Ancient versions of the Bible are far from error-free. Happily, a better understanding of the Dead Sea Scrolls and of how manuscripts evolved has helped resolve some of the vexing textual problems.

040 To the uninitiated, the Bible is the Bible. To get one, you go to a bookstore and ask for a Bible. Readers of BR know better. The English-speaking student of the Bible is blessed with dozens of translations in hundreds of editions. What...

046 046 046 No Graven Image? Israelite Aniconism in Its Ancient Near Eastern Context Tryggve N.D....

066 To the uninitiated, the Bible is the Bible. To get one, you go to a bookstore and ask for a Bible. Readers of BAR know better. The English-speaking student of the Bible is blessed with dozens of translations in hundreds of editions. What...

026 Who was Masek? Where is Calneh? What do Adam, Satan, Malachi and Shiloh all have in common? What did Adam say when he saw Eve for the first time? The answers to this little quiz may be disconcerting to some students of the Bible. Masek,...

Reader’s Letter Sparks Article When reading Victor Hurowitz’s “Inside Solomon’s Temple,” BR 10:02, a question suddenly occurred to me that I should have thought of years ago. In the shrine of the temple were “two huge, gold-plated, olive-wood cherubim,” writes...

Although the Bible gives a detailed description of Solomon’s Temple, we have no physical remains of the building destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 B.C.E. Thanks to the recent excavation of several hitherto-unknown ancient Near Eastern temples, however, archaeologists are shedding new light on similarities and differences between these temples and King Solomon’s structure.

024 “Then Solomon said … ‘I have built thee an exalted house, a place for thee to dwell in forever.’” (1 Kings 8:12–13) A vision of Isaiah, “I beheld my Lord seated on a high and lofty throne; and the skirts of his robe filled the Temple.” (...

027 Acrostics are alphabetical texts. Bible scholars disagree on their purpose. Consequently, translations differ. Despite differences in emphasis, Every translator acknowledges that Form and meaning are connected. Given the strictures of...

022023 022 In an article I recently wrote in Bible Reviewa on the problems of Bible translating, I distinguished two styles of translation:...

030 Reading an introduction to biblical criticism, a beginning student might well think he or she is peering into a bowl of alphabet soup—or perhaps perusing a catalogue of foundations and corporations. Letters are all over the place, especially...

028029 While Moses was up on Mt. Sinai receiving the first edition of the Ten Commandments, the people down below grew impatient and asked Aaron, Moses’ brother, to make them another god to...

Leviticus bans the Israelites from bowing upon a maskit stone. But what is a maskit? A recently deciphered Assyrian inscription may hold the key to identifying this mysterious prohibited object.

022 023 The date was December 2, 1947, four days after the United Nations decision to partition Palestine into a Jewish state and Arab state. Arab mobs in Syria were once again looting, burning...

040 A spectacular sound and light show greeted the Israelites when the new nation encountered God for the first time at Mt. Sinai.1 The awesome display of divine presence and power so terrified the Children of Israel that they begged God not to...