Best Biblical Archaeology Books for Exploring Evidence of the Past
I think it is a healthy thing to go digging for physical evidence of the reason for your faith.
Faith is a beautiful thing, but it should not be blind. Our faith should be built on evidence. For me, the very first evidence of a holy God was creation and sensing his presence.
As a small, four-year-old child, I had never been to church. Yet, there was something about the name and mention of God that always rang true for me. I immediately knew to look up at the sky when my neighbors said His name. Belief was instinctual for me. (You can read more about my story of faith here.)
I feel like it was a privilege to discover faith in God basically on my own. Many people struggle thinking, “Do I only believe this because it’s how I was raised?”
I don’t think how you are raised is the only reason why you believe whatever you believe. There’s so much more to it than most people realize.
From the time I was eleven years old and up, I took to reading the Bible for myself to learn what God’s word says. I needed to examine it for myself.
Then somewhere in adulthood, I wanted to know even more about the past of the Bible.
What evidence is there to go along with these stories? Are there other historical accounts that agree with the Bible? What else do we know? Are there artifacts?
Oh boy, are there ever artifacts!
The more I read about it and see it for myself, the more I enjoy Biblical Archaeology. It pains me so much that there is a war going on in Israel. I worry about Israel remaining a country, and I am concerned for all of the preserved places. War always destroys historical keepsakes, if you will. Plus, I hate that we are all too scared to go tour Israel now.
One of the easiest ways to read about archaeological evidence for the Bible is to order a few books on the topic.
Not all Bible history books are created equal, obviously. There are some I’ve learned much from but didn’t enjoy, and I gave those to Goodwill.
Today I’m going to share only five of my favorites with you.
These five are both informative and interesting. Each of these books has earned its spot on my bookshelves, and I guarantee you could learn a lot from them too. I cannot keep too many books in our home because we move so much, and books are heavy.
Let’s start with my number one pick.
#1. The Popular Handbook of Archaeology and the Bible by Joseph M. Holden and Norman Geisler
This book is the ultimate resource for learning about how the Bible was translated, preserved, documented, and evidenced. It is an exhaustive source for going into details on archaeological discoveries relating to the Bible.
I confess I have not read the entire book yet. It is so in depth and lengthy, and my attention span is like a butterfly. Instead, I use this one to look up any antiquity or event I’d like to learn more about. To me, it never seems like there’s enough information available on the topic of Biblical history online.
The Popular Handbook was published in 2013, over ten years ago. Therefore, it is missing all of the things discovered in that time gap, and you would not believe how many discoveries have been made just since 2013. For more recent discoveries, check out books number two and three on this list.
If you would like a book that will answer many of your questions about the Bible and what artifacts have been found, this is the one for you.
Here are a few topics covered well in this book:
- Reliability of Old Testament manuscripts
- The Dead Sea Scrolls
- How the New Testament came to be
- Reliability of the New Testament
- Archaeological Evidence of Old Testament Events such as the Flood, the Exodus from Egypt, and King David
- Old Testament People who were confirmed by archaeology, in graphs
- Non-Christian accounts of Jesus
- Archaeological evidence for Jesus
- The Temple Mount
- Finds relating to the New Testament
This is such an excellent resource to have on hand. If you teach any kind of Bible class or have any interest in learning more about the ancient past or how the Bible was written, I wholeheartedly recommend this book. You can buy it here from Amazon, or any book store with a solid religion section. When you purchase through affiliate links on my website, I do collect advertising fees from Amazon.
I am not a Walmart affiliate, but I believe you may be able to get it cheaper at Walmart.
#2. Where God Came Down by Joel Kramer
This book is newer, published in 2020, and I cannot say enough positive things about my experience reading this book.
First of all, Kramer is an archaeologist as well as a Christian preacher. He spent many years living and working in Israel.
Furthermore, Kramer routinely takes people on tours of the Holy Land. Those tours are probably on pause during the current war with Hamas. Don’t despair that you cannot take a trip to Israel though. Kramer has a YouTube channel where he uploads his tours of many historical places in Israel. There are enough videos on there to keep you busy for a while!
Here’s a sample of his YouTube channel/videos:
What makes this book so great:
-easy to read, conversational tone
-engaging, full color photos to go with each archaeological site discussed
-in depth look at important discoveries
Joel Kramer takes ten places, five from the Old Testament and five from the New Testament, and goes into deep details to what is relevant about each place.
A few topics covered in Where God Came Down:
- Abraham
- the Mountain of God
- Jacob’s altar
- Abraham’s burial site
- David’s palace
- Nazareth
- the nativity
- where Jesus was crucified and buried
Kramer focuses on the evidence and the story in each famous individual place and walks you through exactly how this site was preserved over time. He explains why each discovery and fact about the place and the people is significant.
If you are looking for a book where you can read in depth about Christianity’s most famous heroes and places and how we know they are true, this is the book for you.
You can find this book on Amazon. I was dismayed to find that Barnes and Noble does not sell it.
#3. Biblical Archaeology Review magazine
You can get this magazine in the mail or online. Even if you don’t subscribe to the magazine, many of their articles are free on their website.
I have been reading this magazine for years. My favorite article they ever ran was on why the dates for Christmas were chosen. As it turns out, those are not random dates or pagan holidays. You can find the article here.
The tone of this magazine is academic. Some of these articles will be immediately interesting to me, and some will not. However, it is a good way to stay up to date on recent findings. You can also learn about many opportunities to visit dig sites and listen to lectures on the topic of Biblical archaeology.
The magazine always runs articles on interesting artifacts and discoveries. It is a welcome surprise in my mailbox when it arrives.
Specific topics vary with each issue of the magazine. You can visit their website to learn more.
#4. Tried by Fire by William J. Bennett
This book was fascinating. It feels extremely rare to have the opportunity to learn about church history of those first one thousand years of Christianity.
I wrote a whole article about things I learned from this book a few years ago.
This book is thoroughly entertaining because so much of it I had never heard before at all.
Here are a few topics included in Tried by Fire:
- Persecution of the disciples
- before the church was under the authority of Rome
- Influence of early Christian women
- the Codex
- Egypt and the Great Persecution
- Constantine
- Council of Nicaea
- Monasticism
- Pope Leo I
- spread of Christianity
- East/West schism of the church
I highlighted and underlines so many pages of Tried by Fire.
There are so many stories in here that were completely new to me about early church customs and people. It filled so many gaps in my historical knowledge. In fact, I feel like I need to go back and read it again because it’s been a few years since I read it the first time.
You can find Tried by Fire on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
#5. Israel Then & Now by Thomas and M. Cartier
Paintings by S. Rotem, Photographs by z. Radovan, S. Rotem, and Y. Hirshfeld
If you would like a chance to see Israel, how it looks now, as well as how it looked in the past, this is the book for you.
Israel Then & Now is full of present day photos, with an overlay drawing of how each place looked in ancient times.
This is one example of how the book shows you each place and takes you back in time to that same place:
Each photo goes along with a summary of what is important about the places you see in the photos.
Here are few places you will learn about in this book:
- Temple-Mount in Jerusalem
- The Cardo
- Masada
- King Herod’s palace
- Tiberias
- the Galilee boat
- the synagogue of Capernaum
- the Roman Temple in Caesarea
- Meggido
My favorite section of this book is the story of the fishing boat discovered in the Sea of Galilee. It dates back to the exact time of Jesus.
Plus, I love how this book is full of full-color photos and illustrations. If this is the kind of book you enjoy, also be sure to check out the book I wrote about our trip to Israel, as it is also full of full color photos and stories about each place. However, my book does not have the benefit of the overlays of how the places looked in ancient times. That’s what makes Israel Then & Now so unique.
Israel Then & Now is a quick read. You could read it in one sitting and learn so much. You can buy it on Amazon.
I hope you’ve found at least one book in this list that sounds exciting to you.
If you’ve never read any books in this genre before, I would start with Joel Kramer’s Where God Came Down. The book is well written and easy to understand. Plus, the photos are so good, and it covers the ten places that it focuses on in great depth. In fact, it looks like he might make this into a series of books.
With God being taught in less and less places, many people are left not knowing what to believe in. So much doubt has been cast on the things of God. Most people do not realize how much of our beliefs is pure history, and not a matter of faith at all. It is a fact Jesus was a real person who lived two thousand years ago. What you believe about Jesus is where the faith comes in. I don’t think most people realize that.
Peter wrote in 2 Peter 1:16:
For we have not followed cunningly devised fables when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of His majesty.
2 Peter 1:16 KJV
I want to challenge you to look up some of these people and places, and you will be amazed at how much evidence there is to support the events reported in the Holy Bible.
These five books are all a solid start to learning about archaeological evidence to support the Bible.
Have you read a book about Bible Archaeology that was so good you’d like to share it with others?
Leave us the title and author of it in the comments section, so we can read it too! I’d be happy to answer any questions you have in the comments as well.
