In 1998 the American Schools of Oriental Research (ASOR) changed the name of its semi-popular magazine from the Biblical Archaeologist to Near Eastern Archaeology, despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of ASOR’s members (82 percent) voted against the name change. The organization’s leaders nevertheless decided the change was required and that is the name the magazine bears to this day.
Professor Thomas E. Levy of the University of California at San Diego takes up the story1:
“In [thus] giving up a public platform for the topic of ‘Biblical Archaeology’ by changing the name of their public outreach magazine to Near Eastern Archaeology, our main North American scholarly research organization—ASOR—handed the public ‘bully’ pulpit to a private, non-academic organization—the Biblical Archaeology Society (BAS), which publishes the very popular Biblical Archaeology Review (BAR) magazine. As BAS has developed an extensive public following, they compete with ASOR and the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) each year in setting the agenda for discourse on issues related to the Bible and archaeology at their annual seminar meetings held at the same time as the annual ASOR/SBL meetings. Perhaps this is a good thing, but historical biblical archaeologists should be leading these kinds of public initiatives. By setting the agenda BAS has indeed raised important issues such as the need to publish the Dead Sea Scrolls in a faster and more egalitarian manner, and, more recently, questioning our analytical studies of important artifacts linked to people or institutions in the Old and New Testaments.”
This quotation speaks for itself. We would note only that BAS is a nondenominational charitable and educational institution recognized as such by the United States government.—Ed.
In 998 the American Schools of Oriental Research (ASOR) changed the name of its semi-popular magazine from the Biblical Archaeologist to Near Eastern Archaeology, despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of ASOR’s members (82 percent) voted against the name change. The organization’s leaders nevertheless decided the change was required and that is the name the magazine bears to this day. Professor Thomas E. Levy of the University of California at San Diego takes up the story1: “In [thus] giving up a public platform for the topic of ‘Biblical Archaeology’ by changing the name of their public outreach magazine […]
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