He maintains that early Biblical archaeology was funded by religious institutes and sought to prove the Old Testament was historically correct putting doubt on many of the early findings. Dever (2012) maintains that over the past two decades of the archaeology progression, 'Syro Palestinian' has taken the place of biblical archaeology. Rather than having a biblical directive it seeks to focus on archaeological finds by being "specialized, professional and secular".
Kugler and Hartin (2009) argue that one of the major problems in archaeology is that many of the objects, pieces of pottery and tablets, depend upon a subjective analysis and interpretation to ascertain the relevance to Old Testament history. This problem does not take away the important findings such as the Elber tablets found at Tel Mardikh in Syria. This supports the premise that the Semitic people were lucrative traders who dealt with many other parts of the region. William Sandford LaSor, David Allen Hubbard and Frederic William Bush (1996), believe that archaeology is limited and offers very little to the Old Testament history and argue that the interpretative nature of archaeology could even be misleading. They argue that very little of the archaeological data has been excavated and that archaeologists can form different interpretations, which can include 'the abuse of the biblical records'. RK Harrison (1979) agrees that archaeology cannot be the only source of historical criticism. Since there are major problems in excavating techniques of the earlier days and individual interpretation of artifacts an accurate chronological framework cannot be placed on the Old Testament. However, Donald J Wiseman (1979) believes that much of our understanding of the people's in the near East has come from the excavation of ancient places and in the last few decades archaeologists have used more accurate methods of "stratification and typology" of certain areas.
