William Foxwell Albright was a well respected archaeologist and biblical scholar of a few generations ago. Although his work is dated, it still holds great value. I recently re-read From the Stone Age to Christianity.
If you are looking for the latest at where the Bible and archaeology intersects, this is not the book for you. While Albright was an amazing scholar, this book was written in 1940. Much has been discovered since then.
In this book Albright seeks to use historical process to trace the development of monotheism. He uses not just archaeology of the holy land but casts a far wider net.
He seeks to make connections and find common themes, something that Mythicists claim to do. But he does it with much more caution and humility. In fact he sees these themes as not contradicting a historical foundation.
Albright accepts a historical Moses, even though he holds to a form of the documentary hypothesis. He even accepts that Exodus represents the basic faith of Moses.
Albright also provides a short treatment of the Jesus myth. He has some pretty scathing remarks, including warnings about using later texts and religious movements as evidence for the “sources” of the Jesus story.
That is not to say that he sees no similarities between the story of Jesus and some of the earlier myths. But he definitely doesn’t see this as evidence against the historical Jesus or as proof that the Gospel writers copied the myths. The most that can be said is that the Gospel writers used existing themes to write the life of Jesus as they believed it really happened.
Despite being dated, From the Stone Age to Christianity is still a good read that students of the Bible should check out.
