Thursday, September 19, 2024

*** This is a rough transcript of today’s show ***

 

It is the 19th of September 2024. Welcome to the Christian History Almanac, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org; I’m Dan van Voorhis.

It is Thursday, I am flying back home, and if all goes to plan, you will get a weekend edition… I am not flying American, so there’s a good shot I’ll be on time.

AND, I take a break from my mailbag spree to give you the story of one of the biggest names in Biblical Archaeology- William F. Albright, who died at the age of 80 on this, the 19th of September in 1971.

His name is synonymous with the field he almost singlehandedly created: the search for evidence that confirms our knowledge of the Bible and presses us to understand Judaism and Christianity in their historical context.

He was born to missionary parents in Chile in 1891. Being a white protestant kid in a Catholic city and not being able to play sports on account of his eyesight, he was bullied. Back in the States, he would have his left hand mangled in a farming accident; it would be almost useless for the rest of his life. But he had an academic career in mind from a young age. At the age of 10, in 1901, he saved five dollars worth of pennies (quite the sum), and his parents let him buy the Two Volume “History of Babylonia and Assyria” by R.W. Rogers, the most comprehensive book on the subject at the time.

He is also said to have remarked as a young man:  “I am neither man nor woman. I am neither brute nor human—I’m a scholar!”

He would earn a scholarship to attend the Johns Hopkins University- he would string together fellowships and continue his studies until he earned his PhD in Archaeology and Linguistics. He was drafted towards the end of World War I and spent time in “limited service” on account of his hand.

He would move to Jerusalem and study at the the American School of Oriental Research, he would soon become- at 29 years old- the director of research where he excavated biblical sites and would eventually create a typology for categorizing pottery shards.

He returned to Johns Hopkins, where he was the W.W. Spence Professor of Semitic Languages. According to this obituary in the New York Times, he was “A former president of the International Organization of Old Testament Scholars, Dr. Albright had also headed the Society of Biblical Literature and Exegesis, the American Oriental Society and the Palestine Oriental Society. He received more than 20 honorary degrees from American and foreign universities.” 

Of note he also had some 800 publications, contributed in some way to over 1,000 publications and was fluent in at least 25 dead languages from the classical era and the Ancient Near East. His most famous book is arguably his 1940 From the Stone Age to Christianity: Monotheism and the Historical Process.

He was a fascinating character who baffled some theologians because he seemed neither conservative nor progressive in his views. He famously disliked the “Documentary Thesis” (the JDEP stuff you may have heard about- if not, don’t worry about it, or look it up).

He claimed that all of the New Testament was written by baptized Jews between 45 and 70 AD. An interview with Christianity Today in 1963 revealed his ‘eclectic’ theology as a committed Protestant in the Methodist tradition but with great reverence for both Judaism and the Catholic Church.

While “Biblical Archaeology” is a dated term, it is a field created and dominated by Albright. The American School of Archaeological Research, where he was director, is today the W.F. Albright Institute for Archaeological Research.

He came to popular prominence in the 1940s with the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls- he was so conversant in the ancient languages and scripts that assessing the Scrolls as authentic settled the question- even among some skeptics. His ability to recognize, verify, and date was famously recalled after his death in 1971- he had long questioned the dating of a famous Bronze Age note from a Mesopotamian king. Twenty years after his death, it was discovered that against virtually every scholar of the region, he was right. A contemporary remarked, "One cannot but envy an intellect so experienced that it could just sense the unlikely.”

A Christian scholar, and institution himself, the tree of 20th-century biblical Archeologists has Albright as the common denominator. We know what we know about the Holy Land in large part because of the man who died on this day 53 years ago- William Foxwell Albright- the Dean of Biblical Archeology.

 

The last word for today is from the daily lectionary, and it has us starting the Psalms- hear from Psalm 1:

Blessed is the one
    who does not walk in step with the wicked

or stand in the way that sinners take

    or sit in the company of mockers,

but whose delight is in the law of the Lord,

    and who meditates on his law day and night.

That person is like a tree planted by streams of water,

    which yields its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither—

    whatever they do prospers.

Not so the wicked!

    They are like chaff

    that the wind blows away.

Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,

    nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.

For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous,

    but the way of the wicked leads to destruction.

  

This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 19th of September 2024, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org.

The show is produced by a man who knows something about chaff- the messiest part of roasting coffee! He is Christopher Gillespie.

The show is written and read by a man who is hopefully home now, and come November, I’m going to sleep for a week. I’m Dan van Voorhis.

You can catch us here every day- and remember that the rumors of grace, forgiveness, and the redemption of all things are true…. Everything is going to be ok.