BARlines

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Triple Convention

Prolegomena to Boston

If you’re going to the Society of Biblical Literature-American Academy of Religion American Schools of Oriental Research meetings in Boston, December 5–8, 1987, don’t miss the session on “New Perspectives on the Emergence of Israel in Canaan.” It promises to be a slam-bang performance. Proposed and organized by William Dever, it will have a star-studded cast:

1. Israel Finkelstein of Bar-Ilan University, Israel, author of a widely acclaimed book on the Israelite settlement that will appear shortly in English, will speak on “New Excavation and Survey Data on Early Israelite Highland Villages.”

2. Lawrence E. Stager of Harvard University, author of an important and widely cited study on the social organization in early Israel, will speak on “The Late Bronze Age Matrix of Tribal Israel.”

3. Norman K. Gottwald, author of The Tribes of Yahweh and leading proponent of the “peasant revolt” theory of Israel’s emergence in Canaan, will speak on “Historical Cultural-Material Paradigms and the New Archaeology.”

4. Peter Machinist of the University of Michigan, a rising young star in the academic firmament (he won a 1984 BAS Publication Award for his article on “Assyria and Its Image in the first Isaiah,” Journal of the American Oriental Society, October–December 1983), will speak on “‘Revolution’ in the Ancient Near East: The Problematic of Ancient Israel.”

5. Robert B. Coote of San Francisco Theological Seminary and Keith W. Whitelam of the University of Stirling, England, who have written an important study of the emergence of Israel to be published in the journal Semeia, will speak on “Shifting Perspectives on the Emergence of Israel.”

6. William G. Dever of the University of Arizona, one of the world’s leading new Biblical archaeologists, will address the subject of “Unresolved Issues: Toward a Synthesis of Archaeological and Textual Reconstructions.”

The organizers of the convention are hereby forewarned—make sure the hall is large enough to accommodate the expected crowd.

Forgeries

Walters Art Gallery Exhibits “Artful Deception: The Craft of the Forger”

Visitors will have a chance to test their ability to recognize artistic forgeries at an exhibit showing at the Walters Art Gallery in Baltimore until January 10, 1988. The exhibition, “Artful Deception: The Craft of the Forger,” will feature about 24 pieces, including some genuine objects for comparison in addition to forgeries. Six archaeological forgeries will be shown: an Egyptian sandstone statuette of a king, a Hellenistic terra cotta of a woman, two Ptolemaic pieces, a Roman basalt head and a Roman marble sarcophagus. Supporting materials such as X-rays and other documentation will also be displayed to help explain the process by which forgeries are detected. The exhibition will be open from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., Tuesday through Sunday, and the gallery will charge their regular admission fee of $2.00.

Judges Announced

Fellner Awards to Honor Best Article in BAR and BR

In 1986, the Leopold and Clara M. Fellner Charitable Foundation established awards of $500 each for the best articles in BAR and Bible Review.

Four distinguished judges have been selected to choose the recipients of the 1987 Fellner Awards. The judges for BAR will be Oded Borowski, Director of the Semitic Languages Division of the Department of Modern Languages at Emory University, and Lawrence Stager, Director of the Harvard Semitic Museum. The judges for Bible Review will be Frank Moore Cross, Hancock Professor of Hebrew and Other Oriental Languages at Harvard University, and Philip King, Professor of Biblical Studies at Boston College.

Borowski is currently a senior staff member of the Lahav Research Project at Tell Halif and has excavated at Tell Gezer and Tel Dan. He serves on the editorial board of BAR and, in addition to being a frequent contributor to BAR, has taught at several BAS Vacation Seminars, most recently at Oxford University.

Stager is known to BAR readers as the author of “Child Sacrifice at Carthage—Religious Rite or Population Control,” BAR 10:01. He directed the Punic Project in Carthage, Tunisia, until 1980 and now directs the Leon Levy Expedition in Asskelon.

The Fellner Foundation was established by Leopold and Clara Fellner to perpetuate the name and memory of their parents. The winners of the second Fellner Awards will be announced in the January/February BAR and in the Spring Bible Review.

005

New Appointment

SBL Names David Lull as First Full-Time Director

The Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) has appointed Professor David Lull as its first Executive Director. Formerly an Associate Professor of New Testament and Religious Studies at Yale Divinity School, Lull will work full-time for SBL at its executive offices in Atlanta, Georgia. Unlike previous directors, who served on a volunteer basis while remaining as professors at their respective institutions, Lull is SBL’s first salaried director. His renewable, three-year contract began on September 1. Lull intends to continue to make SBL a forum for Biblical scholarship through the sponsorship of annual meetings, research and publications.

Kent Richards, SBL director since 1981, will assist Lull and other SBL officers on an unofficial basis. Richards expects to continue his involvement with the international SBL meetings. These annual meetings—thus far in Spain, France, the Netherlands, Israel, and West Germany—were initiated by Richards in order to bring together Americans with overseas scholars who usually cannot make the long, expensive trip to the annual SBL meetings in the United States.

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Limited Quantity of Yadin’s Temple Scroll Edition Available

A limited number of Yigael Yadin’s three-volume, beautifully boxed, English edition of the editio princeps of the Temple Scroll are still available. The longest of all the surviving Dead Sea Scrolls, the Temple Scroll is considered by many scholars to be the most important; its text sheds new light on early Christianity, as well as on Judaism at the turn of the era. The Temple Scroll makes a magnificent addition to any personal library and a valued gift to any church, synagogue, seminary, college or university. Volume one, a 419-page introduction, is followed by a 486-page volume of text, reconstructed scroll text, commentary, concordances and indices; volume three includes the remarkably clear plates of the scroll and its fragments.

The regular price of The Temple Scroll is $240. It is available to BAR readers, however, for just $220, plus $12 shipping and handling. If you want to own this unique three-volume set, or to present it as a gift, order it now from BAR, 3000 Connecticut Avenue N.W., Suite 300, Washington, D.C. 20008.

Triple Convention