Is the Bible a myth?  Does it recount actual events and real history?  And how could we possibly know?  So we’ve seen that we have ample reason for trusting in the preservation and transmission of the Biblical text but do we have alternative sources (extra-biblical witnesses) to authenticate the text?  Nearly every non-believer and most Christians would herein assume that we of course don’t have such evidence.  How could we expect to find corroboration of the Biblical narratives… after all we’re talking about locating information from thousands of years ago.  It is true that we should have no expectation of such evidence… and yet we have it.  Tens of thousands of data points affirming the veracity of scripture: this evidence comes from the field of archeology and it will be our primary focus this week.