Archeology and Religion

Archeology and Religion.

The religious system of the Old Testament embraces both literary and archeological material; both ancient documents and monuments. Biblical Archeology includes only so much of this material as bears upon sacred places, persons, feasts, vessels, and ritual. It does not discuss religious ideas, either in their origin or their development. It does not present a systematized religio-legal system, nor the relations of that system to civil processes. Neither does it discuss the relation of Israel's rites and ceremonies to those of surrounding nations. These themes, proper in modern scientific subdivisions of material touching the ancient Jews, fall under the head of religion or of comparative religion.

The soil of the Orient is the treasure-house of one of the two great sources of Biblical Archeology. Palestinian ruins at Jerusalem, at Lachish, at Gaza, at the Dead Sea, and in the tombs on the hillsides, are all instructive teachers concerning the life and times of the ancient Jews. Fragments of documents of this people and of their neighbors are replete with information bearing upon the Archeology of the Bible. The Moabite Stone, for the ninth pre-Christian century, and the Siloam Inscription are valuable evidences of the character of the writing and of some of the customs of those early days (see Alphabet). The numerous small inscriptions from Phenician sources tell a fascinating story of tragical times contemporaneous with Israel. From Palestinian ruins, likewise, come many voices of the later periods, as the scattered and broken Greek and Latin inscriptions are deciphered and interpreted. Coins also tell their tale of the past, often with gratifying precision.

Judaic, Archeology and Biblical

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