Biblical Archaeology Review

A number of items in this exhibition have previously been illustrated and discussed in BAR. To help locate them in your back issues we have included in this review, in parentheses, citations to the relevant BAR issue.

Lawrence E. Stager and Samuel R. Wolff, “Child Sacrifice at Carthage—Religious Rite or Population Control?” BAR 10:01.

See “The Last Days of Ugarit,” BAR 09:05, Claude F. A. Schaeffer, and “The Tablets from Ugarit and Their Importance for Biblical Studies,” BAR 09:05, Peter C. Craigie.

In the numerical ratings at the end of each Bible dictionary description 5 is the highest rating; 1 is the lowest.

The Apocrypha are the 14 (sometimes 15) writings from the Jewish community that are not a part of the Hebrew canon of Scripture, and therefore are not included in Hebrew Bibles, but are found in Greek and Latin manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible produced in early Christian times. The Roman Catholic and Orthodox Christian communities regularly include the Apocrypha in the Christian Old Testament; Protestant churches include them in a separate section of the Old Testament with the label “Apocrypha” or (rarely today) eliminate them entirely.

The word havdalah comes from the same Hebrew root that is part of the verb l’havdil, “to distinguish.”

The Mishnah (from the Hebrew verb shanah, to “repeat”) is the body of Jewish oral law, specifically, the collection of oral laws compiled by Rabbi Judah the Prince in the early third century A.D.

The Diaspora is the term used for Jews dispersed outside the Land of Israel. The word is used for both the people and their communities.

The failure to mention Lalor may stem from the fact that Lalor wrote to senior members of Israel’s archaeological community charging that Ben-Dov had improperly confiscated part of the dig records, in effect ousting the dig director, Benjamin Mazar.