030 031 On the morning of April 19, 1911, a crowd of angry Moslems, outraged at what they considered to be a desecration of the holy Mosque of Omar or the Dome of the Rock, rampaged through the...

046 047 Four years ago, I wrote an article for BAR in which I identified the original 500-cubit-square Temple Mount.1 By now, this location is well established in the archaeological world,...

018 What is history and what is myth? What is true and what is legendary? Reporting on his 1996 meeting with Pope John Paul II (1978–2005), Israel’s Minister of Religious Affairs Shimon Shetreet reported, according to the Jerusalem Post,...

053 David Jacobson’s theory regarding the shape of Herod’s Temple Mount and the placement of the Temple within it draws heavily on Roman architectural practice. The Romans were particularly fond of symmetrical structures, as Jacobson rightly...

023 Herod the Great—master builder! Despite his crimes and excesses, no one can doubt his prowess as a builder. One of his most imposing achievements was in Jerusalem. To feed his passion for grandeur, to immortalize his name and to attempt to...

024 026 Somewhere on Jerusalem’s majestic Temple Mount—the largest man-made platform in the ancient world, the size of 24 football fields, nearly 145 acres—Herod the Great (37–4 B.C.) built a...

018 In 70 C.E. Roman legions destroyed the Jerusalem Temple, Judaism’s holiest structure and the “dwelling place of God’s name.” Despite this loss, Judaism was to survive and prosper. In the following centuries, the synagogue itself came to be...

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...

049 Reconstructing the Triple Gate required that we answer three principal questions. What was the gate’s original width? Was it originally a double gate or a triple gate? For whom was it built? The discovery of a vault in front of the Triple...

When we received a copy of Kenneth A. Kitchen’s new book, On the Reliability of the Old Testament, we knew that we should review it. Kitchen is one of the world’s leading scholars (he specializes in Egyptology), and the subject matter of the book—how historically accurate is the Bible?—is of central interest to many of our readers. We asked Ronald Hendel, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley and a columnist for our sister magazine, Bible Review, to review it for us.

Fifty years ago, leading Israeli scholar Michael Avi-Yonah constructed a now-iconic model of the Second Temple destroyed by the Romans. But how accurate is it?

026 027 When the three messengers visited Abraham to announce the forthcoming birth of his beloved son Isaac, Abraham demonstrated his hospitality by inviting the messengers to a meal before...

028 029 028 The world’s oldest literature—poetry as well as prose—belongs to the Sumerians, that fascinating, enigmatic people who settled...

032 033 The delicate carving on the side of the sarcophagus depicts Zeus, in the guise of a swan, graphically forcing himself on the Spartan queen Leda. The scene is one of the best known in...

024 024 Much of our work at the site of Maresha takes place underground—in tombs and in caves.1 BAR readers will not be surprised by the number of tombs, two of them with their walls covered...