044 The passage from Mark which follows, has always been a puzzle: If your hand offends you, cut it off. It is better for you to enter into life crippled, than with both hands to depart for hell, to the unquenchable fire. And if your foot offends...

37 Walk through the religion section of any major bookstore, and you’ll see an amazing array of Bibles. The broad selection of translations (also called versions)—and the seemingly endless ways in which they are packaged—is without historical...

Late 20th century and (thus far) early 21st century Americans are surely the most prodded, probed and polled people in history. Pollsters contact, calculate and communicate Americans’ views on every topic imaginable (and some that, frankly, I couldn’t imagine), from political persuasions to sexual...

015 016 In the Beginning: The Story of the King James Bible and How It Changed a Nation, a Language, and a Culture Alister McGrath...

031 Continuing their wide-ranging conversation, excavator Bill Dever and Hershel Shanks turn to a crucial issue: How the Bible and archaeology can be used—and misused—to illuminate each other. HS: What does it mean to be an Israelite in the 12th...

036 It is now clear that anti-Zionist political pressures in Syria are attempting to affect the scholarly interpretation of the Ebla tablets. The Syrians are furious that in the West the intense interest shown in this fantastic cache of tablets...

054 William G. Dever, the world’s leading academic opponent of the term “Biblical archaeology,” has now declared the age of the “New Biblical Archaeology”—and his support of it. Dever, the excavator of the Solomonic gate at Biblical Gezer, former...

016 On July 22, 1982, BAR editor Hershel Shanks visited Yigael Yadin in his home in Jerusalem. Shanks spoke for several hours with Yadin, who had recently returned to full time archaeology after one of the many discursions that have marked his...

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—...

054 One of the best-known and highly-respected archaeologists in the world is urging that the term “Biblical Archaeology” be dropped. He is Professor William G. Dever, chairman of the Department of Oriental Studies at the University of Arizona in...

024 What is Biblical archaeology’s greatest achievement? What is Biblical archaeology’s greatest failure? What is Biblical archaeology’s greatest challenge? BAR asked a wide variety of scholars to answer these three questions. Their replies...

032 An increasingly modish—virulent?—strain of biblical scholarship concludes that the Bible is useless for reconstructing the history of ancient Israel. If this history can be reconstructed at all, it must be based solely on archaeological...

046 Phyllis Trible is surely one of the most distinguished feminist Biblical scholars in the world. In 1994, she served as president of the Society of Biblical Literature, only the second woman to serve in that capacity since the organization was...

029 Everything about it has been difficult. Located in the Sinai desert about 10 miles west of the ancient Gaza Road (Darb Ghazza, in Arabic) as it passes through Bedouin territory separating the Negev from Egypt, it is remote and isolated from...

054 The Bible is the fault line that divides a significant segment of the scholarly world. It is the attitude toward the Bible that underlies the disparate battles, both institutional and substantive, that are being fought as I write. The...

012 For a week in April, all Jerusalem was aglitter with archaeology. The occasion was the International Congress on Biblical Archaeology marking the 70th anniversary of the Israel Exploration Society. At the opening session, the Acting President...

054 I suppose I should have known it would happen someday. Perhaps the next thing will be a Ph.D. dissertation analyzing the “BAR phenomenon.” The scholarly community sometimes can’t quite understand us—so it tries to explain us. Absent a full-...

052 There is nothing quite like it—the joint once-a-year sessions of the American Academy of Religion (AAR), the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) and the American Schools of Oriental Research (ASOR), known to all as the Annual Meeting. For...

074 “Overwhelming” is the only word to describe the 1994 Annual Meeting,a where 7,500 scholars attended more than 700 presentations. Imagine jumping into a huge wave high above your head, extending for miles along the shore on either side...

Duke professors Eric and Carol Meyers gained national prominence when they discovered the Torah ark at Nabratein, Israel, in 1981. But that’s only part of their story. On December 22, 2014, I sat down and talked to them about their past 40 years in Biblical archaeology.