The Bible in the British Museum : Interpreting the Evidence

by Terence C. Mitchell

The links between archaeology and the Bible have fascinated generations of archaeologists and biblical scholars who seek documentation of events narrated in the Bible. The British Museum's collections include numerous inscribed objects, scripts and pictorial reliefs which provide such evidence. There is, for example, a Babylonian clay tablet which records Nebuchadnezzar's siege of Jerusalem in 597 BC, as narrated in the book of Jeremiah. For this book the author has selected over seventy such 'documents', mainly from Western Asia, with some examples included from Greece, Egypt and Asia Minor, dating from the period of the Patriarchs to the New Testament times, c. 2000 BC to c. AD 100. He transliterates and translates the ancient texts, which include Cuneiform, Aramaic and Hebrew, and discusses the contribution they make to our knowledge of the culture and history of biblical times. Each object is illustrated in black and white.

Genres: History, Archaeology

136 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

Reviews

[Gabel Duke · Rating 4 out of 5]

I only give it 4 stars because I wish it was longer! I know the author knows there are more than 72 documents/artifacts related to the Bible. I did wonder at times if there were more appropriate things to include in his 72 items than things like repeated flood epics. One would suffice to get the point across.

That said, my copy of it is marked up and ready to use for in-person use. I look forward to going back and adding new notes based on future readings/experiences.

[Joseph Walliker · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fantastic book. A wonderful guide to the artefacts in the British Museum that relate to the Bible. I found my knowledge enriched, faith encouraged, and also surprised at the variety of exhibits that enrich our knowledge about Biblical times!

[Erik Graff · Rating 3 out of 5]

Picked up this little volume at the Amarynth in Evanston--the best little bookstore I know of in northern Cook County.

The study of the bible in college and seminary caused me to develop an ever-growing interest in textual transmission, not just of these scriptures, but of other ancient texts as well. This book illustrates some of the early sources, albeit often very limited, in terms of the holdings of the British Museum and a few other institutions. Each of the instances contains a picture (usually a single photo) and an explanation. An introduction provides some background.

An instance of transmission study of that of Gilgamesh. Although often cited as being 4000 or so years old the actual physical textual sources for the story date only to about the eighth century BCE. The rest, the backdating, is inference from the contents and from other, fragmentary sources. This is also true of the bible, none of the texts of which are 'original' in the sense of being authors' holographs. Instead, if we're lucky, we have lots of texts, more or less fragmentary, from the physical remains of which and from internal evidences we hypothesize a date of composition. For Aeschylus, all of Aeschylus, for instance, we have something like six holographs. For the Christian canon we have something like 15,000 (that's figuring even fragments--if only substantial sections are counted the total goes down to maybe 5000). Clearly, with so many variant scriptural texts the task of reconstruction of something approaching a 'true text', while arduous, becomes more hopeful. A single discovery in the Egyptian sands could radically revise our sense of Aeschylus. Nothing like this is likely for the substantially attested Christian scriptures.

[Clayton · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great guidebook showing key items from the British Museum and how the Bible links to the artifact.

[Christian K · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some dated descriptions of modern scholarly consensus. E.g authorship of letter to the Ephesians and dating of the Gospels.

[Donna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderful reference book with photos of great archaeological finds - even more impressive when you personally visit the British Musuem and see the Cyrus Cylinder, Rosetta Stone, and one display case that has four famous bible translations -one of which is the first edition of the King James Version printed in 1611. Book ahead a special tour through Meander Travel to bring bible history alive!