First Person: My Final “First Person”

In the next issue of BAR, I will have a new title: Editor Emeritus. Yes, after 42 years I will be retiring. I will still be around—putting in my two cents. But I will not have the responsibility for making sure it is all there and putting it all together.

That will be the job of the new editor, Robert (Bob) Cargill. He is young, and he is smart. In some ways, under his editorship BAR will be the same magazine; in other ways, it may be new and different. I am confident you will continue to be enthralled with the magazine, and I think you will like Bob.

Bob Cargill is Assistant Professor of Classics and Religious Studies at the University of Iowa. His research includes the study of Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls, literary criticism of the Bible and the Pseudepigrapha, and the ancient Near East. He’s an experienced archaeologist and has excavated at Banias, Omrit, Hazor and Tel Azekah in modern Israel. You may recognize his face, as Bob frequently appears on TV—including the History Channel’s Bible Secrets Revealed and CNN’s Finding Jesus. His most recent book is The Cities That Built the Bible (HarperOne, 2016).