Skepticism-of-the-Gaps: How the Bible Has Proven Doubters Wrong

If you want to feel exhausted, then make it your goal to research alleged Bible inaccuracies. The effort involved can be compared to engaging in battle with the fabled multi-headed hydra: for every alleged inaccuracy in the Bible that fizzles out upon closer inspection, two more arise to take its place. These range from the ridiculous but popular (every objection that starts with "the Emperor Constantine...") to arguing from silence (most of the ones below) to what I call "undead" allegations against the Biblical record which have already been decisively put to rest, only to improbably arise from their graves again once every few years in order to walk the earth in search of fresh brains or new hosts for infection. Finally, there are the tough-as-nails objections that don't give up once a significant piece of them has been blown to smithereens; they just bandage up and walk back into battle with whatever is left of themselves, half-scorched, declaring that you haven't beaten them yet. This last one is known academically as the minimalist position and is represented best (or worst?) in the discussion of King David. There are also a few genuine head-scratchers that Bible believing Christians have to make peace with or where the answer is at best possible but not assured, and I will take some time to talk about that at the end.

WHY KING DAVID DIDN'T EXIST... UNTIL 1995 (OR SO)

For a long time critical Bible scholars thought that King David was "about as historical as King Arthur". Nothing had been found mentioning King David's name before (the argument from silence). The latest the writing of the Old Testament could be dated was during the fourth or fifth centuries BC so it was assumed that was when it was written (the minimalist argument), too late for there to have been any accurate memory of any King David. Perhaps David was an invented figure created to motivate resistance against the Greeks and Romans (the argument from conspiracy). To a certain type of person, it made a lot of sense. Then in 1993 a monumental stone was discovered from ancient times, written by the foreign biblical king Hazael and bearing an inscription mentioning the "house of David". The whole thing was published in 1995. And since then David has existed. Today the academic consensus about David is one that only conservative Christians and Jews believed in before almost the 2000's. Since then the new, smaller objection is that David's kingdom was probably not as big as the Bible claims and that he was more like a tribal chief. The discussion right now is that the extent of his kingdom is looking to be much larger than had been admitted. Of course there are even more re-interpretations of David that admit much of the Bible's details but then insist on a "real" David lurking behind the Bible's heroic description. These will continue disputing the description in the Bible while at the same time collectively, ever so slowly coming closer and closer to matching what we find written there. The Bible is being shown to be trustworthy where it is being most disputed.

PLACES THAT WEREN'T SUPPOSED TO BE THERE

1. Nazareth, the Hometown of Jesus

In 2008 Rene Salm published a devastating book that proved Jesus's hometown of Nazareth wasn't even inhabited during the lifetime of Jesus... and it stuck, for a little less than a year. The argument was that Nazareth isn't mentioned in the works of ancient authors like Josephus or Philo where you would expect it to be and no other early source seems to mention it. There was a lack of archaeological proof for settlements at Nazareth during the time of Jesus. If Nazareth didn't really exist, how could the Gospels be true? The public didn't have to wait long to answer the question because in December 2009 archaeologists from the Israeli Antiquities Authority, excavating in the grounds of a former convent, unearthed a house from first century Nazareth with a few items inside. Be careful when you hear objections like this. This was a classic argument from silence--even if there is an argument for why a piece of evidence should exist, saying that its absence disproves Scripture is an argument that is only one discovery away from being proved dead wrong!

2.The Pool of Siloam 

This Jerusalem attraction where people came from all over to be healed is mentioned in John 9. But it was heavily dispututed for a long time. James Charlesworth, a New Testament scholar who comes from Princeton Theological Seminary, sums up this entry pretty well: "Scholars have said that there wasn't a Pool of Siloam and that John was using a religious conceit" to illustrate a point. But the pool was found in 2004. Charlesworth said at the time "Now we have found the Pool of Siloam... exactly where John said it was. A gospel that was thought to be pure theology is now shown to be grounded in history”.

HOW TO LIVE OUT CONFIDENCE IN THE MIDST OF GAPS
We've only had time to do a little bit of work on the many, many times where the Bible's account was doubted before being proved correct. We haven't mentioned anything about how we know the Gospels were written closer to the time of Jesus than many scholars had originally thought. We haven't talked about Belshazzar being the last king of Babylon in the book of Daniel when everyone was sure that was a mistake on Daniel's part. We've touched a little bit on how academic attitudes towards what we can know about Jesus have changed. We haven't said anything at all about Jericho. We are lucky to be alive in a time where King David has been discovered, the historical sites of the Gospels are being dug up, a few other people from the Bible get confirmed archaeologically every year, academic work on the Historical Jesus looks increasingly like what we read in the Gospels, and more. Previous generations had questions about all these things but they never got an answer--we did. It turns out that those who approached the Bible with suspicion were disproven, and those who approached the Bible with trust, based on evaluating what they could, were proven right. That would really be my takeaway for you here: to evaluate what you can, to see where there are gaps in our knowledge and to be okay with waiting for an answer, and to remember that while a lot of what we've found has confirmed what the Bible has told us, none of it has ever disproven Scripture. And don't take my word for it, take associate director of current excavations at Megiddo (Israel) Eric Cline: "In no case has the Biblical account of an event... yet been shown by an extra-biblical inscription to be completely false.” That's a guy with boots on the ground, and he's having to be even-handed. But if you ask him, has a Biblical account been proven false? Anything been just a complete contradiction? His answer is no. And I think that's pretty neat.