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The rise of ancient Israel in Canaan presents one of the greatest cruxes of modern critical Biblical studies: Where, when and how did the Israelites first appear in the Promised Land? Did they enter as conquerors from east of the Jordan River, as the Bible says; were they nomads who gradually settled down more or less peacefully; or were they Canaanites who revolted against their overlords and took to the hills? Since 1978, Adam Zertal has been stalking the mystery by conducting a meticulous archaeological survey of the territory allotted in the Bible to the tribe of Manasseh. This involves walking the land meter by meter and recording every aspect of the terrain, including ancient remains found on the surface—especially settlement sites and potsherds. Zertal found that these form a virtual trail across the landscape when their dates are compared. In “Israel Enters Canaan—Following the Pottery Trail,” Zertal explains how he can track the movement of the Israelites as they entered Manasseh from the east and gradually spread westward across the land.

In a related article, “The Trek of the Tribes as They Settled in Canaan,” Zertal points out that certain clues in the Biblical texts dealing with the tribal allotments also support the idea of an Israelite entry into Canaan from the east, through Manasseh.

Before he became an archaeologist, Zertal was an agricultural economist. In that capacity he served for three years, on behalf of Israel, as a technical assistant to the Central African Republic and Rwanda. Shortly after beginning his studies in Near Eastern archaeology, his legs were severely wounded in the 1973 Yom Kippur war. He spent a year in a Jerusalem hospital and then resumed his studies at Tel Aviv University. Although he must walk on crutches, Zertal chose to do an archaeological survey for his Ph.D. dissertation. Zertal has taught in Haifa University’s Department of Archaeology since 1985. He has excavated at Tel Aphek, and served as an area supervisor for five years at Tel Lachish. He has also directed three excavations in the course of his survey of Manasseh. He sparked a controversy with his previous BAR article based on results from the survey, “Has Joshua’s Altar Been Found on Mt. Ebal?” BAR 11:01, but a subsequent assessment by another scholar supported Zertal’s position (see “Two Early Cult Sites Now Questioned,” BAR 14:01). Zertal is now preparing a five-volume report on the Manasseh survey and writing a book about the emergence of Israel.

Asherah, a leading Canaanite goddess and consort of the gods El and Ba‘al, appears in the Hebrew Bible in three guises: as a tree, as a tree trunk and as an image (probably a statue or figurine) representing the goddess herself. Concentrating on a handful of well-known artifacts—a ewer and goblet from Lachish, a pithos (a large storage jar) from Kuntillet ’Ajrud and the Taanach cult stand—Ruth Hestrin, in “Understanding Asherah—Exploring Semitic Iconography,” shows that what seems initially to be a confusing jumble of additional symbols—trees flanked by pairs of animals, branches, pubic triangles—also represent this goddess. She nimbly leads us through the thicket of ancient Near Eastern iconography, tracing the chronological development of Asherah’s symbols and explaining what meaning they held for her devotees.

Curator of the Israelite and Persian periods at the Israel Museum, Hestrin organized the Inscription Pavilion and other archaeological displays, including a comprehensive exhibition on the Philistines. She received her M.A. in archaeology, Greek language and history, and Hebrew philology from Hebrew University. Hestrin is the author of Inscribed Seals of the First Temple Period (Israel Museum) and several articles on Hebrew and Semitic inscriptions and on cult objects from the Iron Age.

Important evidence concerning the archaeological history of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, where once the First and Second Temples stood, is being damaged, destroyed or covered by the authorities who now control the Mount. This, at least, is the claim of a lawsuit winding its way through Israel’s judicial system. Will—or should—Israel apply its antiquities law to the Temple Mount? Should an archaeological survey of the existing ancient remains be undertaken? In “The Temple Mount in Court,” Stephen J. Adler untangles the complicated series of accommodations that have left particular religious authorities in control of various religious sites in Israel and explains how unsupervised construction on the Temple Mount could threaten—perhaps irretrievably—scholars’ efforts to discover the exact location of the ancient Israelite temple.

Adler is deputy president of Israel’s National Labor Court, the highest appeals court in Israel for suits concerning individual and collective labor, pensions, workmen’s compensation and disability. His articles on the legal status of Jerusalem include “The United States and the Jerusalem Issue,” (Middle East Review, Summer 1985) and “The Jerusalem Law—Origins and Effects,” (in Jerusalem: Aspects of Law, The Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies, 1983). A graduate of Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations and of the Columbia Law School, Adler pursues archaeology as a hobby.

Scholars must also be popularizers of their work. So says P. Kyle McCarter at a recent conference marking the centennial of the birth of William F. Albright. If they scorn to do so, then they leave the field open to the inaccuracies and misrepresentations of nonscholarly popularizers. Albright’s work exemplified the qualities both of great scholarship and of great popularization. In “Scholars, Popularizers, Albright and Me,” BAR editor Hershel Shanks highlights McCarter’s remarks and recalls how Albright embodied the character of scholar-popularizer in responding to the questions of an interested layman.