Archaeology and the Bible — what has been found

Most of us will never stand on an excavation site in Israel, Jordan or Iraq. But the things found there matter to every Christian, because the Bible does not present itself as a book of timeless ideas. It names kings, governors, cities and tunnels. It says these things happened in particular places, under particular rulers. That is a claim that can, in part, be checked.

This article walks through some of the most important finds, explains why they matter, and is honest about the questions that remain open. If you have read Did Jesus really exist?, you will have met a few of the New Testament finds already; here we widen the lens.

How archaeology works, in two minutes

Ancient towns were usually rebuilt on top of their own ruins. Over centuries this produces a mound of layers called a tel (you see the word in place names such as Tel Aviv and Tel Dan). Archaeologists dig down through the layers, and the deeper they go, the older the material.

They date what they find mainly by pottery styles, which changed over time much as clothing fashions do, and by methods such as radiocarbon dating of seeds and wood.

The most valuable discoveries are inscriptions — writing on stone, clay or pottery — because they name names. A broken wall can be argued about for decades. A stone that says "Pontius Pilate, prefect of Judea" is harder to argue with.

Finds from the Old Testament

The Tel Dan stele — "the House of David"

In 1993 and 1994, at Tel Dan in northern Israel, excavators found pieces of a stone monument written in Aramaic in the ninth century BC. Most scholars think it was set up by Hazael, king of Aram-Damascus. The king boasts of killing a king of Israel and a king of the "House of David".

This matters because in the 1990s a group of scholars had argued that David was a legend invented centuries later. Here, about 150 years after David's reign, an enemy king refers to Judah's royal family by David's name. A few scholars proposed other readings of the words at first, but the great majority now accept the reading "House of David".

The Mesha Stele — Moab's side of the story

Found in 1868 at Dhiban in modern Jordan, this black stone records how Mesha, king of Moab, threw off the rule of Israel around 840 BC. It names Omri, king of Israel, and it mentions Israel's God by name — YHWH — one of the earliest known mentions of that name outside the Bible.

2 Kings 3:4-27 tells the same revolt from Israel's side. The two accounts do not agree on everything, which is exactly what you would expect from two nations each telling its own story. What they agree on is that the people, the kingdoms and the war were real.

Hezekiah's tunnel and the Siloam inscription

When Assyria threatened Jerusalem around 701 BC, King Hezekiah protected the city's water supply. The Bible says he "made the pool and the conduit and brought water into the city" (2 Kings 20:20; see also 2 Chronicles 32:30).

That tunnel still exists. It runs about 530 metres through solid rock under the City of David, and visitors can wade through it today. In 1880 an inscription was found carved into its wall near the exit, recording the moment two teams digging from opposite ends broke through to each other:

And on the day of the breakthrough the stonecutters struck, each man towards his fellow, axe against axe. And the water flowed from the spring to the pool, twelve hundred cubits.— The Siloam inscription (translation)

In 2015, archaeologists working near the Temple Mount also announced the discovery of a small clay seal impression reading, in Hebrew, "belonging to Hezekiah son of Ahaz, king of Judah" — perhaps pressed by the king's own seal.

The Lachish reliefs and letters

Lachish was Judah's second city. In the 1840s, digging at the Assyrian capital Nineveh, Austen Henry Layard uncovered a series of wall carvings from King Sennacherib's palace showing the siege and capture of Lachish — battering rams, archers, and families of Judah being led away. They are now in the British Museum. 2 Kings 18:13-14 records the same campaign.

Sennacherib's own annals boast that he shut Hezekiah up in Jerusalem "like a bird in a cage". Notice what he does not claim: that he took Jerusalem. That fits the biblical account, which says the city was spared (2 Kings 19:35-36).

Over a century later, Babylon came. In 1935, in the ruins of Lachish's gate, excavators found letters written in ink on broken pottery by an officer in the field. One says, in effect, that they are watching for the fire signals of Lachish, because they can no longer see Azekah. Compare Jeremiah 34:7, written in the same crisis: Lachish and Azekah were the last fortified cities of Judah still standing.

The Cyrus Cylinder

Found at Babylon in 1879, this clay cylinder records the policy of Cyrus the Great of Persia after he conquered Babylon in 539 BC: he returned displaced peoples to their homelands and restored their sanctuaries.

It does not mention the Jews by name, and it should not be presented as if it did. But it shows that the decree in Ezra 1:1-4, allowing the Jews to go home and rebuild the temple, fits exactly the policy Cyrus announced for his empire.

Finds from the New Testament

The Pilate Stone and the Caiaphas ossuary

In 1961 at Caesarea, on the coast of Israel, Italian archaeologists found a limestone block reused in a later building. Its Latin inscription names "Pontius Pilatus, prefect of Judea". It confirms not only that Pilate existed but his exact title — prefect, the title used for governors of Judea in his day.

In 1990, workmen building a park in Jerusalem broke into a first-century family tomb. Inside was an ornate ossuary, a stone box for bones, inscribed "Joseph son of Caiaphas". The Jewish historian Josephus tells us the high priest's full name was Joseph Caiaphas. Most scholars accept that this was his family's tomb, though a minority have questioned it.

The two men who handed Jesus over to death and ordered his execution are both now known from stone.

The pools of Siloam and Bethesda

John's Gospel names two pools in Jerusalem. Jesus sends a blind man to wash in the Pool of Siloam (John 9:7), and he heals a lame man at the Pool of Bethesda, which John says had five covered porches (John 5:2).

Some critics treated these as symbolic inventions. Excavations near the Church of St Anne, from the late nineteenth century onwards, uncovered two large pools separated by a central dividing wall — a layout that fits John's five porticoes well, with colonnades on four sides and one across the middle. In 2004, workers repairing a sewer pipe in Jerusalem hit the steps of the New Testament-era Pool of Siloam.

The Erastus inscription

In Romans 16:23, Paul sends greetings from Corinth on behalf of "Erastus, the city treasurer". In 1929, excavators at Corinth found a paving stone with a Latin inscription saying that Erastus laid the pavement at his own expense in return for being made aedile, a city official.

Is it the same man? Many scholars think so, or think it likely. Others point out that the titles are not obviously identical and that the pavement may be later than Paul. It is a good example of a find that is suggestive rather than decisive, and it should be presented that way.

The Gallio inscription at Delphi

Acts 18:12 says Paul was brought before Gallio, proconsul of Achaia (southern Greece). At Delphi, archaeologists found fragments of a letter from Emperor Claudius mentioning Gallio as proconsul. Because Claudius' letter can be dated, it places Gallio's year in office around AD 51–52.

This single stone is one of the anchors of New Testament dating. It lets historians date Paul's stay in Corinth, and from there much of the rest of his life, with unusual confidence. It is also a quiet testimony to Luke's accuracy: he gives a minor official the right title at the right time.

Where the debate is still open

An honest article has to say this part clearly. There are periods of biblical history where the archaeological evidence is thin or disputed, and serious scholars — including believing ones — disagree.

The patriarchs

No inscription names Abraham, Isaac or Jacob. That should not surprise us: they were herdsmen moving with their flocks, not kings who carved monuments. Scholars such as Kenneth Kitchen argue that the names, customs and price of slaves in Genesis fit the second millennium BC; others argue the stories were written much later and reflect later conditions. The evidence here is indirect, and it is fair to say so.

The exodus

There is no Egyptian record of Israel's escape from Egypt. Christians hold different views on its date. An early date around 1446 BC is based on 1 Kings 6:1. A later date in the 1200s BC draws on Exodus 1:11, which names the store city Raamses, built in that period. Some sceptical scholars think the exodus never happened at all, or involved only a small group.

What can be said: Semitic peoples are well attested living in Egypt's Nile Delta in the second millennium BC, and the Merneptah Stele of c. 1208 BC shows a people called Israel already established in Canaan. And it is not surprising that a defeat would go unrecorded by Egypt, or that people living in tents in the desert left little behind.

The conquest of Canaan

The debate over Jericho is described in the objections below. The site of Ai is also disputed, partly because it is not certain which mound is biblical Ai. At Hazor, by contrast, a great city was burned in roughly the thirteenth century BC, and its excavator Amnon Ben-Tor has argued that the Israelites were responsible.

It also helps to read the Bible carefully. Joshua and Judges themselves describe a gradual, partial settlement, not an overnight takeover. Joshua 11:13 says Israel burned only Hazor among the northern cities, and Judges 1 lists many towns the Israelites did not take. A conquest of that kind would leave far fewer burn layers than people often expect.

What archaeology can and cannot do

Think of archaeology like a court case where most of the documents have been burned. What survives is precious, but it is a tiny fraction of what once existed. Only a small proportion of known biblical sites have been excavated at all, and those that have are rarely dug completely.

So archaeology can do three things well:

• It can confirm that people, places and events named in the Bible were real.
• It can illuminate the text, showing us what a house in Capernaum looked like or how a Roman crucifixion was carried out.
• It can correct our own interpretations — sometimes it is not the Bible but our reading of it that needs adjusting.

What it cannot do is prove that God spoke to Abraham, that the Red Sea parted because God parted it, or that Jesus rose from the dead. Those are questions of testimony and of meaning, and they are answered by other kinds of evidence — the kind looked at in The evidence for the resurrection.

The fair summary is this: where the Bible can be checked against the ground, it has repeatedly proved to be rooted in real history, and it has a far better record than its critics once predicted. Where the evidence is silent or disputed, we should say so without panic.

Jesus said that if his followers were silenced, "the very stones would cry out" (Luke 19:40). He was not talking about archaeology. But it is hard not to smile at how often, over the last two centuries, the stones have spoken.