Question: 

I read someone on your website say archaeology has contradicted the Bible. I’m no expert an archaeology but it does seem that experts tend to disagree on dating and things of that nature, e.g., the dating of Jericho’s fall. is that where someone could make such an argument?

Answer:

Some go so far as to say that archaeology has proved the Bible to be full of fairy tales. Others say that there is no contradiction at all between archaeology and the Old Testament and that archaeology proves the Old Testament. I believe the truth is somewhere between the two extremes, but much closer to the second statement.

Bottom line, there exists thousands of details in the Old Testament which have not been confirmed by archaeology. We will not be able to prove the story of David and Goliath from archaeology. We can, however, confirm that David was a real person and that the Jews and Philistines lived in the right places at the right times described in the Bible.

The kinds of biblical "errors" which are mentioned are usually unresolved questions, rather than actual bona fide proved errors in the Bible. For example, the identity and existence of the character Darius the Mede in Daniel 11:1 is not confirmed. Some call this an error. I do not, but I will concede that we still do not know who this person was outside of the biblical evidence. Others point out that there is no evidence whatsoever that the Jews were ever in Egypt. This is almost, but not quite true. However, the Bible has the Jews as very poor, powerless slaves. It is not clear that there would be smoking gun evidence for the Hebrews in Egypt. This is not proof of an error in the Bible, but an unresolved question.

I like to put it this way. Archaeology has in general confirmed and supported the Bible, but it does not by itself prove the Bible. Although archaeology has raised some important questions about the biblical accounts, the great majority of supposed contradictions between the Bible, history and archaeology are either untrue or unresolved questions.

John Oakes