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The Stones Cry Out: What Archaeology Reveals About the Truth of the Bible
Were Sodom and Gomorrah real cities, and were they really destroyed in catastrophic firestorms? Can we respond to the historians who have long claimed that King David was only a mythical figure? Is there archaeological evidence for Jesus’ historical existence here on earth? In recent excavation, archaeologists have unearthed both surprising and substantial answers to these questions and others. Pottery shards, stone inscriptions, ancient scrolls, and other fascinating artifacts have shed new light on the people and events of the Bible―bringing them from the realm of mystery to the world of fact. Discover what new archaeological finds have to tell us about Israel’s journey to the promised land, the fall of Jericho’s walks, the ark of the covenant, the kings and prophets of Israel, the Assyrian and Babylonian invasions, the Dead Sea Scrolls, the time and people of Jesus, and more. Includes testimonies and interviews from leading archaeologists and exciting pictures featuring the latest finds made in the lands of the Bible. The Stones Cry Out will give you a new appreciation for both the world and the Word of the Bible!
440 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1997
8 people are currently reading
182 people want to read
About the author
Randall Price
30 books12 followersPresident for World of the Bible Ministries. He is a Th.M. graduate of Dallas Theological Seminary and holds a Ph.D. in Middle Eastern Studies from the University of Texas at Austin.
Dr. Price received his bachelor’s (B.A.) from Texas State University, his master's degree (Th.M.) from Dallas Theological Seminary in Old Testament and Semitic Languages, and his doctorate (Ph.D.) from the University of Texas at Austin in Middle Eastern Studies with a concentration in Hebrew and Archaeology. He has also done graduate work in biblical and archaeological studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
In 2009, he drew media attention when fielding an expedition to Turkey to find Noah's Ark.
He has authored over 20 books and films on the Bible, and is often a guest on television programs.
Dr. Price received his bachelor’s (B.A.) from Texas State University, his master's degree (Th.M.) from Dallas Theological Seminary in Old Testament and Semitic Languages, and his doctorate (Ph.D.) from the University of Texas at Austin in Middle Eastern Studies with a concentration in Hebrew and Archaeology. He has also done graduate work in biblical and archaeological studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
In 2009, he drew media attention when fielding an expedition to Turkey to find Noah's Ark.
He has authored over 20 books and films on the Bible, and is often a guest on television programs.
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
May 28, 2025
Another great book for your library and one to discuss with your family. Achaeological proofs of the Bible which is a perfect primer to aid those weak in their faith, or for that matter, for those who say they know things that are absolutely false about the Bible and its truth. It seems to me that archaeology is finding out more and more to prove the Bible and those pesky places it mentions. God did promise to preserve His word and did so throughout the world beneath the ground below us. As each decade and century passes more of the destroyed kingdoms are resurrected, so-to-say. The unfortunate truth is this, man changes his own words to mean other things and obfuscates those things that tend to be found and swear up & down that they really mean something else! Man lies but evidence does not. Evidence simply brings to light that which was hidden for a time!
February 3, 2021
Awesome overview of archaeology as it relates to the Bible. I wish there were an updated edition with new finds and info.
Read
October 20, 2017I won't "rate" this since it was a college book and I only read the parts that were assigned to me rather than reading it cover-to-cover. However, it was one of the more interesting texts of my entire university experience, well-written and biblically sound*, so I thought I'd mark it as read, just because. :)
*My university was and still is a Christian university, and all of the Bible-related books assigned to me while I was taking courses for the theology part of my interdisciplinary degree were biblically sound.
*My university was and still is a Christian university, and all of the Bible-related books assigned to me while I was taking courses for the theology part of my interdisciplinary degree were biblically sound.
November 18, 2024
A fascinating read about archaeology and the Bible! It was a bit dry but easy to digest. The gist: archaeology is a wonderful tool to help us understand the Bible and the historical context within it, while the spiritual message of the Bible remains a matter of personal faith.
March 14, 2021
More like a 2.5. In the end, I think it's fairer to call it a 2 because, even though the pages read quickly, it took me a disproportionately long time to finish.
The positives of this book is that it's an informative starting point. This is why I picked it up, and in that, I achieved my goal: I know more archaeological artifacts and discoveries to research deeply later. That's great. I liked that a lot.
Published in 1997, Randall Price's book is inevitably outdated. I knew that coming into the book, but it was nice Price himself warned readers about how quickly archaeology gets outdated. This means that, while it's a great way to learn about archaeological discoveries that are or have been relevant to biblical discussion, you shouldn't take his statements as the final word. There were several cases in which I looked up the find he was talking about only to learn they were now disputed forgeries, etc. But at the time he published it, yes, he didn't know that, so he wasn't being deceptive. And in other cases, like Jericho, I haven't seen much more progressed academically beyond what Price presented, so I got a clear overview of still-current-enough scholarship.
Price never spoke deeply on any topic. Large portions of the book feel unsatisfyingly superficial. There were fascinating tidbits, though, that I find of value in the book. For instance, I loved learning about how Patriarchal names were contemporary to the time period the biblical writers say the Patriarchs came from, given evidence of other documents in the area. I loved seeing the material on Hezekiah, the water tunnel he constructed, his wall, Sennacherib, and comparing that with what was said in the Old Testament (lots of great comparison points, and Price even understated all the things that could've been compared). I loved learning about scholars' arguments for and against King David being mentioned in the Tel Dan Stele and other biblical names (possibly) being reconstructed in the same artifact. Still, I would say that Price worked so hard at appealing to the layperson that the quality of information massively suffers.
There were many times I felt as though there was a huge mismatch in his propositions versus his conclusions. Price would present modest information, oftentimes merely tangentially related to the Bible, weighing the information with a level-enough angle of how much it did or didn't correlate to the Bible's texts (still chose to describe info that was more in accordance to his views... caught that selectivity of information several times). But he ended his chapters with firm conclusions as though these were monumentally correlated to the Bible's veracity. What he concluded did not follow from what he showed.
Internal arguments within the chapters often had the same problem as the overarching chapter's over-optimistic conclusions. There were many times he didn't prove what he set out to prove. You can't prove that prophecies occurred before the text if you only examine the archaeological dates of artifacts and dig sites; you have to prove when the texts were written, too. You have to solidify BOTH DATES!
The reason for this writing quirk is that Price is a maximalist. He emphasized his maximalistic framework frequently throughout the book. He defines a maximalist as "a biblical scholar who gives maximum authority to the biblical text as a source for historical and factual information about the past," and he addresses his audience expecting they will all be Christian maximalists, too. I am Christian but not a maximalist. I do not believe his angle is the best scholastic way to handle the intersection of Bible and archaeology. I think that the best way of demonstrating how the Bible may correlate with archaeological finds is by carefully showing e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g. and not starting the discussion with premises others may dispute (especially premises MANY others will dispute).
Therefore, Price's book will only appeal to the choir he preaches to. The arguments feel like Begging the Question, assuming the conclusion "the Bible is inerrant" is true to demonstrate to readers that the Bible is inerrant. Anyone of critical thought who doesn't come in begging the same question will be unmoved. If they are moved, they will be moved to screaming at how he comes across. Price is not convincing in showing the non-maximalist to be persuaded by his maximalism. Price does not succeed in showing the stones cry out, which is a shame, because with more depth of content, and better addressal of a potential diverse audience, maybe he could have done so.
If he did less maximalism-toting and more information-presenting, this could have been a valuable resource and more useful to all, maximalist, minimalist, or anyone else.
There is one point in which Price warns people to be careful about believing media's exaggerated or bogus reports of archaeological information that isn't actually evidence "proving" or "disproving" the Bible. Wish he spoke longer on the topic, but I'm glad he brought it up: we can't be gullible over every headline we come across, especially as laypeople who lack the expertise to catch these misleading claims. Price, as an authority who's gone on archaeological digs, would know better. But then half a page later, he falls into the very thing he warns against, going on half a page with anti-evolutionary claims that made my eyebrows raise so high they floated off my forehead.
So yeah. This will appeal to audiences of a more traditional, fundamentalist, Evangelical nature. It's insulated in many of the same thought processes and beliefs that cultural niche has. It may reinforce some bad beliefs about scholarship, even though Price warns against certain pitfalls (like believing those bogus news articles). And he DOES have a nuanced perspective at the end regarding how archaeology can't prove or disprove the Bible; most findings will correlate alongside the Bible rather than directly feed into the Bible; we shouldn't create a culture where people merely have faith in their own faith without regard to facts; faith should be grounded in something that has underlying truth, an underlying object of solid weight; theology and archaeology are two separate fields. So I found myself oscillating between agreeing with him, thanking him for bringing up that topic, and sighing heavily at a paragraph I found wholly illogical.
TL;DR: It is not written for an audience like me.
But again: I read this for a "starting point" to know what discoveries were being discussed, and in that, I still achieved my goal.
The positives of this book is that it's an informative starting point. This is why I picked it up, and in that, I achieved my goal: I know more archaeological artifacts and discoveries to research deeply later. That's great. I liked that a lot.
Published in 1997, Randall Price's book is inevitably outdated. I knew that coming into the book, but it was nice Price himself warned readers about how quickly archaeology gets outdated. This means that, while it's a great way to learn about archaeological discoveries that are or have been relevant to biblical discussion, you shouldn't take his statements as the final word. There were several cases in which I looked up the find he was talking about only to learn they were now disputed forgeries, etc. But at the time he published it, yes, he didn't know that, so he wasn't being deceptive. And in other cases, like Jericho, I haven't seen much more progressed academically beyond what Price presented, so I got a clear overview of still-current-enough scholarship.
Price never spoke deeply on any topic. Large portions of the book feel unsatisfyingly superficial. There were fascinating tidbits, though, that I find of value in the book. For instance, I loved learning about how Patriarchal names were contemporary to the time period the biblical writers say the Patriarchs came from, given evidence of other documents in the area. I loved seeing the material on Hezekiah, the water tunnel he constructed, his wall, Sennacherib, and comparing that with what was said in the Old Testament (lots of great comparison points, and Price even understated all the things that could've been compared). I loved learning about scholars' arguments for and against King David being mentioned in the Tel Dan Stele and other biblical names (possibly) being reconstructed in the same artifact. Still, I would say that Price worked so hard at appealing to the layperson that the quality of information massively suffers.
There were many times I felt as though there was a huge mismatch in his propositions versus his conclusions. Price would present modest information, oftentimes merely tangentially related to the Bible, weighing the information with a level-enough angle of how much it did or didn't correlate to the Bible's texts (still chose to describe info that was more in accordance to his views... caught that selectivity of information several times). But he ended his chapters with firm conclusions as though these were monumentally correlated to the Bible's veracity. What he concluded did not follow from what he showed.
Internal arguments within the chapters often had the same problem as the overarching chapter's over-optimistic conclusions. There were many times he didn't prove what he set out to prove. You can't prove that prophecies occurred before the text if you only examine the archaeological dates of artifacts and dig sites; you have to prove when the texts were written, too. You have to solidify BOTH DATES!
The reason for this writing quirk is that Price is a maximalist. He emphasized his maximalistic framework frequently throughout the book. He defines a maximalist as "a biblical scholar who gives maximum authority to the biblical text as a source for historical and factual information about the past," and he addresses his audience expecting they will all be Christian maximalists, too. I am Christian but not a maximalist. I do not believe his angle is the best scholastic way to handle the intersection of Bible and archaeology. I think that the best way of demonstrating how the Bible may correlate with archaeological finds is by carefully showing e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g. and not starting the discussion with premises others may dispute (especially premises MANY others will dispute).
Therefore, Price's book will only appeal to the choir he preaches to. The arguments feel like Begging the Question, assuming the conclusion "the Bible is inerrant" is true to demonstrate to readers that the Bible is inerrant. Anyone of critical thought who doesn't come in begging the same question will be unmoved. If they are moved, they will be moved to screaming at how he comes across. Price is not convincing in showing the non-maximalist to be persuaded by his maximalism. Price does not succeed in showing the stones cry out, which is a shame, because with more depth of content, and better addressal of a potential diverse audience, maybe he could have done so.
If he did less maximalism-toting and more information-presenting, this could have been a valuable resource and more useful to all, maximalist, minimalist, or anyone else.
There is one point in which Price warns people to be careful about believing media's exaggerated or bogus reports of archaeological information that isn't actually evidence "proving" or "disproving" the Bible. Wish he spoke longer on the topic, but I'm glad he brought it up: we can't be gullible over every headline we come across, especially as laypeople who lack the expertise to catch these misleading claims. Price, as an authority who's gone on archaeological digs, would know better. But then half a page later, he falls into the very thing he warns against, going on half a page with anti-evolutionary claims that made my eyebrows raise so high they floated off my forehead.
So yeah. This will appeal to audiences of a more traditional, fundamentalist, Evangelical nature. It's insulated in many of the same thought processes and beliefs that cultural niche has. It may reinforce some bad beliefs about scholarship, even though Price warns against certain pitfalls (like believing those bogus news articles). And he DOES have a nuanced perspective at the end regarding how archaeology can't prove or disprove the Bible; most findings will correlate alongside the Bible rather than directly feed into the Bible; we shouldn't create a culture where people merely have faith in their own faith without regard to facts; faith should be grounded in something that has underlying truth, an underlying object of solid weight; theology and archaeology are two separate fields. So I found myself oscillating between agreeing with him, thanking him for bringing up that topic, and sighing heavily at a paragraph I found wholly illogical.
TL;DR: It is not written for an audience like me.
But again: I read this for a "starting point" to know what discoveries were being discussed, and in that, I still achieved my goal.
February 3, 2018
If this had been written by the hands of a purely secular academic, this book on Biblical Archaeology would have been a dry, tedious, desperately boring topic; but in the skillful hands of Dr. Randall Price, it is an absorbing, engaging, and fascinating read. Dr. Price looks at some historically significant finds of Biblical Archaeology and sets them forth in a clear, concise, and compelling manner.
Dr. Price looks at the many ancient cities of the Bible such as Jerusalem, Jericho, and Sodom and Gomorrah, great bible kings like David and Solomon, interesting information on the ten commandments, and even Paul's missionary journeys chronicled in the book of Acts. This volume also contains some photos and illustrations that bring some added detail to the discoveries.
This is a well researched book, that presents the evidence of the largely marginalized and dismissed field of Biblical Archaeology clearly. This book helps give answers to many questions one may have with regards to the veracity and historical accuracy of the bible's old and new Testament writings. Highly recommended.
Dr. Price looks at the many ancient cities of the Bible such as Jerusalem, Jericho, and Sodom and Gomorrah, great bible kings like David and Solomon, interesting information on the ten commandments, and even Paul's missionary journeys chronicled in the book of Acts. This volume also contains some photos and illustrations that bring some added detail to the discoveries.
This is a well researched book, that presents the evidence of the largely marginalized and dismissed field of Biblical Archaeology clearly. This book helps give answers to many questions one may have with regards to the veracity and historical accuracy of the bible's old and new Testament writings. Highly recommended.
August 9, 2019
Dr. Randall Price is an incredible writer, archaeologist, and man of God. In this book, Price describes numerous archaeological discoveries that authenticate the Bible, while also noting the limitations that archaeology holds.
July 18, 2021
This book provides substantial evidence that the stories of scripture is true. As with all history, conclusive proof is rare. Nevertheless, Price presents countless sources of evidence which supports the reality of biblical events.
November 28, 2020
Good book with some of the grestest biblical archaeological findings until 1997.
May 9, 2012
This is a fantastic overview of the world of Biblical Archaeology. It describes the minimalist/maximalist positions and defends the historicity of the scripture without over elevating the science of Archaeology. Price goes through scores of excavations and discoveries that will spark the interest of anyone that is interested in the subject. Well written with appropriately portioned chapters, good book!
September 19, 2015
The archaeological evidence supports the historicity of both Old and New Testament Scripture. To claim the Bible is a story of fables and myths shows complete ignorance to the scientific record. Mr. Price does a good job in showing and describing the many ancient artifacts that have been uncovered over the years bringing the Bible alive to its readers. Perhaps the best Bible archaeology book to date.
February 16, 2008
A good book if you are interested in archaeology and the bible. Some findings, I felt were a stretch. While others left me thinking "Oh Yeah!"
August 29, 2012
I don't think this book is at the same level as those by Hoffmeier and Kitchen, but definitely worth reading.
October 9, 2012
Good introduction to biblical archeology.
June 28, 2014
good reference
March 6, 2013
It is excellent!
August 17, 2014
Good overview of biblical archaeology. Well-researched, well-documented footnotes.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews