A hundred years ago, the Bible was viewed by most scholars as authoritative history – even by people who were skeptical of its spiritual merits. That view has changed.
As we noted in the previous column, any archaeologist or other scholar who says anything positive about the Bible is immediately branded an unsophisticated religious nut.
Should that be the case? How does the historical record in the Bible stack up against other histories? What exactly are these other historical records that scholars rely on?