Biblical Archaeology Review is the flagship publication of the Biblical Archaeology Society. For more than 40 years it has been making the world of archaeology in the lands of the Bible come alive for the interested layperson. Full of vivid images and articles written by leading scholars, this is a must read for anyone interested in the archaeology of the ancient Near East.
The city of Sidon on the coast of modern Lebanon is mentioned 38 times in the Hebrew Bible. Recent excavations have exposed part of the ancient Canaanite—and later Phoenician—city, including a massive temple and depictions of deities worshiped at Sidon.
The Gospels offer a surprisingly excusatory depiction of Pontius Pilate, the Roman prefect of Judea directly responsible for Jesus’ death. While the contemporary sources do not mention Pilate’s fatal involvement with the itinerant rabbi from Galilee, they reveal a governor determined to promote Roman religion in Judea and to ruthlessly suppress any form of dissent.
Several mikva’ot (Jewish ritual baths) have been uncovered at Machaerus, the palace-fortress on the eastern shore of the Dead Sea where Salome danced and John the Baptist was beheaded. Archaeologist Győző Vörös takes readers on a journey through past and current archaeological excavations that have resulted in the discovery of these ritual baths.
Are so-called four-room houses an infallible sign of Israelites’ presence just because many have been found at sites identified as Israelite? If you think they are, how do you avoid the pitfall of circular argumentation, which is implied in this reasoning? Hershel Shanks argues that we might need to look for other historical evidence before we draw conclusions of ethnicity from the floor plans of early Iron Age houses in Biblical lands.
Imagine a young Bedouin looter exploring one of the hundreds of complicated and dangerous caves in the Judean Desert by the Dead Sea. He discovers an extraordinary ancient gold artifact with a Hebrew inscription referring to King Solomon.
In his 2016 Bethsaida excavation report, Director Rami Arav of the University of Nebraska at Omaha reports that the tenth-century B.C.E. destruction level at et-Tell (which Rami Arav contends is the Biblical site of Bethsaida) is often attributed to the Egyptian pharaoh Sheshonq (Biblical Shishak).
A. Chew bone
B. Musical instrument
C. Board game piece
D. Measuring tool
E. Staff
Answer: (B) Musical instrument
As a Mediterranean port city, ancient Ashkelon saw many peoples pass through it—Canaanites, Philistines, Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans and Crusaders, among them. The objects they left behind tell an incredible story of these peoples’ ingenuity, strength, entrepreneurship, creativity and determination.
