What Do Old, Dirty, Broken Pieces Of Pottery Have To Do With The Bible?Excerpt:
Robbing tombs is illegal. Most of the “museum pieces” found in Israel are rather homely and plain. Yes, you will dig up hundreds of potsherds if you do an excavation (along with bones, metal objects, and perhaps glass, among other things). And if you find “anything good,” you will not get to take it home.
See Also: Insights from Archaeology (Reading the Bible in the Twenty-First Century: Insights) (Fortress Press, 2017).
By David A. Fiensy
Dean, Graduate School
Kentucky Christian University
April 2017
Yet archaeology can be exciting if the excitement is about the people whose lives we come to know through the remains. If you expect to see your picture in the New York Times standing with a serious and scholarly expression on your face, surrounded by smiling “locals,” while you modestly point toward your sensational discovery under the screaming headlines: “HOW I FOUND THE ARK OF THE COVENANT!”—you may want to explore another career or at least another venue for your career. That will almost never happen in Israel.Yes, anything like this almost never happens.
This recent post begins with some thoughts related to the topic of this essay.