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Displaying 1 - 20 of 24 results
“Eves” of Everyday Ancient Israel
Women are vastly underrepresented in the Hebrew Bible. Named men outnumber women by about ten to one. And the women who do appear are mostly exceptional or elite women, not the majority who were farm women. Not only are women underrepresented...
Biblical Archaeology Review, November/December 2014
The “House of David” and the House of the Deconstructionists
Davies is an amateur who “can safely be ignored”
In response to Philip R. Davies’s brief article (“‘House of David’ Built on Sand,” BAR 20:04), a few observations are in order. Apart from the details of the Dan (and now the Mesha) inscriptions, there is a wider issue that concerns both...
Biblical Archaeology Review, November/December 1994
The Many Masters of Dor, Part 2: How Bad Was Ahab?
Tel Dor, on Israel’s Mediterranean coast, is the site of one of the most conquered cities in the Levant. Although practically...
Biblical Archaeology Review, March/April 1993
Pagan Yahwism: The Folk Religion of Ancient Israel
The Bible imagines the religion of ancient Israel as purely monotheistic. And doubtless there were Israelites, particularly those associated with the Jerusalem Temple, who were strict monotheists. But the archaeological evidence (and the...
Biblical Archaeology Review, May/June 2001
The Other “Philistines”
The Bible portrays the Philistines as Israel’s cruel and ruthless enemy. The two peoples engaged in a fierce struggle for control of the land in the 12th–11th centuries B.C.E. We all know the stories of Samson’s struggles against the...
Biblical Archaeology Review, November/December 2014
Shasu or Habiru: Who Were the Early Israelites?
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...
Biblical Archaeology Review, November/December 2008
Yohanan Aharoni—The Man and His Work
Research in the land of the Bible has suffered a heavy loss in the untimely death of Yohanan Aharoni, chairman of the Department of Archaeology at Tel Aviv University. To his associates he has bequeathed the task of continuing and summarizing...
Biblical Archaeology Review, December 1976
Biblical Archaeology 101: Why We Dig: The Aims of Archaeology
Archaeological remains, whether grand or mundane, fill us with a sense of wonder. Does this interest come from the artifacts themselves or from wanting to understand those who made and used them? As our author explains, archaeology is much more than towering monuments and buried treasure.
Biblical Archaeology Review, Winter 2021
Was There a Seven-Branched Lampstand in Solomon’s Temple?
Did Solomon’s temple contain a seven-branched lampstand known as a menorah? Most people answer this question with an automatic “of course.” But the Biblical text is not so clear. The...
Biblical Archaeology Review, September/October 1979
Inside, Outside: Where Did the Early Israelites Come From?
Before they settled in the hill country of Canaan, where did the earliest Israelites come from and what was the nature of their society? The Bible is very clear. They were pastoral nomads who came from east of the Jordan. Much of the...
Biblical Archaeology Review, November/December 2008
The Evolution of Two Hebrew Scripts
Paleo-Hebrew or Phoenician script was used before Aramaic script was introduced by Jews returning from Babylonia.
In BAR’s version of Superman’s original costume, pictured in “The Hebrew Origins of Superman,” in this issue, Superman the scribe wears the Hebrew letter samekh on his chest. But even people who know how to read modern Hebrew—as it is...
Biblical Archaeology Review, May/June 1979
Arad—An Ancient Israelite Fortress with a Temple to Yahweh
The Israelite fortress at Arad is unique in the Land of Israel. It’s the only site excavated with modern archaeological methods that contains a continuous archaeological record from the...
Biblical Archaeology Review, March/April 1987
The Many Masters of Dor, Part 1: When Canaanites Became Phoenician Sailors
History runs deep at Tel Dor—45 feet deep to be exact! Layer upon layer of ancient cities, each built on the ruins of its predecessor, have formed this immense mound on Israel’s Mediterranean coast, about 12 miles south of Haifa. As...
Biblical Archaeology Review, January/February 1993
Rainey’s Challenge
In a brilliant piece of detective work entitled “3,200-Year-Old Picture of Israelites Found in Egypt,” BAR 16:05, Frank J. Yurco analyzes the reliefs on a wall of the Cour de la Cachette in the Karnak temple in Upper Egypt. But he points to...
Biblical Archaeology Review, November/December 1991
Buried Treasure: The Silver Hoard from Dor
At first, our discovery—an unadorned clay jar—seemed deceptively modest. For months we had been excavating an area overlooking the southern harbor of ancient Dor, south of Haifa on...
Biblical Archaeology Review, July/August 1998
The Saga of Eliashib
Office files found of commander of fort at Arad
Over 20 years ago, I was excavating a room on the south side of the Israelite fortress at Arad—it was the 1964 season—when...
Biblical Archaeology Review, March/April 1987
The Babylonian Gap
The Assyrians impressed their culture on Israel … the Babylonians left no trace
The Assyrians and Babylonians both ravaged large parts of ancient Israel, yet the archaeological evidence from the aftermath of their respective conquests tells two very different stories. Why? In 721 B.C.E., the Assyrians brought an end to...
Biblical Archaeology Review, November/December 2000
Digging the Talmud in Ancient Meiron
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...
Biblical Archaeology Review, June 1978
The Prophets as Revolutionaries: A Sociopolitical Analysis
Five Biblical prophets—Amos, Hosea, Micah, Isaiah and Jeremiah—scathingly attacked the sacrificial cult practiced in the shrines of ancient Israel and Judah. These prophets all lived in that turbulent 150-year period that began with the death...
Biblical Archaeology Review, May/June 1979
Beer-Sheva Excavator Blasts Yadin—No Bama at Beer-Sheva
This is in response to your article in the March 1977 issue about alleged bama at Beer-Sheva (“Yigael Yadin Finds a Bama at Beer-Sheva,” BAR 03:01). There is not one scrap of evidence, Biblical or archeological, in favor of...
Biblical Archaeology Review, September 1977