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.

057 Evidence from the Bible and from archaeology must be interpreted independently of each other, but in the end they must be compared and interpreted. Take Jerusalem: In view of the continuous settlement of Jerusalem from the tenth century B.C.E...

043 BAR readers are already familiar with a recent school of Biblical interpretation that denies any historicity to the ancient Israelite kingdom of David and Solomon.1 I call this the “revisionist” school. Others have described these scholars as...

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

026 The history of Jerusalem is going to have to be rewritten. As we gradually assimilate the archaeological record, we are finding more and more evidence that calls into question long-held assumptions about the city’s past. This is especially...

042 With unqualified certainty, Margreet Steiner asserts that in the Late Bronze Age (1550–1150 B.C.E.), the period just before the Israelite settlement, there was “no … town, let alone a city” of Jerusalem. As far as the archaeological record is...

024 After the Six-Day War in 1967, the Old City of Jerusalem became accessible to Israelis for the first time in nearly 20 years. For many who, like me, had grown up in Jerusalem during the British Mandate, when one could travel freely between...