An understanding of geography is essential to an understanding of many sections of the Bible. For this reason, an up-to-date atlas—maybe more than one—is a tool no serious student of the Bible can be without. There are at least four reasons why geography is important. First and perhaps most...

020 For our ancestors, wild plants and animals of the Holy Land served as symbols and metaphors. These people were closer to nature than we are today and they understood the life cycles of the plants and animals about them. In the Bible, they...

024 The climate of the Near East has not changed since Biblical times, according to most scientists, a view shared by climatologists, as well as by geologists and dendrochronologists (experts in dating tree rings). Thus most plants in Bible lands...

050 The Hebrew word ya-el appears three times in the Bible. In English translations it is usually translated as “wild goat,” and in some modern translations, as “mountain-goat.” In actuality, the Hebrew ya-el is the ibex (Capra...

039 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...

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...

045 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...

036 037 036 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...

051 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...

024 The book of Kings describes a time during the 9th–7th centuries B.C. when the land was divided into two kingdoms—Judah in the south and Israel in the north. Phoenicia and Israel were linked by commerce and royal marriages and Hebrew...

054 The following report was prepared by Jim (Yaakov) Fleming, BAR’s Jerusalem correspondent and Director of BAR’s Summer Seminar in Israel. The first BAR-sponsored excavations took place last summer—appropriately enough—in Jerusalem. Not only...

047 Did Solomon’s temple contain a seven-branched lampstand known as a menorah? Most people answer this question with an automatic “of course.” 048 But the Biblical text is not so clear. The...

016 017 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...

027 I would like to take a somewhat radical, maximalist view of the size of Jerusalem when the Israelites (or, more precisely, the Judahites) returned from the Babylonian Exile and restored the city walls, as described in the Book of Nehemiah...

032 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...

026 028 Tel Megiddo is widely regarded as the most important archaeological site in Israel from Biblical times, and as one of the most significant sites for the study of the ancient Near East...

016 Lachish was one of the most important cities of the Biblical era in the Holy Land. The impressive mound, named Tel Lachish in Hebrew or Tell ed-Duweir in Arabic, is situated about 25 miles southwest of Jerusalem in the Judean hills. Once a...

042 043 The largest and most impressive city gateway in ancient Israel is being restored. It stands at the entrance to the ruins of the great Judean city of Lachish—a mighty reminder of past...

024 When we returned to Nabratein in upper Galilee for our second excavation season in June 1981, we were unaware of a movie called “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” This may be difficult to believe, but it is true. Day by day we excavated in the clear...

018 It is now more than seven years since my first report to BAR readers on the excavation at Biblical Lachish (“Answers at Lachish,” BAR 05:06). At that time, I primarily discussed Iron Age Lachish, the Lachish of the Judean monarchy. Judean...