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This view is associated with the name of Israel Finkelstein. Note his plenary talk at the annual meeting of the American Schools of Oriental Research in Nashville, November 2000, entitled “Archaeology and the Biblical Text 2000: The View from the Center.” And now see the coauthored volume: Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman, The Bible Unearthed (New York: Free Press, 2001), p. 14 and passim.
This approach originates with the Israeli scholar Yehezkel Kaufmann (The Religion of Israel, trans. Moshe Greenberg [Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1960], pp. 175–200), and is favored today by, among others, Jacob Milgrom (Leviticus 1–16, Anchor Bible 3 [Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1991], pp. 3–35).
Two inscriptions with images of fish carved on them from the Catacomb of Saint Sebastian in Rome may well date to c. 150 C.E., but their date and their Christian identity are not as certain as those of the Avercius inscription. The vast majority of attempts by historians, archaeologists, art historians and epigraphers to find archaeological evidence of Christianity from 40 to 165 C.E. have foundered for lack of critical evidence, though not for want of desire or effort.
