Biblical Archaeology Review

Nachman Ben-Yehuda cites 14 history books and 16 guidebooks in which this statement is made (Ben-Yehuda, The Masada Myth: Collective Memory and Mythmaking in Israel [Madison: Univ. of Wisconsin Press, 1995], tables 8.1, 9.1).

Midrash Rabba, B’Midbar 8a.

E.L. Sukenik, “The Ancient Synagogue at Yafa Near Nazareth. Preliminary Report,” Louis M. Rabinowitz Bulletin, vol. 2, 18ff (1951).

Yehudah Kil describes in detail the intentions of the king in going to battle with the Egyptians in 2 Kings (Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook, 1989), pp. 802–804 [Hebrew]. See Kil, 2 Chronicles (Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook, 1986), pp. 924–925 [Hebrew]. In fact, contacts with Babylonians already had begun during the reign of Hezekiah. (See 2 Kings 20:12–19; Isaiah 39:1–8.)

Christoph Uehlinger, “Northwest Semitic Inscribed Seals, Iconography and Syro-Palestinian Religions of Iron Age II: Some Afterthoughts and Conclusions,” in Benjamin Sass and Uehlinger, eds., Studies in Iconography of Northwest Semitic Seals, pp. 257–288, esp. pp. 278–288; Sass, “The Pre-Exilic Hebrew Seals: Iconism vs. Aniconism,” in Sass, Studies., pp. 194–256, esp. pp. 196–199 and 243–245.

Avigad already observed that the Hebrew seal cutters produced more glyphic seals in the eighth century B.C.E. than their seventh-century counterparts. There is a 4:1 ratio between the iconic seals of royal officials in the eighth century B.C.E. and the iconic seals, bullae and seals dating to the end of the seventh century B.C.E. See “Seal,” Encyclopedia Biblica (Jerusalem, 1958), pp. 67–86 [Hebrew]; Hebrew Bullae from the Time of Jeremiah (Jerusalem: Israeli Exploration Society, 1986), p. 118.

Porada, Ancient Iran, p. 154, fig. 84. See also an Achaemenid cylinder seal bearing the name of Darius and portraying Ahura Mazda rising from a winged disk on p. 176, fig. 89.

Edith Porada, Ancient Iran: The Art of Pre-Islamic Times (London: Methuen, 1965), pp. 99–199.