Queries & Comments

Once Was Blind, But Now I See

A few years ago my eyesight was poor. I canceled my subscription to BAR because I really didn’t read it much. Since my cataract operation, however, I’ve been reading more. I subscribed to BAR again and find it exciting, slyly humorous and helpful with Bible study as well as general history.

I think there has been a change in your approach, with more appeal to laymen. If not, I have changed!

The Deplorable State of the Akeldama Tombs

Besides fueling my armchair adventures, your instructive, thought-provoking articles often take on a second life as invaluable “on-the-ground” guides to my travels in the Land of the Bible. In June 1998, armed with your November/December 1994 issue (see “Akeldama: Potter’s Field or High Priest’s Tomb?” BAR 20:06), a friend and I set out to locate and explore Jerusalem’s Akeldama-area Second Temple tombs, especially the one identified as the tomb of Annas and his sons, the first-century A.D. high priestly family known to us from the New Testament and Josephus.