Journal: Detroit Baptist Seminary Journal
Volume: DBSJ 26:1 (NA 2021)
Article: Book Reviews
Author: Anonymous

DBSJ 26 (2021) p. 131

Book Reviews

The Case for Biblical Archaeology: Uncovering the Historical Record of God’s Old Testament People, by John D. Currid. Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 2020. xviii + 263 pp. $29.99.

John Currid is Chancellor’s Professor of Old Testament at Reformed Theological Seminary. His nearly five decades of experience in archaeology have prepared him aptly to write this introduction to the art and science of excavating the biblical lands. This primer provides an engaging and informative synopsis of the history and geography of ancient Israel as well as an instructive overview of the techniques used by archaeologists to uncover and interpret the material remains of the past.

Following an introduction, the book comprises nineteen chapters in three major parts covering the historical context of archaeology, the geography of the land, and the various categories of archaeological discovery that have proved useful to historians and biblical interpreters. Each chapter concludes with a list of key terms, discussion questions, and sources for further reading. Included also are forty color photographs of various sites and finds, three maps of ancient regions and current archaeological sites, and three appendices. The appendices include a timeline of the ancient Near East, a timeline of the kings of Israel and Judah, and a chronological outline of the extrabiblical references to these kings. The book concludes with a helpful glossary of nearly sixty archaeological terms, a bibliography, and two indices covering Scriptural references and subjects/names.

In the introduction Currid outlines the role of archaeology as shedding light on the historical and material contexts of the biblical narratives. Presuppositionalist readers will appreciate his caveat that “the purpose of archaeology (and related fields) is not to prove the Bible” (3, emphasis mine), a welcome distinction from a few other books on archaeology published last year (e.g., J. Daniel Hays, A Christian’s Guide to Evidence for the Bible: 101 Proofs from History and Archaeology [Baker, 2020]; and to a lesser extent Titus Kennedy, Unearthing the Bible: 101 Archaeological Discoveries that Bring the Bible to Life [Harvest House, 2020]). Currid defines archaeology as the systematic study of material remains of the human past and explains its aim as the discovery, observation, preservation, and recording of the buried remains of the past in order to reconstruct ancient life (4–5). While the introduction provides a helpful overview, one deficiency is the lack of a clear purpose statement for the book itself. This lacuna points to one of the book’s shortcomings as discussed below.

Part 1 (“Setting”) surveys the geography of Palestine (chap. 2), the history of archaeology fro...