Some Guidelines for Thinking About Biblical Historicity vs. Archaeology (Part 1 of 2)

In today's Lomdeha Friday Seminar (1/15/21) we tackled a treacherous but important topic: how to respond to claims, questions, and problems raised by archeologists and scholars of ancient history against the historicity (and validity) of the Torah. In this shiur I identify six guidelines to bear in mind when navigating these issues, three of which were covered today and the other three of which will (God willing) be covered when we return from winter break in February. Since this is not my field, I relied heavily on material from Rabbi Dr. Joshua Berman and Rabbi Dr. Dovid Gottlieb. Much of this shiur consists of me reading excerpts from their writings and offering my own commentary and examples.