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Displaying 1 - 20 of 27 results
Putting the Bible on the Map
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...
Biblical Archaeology Review, November/December 1983
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
Crosses in the Dead Sea Scrolls: A Waystation on the Road to the Christian Cross
The relationship of the Dead Sea Scrolls to early Christianity has absorbed scholars since the dramatic discovery more than 30 years ago. Early, exaggerated commentaries which, for example, stated that the Teacher of Righteousness was Jesus...
Biblical Archaeology Review, November/December 1979
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
The Many Masters of Dor, Part 2: How Bad Was Ahab?
Tel Dor, on Israel’s Mediterranean coast, is the site of one of the most conquered cities in the Levant. Although practically...
Biblical Archaeology Review, March/April 1993
BAR Excavation in Jerusalem Highlights Summer Seminar
Digs uncover exciting Byzantine and Israelite relics.
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...
Biblical Archaeology Review, November/December 1979
Book Excerpt: The Shapira Affair
The late 1880’s in Jerusalem was an age of discovery. On the one hand, textual critics, anthropologists, geologists, and philosophers combined to pour scorn and derision on Scriptural traditions; on the other, archaeology was never so popular...
Biblical Archaeology Review, July/August 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
Circumcision
The Private Sign of the Covenant
And God said to Abraham, “As for you, you must keep my covenant, you and your seed after you throughout their generations. This is my covenant ... every male of yours must be circumcised. When you circumcise your foreskin flesh, it will...
Bible Review, August 2004
Buried Treasure: The Silver Hoard from Dor
At first, our discovery—an unadorned clay jar—seemed deceptively modest. For months we had been excavating an area overlooking the southern harbor of ancient Dor, south of Haifa on...
Biblical Archaeology Review, July/August 1998