Strata: In Their Own Words

The following was taken from a 2006 lecture delivered by Dr. William H.C. Propp at the University of California, San Diego, at a conference celebrating the appointment of Thomas E. Levy to the Norma Kershaw Endowed Chair in the Archaeology of Ancient Israel and Neighboring Lands:

What of Biblical scholars and Biblical archaeologists? We dedicate our lives to the minute study of ancient texts and ancient artifacts. Why? We say that we pursue the past for its own sake, but we plainly pursue it for our own sake.

Archaeologists dig trench after trench to learn all they can from the Ancients; textual scholars read the Bible over and over, hoping to find something new in its worn-out pages. Is this ancestor worship?

To me it seems inescapable that Biblical archaeology and all other antiquarian pursuits reflect a sociobiological imperative to consult the Shades ... If we cannot learn useful things from the dead, what do we expect to gain when we dig into the earth? When we dig into a text?

The scientific study of the past satisfies our innate cravings to commune with the ancestors and to transcend time, all the while answering the call of Western Civilization to know more and more, to understand better and better.

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