Scholars Talk About How the Field Has Changed

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Archaeological periods are not always easy to define; for example, we cannot gauge precisely when the Late Bronze Age turned into Iron Age I. Not so, however, with the Age of BAR. This spring marks the end of BAR’s 25th year of publication, what we call BAR Age I (and the beginning of BAR Age II). How to celebrate such an occasion? When we hit our 20th anniversary, we published “A Short History of BAR”; a survey that asked readers to name the most interesting man and 022woman in the Bible; comments from scholars on Biblical archaeology’s greatest achievements, greatest failures and greatest challenges; and much more. So much more, in fact, that we had to spread the articles over two issues.

So what shall we do as we move into our second quarter century? We cannot let the milestone pass unnoticed. Beginning in this article, BAR editor Hershel Shanks, following numerous interviews with some of today’s leading specialists, provides an overview of how Biblical archaeology has changed since BAR began following it. We also review some of the causes that BAR has championed over the years (“25 Years of Kicking Up Some Dust”) and present sketches of giants in the field who passed away during the past 25 years, plus those of several anakim (Hebrew for giants) who are still with us (“25 Giants”).

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To observe our 25th anniversary, I decided to talk to a number of archaeologists about the field and how it has changed in the last quarter of a century.

Indeed, the last 25 years have witnessed a sea change in almost everything connected with Biblical archaeology, from the nature of the questions being asked to the methods used to find the answers. The field is becoming more scientific and technical—and more specialized. It’s more interdisciplinary—and more complex.

Frank Moore Cross of Harvard University, former president of the American Schools of Oriental Research (ASOR), recalled that in the late 1960s, when he was working at Tel Gezer, the dig directors brought geologist Reuben Bullard onto the team. This was a “first,” he said, “the big innovation.”

By way of contrast, Sharon Herbert of the University of Michigan, codirector of the excavation of Tel Kedesh, explained how a magnetometer operated by a specialist enabled her team to locate a major building underground. “We could have spent three lifetimes digging little pits, searching for the building. Now we can go straight to it. We even know what parts of it to check.”

Today we can find literally dozens of specialists on one dig or another, from archeobotanists to paleographers, palynologists (pollen experts) and physical anthropologists—and of course computer specialists.

These methodological additions fit nicely into the new kinds of questions being asked. Until about the time BAR was getting started, questions of political history were at the top of the archaeological agenda. Archaeologists were looking for the “big events and the personalities that were behind them—or in front of them,” recalled Harvard’s Lawrence Stager, who directs the excavation at Ashkelon. Now, new techniques are producing new kinds of data, and “you have to ask a whole different set of questions relating to these kinds of data.”

No longer are archaeologists looking for the great find, the spectacular object (well, at least they don’t admit it). The general public may sometimes find this disappointing, explained Jodi Magness of Tufts University, excavator at several sites in Israel and an expert in pottery of the classical period and beyond. “When I tell people I’m an archaeologist, the first thing they ask is, Do I dig? And the second thing they always ask is, What’s the best thing I’ve found? There’s no way I can answer that question because what is interesting to me is certainly not interesting or spectacular to the average person. I get excited over little pieces of Byzantine pottery if they come from the right context.”

Cross confessed, “At Gezer we were still tossing bones away.” The fact is, everyone was. Today archaeologists collect bones, seeds and even pollen. They count and weigh potsherds. They use carbon 14 tests and thermoluminescence tests and neutron activation analysis and petrography.

This allows new questions to be addressed, but it also creates some new problems. Amihai Mazar of Hebrew University, director of excavations at Tel Rehov, cited some of the new questions: “We are more and more looking at long-term processes, environmental changes, social and economic processes.”

This has brought with it some modern anthropological models and, unfortunately, a lot of the jargon that sometimes burdens that specialty. “Most of it is not understood by us,” Mazar continued, “and it is just not useful for many of us. I don’t use the jargon of anthropology at all, but I try to understand what the anthropologists are saying, though without much success. But at least we try. I don’t think we can ignore this approach altogether.”

Amnon Ben-Tor of Hebrew University, director of the excavation of Hazor, was not as welcoming. “These models taken from the social sciences—it doesn’t 024make any sense. Everything nowadays is ‘cognitive’ and ‘hermeneutics’ and God knows what. I don’t even understand the topics. I am not the brightest person on earth, but I don’t think I am the most stupid person, and after 40 years in archaeology I cannot understand what they are publishing. It’s some mumbo jumbo. God knows what they are talking about. I guess it makes them feel important, writing something that no one can understand.”

The new questions are also reflected in the movement away from the big tell. Instead of excavating major tells, where political history might be found, archaeologists are conducting regional surveys and digging at small village sites in an effort to find out how ordinary people lived—what they ate, how they housed themselves, what diseases they contracted, how they related to one another socially.

In the era when BAR was founded, “We didn’t pay attention to these things, the differences between villages and towns and cities,” Ami Mazar told me. “What is the difference between a house in a village and a house in a town? What is the size of a family? Demographic questions. These are important developments that cannot be ignored.”

But the mountains of data that these new methods produce also cause some problems. “There can never be too much data,” declared Ben-Tor. “The question is, What do you do with it? Fifty years ago, they threw away bones and plants and seeds. It’s understood we should not do this. But the enormous amounts of data that accumulate make it very difficult to deal with. OK, you have computers. They help us, no question. But there are some data that are not data as far as I’m concerned. They’re just a lot of talk. It’s a lot of dealing with nothing. (Some of my best friends are doing it.) When a trip I was going on was cancelled, I had a week on my hands. I could have written an article entitled, ‘Food Is the Nourishment of Mankind.’ And I could have created graphs and tables and references, a beautiful article—and it would be sheer nonsense. What gets published today is unbelievable.”

I asked Ben-Tor for an example. “Tell me what the weight of sherds has to do with archaeology. Maybe you can convince me. But tell me. And don’t just present me with numbers. The ‘So what?’ question is very, very rarely asked or answered. If there is no question, there are no answers. The [supposed] answers don’t say anything.”

As Stager put it, “It isn’t enough to collect data for the sake of collecting.”

Philip King, the only person who has served as head of ASOR, the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) and the Catholic Biblical Association, noted a shift from what he called the “acropolis of the tell” to the outlying villages. “We’re not digging simply on the acropolis any more. That means we’re looking much more into the role of women in ancient society. Women weren’t involved in the government. You don’t find them in the palaces on the top of the tell.”

Duke University’s Carol Meyers, who has codirected a number of excavations with her colleague and husband, Eric Meyers, also of Duke University, agreed and expanded on the idea. She explained that “the palaces, the fortresses, the fortifications and the gates are all part of a kind of public or supra-domestic world. But most men and women were engaged in household activities. The movement away from looking for architectural remains makes us focus on the lives of all the people, not just women. If you look at the household and its economy and the kinds of artifacts associated with the household, you have a much better idea of what the everyday life of people was like. I think that ‘household archaeology’ is the wave of the future in Syro-Palestinian archaeology.”

The mention of women in ancient times of course raised the issue of women in archaeology today. Are they discriminated against? The almost universal answer was, by and large, No. “Archaeology is one of the disciplines 025where there is very little discrimination; [women] have always played a very prominent role in archaeology,” King told me. Kathleen Kenyon, Olga Tufnell, Crystal Bennett and Israelis such as Trude Dothan, Ruth Amiran, Pirhiya Beck, Claire Epstein, Ann Killebrew and Eilat Mazar were mentioned by many of the people I talked to.

Amnon Ben-Tor noted that his staff at Hazor includes nine women and two men. There is one difference, however, he said. “Women have a problem that men don’t have. They get pregnant and they have children. And men don’t. I’m sorry, blame God. So this does affect them. It makes it more difficult for them to be in the field. Two of my area supervisors had children in the last two years—central figures. They didn’t work for a few months, but now they come into the field and bring the babies with them. Last year when the babies were a half year old, they came to Hazor, took apartments in Safed, ten minutes from the tell, and the grandmothers took turns watching the babies.”

What did the women archaeologists I talked to think about discrimination against women—or lack thereof? Andrea Berlin of the University of Minnesota, codirector of the Kedesh excavation with Sharon Herbert, found the situation of women in the United States acceptable, but, she added, “I don’t think it’s a very level playing field for women in Israel.”

“How many female directors of Israeli excavations do you know? There’s Trude Dothan; that’s it,” added Herbert. When I mentioned Killebrew, Beck, Mazar, Epstein and Amiran, Berlin replied that Amiran, who excavated the major site of Arad, was a pioneer. “There are sites, and there are sites,” Berlin said. “There are big and important sites, and there are small excavations in tandem. That’s where you find the women. Maybe in another generation it will be a level playing field. The people who are directing large excavations in Israel now were students 20 years ago.”

Herbert noted that 20 years ago women “tended to be the pottery ladies. There was always a Rachel or a Devorah who did the pottery for the big man. There were always two women laboring away in the pottery storeroom, and there were never any guys in there. The director would breeze in and say, ‘Tell them about this stuff, Rachel.’ And they would. And they would get very excited about it. But men did architecture. Women did pottery.”

One of the important subjects we discussed was the relationship of the Bible to archaeology. There was general agreement that a previous generation had gone too far in making leaps from archaeology to the Bible. Amihai Mazar called it the Albrightean approach, a reference to William Foxwell Albright, dean of American Biblical archaeology from the 1930s until his death in 1971. As David Noel Freedman of the University of California at San Diego, general editor of the Anchor Bible series, put it, we have less confidence in the historicity of the Bible than we once did. Freedman is a Bible scholar rather than an archaeologist. He tried archaeology for a few years, but, he explained, “I’m allergic to dirt.” Is archaeology still important for Biblical studies? Absolutely. “There’s still a lot in the Bible we don’t fully understand. In unexpected and important ways, archaeology fills out the picture.”

“There’s a historical substratum to the Biblical text,” said King, “even to the patriarchal narratives.” But, he went on to caution, “Methodologically, archaeologists must not start with the Bible, because you’ll find what you’re looking for. There’s much less of that today than in earlier generations. After you finish your work, then it’s fine, you can look for correlations with the Bible.”

Ben-Tor agreed. “The Bible has important historical nuclei. But you can’t take it as gospel.”

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Herbert approaches it this way with her graduate students: “You have your material evidence and your textual evidence. You must analyze them separately. Then take them and compare the two sets and see how they fit. Don’t take something from the text and force it on the material remains. And don’t take something from the material remains and force it on the text.”

And Freedman: “In my view, religion can tolerate historical inaccuracies [in the Bible].”

What about the Biblical minimalists, people such as Thomas Thompson and Niels Peter Lemche of the University of Copenhagen and Philip Davies and Keith Whitelam of the University of Sheffield, who say the Bible has no value for historical purposes, at least for the history of the period being described? Perhaps, they say, the Biblical text can tell us something about the period when it was written, but not about the period it chronicles, which the minimalists claim was hundreds of years earlier.

The reaction of most of the people I talked to was little short of contempt. Ephraim Stern of Hebrew University, excavator of Tel Dor, contends that the minimalists “have nothing to do with reality. The movement will diminish by itself in two or three years.” On the papers the minimalists grind out, Stern quoted a Hebrew saying: “‘The paper suffers everything.’ You can write whatever you want. It’s a free world today.” As for lowering the archaeological dates of the Biblical period by a century (thereby diminishing the significance of the United Monarchy of David and Solomon), as Israel Finkelstein of Tel Aviv University, codirector of the excavations at Megiddo, suggests: “Impossible,” says Stern. “Finkelstein solves one problem and creates hundreds of new problems.”

Stager gave the minimalist movement a slightly longer life than Stern: “I don’t think it will last another five years. All they’ve produced so far is rhetoric. And they haven’t demonstrated a thing, at least to anyone who wasn’t already a committed ideologue. It’s pretty foolhardy to try to answer historical questions if you’re going to omit one of the prime sources of possible knowledge for reconstructing that history, the Biblical text. But you can’t just use it like a newspaper.”

Cross was of a similar view: “I think the minimalist movement will be eaten away and evaporate. You can’t have something that’s nonsense persist too long.” Cross also noted another factor, “something that is not talked about too much: They’re kept alive by anti-Semitism. It bothers me.”

King also thought the movement would “disappear.”

The minimalist attitude toward the Bible is “dying,” opined Ben-Tor. “I don’t think it will be an issue in another five to ten years.”

Freedman was more charitable. He thinks the debate with the minimalists “will end somewhere in the middle.” Said Freedman, “Typically, debates like this polarize. In the past, there was a kind of prior commitment to the Bible: If the Bible says it, it’s true. Now that is unscientific. On the other hand, to go to the other extreme—if the Bible says it, it’s untrue—that’s bad too. The truth lies somewhere in between. And skepticism has an important place in all this.”

Eric Meyers, who among his other distinctions has served as president of ASOR and as longtime editor of its semi-scholarly magazine Biblical Archaeologist (now Near Eastern Archaeology), also thought the minimalist debate would soon “quiet down,” but he found it a “healthy debate that has invigorated the discipline. It has generated a heck of a lot of interest in both the details of archaeology and the details of the Biblical text.” This occurred, for example, when some minimalists argued that a new inscription from Tel Dan mentioning the “House of David” was a forgery.^a But Meyers was clear that he did not agree with the minimalist contention that the Bible was useless as a historical source. On the contrary, “Nothing has convinced me that we should ‘can’ the Bible as the major resource—along with extra-Biblical literary and inscriptional evidence, as well as archaeological evidence—for reconstructing the world of Iron Age Israel [the Biblical period].”

Many of the scholars I talked to felt that archaeology and Biblical studies were moving further and further apart. The split between the two fields is “bigger than I’ve ever seen before,” said Stager. King opined, “There’s not much rapport between the archaeologists and the Biblical people in this country.”

Cross put it this way: “The Biblical people are doing literary studies, what they call close exegesis; they are not really asking historical questions. They’re not interested in historical questions. And many of the archaeologists are becoming little more than technicians. They’re blown around by any wind of ideology that comes their way.”

Jodi Magness was more specific. She lamented the fact that the archaeologists (represented by ASOR) and the Bible scholars (represented by SBL) no longer 030hold their annual meetings jointly. “I was opposed to ASOR splitting from SBL. I think it’s important for the two disciplines to meet together, for archaeologists to let Biblical scholars know why archaeology is relevant to Biblical studies. My impression is that many Biblical scholars have little or no interest in archaeology. But I also know a number of Biblical scholars who are very interested in archaeology and who are just as upset as I am, if not more so, that ASOR is not meeting with SBL.”

Ben-Tor found the same increasing separation between archaeology and Biblical studies in Israel as others found in the United States. “I don’t think it’s healthy,” he added.

One of the reasons for the increasing separation between archaeology and Biblical studies is the need for specialization in light of the enormous amount of new kinds of data now available to archaeologists. While this “has greatly enriched us, it is very difficult for one scholar to have the kind of breadth that people like Yigael Yadin and Albright had,” sighed Jodi Magness. Yadin dug at Masada (late Second Temple period) and at Hazor (pre-Biblical and Biblical periods). He was also an expert in Dead Sea Scroll study. Albright was an expert in pottery as well as a great Biblical scholar. “They were experts in so many different periods and kinds of fields,” noted Magness. “Now it’s very difficult for one scholar to master so much. It’s impossible to be that broad.”

Americans have long been major players in archaeology in Israel. But that too seems to be changing—or rather has changed. During the period of the British Mandate and even in the early decades of the State of Israel, Americans and other foreign nationals could lead archaeological expeditions on their own, “with no criticism, no objection,” as Stern put it. “They were used to this,” he added. Today it’s very difficult for a foreign expedition to work on its own. “Stager’s excavation at Ashkelon is the last one related to the Biblical period,” Stern said. He called up names from the past—not only William Foxwell Albright, but G. Ernest Wright, William Dever, Paul Lapp, Joe Seger and others. “They would live here and direct large-scale excavations. They had their own experience—a lot of it.” Today, Stern noted, foreigners are no longer “so confident in themselves. Israelis have so much more experience than they have. So the typical pattern today is for the American to find an Israeli partner.”

Magness explained it from the American viewpoint: “If I have to arrange a dig, it’s much easier if I have somebody over in Israel who’s taking care of the housing and transportation for the volunteers, arranging for food and so forth—and getting the permit to dig. And it’s easier for the Israelis if the Americans are bringing the warm bodies for the dig and providing the money. I think it’s a symbiosis that works quite well.”

Another development within Israeli archaeology is the broadening of interest beyond the Biblical periods. “Classical period archaeology and late antique period archaeology have become a very strong part of Israeli archaeology,” said Herbert. “There is much greater interest here in Crusader archaeology and the early Islamic period. At least half of the people doing that in Israel are Israelis.” Herbert continued, “The Israelis who are doing this see the history of the land not necessarily as the history of their own people, but as the history of the place throughout all different periods.”

This, of course, contrasts with an earlier period when Israelis saw archaeology as attesting their own longtime presence in the land. Ben-Tor noted that the Palestinians are now going through this same phase. “The Palestinians today are doing exactly what the [Yigael] Yadins did 50 years ago,” he said. “They go and visit every Arab site. They are digging a homeland. They are looking for the past to justify the present. I don’t think they can be condemned for this. Perhaps in 50 years when they are where we are now, they will question whether 031Omar ever existed.” [Omar was an early Muslim leader associated in the popular mind with the Dome of the Rock, which is sometimes popularly called the Mosque of Omar.—Ed.]

Meanwhile, Israeli archaeology is thriving. Until the 1960s Hebrew University was virtually the only school in Israel with a department of archaeology. Today, said Stern, “six or seven institutions offer programs in archaeology. Young people are still interested in the field.” And they are finding jobs. Mazar noted, “There has been an unbelievable growth in the last ten years, mostly in the Israel Antiquities Authority, which was very small until 1989. At that time they had 30 or 40 archaeologists working there. Now there are about 250. I never dreamed there would be so many jobs for young archaeologists. So the situation now is quite promising. What it will be in the future is hard to tell.”

Failure to publish the results of excavations remains a problem, although things are definitely getting better. “There’s a much greater consciousness of the importance of publishing,” noted King. “In the past they knew they should [publish], but they didn’t and it was pretty much acceptable if you didn’t publish. Today I think people feel very guilty if they don’t publish their excavations, and that’s a good thing.”

In the past it was just the head of the excavation who wrote the final report. Now it’s very much a team effort. King heads a program funded by Shelby White and her husband Leon Levy that awards grants to archaeologists to enable them to publish. The program is now helping to fund the publication of the final report on the excavation of Lachish, directed by Tel Aviv University’s David Ussishkin. That excavation ended about 25 years ago, just about the time that BAR became an idea. King told me that Ussishkin now has 60 people working on the publication.

The nature of a final publication also remains a problem. The very fact that archaeology is now so much more complex has made it that much more difficult to publish. King wants publications to get beyond just “a description of something.” He explains: “We have so much material that’s undigested. It’s never been properly interpreted or thought about. What does it really mean? So often the report is nothing but pure description. There’s no interpretation. I don’t know that we need to do an awful lot more digging. Maybe we should stop digging and digest the stuff we have.”

One question I asked the archaeologists I spoke to was what they would do if someone gave them $5 million to improve archaeology. Sharon Herbert had a suggestion that would alleviate the publication problem and perhaps allow for the kind of digesting Phil King called for. She would start an institute for archaeological publication. “One of the reasons people don’t publish is a psychological problem, and we just can’t get around that. But a lot of the problem is the lack of support, being able to fund and pay for the expertise that it takes to publish a modern excavation.” Herbert’s institute would have a full-time staff of various specialists, none of whom are needed full-time on one dig, but who would be available as needed to assist with the publication of several digs.

Some time ago I suggested a new professional called an archaeological editor, who would be trained to write technical reports.^b Perhaps such a person could also find employment at Herbert’s institute.

Ephraim Stern had a suggestion that fits in nicely with Herbert’s idea. Stern would create an organization that would standardize many of the procedures used on digs and give guidance in everything from methodology to photography and record keeping. “We should all be talking the same language,” he said. “We should be using the same systems, the same methods.” This would make comparisons between digs much easier and more meaningful. Stern’s organization would also acquire the equipment, especially the more expensive equipment, that is so difficult for a single dig to obtain and then make it available on an as-needed basis to many excavations.

This is a particularly acute problem for Americans, said Eric Meyers, because of the lack of proper facilities at the American School of Oriental Research in Jerusalem (now called the William F. Albright School of Archaeological Research). We need “to improve the facilities at the Albright to help American expeditions in the region,” Meyers said. “At the moment the Albright is not set up that way, and that’s one of the major fiscal and technical impediments to working overseas without a real home institution that can help you get draftsmen and do photography and layouts for publication. I see that as a handicap to all Americans working in the field, and that is where the locals, the Israelis 035in particular, have enormous advantages over Americans.”

In part because of this and in part because it is so expensive to dig in Israel, where the economy is thriving, attention is turning to Jordan. “I don’t think there’s any doubt that it’s easier and less expensive to work in Jordan,” noted Eric Meyers. “And ACOR [the American Center for Oriental Research in Amman, Jordan] is better equipped to help in many ways that the Albright is not.” Ephraim Stern, too, noted that American participation in archaeology is “moving from Israel to Jordan; look how many American joint projects are there.”

Stern said that for him the greatest archaeological accomplishment of the last 25 years has been the ability to identify, from their archaeological remains, nine or ten different cultures that existed in the Biblical period: East of the Jordan were the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Edomites and the Aramaeans. On the Mediterranean coast were the Philistines and the Phoenicians. In the Negev and Sinai were the Arabs. In between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean were the Israelites and, before them, the Canaanites. In addition, the great outside cultures—the Assyrians, the Babylonians and the Persians—each came and changed the culture of the land. As early as the end of the eighth century B.C., we see Greek influence on the Mediterranean coast. “So it’s a very heterogeneous country, even though it’s very small. The most important thing that has happened in the past 25 years is our ability to see the history and the development of material culture for each of these nations separately,” said Stern.

Each of the cultures in its own way absorbed—or was absorbed into—Canaanite culture, which itself developed into Phoenician culture at about the beginning of the first millennium B.C. In Stern’s view, “the Phoenicians are the continuation of the Canaanites.” Very early the Canaanites interacted with these other cultures, affecting them and being affected by them. Stern cited the Sea Peoples, of which the Philistines were one, as an example. At his own site of Dor, Stern found a small Canaanite town replaced by a Sea People town twice as large. “There were only a few [Sea Peoples] living in the town,” he said. “I think the Canaanites, the local people, joined the newcomers. The local people were ruled by them. The same thing happened with the Israelites. The local people joined the Israelites. They also joined the Ammonites and so on. The same thing happened with the Philistines in places like Ashdod and Ashkelon. Who are all the people who lived in these towns? It cannot be only Philistines. They were just the ruling class. But they also absorbed Canaanite culture. They eventually adopted Canaanite gods and spoke a Semitic language, although they came from the Aegean.”

Interest in archaeology remains high, despite the many changes in the field—or perhaps because of them. Several of the people I talked to attributed a significant part of this interest to BAR, but I won’t quote these accolades. Surely BAR is part of the story, but only a small part. We all know the fascination archaeology arouses. As Frank Cross observed, “I think it’s always been true that number one in people’s interests is sex and second is archaeology.”

Archaeological periods are not always easy to define; for example, we cannot gauge precisely when the Late Bronze Age turned into Iron Age I. Not so, however, with the Age of BAR. This spring marks the end of BAR’s 25th year of publication, what we call BAR Age I (and the beginning of BAR Age II). How to celebrate such an occasion? When we hit our 20th anniversary, we published “A Short History of BAR”; a survey that asked readers to name the most interesting man and 022woman in the Bible; comments from scholars on Biblical archaeology’s greatest […]