19 For centuries, scholars from many backgrounds—religious and nonreligious, Christian and Jewish—have worked on discovering how the Bible came to be. Their task was not to prove whether the Bible’s words were divinely revealed to the authors...

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...

018 What is history and what is myth? What is true and what is legendary? Reporting on his 1996 meeting with Pope John Paul II (1978–2005), Israel’s Minister of Religious Affairs Shimon Shetreet reported, according to the Jerusalem Post,...

Being first to hear doesn’t always mean being first to understand. In Luke’s birth narrative, Mary is the first to be told that Jesus will be the messiah. Luke adds that she “treasures the words” the angel Gabriel speaks to her. But Mary is also puzzled by the divine message; she is “perplexed”...

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.

024 025 When modern tourists visit Hebron, they focus almost exclusively on the Tomb of the Patriarchs, a magnificent shrine built 2,000 years ago during the Herodian period over 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...