The Scientific Evidence - Bible Learning Center

Does Archaeology Confirm or Contradict Jesus’s Biographies?

Spiritual truths cannot be proved or disproved by archaeological discoveries.
If an ancient historian’s incidental details check out to be accurate time after time, this increases our confidence in other material that the historian wrote but that cannot be as readily cross-checked.

The general consensus of both liberal and conservative scholars is that Luke is very accurate as a historian.
One prominent archaeologist carefully examined Luke’s references to thirty-two countries, fifty-four cities, and nine islands, finding not a single mistake.

How could a the government possibly force all its citizens to return to their birthplace? Is there any archaeological evidence whatsoever that this kind of census ever took place?
Discovery of ancient census forms dated back to 104 and 48 AD confirm the practice of requiring families to return to the father’s birthplace.

Did the town of Nazareth exist during the time when the New Testament says Jesus spent his childhood there?
Archaeologists have found a list in Aramaic describing 24 families of priests who were relocated, and one of them was registered as having been moved to Nazareth.
In addition, there have been archaeological digs that have uncovered first-century tombs in the vicinity of Nazareth, which would establish the village’s limits because by Jewish law burials had to take place outside the town proper.
Such findings suggest that Nazareth existed in Jesus’ time, but there is no doubt that it was a very small and insignificant place.

The gospel of Matthew records that Herod the Great, the king of Judea, dispatched troops to murder all the children under the age of two in Bethlehem. The problem: there is no independent confirmation that this mass murder ever took place. Nothing from Josephus or other historians.
First, Bethlehem was probably no bigger than Nazareth, so how many babies of that age would there have been in a village of five or six hundred people? Not that many.
Second, Herod the Great was a blood-thirsty king. He killed members of his own family, and executed lots of people who he thought might challenge him. So the fact that he killed some babies in Bethlehem is not going to make big news in the Roman world.
Third, there was no television, radio, or newspapers. Word of this tragedy would have taken a long time to get out, especially from such a minor village way in the back hills of nowhere.

The Dead Sea Scrolls is a collection of hundreds of manuscripts dating from 250 BC to 68 AD that were found in caves twenty miles east of Jerusalem in 1947.
Jesus is not specifically mentioned in any of the scrolls. They primarily give insights into Jewish life and customs.
Manuscript 4Q521 contains a version of Isaiah 61 that includes the missing phrase “the dead are raised” which Jesus paraphrases when questioned by John the Baptists’ disciples. Jesus was not being ambiguous in his answer. John would have instantly recognized his words as a distinct claim that Jesus was the Messiah.

Archaeology’s repeated affirmation of the New Testament’s accuracy provides important corroboration for its reliability. This is in stark contrast with how archaeology has proved to be devastating for Mormonism.
No Book of Mormon cities have ever been located, no Book of Mormon person, place, nation, or name has ever been found, no Book of Mormon scriptures, no Book of Mormon inscriptions… nothing which demonstrates the Book of Mormon is anything other than myth or invention has ever been found.