Biblical Archaeology Review

Volkmar Fritz, former director of the German Protestant Institute of Archaeology on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem, died in Bad Schwartau, Germany, on August 21, 2007, at the age of 69 after a long battle with Parkinson’s

John Dominic Crossan is professor emeritus of religious studies at DePaul University in Chicago and author of more than 20 books about the historical Jesus. In a May 19, 2007, post on the “On Faith” section of the Washington

BAR takes a look back at some important events in history that happened during the months of November and December.

NOVEMBER 20, 284 A.D. Diocletian, who was responsible for the “Great Persecution” of Christians in the Roman Empire between 303 and 313, begins his reign as emperor.

Israel has now joined the chorus of nations seeking to reclaim the remains of its cultural heritage from the collections of foreign museums.

In a July meeting with Namik Tan, Turkey’s ambassador to Israel, Jerusalem mayor Uri Lupolianski officially

You wouldn’t expect an old receipt to have major significance for Biblical studies. And yet just such a receipt came to light while Dr. Michael Jursa was studying some of the archived cuneiform tablets in the Babylonian collection of the British Museum. Jursa, an Austrian Assyriologist from the University of Vienna, was deciphering the small clay tablet when he came across the name of a secondary character mentioned in the Bible.

In a recent article, Joseph A. Fitzmyer, S.J., one of the most highly respected Aramaicists and New Testament scholars