The Christian Chronicle opines
An upcoming “NOVA” documentary entitled “The Bible’s Buried Secrets,” to be broadcast Nov. 18 on PBS, will challenge the integrity of the Bible and infuriate most Christians. According to an early report, the existence of Abraham, the lack of evidence for the Exodus claim that the Israelites believed that God had a wife and the assertion that the Israelites were actually Canaanites are a few of the issues raised by the program.
The same sort of ‘call to activism’ we are used to whenever an academically oriented ‘bible program’ is about to air. It’s a shame that scholars don’t issue such missives when bogus and poorly thought ‘the bible is 100% historically interested and focused’ Dreck programs appear.
The author writes
An earlier generation of archaeologists believed that archaeology proves the Bible to be true. Today, a majority of archaeologists working in Palestine believes that archaeology proves that the Bible is historically unreliable. This change corresponds with a major archaeological discovery of the 20th century — the ambiguity in the archaeological record. How does one know, for example, if a Late Bronze Age destruction layer was the result of Israelite conquest or some other cause?
That earlier, Albrightian generation was wrong, of course. But it is outside the mental framework of fundamentalists to imagine that Albright could have been wrong about anything.
And he concludes
While legitimate issues exist, the viewer of “The Bible’s Buried Secrets,” recognizing the limitations of archaeology, can be confident that there is more to the discussion than appears in the program and have confidence in the biblical story of Yahweh working in Israel’s history.
Yes, it’s called faith and it isn’t reliant on historical prooftexting of archaeological evidence. And since the subject matter of the Bible is faith, it too is little concerned with those issues which concern Professor Long. My own issues with the program, though, have previously been offered (back in July), and are from a different angle, obviously, than Long’s.
UPDATE: NOVA finally has a website for the program up. I’m thinking I’ll ‘live blog’ it because those sorts of things are a lot of fun.
Of course, Albright was wrong. He believed in a late date for the Exodus and every true fundamentalist biblical archaeologist knows that the early date is biblical.
Still, Albright was pretty good all around. Some of his students took archaeology further and further down the biblical theology path.
I agree with you about the unnecessary alarmism that accompanies shows like this. It sounds like a show I’d like.
By: Doug Mangum on September 29, 2008
at 5:10 pm
Please liveblog these shows. My wife refuses to let me watch most of them because she wonders why the scholars they tend to pick are so obscure or fringe for the most part.
By: Drew on September 29, 2008
at 7:20 pm
just tell her it’s a lifetime special. women love lifetime specials!
[please don't tell her i said that. women can also be quite violent]
By: Jim on September 29, 2008
at 7:29 pm
The language of secrets is designed to incite though. But everyone knows that it is good publicity to get the Fundies upset. What kills me is that most Fundies think they are honouring the bible by choosing to read it through modernist categories – like literal history. As if something so wild as the Word of God can be tamed by our security seeking categories.
By: femanuel on September 30, 2008
at 8:51 am
“That earlier, Albrightian generation was wrong, of course. But it is outside the mental framework of fundamentalists to imagine that Albright could have been wrong about anything.” While today we KNOW we are right, since WE do not live in the dark ages
By: Tim Bulkeley on October 1, 2008
at 9:07 pm