As an undergraduate student at William and Mary, I got hooked on archaeology. Honestly, I might have majored in it if my professors hadn’t convinced us how hard it was to earn a living doing it full time. Over the years, I have read just about everything I can find on any archaeology connected to the Bible and have visited exhibits in museums all over the world featuring artifacts from Bible times and cultures. While my faith probably would have been strong without all of this extra knowledge, I do think archaeology has reinforced my faith in many ways.
While the truth is there are just some things archaeology can’t prove, I believe most children and teens can get benefits from being exposed to archaeological finds connected to the Bible. It’s important, however, not to exaggerate or over reach when explaining the significance of some objects. For example, the James ossuary might have at one point held the bones of James, the brother (technically half brother) of Jesus or it might have held the bones of some other man named James. That doesn’t mean the James who wrote the book of the Bible didn’t exist or that what he wrote isn’t the inspired word of God. It just means we may never really know where his bones were buried. At the end of the day, one’s faith cannot be based on looking at a box that once held a bunch of human bones.
Biblical artifacts can, however, provide information that can help kids and teens in building their Bible knowledge and understanding and for some students provide the extra evidence they need to have true faith.
So what can your Bible students learn from looking at photographs or real artifacts from Bible times and cultures?
- What the things they read about in the Bible looked like. Most students are shocked to find out what lamps looked like in Bible times. We saw an exhibit today that had a manager like that in which Jesus would have been placed and a cup probably like that Jesus might have used at the Last Supper. Neither real object looked like the two items are normally depicted.
- Underscores the historic nature of the bulk of the Bible (parables are not necessarily historical accounts). When your students see a coin featuring Tiberius – Caesar for most of the life of Jesus or coins minted by Pilate, they learn those were real people. This is especially important if they later learn some people believe the Bible is fictional. The overwhelming evidence for the history in the Bible exceeds most other ancient texts.
- Helps them visualize some of the people in the Bible. We don’t know what most Jewish people mentioned in the Bible looked like, but we have contemporary images of people mentioned from other cultures and even a couple of Jewish kings who were depicted by other countries in their art.
- Helps them understand the enormity of some of God’s miracles. Jesus didn’t turn the water into wine in a quart water pitcher. The actual vessel was as tall as an adult and held a few hundred gallons of water! Seeing a similar vessel in a museum helps students understand the reality of many of God’s miracles.
- Helps them understand some of the hardships and sacrifices in the Bible. Seeing the nails used in a crucifixion or the tools they had to use to make cloth or stone purification vessels for the Temple or the water jugs several women had to lower and pull up full of water from wells helps your students have a little more empathy for the people in certain Bible stories.
- Helps them understand the futility of idolatry. I’ve shown several students an actual Baal idol. They are always amazed at how small it is and that people could worship something as a god that was obviously more like a sculpture or a doll.
Can archaeology prove that God exists or that Jesus was the son of God? No, those things ultimately require faith. What archaeology can do is to help underscore the validity of the things in the Bible that can be proven with archaeology. In the past, the Bible has been right about many things that historians at the time had gotten wrong. Archaeological finds later proved the Bible had been right all along. (Note: Older children and teens who show an interest may also appreciate Lee Strobel’s book The Case For Christ. He has several editions for different age groups. Most strong, mature readers can probably handle the adult version of the book.)