Palestinian archaeology has become a fad for Jewish and Christian scholars alike.
Yet the whole Jewish and Christian world
is filled more than ever with doubt concerning the reliability of the Bible.
Is there no evidence that the Bible is true?
Or have men found and rejected the evidence?
Here, written from on the scene, is the shocking truth about the conspiracy to hide the facts!
Ashkelon, Israel
UNEXPECTEDLY, this summer, I had the privilege of becoming a participant in the archaeological excavations now going on at Ashdod, Israel. I want to tell you about it and the truth about archaeology — and why most, scholars refuse to believe the Bible.
Never has there been such a vast array of historical and archaeological knowledge available to man to confirm the Bible. Why, then, with all this confirmation of the truth of the Bible available, is agnosticism, skepticism, and doubt so common today? Why are historians and archaeologists in the forefront of those who deny the authority and reliability of the Bible?
There Is a Reason
If the Bible is a revelation from God for man, then why do we not hear of more proof outside the Bible — confirmation from history and archaeology — that the events of the Bible really happened and its great characters actually lived?
All the world looks to archaeologists for evidence on WHAT to believe about the Bible. Even the ministers derive many of their opinions from archaeological reports. And I am finding anew in this Ashdod digging that archaeological reports do not disclose all that is found in archaeological diggings. Archaeologists dig up much more evidence than you hear about.
Their facts are fine. But their theory of how facts are to be understood is in error. Neither archaeologists nor ministers want to accept anything that supports the Bible — because they are unwilling to accept the Bible at face value.
Of course not!
None of us — of ourselves — want to accept the complete, unaltered message of God's Word!
If you accept the Bible as historically true, HOW can you escape this obligation to obey its laws? You can't! And neither can the ministers or the archaeologists.
It is altogether impossible to separate Bible history from Bible commands! Either ALL the Bible is TRUE or all of it is FALSE.
That is the crux of the whole problem. Since most ministers and archaeologists do not want to obey God, they are determined to discredit the Bible as a historical record.
In this age of increasing knowledge — or is it mistaken knowledge — many of the greatest men plead ignorance to life's most important problems. "We have outgrown God," they contend. "He was suitable for a period of superstition and ignorance when religion predominated. But we do not live in a religious age. We have created a scientifically minded world."
What Ministers Say About the Bible
It would probably be SHOCKING to you if you knew what many leading ministers personally think and publicly say about the Bible! Here is what Harry Emerson Fosdick, a noted American minister of New York, wrote in his book The Modern Use of the Bible:
"We know now that every idea in the Bible started from primitive and childlike origins . . ." and that it is an impossible attempt to harmonize the Bible with itself, to make it speak with unanimous voice, to resolve its conflicts and contradictions. . . .
Why did Dr. Fosdick write this? Was he convinced that there was no proof of the inspiration of the Bible? OR WAS HE OVERLOOKING THE PROOF AND NEGLECTING THE TRUTH?
Dr. James Moffat, who produced a famous English rendering of the Bible, says in his introduction to the Bible that many of its books are "notes by disciples, worked up into literary papers which have been repeatedly edited, sometimes by pious collectors."
To this learned man it seemed the earlier portions of the Bible stemmed from "the natural desire to gather up the primitive traditions of the people."
Notice! Here is one of the foremost Biblical scholars declaring that the Bible has a natural origin in human traditions! — implying that it is not backed by fact! What made him believe such an idea? Was he without proof of the inspiration of Scripture? Surely, if there were proof for the inspiration of the Bible, these men would NOT have overlooked it — would they . . . or DID THEY FIND THE PROOF AND REJECT IT?
Sincere, but Ignorant?
SHOCKING UTTERANCES SUCH AS THESE ARE THE PRODUCT OF HUMAN REASON! To the natural mind the Bible seems merely a book of tales and stories, and fabulous solutions to the question of human origin and destiny. What irrefutable proof do these men offer for propounding the concept that the Bible was fraudulently written by Hebrews who only "claimed" divine authority for their mere human utterances?
None!
HAVE THESE MEN BEEN ABLE TO DISPROVE THE BIBLE — to disprove the existence of its great characters — to disprove the occurrence of its outstanding historic events?
No!
Would man go to all this trouble to imply the Bible is false if he thought it to be actually true?
INDEED MAN WOULD!
People secretly want to serve their own lusts. They want to be in ignorance of God's law and way of life! They do not want the astounding proof that the Bible is true, that it is inspired — that it can be proved right!
As Jeremiah the prophet was inspired to write: "An appalling and horrible thing is come to pass in the land: the prophets prophesy in the service of falsehood, and the priests bear rule at their beck; and My people love to have it so" (Jer. 5:30-31).
The ministers just won't preach the truth!
Where Is the PROOF?
Everyone today demands proof of the authority of the Bible! They reject the proof within the Bible itself. People have a chip on their shoulders, so to speak. They want some MAN to prove whether the Bible is true. They accept God's Word only if a man verifies Him!
Of course it is right that we should prove it! And there is plenty of confirming evidence — evidence of the most amazing kind — evidence that ought to rock civilization to its foundation! But the world is willfully ignorant of it.
Believe it or not, THE WORLD ALREADY KNOWS OF THE EVIDENCE but is unwilling to accept it. It has seen the evidence; it has felt it; it has dug it up; it has read it; it has published it — but the world has rejected it because it does not want to surrender its will to the Bible.
ONLY THE FOOL WOULD REJECT THE EVIDENCE of creation and of prophecy. But, sadly, the world is filled with fools! It has rejected both.
The world has not only turned the truth upside-down, but it has also turned the evidence upside-down — making right seem wrong and making factual evidence tell lies.
For well over a century and a half Biblical scholars labored to undermine the authority of the Bible. They taught the world that Moses could not have written the books attributed to him. They claimed writing was not invented until after Moses' time. This made the Bible appear — as they claimed — just an uninspired collection of Jewish folklore and religious myths.
But just when scholars had convinced much of the literary world that the Bible is just the work of pious ancients searching for a concept of God, something went wrong!
In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Europeans became aware of the treasures of the tells or mounds of the Mesopotamian flatlands. Archaeological expeditions cut into many of the most impressive ones. Hoards of private and public documents were discovered — most of them lying to this day untranslated in the basements of European museums. A few, however, were translated. A multitude of undreamed-of facts was disclosed for the first time. Many clay tablets and inscriptions — positively dated before Moses' time — revealed a very advanced culture, with students doing math problems in cube root and learning very advanced, complicated grammars — in addition to confirming many Old Testament accounts. For decades this archaeological confirmation of the Old Testament has progressed remarkably. Earlier claims of German rationalists and higher critics were exploded with every new excavation in Palestine and the Middle East. There again confronting the theologians was the frightening specter of the AUTHORITY of Scripture — which they thought they had banished from the classrooms a century ago.
Biblical archaeology became such a fad — and evidence confirming the Bible piled up so rapidly — that critics were soon forced to adopt a new approach in their attack on the Bible. Here, helping dig up Ashdod, a famous old Philistine city (I Sam. 5), I am witnessing this modern approach to Bible criticism.
Today men can no longer get away with rejecting the Bible outright. But they still refuse to accept the Bible as the basis from which to begin their studies. Instead, they interpret the Bible by facts that they have to arrange to fit their concept of what the Bible should say. While they pretend they are searching for evidence to support the Bible, they are in reality hoping to find evidence that can be interpreted to say the Bible is inaccurate — which would in turn be interpreted to mean the Bible is not a divinely inspired book. Then they can say God's laws are just a part of a book of fables and need not be obeyed.
Today a framework of isolated and often unrelated facts unearthed by archaeology is built into an elaborate house of cards. Then the Bible is judged by this fictitious interpretation of history. When a difference appears, it is the Bible which is judged to be wrong! Yet the Bible is the ONLY authentic, ancient, and well-organized framework in which to fit all the facts. No secular source contains such a vast array of historical fact from which to interpret the myriads of tiny unrelated details of archaeology.