Ordinary People Extraordinary Things

107. Digging for Faith: How Archaeology Confirms the Bible's Historical Accuracy with Dr. Titus Kennedy

• Nancy Bruscher • Season 8 • Episode 107

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Dr. Titus Kennedy, a biblical archaeologist specializing in the Eastern Mediterranean, reveals how archaeological discoveries provide tangible evidence of the Bible's historical accuracy. His journey from childhood fascination with Troy to uncovering Canaanite altars demonstrates how archaeology transforms abstract biblical narratives into concrete historical realities.

• The discovery of a 9th century BC "House of David" inscription dramatically changed scholarly views on David's existence
• Archaeologists have found evidence for 132 people mentioned in the Bible
• Kennedy's favorite biblical figure is Daniel, whose story offers both spiritual guidance and archaeological richness
• Future archaeological possibilities include discoveries related to Noah's Ark, Sodom and Gomorrah, and early biblical manuscripts

Find Dr. Kennedy's work in his books "Unearthing the Bible," "Excavating the Evidence for Jesus," and his forthcoming book documenting archaeological evidence for 132 biblical figures.
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Nancy Bruscher:

As summer fades away, we are starting a new season of Ordinary People Extraordinary Things. It's season eight. I'm Nancy Ruscher, I'm your host and we are kicking off today with Dr Titus Kennedy. He has an amazing story. He's a biblical archaeologist and he is going to share how we know that the Bible is real through things that they have found. My kids are a huge fan of Dr Titus Kennedy and we're so excited to have him on the show. They even got to ask him a question.

Nancy Bruscher:

If summer has been busy like it's been in our family. I hope that you catch up on all the previous seven seasons of Ordinary People Extraordinary Things and stay tuned to upcoming podcasts and social media, as I'm going to be launching my first book. It's called the Heirloom Legacy Book, a guided kitzig to share the meaning and future of family treasures. Let's get started on this podcast as we learn about the treasures that have been found that proved that the Bible is real, about the treasures that have been found that proved that the Bible is real. Welcome to Ordinary People Extraordinary Things. I'm so excited to have Dr Titus Kennedy on the show today, and my kids are here with me and they've never been on a podcast, but they are so excited to talk with Dr Titus Kennedy about what he does. We've watched so many of his shows on Right Now Media and it's just an honor to have you on.

Dr. Titus Kennedy:

Oh, thank you very much, Nancy. It's great to be here.

Nancy Bruscher:

So what you do is I kind of saw this on the website was you're a field archaeologist and you are specific in ancient East or the Mediterranean, the like I would just call the biblical area?

Dr. Titus Kennedy:

Is that?

Nancy Bruscher:

is that fair to say?

Dr. Titus Kennedy:

Yeah, yeah, that's right, I specialize in biblical archaeology and so that encompasses quite a few countries today and what we call the Middle East or the Eastern Mediterranean region, also in places like Italy and Greece. Of course, in the New Testament, in the Old Testament, we've got all these places Egypt or Iraq and Iran, and, of course, israel and Lebanon, syria, jordan so quite a few places, and I've done projects in a few of those countries and research and many more, and hope to continue doing that.

Nancy Bruscher:

It sounds so fascinating. What actually sparked your interest in archaeology?

Dr. Titus Kennedy:

I always was interested in history, even in elementary school. I really liked that. And yet I didn't really know how we got history. I didn't know anything about archaeology and so I was just reading. And then one day we went on a field trip in class during I think it was a second grade, and we went to this historic site. It was a fort from the 1800s and I was pretty impressed that it was still standing and I thought, oh, wow, there really are old buildings from I call it ancient times. Back then it seemed more ancient than today and I became fascinated by that.

Dr. Titus Kennedy:

Soon after the next year I was on vacation with my family and we got to see an actual archaeological site that they had also done some rebuilding and conservation of an ancient Hawaiian village, and so that was really my first archaeological site that I saw.

Dr. Titus Kennedy:

And following that, one of my teachers gave me a book to read on the excavation of Troy by Heinrich Schliemann, and Troy was that city, the main city where the battle happens in Homer's Iliad, and I had read the Iliad recently before this, and so I was familiar with the story and that opened up the world of archaeology to me that there were people who would go out and search for these sites, rediscover them, and then they would actually dig them up and find all this new information, new historical information. For us still didn't really know the association between archaeology and the Bible yet, but a few years later I was given some books on biblical archaeology and I started reading those and found that there were hundreds and hundreds of discoveries that connect archaeology to the Bible, sometimes showing the truth or verifying the historical accuracy of the text, and other times just helping us understand this ancient faraway world and lands.

Nancy Bruscher:

Were you a Christian growing up?

Dr. Titus Kennedy:

Yes, yes, I was. I grew up in a Christian family going to church. My father had gone to seminary. In fact, that's how I got a lot of books on biblical archaeology initially is that he actually had them in his library and started giving them to me to read because of my interest in archaeology and history, and so that was a big help for me, because I didn't really have any connections at that time to archaeologists, and so he got me started on reading about the topic.

Nancy Bruscher:

And are there a lot of misconceptions about your job. Do a lot of people still say, oh, are you like Indiana Jones? Or do people not say something like that?

Dr. Titus Kennedy:

Yeah, they do, not everybody, but a lot, some jokingly and some serious. And then quite often people mistake archaeology for paleontology and although they're closely related and the processes are very similar, I'm not usually digging up dinosaur remains or fossils and so people hear archaeologists and some of them just immediately jump to things like digging up a T-Rex or a Stegosaurus or something like that. I have done excavations of woolly mammoths, but no romantic dinosaur digs. Finding a Tyrannosaurus Rex or anything like that. It would be interesting, but it's just a slightly different field.

Nancy Bruscher:

Sure, what does your day mostly look like?

Dr. Titus Kennedy:

It depends on what aspect of my job that is, but if we're talking about out in the field doing an excavation, then your typical day is to wake up early and have some coffee or maybe a little bit of breakfast to get you some energy for the day, and then going to the site and getting everybody rounded up and started on their jobs, because we're usually excavating multiple squares and so we've got to give people the plan for the day and make sure that we've got all the tools necessary and get going and start recording and do photography early in the morning because we track our progress. So we'll usually take photos at least in the morning and at the end of the day, often throughout the day, depending on what we're finding. So we start digging. It depends on the particular site and also where we are on the site, if we're using larger tools like picks and shovels, or if we're using small tools like trowels and brushes. Whenever we get to an actual archaeological layer with pottery and artifacts and building ruins, we're going to be using the smaller tools. But sometimes you just have to dig through a lot of dirt you know, maybe agricultural layers before you can get to that. So we'll do that for a few hours and then we'll take a break, have some food, maybe some more coffee or water at least, and then get back to it for a few more hours and then we'll clean up at the end of the day and we will go back to where we're staying.

Dr. Titus Kennedy:

Sometimes depends on the project we might do processing immediately after we finish excavating for the day.

Dr. Titus Kennedy:

So we'll look at all the pottery, we'll sort it out a bit, maybe record what periods it's from, and other times we will actually collect that and we'll wait till the end of the excavation season and then we'll do all of that at once over a couple of weeks or so. And then in the evenings, you know usually some free time for a lot of the dig participants. If you're a director or staff member, you probably got more paperwork to do, some recording or planning. You may have teaching duties, because sometimes we've got graduate students on the dig and we might be running a class for them. Or we might be going to visit sites after the dig each day, or at least on the weekends as part of a class, or at least on the weekends as part of a class. So yeah, it could be a lot of things going on lectures site week, just because we had a really short window and we had to pack it in. But um, others, others do a five day a week schedule now?

Nancy Bruscher:

is it hard to get into digs? Are the countries hard to go to? I mean, I assume that some of these places that would have a lot of archaeology things, there's already a modern city on top of it.

Dr. Titus Kennedy:

Yeah, in some cases. So if you're talking about places like Jerusalem or Amman or Athens or Rome, yes, there are lots of modern buildings and less than modern. You know, old, old to ancient, built over what you might be interested in excavating. But a lot of places are kind of out in the middle of nowhere At this point. You know what? What were huge cities are very important cities. In the past Sometimes they were just in a farmer's field or maybe there's a small village next to the site. So kind of depends, Whenever it's inside a modern city there's pluses and minuses to that because, yes, you can stay in a hotel or apartment or something like that that might be right next to the site and you have access to a lot of things grocery stores and other shops.

Dr. Titus Kennedy:

That's really convenient. But then there's the difficulties of you've got to dig through all of these other periods and sometimes have modern buildings removed prior to excavation. Or maybe you're digging in a parking lot or something so you've got to bring in a construction crew who's got to remove that. So it kind of depends on the site that you're working on as far as the different countries, and getting permits the site that you're working on as far as the different countries and getting permits.

Dr. Titus Kennedy:

Getting permits is one of the most difficult aspects of doing archaeology today. Many countries don't really want to start any new archaeological projects, or if they do, they don't want to do any actual digging, they just want to do some conservation, clean up the site, put up signs, things for tourism basically easier, easier to do and will bring in more financial benefits for the country. So permits, yeah, they can be. They can be very difficult to acquire and then then you go through a fairly long process with the Department of Antiquities for whatever country that you are proposing, and you've got to, of course, have your budget and have at least some fundraising in place so that you can show them that, yeah, we can actually do this project before they let you move forward.

Nancy Bruscher:

What is your favorite spot right now to dig, or what is the most significant thing you've found in a dig?

Dr. Titus Kennedy:

My favorite spot to dig probably changes based on what I'm interested in, but most recently I was digging in Jordan and we had a really great team, so that was enjoyable. It was not in the most convenient location, the most convenient location, so we had to stay in a small village and make a bit of a drive to the site every day. Other times it's been a lot more convenient on that front. So, you know, doing projects, say, in Jerusalem or in Yerevan, the capital of Armenia, you can just stay in an apartment near the site and you've got everything around you that you need. So that's a nice benefit.

Dr. Titus Kennedy:

As far as the really exciting or interesting things that I've found over the course of my career of my career, I'd say one of my favorites was an altar, a Canaanite altar from we call it the late Bronze Age, so sort of the time of Moses and Joshua and getting into the Judges period, and that was really interesting because it's a pretty large structure. You know, not not one of these small altars with horns on it which come a little bit later. We see those talked about sometimes in the old Testament, but quite a few of those have been found. This is a bigger one, you know we're talking like at least six feet wide, eight feet wide, things like that, built out of large stones. And yeah, those have been found before, but they're not extremely common. There's usually one large one like that in a city, somewhere, in a temple, somewhere, something like that. So that was pretty exciting, and the possibility that it is connected to a biblical site also made it even better.

Nancy Bruscher:

Where was that at?

Dr. Titus Kennedy:

This was at a place in the West Bank that I would identify as the biblical site of Beit Aben. It's mentioned in Joshua 7.

Nancy Bruscher:

Okay, can you tell? You said the bronze age. Are you able to tell because of what it's made of and then also like how many layers down, or I? I think I've read a book they call them tells. Is that right? Like a like a civilization on a civilization.

Dr. Titus Kennedy:

So tell means mound, okay, so there's. There are these cities that were. They're actually built on a mound purposely. It's not that they were building on a flat place and then it became a mound. They they either built on a natural mound or they even created mounds, but then, over time, they made them larger as well by having these successive cities built on top of one another.

Dr. Titus Kennedy:

As far as being able to tell which period things come from, primarily that has to do with the materials that you're digging up, especially pottery pottery, but in other periods you're looking at various types of artifacts. For example, if we're looking in the late Bronze Age, as we talked about, you might find some Egyptian scarab steels there with the name of a pharaoh on it, and so that would give you a range of dates within the time that that pharaoh was king. And then in later periods, like the Roman period, the time of the New Testament, people were using coins a lot, and so you find a coin, and some of these coins had the image and name of a ruler on it, and oftentimes even the year of their reign, and so you can see okay, well, this was issued in 28 ad, and so this coin was in use from 28 ad until you know, let's say this, the ruler died in 39 or something like that, and then they stopped issuing those coins and they would strike over them or issue a new coin and so they'd go out of circulation not too long after that. So you get a pretty precise date for that Pottery. Not as much, you know.

Dr. Titus Kennedy:

We're looking at more like 50 or 100-year period, but it's still helpful. There's other clues, like architecture changes as well, and then you talked about the layers. So those layers, the stratigraphy that can help us, because if we have 10 different layers at one of these mounds and we know the date of layers one, two, three and four and we get to five, okay, we know that that's earlier than four, but maybe there's sort of a progression as well, like it doesn't jump 1000 years, maybe it's just 100 years or something like that. We keep seeing a steady years, maybe it's just a hundred years or something like that. We keep seeing a steady progression. So there's a lot of clues we can put together, as well as some of the more definitive evidence, like pottery inscriptions, coins, scarabs, et cetera, and things like radiocarbon dating as well in some periods.

Nancy Bruscher:

You said you grew up as a Christian. How has archaeology, and specifically studying like the biblical archaeology, how has that like, encouraged your faith or changed your faith?

Dr. Titus Kennedy:

Well, first it was pretty amazing to me that all this evidence was still in existence and more continued to be discovered, and so I saw that it wasn't just a book, that the Bible wasn't just a book of theology and spiritual guidance, that these were real events, real places, real people, and we had tangible evidence for that.

Dr. Titus Kennedy:

And when I went on my first dig and I got to see a lot of other sites as well and some museums, then it really made it come to life and be more real for me.

Dr. Titus Kennedy:

Not that I was questioning that it was true or anything, but it went from being abstract to something tangible. And so I think you can connect with the Bible and your faith on another level when you get to actually go see those places and those things that the Bible talks about and, in a way, experience it a bit for yourself. So that's been one of the things that's impacted my faith, things that's impacted my faith. The other is that I think it's really helped in Bible study because as you learn more about ancient history and geography and culture, you can visualize what you're reading better and you understand some things that maybe we wouldn't quite get if we're just working from a framework of the 21st century, things that were a lot different back then the way that they built, the cultural traditions they had the technology, the history, the people that lived around there. So all that, I think, has helped my understanding as I study through the Bible and also helps just with the visualization of it.

Nancy Bruscher:

If someone is listening and they are having some doubts, what are some biblical archaeologies that have been really impactful that you think would help solidify their faith?

Dr. Titus Kennedy:

One of my favorite examples that I often go to is the biblical story of David and the archaeological evidence for that. And this one is so interesting to me and, I think, a very relevant example because it's fairly recent discoveries and the change was very radical in terms of skeptical views about David and his historical existence and historians outside of Christians who believed in the historical reliability of the Bible. Most were thinking that David was not a real person, he was not a historical figure, he was some kind of legendary or mythological king that had been invented to tell the story, to prove a point, to sort of spread propaganda, as they would often say, for the kingdom of Judah and their priestly system and so forth. And the reason that they thought that David didn't exist just besides a bias against the Bible, thought that David didn't exist, just besides a bias against the Bible is that there had been no archaeological evidence found that specifically mentioned David or directly connected to events about him in the Bible. But then in 1993, there was an excavation going at the ancient city of Dan in northern Israel, north of the Sea of Galilee, and they were excavating an area outside of the city gate, this stone paved area, a plaza, and they found this broken piece of a victory monument, a stele we call it, and it was inscribed, and you know that alone is quite the find. You don't discover a lot of those types of things. But as they read it they saw that it was talking about kings of Israel and Judah. And then it mentioned their origin and it said of the house of David, and this came from the 9th century BC, so it wasn't long after the time of David, and it was also written by the Arameans, who were enemies of the Israelites. So no one could say that this was propaganda, that the Israelites were just telling this mythological story, and that kind of changed things almost overnight.

Dr. Titus Kennedy:

So a lot of archaeologists then switched their view and said, okay, I guess David was a historical king. And there were a few who tried to push back on this and made some forgery claims or said that it was talking about something else. And you know those types of claims were shut down pretty quickly and definitively. On the forgery front, one it was found in a controlled archaeological excavations. But in the subsequent season they actually found more fragments of this broken stele. So it was clearly an ancient stele, not a forgery meaning something else. I mean, you just read the context and it's totally obvious that it's talking about Israelite kings, kings of Judah and Israel, and it has nothing to do with some other person, kingdom name, location, anything like that. So that was just a huge discovery.

Dr. Titus Kennedy:

So that was just a huge discovery, and since then there have been things like finding the palace of David in Jerusalem and discovering other evidence from sites outside of Jerusalem that show that there was this large, organized kingdom during the time of David, that he wasn't just like a tribal leader in Jerusalem, and that's it, so bolstering the historical reliability of the biblical narrative about David.

Dr. Titus Kennedy:

So what does this teach us? Besides that there is archaeological evidence for the reliability of Scripture, well, it also shows us that things continue to be discovered. There's a lot out there, and even when people are skeptical of the Bible or saying, look, you know, there's no evidence for this person or this event that may change at any time, event that may change at any time, basically every year there's some kind of moderately to very significant discovery made that connects to the Bible in archaeology, and so I would say there's a lot of examples like this and things continue to be found. So, even though they're always going to be skeptics. Not only is there so much evidence now, but there will be even more in the future, as this work progresses.

Nancy Bruscher:

What is something that you'd like to see discovered? What is the big thing you would like to see that would help people point to the Bible? I think again that some, a lot of people would think of are people still looking for the Ark of the Covenant? That seems like a big one that people have tried to find forever. But are there other things that you're thinking? Gosh, this would be really neat and I think we could find it here it here.

Dr. Titus Kennedy:

Yeah, there, there are many, many different things. So, uh, at this point you could talk about some of the the more famous things like, uh, you mentioned the ark of the covenant. I mean, I think that would be obviously a huge discovery. I don't know whether or not that is something that will ever be found, but, yeah, that I think would get a lot of people's attention. There's also quite often talk about Noah's Ark. You know, if there's any remains of that, some of that's found, although that I don't think would be as clear as something like the ark of the covenant, because people might just say, look, it's some, some old wood or it's just some ship. Uh, you've got other other things like, well, some that may have been discovered but aren't so clear, but we could at least say discoveries that clarify things like sodom and gorrah or, uh, zohar or, um, some of the, the evidence for the Exodus, you know, especially Egyptian evidence, something that's that's really obvious and clear.

Dr. Titus Kennedy:

We have a lot of circumstantial evidence for for many events in the Bible, but there are some where you would say, okay, if we found something that was very clear and definitive, that would make a big impact. And then, of course, you might look at the New Testament. There's some interesting potential there as well. For example, the site of Colossae has still not been excavated. So if that eventually happens, then I think there will be some really great discoveries there, potentially some things connected with Paul and the early church. So that would be really exciting when we're talking about New Testament archaeology. So you know, there's lots of different things and it depends on people's interests, sometimes the notoriety of things, but some of the lesser known discoveries can also be really significant historically.

Nancy Bruscher:

Are you thinking of one in particular?

Dr. Titus Kennedy:

historically. Are you thinking of one in particular? Well, one that I don't think people maybe talk about as much, as there is a copy of the law in the time of Joshua, and that would be extremely significant if that or a fragment of that was discovered. I mean, it would put push the date of the mosaic law and scripture back quite a bit in uh in the minds of many people who are more on a skeptical or liberal viewpoint, and it would also have some really interesting information about ancient language and script as well. We don't know exactly what all of that looked like at the time of Joshua, for example, so that's something as well, I think, think, be very interesting.

Dr. Titus Kennedy:

Um, we could talk about early, earlier periods. You know genesis uh, the tower of babel, for example. So babylon uh has not been excavated to the early levels because the euphrates river shifted and the earlier the lower section of that city is underwater, and so it would be quite a task to try to do that, but there's a lot of potential there. We don't have that much information about the earlier sort of pre-Abraham material in the Bible, and so there's potential for some great discoveries there as well.

Nancy Bruscher:

If someone wants to learn more about archaeology or we've referenced your Right Now Media or other places that you're on can you share where they might get started?

Dr. Titus Kennedy:

Sure might get started. Sure, I've got a few books out right now and I actually have one that I just finished that will be published soon. So my start with that, the Unearthing. The Bible is an easy to read, good one.

Dr. Titus Kennedy:

To start out, I think if you're just looking to see if a biblical archaeology is something that you're interested in and you don't want to commit to something that's too long or detailed.

Dr. Titus Kennedy:

But my book on the archaeology of jesus excavating the evidence of Jesus that's there for people who are interested in a more detailed telling of the Gospels alongside archaeology, the discoveries that connect all the historical material there. And then I wrote a book as well on about 70 sites I cover that are mentioned in all different biblical lands. So this might be more of people who are interested in visiting some of these biblical sites, maybe in person, maybe virtually, but you can learn about the different cities of the Bible and what's been found there connecting to the biblical narrative. And then the newest book that I just finished is on all the people who are named in the Bible for which there is archaeological evidence or attestation. Is archaeological evidence or attestation. To me it's pretty astonishing how many people in the Bible. We know them through archaeology as well. Both the Old and the New Testament and again I think this speaks to this idea of the Bible is a book about real people, real places and real events. It's not just fairy tales or some spiritual advice.

Nancy Bruscher:

Do you know how many offhand are mentioned in the Bible that you have? Archeology, archeology yes.

Dr. Titus Kennedy:

So I I address 132 people in the book. Some of them it's very short, others there's so much information that it would take a book to cover everything on them. But there are a lot you know, and some are very, very definitive, like we're sure that this is the person in the Bible, and others there's some speculation, or possible, but not completely firm. But it's worth exploring those as well because sometimes more evidence is found later that sheds additional light on that. Oh okay, yes, this, this was the person in the Bible that we thought it was. Wow, that's significant.

Nancy Bruscher:

That's a lot. That's a lot. That's amazing. David, did you have a question?

Dr. Titus Kennedy:

Yeah, I was wondering if you found Jesus's cross, would you be able to know if it was his or if it was just a cross? Yeah, if somebody found that, they probably wouldn't be able to say this was Jesus's, because they just used the same kinds of cross beams for everybody, basically. And the thing that would connect to the cross of Jesus specifically would be that sign that they put up on the cross. And there is actually an ancient artifact that is maybe, I should say, connected to that, because it looks like it was made, probably in the early church period, as sort of a I don't know if I want to say relic, but reproduction, but that is something you know. It's got an inscription on it. It's an obvious identification, but just a cross, no, because they're all the same basically.

Nancy Bruscher:

This has been so fascinating. Thank you so much. As we wrap up, I just want to ask what's your favorite Bible verse or story?

Dr. Titus Kennedy:

One of my favorite stories in the Bible is the story of Daniel, and a few different reasons for that, and he's a. He's an excellent example, obviously, and so we have that to look to him as a role model. But I also think that what Daniel is going through is so relevant to our culture today and what Christians are looking like when they are living in a very secularized or even pagan culture. And then, from an archaeological perspective, there are tons of incredible discoveries that relate to the book of Daniel and many of the people that are mentioned in there, and the places and even buildings like the palace of Nebuchadnezzar, and so I find that really interesting from a historical perspective too, and so that's always one of my favorite books, favorite stories in the Bible.

Nancy Bruscher:

Well, that's good. Well, I have learned so much and I know you're a busy man. I so appreciate you taking the time to talk with us, and I can't wait to see how people are going to be impacted by this.

Dr. Titus Kennedy:

Yeah, well, thank you for having me on, it's been my pleasure.

Nancy Bruscher:

On Ordinary People, extraordinary Things. Your story is His glory. Thank you for listening. I hope this podcast has impacted your faith and if you learned something specific that really made the Bible come to life, send this to someone who might benefit from hearing about it. We will see you in two weeks for a brand new episode with Katie Hawk. See you then.