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-...

046 The following interview with Professor Giovanni Pettinato was conducted by BAR Editor Hershel Shanks on May 4, 1980. Professor Pettinato was the original epigrapher of the Italian Mission to Ebla. He resigned following a bitter personal and...

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...

059 Longtime BAR readers are familiar with the Merneptah Stele, now in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, which is generally recognized as containing the oldest extrabiblical reference to Israel.a The hieroglyphic inscription can be dated quite...

033 The Book of Isaiah contains the most astounding prophecy in the Hebrew Bible. Ostensibly, the Prophet Isaiah, who flourished in the eighth century B.C.E., according to Isaiah 1:1, accurately foresaw events that occurred a couple hundred years...

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...

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...

012 BAR Editor, Hershel Shanks, interviewed Avraham Biran, director of the Nelson Glueck School of Biblical Archaeology at Hebrew Union College, in Jerusalem. Hershel Shanks: The name of Avraham Biran is—and will be for generations—inextricably...

022 They are the first family of Israeli archeology. Trude and Moshe Dothan each have more than four decades of experience in the field, having excavated such major sites as Hazor, Hammath Tiberius, Nahariya, Deir el-Balah, Akko, Ashdid and Ekron...

026 One of the most controversial issues in modern Biblical studies is the increasingly assertive contention that the Bible is essentially useless as a historical source, even for the period of the Israelite united monarchy (tenth century B.C.E...

041 The interplay between archaeology and the Bible is perhaps nowhere better illustrated than in the subject of ivory. The Bible helps us to understand the archaeological artifacts, and the archaeological artifacts help us to understand the...

056 056 Every archaeologist thinks his or her site holds the key to any issue that arises. Perhaps that is one reason why the focus was on Megiddo at the sessions titled “Where Is the Tenth...

058 Seldom does archaeology come face to face with people actually mentioned in the Bible. When that happens, the discovery takes on a unique immediacy, touched with awe. When a hoard of inscribed Hebrew bullae surfaced on the antiques market and...

003 On my last visit to Jerusalem, I stopped in to see Yigael Yadin—as I always do. It was a fascinating hour—as it always is. This time, he told me how he found what he believes to be a bamaa destroyed by King Josiah—and...

034 034 035 King David: A Biography Steven L. MacKenzie...

026 Two silver anniversaries were celebrated at the Annual Meetinga in Anaheim last November. The first was the 25th anniversary of the publication of the first volume of the Anchor Bible series, celebrated with a dinner honoring editor David...

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...

040 041 AT DAWN THE TOMB OF JESUS WAS FOUND EMPTY. Later that very day two of the disciples, Cleopas and another unnamed, were walking on the road to Emmaus when Jesus appeared to them, but...

051 It is time to clarify for BAR readers the widely discussed relationship between the habiru, who are well documented in Egyptian and Near Eastern inscriptions, and the Hebrews of the Bible. There is absolutely no relationship! The first...

053 Ancient Jerusalem sometimes reveals itself in little bits. In this case, it is a tiny inscription with only six letters preserved. So little remains of ancient Israel in the City of David (the 12-acre...