The archaeological evidence serves not only to refute the older critics’ antequated theory but also serves as positive evidence to support the probability that Moses kept written records.^[1]

Sayce makes a shuddering conclusion: “The Babylonia of the age of Abraham was a more highly educated country than the England of George III.”[2]

Why can archaeologists make such statements?   Several archaeological finds bring them to the above conclusion.   Let us take a look at them!

William F. Albright explained the Ugarit discoveries.  The cuneiform writing of Ugarit is a system completely native to Syria-Palestine and was recovered in 1929 by C.F.A. Schaeffer on the Syrian north coast.  The most prominent deposits of tablets with this writing are at Ugarit and Ras Shamra.  Artifacts with this script are dated as early as 1400 B.C., though the alphabet itself is probably older.^[3] 

Albright says: “It is difficult to exaggerate the importance of the Canaanite alphabetic tablets from Ugarit, north of Canaan proper.  Thanks to them, we have a vast body of texts from the age of Moses (14th and 13th centuries B.C.).  They are partly in local prose dialect of Ugarit at that time, but mostly in a generalized poetic dialect that corresponds closely to such early Hebrew poetic language as the Song of Miriam (13th century B.C.) and the Son of Deborah (12th century), as well as to many of the early Psalms.  They have enormously widened our knowledge of biblical Hebrew vocabulary and grammar.”[4]

Sayce noted that Egypt was a very literate nation.  During the reign of Ikhnaton (or Amenhotep IV), about 1375-1358 B.C., who tried to change the entire religious system of Egypt, great amounts of correspondence, called the Amarna tablets, were exchanged between Egypt, Syria, Palestine and Babylon.  Many of these have been discovered at Amarna since 1887.  Not only do these show writing to have been in use, but further, they are not in hieroglyphics but Babylonian cuneiform.  This indicates a close contact between the two, so much so that a standard diplomatic language of the day was used.  The art of writing was well entrenched by this time.^[5]          

S.H. Horn explains yet another find: “In 1917 Alan Gardiner, noted British Egyptologist, made the first decipherment of the Proto-Semitic inscriptions found at Mt. Sinai by Flinders Petrie more than ten years earlier.  These inscriptions, written in a pictorial script by Canaanites before the middle of the second millennium B.C., prove that alphabetic writing existed before the time of Moses.”[6]           

The Gezer Calendar, written in 925 B.C. (found by Macalister in the 1900’s) is obviously an exercise performed by a child.  It proves that writing was well established in society at that time even to the point of being taught to children.[7]                           

Compare Judges 8:14 where a youth picked at random from the town of Succoth was able to “write down” the names of the 77 elders for Gideon. 

Judg 8  (v. 13) Then Gideon the son of Joash returned from battle, from the Ascent of Heres. (v. 14) And he caught a young man of the men of Succoth and interrogated him; and he wrote down for him the leaders of Succoth and it elders, seventy-seven men.

Albright shows the importance of this definitely Semitic writing: “The oldest important Israelite inscription is the Gezer Calendar, a schoolboy’s exercise tablet of soft limestone, on which he had awkwardly scratched the text of a ditty giving the order of the chief agricultural operations through the year.  It dates from the late tenth century, if we may judge from the agreement of the evidence for forms of letters from contemporary Byblus with the stratigraphic context in which it was discovered.”[8]   

Professor David Noel Freedman of the University of Michigan, and director of the William F. Albright School for Archaeological Research in Jerusalem, states specifically regarding the historicity of the patriarchs: “I am here to inform you that recent archaeological discoveries have proved to be directly pertinent to the question of the historicity of the patriarchal traditions, as they are preserved in the Genesis narratives.  Generally they confirm or at least support the basic positions maintained by giants like Albright and Speiser, while effectively undercutting the prevailing skepticism and sophistry of the larger contingent representative of continental and American scholarship.”[9]

William F. Albright in his “From the Stone Age to Christianity” comments, “The latest discoveries at Mari on the Middle Euphrates.…have strikingly confirmed the Israelite traditions according to which their Hebrew forefathers came to Palestine from the region of Harran in northwestern Mesopotamia.”[10]        

In his article “The Bible After Twenty Years of Archaeology,” he goes further: “The excavation of Mari began in 1933, under the direction of Andre Parrot.  Situated on the Middle Euphrates, Mari was one of the most important centers of the Northwest Semitic life of Patriarchal times.  In 1936, M. Parrot unearthed many thousands of cuneiform tablets dating mostly from about 1700 B.C., which are now in course of being studied and published.  These tablets throw direct light on the background of the Patriarchal traditions of Genesis.”[11]

He goes on further to explain the impact of the Mari Tablets: “Now we can speak even more emphatically, and with a wealth of additional detail.  For example, the “city of Nahor” which plays a role next to Harran in the Patriarchal stories (Gen 24:10) turns up frequently along with Harran in the Mari documents about 1700 B.C.  The name of a prince of Mari, Arriyuk, is evidently the same as the Arioch of Genesis 14.  “Benjamin” often appears as a tribal name at Mari.”[11]          

In the 1950 edition of “The Archaeology of Palestine,” one gets the feel of the impact of these tablets by noting the following: “Dossin and Jean are editing the thousands of tablets from Mari; every new publication of theirs helps us better to understand the life and times of the Hebrew Patriarchs.  Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob no longer seem isolated figures, much less reflections of later Israelite history; they now appear as true children of their age, bearing the same names, moving about over the same territory, visiting the same towns (especially Harran and Nahor), practicing the same customs as their contemporaries.”[12]          

References:

1. Josh McDowell, (1993). Evidence that demands a verdict (vol.2), p.70. Thomas Nelson, Inc.

2. A.H. Sayce, (1904). Monument Facts and Higher Critical Fancies, p.35

3. W.F. Albright, (1960). The Archaeology of Palestine, p.187

4. William Albright, (21 Jun 1968). “Archaeological Discoveries and the Scriptures.” Christianity Today (vol.12), p.3-4

5. A.H. Sayce, (1904). Monument Facts and Higher Critical Fancies, p.38-39

6. S.H. Horn, (21 Jun 1968). “Recent Illumination of the Old Testament.” Christianity Today (vol.12), p.14

7. Gleason Archer Jr. (1974). A Survey of Old Testament Introduction, p.157

8. W.F. Albright, (1960). The Archaeology of Palestine, p.132

9. Josh McDowell, (1993). Evidence that demands a verdict (vol.2), p.73-74. Thomas Nelson, Inc.

10. W.F. Albright, (1940). From the Stone Age to Christianity, p.197

11. William F. Albright, (1952). “The Bible After Twenty Years of Archaeology.” Religion in Life (vol.21), p.537-550

12. W.F. Albright, (1960). The Archaeology of Palestine, p.236