Biblical Archaeology Review, March 1978
Features
How quickly should ancient texts be published after they come into a scholar’s hands? Within one year—at most, says Professor David Noel Freedman in a forthcoming issue of the Biblical Archaeologist.
No archaeological find since the Dead Sea Scrolls has so excited the public imagination as the recently-discovered and already famous Ebla tablets.
Many early copies of the New Testament abbreviate sacred words (nomina sacra). The earliest of these abbreviations stand for “God,” “Lord,” “Christ,” and “Jesus.” Abbreviations of these words were formed by writing their first and last letters and placing a line over them. Thus, using English to illustrate, “God” would appear as G÷D÷ and […]
Nineteen-sixty-one was the third winter of drought. In the Old City of Jerusalem there were long queues at the water spigots. Tribes of Ta‘âmireh bedouin were drifting north past Jerusalem. Whole families and clans were moving together, at times afoot, at times by donkey train with an occasional camel. They tramped up the tortuous […]
When the Ta‘âmireh bedouin penetrated the Daliyeh cave (as described in the previous article by Paul Lapp) they found within more than 300 skeletons lying on or covered by mats. The bones were mixed with fragments of manuscripts. These manuscripts were not burial documents, but everyday business records. The artifacts found in the cave […]
BAR’s readers will preserve Herodian Jericho, place signs at Biblical Lachish, and support preservation research. Based on early contributions to its Archaeological Preservation Fund, BAR has committed its readers to a three-pronged preservation effort.
What archaeologists find is important. But what they don’t find can be just as important—such as their failure to find coins anywhere in the world before the end of the 7th century B.C. In the Holy Land, coins are not found until about 100 years later.
As in years past summer is the time for old hands and new adventurers—young and not so young—to join archaeological excavations in the Holy Land. There are many opportunities in 1978, some of which offer academic credit for the work-study of the summer.
A major new excavation will begin this summer in the oldest inhabited part of Jerusalem. Known as the city of David, the site is located on a dusty ridge south of the present Old City. The following article is by the man who is responsible for initiating the project and raising the money to finance it.—Ed.
The exchange of gifts between Israeli and Egyptian Heads of State has a history dating back to Biblical peace treaties between Egyptian Pharaohs and Israelite Kings.