Shadows and Solid Things

Shadows and Solid Things: A History of Religion and Archaeology in the Modern World by Kris Zimmitti will be published this November. Kris writes beautifully and has an important tale to tell about how the study of the past through archaeology collided with mythic understandings of Bible times. If you’ve ever looked at a map in the back of a study Bible, wondered how long it took Joshua to march around Jericho, or looked at a line drawing of an ancient building in Sunday School, then this is the history that explains where those came from. Archaeology began in an era when many people read ancient religious texts literally, believing that what was described on the page corresponded to a material reality that existed beneath the soil. With a shovel in one hand and a sacred text in the other, early archaeologists sought confirmation in concrete evidence. In the process, they opened themselves to the disturbing possibility that they would find nothing—or, perhaps even more unsettling,…