Somewhere between Mohler and Andrew is a place that I’m trying to situate my thoughts.

On one hand, I agree with Mohler that archaelogical findings "cannot establish the authority for our faith." 

Authority, I think, isn’t a matter of some raw empirical evidence.  It is prior to any evidence and is, indeed, a way of understanding that evidence.  A trusting faith in our Lord God is a living activity that one does daily.  Trying to live obediently under God’s authority is a way of seeing the world and engaging it, making sense of it, and narrating it.      

On the other hand, I agree with Andrew that "the fundamental post-modern challenge is for us to allow scrpture to sink back down into the flow of history."  But I have to qualify that agreement becuase I don’t think that there is a single "flow of history."  Whose history?  In a pluralistic world, there are many histories.  They sometimes intersect in fruitful ways and, at other times, they intersect in violent ways.  So my qualified agreement can be stated thus: "the fundamental post-modern challenge is for us to allow scripture to sink back down into the various histories and contexts in which they are presently lived."

We have to deal with both Mohler’s epistemological anxiety and with Andrew’s penchant for the big story.