Is the Hebrew Bible a reliable source of information about ancient Israel? Does it contain true histories or just constructs? Archaeologist William Dever presents an overview of the controversy between the extreme skeptics (minimalists) and the more optimistic Biblical maximalists, highlighting the vital role of Hershel Shanks and BAR in that debate.

Once spoken across most of the ancient Near East, Aramaic was most likely the mother tongue of Jesus. A considerable volume of Jewish literature is written in Aramaic, including parts of the Bible, Talmud, and Dead Sea Scrolls. Yona Sabar, a scholar and one of the last living native speakers of Aramaic, gives an account of the language and one of its peoples, the bygone Jews of Iraqi Kurdistan.