‘God is speaking to us’: Dinesh D’Souza says biblical minimalism is 'forced to retreat' as archaeology backs the Bible
Conservative filmmaker and bestselling author Dinesh D’Souza says in his new book that archaeological discoveries offer growing evidence of the Bible’s historical accuracy and challenge skeptics who question its account of ancient events.
In an interview with The Christian Post, D’Souza explains that the inspiration for the book, titled The Stones Cry Out: Biblical Archaeology, Prophecy, and the Last Days, came when he and his wife first traveled to Israel in 2022.
While there, he was exposed to many of the places and artifacts named in the Bible, including archaeological sites in the Galilee area, Caesarea by the Sea, Capernaum and Jerusalem.
“I believed a lot of these things from childhood on faith,” he recounted. “But it was just so exhilarating to see these artifacts coming out of the ground that are offering nonbiblical independent corroboration of the Bible in big ways and in small.”
“My wife and I had this discussion about why isn't this better known. Why isn't this shouted from the rooftops of every church? And I have a reason for that. I think it has to do with both the nature of what pastors do and also the kind of self-understanding of the archaeological community itself.”
For three years, D’Souza researched biblical archaeological findings and worked on crafting a book that sought to “not only introduce you to the artifacts themselves, but to archaeological thinking” about the Bible.
In addition to the photos and maps one might expect in a book examining archaeological findings, D’Souza also includes QR codes in various chapters that link to videos he made of assorted biblical sites discussed in The Stones Cry Out.
D’Souza told CP this is his first book to include QR codes, with the idea coming from his publisher, Charisma Media. He considers the technological aspect to be “an important component because it is one thing to tell you about a thing, and it is another thing for you to see it.”
“If I were to tell you, for example, this is how I grew up in India, in a middle-class family, and I grew up in this sort of home, you wouldn't really have a clear idea of what I meant,” he said.
“But if I show you some video of me at the age of 10, and you can see my house and my parents and the vendor coming to the front door, that would give you a completely different experience of what I'm talking about.”
D’Souza added, “When you are talking about these artifacts, it just feels different to be able to interact with them and to see them in video form,” calling it “a big improvement” to photos.
More than stories
D’Souza says it's important for Christians to know the archaeological evidence for the Bible, telling CP that churches all too often treat the events of the Bible as “stories.”
“It is customary for a pastor to say, ‘Let me talk about the story of Jeremiah. Let me talk about the story of David and Goliath,’” he explained. “This can easily give you the impression that the Bible is nothing more than a series of morality tales, or you could say parables.”
“Now, Christianity is in fact not like that,” he continued. “God chose to disclose Himself, at least we Christians believe, through history, through a particular people, in particular places at particular times, and this is very important in the biblical narrative. It is very important, for example, that Jesus be descended from King David. Things like genealogy are important to the Bible.”
D’Souza says “the Bible is dense with historical particularities” for which evidence can be found either for or against, noting that “the validation of the Bible is an encouragement to the believer and it confounds the skeptic.”
“If the historical facts of the Bible which are verifiable are false, why would you believe the supernatural claims which are unverifiable?” D’Souza rhetorically asked.
“Conversely, if the historicity of the Bible can be shown to be true, isn't it more likely that the entire story of the Bible becomes more believable? … If the Bible holds up historically, it gives much greater plausibility to the Bible being true as a whole.”
Minimalism critiqued
Throughout the book, D’Souza critiques the claims of minimalism, a school of biblical archaeology that claims most — if not all — of the Bible was written down centuries after the events described and often embellishes or fabricates occurrences.
D’Souza told CP that while minimalism has long been a fixture in scholarship, it has increasingly lost ground as more archaeological evidence for the Bible is discovered.
D’Souza noted that multiple books written by “mainstream academic archaeologists” in recent years “have given a lot of ground to biblical archaeology.”
D’Souza quoted archaeologist Eric H. Cline, author of the 2009 book Biblical Archaeology: A Very Short Introduction, who once wrote, “In this intervening 1,000 years [between King David and Jesus Christ] there is not a single discovery of biblical archaeology that contradicts the Bible.”
“There's some arguments about dating, you know, did this happen in the eighth century or was it in the late seventh century?” D’Souza told CP. “But leaving aside that kind of minutia, Cline's statement stands up very well.”
“I think it is very telling because naturally you're not going to be able to corroborate everything. But the discoveries are going in one direction.”
These discoveries that validate the Bible even include “tiny details,” according to D’Souza, who gave the example of Jehukal son of Shelemiah and Gedaliah son of Pashhur, two figures briefly mentioned in Jeremiah 38 as servants of King Zedekiah.
About 2,500 years later, archaeologists in Israel discovered two clay seal impressions: one named Jehukal son of Shelemiah and the other mentioning Gedaliah son of Pashhur.
“Suddenly, in one stroke, this biblical character, Jehukal, jumps out of the pages of the Bible and into the pages of history via the road of archaeology,” said D’Souza, who noted that this discovery undermined the skepticism of the minimalist view.
“They would say, 'The Bible was written hundreds of years later by people who were unfamiliar with what happened and therefore concocted, manufactured and embellished these events.’ How would somebody writing hundreds of years later even know the names of the sidekicks of King Zedekiah?”
D’Souza believes that while biblical minimalists “don’t give up,” they are “always forced to retreat to a fallback position.”
“They'll be like, ‘OK, now that you've proven the existence of King David, show me his palace,’” he said. “When you show them the palace, they go, ‘OK, but how do we know this was a palace and not some other royal administrative building?’ or ‘How do we know it was completed under David instead of merely started under David and completed perhaps later?’”
“And so, the minimalist isn't surrendering and admitting complete defeat, but the minimalist is backing off and making more modest claims because the big claim has been vanquished.”
'God is speaking to us'
For D’Souza, researching and writing The Stones Cry Out has changed his outlook; he told CP, “It has deepened my understanding and appreciation for the Bible.”
“I now have the Bible, but I also have running alongside the Bible a sort of tapestry, and the tapestry has the dates and not only the dates, but I have parachuted in the artifacts,” he noted.
The title of his book references Luke 19, where, in response to the Pharisees telling Jesus to keep His disciples quiet, Jesus responds, “If they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.”
“I believe that God is speaking to us in this secular age through a somewhat different language than He uses in the Bible itself.”
“It’s almost like God is saying today, in the 21st century, ‘I'm going to use these stones,’” said D’Souza. “‘I'm going to communicate in the language of science and reason and the university; I'm going to speak sort of in a dual language, both the Bible on the one hand, but archaeology in the other.’”
“I think that there is a profound significance to the fact that these artifacts, like David's palace, have been under the ground for three thousand years, so it’s interesting that they are coming out now.”
