently about issues in early Christianity. Contact 609-258-4484, pagels@princeton.edu.
• James M. Robinson is the former director of the Institute for Antiquity and Christianity at the school of religion at Claremont Graduate University, Claremont, Calif., and a professor emeritus at the school. He is a widely respected author and authority on the Nag Hammadi Library. Contact james.robinson@cgu.edu.
• Rodney Stark is a well-known sociologist of religion who has frequently delved into the historical aspects of Christian origins, in books such as The Rise of Christianity: A Sociologist Reconsiders History (Princeton University Press, 1996) and Cities of God: The Real Story of How Christianity Became an Urban Movement and Conquered Rome (HarperSanFrancisco, 2006). Stark is currently at the department of the sociology of religion at Baylor University in Waco but spends much of his time at his home outside Albuquerque in New Mexico. Contact 254-710-7220, socstark@aol.com, or through his Web site.
• L. Michael White holds the R.N. Smith Endowed Chair in Classics and Christian Origins at the University of Texas at Austin and is director of the Institute for the Study of Antiquity and Christian Origins. He is a frequent media commentator on biblical archaeology and appeared in the PBS series From Jesus to Christ. Contact 512-232-1438, lmwhite@mail.utexas.edu.

Organizations

• Hershel Shanks is the founder of the Biblical Archaeology Society, based in Washington, D.C., and editor of the society’s publication, the Biblical Archaeology Review. Shanks and the BAR are alternately praised and pilloried for efforts to “popularize” biblical archaeology. Shanks and the BAR were a driving force behind efforts to promote the so-called James ossuary in 2003. Contact 202-364-3300, bas@bib-arch.org.
• ASOR, or the American Schools of Oriental Research, is an association founded in 1900 and dedicated to promoting archaeology in the Near East and a better public understanding of the field. ASOR is overseen by some of the top archaeologists in the field. The group also has a helpful outreach page that includes a feature called “Ask an Archaeologist.” The feature provides a list of experts by region and specialty.
• The Society of Biblical Literature was founded in 1880 and is the pre-eminent academic organization for promoting biblical scholarship. The SBL has an annual meeting (usually in conjunction with the American Academy of Religion, though that will not always be the case in the future) and its Web site offers a range of valuable resources.
• The Catholic Biblical Association is a leading organization of biblical scholars, numbering more than 1,200 around the world. The Web site of the CBA, founded in 1936, has a searchable membership directory that can provide experts in every region. The Rev. Joseph Jensen, O.S.B., is executive secretary of the CBA, based at Catholic University of America. Contact 202-319-5519.
• The Bible and Interpretation is a scholar-based and moderated Web site that provides a roundup of articles, commentary and other resources on the latest issues in biblical archaeology. The site is maintained by Mark Elliott of Laramie County Community College in Cheyenne, Wyo., with the sponsorship of a number of other institutions. Contact Elliott at melliott@bibleinterp.com. 

Background

Biblical archaeology came to prominence in the 19th century because of a combination of factors, among them: a colonial Western, especially European, presence in the Middle East; a Western curiosity in “exotic” cultures and their histories; and a fascination with exploring the actual history of the Holy Land that mirrored a rise in biblical criticism in academia. See a Wikipedia entry on the history of the discipline. The outlines of the article are solid but as with any open-source Web page, details should be confirmed.

In 1945, the accidental discovery in Egypt of a cache of early Christian texts that were part of a school of belief known as Gnosticism — later rejected as heresy by the church and thought lost to history — generated interest in Christian origins. The gradual translation and interpretation of the Nag Hammadi texts (named after the village where they were found) maintained that interest. When The Gnostic Gospels (Vintage, 1979) by biblical scholar Elaine Pagels became a best seller, the topic entered popular culture.

Similarly, the discovery of a hidden library of ancient Jewish texts, known as the Dead Sea Scrolls, at Qumran also fueled popular interest. The formation of the State of Israel the next year, in 1948, and subsequent easy access by archaeologists to biblical sites led to more discoveries.

Along with landmark revelations, there have also been a number of archaeological finds through the years that turned out to be hoaxes and frauds. Moreover, experts say that the field is especially volatile given the monetary value of the market in biblical antiquities as well as their potential use — or abuse — in claims and counterclaims by Jews, Christians and Muslims about the Holy Land.