Archaeology and Bible History
by Joseph Free
Excellent book.
FWIW, Free's book was the textbook for Faith Baptist Bible Institute's Fall 1971 class in "Bible Backgrounds -- Geology & Archaeology."
We used Free's "1969 Revised Edition."
I'm not sure that this book is even available any more. I searched about a dozen pages on Amazon's site for the title, and got a lot of entries. None were this book's title.
At any rate, I learned much from it.
Also, FWIW, it would seem that the Bible's narratives (esp. in the OT) eventually seem to be verified by archaeology--at least they've never been disproved.
One of the classic examples would be of the people known as the "Hittites."
Joshua 1:4 states that the "Promised Land" that the LORD would give Joshua and the "children of Israel" would include, "all the land of the Hittites."
Free's book (p. 125-126) states, in part, "This [Josh. 1:4] is just one out of some forty passages in the Bible which mention the Hittites. Even though they are referred to these many times [cf. "Uriah the Hittite" in II Sam. 11], some scholars in the nineteenth century expressed doubts as to the existence or at least the importance of such an ancient people. At the end of the nineteenth century, A.H. Sayce, the British Assyriologist, identified the Hittites of the Bible with the mysterious Hatti of the monuments, and published his
Story of a Forgotten Empire (1892)...."
The rest is, as 'they' say "history."
NOTE: FBBI was a "educational outreach" of Faith Baptist Church; Sellersville, PA. It was not "accredited" nor was its Sunday School. I was a student in it from 1969-72, prior to my leaving PA to move to TN.
Pastor David C. Auckland "founded" FBBI because he firmly believed that God's people ought to "know more about salvation and God's Word than what's typically offered by merely attending Sunday worship and/or SS, etc. Without some more education than these can typically offer, people can quite easily be 'no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men,
and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive.'" (Eph. 4:14).
Apparently FBBI no longer exists. When it ceased to exist, I don't know. More than likely it was about the time Pastor David left to become an Adjunct Professor at Maranatha Baptist Bible College in Watertown WI.
As I have mentioned in the "Great Expositors" thread, his eldest son Paul (a TN Temple Grad.) assumed the pastorate once his father left. FBC's website (
www.faithatsellersville.org ) doesn't seem to mention anything about it.
Personally, I haven't even attended Faith Baptist in at least a dozen years, so whatever "happened to FBBI" is, to quote our illustrious POTUS, "not my pay grade!"
