Just over a week ago, I had the chance to visit Harding University’s Linda Byrd Smith Museum of Biblical Archaeology. Like most schools with such collections, Harding University is religiously affiliated, in this case with the Churches of Christ. While the Churches of Christ have not historically been very involved in biblical archaeology, several of its members are passionate about the subject. In this post, I’ll share my impressions of the museum based on my visit there. In addition to what I learned while visiting the museum, I was able to learn a great deal more about the museum’s history, mission, and the origins of its artifacts by interviewing Dale W. Manor, Harding’s resident Biblical Archaeologist. The information and answers he provided were crucial to my completing my picture of what in some ways is “his” museum. I would like to thank him again for his time.
Museum History and Mission Statement:
Though archaeology was taught at Harding in the past, the Linda Byrd Smith Museum is the school’s first dedicated Biblical Archaeology museum. Prior to Manor’s time at Harding, several Theology professors developed small collections of biblical antiquities, which were occasionally displayed across campus. These displays were never larger than a single case or cabinet and were not permanent instillations.
The current museum is the product of two figures, Manor himself and Linda Byrd Smith, a graduate of Harding (class of 1967). Smith is a devout and active Christian who in addition to her own Bible study, works with numerous religious organizations, has produced videos for the center for Christian Broadcasting, runs a home church, and teaches Bible classes for Arkansas inmates. Smith’s views on the significance of archaeology and its relationship to scripture are vital to the museum’s mission statement. According to that statement, Byrd believes that archaeology demonstrates the similarities between ancient and modern people. The crux of this view is that the ancient Israelites, to whom she believes the Bible was revealed, could understand God’s word because it was put into their historical context. The stories, language, and objects of the Bible are coded for that ancient audience. Therefore, as she sees it, there’s a certain distance in our modern understanding of the Bible, which can be closed by studying archaeology. In this sense, archaeology can actualize and allow us, as modern individuals, to place ourselves back into the biblical context, closing the distance between us, the Bible, and God.
Manor on the other hand is the product of a long and prestigious academic lineage within Biblical archaeology. This lineage goes through the field’s arguable founder, William Foxwell Albright, to William Dever, and then to Manor himself. While Biblical Archaeology has always had an angle associated with belief, through successive revolutions in the field from the 1970s to the present, archaeological and anthropological questions have largely replaced theological ones. In Manor’s personal promotional brochure titled “Archaeology and the Bible,” Manor writes that, “in excavating antiquity, finding ancient items, and asking questions, we learn about a people’s history, their lifestyles, and their relationships with other nations. In these discoveries we may also learn about the people of the Bible and generate a more complete understanding of God’s word.” Thus, in Manor’s view, while biblical archaeology can act as a vessel for better understanding God’s word, above all else, it is a vehicle for the study of modern day Israel, Jordan, and the Palestinian territories in antiquity, albeit one that treats the Hebrew Bible as a significant historical text.
When I asked Manor to tell me more about his views regarding the relationship between archaeology and the Bible, he told me, “My goal is not to prove the Bible, but to show how archaeology illuminates the text and to show that there was a larger context of events within which the biblical story unfolded.” Manor expressed a degree of concern regarding Biblical Minimalism, a viewpoint that alleges that the Bible is almost entirely ahistorical, but told me that regardless of the text’s historicity, the world the Bible alleges to depict was still one rooted in a historical framework. Thus, in his view, regardless of where one falls on the spectrum, archaeology still has important things to say about the Bible. Dr. Manor also expressed an interest in connecting modern people to their ancient counterparts, though for him creating this connection is driven more by a humanistic than personal religious interest.
The museum’s origins go back to Manor’s arrival at Harding University in 1996. At that time, he met Linda Byrd Smith who after learning of his archaeological background asked him to borrow some artifacts for use in her teaching. Manor, who is the owner of numerous artifacts purchased on Israel’s antiquities market agreed and has lent Smith artifacts ever since. For years, Smith was aware that Dr. Harding was only one of several collectors in their community and the two lobbied Harding's administration for funding to set up a museum space to display those artifacts. After years of waiting, Smith herself came forward with the funding necessary to provide a secure and professional grade museum space at Harding. The museum eventually opened in 2017 as the Linda Byrd Museum of Biblical Archaeology.
Artifact Origins
The museum’s collection is almost entirely comprised of Dr. Manor's personal collection. Almost all of Manor’s antiquities come from Israel’s antiquities market. The collection also contains a small number of broken pottery fragments which were found at sites Manor excavated at. According to Manor, he was permitted to keep these artifacts as long as he used them for educational purposes. Fascinatingly, this is the exact same rationale used to bring hundreds of artifacts to Oberlin College between the 1930s and 1950s. Several replicas in the museum were also purchased by Manor with a small number of objects actually being made by him. Besides Manor, a small number of additional collectors have also loaned or given a several artifacts to the museum. According to Manor, it is his hope that the museum’s collection will grow in the coming years as more members of the local community, who possess antiquities, donate or loan them to the museum. As I looked at the museum’s various labels, it became clear that the vast majority of its objects were on loan, rather than being the property of the museum or of Harding. Ultimately then, the long term fate of the Linda Byrd Smith Museum is more in the hands of its collectors than its institution.
The Museum:
I arrived at Harding University after an almost two-hour drive. Following the directions, I’d been sent, I entered the Jim Bill McInteer Bible and World Mission Center, an imposing brick building which serves as the center of religious life on Harding’s campus. Entering the building, I found myself in a large rotunda filled with flags from countries around the world as well as a mosaic floor depicting a Mercator map. Just over the south pole, I saw a clear glass case filled with clay objects including a replica of the jar in which several of the first Dead Sea Scrolls were found. Coming closer to the case, I saw that it contained other artifacts as well, including a small number of ceramic vessels dating to the time of the biblical kings, the Iron Age, and replicas of significant artifacts including the Dan Inscription, arguably the earliest known mention of King David found in the historical record.
After meeting up with Juana Reed, the office manager who agreed to open the museum up for me, I was led down a dark hallway with offices on either side. After a short time, she turned to a room on the left side of the hallway and unlocked the glass doors of the museum. With its unassuming location and with the lights off, if it weren’t for the big sign just outside, one could be forgiven for missing the museum entirely. After the lights came on however, I could suddenly see a roughly square room with pottery filled cases strewn around its edges and placed at its center. Looking around, the first thing that caught my eye was the large timeline, visible throughout the entire room.
This timeline showed the historical, archaeological, and biblical periodization used to describe the Near East and Egypt between 2000 BCE and 600 CE. Though the museum has a few artifacts from the third millennium, its timeline begins in 2000 BCE, the time period to which Manor and other faculty at Harding date the lifetime of the biblical patriarch Abraham. It is however worth noting that the timeline’s dating of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph came with a disclaimer that the characters of the Old Testament are often dated to different periods by different groups of scholars. While the timeline went this far, it avoided questions of the historicity of the patriarchs, the same questions that have plagued the field since the 1930s. Following the timeline, significant biblical kings are listed including David, Solomon, Jeroboam II, Hezekiah, and Josiah. While the timeline was mostly familiar to me, I was surprised to see the Hellenistic period described as, “the Period of Silence.” That the Hellenistic period was included as a biblical period at all, might be explained by the necessity of presenting the Old and New Testament worlds as linked, despite the hundreds of years that separate them. Describing this time as the “Period of Silence” solves this problem. Unsurprisingly, and in line with conceptions of the Bible as a “Judeo-Christian Tradition,” the timeline ends around 600 CE, right before the Islamic conquest.
After looking at the timeline, I worked my way to the other side of the room where a large touch screen television beckoned me to watch three different videos. The first video was a catch all introduction to the connection archaeology can have with the Bible. Various significant discoveries were presented after which, Mrs. Smith herself talked briefly about the museum’s mission statement and her view of why Biblical Archaeology is important. The second video’s message was plain and simple, archaeology is fun, interesting, and worth one’s time and energy as a student, and more broadly as a person of belief. In the video,
Manor is presented as an Indiana Jones type figure who brings the biblical story closer to his students as the affable “Dr. Dig.” During the video, various student testimonials were played to talk about how archaeology had made a big difference in their lives as Christians and improved their understanding of and appreciation for the Bible. The third video repeated this theme, taking viewers to Tel Beth Shemesh in Israel where drone shot videos of the Tel were played with the Indiana Jones theme acting as background music. To me, the three videos were a sort of justification. The truth is that Biblical Archaeology is not what it once was. A field that once required no justification now needs to justify itself as fun, experiential, educational, and transformative, in order to continue to exist at academic institutions or even at seminaries, which have always been the bedrock of American Biblical Archaeology.
With a clearer sense of the museum’s mission and purpose as well as archaeology’s role at
Harding, I began making my way around the room to its different displays. The first display, which ran underneath the museum’s biblical timeline showed various plants and agricultural products from the “Holy Land.” The labels describing species such as: wheat, chickpeas, carob, olives, pomegranates, myrrh, and more included both a general description, but also featured verses of the Bible where one could imagine the agricultural product before them in actual use by the Bible’s characters. Though most secular museums would not display their artifacts with an accompanying narrative, I actually found the biblical quotes on the object’s labels extremely helpful even as someone who is not religious. All too often, an object in a museum can be rendered as a dusty clay object on a shelf rather than an item of past use. Accompanied by a narrative as familiar as that of the Bible however, that dusty object transforms into a vividly imaginable thing used by a person in the past. Perhaps the use of such short quotations and narratives would do well to find their way into more museums. Above all else, it reminded me of a recent conversation I had with one of my professors from Oberlin where we discussed how Biblical Archaeology is often consigned as a cultural historical branch of archaeology when in reality, its focus on individuals, even if they are only characters, gives it far more in common with more recent post-modern approaches to archaeology.
The next case was filled with large and medium sized ceramic vessels dating from the Early Bronze Age to the late Iron Age. Whether or not it was intentional, the vessels were arrayed as they would be found at an archaeological site with the earlier Early Bronze Age objects at the bottom of the case, and the more recent objects higher up. While the labels in this case had little to add to their vessels beyond their periods, the display of a fragmentary ancient chariot model, a possible children’s toy, was displayed creatively. Alongside the ancient fragment was a fully reconstructed version made from modern clay. In the context of the museum, the object’s tag was especially fascinating. It read, “While the Bible says little about children’s entertainment, occasional discoveries of toys occur.” By presenting the object in this way, the tag suggests that archaeology can help expand the biblical world beyond the text. Whereas the field of Biblical Archaeology once started and ended with the text itself, the field has become far more concerned with historical context. Presenting this object in this way also suggests that archaeology can complete an incomplete picture provided by the biblical text alone.
The following display dealt with 1st century CE burial practices in the context of Jesus’ crucifixion. Of all the displays in the museum, this is the only one, which for me read as strange. On the one hand, the display included a first century ossuary and a couple of burial objects made of both ceramic and glass. Also included however, was a wooden post standing in as the bottom of Jesus’ crucifix, with a crown of thorns at its top, an orthopedic replica of a foot nailed to the cross, a replica of the famous heel bone with nail found in Israel, which stands as the only archaeological evidence for crucifixion ever found, and a real skeleton to go inside the ossuary. In effect, the display tied together Jesus’ crucifixion and death as displayed in the New Testament, alongside more archaeologically attested forms of first century elite burial. While the two might go together if there was some indication from the New Testament that Jesus was buried in an ossuary, the gospels generally indicate that Jesus was wrapped in a shroud, that his body was placed in a rock cut tomb, and that his body was gone when the tomb is checked several days later. While I can speculate that the ossuary elements were added to take away from the fact that there is such limited archaeological evidence for crucifixion, this is only a guess.
The next three cases dealt with the various forms of writing found in the Near Eastern archaeological record, Harding’s excavation at Tel Achzib, an educational dig based at an artificially replicated Tel site in Arkansas, and a display on the various methodologies used by archaeologists to date their finds. The ancient writing display was almost entirely made up of replicas. The truth is that any sort of writing in the archaeological record of this time and in this part of the world is very rare. So rare in fact, that any recently assembled collection that contains such artifacts is almost immediately suspect of feeding the global black market for antiquities. Just recently, the Museum of the Bible repatriated 6,500 cuneiform tablets to Iraq after it was revealed that those artifacts had been illegally excavated, smuggled, and sold.
The Achzib case was filled with cameras, books, trowels, rulers, and other material commonly found at an archaeological dig.
One of the museum’s best displays was its presentation on archaeological dating, which explained, for a general audience, the differences between historical periods and archaeological periods, as well as how archaeologists can use pottery, historical synchronism, and radiocarbon dating to figure out the chronology of sites. Pottery seriation dating, the concept that small changes occur in ceramic styles over time, was demonstrated using 6 ancient oil lamps ranging in date from the Intermediate Bronze Age (c. 2500 BCE) to the Roman Period. As ubiquitous objects that show up in every period with slight morphological differences, Biblical Archaeologists have long used lamps to explain seriation dating. Their ubiquity has also led to their being a common and easily collected item on Israel’s antiquities market. Harding’s collection of lamps all came from a missionary affiliated with Harding named Evertt L. Huffard who donated his collection.
The museum’s next display focused on religion in ancient Canaan and Israel in the Late Bronze and Iron Ages, the archaeological periods in which the Israelite civilization formed. This is a topic of particular sensitivity, as the Bible’s display of idealized and monotheistic Israelite religion is often at odds with the household religious practices revealed by archaeology over the past 100 years. The museum addresses this with a label that goes with a replica statue of a bull, depicting the Canaanite deity, Baal. According to the label, in the period of the Judges (prior to the foundation of the biblical kingdoms of Israel and Judah), the Israelites were often tempted to worship deities other than Yahweh. By contrast, other Israelite/Judahite cultic paraphernalia goes unexplained. This is most obvious in the case of the museum’s Judean Pillar Figurine, a form of personal idol thought by some to depict
Yahweh’s consort, the fertility goddess, Asherah. Though these figurines are commonly used to argue that Asherah was worshiped alongside Yahweh throughout the entire First Temple Period (including in the temple itself), the display at Harding makes no such mention of the topic, leaving behind the idea that after the formative period of the Judges, the Israelites were monotheistic as depicted in the Bible. A slightly different bias can be detected in the labels accompanying religious paraphernalia. While a reproduction of Bird-Shaped Philistine bowl is rendered as “cultic,” with a sort of negative connotation, Israelite objects have no such attached monikers reading instead as simply as a Chalice, Rattle, and Cup and Saucer Vessel.
The museum’s remaining displays dealt thematically with ancient coins (mostly Roman), weapons and metal objects from the Middle Bronze Age to the Roman Period, and objects from the nations surrounding ancient Israel including Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Greece.
Final Thoughts:
As I walked around the museum’s gallery, I found myself dwelling on the replica artifacts the museum employed to effectively fill in areas where its collection of ancient artifacts did not suffice. Curious about his views on the role of these replicas, I asked Dr. Manor what he thought the difference was between a replica and an ancient artifact. Manor told me, “It seems that for most people the real thing has more impact than the replica, which in turn has more impact than a photograph, which then has more impact than no visual at all….Beyond that, people have often then commented on finally seeing “the real thing” in a museum, even though they were familiar with photographs and replicas. There is a sense in which the real thing brings the narrative to life beyond what a replica will do (but replicas help).”
The real thing, as Manor puts it, has a strong pull. It is the fact that the museum has these “real things” that draws people from 42 states and 37 countries to visit this small museum in Searcy, Arkansas. In addition to its power to draw visitors, real artifacts are special because they promise a certain kind of individual dialogue with authenticity and truths held within the objects themselves. The power to harness the authenticity emanated by “real” objects is what makes museum education special and is also why personal bias and ideology is so pervasive in museum exhibitions. Visiting the Linda Byrd Smith Museum of Biblical Archaeology, I got the sense that I was in dialogue with Mrs. Smith herself as well as Dr. Manor. As I learned more about the museum’s artifacts, more than anything, I felt that I was learning about a special dialogue between the two, Harding University, and the general public. When dealing with a small museum, it is easy to take a quick walk through and to assume that because that museum has fewer objects, it has less to say. From my visit to this museum however, I think that I could visit several times and still find out more. For anybody in the area, I couldn’t recommend this museum more!