How Long Will This Last

Biblical archaeology is full of great items tied to the biblical narrative, which later turn out to be questionable or down right dubious. This week the Israeli Antiquity Authority made an announcement that I could easily see falling into the abyss through which circles the wall at Jericho and the Ivory Pomegranate.

They have uncovered a quarry dated through ceramics from the second temple period. I am alright with that, a quarry is a quarry, and I will follow the assumption that they have competent people working with the pottery.

However, what I am much more skeptical of is the pronouncement that the quarry was used to produce the Western Wall, simply because the stones match the smallest stones in the wall. This just seems to be too little evidence for such a direct claim, when the only thing really outstanding about the quarry as compared to others in the area is that the stones are larger than those found in most other sites.

So, to make sure my points are clear, I think that it’s possible that the quarry was used to produce stones for the Western Wall, but that without more evidence, the announcement was too soon and too absolute. This is a good example of the general quest in Biblical Archeology  to simply look for the bible and claim as much as possible is right from the text, which generally leads to hypothesis testing being ignored.