William F. Albright: The Father of Biblical Archaeology

In this installment of ‘Profiles in History,’ we meet a brilliant missionary’s son who becomes one of the most important scholars on Near East studies.

W.F. Albright, at a ceremony of conferment of honorary doctorates, by Hebrew University. He was the first scholar to authenticate the Dead Sea Scrolls. Public Domain

William Foxwell Albright (1891–1971) was born to financially modest American Methodist missionaries in Coquimbo, Chile. His life as a child was anything but easy for various reasons. He grew up under tight budgetary constraints, in a country not his own, combined with poor eyesight and a crippled left hand due to a farming accident. These issues often made him the brunt of jokes among the local schoolchildren. Albright, however, was a voracious reader and inquisitive thinker, and his affinity for ancient history led him to become known as the father of Biblical archaeology.

As a constant reader and growing up in a minister’s home, he was thoroughly acquainted with the Old Testament. These ancient stories inspired him to study the history of the ancient Near East. When he was 10, his parents bought him R.W. Rogers’s “History of Babylonia and Assyria,” which left a lasting impact.

Becoming a Scholar

William F. Albright (L), at an archaeological site. (Benno Rothenberg/Meitar Collection/National Library of Israel/The Pritzker Family National Photography Collection/CC BY 4.0)

Leaving Chile and coming to America, he attended Upper Iowa University, where he earned a degree in classic literature at the age of 22. That same year, he earned a scholarship from Johns Hopkins University. Albright already made a case for his brilliance by publishing his first scholarly article in 1912, and, by the time he entered his doctoral studies, had taught himself the languages of Assyrian, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, and Latin, not to mention the fact he was fluent in English and Spanish.

In 1916, he earned his doctorate from Johns Hopkins while studying under the renowned German Sumerologist and Assyriologist, Paul Haupt. His goal was to become an Orientalist—a scholar of the ancient Near East—like Haupt.

That goal was briefly sidelined. When America entered World War I, Albright filled out his paperwork, though considering his poor eyesight and his crippled left hand, the chance of being drafted was slim. Apparently, it was not slim enough. In 1918, he was drafted for limited service, becoming a potato peeler and a dishwasher until his discharge in December 1918.

Reaching Palestine

Hardly had his time with the Army ended when he was notified that he had been awarded the Thayer Fellowship, which came with a $1,000 stipend. He planned to begin his first scholarly journey to the Middle East, specifically Palestine. The money was barely enough pay for his travels, but Albright decided to remain in the Baltimore area for another six months. It was a wise decision, because he was awarded the Johnston Scholarship, which provided an additional $1,200. He was now ready to take on the task of stepping foot into the places he had only read about.

Albright’s scholarly focus was on Proto-Canaanite scripts and texts, an era that stretched back as far as 1400 B.C. When he arrived in Palestine, he chose to excavate Tell el-Ful, a small area that he believed was the Old Testament’s Gibeah during the reign of King Saul.

Making His Mark

His next excavation site, Tell Beit Mirsim in southern Judea, put Albright on the scholarly map. From 1926 to 1932, he led four seasons of excavations. He believed the site was the biblical Debir from Joshua 15, a claim that remains debatable. During this time, he and his team excavated and discovered layers of pottery. His method of using the stratigraphic record established a chronology of the pottery that ranged from the Bronze Age into the Iron Age. Among the ruins of the ancient city were “dye vat[s]” and “textile complexes,” leading him to conclude that the location had been home to dyers and weavers.

During the excavation, Albright issued numerous reports in the Annual of the American School of Oriental Research. His reports, demonstrating ceramic chronology, ultimately filled four volumes, and “became the foundation for the ceramic typology and chronology for the Holy Land still utilized today.”

Excavations at Tell Beit Mirsim in 1926. Excavating the house at east gate. Library of Congress. Public Domain

Major Personal Moments

Two major moments took place in Albright’s life shortly after he arrived in Palestine. In 1920, he became director of the American School of Oriental Research (ASOR), a position he held until 1929, and then intermittently between 1932 and 1935. In 1921, he married Ruth Norton, the same year she received her doctorate in Sanskrit from Johns Hopkins University.

Starting in 1929, he accepted a professorship at Johns Hopkins University in the Department of Near Eastern Studies. He maintained his professorship until his retirement in 1958, eventually holding the W.W. Spence chair in Semitic Languages, the position his mentor, Haupt, had held until his death in 1926.

The Nash Papyrus

The Nash Papyrus, a collection of four papyrus fragments acquired in Egypt by W.L. Nash. Public Domain

In 1902, a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, W.L. Nash, purchased four adjoining ancient pieces of papyrus, which possessed 24 lines (and traces of a 25th line) that included the Ten Commandments and the Shema' prayer (Deuteronomy 6:4-5). The following year, scholar S.A. Cooke determined that the writing originated from the second century.

Approximately 30 years later, Albright studied the papyrus and made the more accurate conclusion that the writing was actually from an earlier period between the second and first century B.C., making it the oldest Biblical manuscript at that time. The Nash Papyrus now resides in the Cambridge University Library Oriental collection.

Confirming the Greatest Discovery

Albright’s study had far-reaching effects for him shortly after World War II. In 1946, Bedouin shepherds discovered seven scrolls in a cave near Qumran. In February 1948, shortly before the British Mandate would end in Palestine, ASOR fellow John Trever was presented with several manuscripts from these scrolls. Realizing the possibility of a truly historic discovery, Trever needed to prove the scrolls’ authenticity and their age. Recalling Albright’s work on the Nash Papyrus, he contacted him.

Trever sent Albright photographic images. Within an hour of studying the manuscripts, Albright immediately responded to Trever, “In my opinion you have made the greatest MS [manuscript] discovery of modern times—certainly the greatest biblical MS find. The spelling is most interesting, resembling that of the Nash Papyrus very closely. … The new material will revolutionize our conception of the development of Hebrew orthography. … You can imagine how my eyes bulged, when I saw the script through my magnifying glass! What an absolutely incredible find! And there can happily not be the slightest doubt in the world about the genuineness of the MS.”

Two scrolls from the Dead Sea Scrolls lie at their location in the Qumran Caves before being removed for scholarly examination by archaeologists. Public Domain

In 1948, Albright became the first scholar to authenticate what we know now as the Dead Sea Scrolls. It was indeed the pinnacle of his illustrious career.

For many reasons, Albright left an indelible mark on the field of archaeology, no doubt earning the moniker of father of Biblical archaeology. He produced more than 1,100 scholarly works. He mastered 26 modern and ancient languages. He was awarded 29 honorary degrees, was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1955, and shortly before his death in 1971, the ASOR was renamed the W.F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research.

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