COLLEGE PARK, Fla. -- The redheaded boy gazes up from a pew at College Park Baptist Church at the man he would like to become. Almost lost in the sanctuary's sea of seasoned seniors and silver hair, 10-year-old Christopher Henderson is taking a morning off from his Christian school to follow his dream of becoming a biblical archaeologist.
James Strange, distinguished university professor at the University of South Florida in Tampa, is pacing between the lecterns at the front of the sanctuary. With graduate degrees in divinity and archaeology, and decades of digs behind him, he explains to about 60 people in the audience that he uses archaeology to "illuminate the pages of the Bible."
Strange's specialty is first-century Galilee, in northern Israel, particularly the ruins of Sepphoris, the largest city nearest to the village of Nazareth. He has created a virtual reconstruction of a synagogue in another nearby city, Capernaum, where he believes Jesus may have worshipped. Much of his work at sites like Sepphoris and Capernaum, he admits, is a mixture of detective work and informed conjecture.
"Archaeology is of no use to us unless it tells us a story," he says as images of his work, some enhanced by computer animation, flash on a large screen. "We want to illuminate history. We want to illuminate religious texts."
For Christopher Henderson, who would like to combine a career in archaeology with one in missionary work, this is irresistible.
"It's almost as if you're unearthing facts about the Bible that people didn't know," the youngster says later. "You feel like you're doing it for a good reason -- like you're honoring the Lord in that way."
Strange cuts a colorful figure on the stage, but as young Christopher listens, the boy cannot help thinking of another archaeologist who inspires him.
The archaeologist the boy envisions is wearing a battered fedora and leather jacket, with a coiled bullwhip hanging from his belt: He's Indiana Jones, the best known biblical archaeologist who never lived, portrayed in three feature films by actor Harrison Ford.
No one would mistake Strange, 64, with his trimmed white beard, glasses and East Texas drawl, for Indiana Jones or Harrison Ford. At College Park Baptist, the professor wears a pinstriped, collarless blue shirt, buttoned at the neck, and a khaki vest with stuffed pockets. His stomach forms a modest bay window overlooking his belt, and a salt-and-pepper mane cascades from his balding pate like a crinkly curtain.
Strange's goal, "to create a convincing portrait of this person called Jesus Christ," rarely fails to draw a crowd. And the morning talk in College Park, which is followed by an overflow luncheon for 140, is not an isolated event.
People outside academic circles, like those from many walks of life who come to places like College Park Baptist, are attracted to the subject for a variety of reasons.
Some believers, like Christopher Henderson -- who prays daily for guidance and believes that the earth is 6,000 to 8,000 years old -- want to confirm or reinforce their conviction that the Bible is literally true in all respects.
Others simply want to refine their belief, based on evidence. "I'm always looking for something that will support the Bible, proof that things in the Bible actually happened," says David Olson, a Florida Hospital nurse who attended Strange's recent morning talk.
James Squillante, a stockbroker, brings his teen-age daughter and several of her friends to the church lunch, thinking the talk might be helpful "for those who may not totally have faith."
And some, frankly, look to archaeologists for evidence that will undermine biblical truth. Though it contains nothing dramatic enough to shake the foundations of faith, Excavating Jesus -- the intentionally provocative title of a book by Jonathan L. Reed and John Dominic Crossan -- raises serious questions inherent in biblical archaeology.
Crossan, professor emeritus at DePaul University in Chicago, is a biblical scholar and author of 20 books on the historical Jesus. From 1985 to 1996, he was co-director of the controversial Jesus Seminar, a panel of religion experts that voted on which of the words and deeds attributed to Jesus in the New Testament came originally from him -- rather than from later oral traditions and other authors.
For his latest book, the historian joined with Reed, professor of New Testament and Christian Origins at the University of La Verne in California.
"Who can dig up Jesus?" the authors ask, referring to earthly remains that Christians believe do not exist. "How can archaeology ever speak of excavating Jesus?
"Archaeology excavates and can excavate Jesus not just by digging up where he lived or traveled, but by filling out as completely as possible the social world in which he operated."
Jesus' kingdom, they write, "left behind no structures whatsoever, no inscriptions, no material artifacts. Nevertheless, archaeologists can help understand his program by examining the context in which he proclaimed and lived the Kingdom of God."
Strange also looks for evidence to re-create the environment of Jesus' world. But when someone in the luncheon audience complains that nothing Strange has described "relates to the actual existence of Jesus," the archaeologist is quick to agree.
"We don't find anything that belonged to Jesus," he acknowledges, much less any evidence of miracles.
After his luncheon talk in College Park, Strange repeatedly makes the same point as he is surrounded by questioners like Devon West, a high school student, who is attending with classmates.
"How do you know the stories are true," West asks, "the unbelievable stories?"
Strange cannot give him the answer he is looking for. As a biblical archaeologist, "you make the most reasonable, plausible case you can make."
To some degree, all religion relies on faith -- the belief in things unseen and not reliant on provable fact.
For believers, there are pitfalls inherent in biblical archaeology. What if what is dug up challenges their faith? What if another Gospel is found in the desert, sealed in a jug, which appears to contradict the New Testament? It is an extreme case, but one often raised among academics themselves, as well as in fiction.
In the event of such a discovery, Christopher Henderson says confidently, "I'd go with the Bible. The Bible is powerful, and can answer more questions than any man can raise. God 'breathed' and influenced the people who wrote the Bible."