The Other Annual Meeting

For one week last november as described in the accompanying article, San Antonio was a dizzying whirl of scholarly lectures, thanks to the thousands of academics who were meeting under the auspices of various learned societies. But there was also a more manageable, though no less learned, gathering going on at the same time. For the seventh consecutive year, the Biblical Archaeology Society, publisher of BAR, sponsored Bible and Archaeology Fest, our annual study program designed for lay people. We take advantage of the fact that every year many of the top scholars in the worlds of Biblical studies and archaeology are in one place for their academic meetings. Since 1998 we’ve arranged for some two dozen scholars to lecture to our participants over a two-and-a-half-day period while the academic sessions are taking place nearby.