First Person: Jericho and the Bible

“Is ‘Bible’ a Dirty Word?” I titled my First Person column in the September/October 2015 issue of BAR.^a One of the things I mentioned was a recent conference about Jericho at University College London that featured, as I wrote, “scholars from England, the United States, Holland, Italy, Denmark and the Palestinian Department of Antiquities … [but] no scholars from you-know-where … The keynote address was given by Professor Lorenzo Nigro of the Sapienza University of Rome, who has led a major new excavation at Jericho.”

I received a heated letter from Professor Nigro telling me that “Israeli scholars [had been] invited” to address the conference. Moreover, the “final part” of his opening lecture was indeed devoted to Jericho and the Bible.

I replied that we would publish his letter, lightly edited mainly to eliminate verbiage that reflected Professor Nigro’s slightly Italianate English.

I also asked Professor Nigro for the names of the “Israeli scholars” who had been invited to participate in the conference. Professor Nigro replied that “as regards the Israeli scholar [singular] invited to the conference,” the organizers prefer not to disclose his name.