Elisha's House? Part 1

Watch this video:

http://www.cbn.com/tv/2560098274001

I have an interest in Tel Rehov. I dug there in 2008. Furthermore, those people that you saw digging at Rehov in the video were my colleagues. In this video, CBN, the Christian Broadcasting Network, put this video together and I must admit…this makes me squirm. Why? This video simultaneously gives an erroneous impression of what archaeology is for biblical studies and paints Dr. Amihai Mazar is an unfortunate light.

Lets unpack this.

When the video opens, the narrator gives a line about Tel Rehov and then immediately states that the excavators might have found the house of Elisha. Now, the key words here are “might have found.” On the one hand, we have to give credit where credit is due. The narrator does state that there is an element of uncertainty with the identification. On the other hand, the rest of the video does its best to make you forget about the opening statement of caution. By the time the short video ends, the producers have done their best to give the impression that 1) this is Elisha’s house and 2) archaeology is a great avenue to “prove the Bible.”

After the opening statements, Dr. Mazar, who has been the lead excavator at Rehov, is interviewed. The focus of his statements falls upon a unique building that was excavated, and in that building an ostracon (or a potsherd with writing) was discovered. Mazar’s commentary gives way to the narrator, walking through the site amidst the bulk-walls, who states that on that potsherd was the name “Elisha.” It has been dated to the 9^th century.

Now here is where the video begins to be dicey. The narrator immediately states that this find has “lead some to believe, this was the room of Elisha.” Note, the narrator makes a definitive statement. Mazar then returns to the screen to say that 1) the potsherd was broken, and 2) the name had to be reconstructed. The narrator returns to give a snippet of information on Elisha as a person, but Mazar soon follows and says, very clearly, “I cannot say for sure that this particular Elisha (reference on the ostracon) is the Biblical Elisha…but it is very tempting…” Apparently, the phrase “…but it is very tempting…” is all the producers of the video needed. The remainder of the short video is devoted to presenting this possibility as a high probability…if not certainty. The producers accomplish this is by calling the evidence “compelling” and incorporating snippets from Steven Pfann, Cary Summers, and the Nimshi inscriptions. This is a bit shocking on the producer’s part to say the least.

Nevertheless, the most aggravating thing about this video is the producer’s understanding of archaeology as a discipline that is impressed upon the audience. Consider the final sequences of the video.

·         Narrator: “Many archaeologists shy away from drawing conclusions about the Bible, but some see it as a way of putting the pieces together.”

·         Dr. Mazar: “Archaeology is like a huge puzzle. We add information from one excavation to another…together we bring it into a large picture, a large puzzle, trying to decipher the material culture of the Israelite.”

·         Cary Summers: “It (Tel Rehov) is like any other archaeological site, in essence, every scoop of dirt proves the Bible one scoop at a time.”  

By giving the final word to Cary Summers, the producers effectively tip their hands. In their minds, archaeology is a tool to “prove” the Bible. This is misguided. Archaeology certainly can prove elements of the Bible, but the discipline should not be utilized merely for those purposes.

Archaeology seeks to study the “stuff” of past societies in order to reconstruct the ancient life of those societies. It concerns itself with every aspect of those cultures, from government, to the cult, to agriculture, to animal husbandry, and beyond. As for biblical archaeology, it is archaeology that has implications for understanding the Bible. Biblical Archaeology studies the societies of Syria-Palestine from the Bronze Ages through the Greco-Roman period so that we can understand better the daily life of Israel and their neighbors, their values, their points of emphases, the reasons why they wrote they way they did, their governmental and societal structures, and their economy. These revelations often illuminate text by shedding on the socio-historical issues “behind” the text. In other words, the benefits for biblical studies are usually indirect.

Again, archaeology can prove aspects of the Bible’s witness (i.e. the Tel Dan Inscription), but it should not be its focus. Its focus, as Mazar said in the video, is “trying to decipher the material culture of Israel.” Did you hear it? “…the material culture of Israel.” So yes, I feel the producers manipulated Dr. Mazar’s comments through their editing.

The Church needs scholars who are methodologically sound and who can communicate issues of archaeology and biblical studies to a lay audience. Unfortunately, videos such as these only hinder this goal. Trust me. I would love to see this be the prophet Elisha’s house. I just don’t think the evidence is there to even raise the possibility that this installation at Rehov was the prophet's house. In fact, this brings me to another reason why this video makes me squirm. That ostracon that they found with the name “Elisha” written on it…I found it. Yep. I was the one who pulled it from the bucket, washed it off, and showed it to my buddy when I realize that there was writing on it. More importantly, I do not agree with Dr. Mazar’s reading. That will be the topic for my next post…