Dever on Religion

William Dever, who is an archaeologist, describes his view of studying religion:

As an archaeologist and an anthropologist, and thus a historian, I shall argue that philosophy and theology are distractions. These disciplines may well be legitimate and interesting in their own right; but they get us nowhere. . . . Indeed, they are barriers to understanding. (William G. Dever, Did God Have a Wife? [Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans, 2005], 8.)

Archaeologists deal with realia, real things. People who deal with real things tend to have a different view on things than those who do not.