An understanding of geography is essential to an understanding of many sections of the Bible. For this reason, an up-to-date atlas—maybe more than one—is a tool no serious student of the Bible can be without. There are at least four reasons why geography is important. First and perhaps most...

Kadesh-Barnea, Tell el-Qudeirat, hasn’t been excavated since the 1980s, but a new pottery analysis indicates a settlement was there at the time of the Exodus.

058 The recent peace treaty between Egypt and Israel may have a historical precedent from almost 3000 years ago. Then too, these two nations wisely decided that peaceful co-existence was better than military confrontation. The peace accord in...

050 It is one of the fundamental commandments of the Torah (the Pentateuch or Five Books of Moses). It is exemplary of Jewish morality, and it very early characterized the Christian faith as well. For 2,000 years, however, it has been...

032 033 One day in 1989 rumor reached me that monumental Israelite architecture had accidentally been uncovered at Tel Jezreel in the Jezreel Valley in northern Israel. I was then, as now, a...

024 025 For over 50 years now, a school of thought associated with the names of the great German scholars Albrecht Alt and Martin Noth has espoused a particular view of what is described in the...

054 The following report was prepared by Jim (Yaakov) Fleming, BAR’s Jerusalem correspondent and Director of BAR’s Summer Seminar in Israel. The first BAR-sponsored excavations took place last summer—appropriately enough—in Jerusalem. Not only...

062 Nothing in the archaeological record of Egypt directly substantiates the Biblical story of the Exodus. Yet a considerable body of Egyptian material provides such close analogies to the Biblical account that it may, in part, serve as indirect...

008 009 This coming summer more people than ever will join archaeological digs in Israel and elsewhere as volunteer workers. Some will be taking an important early step toward a professional...

026 028 Tel Megiddo is widely regarded as the most important archaeological site in Israel from Biblical times, and as one of the most significant sites for the study of the ancient Near East...

016 Lachish was one of the most important cities of the Biblical era in the Holy Land. The impressive mound, named Tel Lachish in Hebrew or Tell ed-Duweir in Arabic, is situated about 25 miles southwest of Jerusalem in the Judean hills. Once a...

018 It is now more than seven years since my first report to BAR readers on the excavation at Biblical Lachish (“Answers at Lachish,” BAR 05:06). At that time, I primarily discussed Iron Age Lachish, the Lachish of the Judean monarchy. Judean...

042 043 The largest and most impressive city gateway in ancient Israel is being restored. It stands at the entrance to the ruins of the great Judean city of Lachish—a mighty reminder of past...

027 I would like to take a somewhat radical, maximalist view of the size of Jerusalem when the Israelites (or, more precisely, the Judahites) returned from the Babylonian Exile and restored the city walls, as described in the Book of Nehemiah...

024 The sky was clear and blue that spring day in April 1969. The early morning sun glanced off the mauve-colored Mount of Olives. Tiny wild flowers dotted the hillside. The air was fresh and fragrant after an unusually heavy rain the night...

034 Rarely do Biblical texts and extra-Biblical materials supplement one another so well as those that describe the last two decades before the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem, which marked the end of the Judahite state in 586 B.C.E. As a...

008 009 “A city set on a hill cannot be hidden,” said Matthew (5:14). Neither can it easily be supplied with water. Cities were built on hilltops because of the obvious defensive advantages...