As the East­er sea­son ap­proach­es, many fol­low­ers of Catholi­cism and oth­er Chris­t­ian de­nom­i­na­tions are in a pe­ri­od of fast­ing and re­flec­tion in prepa­ra­tion for the most im­por­tant event on the church cal­en­dar, Good Fri­day and East­er Sun­day.

This year, I de­cid­ed to spot­light up-and-com­ing thought lead­ers in the Chris­t­ian space. UWI Phi­los­o­phy So­ci­ety pres­i­dent Justin Sankar, 24, is com­plet­ing the sec­ond year of his un­der­grad­u­ate bi­ol­o­gy de­gree.

Sankar was elect­ed as the so­ci­ety’s pres­i­dent in 2025. The so­ci­ety group chat has over 100 mem­bers and reg­u­lar meet­ings are at­tend­ed by up to 30 peo­ple.

I asked Sankar to give me his views on the most im­por­tant ar­chae­o­log­i­cal finds that in­ter­sect the Bible.

“Many ar­chae­o­log­i­cal dis­cov­er­ies lend cre­dence to the Bib­li­cal cor­pus be­ing more than sim­ple fic­tion,” Sankar said.

What ar­chae­o­log­i­cal finds should read­ers know about when scru­ti­n­is­ing the his­toric­i­ty and ac­cu­ra­cy of the Bible?

“The Tel Dan stele is an 8th-cen­tu­ry in­scrip­tion that reads BYT­D­WD or house of David. This find is sig­nif­i­cant be­cause it func­tions as ev­i­dence in favour of a his­tor­i­cal David. Al­though it doesn’t func­tion as hard proof, it does show that by the 8th cen­tu­ry BC, there was al­ready a Da­vidic lin­eage known by for­eign pow­ers. Next is the Mernep­tah Stele. In fact, this is the ear­li­est piece of bib­li­cal ar­chae­ol­o­gy to date. It was erect­ed by the Pharaoh Mernep­tah and is our ear­li­est ref­er­ence to the peo­ple of Is­rael (rough­ly 1213 BCE). This is es­pe­cial­ly strik­ing when we con­sid­er how close this was to the events of the Ex­o­dus,” Sankar Justin said

So there is some con­fir­ma­tion of the Old Tes­ta­ment Nar­ra­tive, but what about the New Tes­ta­ment?

“The Du­ra-Eu­ro­pos Church ex­ca­vat­ed in Syr­ia is one of our ear­li­est rem­nants of a church build­ing (233 AD). It al­so con­tains one of our ear­li­est in­scrip­tions of Je­sus be­ing ex­plic­it­ly iden­ti­fied and wor­shipped as God. Con­trary to many scep­tics, this in­scrip­tion serves to il­lus­trate the al­ready high Chris­tol­ogy of ear­ly Chris­tians pri­or to the Coun­cil of Nicaea. The sec­ond most im­por­tant bib­li­cal dis­cov­ery has to be the Nag Ham­ma­di li­brary. This col­lec­tion con­tains re­li­gious pa­pyri, many of which are Gnos­tic in na­ture.

“These Gnos­tic Gospels are sig­nif­i­cant be­cause they demon­strate the re­li­a­bil­i­ty of the canon­i­cal Gospels com­pared to them,” Sankar said

I then asked Sankar what he con­sid­ered to be the most im­por­tant ar­chae­o­log­i­cal dis­cov­ery re­lat­ing to the Bible.

“The great­est ar­chae­o­log­i­cal dis­cov­ery of the Bible has to go to the renowned Dead Sea Scrolls. These scrolls con­tain every book of the Old Tes­ta­ment, ex­clud­ing Es­ther.

“Pri­or to the dis­cov­ery of these scrolls, our ear­li­est com­plete copies of the Old Tes­ta­ment were rough­ly 1000 AD in the Leningrad Codex.

“The scrolls are dat­ed from the Third Cen­tu­ry BC to the first cen­tu­ry AD, mean­ing that they al­low us to get a glimpse of the Bible from over 2,000 years ago.

“This re­mark­able find al­lowed schol­ars to see how well pre­served the man­u­script tra­di­tion of the Bible has been.

“Ul­ti­mate­ly, it showed that the Bible we pos­sess in our smart­phones is the self­same Bible from the an­cient past.

“These dis­cov­er­ies al­low us to recog­nise not just the re­li­a­bil­i­ty of the Bible but that we’re deal­ing with a text that was sit­u­at­ed in his­tor­i­cal re­al­i­ty with re­al pol­i­tics, places and peo­ple.”

Sankar and I dis­cussed the myth that the Coun­cil of Nicea in 325 AD was the first time Je­sus was el­e­vat­ed to the same sta­tus as God.

Much ar­chae­o­log­i­cal and tex­tu­al ev­i­dence pri­or to 325 AD de­bunks the myth that the Coun­cil of Nicaea changed Chris­t­ian the­ol­o­gy.

The Du­ra-Eu­ro­pos Church and Nag Ham­ma­di Li­brary, among oth­er ev­i­dence, such as the Megid­do Mo­sa­ic, which dates to 230AD, have in­scrip­tions men­tion­ing “the God Je­sus Christ”.

Go­ing back to the Dead Sea Scrolls, I asked Sankar to point out which scroll in par­tic­u­lar had the most rel­e­vance to the is­sue of the Bible’s re­li­a­bil­i­ty.

“I’d say the Isa­iah scroll, which dates back to around the Sec­ond Cen­tu­ry BC, is an al­most com­plete copy of the book of Isa­iah, which is found in to­day’s Bibles.

“Most Chris­tians will know that Isa­iah chap­ter 53 proph­e­sies of a mes­si­ah who would be pierced for our trans­gres­sions.

“The fact that this prophe­cy pre­dates the birth of Je­sus and pre­dicts the im­por­tance of the cru­ci­fix­ion shows that the Old Tes­ta­ment was not cor­rupt­ed to match Chris­t­ian doc­trine as some sects claim,” Sankar said.

In the end, Sankar and I dis­cussed the im­por­tance of peo­ple do­ing prop­er re­search and not falling for YouTube con­spir­a­cies.

Sankar again em­pha­sised that the Bible is a his­tor­i­cal book sit­u­at­ed in re­al­i­ty, deal­ing with re­al pol­i­tics, cul­ture, places and peo­ple.

The fact that the Bible en­gages with the ge­og­ra­phy, cul­ture and pol­i­tics of its time is ev­i­dence that it is not a work of fic­tion but a se­ries of his­tor­i­cal ac­counts.