015 New evidence indicates that the Gospel of Matthew was an original Hebrew composition. Indeed, it is now possible to recover much of this original Hebrew composition from an extant manuscript. But before explaining how this can be done, let me...

054 055 Since the 1960s Bible dictionaries have been appearing in record numbers. In 1985 the Society of Biblical Literature joined with Harper...

042 Norman Gottwald is one of North America’s leading biblical scholars, and he has just published a comprehensive introduction to the Hebrew Bible that will soon make his name known to a very wide audience. It is titled The Hebrew Bible—...

058 Hershel Shanks: Père Benoit, you are in a consummate way representative of the French in Jerusalem, or of the scholarly world of France in Jerusalem. Most people in the United States are not aware that so many different nationalities have...

042 We usually think of exegesis as the external interpretation of a text, and of biblical exegesis as interpretation external to the Bible. Exegesis of the Hebrew Bible began, however, long before the canon closed and the text became fixed. And...

034 035 The University of Pennsylvania’s Jeffrey H. Tigay sets the stage for the article that follows: Since the rise of biblical criticism in the 17th century, scholars have concluded that the...

028 In the deft hands of Jerusalem artist Yehudit Shadur, simple sheets of paper are cut into intricate designs blending the poetic words and images of the Bible. A leading reviver of the traditional Jewish folk art of paper-cutting, Shadur...

022 In recent issues of Bible Review, two quite different articles have examined the infancy narratives in Matthew and Luke—the only two Gospels that include an account of Jesus’ infancy. The first article—by Kenneth R. R. Gros Louis—was a...

050 F. A. Klein was an Anglican minister, born in Alsace, who came to the Holy Land as a medical missionary in the mid-1800s. Although he lived in Jerusalem, he traveled widely on both sides of the Jordan, seeking to relieve pain and win converts...

036 Thirty million copies sold. Published in 40 languages. A ten-million-dollar advertising budget, including prime-time television. All royalties going to a charitable foundation. The Living Bible, completed in 1971 and having appeared in...

037 If archaeology is the search for roots, so is Neot Kedumim, The Biblical Landscape Reserve in Israel. The one is figurative; the other is literal—for Neot Kedumim literally searches for the roots of the Bible in the realities of Israel’s...

064 “Treasures of the Holy Land,” the Israel Museum’s exhibition of nearly 200 outstanding pieces, is being shown at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art through January 4, 1987. The exhibit is the largest and most important display of ancient...

018 In an article in the February 1985 issue of Bible Review (“Different Ways of Looking at the Birth of Jesus,” BR 01:01), Kenneth Gros Louis discusses what he calls “narrative strategies in New Testament infancy narratives.” It seems to me that...

022 The biblical story of Jacob is artistically an exquisite creation, psychologically an intriguing portrait, and religiously an interpretive treasurehouse—but it has always been a problem. Even Sunday school children ask why the hero Jacob, the...

042 In biblical times, aspects of nature that are easily explained by modern science were considered mysteries, and sparked a sense of awe. Although today, a scientific explanation is often available, nature still has the power to arouse wonder...

032 At the beginning of the story of Jacob and Esau, the Bible tells us that Esau was a hunter, a man of the outdoors; Jacob, by contrast, was an ’ îš tām (Genesis 25:27), (pronounced ish tam). If we were to...

023 024 Damascus Gate, the most important entrance to Jerusalem’s Old City, fairly bustles with activity inside and out. Arab men in their robes and keffiyehs; Arab women in long embroidered...

046 Israel emerged as a people just before the period of the Judges, at the end of what archaeologists call the Late Bronze Age (1550–1200 B.C.) and the beginning of Iron Age I (1200–1000 B.C.)—the time when the Israelite tribes settled in the...

029 Of all the books of the Bible in which poetry plays a role, Psalms is the one set of texts whose poetic status has been most strongly felt throughout the generations—regardless of the vagaries of translation, typographical arrangement of...

030 Hershel Shanks: Avi, I’m especially appreciative of this interview because over the years we’ve disagreed about many things, but we’ve remained friends, and we’ve always been able to talk about our differences. And that’s a very gratifying...