Inside BAR

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Charles Kennedy, Professor of Religion at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, Virginia, is a noted authority on the catacombs of Rome. This expertise may or may not explain the fact that Kennedy’s students at Virginia Tech sometimes complain that his lectures leave them in the dark. In response to their complaints, Kennedy (who is no mean wit himself) decided last year to accept a position as a visiting fellow in the Department of Religious Studies at Yale, a university noted for both lux and veritas. Upon completion of his Yale assignment last January, Kennedy returned to Rome to continue exploring the catacombs.

Kennedy’s research in the catacombs permits him to combine his interest in Biblical archaeology, art history and Jewish Christianity. In “Were Christians Buried in Roman Catacombs to Await the Second Coming?” Kennedy explains why he believes Rome began to replace Jerusalem as the apocryphal site of the Second Coming.

Letizia Pitigliani is first and foremost a painter. But she is also a writer and photographer, as she demonstrates in “A Rare Look at the Jewish Catacombs of Rome.” Pitigliani describes a visit last year to the two Jewish catacombs of Rome that have survived.

Born in Rome, Pitigliani now lives and paints in New York. One of her most praised paintings, “Parade of the Tall Ships,” was created in honor of America’s bicentennial. This led to a commission to produce the Harbor Festival posters which now decorate New York City’s transit system. She has also designed posters for Smithsonian Institution exhibitions and New York City cultural events. Her paintings are included in numerous public and private collections both here and abroad.

Helmut Koester, author of “Using Quintilian to Interpret Mark,” writes and teaches at Harvard University. His area of special interest is church history of the second century—particularly the religious and cultural background against which early Christianity developed in the Graeco-Roman empire.

Koester is chairman of the New Testament editorial committee of Hermeneia, the distinguished Biblical commentary series; the Editor of the Harvard Theological Review, and serves on the boards of both the American Schools of Oriental Research and the William F. Albright Institute for Archaeological Research in Jerusalem.

When news of the Ebla archives circulated among scholars in the spring of 1976, Paul Maloney knew that a bibliography on Ebla would be needed. That bibliography, compiled by Maloney and growing steadily, now contains more than 500 popular and scholarly entries. Maloney also maintains a detailed index of published Ebla tablets. He draws on the information in this index to write “The Raw Material.” This is his second Ebla article for BAR; the first was entitled “Assessing Ebla,” BAR 04:01. It was the first popular critical assessment of the Ebla archives and has been widely praised.

Maloney received a master’s degree in Near Eastern Studies from the University of Michigan where he studied with George Mendenhall. Since 1963 he has taught anthropology, linguistic science, Hebrew, Greek and Old Testament—first at Vennard College in Iowa and more recently at United Wesleyan College in Allentown, Pennsylvania.

Maloney frequently lectures about Ebla and was a consultant for the National Geographic story on Ebla. Between Ebla developments, he enjoys woodcrafting, creative metal welding, and “rock-hounding” with his family. He has an extensive collection of geological specimens.

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BAS Newsletter Is New Benefit of BAS Membership

Following recent distribution of the first issue of the new Biblical Archaeology Society Newsletter, we received many letters asking if it was necessary to subscribe separately to the BAS Newsletter. The answer is no!

The BAS Newsletter is on of the latest benefits of belonging to the Biblical Archaeology Society; more will be coming. All subscribers to BAR are members of the Biblical Archaeology Society.

If, however, you are still buying your BAR’s on the newsstand and wish to subscribe to the BAS Newsletter separately, or if you would like additional subscriptions to the BAS Newsletter, the cost is $4.00 per year.

Although the new BAS Newsletter increases our costs, we are able to add this new publication to our roster only because of the increasing support of our members. We urge all of our members to renew their memberships at the first notice as promptly as possible. This permits us to keep costs down enormously and to use the funds you provide in the most effective way. To all of our members, we are grateful for your support.

Charles Kennedy, Professor of Religion at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, Virginia, is a noted authority on the catacombs of Rome. This expertise may or may not explain the fact that Kennedy’s students at Virginia Tech sometimes complain that his lectures leave them in the dark. In response to their complaints, Kennedy (who is no mean wit himself) decided last year to accept a position as a visiting fellow in the Department of Religious Studies at Yale, a university noted for both lux and veritas. Upon completion of his Yale assignment last January, Kennedy returned to […]