One of the most interesting Israeli archaeologists you could meet is Gabriel Barkay. His archaeological career spans the history of modern Israel. As a Jew born in the Hungarian ghetto, he was within a week of being sent to a Nazi death camp.
Instead, he survived the war and emigrated to the fledgling state of Israel at the age of six. Growing up in Jerusalem with an enthusiasm for archaeology, Barkay’s knowledge of the history of the city is second to none. He became a specialist in ancient burial practices and discovered many of the Biblical period tombs around Jerusalem. Barkay carried out an archaeological survey of the famous ‘Garden Tomb’ (dating it to the eighth or seventh century BC).
Barkay has also excavated at Lachish, Megiddo and even in Iran. He is a very humorous and sharp-witted Israeli, with a good reputation across scholarship. I interview him in my own Sifting the Evidence film on YouTube. At that time we spoke together at the remarkable Temple Mount Sifting Project where important debris (dumped by the Muslim authorities who administer the Temple area) is being sorted and preserved.
But there was one particular discovery made by Gabriel Barkay that had a dramatic impact on Biblical studies.
The Documentary Hypothesis
When I was studying in a university theology department in the 1990s it was standard practice to teach the Documentary Hypothesis. This theory includes an elaborate proposal that the Old Testament we have, particularly the Books of Moses (the Pentateuch), formed over a thousand-year period from various, often conflicting, traditions. The final form of the Pentateuch was dated as late as 400 BC – a millennium after the time of Moses.
The Documentary Hypothesis assumed that some traditions, like much of Deuteronomy, came from a very different pro-King source unlike other traditions, like much of Numbers, which came from a pro-Priest one. Only much later, after the exile, did Jewish scribes finally combine these sources into the Old Testament that we read today.
With 100 years of European scholarship behind it, I felt like a hillbilly questioning the Documentary Hypothesis. What no one brought attention to is that there is no archaeological evidence for the hypothesis. It is purely theory without a single scrap of manuscript to prove it.
On the other hand, a single discovery by Gabriel Barkay provided direct evidence against the theory.
The scrolls in the tomb
In 1979 he was cleaning an abandoned tomb at a place called Ketef Hinnom in Jerusalem. The tomb itself belonged to the first temple period (1000–586 BC) and had been looted in antiquity. Barkay was supervising a youth club who were cleaning up the tomb for photography when one of the young people found ancient pottery. Grave goods had been overlooked by the robbers, and among them were found two tiny, rolled up silver scrolls. It took three years to unroll them safely. Written in ancient Hebrew script were the words of the priestly blessing (Num. 6:24-26).
This was the earliest copy of a Biblical text ever found and had to date to before the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem in 587 BC. Alone, this was an amazing discovery – but more was to come.
In the 1990s, improving digital technology for photography enabled the scrolls to be scanned and read more closely. Another text was found, this time a close match to Deuteronomy 7:9: ‘The great God who keeps the covenant to His followers and keepers of His commandments.’ It had been impossible to read with the naked eye.
A nail in the coffin
These silver amulets recorded two distinct Biblical texts from different books of the Pentateuch. According to much 20th-century scholarship they represent two different sources (the Deuteronomist and the Priestly) that would not belong together for another 200 years. But the archaeological evidence showed that they could be quoted side by side in the First Temple Period. Barkay would call it ‘another nail in the coffin of the Documentary theory.’ Not only is there still no material evidence in favour of the Documentary Hypothesis but the archaeological record provides evidence against it.
Theories come and go, the Bible is subjected to endless critical scrutiny, and yet its reliability and authority continues to stand.
