questionable interpretations and illogical inferences. He argued that the date
of the Pentateuch depended
upon the internal evidence supplied by the Pentateuch itself respecting the elements of
which it is composed, and upon the relation which these elements bear to one
another, and to other parts of the Old Testament. The grounds on which the literary
analysis of the Pentateuch depends may, of course, be debated upon their own merits;
but archaeology has nothing to oppose them.
(Driver 1899 in Elliot 2003).Driver’s words were echoed by an American scholar, Francis Brown,
when he stated in an address given as President of the Society of Biblical
Literature that
One of the crudest mistakes in using Archaeology as a conservative ally is made when
it is employed to win a battle in literary criticism. It is not equipped for that kind of
Wghting. It has its proper place in the determination of historical facts, but a very
subordinate place, or none at all, in the determination of literary facts. To attempt to
prove by Archaeology that Moses wrote the Pentateuch, is simply grotesque. The
question is not whether Moses could write, it is whether he did write certain books
which there is strong internal and historical ground for holding he did not write; and
on this point Archaeology has nothing to say, nor is it likely she will have anything
to say.
(Moorey 1991: 40–1).Driver argued that, although archaeological discoveries had conWrmed the
existence of Israelite kings and Assyrian rulers, this did not prove the
accuracy of the Bible. Before Shishak’s invasion, nothing discovered by
archaeologists had supplied conWrmation of any single fact recorded in the
Old Testament. Archaeology had neither been able to verify that there had
been a person called Abraham as described in Genesis, nor prove the
existence of Joseph. Driver dismissed Sayce’s arguments one by one, often
adopting a contemptuous tone. He insisted that criticism did not go against
religious faith, or against the articles of Christian faith. The Old Testament
remained a text in which Christ’s arrival had been prophetically announced
and was a rich source of prophetic and spiritual lessons. In hisModern
Research as Illustrating the Biblepublished in 1909 he explained how arch-
aeological evidence could be interpreted in relation to the Old Testament.
Archaeology was able to provide data on the history and civilization of the
ancient Near East and the place of Israel within it. Years later, the American
scholar and main representative of biblical archaeology after the First World
War (what has been called the Golden Age of biblical archaeology), Albright,
praised this work as doing far more good in ‘warning students against the
Biblical Archaeology 163