BAS Publication Awards
2005 Winners
The 2005 Biblical Archaeology Society Publication Awards recognize the best books on archaeology and the Bible published in 2003 and 2004. The biennial BAS Publication Awards for books about archaeology and the Bible have been presented since 1985. These prestigious awards are made possible by a grant from the Leopold and Clara M. Fellner Charitable Foundation, through its trustee Frederick L. Simmons.
A Biblical History of Israel
Iain Provan, V. Philips Long and Tremper Longman III
(Westminster/John Knox Press, 2003)
This book makes such an important contribution to the debate about the use of the Bible in writing a history of Israel that it could not go unrewarded. Its interdisciplinary approach to the archaeological sources, ancient texts and the Bible itself makes the book especially compelling. The text is extremely scholarly, yet it is accessible to the general reader.
Judges
James Hoffmeier, Trinity Evangelical
Carol Redmount, University of California, Berkeley
Lawrence E. Stager, Harvard University
Paul’s Language of Grace in Its Graeco-Roman Context
James R. Harrison
(Tébingen, Germany: J.C.B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 2003)
James Harrison’s book tackles one of the most theologically important terms of the New Testament, “grace” (charis), and argues that Paul’s audience understood this term to belong to a cluster of words, concepts and practices having to do with Hellenistic ideas of reciprocity and benefaction—the rituals of giving and receiving, of creating and maintaining networks of patrons and clients. Reciprocity was in fact the “glue” that held Hellenistic and Roman society together. This is an outstanding work of scholarship based on a careful analysis of epigraphical and literary texts from the Mediterranean antiquity, showing how Paul’s language both fit with and transformed the customary language of giving and receiving. It is destined to make a very significant impact on Pauline studies.
Judges
Peter W. Flint, Trinity Western University
John S. Kloppenborg, University of Toronto
Stephen Patterson, Eden Theological Seminary
Megiddo 3
Timothy P. Harrison
(Chicago: Oriental Institute, 2004)
In this significant contribution, Timothy Harrison not only publishes the important material from the University of Chicago’s excavations at Megiddo in the 1920s and 1930s, but he also offers his own analysis of the Iron Age materials. His research is helping to settle some of the debate about the tenth century B.C.E. and the United Monarchy of Israel. He attributes the destruction of Stratum VI at Megiddo to Israelite expansion under King David. His careful analysis of the archaeological remains and integration with historical sources offers a credible model for doing “biblical archaeology.”
Judges
James Hoffmeier, Trinity Evangelical
Carol Redmount, University of California, Berkeley
Lawrence E. Stager, Harvard University
Symbiosis, Symbolism, and the Power of the Past
William G. Dever and Sy Gitin, eds.
(Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2003)
Symbiosis, Symbolism, and the Power of the Past covers the history of ancient Israel and its relations with neighboring lands from the Late Bronze Age to the end of the first millennium B.C.E. Although it is an edited collection of essays, and thus necessarily eclectic in its coverage, its contributions are of a standard that uniformly advances the state of knowledge in the field. Its breadth, too, contributes to widening the discussion of Near Eastern and Israelite cultures and history to include Egypt and the Mediterranean basin. The book demonstrates the value of correlating different types of evidence—textual, archaeological and historical—with one another.
Judges
Ronald Hendel, University of California, Berkeley
Choon-Leong Seow, Princeton Theological Seminary