BAR readers have long enjoyed learning about the Biblical world’s most important and exciting finds from the actual archaeologists who excavate and study them—legendary archaeologists and Biblical scholars like Yigael Yadin, William F. Albright and William Dever. Now, in these articles and interviews, hand-selected by Biblical Archaeology Society editors especially for members of the BAS Library, you can learn even more about the intriguing life stories and professional accomplishments of these brilliant scholars.

Articles

BAR Interviews Yigael Yadin
Biblical Archaeology Review, January/February 1983 By Hershel Shanks

On July 22, 1982, BAR editor Hershel Shanks visited Yigael Yadin in his home in Jerusalem. Shanks spoke for several hours with Yadin, who had recently returned to full time archaeology after one of the many discursions that have marked his amazing life. Yadin has had a number of careers—soldier, scholar and politician among […]

Benjamin Mazar Reminisces
Biblical Archaeology Review, May/June 1984 By Bill Clark

“It was different then,” the archaeologist said. “Today there are institutes and technicians, engineers, directors and subdirectors!” “Back then, we had nothing,” he said. “But it was a wonderful period. A time of life. A time of courage; no, more than courage. There was a greatness to it all. Beth She’arim was an example […]

A Life of Albright
Biblical Archaeology Review, June 1976 By Hershel Shanks

Leona Running has written an adoring biography of the dean of Biblical archaeologists, William Foxwell Albright.a Now Professor of Biblical Languages at Andrews University, Dr. Running served as secretary and assistant to the great American archaeologist during the last years of his life. The book, as she says in the preface, is “a labor […]

Is This Man a Biblical Archaeologist? BAR Interviews William Dever—Part One
Biblical Archaeology Review, July/August 1996 By Hershel Shanks

I’ve known Bill Dever for a quarter century. I first met him when I knocked—unannounced—on the door of the Albright Institute of Archaeological Research in Jerusalem in 1972. Bill, who directed the institute, answered and graciously invited me in for coffee. Later that year, when my family and I were spending a self-created sabbatical […]

Is the Bible Right After All? BAR Interviews William Dever—Part Two
Biblical Archaeology Review, September/October 1996 By Hershel Shanks

Continuing their wide-ranging conversation, excavator Bill Dever and Hershel Shanks turn to a crucial issue: How the Bible and archaeology can be used—and misused—to illuminate each other. HS: What does it mean to be an Israelite in the 12th century B.C.E.? You call them proto-Israelites. What’s the difference between a proto-Israelite and an Israelite? […]

BAR Interviews Amihai Mazar—A New Generation of Israeli Archaeologists Comes of Age
Biblical Archaeology Review, May/June 1984 By Hershel Shanks

Jerusalem, April 22, 1983

BAR Interview: Yigal Shiloh—Last Thoughts
Biblical Archaeology Review, March/April 1988 By Hershel Shanks

For eight seasons Yigal Shiloh directed excavations in Jerusalem—the heart of the Biblical world. And not simply any place in Jerusalem. He dug in the oldest inhabited part of the ancient site, the section known as the City of David, the area that comprised the city when King David captured it from the Jebusites […]

BAR Interview: Yigal Shiloh—Last Thoughts, Part II
Biblical Archaeology Review, May/June 1988 By Hershel Shanks

Yigal Shiloh, director of the City of David Excavations in Jerusalem from 1978 to 1985, died last November at the age of 50. Less than five months before his death, Shiloh was interviewed by BAR editor Hershel Shanks. In Part I of the interview (“BAR Interview: Yigal Shiloh—Last Thoughts,” BAR 14:02), which appeared in […]

Kathleen Kenyon’s Anti-Zionist Politics—Does It Affect Her Work?
Biblical Archaeology Review, September 1975 By Hershel Shanks

What is not in doubt is that Kathleen Kenyon is virulently anti-Zionist. The more subtle question is whether this affects her work as an archaeologist. It is not hard to find Israelis who think it does. Others suggest it is only a professional cantankerousness that so often sets her against Israeli archaeologists. In any […]