Israel Finkelstein - The Bible Unearthed TV - Nova: The Bible’s Buried Secrets TV - Eric Cline - Mysteries of the Bible TV - Francesca Stavrakopoulou TV - Lost Tomb of Jesus? TV - Days that Shook the World TV - Rome Revealed TV - Michael Cremo TV - Richard Miles TV - Karl Pilkington - Howard Carter - Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade 1989 - Brian Fagan - Margaret Murray - Michael Rostovtzeff - Michael Shanks - Henry Fairfield Osborn - Mortimer Wheeler - Agatha Christie - Horizon TV - Ancient X Files TV - Ancient Aliens TV - Mary Beard TV - Sarah Parcak - Secrets of the Terracotta Warriors TV - Thucydides - Troy: The Truth Behind the Legend TV - Ancient Mysteries TV - Egypt’s Lost Cities TV - Jonathan Meades TV - Monty Python’s Flying Circus TV - History’s Greatest Hoaxes TV - Ancient Mysteries TV - Tony Robinson: Egyptian Tomb Hunting TV - Janina Ramirez TV - The Pharaoh in the Suburbs TV - Nazi Victory: The Post-War Plan TV - Black Pharaohs: Empires of Gold TV - Lost Gold of the Dark Ages TV - Dan Snow TV - The Hunt for Cleopatra’s Tomb TV - The Curse of King Tut TV - Britain’s Biggest Dig TV - Aung San Suu Kyi: The Fall of an Icon TV - David Attenborough TV - Tutankhamun: The Mystery of the Burnt Mummy TV - Tutankhamun in Colour TV - Egypt's Female Pharaohs TV - Cleopatra's Lost City TV - Ancient Apocalypse TV -
Whereas archaeology tells us something which is the opposite. According to the archaeology the rise of early Israel is an outcome of the collapse of Canaanite society, not the reason for that collapse. Professor Israel Finkelstein, Tel Aviv University
Biblical archaeology doesn’t work. Is wrong. Israel Finkelstein
There’s no archaeological evidence for the simple reason that we cannot excavate on the Temple Mount. Israel Finkelstein
There are a few pottery shells from the tenth century on the ground, a wall here and there maybe, but nothing monumental. We are left with no archaeological evidence for the Temple of Solomon. Israel Finkelstein
Megiddo is the jewel of Biblical archaeology. The Bible Unearthed: The Patriarchs, 2005
Megiddo serves as a reference for the dating of sites throughout the whole near east. ibid.
There was no migration in the direction of Canaan at the time the Bible situates Abraham’s voyage. ibid.
Genesis contained a number of stories of various origins that were woven together. ibid.
Are their stories real or merely myth? Archaeologists dig through the Bible to determine what is fact, what is fiction and whether Moses really wrote the Hebrew Bible. Is there evidence to support the exodus of the chosen people from Egypt or was the exodus really a smaller group of Canaanites who chose to be free? Nova: The Bible’s Buried Secrets 1/2, National Geographic 2008
It became known as the Merneptah Stele. Today it is in the Cairo Museum: ‘Israel has been shorn; its seed no longer exists’. ibid.
History proved the Pharaoh’s confident boast to be wrong. Rather than marking their annihilation, Merneptah’s Stele announces the entrance on to the world stage of a people named Israel. ibid.
The well-established Egyptian chronology gives the date as 1208 B.C. Merneptah’s Stele is powerful evidence that a people called the Israelites were living in Canaan in what today includes Israel and Palestine over three-thousand years ago. ibid.
Scholars search for intersections between science and scripture. The earliest is the Victory Stele of the Egyptian pharaoh Merneptah from 1208 B.C. Both the Stele and the Bible place a people called the Israelites in the hill country of Canaan which includes modern-day Israel and Palestine. ibid.
Many similar discrepancies throughout its pages suggest that the Bible had more than one writer. In fact within the first five books of the Bible scholars have identified the hand of at least four different groups of scribes writing over several hundred years. This theory is called the Documentary Hypothesis. But when did the process of writing the Bible begin? ibid.
In the Bible no single event is mentioned more times than the Exodus ... It could not have happened before Ramesses became king around 1275 B.C. and it could not have happened after 1208 B.C. when the Stele of Pharaoh Merneptah – Ramesses II’s son – specifically locates the Israelites in Canaan ... In a hundred years of searching, archaeologists have not yet found evidence of migration that can be linked to the Exodus. ibid.
When archaeologists date the destruction of these buildings [Ai] they discover it occurred about 2,200 B.C. They date the destruction of Jericho to 1,500 B.C. And Hazor’s to about 1,250 B.C. Clearly these city-states were not destroyed at the same time. In fact of the 31 sites the Bible says that Joshua conquered, few showed any signs of war. ibid.
By dating the pottery Finkelstein discovered that before 1,200 B.C. there were approximately twenty-five settlements. He estimated the total population of those settlements to be between three and five thousand inhabitants. But just two hundred years later there’s a very sharp increase in settlements and people. ibid.
Archaeology reveals that the Israelites were themselves originally Canaanites. So why does the Bible consistently cast the Israelites as outsiders in Canaan? ... The answer may lie in their desire to forge a distinctly new identity ... If the Israelites wanted to distinguish themselves from their Canaanite past, what better way than to create a story about destroying them. ibid.
But then in 1993 an amazing discovery shed new light on what the Bible calls ancient Israel’s greatest king. Gila Cook was finishing up some survey work with an assistant at Tel Dan, a Biblical site in the far north of Israel today ... But something caught her eye: a stone with what appeared to be random scratches but was actually an ancient inscription ... Cook had found a fragment of a Victory Stele ... It celebrates the conquest of Israel. It boasts: ‘I slew mighty kings who harnessed thousands of chariots and thousands of horsemen. I killed the king of the House of David’. Bible’s Buried Secrets 2/2
So has Eilat Mazar discovered the Palace of David? She adds up the evidence: the building is huge; it is located in a prominent place in the oldest part of Jerusalem; and the pottery according to Albright’s chronology dates to the 10th century B.C. – the time of David. Mazar believes she has indeed found the palace of David. But the strength of her case rests on the outcome of dating shards of pottery. ibid.
Three monumental gates all based on the same plan would seem to be powerful evidence not only of prosperity but also of a central authority ... This stunning convergence between the Bible and Egyptian history gives a firm date for the death of Solomon ... 930 B.C. This is further evidence that David and Solomon lived in the 10th century ... Although a minority of archaeologists continue to disagree, this convergence of the Bible, Egyptian chronology and Solomon’s Gates is powerful evidence that a great kingdom existed at the time of David and Solomon spanning all of Israel, north and south, with its capital in Jerusalem. ibid.
Despite Josiah’s reforms the ancient Israelites continue to worship other gods. Their acceptance of one god and the triumph of monotheism begins with a series of events vividly attested through archaeology, ancient texts and the Bible. It starts with the destruction of Yahweh’s earthly dwelling, The Jerusalem Temple. In 586 B.C. after defeating the Assyrians a new Mesopotamian empire invades Israel. The Babylonians ransack the Temple and systematically burn the sacred city. Before his eyes the Babylonian victors slay the sons of Zedechiah, the last Davidic king, then blind him. The Covenant, the promise made by Yahweh to his chosen people and to David that his dynasty would rule eternally in Jerusalem, is broken. After four-hundred years Israel is wiped out. The Babylonians round up the Israelite priests, prophets and scribes and drag them in chains to Babylon. Babylonian records confirm the presence of Israelites including the king in exile. ibid.
Wandering for forty years there would be something. Professor Eric Cline
We do not have a single shred of evidence to date – there is nothing archaeologically to attest to anything from the Biblical story. No plagues. No parting of the Red Sea. No manna from Heaven. No wandering for forty years. Eric Cline
There remains not a single trace of their passing. Not a footprint, not a shard of pottery, not a scrap of evidence. Mysteries of the Bible s1e1: Moses and Mount Sinai, A&E 1994
Archaeologists have failed to find any evidence that an ancient people ever stopped here. Mysteries of the Bible s4e11: Ten Commandments
[Yigael] Yadin’s neat conclusions – in fact his whole approach to Biblical archaeological – was challenged, and some would say overturned, in the modern era. Dr Francesca Stavrakopoulou, Bible’s Buried Secrets: Did King David’s Empire Exist? 1/3
In 2007 something did turn up, and it threatened to overturn many of Finkelstein’s ideas ... A dramatic discovery was made at the little-known site Khirbet Qeiyafa. Here was a fortified walled town west of Jerusalem, in what was ancient Judah ... The first fortified city from that period. And the thing is, it’s in pristine condition. ibid.
What stands out is this discovery: large city gates. A good indicator, some would say, of empire. ibid.
Despite the best efforts of some archaeologists conclusive evidence for David’s glorious capital has simply failed to materialise. ibid.
There’s no evidence of a Davidic empire in the tenth century in the cities the Bible says Solomon rebuilt. ibid.
The Tel Dan inscription ... It mentions David ... The House of David ... It was a crucial discovery, but like so many finds, its authenticity was contested. Most people now accept the Tel Dan inscription is genuine ... The Tel Dan inscription was written about a century and a half after the period of David. Enough time perhaps for a story about a legendary founding figure to develop. Other scholars disagree. ibid.
Omri really did leave his mark in the archaeological record. ibid.