Biblical Archaeology Review, July/August 2014
Special Section
Divided Kingdom, United Critics
We present here two reviews of Israel Finkelstein’s recently published The Forgotten Kingdom. The first review is by William G. Dever, one of America’s leading archaeologists. Finkelstein is one of Israel’s leading archaeologists. I am not enough of a scholar to assess the validity of some of...Read more ›
Learning More About Israel? Or Israel?
Forgotten Kingdom It is impossible to summarize Israel Finkelstein’s latest book, The Forgotten Kingdom, in a brief review because its numerous errors, misrepresentations, over-simplifications and contradictions make it too unwieldy. Specialists will know these flaws, since all of Finkelstein’s pivotal views have been published elsewhere. Here I...Read more ›
Minimizing David, Maximizing Labayu
Forgotten Kingdom Israel Finkelstein’s The Forgotten Kingdom invites us to reconsider the archaeology and history of the northern kingdom of Israel in an effort to integrate the most recent textual and archaeological approaches. It is an ambitious work that few would attempt—or be capable of. Such an...Read more ›
Features
The Masada Siege—From the Roman Viewpoint
The dramatic archaeological site of Masada, perched on an isolated mesa-top in the Judean desert above the southwest corner of the Dead Sea, is justifiably one of Israel’s premier visitor attractions. The thousands of tourists who come here every year to visit the spectacular ruins of the...Read more ›
Parsing “The Parting” Painting: The Marriage of the Virgin
More than two years ago Hershel Shanks rang me up about a new book he was preparing: Partings—How Judaism and Christianity Became Two, with individual chapters by some of the world’s leading scholars. I am an art historian with a strong interest in the relationship between the...Read more ›
Searching for the “Original” Bible
Do the Dead Sea Scrolls help?
When ancient Biblical texts differ from one another, which one should we believe? More specifically, in answering this question: How helpful are those ancient scrolls of the Hebrew Bible found among the Dead Sea Scrolls? Prior to their discovery, scholars looked mainly to two texts to answer...Read more ›
Infants Sacrificed? The Tale Teeth Tell
The seventh–sixth century prophet Jeremiah famously fulminated against Judahites who sacrificed their children to Moloch in Jerusalem’s Ben Hinnom Valley (Jeremiah 32:35). The author of Leviticus also forbade the practice (Leviticus 18:21), indicating that he too believed that infant sacrifice to...Read more ›