THE OLD TESTAMENT CANON: Resources for Study

 ARTICLES

*Josephus: Historical Evidence Of The Old Testament Canon. Here is an excellent short article on the clearest evidence that we have for the extent of the Old Testament during the time of Jesus and the apostles. Josephus was a Jew and was from a wealthy priestly family. This article gives two important quotes from Josephus: one tells us of the extent of the Old Testament and the other tells us how firmly it was established that no one dared add or subtract from it. Josephus is our earliest and clearest evidence for these issues.

VIDEOS

*How we got the OT Canon: Evidence for the Bible pt11 by Mike Winger (50 minutes)

*How was the Old Testament canon formed? (8 minutes)

BOOKS

*The Old Testament Canon of the New Testament Church and Its Background in Early Judaism by Roger Beckwith. The standard book on this subject.

*The Canon of Scripture by F.F. Bruce (1988). Covers both the Old and New Testament canons. 

HISTORICAL RELIABILITY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT: Resources for Study

Atheist historian Will Durant on the Old Tes:tament

"The discoveries here summarized have restored considerable credit to those chapters of Genesis that record the early traditions of the Jews. In its outlines, and barring supernatural incidents, the story of the Jews as unfolded in the Old Testament has stood the test of criticism and archaeology; every year adds corroboration from documents, monuments, or excavations.... We must accept the Biblical account provisionally until it is disproved."

Durant, Will. Our Oriental Heritage, 1963, MJF Books; p. 300

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Below are resources on the historical reliability of the Old Testament. I have tried to divide them into the various historical periods covered by the Old Testament:

GENERAL (Resources Covering the Whole Old Testament)

*Audio: "Reliability of the Old Testament Documents" (61 minutes) by Peter Gentry
*Essay/Book Chapter: "Reversals of Old Testament Criticism" by N.H. Ridderbos. FREE!
*Article: "Modern Old Testament Study" by Peter J. Williams
*Article: "Is the History of the Old Testament Accurate?" by Meredith G. Kline
*Article: "Bibliographic Test for the Old Testament" by James M. Rochford
*Book: On the Reliability of the Old Testament by K.A. Kitchen
*Book: Evidence That Demands A Verdict (2017 edition), Part III: "Evidence for the Old Testament" by Josh McDowell and Sean McDowell.
*Book: In Defense of the Bible by Terry L. Wilder and Steven B. Cowan, editors. I highly recommend this book. Top experts cover the spectrum of issues for both the Old and the New Testaments.
*Book: The Old Testament Documents: Are They Reliable and Relevant? by Walter C. Kaiser, Jr.
*Book: A Survey of Old Testament Introduction by Gleason Archer
*Book: Old Testament Introduction: General and Special, by John Howard Raven (New York: Revell, 1906). "Consists mostly of conservative response to liberal criticism of the Old Testament books." FREE!
*Book: Historical Evidences of the Truth of the Scripture Records (1860?) by George Rawlinson. Download it for FREE! here.
*Books: Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament by Keil and Delitszch (KD). Available for FREE many places but this link will take you to the STEP Bible (which is FREE online and also to be downloaded). This is an old work but still one of the best. And they soundly answered many of the questions skeptics continue to ask today.
*Study Bible: Apologetics Study Bible published by Holman
*Book: A Scientific Investigation Of The Old Testament (1926) by Robert Dick Wilson. FREE! From a review of the book: "First, some words about the author. Robert Dick Wilson (February 4, 1856 – October 11, 1930) was an American linguist and Presbyterian scholar who made major contributions in verifying the reliability of the Hebrew Bible. In his quest to determine the accuracy of the original manuscripts, Wilson eventually learned 45 languages, including Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, as well as all the languages into which the Scriptures had been translated up to 600 AD. About the book: Whoever wants to know what a true scientific approach to the Old Testament study reveals, should read this book. It examines the arguments of the "Higher Criticism" about the authorship and the dating of these documents (especially the Pentateuch) in the light of the text itself, the Hebrew grammar, the vocabulary, the analogy in the documents of the nations that surrounded the Hebrews and other factors. The book contains some irrefutable arguments,which establish the trustworthiness and the historicity of the Old Testament documents,beyond any doubt.I believe it is a must read for everybody who is looking to find the truth about the book that describes itself as "The Word of God". (Bear in mind that it is a difficult book to read, since it is not a popularized scientific work)"

*Web Page: "Historicity of the Old Testament" at Theopedia
*Archaeological Confirmation of the Old Testament: Resources for Study: Much more here! :)

GENESIS (Creation to the Patriarchs)
*Essays: "Who Wrote the First Five Books of the Bible?": "A collection of extracts from writings of Edward Young, Merrill Unger, William Green, Gleason Archer, and Oswald Allis. FREE!
*Blunt's Undesigned Coincidences and Paley's Horae Paulinae (1874). FREE!. The two most important books on undesigned coincidences currently available. See "Part I: The Veracity of the Books of Moses" (pages 1-109).
*Book: Essays on the Patriarchal Narratives. Alan R. Millard and Donald J. Wiseman, editors. 223 pages available to read for FREE online.
*Article: "The Tablet Theory of Genesis Authorship" by Curt Sewell
*Article: "Getting Over a Hump: Does the Lack of Camel Bones Disprove the Historicity of the Biblical Patriarchs?" by Ted Wright
*Article: "Is the Story of Joseph in the Bible a True Story?" by  Charles F. Aling
*Articles: "Joseph in Egypt" (a 6-part series at Associates for Biblical Research). Part II. Part III. Part IV. Part V. Part VI.
*Books: Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament by Keil and Delitszch (KD). Available for FREE many places but this link will take you to the STEP Bible (which is FREE online and also to be downloaded). This is an old work but still one of the best. And they soundly answered many of the questions skeptics continue to ask today. If you are looking for answers related to a specific passage of Scripture, you are likely to find a solid answer here.
*Articles: Dozens of articles on the period of the Genesis Flood available at Associates for Biblical Research
*Archaeological Confirmation of the Old Testament: Resources for Study: Much more here! :)

EXODUS TO DEUTERONOMY (The Exodus & Wilderness Wandering)
*Video: "Patterns of Evidence: Exodus." (119 minutes) An excellent documentary on the evidence for the book of Exodus. Also available on Netflix streaming video.
*Blunt's Undesigned Coincidences and Paley's Horae Paulinae (1874). FREE!. The two most important books on undesigned coincidences currently available. See "Part I: The Veracity of the Books of Moses" (pages 1-109).
*Book: Israel in Egypt: The Evidence for the Authenticity of the Exodus Tradition by James K. Hoffmeier
*Book: Ancient Israel in Sinai: The Evidence for the Authenticity of the Wilderness Tradition by James K. Hoffmeier
*Essays: "Who Wrote the First Five Books of the Bible?": "A collection of extracts from writings of Edward Young, Merrill Unger, William Green, Gleason Archer, and Oswald Allis. FREE!
*Articles: Dozens of articles on the Patriarchal Period available at Associates for Biblical Research
*Books: Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament by Keil and Delitszch (KD). Available for FREE many places but this link will take you to the STEP Bible (which is FREE online and also to be downloaded). This is an old work but still one of the best. And they soundly answered many of the questions skeptics continue to ask today. If you are looking for answers related to a specific passage of Scripture, you are likely to find a solid answer here.
*Articles: Dozens of articles on the Exodus from Egypt available at Associates for Biblical Research
*Archaeological Confirmation of the Old Testament: Resources for Study: Much more here! :)

JOSHUA (The Conquest of Canaan)
*Blunt's Undesigned Coincidences and Paley's Horae Paulinae (1874). FREE!. The two most important books on undesigned coincidences currently available. See "Part II: The Veracity of the Historical Scriptures": Sections I-IV (pages 110-123).
*Books: Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament by Keil and Delitszch (KD). Available for FREE many places but this link will take you to the STEP Bible (which is FREE online and also to be downloaded). This is an old work but still one of the best. And they soundly answered many of the questions skeptics continue to ask today. If you are looking for answers related to a specific passage of Scripture, you are likely to find a solid answer here.
*Articles: Dozens of articles on the Conquest of Canaan available at Associates for Biblical Research
*Archaeological Confirmation of the Old Testament: Resources for Study: Much more here! :)

JUDGES & RUTH (The Period of the Judges)
*Videos: "Judges: Forgotten History" (7-part video series) by Bryant Wood of Associates for Biblical Research (6 to 11 minutes each)
*Blunt's Undesigned Coincidences and Paley's Horae Paulinae (1874). FREE!. The two most important books on undesigned coincidences currently available. See "Part II: The Veracity of the Historical Scriptures": Sections I-IV (pages 109-123).
*Books: Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament by Keil and Delitszch (KD). Available for FREE many places but this link will take you to the STEP Bible (which is FREE online and also to be downloaded). This is an old work but still one of the best. And they soundly answered many of the questions skeptics continue to ask today. If you are looking for answers related to a specific passage of Scripture, you are likely to find a solid answer here.
*Articles: Dozens of articles on the period of Israel's judges available at Associates for Biblical Research
*Archaeological Confirmation of the Old Testament: Resources for Study: Much more here! :)

1 SAMUEL TO 2 CHRONICLES, THE PROPHETS & PSALMS (The Period of the Kings)
*Article: "Evidence for Inerrancy from an Unexpected Source: OT Chronology" by Rodger C. Young
*Books: The Mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew Kings by Edwin R. Thiele. A summarized version of this book: A Chronology of the Hebrew Kings.
*Blunt's Undesigned Coincidences and Paley's Horae Paulinae (1874). FREE!. The two most important books on undesigned coincidences currently available. See "Part II: The Veracity of the Historical Scriptures": Sections V-XXVIII (pages 123-219) and "Part III: The Veracity of the Prophetical Scriptures" (pages 220-253).
*Books: Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament by Keil and Delitszch (KD). Available for FREE many places but this link will take you to the STEP Bible (which is FREE online and also to be downloaded). This is an old work but still one of the best. And they soundly answered many of the questions skeptics continue to ask today. If you are looking for answers related to a specific passage of Scripture, you are likely to find a solid answer here.
*Article: "Does Archaeology Prove Chronicles Sources?" by Robert North
*Articles: Dozens of articles on the United Monarchy available at Associates for Biblical Research
*Archaeological Confirmation of the Old Testament: Resources for Study: Much more here! :)

NEHEMIAH, ESTHER & THE PROPHETS (The Period of Exile)
*Article: "2,500 Year Old Evidence of Jewish Life in Babylonian Exile Found" at Rose Publishing blog
*Article: "Judah in Exile"
*Books: Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament by Keil and Delitszch (KD). Available for FREE many places but this link will take you to the STEP Bible (which is FREE online and also to be downloaded). This is an old work but still one of the best. And they soundly answered many of the questions skeptics continue to ask today. If you are looking for answers related to a specific passage of Scripture, you are likely to find a solid answer here.
*Archaeological Confirmation of the Old Testament: Resources for Study: Much more here! :)



STILL LOOKING?....
*Much more at Archaeological Confirmation of the Old Testament: Resources for Study....
OR Archaeological Confirmation of the New Testament: Resources for Study....
OR New Testament Reliability: Resources for Study
OR Contradictions in the Bible?....Interpreting Scripture: Resources for Study

"Moses Smashing the Tablets of the Law" (1659) by Rembrandt

Image Source: Wikimedia Commons

ARCHAEOLOGICAL CONFIRMATION OF THE OLD TESTAMENT: Resources for Study

There is a mountain or archaeological evidence confirming the historicity of the Old Testament. Here are some resources for beginning to explore it.

My Class: "Digging Up The Old Testament":
*MP3 Audio (45 minutes)
*PowerPoint Slideshow: When you click on this link, you will note the option at the top to "Open with Google Slides" or you may open with MS PowerPoint or OpenOffice Impress (which is free).
*Class Handout
*I recommend opening the audio and using the PowerPoint Slideshow as you listen (and/or the handout).

*ROBERT DICK WILSON (1856-1930). Wilson was an Old Testament scholar and defender of the text and historicity of the Old Testament. He was an incredibly gifted linguist who knew 45 languages (26 related to the study of the Old Testament). Check out this 4-minute video about Wilson by Josh McDowell. A brief biography and bibliography at Wikipedia. A 16-page biography by Brian Nicks in The Master's Seminary Journal. A complete chronological bibliography of Wilson's works at the website of the Presbyterian Church in America Historical Center. Wilson's best known work: A Scientific Investigation of the Old Testament, which can be found FREE here.

*The entire 16-week course may be found here: "HOW TO HAVE CONFIDENCE IN CHRIST THAT CHANGES THE WORLD (Apologetics 101: A Cumulative Case)"


VIDEOS
*"Does archaeology support the bible? // Social Church // Q&A with Ted Wright" (3 1/2 minutes)
"Patterns of Evidence: Exodus" (119 minutes) An excellent documentary on the evidence for the book of Exodus. Also available on Netflix streaming video.
*"The Exodus In Light Of Recent Archaeological And Geological Work In North Sinai" (78 minutes). Lecture by James Hoffmeier. "The Israelite exodus from Egypt has been the subject of scholarly interest and investigation since the dawn of Egyptology two centuries ago. In this lecture, Hoffmeier reviews the background information from ancient Egypt and focuses on new geological and archaeological data from the work of the North Sinai Archaeological Project, which Hoffmeier directed. When the results of this exciting work are combined with other recent and ongoing excavations in North Sinai, a compelling picture emerges about the route of the exodus and the location of the Re(e)d Sea."
*"EP31: Is Mount Sinai in Saudi Arabia? w/ Bob Cornuke" on Cross Examined with Frank Turek (55 minutes)
*"Ekron of the Philistines: From Sea Peoples to Olive Oil Industrialists"(93 minutes). Lecture by Sy Gitin. "The excavations of Ekron radically changed the traditional perception of the Philistines, a tribe of the Sea Peoples who migrated from the Aegean in the 12th century BCE. They settled along the southern coast of modern day Israel, became the chief antagonists of ancient Israel, and after 200 years were assimilated into one of the major ethnic groups like the Canaanites, Israelites, or Phoenicians. The Ekron Excavations have produced dramatic new evidence documenting Philistine history for an additional 400 years until the destruction wrought by the campaign of the Neo-Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar in 604 BCE. It was in the last phase, during the 7th century, that Ekron achieved the zenith of its physical and economic growth, when it became the largest olive oil industrial center known in antiquity. Among the major finds of the period was the Ekron Royal Dedicatory Inscription, one of the three most important documents outside the Dead Sea Scrolls discovered in the 20th century in Israel. The excavations also provided an answer to one of the enigmatic questions involving the Philistines, why they eventually disappeared from the pages of history." (Description from Lanier Theological Library)
*The Archaeology of the Old Testament: A Conversation with Ted Wright (2 hours) at Apologetics Academy 


ONLINE ARTICLES (& Book Chapters)
*"Biblical Archaeology's Top Ten Discoveries of 2018" (At the left of the article you will see links to articles for the "Biblical Archaeology's Top Ten Discoveries" of 2014 to 2017.)
*"50 People in the Bible Confirmed Archaeologically" by Lawrence Mykytiuk for the Biblical Archaeology Society. Highly recommended. Dr. Mykytiuk has added two more names to this list in an update. He has written a book on this subject and has also done audio interviews and several other articles related to this subject that are available at his Academia page.
*"TOP 30 OLD TESTAMENT ARCHAEOLOGICAL FINDS" by my friend Ronald Cram
*"Convince Me There's A God - Archaeology": My friend Mark McGee has done a series of 29 articles on the archaeological confirmation of the Bible. It was this kind of archaeological evidence that God used to bring him from a "well-known, hard-core atheist talk show commentator" with a background in journalism to a place of faith and commitment to Christ. The title link above will take you to the first article in that series (where he also explains some of his own interesting story)...or you can go to the entire series (in reverse order) here.
*"21 greatest Old Testament Biblical Archaeology Discoveries Ever (2019)" by Jonathan & Elizabeth Krotov
*"Archaeologists In Israel Find Evidence That Proves Literal Truth Of Bible" by Ruth Gledhill (Christianity Today: September 28, 2016)
*"Researchers Reconstruct Early Version of Old Testament Text from Burned Scroll"
(Wall Street Journal: September 21, 2016): “We were immediately struck that the En-Gedi scroll is identical in all details to what we call the authoritative Jewish text in use today.”
*"King Hezekiah in the Bible: Royal Seal of Hezekiah Comes to Light" (Biblical Archaeology: December 2015)

*"Archaeology Proves the Bible Record" by Paul A. Hughes
*"Does Archaeology Prove Chronicles Sources?" by Robert North
*"Archaeological Confirmation of the Old Testament" by Donald J. Wiseman
*The Big Book of Christian Apologetics: An A to Z Guide by Norm Geisler. See the article "Archaeology, Old Testament."

BOOKS
*The Popular Handbook of Archaeology and the  Bible: Discoveries that Confirm the Reliability of Scripture by Joseph M. Holden, Norman Geisler, and Walter C. Kaiser, Jr.
*The Archaeological Study Bible by Walter C. Kaiser, Jr. and Duane Garrett.
*The Stones Cry Out by Randall Price
*On the Reliability of the Old Testament by K.A. Kitchen
*Israel in Egypt: The Evidence for the Authenticity of the Exodus Tradition by James K. Hoffmeier
*Ancient Israel in Sinai: The Evidence for the Authenticity of the Wilderness Tradition by James K. Hoffmeier
*Biblical Archaeology: An Introduction With Recent Discoveries That Support the Reliability of the Bible by David Elton Graves.
*Biblical Archaeology: Vol. 2: Famous Discoveries That Support the Reliability of the Bible by David Elton Graves.
 *The Kregel Pictorial Guide to Old Testament Archaeology by Alfred Hoerth
*Archaeology and the Bible (1917) by George A. Barton. FREE
*The Biblical Archaeology Society offers several FREE ebooks.

INTERNET RESOURCES FOR RESEARCH
*An extensive bibliography (with links, FREE pdf files, and more) hosted by "Theology on the Web" (organized by book of the Bible).
*Associates for Biblical Research: tons of resources here!
*Epic Archaeology: the website of Ted Wright
*Archaeology and the Bible: Nice Q & A format at ChristianAnswers.net
*BiblicalArchaeology.org.uk: lots of resources here
*"Biblical Archaeology" page at Theopedia
*"Archaeological Confirmations of Scripture": a web page of the Christian Apologetics Alliance
*Collection of links by Dr. Craig Evans for doing archaeological research.
*Articles on Archaeology at Apologetics Press.
*Open Access Archaeology: A search engine for searching open access archaeology journals.
*Biblical Archaeological Links nicely organized at Dig The Bible
*An alphabetical List of 1587 open access journals on the ancient world hosted at AWOL - The Ancient World Online
*Online Resources from Institute for the Study of the Ancient World. An amazing array of FREE resources including a digital library, 3000 free images, online coins of the Roman world, images for 50,000 papyri, an open-source map-making program and more!
*Wabash Center has an annotated list of 44 resources.
*Biblical scholar John Kloppenborg's collection of links on "Archaeology"
*BibleArch
*Guided Biblical Archaeology Tour of the Holy Lands at Dig the Bible


RELATED PAGES
*The Historical Reliability of the Old Testament
*Archaeological Confirmation of the New Testament


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The Egyptian Pyramids at Giza

Image Source: Institute for the Study of the Ancient World hosted at Flickr's Ancient World Image Bank