BIBLE HISTORY DAILY

In with the Old, Out with the New

Biblical Archaeology’s fixation on the Old Testament

Archaeologist William Foxwell Albright on site at Beersheba in 1953. Benno Rothenberg / Meitar Collection / National Library of Israel / The Pritzker Family National Photography Collection / CC BY 4.0

Since the inception of modern biblical archaeology in the early 20th century, it has been understood almost universally as the archaeology of the world of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) and biblical Israel. Even in more recent times, when some scholars eschew the term “biblical archaeology” in favor of less religiously charged designations like Syro-Palestinian archaeology or Levantine archaeology, the field is largely confined to the Bronze and Iron Ages and the much-debated questions surrounding issues like the arrival of the Israelites in Canaan or the historicity of the United Monarchy.

In contrast, the period of the New Testament, in which Jesus lived, is much less frequently a focus of the archaeology of this region—a somewhat surprising reality, given that the field of biblical archaeology arose in conjunction with the work of Christian scholars. Why such intense, even exclusive interest in the world of the Hebrew Bible? In the Spring 2025 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review, Jodi Magness explores this question in her column, “Why Is Biblical Archaeology So Focused on the Old Testament?”

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Central to Magness’s discussion are the two “fathers” of biblical archaeology, W.F. Albright and his student G.E. Wright. These towering and prolific figures laid the foundations of biblical archaeology during the first half of the 20th century. Magness writes that their fixation on the Hebrew Bible derived largely from the supersessionist sentiment, still prominent in some Protestant circles today, that Christians, not Jews, are the “true” Israel and the inheritors of the ethical and prophetic traditions found in the Hebrew canon, which, in their view, were fulfilled in the person of Jesus as recorded in the New Testament.

For Albright, the very definition of the term “biblical” prioritized “the religion of the Old Testament, of which the religion of the New Testament was only the extension and fulfillment” (The Archaeology of Palestine and the Bible, Revell, 1932). Indeed, Albright rejected the view of the late-19th-century German scholar Julius Wellhausen, who asserted, among other things, that the Pentateuch—the first five books of the Hebrew Bible—was composed and edited many centuries after the time of Moses, which it purports to narrate, and therefore carried little or no historical relevancy. In contrast, Albright marshalled archaeology as the primary means of overcoming Wellhausen’s view, arguing that it provided scientific, factual data that proved the historicity of the biblical narratives. He believed that the “ethical monotheism” inherited by Christianity began to take shape already in the time of the Patriarchs, not with the later Israelite prophets, as Wellhausen claimed.

Regarding Jesus in particular, Albright saw the life and teachings of this figure as the express fulfillment of Old Testament scripture. Indeed, he was convinced that Christianity had become the true heir of the moral and spiritual principles laid out in the Hebrew Bible, in contrast to what he perceived to be the hyper-legalism of Judaism during the time of Jesus. This distancing of “Jesus’s religion,” as he called it, from contemporary Judaism likely played a part in his tacit exclusion of the New Testament era from the field of biblical archaeology.

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From another point of view, such an exclusion was, for Albright, a matter of scale. The Hebrew Bible, he argued, spans many centuries and recounts events of national magnitude; meanwhile, the New Testament covers just a few decades and details events and discussions shared only by small groups of individuals. Such a view is evident in Albright’s fieldwork, which never directly engaged the world of the New Testament. Ultimately, the work he produced over the course of his lifetime was driven by his Christian theological concerns, which consequently have shaped the field of biblical archaeology ever since.

Albright’s legacy was carried on by his student G.E. Wright, who worked to demonstrate to Christians the relevance and reliability of the Hebrew Bible for the Christian faith. He saw in its accounts of God’s deliverance of Israel—which, he asserted, could be verified by archaeology—clear indications of election by grace, a central tenet of Presbyterianism. The implication of such a view was clear: Christians had become God’s elect. Indeed, Wright advanced Albright’s view of the New Testament with fervent dedication: It was the New Testament, not contemporary Judaism, that fulfilled and completed the Old Testament’s prophetic hope for salvation and made Christianity the new Israel.

Magness is careful to point out that she is not labeling all “biblical archaeologists” as Christian supersessionists. Instead, she attributes the relative absence of the New Testament period in the field of “biblical archaeology” to its roots in the supersessionist and triumphalist views of figures like Albright and Wright. And even regarding these two figures, she notes that she is not criticizing their Christian faith but rather seeks to reveal how their faith informed and shaped their research agendas and came to define the field of biblical archaeology as we know it today. She concludes with a call to move beyond this traditional framing of the field, perhaps by disposing of the term “biblical” (which, in any case, means different things to different people) and/or by expanding the boundaries of the field to encompass the archaeology of the New Testament and even later periods.

For more on the origins of biblical archaeology, read the column by Jodi Magness entitled “Why Is Biblical Archaeology So Focused on the Old Testament?” published in the Spring 2025 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review.

Subscribers: Read the full column, “Why Is Biblical Archaeology So Focused on the Old Testament?” by Jodi Magness, in the Spring 2025 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review.

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