The Death of a Discipline

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As readers of BAR may know, I have long maintained a principle of not writing articles for the magazine, although I remain good friends with editor Hershel Shanks, and I do assist with slide sets, seminars, tours and the Biblical Archaeology Society’s various educational enterprises. My reluctance to give direct approval to BAR, even though it performs much good service to our profession, is simple: I abhor the controversy the magazine often engenders, and I disapprove (as most professionals do) of antiquities ads because I believe they encourage illegal trade in antiquities. Nevertheless, I have always said to Hershel, whom I have known for nearly 25 years, that I would write for BAR in an “emergency,” if and when I needed to reach its unique and very large audience. In a crisis threatening the very existence of the disciplines of Syro-Palestinian and Biblical archaeology, a higher principle must prevail.

Is there a crisis the general public should know about? If so, what is it, and what can you do about it?

I maintain that there is a crisis, at least in North America, and that it has been in the making for a long time. The crux of the matter is that Middle Eastern archaeology, which so many of us love and serve, is in danger of dying. American Syro-Palestinian and Biblical archaeology are moribund disciplines; and archaeologists like me, who have spent a lifetime in the profession, feel like the last members of an endangered species.

What has happened to bring about such widespread malaise in the profession, despite popular enthusiasm for our branch of archaeology? The reasons are many:

(1) Rising costs of fieldwork in the Middle East, coupled with the multidisciplinary thrust that is now essential, have made archaeological projects very complex and expensive, beyond the means of a single institution or even a consortium of institutions.

(2) At the same time, agencies on which many of us have come to depend—such as the National Geographic Society, and particularly the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH)—have cut back drastically (the NEH may soon be eliminated altogether). To my knowledge, not one American field project in the Middle East was funded by these agencies in 1994.

(3) American colleges and universities are eliminating their already minimal support for the humanities, especially for small, vulnerable programs like our branch of archaeology. Given the whims of administrators today, the survival of our kind of archaeology in a typical college or university often depends almost entirely upon a single stubborn individual, an impassioned advocate. What happens when he or she retires, or dies? I shall come back to this question in a moment.

(4) Seminaries and church-related groups, which once dominated Palestinian archaeology, cannot preserve their own small programs or even maintain a foothold in a now secular and professional discipline. The passing of the classical era of Biblical archaeology sometime in the 1960s or 1970s, which was inevitable in retrospect, means that we have lost our traditional base of support (the seminaries). Unfortunately, we have not managed to replace it. Having left port, we are now at sea with no safe harbor in sight, and the waves are rising.

(5) At the very time when American Syro-Palestinian and Biblical archaeology are fighting to survive, the 052competing “national schools” in the Middle East are thriving, despite internal problems. Even in countries like Israel, Jordan and Cyprus where we still maintain American institutes, we are becoming increasingly marginalized, often reduced to the role of spectators at a game we invented. This, of course, is an inevitable result of the end of the colonial era, but it is still painful. The fact is that in Israel, where we maintain the venerable W.F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research, Israeli scholars dominate; they probably dominate in the larger discipline as well.

Some may ask: Why don’t we simply let Israeli archaeologists take over? It’s their country. They have the know-how and the resources. Let them produce the archaeological data, and we’ll be consumers. That may sound all right, but it doesn’t take into consideration several factors. For one thing, Israeli archaeologists have their own methods of excavation and publication, which differ from ours. Furthermore, their understanding of the potential contribution of archaeology to Biblical studies is sometimes radically different from ours because they read the Bible as a kind of “national constitution” and do not really understand its role in American religious and cultural life. Finally, the nature of archaeological interpretation is such that one must deal directly with the primary data, and preferably produce that data in the field and laboratory, in order to interpret it correctly. “Armchair archaeology” is not sufficient, and it cannot in fact sustain or reproduce itself.

(6) In Jordan, there is also a burgeoning national school, but many of the trustees of our institute there, the American Center for Oriental Research (ACOR), are Jordanians. In Cyprus, the Cyprus American Archaeological Institute (CAARI), which once enjoyed a virtual monopoly, is losing ground to the University of Cyprus, with its own department of archaeology.

(7) Finally, political crises everywhere in the Middle East, compounded by our official government policies, have tended to freeze Americans out. At present, there is no American archaeological fieldwork in Iran, Lebanon or the West Bank, virtually none in Iraq or Turkey, and very little in Syria or Egypt. Prospects for the future are not much better, despite portents of “peace.”

Thus far I have been talking in generalities. Now let me be more specific.

I remember my own early days on American digs. Those American-run projects included the Concordia Seminary dig at Taanach under Paul Lapp, the Southern Baptist Seminary project at Ai under Joe Callaway, the University of Pennsylvania excavation at Gibeon under James B. Pritchard, the Harvard/Drew-McCormick project at Shechem under G. Ernest Wright, and the Harvard Semitic Museum/Hebrew Union College excavation at Gezer. Today, all but two of the academic positions held by those dig directors are vacant or have been filled by non-archaeologists. Harvard, the exception, took 14 years to replace Wright in archaeology; and that was possible only because of the generosity of a benefactor who finally endowed the Dorot Chair of the Archaeology of Israel, which is now held by Lawrence E. Stager.

In the 1990s the principal American excavations in Israel are at Ashkelon,^a under Stager; at Tel Miqne/Ekron, under Seymour Gitin and Trude Dothan;^b and at Sepphoris^c under Eric and Carol Meyers, James Strange and others. But these are all long-running projects nearing completion, with little room at the top for trainees. The latter two are joint Israeli-American projects; the other, Harvard’s excavation at Ashkelon, is privately endowed by a single person. There are, to be sure, a few smaller projects, but they are not directed by mainstream archaeologists: Most are joint projects with Israeli archaeologists, and some are little more than “salvage projects.”

Although hundreds of American volunteers and hundreds of thousands of American dollars pour into Israel every summer, virtually all of this support benefits Israeli archaeology, while at home the discipline languishes. Many of us who have spent long years in Israel are gratified by the success of the Israeli national school, which is not only appropriate, but also well deserved. But must their success come at our expense? And if our American disciplines of Syro-Palestinian and 053Biblical archaeology do not survive in the long run, will that benefit anyone? Americans have different but vital interests in the archaeology of Israel; and our Israeli colleagues need the alternative perspective that we offer. To their credit, Israeli archaeologists acknowledge our contributions and actively solicit our collaboration, but increasingly we are minor participants in the dialogue. The failure is ours, not theirs.

In Jordan, the situation is more complex because local conditions there make American archaeologists more competitive, at least for the moment. The major American project is the Madaba Plains Project, which has been running for nearly 25 years under the direction of a consortium of Seventh Day Adventist schools. I am full of admiration for this very progressive and productive project. I have supported it strongly from the beginning, and many of my graduate students are involved there (so much for Dever the “anti-Biblical archaeologist”). Yet the fact remains that this is an “atypical” American project whose success gives us little reason to be hopeful about the future of the field in general. Adventists have not only contributed generously to fieldwork out of their devotion to the Bible, but as a group they have been remarkably astute and single-minded in training and placing young people in their own network of educational institutions.^d Unless other American institutions and organizations—theological seminaries, church-related colleges and other groups—learn a lesson from Seventh Day Adventists about seriousness of intent and necessity of support, the effect of their success will be lost on the rest of us.

There are, of course, other American projects in Jordan, sponsored mostly by ACOR through its very active program. But many are funded through American government agencies as “development projects,” a notoriously fickle form of support; and others are small joint or salvage projects, or are really projects in the development of tourism. These projects may make headlines occasionally, but they do not contribute much to an understanding of the overall cultural history of the region or the training of the next generation of American scholars to enter mainstream academic institutions.

Cyprus, where CAARI is flourishing, and where there are a dozen or so American excavations each summer, is unique. Cypriote archaeology is aligned more with classical than Middle Eastern or Biblical archaeology, however, and is therefore not directly relevant to our concerns here.

At home the parent body of these American institutes, the American Schools of Oriental Research (ASOR), is suffering from severe financial difficulties, an identity crisis of sorts, and a lack of vision in the transition to the next generation of leaders. Moreover, the impressive activity and enthusiasm ASOR generates will be lost unless they can be translated into secure academic positions in American institutions of higher learning. The passion of thousands of amateurs like BAR readers (“amateur” literally means “lover”) is vitally important. But supporters of archaeology will have nothing to support unless at least a handful of professionals survive in the academic world.

What are the prospects for Syro-Palestinian and Biblical archaeology in American institutions of higher learning? In a word, not good. I noted above the loss of several academic positions in the recent past. Many other positions have been lost in theological seminaries, which now regard archaeology as an expensive and rather esoteric pursuit. If these schools continue to move away from the solid historical orientation of earlier scholarship for the trendier “Bible as literature” approaches, the situation will become even worse. If the actual history of the Biblical world no longer matters, then archaeology is clearly irrelevant.

Whatever the reason for this decline, I can state categorically that there is not one seminary professor in America today who has the luxury of being a full-time professional archaeologist. And many who now devotedly do archaeology part-time know they will not be replaced when they retire. I decline to mention names, but many of my colleagues have told me this. Seminaries such as the Pacific School of Religion, Pittsburgh, Drew-McCormick, the Concordia Lutheran group, Southern Baptist and others were conspicuous leaders in the field. Where are they today? Pacific, which sponsored the Tell en-Nasbeh excavations, has closed its program and is selling off its splendid Badè Institute collections. Pittsburgh is going to fill Paul Lapp’s old position, but the job description says nothing about archaeology. Upon the retirement of Robert Bull, Drew has closed its program and its archaeological museum. I could 054go on with this dreary recital. Not only have we failed to create new positions and programs in seminaries and church-related colleges, but we have lost most of the ones we had.

Lest I seem to exclude American Jewish scholarship from the archaeology of Israel, let me note that neither the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York (Conservative) nor the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR) in New York, Cincinnati and Los Angeles (Reform) has a regular faculty position in archaeology. (The Jerusalem branch of HUC-JIR is directed by a senior Israeli archaeologist, Avraham Biran, who excavates at Tel Dan.) Here again, Nelson Glueck, president of HUC-JIR and a distinguished American explorer and archaeologist, was not replaced when he died in 1970. The only senior American archaeologist ever to come out of Reform rabbinical circles is Seymour Gitin, long-term director of the Albright Institute of Archaeological Research in Jerusalem.

If we look at secular academic institutions, the picture is only marginally better. The oldest position in our field is at Pennsylvania, where Pritchard was not replaced by a long-term appointee after his retirement. That chair has at last been endowed, but neither the home department nor the specialization in the field of Middle Eastern archaeology has been specified. When the legendary William F. Albright retired in 1958 from Johns Hopkins University, where he taught for his entire professional life, he was not replaced at all. An Albright chair was finally endowed at Hopkins a few years ago, but it is occupied by a Biblical scholar who does no archaeology at all. A new junior position at Hopkins was recently announced in “Mesopotamian or Syro-Palestinian archaeology,” but it is clear that it would have gone to Mesopotamia—in any case, it has already been canceled. The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago has been a mainstay of Syro-Palestinian archaeology since the 1920s. But the recently vacated Syrian position has gone to a Turkish woman working in Turkey; and the Palestinian position vacated by the death of Douglas Esse, a most distinguished archaeologist working in Israel, is now held by an untenured young scholar whose specialization is uncertain. As for Syria, the senior American archaeologist working there, Georgio Buccellati at UCLA, has just retired and has told me that if he is replaced at all, it will be by a junior Assyriologist. At the University of Toronto, Jack Holladay, director at Tell el-Maskhuta in Egypt, will retire next year and will not be replaced.

If we look at major North American universities, it is clear that we have lost a number of tenured positions and gained only one or two new, often junior positions, unfortunately at universities that do not offer graduate degrees in our branch of archaeology—for instance the University of California, San Diego, which has two excellent recent appointees, both prehistorians (Guillermo Algaze and Thomas Levy). Elsewhere, young archaeologists in our field are finding a few junior positions in history or religion departments but cannot train others in their discipline because there are no graduate programs. Where will the next generation of Americans be trained, and how will they be placed?

Part of our dilemma is that Syro-Palestinian archaeology has lost its traditional base of support in Biblical circles, as was predicted by critics of the “new archaeology,” which I have long advocated. Critics of the “new archaeology” have argued that by “killing Biblical archaeology” we have killed the field. But neither I nor any other individual “killed Biblical archaeology.” It died a natural death because of changed circumstances, its own unfulfilled agenda, and the failure of champions to support it and ensure its future. And, in any case, the archaeology of Syria-Palestine was never confined to ancient Israel and the Biblical world, and certainly cannot be in the future. Furthermore, as I have long argued, “Biblical archaeology” as a dialogue—all that it can and should be—depends upon the health of the two separate and autonomous disciplines with which it intersects: Biblical studies and Syro-Palestinian archaeology.

Whatever growing pains the maturation of Syro-Palestinian archaeology as a profession has suffered, and the loss of traditional support that this has entailed, two things seem clear: We cannot turn back and remain 055professionally respectable; and there are more bright, ambitious, dedicated, high-minded young graduate students who want to enter our field than ever before. In the major graduate programs—Arizona, Chicago, Duke, Harvard and Toronto—we have 30–40 students enrolled at present, all of whom will soon graduate and start looking for jobs. We must have been doing something right on the academic scene! The irony is that this “success” comes too late, just when there is widespread retrenchment in the humanities in American academic life; few of these young people have a viable future in Syro-Palestinian archaeology or Biblical archaeology.

I still believe that we “young Turks” who changed the direction our field has taken these past few years did the right thing, indeed the inevitable thing, by moving in the direction of anthropology, sociology and the natural sciences—the archaeological “mainstream.” Syro-Palestinian archaeology today is infinitely richer, more varied, more productive of real data about the Biblical world, and more exciting than it ever was. But we did not predict, probably could not have predicted, the downturn of support for the humanities or the drastic financial cutbacks in secular universities where new jobs for the “new archaeologists” should have been created.

I am writing this article out of a personal sense of urgency, which is unusual because heretofore I have been one of the most outspoken and optimistic promoters of Syro-Palestinian archaeology as a professional discipline. I have also put my money where my mouth is. Fifteen years ago I founded a graduate program in Syro-Palestinian archaeology at a university renowned for its programs in general anthropology and archaeology. That strongly interdisciplinary program, which is internationally recognized, has graduated 11 Ph.D.s thus far and still has some 20 students in residence.

Perhaps I may be forgiven for boasting here, for I believe this program is distinguished not by my work but by the students. Arizona students and recent Ph.D.s have outstripped those from all other universities in the number of papers delivered at annual professional meetings, in research fellowships won, in grant money secured for digs, in directorships of excavations in Israel and Jordan and in publications. We have also had the most diverse group of students anywhere—more women, a Hispanic, an African American and young scholars from Canada, Italy, Japan, Turkey, Iran, Israel and Jordan. Some students have come from Biblical backgrounds, even very conservative church groups. Others are Jewish, strongly committed to working in Israel. Some will contribute greatly to Biblical studies through archaeology; others are not interested at all in the Biblical world but in prehistory.

Despite what most would consider an outstanding record, the University of Arizona has decided to close the graduate program in archaeology. We will be allowed to graduate the dozen or so students still in residence, but we cannot accept new students after 1995.

To appreciate the impact of losing Arizona’s program in Syro-Palestinian archaeology—the largest in the world—consider that there may soon be only one American university turning out Ph.D.s in Bronze-Iron Age or “Old Testament” archaeology, Harvard, my own alma mater.^e Harvard has many strengths, but it is a very expensive, elitist university, which plans to take only one student a year at most. Larry Stager himself has pointed out how unhealthy it would be for one university to dominate de facto an entire field. Arizona gave graduate students from diverse backgrounds an option. Now there will be no place for students who are brilliant but unconventional, or who simply come from families that are not wealthy. That is a tragic loss, and it will have a significant negative effect on the next generation—if there is a next generation.

The sad fact is that American institutions of so-called higher learning simply do not consider the study of the archaeology of ancient Palestine significant or worthy of support. And the time-honored appeal to “the Bible and the Holy Land” falls on deaf ears. The accountants, semi-literate functionaries, professional bureaucrats and educational engineers who run our universities are ignorant of such matters.

It is obvious that we need to go public with our dilemma, because the crisis should concern the American public. It is time that people know how terribly fragile our field is and how little public (and 070private) educational institutions are doing to help. Indeed, they are the principal cause of the crisis. It is as though a hospital deliberately denied a weakened patient food and medicine, then pulled the plug, explaining that “the patient is dying anyway.” Syro-Palestinian and Biblical archaeology are not committing suicide; they are being starved to death.

If, as I argue, academic positions are what we need most and we cannot count on short-sighted university administrators to create or support them, what can be done? The public must step in, through private donations and foundation grants, to create endowed chairs. That is the only way to guarantee that our kind of archaeology will not be subject to the whims of passing bureaucrats and will be taught in perpetuity. In some cases we need to make present senior positions secure (I have already been informed, for example, that I will not be replaced). In other instances, we need to create new junior positions. Keep in mind that in all of North America there is only one truly secure position, that is, an endowed chair, in our branch of archaeology—namely the one at Harvard. Every other position is up for grabs. If one or more readers of BAR were to endow a chair, our discipline might be saved.

Besides several secure positions in universities, where the secular discipline can be pursued, we also need positions in seminaries and church-related programs, where the connection of Syro-Palestinian archaeology with Biblical studies can flourish. We cannot count on religious institutions to shift budget lines from Bible, theology or other fields to archaeology, or to create new positions, without financial incentives. This has not happened yet, and it will not happen unless private citizens intervene and make it happen. Let your clergy, or the seminary of your denomination, know about your concern and support for archaeology. If Biblical circles do not undergird Biblical archaeology, who will?

You may ask why archaeology is important to a program of religious studies. The answer is simply that one can no longer understand or interpret the Bible adequately without placing it in its original context. Only archaeology enables us to do that. Studying and teaching the Bible today while ignoring the dramatic results of archaeology is irresponsible because it means ignoring the most significant source of new information about the Bible and the Biblical world in the long history of Biblical scholarship.

Unless we can generate more permanent and professional support for our discipline, there will soon be nothing for “amateurs” to love, and nothing for BAR to write about, except Israeli archaeology, which is important but may not contribute much to American religious or cultural life.

As readers of BAR may know, I have long maintained a principle of not writing articles for the magazine, although I remain good friends with editor Hershel Shanks, and I do assist with slide sets, seminars, tours and the Biblical Archaeology Society’s various educational enterprises. My reluctance to give direct approval to BAR, even though it performs much good service to our profession, is simple: I abhor the controversy the magazine often engenders, and I disapprove (as most professionals do) of antiquities ads because I believe they encourage illegal trade in antiquities. Nevertheless, I have always said to […]