Three significant scholars—who shaped and influenced the field of Biblical archaeology—recently passed away, but their legacies live on. The impact of Lawrence E. Stager, Ephraim Stern, and James F. Strange will be felt for generations to come.

056 Political power, not religious law, motivates the ultra-Orthodox in Israel who violently protest archaeological excavations, claiming that ancient Jewish graves are being desecrated. Jewish religious law (halakhah) does not prohibit...

Jerusalem’s Temple Mount is one of the world’s holiest sites; archaeological excavations are prohibited here. But, in November 1999, the Islamic trust that controls the Islamic structures on the site bulldozed a massive area in the southeastern corner of the Temple Mount and dumped the excavated debris into the Kidron Valley. Two archaeologists are running a pioneering project to wet-sift this debris to search for Temple Mount artifacts that have been concealed for centuries.

058 The Mosaics of Jordan Michele Piccirillo (Amman, Jordan: American Center of Oriental Research, 1993) 383 pp., $175 President Clinton has a copy...

038 According to the Gospels, Jesus died and was removed from the cross on a Friday afternoon, the eve of the Jewish Sabbath. A wealthy follower named Joseph of Arimathea requested Pontius Pilate’s permission to remove Jesus’ body from the cross...

036 In 1968 Siegfried Horn of Andrews University began large-scale excavations at a site everyone thought was Biblical Heshbon. This was Tell Hesban (or Hisban). Horn, his chief archaeologist, Roger Boraas of Upsala College, and other staff...

032 032 Archaeology is full of surprises. Sometimes we don’t find what we had expected to find. Or we find something we never expected to find. Either way, the experience is always exciting—and...

031 When the patriarch Jacob returns to Canaan with his family after a 20-year sojourn with his uncle Laban, God instructs him to go to Bethel and build an altar (Genesis 35:1). Jacob immediately tells his entourage to rid themselves of the alien...

034 The first Judahite royal palace ever exposed in an archaeological excavation is bei ng rediscovered. And with this renewed interest come echoes of what is probably one of the bitterest rivalries in the history of Israeli ar chaeology—between...

044 It’s been 28 years since we finished our excavations at Nabratein and we’ve just published our final report, a hefty volume of 472 pages.1 Twenty-eight years may seem like a very long time; but for us, it seems like yesterday. We retain...

040 First-time visitors to Jerusalem are often surprised to learn that two very different sites vie for recognition as the burial place of Jesus. One is, as its name implies, the Holy Sepulchre Church; it is located in a crowded area of the...

032 The Talmud is, after the Bible itself, Judaism’s most significant and revered collection of sacred writings. Although the Talmud was in fact written and compiled between the Second and Fifth centuries A.D., rabbinic tradition holds that...

048 049 Recent attacks on the historicity of the United Monarchy of David and Solomon (in the tenth century B.C.) have focused on the scant archaeological remains that have been discovered in...

032 At the beginning of the 20th century, when Jerusalem, still centered around its ancient core, was surrounded by agricultural land and orchards, 20 mysterious earth-and-stone mounds rose above the city’s western horizon, clearly visible from...

Although the Bible gives a detailed description of Solomon’s Temple, we have no physical remains of the building destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 B.C.E. Thanks to the recent excavation of several hitherto-unknown ancient Near Eastern temples, however, archaeologists are shedding new light on similarities and differences between these temples and King Solomon’s structure.

046 046 046 No Graven Image? Israelite Aniconism in Its Ancient Near Eastern Context Tryggve N.D....

018 019 Sepphoris is a bare 4 miles from Jesus’ hometown, Nazareth. So it is not surprising that the ancient city has become central to the study of the historical Jesus, especially because it...

036 037 We were lucky. There’s no other way to explain it. When our archaeological survey team, part of a larger expedition known as the Madaba Plains Project, discovered Tall al-‘Umayri1 in...

023 024 Damascus Gate, the most important entrance to Jerusalem’s Old City, fairly bustles with activity inside and out. Arab men in their robes and keffiyehs; Arab women in long embroidered...