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Displaying 1 - 20 of 25 results
I: The Text Behind the Text of the Hebrew Bible
This is Part I of a two-part article; the second part will appear in the next issue of Bible Review. Part 2 will discuss the...
Bible Review, Summer 1985
Moses
From vigilante to lawgiver
Moses’ brief and violent encounter with the Egyptian taskmaster in Exodus reads like a crime report or movie script: Moses … went out to his brothers and saw their labors. He saw an Egyptian man striking a Hebrew man, one of his brothers. He...
Bible Review, February 2003
Exorcising Demons
Pazuzu...Lamashtu...Khatyu...Sheseru...Sasam...Lilith...Asmodeus...Beelzebub.... Names to conjure with. Literally. Years ago, when I was a student at Harvard, my teacher Frank Moore Cross raised a puzzling question: Why do demons—so prominent...
Bible Review, October 2004
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
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
Did Moses Have Horns?
Michelangelo’s monumental Moses immediately captures the attention of visitors to the church of St. Peter in Chains in Rome. The sculptor has created a vision not merely of the lawgiver, but of Israel’s God as conceived by pre-modern...
Bible Review, February 1988
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 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
Bah, Humbug!
A scholar rips Handel’s Messiah
Every December, concert halls and churches throughout the English-speaking world resound with the strains of George Frederic Handel‘s mighty Messiah. For centuries, music lovers have gone home humming the arias and choruses that Handel‘s...
Bible Review, December 2002
The History of Israelite Religion
A Secular or Theological Subject?
If we propose to study the history of the religion of ancient Israel, we must be governed by the same postulates that are the basis of modern historical method. Our task must be a historical, not a theological, enterprise. We must trace the...
Biblical Archaeology Review, May/June 2005
The Dead Sea Scrolls: How They Changed My Life
In this issue four prominent scholars tell BAR readers how the scrolls changed their lives. Harvard’s Frank Cross is the doyen of Dead Sea Scroll scholars; his views come in an interview with BAR editor Hershel Shanks. In the pages that...
Biblical Archaeology Review, May/June 2007
Is Psalm 45 an Erotic Poem?
You probably know the old joke about the psychiatrist who gave his patient a series of Rohrschach tests. The patient identified every single inkblot pattern as depicting a man and a woman copulating. The doctor then pronounced his official...
Bible Review, April 2004
Who Wrote Second Isaiah?
The Book of Isaiah contains the most astounding prophecy in the Hebrew Bible. Ostensibly, the Prophet Isaiah, who flourished in the eighth century B.C.E., according to Isaiah 1:1, accurately foresaw events that occurred a couple hundred years...
Bible Review, October 2003
II: Original Biblical Text Reconstructed from Newly Found Fragments
Scrolls provide a fresh understanding of apocalyptic elements in late biblical religion
In the last issue of Bible Review, Professor Cross presented a description, based on his study of the Dead Sea Scrolls, of how the text of the Hebrew Bible developed (“The Text...
Bible Review, Fall 1985
King Hezekiah’s Seal Bears Phoenician Imagery
Not long ago, a clay impression of the seal of a Hebrew king came to light for the first time: The seal of ’Ahaz, king of Judah from about 734 to 715 B.C.E., had been pressed into a...
Biblical Archaeology Review, March/April 1999
Phoenicians in Brazil?
Distinguished linguist examines controversial inscription supposedly written by ancient voyagers to the New World.
Of the recurring, often bizarre attempts to find ancient Semitic inscriptions in the western hemisphere, the most prominent and frequently cited concerns the so-called Paraiba...
Biblical Archaeology Review, January/February 1979
Santa and His Asherah
The ancient Near Eastern roots of American Yuletide customs are manifold and fascinating. I will concentrate here on just two major points: that the Christmas tree was originally a symbol of the Canaanite goddess Asherah and that Santa Claus...
Bible Review, December 1998
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 Historical Importance of the Samaria Papyri
When the Ta‘âmireh bedouin penetrated the Daliyeh cave (as described in the previous article by Paul Lapp) they found within more than 300 skeletons lying on or covered by mats. The bones were mixed with fragments of manuscripts...
Biblical Archaeology Review, March 1978
Big City, Few People
Jerusalem in the Persian Period
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...
Biblical Archaeology Review, July/August 2005