monarchy and the emergence of the modern state during the Reformation
period (Chapter 2), was threatened by a novel increase of civil power and by
the social upheavals resulting from nationalism—the late eighteenth-century
novel impulse in the creation of the modern state—and industrialization.
Religion was also aVected to a varying degree by the by-products of Enligh-
tened rationalism: negatively by atheism, agnosticism and secularism; and
positively by the growing importance of education and sociability in the
creation of novel religious institutions. The former did not aVect archaeology
directly, in the sense that we do not know of any atheist or agnostic under-
taking archaeological work to disprove the Bible; in fact the opposite seemed
to be the case. The positive outcomes of rationalism in religion are worth
exploring. In accordance with the growing importance of education and
sociability, the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries witnessed the founding
of societies and, in the Evangelical world, there were several revivals.
Among the newly founded religious societies one type would be important
for biblical archaeology, especially that of Palestine. These were the Mission-
ary societies, created as a way to evangelize the pagan peoples (as well as the
poor in Western societies) 2 that the imperial powers were encountering in
their expansion around the world, including Palestine and Lebanon, which
were mainly inhabited by non-Christians. Since the sixteenth century the
territory of Palestine had been under Ottoman control and relatively closed to
European inXuence. In theWrst half of the nineteenth century a few Christian
missions were allowed into the area. Their numbers grew during the second
half of the century, an expansion which was partly related to the increasing
number of pilgrims visiting the Holy Places. These mainly came from France,
Russia and Germany. In this period colonies formed by members of several
Christian sects also settled there. The missions to Palestine had an obvious
signiWcance for Christians. One of theWrst missions sent to Palestine was that
of the London Society for the Promotion of Christianity among the Jews, who
settled in Jerusalem in 1823. A German religious brotherhood, the Bruder-
haus, also formed a community in the same city in 1846 with the intention of
evangelization. The Russian Ecclesiastical Mission started in 1847 to oVer
Russian pilgrims spiritual supervision, provide assistance and sponsor char-
itable and educational work among the Arab population. Christian missions
were supplemented by those of Jewish groups mainly from the 1870s.
2 Missions were also established in the towns of the imperial powers, for it was believed that
the industrial poor would succeed in obtaining health, strength and wisdom only if theyWrmly
believed in the Gospel and its message of hope. Some of these missions were the British and
Foreign Bible Society (1804, to publish and disseminate the Bible), the Salvation Army (1865),
and the Faith Mission (1886), to which initiatives such as the creation of Sunday Schools (1780)
have to be linked (DitchWeld 1998).
Biblical Archaeology 133