Biblical Archaeology Review, March/April 2007
Features
Historic Homer
Did It Happen?
In a vigorous denunciation of the so-called Biblical minimalists, William Dever makes a very important observation on a subject not directly related to the Bible: A generation ago, even a decade ago, Classicists and ancient historians would have dismissed Homer as a mythical figure and would have...Read more ›
Inscribed “To God Jesus Christ”
Early Christian Prayer Hall Found in Megiddo Prison
In the late 1990s, authorities at the prison that sits near the base of Tel Megiddo in northern Israel decided they needed more room. Accordingly, an addition was planned within the prison compound and work commenced. It was not long, however, before the construction workers (prisoners) hit...Read more ›
Losing Faith: Who Did and Who Didn’t
How Scholarship Affects Scholars
Several media stories recently reported that Bart Ehrman, a leading expert on the apocryphal gospels and one of BAS’s most popular lecturers, had lost his faith as a result of his scholarly research. This raised a question for us that is not often talked about, but seemed...Read more ›
The Mystery Nechushtan
Why did King Hezekiah of Judah destroy the bronze serpent that Moses had fashioned to protect the Israelites?
After all, it had been fashioned by Moses himself a half millennium earlier—and for good purpose. In the Biblical passage that tells us what Hezekiah did, we learn of several other things the late-eighth century B.C.E. king destroyed: “He abolished the high places (or shrines; Hebrew bamot)...Read more ›
Did Ancient Jerusalem Draw Water Through Warren’s Shaft?
In 1867 the British engineer and explorer Charles Warren discovered a 52-foot vertical shaft, now called Warren’s Shaft in his honor, that for many scholars provided the key to unlocking the mystery of King David’s conquest of Jerusalem in about 1000 B.C.E.: By scrambling up this chimney-like...Read more ›