Wisdom-Trek / Creating a LegacyWelcome to Day 1321 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.I am Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to WisdomMastering the Bible – Excavations and Timelines – Worldview WednesdayWisdom - the final frontier to true knowledge. Welcome to Wisdom-Trek! Where our mission is to create a legacy of wisdom, to seek out discernment and insights, to boldly grow where few have chosen to grow before. Hello, my friend, I am Guthrie Chamberlain, your captain on our journey to increase Wisdom and Create a Living Legacy. Thank you for joining us today as we explore wisdom on our 2nd millennium of podcasts. This is Day 1321 of our Trek, and it is Worldview Wednesday. Creating a Biblical Worldview is important to have a proper perspective on today’s current events. To establish a Biblical Worldview, it is required that you also have a proper understanding of God and His Word. Our focus for the next several months on Worldview Wednesday is Mastering the Bible, through a series of brief insights. These insights are extracted from a book of the same title from one of today’s most prominent Hebrew Scholars, Dr. Micheal S. Heiser. This book is a collection of insights designed to help you understand the Bible better. When we let the Bible be what it is, we can understand it as the original readers did, and as its writers intended. Each week we will explore two insights.


Mastering The Bible – Excavations and TimelinesInsight Thirty-Seven: Most of the Cities and Towns Mentioned in the Bible Have Not Been ExcavatedIf you asked someone where the events of the Bible took place, chances are you’d get an answer like “Israel” or “the Holy Land.” That's, of course, true, but the statement is imprecise and, to a significant extent, quite incomplete.


There are hundreds of sites mentioned in the Bible that are connected to events in the biblical saga. Some are the setting for just one event, while others are crucial focus points for many episodes in the history of Israel or the work of Jesus and the apostles.


Only a small percentage of the places mentioned in the Bible have been excavated by archaeologists. Archaeology regularly yields information that illumines the biblical world and the stories we read in Scripture. The fact that many sites in Israel have not yet been excavated, or even discovered, is important for Bible students in several respects.


First, the circumstances of biblical events are often framed by their location. Biblical places often have a long history (positive or negative), and that history creates the backdrop for why a biblical writer may have included it in the story. By way of a more modern example, Robert E. Lee’s refusal to accept President Lincoln’s offer of command over the Army of the Potomac is comprehensible when we learn Lee was from Virginia. Lee was no apologist for slavery. Given the proximity of the army offered to him to his home state, Lee could not bear the thought of invading his home state and killing fellow Virginians. Lee’s personal attachment to the geography of the situation prompted his decision. In terms of the Bible, when sites cannot be located or go unexcavated, some details of Bible interpretation remain unclear. Archaeology becomes a hermeneutical aid.Second, excavation of sites often helps clear up a Bible difficulty or perceived error in the biblical text. The history of biblical scholarship has numerous examples of how archaeology clears up an apparent dilemma or lends credibility to biblical details. For example, an inscription discovered at the Tel Dan discovered in 1993 contains what most scholars regard as a verifiable reference to the “house of David.” Seals (small pieces of pressed clay) bearing the names of biblical kings serve to validate their existence.


Archaeological work in Israel is a work in progress. When hostile critics attack the Bible on the flawed presumption that all the data that could...