The Thinkers: The Bible and history of Israel shape a life

Pittsburgh Post Gazette: The Thinkers: The Bible and history of Israel shape a life

… It seems fitting, then, that Dr. Tappy's most famous discovery as a biblical archaeologist is a 38-pound limestone rock inscribed with a 2,900-year-old alphabet.

The stone was found two years ago at Tel Zayit in Israel, a dig about 25 miles southwest of Jerusalem. Using distinctive pottery and carbon dating of the soil levels above it, the stone was firmly traced to the 10th century B.C., the time when the biblical King Solomon was supposed to have lived.

The discovery was described by some experts as the most important find in biblical archaeology in the last 10 years.

One reason for the buzz was that the stone suggests the earliest Hebrew Scriptures could have been written down in that era — hundreds of years earlier than many scholars had believed.

For Dr. Tappy, the alphabet stone also suggests not only that King Solomon was a real historical figure, but that he did in fact have a growing kingdom at the time, because Tel Zayit sits on the border of Solomon's Judah and the kingdom of Philistia, where the Philistines lived.

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The discovery of the stone has become one more piece of evidence in the vigorous and sometimes vitriolic debate among archaeologists over when the stories in the Bible were first written down and how historically accurate they are.

Most biblical scholars agree that the earliest Scriptures were not written down until many centuries after the eras associated with the patriarchs, the exodus and the occupation of Canaan.

But they are sharply divided over when that writing occurred and how much of the Old Testament may be based on real historical events.

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Dr. Tappy puts himself among traditional archaeologists who believe that many scriptural tales are based on real historic events and places, but have been embellished or reshaped to serve a theological purpose.

The goal of the biblical writers, he said he believes, "is to explain history in the light of who God is and what God wants, so ultimately it's a theological work we have here."

"When the writers use historical details, that detail is not the point for them; the point is: What is God's nature, and what is our nature?"

Archaeology, he added, "can comment on the historical details scattered throughout the biblical texts, but it is less capable of confirming the meaning of those texts."