6 Biblical History Myths Debunked

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The Bible is an ancient book. The text tells stories of what happened thousands of years ago, and many of the most miraculous events that occurred happened with only a few witnesses. As such, it is no surprise to many of the faithful that there is somewhat limited physical evidence to back up the claims of the Bible. Biblical skeptics, however, love to pounce on stories that have limited hard, physical evidence as proof that the Bible is filled with nonsense. It is such attitudes that led many skeptical scholars to conclude that much of the Old Testament was little more than fantasy and legend. Joseph was not a real person. The Israelites were never led to freedom by a man named Moses. Jesus of Nazareth could not have been the person Christianity claims as there was no such place as Nazareth. Sadly, such ideas are often accepted more or less at face value. Unlike many ancient texts, the Bible itself is not considered to be enough evidence to suggest that wars may have happened or kings may have existed. Instead, anything in the Bible must be backed up by hard physical evidence to have even a remote chance of being accepted by secular academics. That does not mean, however, that there have not been myths that advances in archaeology have blown out of the water. Here are six biblical history myths that have been debunked.

“There is no evidence for the Exodus or the wanderings in the desert.”

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Exodus and Genesis are perhaps the two most popular targets in the Bible for biblical skeptics. There is, admittedly, limited physical evidence for the events that occurred so long ago. That does not mean, however, that the Exodus from Egypt did not occur.

When it comes to physical evidence of the wanderings of the ancient Israelites, skeptics love to point out that there is no evidence of the habitation of millions of people in the Sinai wilderness. This, of course, ignores two key points. First, ancient numbers are extremely unreliable. If every ancient king actually captured or killed the numbers of people they claimed, the population of the world two thousand years ago would have been of similar size to the modern population. Since that is almost certainly not true, it is safe to assume that most, if not all, ancient numbers were inflated. Second, a nomadic lifestyle leaves behind very little physical evidence. It is only recently that archaeologists were able to study the poorly preserved remains of nomadic peoples. Usually, the only signs of nomadic people are a few bits of shattered pottery or graves.

As for the timing of when the events of the Book of Exodus took place, Stephen Gabriel Rosenberg did an excellent job breaking down when those incredible events were most likely to have occurred. He listed three main identifiers for the time of Exodus: a large mudbrick project since the Israelite slaves were mudbrick workers, a period of turmoil in Egypt caused at least in part by the Plagues and the ability of the Israelites to acquire the materials for the portable Tabernacle. The date Rosenberg suggested was around 1330 B.C. Shortly before this date, Pharaoh Akhenaten ordered the construction of a mudbrick city dedicated solely to the worship of Aten. When Akhenaten died, Egypt was thrown into turmoil, and an ancient stele claims that the gods of Egypt threatened the new king, Tutankhamun, with terrible things if he did not begin worshiping them again. Hapi would make the Nile undrinkable; Kermit would release frogspawn to swarm over the land; Osiris would allow the locusts to consume the corn crops and Ra would keep the sun from shining. What a familiar series of threats!

In addition, Mohamed Abdel-Maqsoud, an archaeologist working in Egypt, noted that the destruction of Pharaoh’s army in the Red Sea is not recorded in Egyptian texts. That does not, he said, necessarily mean it did not happen. “A pharaoh drowned and a whole army was killed," he said. “This is a crisis for Egypt, and Egyptians do not document their crises."

“If Christ was crucified as a criminal, He would not have been given an honorable burial.”

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Crucifixion was a punishment reserved solely for serious offenses, low caste criminals and slaves. It was a slow, humiliating, public death, and crosses were specifically designed to keep those nailed upon them alive as long as possible. When the unfortunate souls did finally perish, their bodies were usually left to rot in the open air as a warning to any who saw them. In the event that the bodies were removed, the corpses would be thrown to the dogs or buried in a shallow, criminal’s grave. Christ, the Bible says, was instead laid whole in a tomb. Skeptics point out that this does not mesh at all with Roman records of how the bodies of crucified criminals were treated.

The excavation of a Jewish burial site, however, proves that crucified corpses were sometimes given back to family members for an honorable burial. An ossuary, or bone box, in a family tomb was dated to roughly a century before Christ’s birth and was found to contain a heel bone that had a seven inch nail lodged inside it. On the nail were fragments of olive wood. The man had died on a cross, but he had still been laid to rest with his family. There is no reason to assume Jesus’ body and family were not afforded the same respect.

“Nazareth did not exist until after the time of Christ.”

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Considering that “Jesus of Nazareth” has become academic shorthand for the study of the historical person of Jesus Christ, it is odd to think that skeptics once claimed that Nazareth was almost as mythical as Narnia. That is exactly, however, what skeptics once claimed. Nazareth was, of course, eventually uncovered, but the homes and artifacts uncovered at the site all dated to periods after Jesus’ death around A.D. 30.

The case for Nazareth’s non-existence during Christ’s life became shakier and shakier as graves dating to the time of Jesus were discovered in Nazareth. Then, in 2009, archaeologists blew the myth that Nazareth had not existed until after Jesus had died out of the proverbial water when they uncovered a house that dates to Jesus’ time in the heart of Nazareth. With homes for the living and tombs for the dead discovered that dated to Christ’s lifetime, there was no way that skeptics could continue to deny Nazareth’s existence.

“There is no indication that the flood in Genesis actually occurred.”

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The flood and the tale of Noah’s ark is perhaps one of the most commonly contested stories between the faithful and the skeptics. According to the evidence, however, both skeptics and the faithful are partially correct. Skeptics claim that there is no way that a flood could cover the entire earth without leaving serious evidence, not to mention that it would be more or less physically impossible to repopulate entire species based on either seven pairs or a single pair of animals. The inbreeding depression alone would have wiped out most organisms in a few generations. Evidence suggests that the skeptics are correct that there was not a single worldwide flood. The faithful, however, are not entirely wrong.

In Genesis, the word used for “world” is the Hebrew ’eretz. For modern readers, this brings to mind the idea of the word “world” meaning the same thing as “planet.” ‘Eretz, however, is also translated as earth, country, way and ground. For example, ‘Eretz Israel is still used today to describe the Promised Land and the modern State of Israel. As such, the flood that covered all the ‘eretz might well have been a localized catastrophe. The evidence suggests this was the case.

Columbia University scientists believe that the Black Sea was once a freshwater lake. It was flooded, however, by a massive surge of water from the Mediterranean Sea that carried a force 200 times that of Niagara Falls. The discovery of the Black Sea’s ancient shoreline, displaced sediments and even a 300 foot deep channel carved by moving water show that around 5,000 B.C. more than 150,000 square kilometers of farmland was rather abruptly buried underwater. Estimates claim that the wall of water would have moved inland at more than a mile a day and the roar of the flood would have been audible 100 miles away.

Survivors would also have taken their customs and languages with them, and around this period, new people and customs abruptly appeared in areas spanning from Egypt to the Himalayas to modern day Paris. They also took with them the tales of the flood, and the various flood narratives of the ancient Middle East, including those of the biblical Noah and Mesopotamian Atrahasis, developed in the aftermath. The few who might have survived in the area would have been trapped on hills or similar high points and would have seen nothing but water in every direction. As such, some people could well have thought that the entire world had suddenly been drowned.

“Joseph never advised the Pharaoh of Egypt.”

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Confirming the events of the Old Testament is noticeably more difficult than confirming the events in the New Testament. The Old Testament is much older, covers a much greater span of both time and space and lacked highly trained Roman officials with an obsessive focus on keeping good records. That does not mean, however, that there is no evidence for the events of the Old Testament. The tale of Joseph does not come under fire as often as other stories in Genesis, but it certainly takes its fair share of heat. The famine, for instance, has been difficult to pin down, though there was a canal dug between 1850 and 1650 B.C. that was so effective it still functions today. There is no record of the original builder, but for thousands of years it has been called Bahr Yusef, the Waterway of Joseph. This does not, however, keep skeptics from claiming that there is no evidence for Joseph’s existence.

While hard, physical evidence is difficult to come by, there are a number of different theories about the story of Joseph. Some people believe that the Israelites entered Egypt with or as part of the Hyksos people who invaded around 1720 B.C. when Egypt was struggling with internal political squabbling. The Hyksos were expelled from Egypt around 1560 B.C. Some people believe that the Israelites entered and left Egypt with the Hyksos, but others claim that the story does not fit with the tale of Joseph.

A second theory is that it was actually the king of the Hyksos who enslaved the Israelites, not the pharaoh of Egypt. Assuming that Joseph was as important to Egypt as the story claims, it makes sense that the king “who did not know Joseph” would be a foreigner. The Hyksos held territory in Egypt for around 200 years and were the first to introduce the horse drawn chariot into the area. The Hyksos, the theory states, enslaved the Israelites when Egypt was dealing with its own internal turmoil. An odd piece of evidence supporting this is actually, of all things, a grave robbery. A tomb from before the Hyksos invasion was found to have been robbed. This in and of itself is not unusual. Grave robbing was, and still is, a good source of black market goods. What is strange is what was stolen. The grave robbers took the actual body from the tomb. Some suggest, based on evidence including hieroglyphs and the Asiatic appearance of a broken statue, that the grave robbers were none but faithful Israelites who removed Joseph’s body to keep it safe from Hyksos who desecrated the tomb.

A third theory states that Joseph was actually advising a Hyksos king, not the Egyptian pharaoh, about the king’s dreams. When the Hyksos were expelled, the Egyptians saw the Israelites as allies of their enemies. The Egyptians enslaved the people as a result. Archaeology of Hyksos sites suggest that the Israelites were close allies or at least lived under Hyksos control. Artifacts uncovered in the area do not match Egyptian typology but that which is found in Israel.

“The enemy nations of the Old Testament were invented.”

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For some reason, skeptics have claimed that those who wrote the Old Testament were not content with inventing miracles or embellishing stories but that they invented entire peoples and cultures out of thin air. One of these supposedly imaginary peoples was the Hittites. Skeptics claimed that since no sign of a Hittite civilization had ever been uncovered, they never existed. This belief persisted for some time before it was rather abruptly blown out of the water. Excavations along the Euphrates River uncovered Hittite monuments, including the exquisitely carved Lion Gate and even the capital city of the ancient empire. Thousands of documents and cuneiform tablets were discovered that recorded Hittite culture, history and language. Studies of these artifacts and excavations of the sites showed that the Hittites were far from imaginary. Instead, they were formidable foes who, at one point, controlled an empire that stretched from modern-day Syria through Israel and into Turkey.