Archaeologist confirms creation and the Bible
Interview with archaeologist Dr Clifford Wilson … by Dr
Carl Wieland
by Carl Wieland
Q: Dr Wilson, what sort of experience do you have in the field of archaeology?
A: I started as a lecturer with the Australian Institute of Archaeology
more than 35 years I ago—I was with them for some time. Later I came back
as its director when I had certain other qualifications. I am not only recognized
in the field of archaeology, I am also a registered psychologist and a Fellow of
the Commercial Education Society of Australia—I have a number of different
hats!
Dr. Clifford Wilson has a considerable background in archaeology. He has a Bachelor
of Arts and a Master of Arts from Sydney University, a Bachelor of Divinity (which
was post-graduate, including Hebrew and Greek) from the Melbourne College of Divinity,
and a Master of Religious Education from Luther Rice Seminary. His Ph.D. is from
the University of South Carolina, and included ‘A’s for field work in
archaeology undertaken In association with Hebrew Union College in Jerusalem.
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I was an area supervisor at the excavation of Gezer in Israel with the American
Schools of Oriental Research. Later I was the associate director of the first dig
at TelNusieh, which is possibly the biblical site of Ai. I have visited sites in
nine Bible countries and have had the privilege of being taken seriously where I’ve
gone. I even excavated briefly at Nineveh (Kouyunjik)—that’s out of
Mosul—where I personally uncovered a little pathway between the palace of
King Sennacherib in Iraq and the temple, with an inscription stating that this pathway
was dedicated to the goddess Esagilla.
Q: What was your most interesting ‘hands-on’ experience?
A: I think it was at Gezer, where we excavated over a period of
quite a few days. All we were going through in one area was a whole lot of black
ash, and it was very discouraging. Professor Nelson Glueck—a very important
archaeologist who gave the world the idea of Solomon’s mines—suggested
that we ought to do more sieving. So we sieved, and we found evidences of a civilization
which had Egyptian and Canaanite artefacts with a Solomonic wall nearby. The team
found little god-figures and the like; I was in charge of that area. All the excavation
leaders were very excited because they realized the ash was from the time when the
Egyptians had burned the city of Gezer and then handed it over to Solomon as a wedding
present when he married the Pharaoh’s daughter.
Q: That was, of course, consistent with the Bible?
A: Very much so—the burning is referred to in 1 Kings 9:16.
I found it interesting at that time that here were some of the world’s leading
archaeologists—G. Ernest Wright of Harvard, for instance. They weren’t
so much pleased about proving the Bible, but rather that they had found something
in history they could now peg their hats on, as it were. What impressed me was that
the Bible was taken by them as an acceptable textbook, reliable in its historical
statements. They were very pleased that they had something that fitted into acceptable
history. And that history was in the Bible.
Q: Have you found in your researches in archaeology anything that has contradicted
the biblical account in a definite sense?
A: There have been plenty of claims that things contradict the
biblical account, but the Bible has a habit of being proved right after all. I will
remember one of the world’s leading archaeologists at Gezer rebuking a younger
archaeologist who was ‘rubbishing’ the Bible. He just quietly said,
‘Well, if I were you, I wouldn’t rubbish the Bible.’ When the
younger archaeologist asked ‘Why’?, he replied, ‘Well, it just
has a habit of proving to be right after all.’ And that’s where I stand.
Professor Nelson Glueck, who I suppose would be recognized as one of the top five
of the ‘greats’ in biblical archaeology, gave a marvellous lecture to
120 American students who were interacting with the Arabs. He sad, ‘I have
excavated for 30 years with a Bible in one hand and a trowel in the other, and in
matters of historical perspective, I have never yet found the Bible to be in error’.
Professor G. Ernest Wright, Professor of Old Testament and Semitic Studies at Harvard
University, gave a lecture at that same dig. He made the point that (because of
the researches associated with the Hittites and the findings of Professor George
Mendenhall concerning what arc called the Suzerainty Covenant Treaties between the
Hittite kings and their vassals) it had become clear that the records of Moses,
when dealing with covenants, must be dated back to the middle of the second millennium
BC. That’s about 1500 BC. Also, that those writings should be recognized as
a unity. In other words, they go back to one man. That one man could only be Moses.
I went to Professor Wright later and said, ‘Sir, this is very different from
what you’ve been putting out in your own writings.’ He looked at me
and said, ‘Clifford, for 30 years I’ve been teaching students coming
to Harvard to train for the Christian ministry; I’ve been telling them they
could forget Moses in the Pentateuch, but at least in these significant areas of
the covenant documents that are there in the Pentateuch, I’ve had to admit
that I was wrong.’
They were two scholastic giants. One says, ‘I’ve excavated for 30 years
and I’ve never found the Bible to be in error’—basically that’s
what he was saying. The other says, ‘For 30 years I’ve been wrong.’
It’s rather sad, isn’t it, that a good man such as Professor Wright
had been so swept along with the ridiculous documentary hypothesis* that he had
taken a wrong stand for so long. Let me stress that Professor Wright was a man of
the highest integrity.
Dr Wilson uncovered this brick at
Kouyunjik (Nineveh). It was part of a pavement, and declared that the nearby temple
was dedicated to the goddess Esagilla.
Q: Can you recall any other experience relevant to the authenticity of Genesis
in particular?
A: Yes. In the late 1970s soon after the excavation of Ebla in
North Syria (between Damascus and Aleppo), Italian archaeologist Professor Paulo
Matthea, and epigrapher (translator) Professor Pettinato, were making known to English-speaking
scholars their findings at Ebla. Their whole lecture tour was arranged by Professor
David Noel Freedman, the man who gave to the English-speaking world the information
about these fantastic new tablets which had been discovered. His picture was on
the front of TIME magazine.
I had the privilege of being invited to a dinner with about a dozen leading archaeologists
because I was in the area and so was invited by Professor David Noel Freedman.
After the meal, technical questions were being asked backwards and forwards, and
frankly I wasn’t too interested in some of them, because I am not a cuneiform
scholar. But I’d heard a rumour, and so after a while I said to Professor
Freedman as chairman, ‘Sir, I hear there is a new creation tablet that has
been found. Is that a fact’?’ He shrugged his shoulders, and said, ‘Ask
him’. I put my question to Professor Pettinato and, after some hesitation,
he indicated that the information shouldn’t be made public. So I made the
point, ‘If there is a new creation tablet you simply can’t hold it back;
it must he made known.’ After thinking about it he revealed that there was
indeed a new creation tablet.
I found it very interesting to hear those world-leading scholars discussing the
impact this would have on what is called the ‘documentary hypothesis’.
This basically says that the Old Testament documents are oral traditions, so that
only after the time of Solomon were the various strands brought together. They were
supposedly brought together at intervals of about a century, from the time of Solomon
up to Ezra who, ultimately, with his team of chroniclers, brought these things into
Scripture.
One of those scholars, as a result of this revelation of a new creation tablet that
was even earlier than Moses, declared ‘It looks like we’ve got to forget
the “P” document.’ Now the ‘P’ document is the ‘Priestly’
document that supposedly dates to the time of Ezra. The argument used to be that
the creation story did not come into the Pentateuch (the records of Moses) until
the time of Ezra—that Moses could not have had it. But in fact we not only
find that Moses could have had it but that it was known even earlier than the time
of Moses.
Q: That seems to raise a problem, because isn’t the first knowledge of
it heard in the Bible with Moses?
A: The answer is, ‘Yes’. But there is very good evidence
to suggest that the Genesis records were compiled by Moses from written records
on clay tablets. Donald Wiseman, formerly Professor of Archaeological and Semitic
Studies at London University, recently edited and revised a book put out by his
father P.J. Wiseman, back in 1948, called New Discoveries in Babylonia about Genesis.
It is now called Clues to Creation in Genesis. In it he acknowledges that
his father’s approach was basically correct, which is this: through Genesis
there is the regular use of a literary form called a colophon. It tells you that
this is where a particular tablet ends and then another one starts. In the Genesis
record this centres around the expression, ‘These are the generations of ’
… These records of early Genesis were presumably carried over the Fertile
Crescent by Abraham, and eventually they were used by Moses (centuries after Abraham)
under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit to compile what we have in Genesis.
Of course there never was such a thing as a ‘P’ document. We can just
accept the Genesis records as being what they claim to be—factual eye-witness
records. There is legitimate editing to make things understood to a later generation
(for instance, Genesis 14:3 talks about the Vale of Siddim and then it says, ‘which
is the Salt Sea’), but the basic text is there in writing right from the very
times of Genesis itself.
Q: Dr Wilson, we are often told that religion has evolved—that people
started off worshipping spirits, then there were lots of gods, then fewer gods,
and eventually came the idea of one true God. Can you tell us if this is confirmed
in the archaeological records of the civilizations with which you are familiar?
A: At the time just after the Flood, we find a record of three
gods— the god of the earth, the god of the sky, and the god of the waters.
And fairly soon after that you’ve got hundreds of gods in ancient records.
You start with the concept of monotheism (one God), leading up to polytheism (many
gods). It does not start with dozens of gods. And even at Ebla, although there are
some 500 gods there, there is also in ancient Canaan the concept of a ‘great
one’, Lugal, who was associated with creation. Later the word Lugal came to
mean king.
Q: So that would be consistent with what Paul tells us in Romans, that people
abandoned the worship of the one true God and turned to the worship of other things?
A: Absolutely. The specific reference to only three gods just after
the Flood may, in a vague way, be associated with the Trinity, because it does stem
that Satanic forces are prepared to offer a parody of spiritual realities. The Canaanites
had three main gods. They had El, the father, Baal, the son, and Asherah, the mother
who is the wife of El (and also the mother of Baal, according to some scholars).
There is some challenge as to the interrelationships, but you have three gods there.
So when the Israelites got away from Jehovah, they were offered the warship of the
Canaanites and their three gods without all the problems of bring a holy people
and so on. It seems to be a parody on the Trinity, which of course is not fully
revealed until New Testament times. But the demonic spirits have always known about
the Trinity.
Q: People raised on evolutionary thinking might find it hard to see how an archaeologist
who digs through the earth can possibly believe that the Bible can be right about
Genesis—which of course would imply that the earth is young. Have you ever
been involved in any other research or seen any other evidence which would lead
you to cast doubt upon the evolutionary geological system of dating?
A: Well, many years ago I was lecturing at a college in the United
States and declaring that the earth could be as old as you would like to have it—millions
or billions of years—and a student came to me and asked me to read some research
papers by Professor Tom Barnes. And that led me on a search. I even found myself
with the scientist who had done the investigation for Professor Barnes’ arguments
about the depletion of the earth’s magnetic field. This person was associated
with one of the biggest institutions in America. I asked him about his conclusions.
He said, ‘Well, it’s not a matter of my conclusions, it’s the
institution I represent.’ And he made it quite clear that he would personally
recommend (and could not flaw) Dr Barnes’ arguments. However, the institution
was not prepared to accept them, because this would mean accepting that the earth
was young—just a few thousand years rather than billions of years. And their
argument was, ‘We know that Professor Barnes is wrong.’ We ‘know’—simply
because of the establishment belief, it seems.
Q: Do you encounter that attitude in archaeology, too?
A: Sometimes. For instance, in the excavations at Gezer to which
I have referred, on the last day of two particular digs, we actually found a cache
of Philistine pots, which were about 150 years out, based on the argument that the
Exodus took place about 1290-1270 BC (which is the date taken by many modern scholars).
They are plain wrong, by the way. The evidence from Dr Bryant Wood today is being
taken very seriously these days: he has done a great deal of work to show that Jericho
fell about 1400 BC, which gives you an Exodus date of about 1440 BC. So these particular
Philistine pots just shouldn’t have been there on this accepted theory. And
they didn’t know what to do with it, so they just went quiet on it.
That’s what happens from time to time. My own experience is that if the Bible
says something is accurate, well, be very slow to suggest otherwise, because it
does have a habit of proving to be right after all.
Q: Have you handled or seen any fossil evidence which would contradict the geologic
column?
A: Yes, I’ve excavated a number of times at the Paluxy River
in Texas, and there’s very interesting evidence there. I’ve talked to
the lady, Jeannie Mack, who with her mother found a famous trilobite. She is the
curator of the Somervill County Museum at Glen Rose, at that location in Texas.
She and her mother found this trilobite in the same fossil limestone strata where
there have been plenty of undeniable dinosaur footprints found. And when I challenged
her because of the sensational nature of a trilobite and a dinosaur track being
found in the same place, she was upset with me because she thought I was calling
her a liar. She knew what dinosaur limestone strata were and where dinosaur prints
would be, and she was emphatic that just across from where she lives at the Paluxy
River this trilobile was found in exactly that stratum with dinosaur footprints.
Q: Did you see the fossil yourself?
A: I’ve handled the trilobite, yes. It’s in about four
inches of limestone. But it was undoubtedly a trilobite—nobody argues about
that. And it was found in the same stratum as dinosaur footprints, which according
to evolutionary theory is impossible—they’re supposed to be separated
by tens of millions of years.
Q: I understand that you know something about some dinosaur prints at the Paluxy
River that are found in the wrong place.
A: Yes, it’s very interesting. Back in 1982, we had come
to the last day of that particular excavation and the field supervisor came to us
and said, ‘I think I’ve seen what might be the start of a dinosaur footprint
on the top stratum over there. And the leader of the excavation and I (the associate)
said, ‘Well, forget it. That’s on the top stone stratum of the earth’s
surface in this area. There are no dinosaur footprints up there.’ Then he
said, ‘Look, the machinery is sitting here, we’ve paid good money for
it and we’ve finished with it. Let me just remove the overburden—the
topsoil—and see what’s there.’ So we agreed and off he went.
He came back in a little while and said, ‘I think there’s something
up there.’ We all went up to where he had removed the overburden on top of
the stone (an average of between six and 11 feet of topsoil—the debris that
accumulates over the centuries). It was about 30 feet by 30 feet in area. I got
down into the mud and personally excavated the six dinosaur footprints that I found
there. I stepped them out as being approximately three feet six inches from each
other. There were cameras going, and there were people there; there’s no possibility
of this being faked. We found six dinosaur footprints that started from the edge
of the Paluxy River and led over to where the overburden was no longer removed.
About two years later I was in the area, and well-known scientist-author Dr Charles
Thaxton was there this time, and we had quite an interesting chat. He said, ‘By
the way, do you remember those dinosaur footprints you found up there in that top
stone stratum?’ ‘Yes’. ‘Well, do you know how that was written
up?’ ‘No’. ‘Well, they claim that they couldn’t possibly
be there, they couldn’t be genuine because that’s not the Cretaceous
limestone (a layer supposedly 70-100 million years old). So they claim that those
footprints were &her carved there by Indians or you people faked them.’
Well, we checked out with a particular Indian art history man at a nearby university
to find out what the usual practice was with Indians and carving. Did they carve
into a rock? No. They would paint into the caves, just on the outside of the caves
and sometimes just inside, but certainly they did not get into the rock and make
carvings. And in any case, how they would do that under deep overburden, I don’t
know. I’m glad I was the one who dug them out, because I can say before God
that there is no faking in this whatever. I personally got down in the mud—we
could see the beginnings of one of the dinosaur footprints. I uncovered that, and
if I stepped it out in the direction in which it pointed—I would, and did,
find the others. And so we found a total of six of them.
They were dinosaur footprints—the same pattern of dinosaurs as at other places
in that region. However, these prints were supposedly in the ‘wrong’
place and so this plain, straightforward evidence is rejected—simply because
it doesn’t fit the evolutionary timetable. Dr Wilson, thank you very much.
Footnote
* The documentary hypothesis (J,E,D,P,H hypothesis) is still, sadly, taught in many
Christian institutions. It claims that the five books of Moses were written not
by him, but by at least five different sources (code-named J,E,D,P,H) which gradually
came together over many centuries. The hypothesis has been amended from time to
time, but is still taught in many institutions despite clear evidence opposing it.
The basic Bible documents come from eye-witnesses with legitimate minimal editing
to make them clearer to later generations—see for example Genesis 14:3, where
the Vale of Siddim had become part of the Dead Sea.
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