Why We Dig The Holy Land

If biblical archaeology is not reinvigorated, Scripture-illuminating evidence will remain buried in the Middle East.

Christians and Jews owe a lot to biblical archaeology. Over the past century, archaeologists have repeatedly confirmed and illuminated the historicity of the biblical record. Although, as Calvin taught us, we trust the Bible because of the inner witness of the Spirit, having physical evidence that confirms the historical context of God’s saving acts bolsters our faith.

But will biblical archaeology survive? An acerbic essay entitled “The Death of a Discipline,” published last month in the lively Biblical Archaeology Review, decries the trend in American universities to downgrade or eliminate programs in biblical and Middle East archaeology. According to the author, William Dever of the University of Arizona, the secular academic institutions that have been leaders in this field (Arizona, Chicago, UCLA, and Harvard, among others) have failed to keep their programs fully operational. In Dever’s case, his institution has decided to cancel their program. Likewise, writes Dever, religious schools have cut back their commitments to biblical archaeology. (Counter to Dever’s argument, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary has made a strong commitment to biblical archaeology and continues to educate specialists at the master’s level.) The picture Dever paints is bleak. Other archaeologists interviewed by CHRISTIANITY TODAY quickly noted Dever’s gift for hyperbole, but they joined him in sounding the alarm: the situation is indeed serious.

ALARUMS AND EXCAVATIONS

We urge evangelical Christian institutions to stand in the gap, to create academic programs and cooperate in field archaeology (“digs”) and to promote the importance of biblical archaeology in our churches. This is an expensive, but necessary undertaking.

It is necessary because biblical archaeology has not only enlightened our reading of Scripture (the recently discovered Tel-Dan inscription, for example, illuminates the character of David’s dynasty) but has often confirmed the Bible’s historicity.

It is necessary because, over the past 10 to 15 years, Middle Eastern archaeology has shifted from interpretation of the evidence in the light of the written records (including Scripture) to a bias against giving Scripture the benefit of the doubt. Dever himself bears responsibility for much of this secularization and has alienated the constituency most likely to cheer and financially support the archaeology of the Middle East: committed Jews and Christians. Believers must once again firmly grasp the task and conduct original research in a faith-friendly manner.

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It is necessary because our therapeutic culture has divorced Christian faith from its narrative and historical framework. The faith is often repackaged as a set of timeless insights about God and human nature. But Christianity, no matter how many insights it brings with it, is at its core about the life and death of the Messiah in ancient Palestine and about the covenant people into whose midst he was born. The discipline of archaeology helps to ground our faith in the concrete context of the times and places where God has acted.

It is necessary because, as the discipline shrinks, there are fewer places where archaeologists can study their specialty at the doctoral level. Without the cooperation of the broader evangelical community, no Christian college alone will be able to lift the load of a research-driven program. Thus the discipline may indeed become moribund.

TELL TALE

All of this will require ventures in faith and goodwill from donors and institutions. Christian institutions are not so well endowed as Chicago, Harvard, or Johns Hopkins. Therefore, consortiums, not individual colleges or seminaries, will have to work together without yielding to the temptations of turf wars. Dever mentions as an example of a successful consortium the Madaba Plains Project in Jordan, which has been operated for nearly 25 years by a group of Seventh-day Adventist schools.

Reinvigorating biblical archaeology also requires faith because archaeological field work is expensive, requiring much money and many willing workers. There is a role not only for institutions, but also for foundation support and private “deep-pocket” initiatives, such as the Scriptorium Project, currently excavating a fourth-century monastery in Egypt.

Despite the daunting costs and the complexity of the undertaking, we believe that there is enough interest among evangelicals to make new efforts worthwhile. Wheaton College (the only Christian college to offer an undergraduate major in biblical archaeology) has found that a little advertising has generated greater student interest in their program.

Evangelicals are committed to fostering a belief in the trustworthiness of Scripture. That requires both argument and evidence. And the evidence, buried in the tells of the Middle East, requires painstaking excavation and analysis. Who will provide the funds? Who will lead the way?

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By David Neff.

Doctors Under Oath

As the Oregon assisted-suicide law is contested in the courts and the “Kevorkian versus Michigan” legal marathon continues, we cannot forsake asking this critical question: What are physicians for?

Is medicine an industry, just another consumer-wants-satisfaction enterprise? In that case, doctors are technicians, and their customers can tell them precisely what to do. Or, is medicine something else? Maybe it is what we used to call a profession. A profession is a job, grounded on a professed moral vision, mutually accepted by its members, be they academics, lawyers, or whoever.

Americans still trust their doctors, generally speaking. But whether we are patients or physicians, we just cannot make up our minds: Do we want technicians who have a monopoly on key skills? Or do we want what we used to have—a vocation driven by moral vision?

Now is a good time to be reminded of the origins of the medical profession, because it started with these very questions. And unexpectedly, Hippocrates, the famous physician of antiquity, is in the news once again. Although almost nothing is known of his life and work, he gave birth to centuries of medical tradition in Western civilization.

Among recent developments, a group of distinguished doctors and ethicists, including some Christian leaders, have signed a modernized version of the famous oath. That may not be too much of a surprise, since Hippocrates was the father of all prolifers. On the twin life issues of abortion and euthanasia, he made the definitive statements: No, No.

More surprising has been the Russian Ministry of Health, which, in its search for a regrounding of medical values went back beyond the “Oath of a Soviet Physician” and decided to favor a rewrite of the Hippocratic original.

How are we to understand the mesmeric power of this ancient medical creed?

Medicine and morals: Try though we may, we cannot entirely escape the notion that medicine is indelibly inscribed with human values. The genius of Hippocrates, with his pagan vision of human dignity that so remarkably anticipated the Judeo-Christian vision of care for those who are made in the image of God, was to bind medical practice and moral commitments in a covenant of indissoluble marriage.

The Hippocratic what? Most people don’t realize that the most important single fact about the Hippocratic Oath is that it is an oath. Almost all of the post-Hippocratic alternatives, from the World Medical Association’s Declaration of Geneva on, are simply human statements of intent, declarations in two dimensions. The immense moral power of the oath arises from its setting human life and medical practice squarely in the presence of God.

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The sanctity of life: Hippocratic medicine treats human life as a gift from beyond human life, a covenant stewardship to be kept by patient and physician alike.

A manifesto for reform: The Hippocratic Oath has long been the basis of consensus medicine, but that was not how it started. It has been described as, originally, a manifesto for medical reform in a generation of generally immoral physicians. Hippocrates set out to do it otherwise, and eventually ousted the liberal establishment of his day.

RECAPTURING MORAL MEDICINE

How should Christians and Christian physicians assist the reinvigoration of a moral vision for medical care? First, let us put abortion in its place, as a symptom of a diseased medical culture. Already, the blight of euthanasia is on us; and as a community, pro-life Christians are woefully ill-prepared.

Second, let’s work for the reform of medicine, like the Hippocratics, by developing an alternative medicine held together by unshakable covenant commitment to the sanctity of life and to the good of the patient. Hippocrates founded a close-knit and interdependent community to challenge the dominant assumptions of the physicians and patients of his day.

Finally, Christians may serve as the conscience of a troubled profession, torn between its ancient moral calling and a technical reduction of skills-for-hire.

By Nigel M. de S. Cameron, author of The New Medicine: Life and Death After Hippocrates (Crossway), and professor of theology and culture at Trinity Evangical Divinity School.

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