042 The task of the biblical text critic is to try to make sense of biblical verses. The text critic faces many kinds of problems. I would like to offer as illustrations two cases where I would recommend emending the text—actually changing the...

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...

035 The Bible is often called the Good Book. In the way we usually think about the Bible, its good reputation is warranted. From it we learn moral precepts such as “Love your neighbor,” “Honor your father and mother,” “You shall not murder...

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...

When we received a copy of Kenneth A. Kitchen’s new book, On the Reliability of the Old Testament, we knew that we should review it. Kitchen is one of the world’s leading scholars (he specializes in Egyptology), and the subject matter of the book—how historically accurate is the Bible?—is of central interest to many of our readers. We asked Ronald Hendel, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley and a columnist for our sister magazine, Bible Review, to review it for us.

026 026 The book of Job, one of the world’s greatest literary works, is better known for the problems it poses and the issues it spawns than for its answers and resolutions. While to the...

023 If the Bible is the ineffable word of God, then it makes sense that all truth is to be found in it. An early rabbinic sage by the delightful name of Ben Bag-Bag said, “Turn it and turn it again, for all things are in it.”1 The history of...

044 Three great intellectual revolutions of the 19th and early 20th centuries have profoundly shaped and transformed the way we think of ourselves and our world. The first is Marxism and its derivative, socialism. The dissolution of the Soviet...

078 BAR recently published an article by Philip R. Davies in which he claims that the now famous six letters of the Tel Dan inscription, bytdwd, do not mean “the House of David” after all.a The tone and content of the article are an...

048049 While the dividing line between poetry and prose in the Hebrew Bible is imprecise, and the two types tend to blend into each other, especially in the prophetic writings, certain features...

008 If someone asked you to name the origin of a story about gods who take human wives and then give birth to a race of semidivine heroes, you might answer: It’s a Greek myth, or perhaps a Norse legend, or maybe a folktale from Africa or India...

056 056 056 David and Solomon: In Search of the Bible’s Sacred Kings and the Roots of the Western Tradition...

002 How quickly should ancient texts be published after they come into a scholar’s hands? Within one year—at most, says Professor David Noel Freedman in a forthcoming issue of the Biblical Archaeologist. This is a statement of...

038039 “tradition (which is a product of oblivion and memory)” —Jorge Luis Borges The Exodus from Egypt is a focal point of ancient Israelite religion. Virtually every kind of religious...

036 When BAR’s editors invited me to prepare a list of significant finds for the 20th anniversary issue, I thought the task would be easy. I had already been developing the forthcoming BAS Slide Set on the Hebrew Bible and archaeology, so I...

048 049 BAR’s reports on the so-called Jehoash inscription—which describes repairs to the Solomonic Temple by King Jehoash in the ninth century B.C.E.—are unhesitatingly condemnatory: It is a...

042 The first chapter of Isaiah contains one of the most powerful prophetic passages in the entire Bible. The Lord, through the prophet, castigates his people Israel for rebelling. As a result, the country lies desolate, devoured by Israel’s...

028 Embedded in the sequence of books from Genesis through Kings is a hitherto unnoticed sequence of violations of the Ten Commandments, one by one, book by book, by the community of Israel, leading, in the end, to her Exile. I would like to...