Is Atheism Dead?

The following is an exclusive excerpt from Is Atheism Dead? by Eric Metaxas, available October 19 from Salem Books. 

In 1996, an Albuquerque scientist named Steven Collins was in a modest hotel room in the Israeli city of Arad, on the bleak southwestern side of the Dead Sea. Dr. Collins was a field archaeologist and ceramic typologist who had spent many years studying the millennia-old vessels buried throughout the Middle East. He was also a Christian who believed the Bible was a reliable source of history, and was leading a group on a Bible tour of Israel. But what lay ahead of the group the next day gave him an uneasy feeling. Being a scientist, he was especially careful about making claims, and hated seeing other tour guides say things he knew to be mere speculation.