Discoveries at Shiloh that back up the Bible: A conversation with archaeologist, Scott Stripling

Scott Stripling has been excavating sites related to Israel’s conquest and settlement period for almost three decades. Ran Silberman for ALL ISRAEL NEWS went to meet him at the end of a digging season at Shiloh to hear about the latest discoveries and developments.

The dig was cut short due to the situation with Iran, but Stripling was pleased with how much they had already accomplished.

“This season I had 135 volunteers who came with me even though they knew there was a war and there was the possibility of ending up in a situation like we are,” Stripling told AIN, “But we, in spite of all this, have had really a great dig season.” 

Now working out of their hotel, the team has been preparing all their latest archaeological finds for scientific analysis before exiting via Egypt.

“I thought the most sure route was to get us out through Egypt, kind of a reverse Exodus, if you want to look at it that way,” Stripling explained, saying he was proud of how his team had managed to operate from faith instead of fear during the crisis. 

“I think my faith has been enormously important to me over my career. It's not that I have a Bible in one hand and a trowel in the other, but I'm aware of the biblical text and we are excavating biblical sites. In a site like Shiloh, the Bible is our go-to source. And what we're finding in the text we also find in the material culture,” he said. 

Silberman asked Stripling about the growing culture of skepticism about the Bible in his field: “Starting from the early 20th century, archaeologists started to say the evidence is against the Bible. Why do you think this happened and is there a shift now?"

“I’ve heard that my entire career, and I'm certainly aware of what my colleagues' different views are,” Stripling told ALL ISRAEL NEWS. “What my goal has always been is to be dispassionate, to look at the evidence that we have. I study all the ancient literature from Egypt, from Ugarit, including the biblical texts, anything I could shed light on what we're excavating.” 

“My own experience excavating now for almost three decades here in the land of the Bible is that there's a great consistency between the archeological data and the biblical text,” he continued. “And I'm happy to engage in that arena of ideas. And I find that many times when we do that we're not as far apart as we might think.” 

“In the early 20th century it was still a field very much dominated by pro-Bible people but in the mid 20th century we begin to see a shift away and it’s certainly shifted the other direction now,” Stripling agreed. “For one, Israeli archaeologists are leading the field now. I mean, they have now trained their own specialists and they're into a third generation of archaeologists. And some of them share the worldview that I have and you would have, others don't. It's a very secular worldview. But that's the world that we live in.”

When asked to share some examples of discoveries that confirm the historicity of the Bible, Stripling referred to his work on the Exodus:

“Textually, there are five passages in the Bible that all point to the same time period. So we're talking to around 1400 B.C. as a period for the Exodus. Amenhotep II being the likely Pharaoh of the Exodus, Thutmose III being the Pharaoh of the oppression, and maybe Amenhotep III being the Pharaoh of the conquest. Do we find synchronisms in the archeological data that support that? We do. You can look, for example, at a very early existence of Israel in the Berlin pedestal, mentioning Israel as early as the 14th B.C., the solar pyroglyph in Egypt, also dating down to Amenhotep III around 1466 B.C., refers to the land of the 'Shassu' – the nomads of Yahweh. So in the 14th century, we already have a people living in another land who worship Yahweh as their God. Well, we know there's only one people group doing it at that time.” 

He added, “We have an abandonment at a site called Avaris in Egypt, which Manfred Bietak excavated, that had a Semitic population, and then an abandonment in the mid 15th century B.C.” Silberman explained. “The site is abandoned. Semites in Egypt? An abandonment? It sounds like the Exodus to me, Ron.”

“Right, and in your work in Shiloh? Do you find evidence for the people of Israel being there?” Silberman inquired.

“Yes, very much. So, the Bible mentions in Joshua 18:1 that Joshua erected the tabernacle at Shiloh. And so, the question is, is there evidence of that? First of all, you have to start with 1 Samuel 3, which indicates that a permanent building was built at Shiloh, not just a tent. It's called the Temple of the Lord and the House of the Lord, and [mentions] the Doors of the House of the Lord.” 

“In the Mishnah, it's mentioned in two places, in the Zevaim 146 and the Seder Olam 8, that a permanent building was built at Shiloh with a tent over the top. Now, we come along as archeologists starting back in 2017 and what do we find? But a building that matches the dimensions given in the Bible that's oriented east-west and it's divided on a 2:1 ratio and it has a lot of cultic material in it and a ‘favisa’ or a sacred bone deposit directly to the east of it. The Bible says there was a sacrificial system operating at Shiloh in the Late Bronze II, Iron I transitional period. That's exactly what we found.” 

“Now, can I prove to you that, you know, that's where Eli was, that's where Samuel was. I mean, I'm not gonna find a sign there that says, you know, Eli was here, but I have an ancient text, I have the archeological material that dates to that time period. I think that a fair-minded person would say that this synchronizes.” 

Stripling assured ALL ISRAEL NEWS, “I didn't need a confirmation to assure me that God was real or that the Bible was true. But it is very meaningful for me to engage in that arena of ideas, because there are a lot of voices out there that question the historicity of the Bible and so forth, and so I'm happy to engage in that arena, present the evidence that we have found, and for many people they find this extremely helpful for their faith.”