Biblical Archaeology Review

See Raphael Levy, “First ‘Dead Sea Scroll’ Found in Egypt Fifty Years Before Qumran Discoveries,” BAR 08:05.

“Dead Sea Scroll Variation on ‘Show and Tell’—It’s Called ‘Tell, But No Show,’” BAR 16:02.

Hershel Shanks, “Jerusalem Rolls Out Red Carpet for Biblical Archaeology Congress,” BAR 10:04.

The Congress was sponsored by the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities and the Israel Exploration Society. All of the arrangements were superbly handled by Joseph Aviram, executive secretary of the Israel Exploration Society, ably assisted by Janet Amitai.

In some areas of the northern Negev where the salt accumulation layer is as little as 12–16 inches below the surface shallow plowing that doesn’t reach the salt layer is preferable to deep plowing.

Since 1987, this project has been sponsored by the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion and the Israel Antiquities Authority (formerly called the Israel Department of Antiquities), and supported by grants from the United States National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Geographic Society and the C. Paul Johnson Charitable Foundation. The excavation is affiliated with the American Schools of Oriental Research.

The Haganah was the underground self-defense organization of Jews formed in Palestine in 1920, during Ottoman rule; it continued to operate during British rule until, when the state of Israel was created in 1948, it became the regular army of Israel.

As I later learned, David Alon had visited the site around 1950. He called it Geomaise, which in Arabic means sycamore. This was the name the local Bedouin had given to an old Turkish well located about one half mile upstream from the site. Although there are no sycamore trees in the immediate vicinity of the site, one lone sycamore still thrives near the Geomaise well. We decided to retain the name Alon had given to the site, but translated into Hebrew—thus Shiqmim (sycamores).

B.C.E. (Before the Common Era) and C.E. (Common Era) are the scholarly alternate designations corresponding to B.C. and A.D.

The icon shows the Holy Places and the events associated with them in correct geographical location and topographical setting, and it is oriented toward the east. The scene of the baptism is found to the right of the Monastery of the Holy Cross and slightly lower. It is therefore to be located southwest of the monastery.