Digging In: Passing the Torch

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BAR has witnessed several important transitions over the past few years, and this issue marks yet another. Susan (Sue) Laden, the magazine’s longtime Publisher and the guiding force behind the Biblical Archaeology Society (BAS), is stepping back after nearly five decades of service to the organization (see “Celebrating BAR Publisher Susan Laden”). Her role now passes to her son Jonathan Laden, who has been BAS’s Chief Financial Officer since 2019 and has worked for BAS for the past 15 years.

Sue, along with the late Hershel Shanks and Sue Singer, created a rich legacy of publication excellence, making BAR the world’s top-selling magazine on biblical archaeology. Now it falls to us, BAR’s next generation, to carry on that legacy and grow the magazine and the society for the future.

This next step in BAR’s journey begins with our Fall issue, which includes all of the engaging, informative, and thought-provoking content our readers have come to expect. In the article “Yahweh’s Desert Origins,” archaeologist Juan Manuel Tebes reexamines centuries-old questions about the origins of Israel’s God and the archaeological and biblical evidence that suggests Yahweh first emerged in the desert lands south of Judah. In her article “Journey to Jerusalem,” Jodi Magness reviews the compelling evidence—from texts to tombs—for the many Diaspora Jews and foreign proselytes who made Jerusalem their home during the time of Herod the Great and his successors.

In their fun and instructive article “Taking a Sling,” Boyd Seevers and Victoria Parrott reveal the tools and methods of ancient slingers and the effectiveness of such a simple weapon in David’s defeat of the more heavily armed Goliath. And in “Magdala’s Mistaken Identity,” historian Joan Taylor offers a critical look at how an ancient Jewish port city on the Sea of Galilee came to be wrongly identified with the hometown of one of Jesus’s most famous disciples, Mary Magdalene.

In Strata, we continue to mark the 75th anniversary of the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls with two fascinating columns that reveal the latest developments in scroll research. First, Årstein Justnes and Signe Hægeland attempt to unravel the mystery of thousands of scroll fragments that have gone missing since their original discovery. Mladen Popović then details how researchers use artificial intelligence technology to identify different scribal hands among the scrolls. Moving on to our latest Site-Seeing column, Jonathan Klawans takes us on a tour of Tel Dan in northern Israel, a site renowned for both its biblical ruins and breathtaking beauty.

Epistles offers important context for key biblical figures and episodes. Kristine Henriksen Garroway highlights the ancient Near Eastern legal background to the complicated marriage agreements made between Jacob, Leah, and Rachel in the Book of Genesis. Robyn Faith Walsh invites us to consider the Gospel writers not simply as eloquent spokespersons for early Christian belief but rather as trained biographers and storytellers who were well versed in the literary conventions of their day. Finally, in Text Treasures, we celebrate the Rosetta Stone, the famed commemorative stela that allowed Jean-François Champollion to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphs 200 years ago this September.

Periods of transition always come with mixed emotions. While there is a certain anxiety about moving on from the familiar, there is also tremendous anticipation for what comes next. As BAR looks to the future, we are humbled to inherit the remarkable legacy of the magazine’s founders but also excited to explore new and creative ways to bring the world of biblical archaeology to our devoted readers.

—GLENN J. CORBETT

BAR has witnessed several important transitions over the past few years, and this issue marks yet another. Susan (Sue) Laden, the magazine’s longtime Publisher and the guiding force behind the Biblical Archaeology Society (BAS), is stepping back after nearly five decades of service to the organization (see “Celebrating BAR Publisher Susan Laden”). Her role now passes to her son Jonathan Laden, who has been BAS’s Chief Financial Officer since 2019 and has worked for BAS for the past 15 years. Sue, along with the late Hershel Shanks and Sue Singer, created a rich legacy of publication excellence, making BAR […]