With this issue we slide seamlessly, almost silently, into our third year. Although we are a success, it is time not for bugles or trumpets but for quiet reflection.
The stats? We already have over a hundred thousand readers. But magazine publishers know that’s different from the bottom-line question: How many paid subscribers? They know that each copy is read by more than one person. So how many paid subscribers? About 55,000. Very good for a little intellectual-niche publication like ours.
As many of you know (because you subscribe to it), we also publish Biblical Archaeology Review, which is observing its 25th anniversary in 2000. This naturally invites comparisons: Subscribers to both magazines are fiercely loyal; both have almost the same remarkably high renewal rates. Although BAR, as it is known, has almost four times as many subscribers, the response rates to our appeals to subscribe are about the same for both magazines.
But there is one glaring difference: It is in the letters to the editor. In Archaeology Odyssey, we get mostly intelligent, civil comments. In BAR the letters are also intelligent, but often not civil. They shout, even scream, and frequently end with what has become a kind of refrain, “Cancel my subscription.” Almost everything published in BAR is wildly controversial. In the letters to BAR we hear people yelling. In the letters to Archaeology Odyssey, we hear people quietly learning.
Some of this, of course, is because BAR deals with the Bible. We almost come to blows over precisely where, on the Temple Mount, the Israelite Temple was located. Who really cares whether a temple in the Roman Forum was here or a few feet over there? Note that the precise location of the Jerusalem Temple is not a matter of doctrine or religious belief. And it involves no biblical text. Yet it is matter of an almost barbarous war of words in BAR.
And then there is the question of the historicity of an ancient text. Here, for many, the sanctity of the Bible is at stake. For Archaeology Odyssey, I am now working with a world-renowned scholar on an identical problem that relates to Homer rather than to the Bible. It is a fascinating parallel problem, but one doesn’t get the feeling that a great deal is at stake in the case of Homer—simply trying to separate core history from literary development.
Naturally we like letters telling us how much you like what we’re doing (after all, we are only human), but we also appreciate (although less so) the letters telling us what we’re doing wrong.
Many of the questions we struggle with are of the more-or-less-than kind. In this issue, we devote two articles to a people few have heard of—the Garamantes. Do you like this? Or would you rather read about the Egyptians or the Greeks? Well, the answer is all three. But we agonize to get the right balance. I am now working on a manuscript that at this stage in the editorial process begins with 061this sentence: “Prepare to fall in love—with our friends the Yarmukians.” How interested are you in prehistoric peoples? Would it be too soon after the Garamantes to give you the Yarmukians in the next issue? Or should we wait an issue? Of course, these are pleasant kinds of questions. And I hope you will not conclude that we are too far off the mark.
Archaeology Odyssey is a little like a late-life child. Late-life children tend to be less unruly and sweeter. They keep you younger and interested. And in a certain way they are more precious—a refuge and a comfort. It’s a delight to be learning with you in Archaeology Odyssey.
With this issue we slide seamlessly, almost silently, into our third year. Although we are a success, it is time not for bugles or trumpets but for quiet reflection. The stats? We already have over a hundred thousand readers. But magazine publishers know that’s different from the bottom-line question: How many paid subscribers? They know that each copy is read by more than one person. So how many paid subscribers? About 55,000. Very good for a little intellectual-niche publication like ours. As many of you know (because you subscribe to it), we also publish Biblical Archaeology Review, which is […]
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