Biblical Archaeology Review, May/June 2006
Features
Satan’s Throne
Revelations from Revelation
In the Book of Revelation, a prophet named John experiences a vision of the risen Christ, who asks him to convey a message to each of the seven Christian congregations of Asia Minor—Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamon, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodikeia. To the Pergamon congregation, this...Read more ›
The Spade Hits Sussita
BAR Article—“Sussita Awaits the Spade”—Leads to Excavation
Fifteen years ago, I (Arthur Segal) sat in my study reading an article in BAR by Vassilios Tzaferis about Sussita, a dramatic site overlooking the Sea of Galilee that had been destroyed in a violent earthquake in 749 C.E. and had never been resettled. The columns of...Read more ›
Engraved in Memory
Diaspora Jews Find Eternal Rest in Jerusalem
When Oded Golan first invited me to his home in April 2002, it was to examine an inscription on a bone box—but not the one bearing the now-famous inscription, “James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus.” That one was not even in Golan’s apartment at that time...Read more ›
Abraham Isaac & Jacob Meet Newton, Darwin & Wellhausen
Israel first appears in an epigraphic source (that is, in a surviving ancient document) around 1200 B.C.E.,1 in a stone victory stele of the Egyptian pharaoh Merneptah. At the end of this long inscription, almost as an afterthought, the intrepid king informs us that...Read more ›