Can the Old Testament be Trusted Historically?

Before the time of Napoleon Bonaparte there was no discipline of archaeology. Ancient languages like Egyptian and Akkadian (Assyrian and Babylonian) had not been deciphered. Almost all knowledge of the distant past came through manuscripts, and Christians believed that the biblical manuscripts gave them real access to knowledge of the history of the world, more than a thousand years before their earliest manuscripts. In this talk we will see that discoveries since Napoleon have supported the rationality of their trust and give Bible readers today reason to trust the narrative where it is not confirmed by other sources.