’97 Dig Opportunities
000
1988 Excavation Opportunities
1990 Excavation Opportunities
1991 Excavation Opportunities
1993 Excavation Opportunities
1994 Excavation Opportunities
1996 Excavation Opportunities
2006 Digs
A Guide to ’98 Digs: The Volunteer's View
Akeldama
Alter vs. Kugel
An Odyssey Debate
Ancient Musical Instruments
Assessing the Jehoash Inscription
BAR's 20th Anniversary
BAR's Tenth Anniversary Section
BAR’s 20th Anniversary
Battle Over Bones
Battle Over Jericho Heats Up
Battling Over the Jesus Seminar
Caesarea: Herod and Beyond
David’s Jerusalem: Fiction or Reality?
Dead Sea Scrolls
Dead Sea Scrolls Research Council: Fragments
Dead Sea Scrolls Update
Defusing Pseudo-Scholarship
Different Interpretations
Dig 2004
Dig In: A Guide to ’99 Digs
Digs 2000
Digs 2001
Digs 2002
Digs 2003
Digs 2005
Digs 2007
Digs 2010
Digs 2015
Digs and Digging 1980
East Meets West: The Uncanny Parallels in the Lives of Buddha and Jesus
Ecclesiastes
Elba Update
Elgin Marbles Debate
Excavation Opportunities 1985
Excavation Opportunities 1986
Excavation Opportunities 1989
Excavation Opportunities 1995
Forgotten Kingdom
Frank Moore Cross—An Interview
Has Richard Friedman Really Discovered a Long-Hidden Book in the Bible?
In Private Hands
Israel Comes to Canaan
Israel Underground
Issue 200
James
Jerusalem 3
Jerusalem Explores and Preserves Its Past
Jerusalem Update
Jerusalem’s Underground Water Systems
Jonah and the Whale
Megiddo Stables or Storehouses?
Michelangelo’s Sistine Ceiling
New Directions In Dead Sea Scroll Research
One if by Sea…Two if by Land: How Did the Philistines Get to Canaan?
Ossuary Update
Pilate in the Dock
Point/Counterpoint: Pros and Cons of the Contemporary English Version
Portraits In Heroism
Questioning Masada
Qumran
Redating the Exodus—The Debate Goes On
Remembering Ugarit
Rewriting Jerusalem History
Riches at Ein Yael
Roman Jerusalem
Scholars Disagree: Can You Name the Panel with the Israelites?
Sea Peoples Saga
Should the Bible Be Taught in Public Schools?
Special Bible Section
Spotlight on Sepphoris
Sumer
Supporting Roles
Temple Mount
Temple Scroll Revisited
The Age of BAR
The Amman Citadel: An Archaeological Biography
The Babylonian Gap Revisited
The Bible Code: Cracked and Crumbling
the Brother of Jesus
The Dead Sea Scrolls
The God-Fearers: Did They Exist?
The Jacob Cycle in Genesis
The Minoans of Crete: Europe’s Oldest Civilization
The Most Original Bible Text: How to Get There
The Pools of Sepphoris: Ritual Baths or Bathtubs?
The Search for History in the Bible
What Was Qumran?
Where Was Jesus Born?
Where Was the Temple?
Who Invented the Alphabet
Introduction
Masada—the very name resonates with images of bravery and freedom. In this imposing desert fortress, a greatly outnumbered band of fighters, unwilling to concede defeat during the First Jewish Revolt against Rome, held out for more than three years against a large imperial army after the fall of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. And when a successful Roman attack was imminent, their leader delivered a moving address, after which the assembled fighters chose to die by their own hands rather than surrender.
Or so the first-century A.D. historian Josephus tells us. In the 1960s, excavations led by Yigael Yadin, Israel’s most famous archaeologist, seemed to confirm key parts of Josephus’s account. Yadin even claimed to have found bones belonging to Masada’s defenders. But were they? In a fascinating excavation into decades-old records, Israeli archaeologist Joseph Zias suggests the bones were really those of Romans who lived here after the Jewish defeat. Sandwiched around Zias are articles by Nachman Ben-Yehuda and Ze’ev Meshel. Ben-Yehuda looks at a difficult passage in Josephus’s account of the Roman siege to pinpoint where the mass suicide occurred. You may not learn whether it occurred, a matter of scholarly dispute, but you’ll have a much better understanding of what the site was like at the time and where the suicide occurred if it occurred. Lastly, Meshel places Masada in a wider historical and geographical setting: The Judean Desert forts, like Masada, were often not just the refuge of rebels, but last-ditch administrative centers of governments-in-exile that had already lost urban centers like Jerusalem.