Biblical Archaeology Review, May/June 1997
Features
Jerusalem’s Essene Gateway
Where the community lived in Jesus’ time
Mount Zion, the highest spot in ancient Jerusalem, is where I live.a You can’t miss our abbey south of the walled Old City. The squarish, fortress-looking building with the conical roof and four slender corner towers is our church—the Church of the Dormition of Mary. Next to...Read more ›
Tracking the Shapira Case: A Biblical Scandal Revisited
Moses Wilhelm Shapira, a well-known Jerusalem dealer in antiquities and ancient manuscripts, offered to sell fragments of a scroll of Deuteronomy, including the Ten Commandments, to the British Museum, a regular customer.1 Thus, in July of 1883, began one of the most celebrated incidents in the history...Read more ›
Stop the Charade: It’s Time to Sell Artifacts
I have been a professional archaeologist for almost 40 years, spending the better part of my career in the field or underwater, excavating and studying archaeological remains. I consider myself a devotee of the “New Archaeology”—more fascinated by data that illustrate ancient technology or...Read more ›
Picturing Imageless Deities
Iconography in the Ancient Near East
No Graven Image? Israelite Aniconism in Its Ancient Near Eastern Context Tryggve N.D. Mettinger Coniectanea Biblica, Old Testament Series 42 (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International, 1995) 252 pp., $27.60 The Iconography of the Canaanite Gods Reshef and...Read more ›