Apologetics

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Throughout history, the Bible has come under attack, and one of the strongest came in 1878 from Julius Wellhausen. Wellhausen belonged to a school of thought that believed the Bible was a collection of legends and Jewish folktales. According to these “experts,” the Old Testament was compiled shortly after the Jews returned from exile during the time of Nehemiah around 600 BC. After subjecting the Bible to extensive scrutiny, Wellhausen declared that numerous historical errors were committed in the writing of the scriptures that exposed its fictional nature.

One of his strongest accusations was that the Old Testament was filled with “make-believe” cultures such as the Hittites. Mentioned over forty times in scripture, the Hittites were described in the Bible as a feared and warlike people. Yet none of the archaeological surveys conducted in the Middle East up until that time, had found one shred of evidence that was even remotely related to the Hittites. Since “modern” archaeology could not prove the existence of such an important people, Wellhausen discredited the Bible as a reliable historical source.

Then around 1880, A. H. Sayce was excavating numerous sites in northern Syria. In the process, he uncovered numerous tablets written in an unknown language. Then in Turkey more tablets were found with the same mysterious writings. Soon the affair became quite embarrassing as the territory for this unknown civilization expanded, because here was a major civilization that was not covered by the “established” version of history.

Then in 1900, Sayce finally broke the code of the unknown language, and he shocked the world when he announced that the Hittites had written them! That’s not all. In 1912, Hugh Winckler discovered a large fortified city in the central highlands of Turkey. Among his discoveries was a whole library of Hittite tablets. Winckler eventually determined that the Hittites were indeed one of the most powerful people in the Middle East between 1700 – 1200 BC, and this fortified city was the capital of an empire.

Wellhausen did not die until 1918, so within his lifetime he saw his definitive proof that the Bible was historically unreliable overturned. What he failed to realize is that he challenged the Word of the Living God, and throughout history God always came to the defense of his Word.

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