Biblical Archaeology Review

003

The shoals in the sea of archaeology are treacherous indeed. Take the case of Marie-Louise Buhl.

One of the things that must be done in starting a magazine is to decide how to spell. This is especially difficult with a magazine about archeology—oops, archaeology.

A unique Philistine temple has recently been discovered and excavated within the city limits of Tel Aviv.

William Foxwell Albright, who died almost four years ago, left a major manuscript tentatively entitled The History of the Religion of Israel which has yet to be published.

Everyone knows that King Solomon was a great builder. What we learn from the Bible (see 1 Kings 9:15–20) has been confirmed by the archaeologists’ spade—especially at Hazor, Megiddo and Gezer (three sites specifically mentioned in the passage in Kings), each with its distinctive Solomonic gate.

G. Ernest Wright, one of the last of a passing generation of great archaeologists, died on August 29, 1974. He was 64 years old.

A student of W. F. Albright, Wright was, since Albright’s death in 1971, America’s leading Biblical archaeologist. As a teacher, first at McCormick Theological Seminary and then at Harvard, Professor Wright trained a generation of American Biblical archaeologists.

Debir, a district capital of the Judean monarchy which figures prominently in Joshua and Judges, was misidentified by the great William F. Albright, according to Professor Moshe Kochavi of Tel Aviv University. Professor Kochavi argues that he, not Albright has excavated the true site of Debir—at Khirbet Rabud, in the Judean hill country, twelve miles southwest of Hebron.

The aim of The Biblical Archaeology Review is to make available in understandable language the current insights of professional archaeology as they relate to the Bible. No other publication is presently devoted to this task.

While on occasion we may make an original contribution to knowledge, that will be unusual. Our primary function will be reportorial. However, we hope that we will often say things better and more understandably than they have been said before. And that in itself is a contribution.

The first horned animal altar ever unearthed in ancient Israel was recently excavated by Professor Yohanan Aharoni at Tell Beer-Sheva. The exacavator dates the altar from the 8th century B.C. and possibly earlier.