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From the earliest investigation to the more recent extensive excavations, archaeology has progressively and dramatically confirmed the biblical accounts.
by Rick Sherrod, Ph.D.
erhaps more than any other academic discipline, archaeology has enlarged our understanding of the historical record in the Bible. Archaeologists have found some of their most spectacular artifacts in the City of David, an area of 12 square miles in the southeast part of modern-day Jerusalem.
From the earliest investigation, conducted by American Edward Robinson in 1838, to the extensive excavation under the direction of Yigal Shiloh from 1978 to 1982, archaeology has progressively and dramatically confirmed the biblical account - from both Old and New Testaments.
The City of David itself contains only a limited amount of material from the actual Davidic period of Iron Age I and II. To date, diggers have unearthed no evidence of Solomon's Temple.
The archaeological record of Jerusalem in the late 11th and early 10th centuries B.C. is not nearly as prolific as we might wish it were. Indeed, one of the noteworthy products of excavation in Jerusalem, commonly called the Tower of David, excavated by archaeologist R.A.S. Macalister in the 1920s, bears a title that can easily mislead. Although the tower's name associates the structure with Israel's most famous monarch, in fact only the lower courses of the tower are from the Davidic period. Most of this fortified edifice dates to the Maccabean period of the 2nd century B.C.
Other archaeological work convincingly documents the history of the Bible. In particular, the grande dame of British biblical archaeology, Kathleen Kenyon, revealed an important archaeological feature from the time of David. In 1961 her excavation exposed a part of the Jebusite wall that surrounded Jerusalem when David took the city near the end of the 11th century B.C. (see 2 Samuel 5:6,7).
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