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So far as N.T. Archaeology is concerned the following are important:
(1)
The taxation of Luke 2: 1-3 is proved to be a fact.
(2)
Officials and events named by Luke are Facts:
(a) Sergius Paulus.
(b) The Town Clerk of Ephesus.
(c) Politarhs and Asiarchs (Acts 17: 6, 8; 19: 31).
(d) The Famine in the days of Claudius.
(e) Herod. His reign and death, and its bearing upon the date of the Acts.
Then there is the testimony of the Papyrus. Bishop Lightfoot wrote in 1863:
"If we could only recover letter that ordinary people wrote to each other without any
thought of being literary, we should have the greatest possible help for the understanding
of the language of the N.T. generally."
This desire has been answered by the recovery from the sand of Egypt of heaps of
papyrus, using the language of the people and of the N.T. and dating from round about
the time of the Apostles.
In ordinary course, questions can be set, knowing that the student has his Bible into
which he may search to provide the answers. With archaeology the case is different.
Most Bible students have some references, but the ground covered by the subject is vast.
We accordingly give a list of some valuable books that should be consulted where
possible.
The New Biblical Guide. Urquhart.
Ur of the Chaldees. Woolley.
The Bible and the Monuments. Boscawven.
Fresh Light from the Ancient Monuments. Sayce.
Syria and Egypt, the Tell-el-Amarna Tablets. Petrie.
Light from the Ancient East. Deissmann.
New Light on the New Testament. Deissmann.
The Bible and Ancient Manuscripts. Kenyon.
The Bearing of Recent Discovery on the Trustworthiness of the N.T. Ramsay.
The New Archaeological Discoveries. Cobern.