Artifacts from Iron Age fortress confirmOld Testament dates of Edomite kingdom
“Canadian archeologist Russell Adams’s interest is in Bronze Age and Iron Age copper production. He never intended to walk into archeology’s vicious debate over the historical accuracy of the Old Testament — a conflict likened by one historian to a pack of feral canines at each other’s throats.
“Yet by coincidence, Prof. Adams of Hamilton’s McMaster University says, he and an international team of colleagues fit into place a significant piece of the puzzle of human history in the Middle East — unearthing information that points to the existence of the Bible’s vilified Kingdom of Edom at precisely the time the Bible says it existed, and contradicting widespread academic belief that it did not come into being until 200 years later.
“Their findings mean that those scholars convinced that the Hebrew Old Testament is at best a compendium of revisionist, fragmented history, mixed with folklore and theology, and at worst a piece of outright propaganda, likely will have to apply the brakes to their thinking.
“Because, if the little bit of the Old Testament’s narrative that Prof. Adams and his colleagues have looked at is true, other bits could be true as well…”
By MICHAEL VALPY
Tuesday, January 25, 2005 – Page A3globeandmail.com
Analysis:
It is not uncommon to hear of modernists who deny the inspiration of scripture. What is interesting is the basis of most claims that the Bible is inaccurate, and thus uninspired.
Most of the time, such modernists will claim that the Bible is inaccurate because modern archeology has not revealed evidence to show that what the Bible claims could possibly be true. Since there is no archeological record of Edom existing as a kingdom at that time, the Bible is wrong. It apparently never enters the mind of such modernists, (until such time as they are presented with the evidence), that maybe the evidence is there, but it hasn’t yet been uncovered!
A few years ago, modernists were denying that Moses could have written the first five books of the Bible, because writing had not yet been invented! Of course, it is now widely known that it had, and had progressed to the extent that Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch is recognized as possible.
The lesson for Bible believers is obvious. Just because man denies the authenticity of the biblical text is no reason for us to doubt the inspiration of the Bible. These men have an agenda. They wish to deny God and His word, and they are actively looking for other explanations than what is revealed by God.
