Biblical Archaeology Review, January/February 1999

It may be impossible to travel through time, but working at an archaeological dig comes pretty close. And you don’t need a lot of fancy degrees to do it. Volunteers do most of the dirty work—and are often the lucky ones who find the artifacts. Volunteers come from all walks of life: some are […]

Here’s a brief look at the sites that will be accepting volunteers for the 1999 season, some of the important discoveries made in the past and what the dig directors plan for the upcoming season. Pertinent past BAR articles on the sites are listed at the end of each entry, since familiarity with a […]

We thought we understood the complicated waterworks beneath the area of Jerusalem known as the City of David, the oldest part of the city. But new excavations near the Gihon Spring will require a major reassessment of the Canaanite city, including popular speculation regarding the military tactics that enabled King David to capture […]

A leading Egyptologist has recently suggested that the name of the Biblical king David may appear in a tenth-century B.C.E. Egyptian inscription. If correct, this mention of David dates a hundred years earlier than the mention of the “House of David” in the now-famous stele from Tel Dan and fewer than 50 years after […]

Whatever doubts scholars may entertain about the historicity of the Exodus, memories of an Israelite sojourn in Egypt seem too sharply etched to dismiss out of hand. The Biblical account simply contains too many accurate details and bears too many correspondences with Egyptian records to ignore. And although in our current state of […]