Saturday, February 17, 2018

Digging Past the Doubts

by Bryant Wood on ; last featured December 31, 2017
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Today most archaeologists claim that no evidence supports the Bible’s claims about many Old Testament events. There is a problem, but it’s not with the evidence.
Have you ever tried to share your faith and heard these ominous words? “But archaeology has disproved the Bible!” If you haven’t, it’s coming soon. As our Western culture increasingly abandons all semblance of Christianity, more and more people think the Bible is just a bunch of myths.
Perhaps you’ve been taught to respond confidently: “Recent discoveries have forced archaeologists to admit the reliability of Old Testament history.” But the answer is much more complicated than that. In fact, most experts are now saying just the opposite. They’ve been looking very hard for evidence of biblical events, but nothing has turned up, they say.
So if you don’t know how to respond to these questions, your gospel presentation could effectively end right there. Answers really do matter.
The short answer is encouraging. Archaeologists have found evidence that supports the Bible, but many times the evidence is ignored because of preconceptions about the Bible’s historicity, or their dates or places are wrong for the biblical events. The longer answer is even more exciting. Any supposed contradictions turn out to be human errors, not Bible errors. Consider five of the most common examples.
  1. Tower of Babel
  2. Sodom & Gomorrah
  3. Israelite Slavery in Egypt
  4. Conquest of Jericho
  5. Conquest of Ai