044 The Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) last summer declared the inscription on the James ossuary—which reads, “James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus”—to be a fake.a Since then, however, both the reasoning and the conclusion of the IAA report...

040 041 The decision was unanimous: Antiquities collectors are criminals, responsible for the worldwide scourge of looting. That was the theme of the annual meeting of the American Schools of...

048 048 Intense scholarly disagreements are common in archaeology. Cases of deliberate lying, however, are rare. Is this such a case? If so, what is the motive? When I returned from the Annual...

020 020 For ten years, between 1968 and 1978, the area south of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem was intensively excavated by archaeologist Benjamin Mazar.1 His many spectacular discoveries...

035 We are what the outside world calls “settlers.” We live in the West Bank, but refer to it by its Biblical names, Judea and Samaria. I (Yoel) live in Ophrah, about 10 miles from the ancient site of Shiloh. Ophrah was established in 1975, the...

028 028 028 Hershel Shanks: I have known each of you for many years. And I know that the Bible has been a central influence in your lives—...

038 The scholarly world is abuzz. During at least the past 20 years, and more likely during the last 33 years, more than a thousand potsherds inscribed in Aramaic have come onto the antiquities market. About 800 of these have now been published.1...

018 On August 17, 2004, the New York Times devoted an entire column in its A section to the discovery of a cave with a pool near Jerusalem that, it said, John the Baptist may have used to baptize early converts to what later became known...

032 033 Think small. No, think minute! Think something seemingly unimportant, but invaluable. Think seeds and weeds and grains—grown over 2,500 years ago. Our story takes place in the...

047 I have often lamented that, although there are thousands of museums in the United States devoted to every conceivable topic, there is not a single museum here devoted to Biblical archaeology. I have recently been challenged on this assertion—...