Biblical Archaeology Review, March 1977

After a quarter century of discovery and publication, the study of the manuscripts from the desert of Judah has entered a new, more mature phase. True, the heat and noise of the early controversies have not wholly dissipated. One occasionally hears the agonized cry of a scholar pinned beneath a collapsed theory. And in the popular press, no doubt, the so-called battle of the scrolls will continue to be fought with mercenaries for some time to come. However, the initial period of confusion is past. From the burgeoning field of scroll research and the new disciplines it has created, certain coherent patterns of fact and meaning have emerged.

On my last visit to Jerusalem, I stopped in to see Yigael Yadin—as I always do. It was a fascinating hour—as it always is.

Contacts with history in high school or college have left most of us with something of a distaste for chronology. At least those in the over-thirty generation can hardly have escaped history courses where the instructor concentrated almost exclusively on chronological structure, key events and persons of the period; and the study of history […]

Wendell Phillips, whom Lowell Thomas once called the American Lawrence of Arabia, was the last of the great nineteenth century explorers, although he lived entirely in the twentieth. He lived daringly and dangerously. He knew and loved the Arabs of the desert. He packed a gun and was the friend of desert monarchs. He got money from rich men to explore the ruins of the romantic past, and he wrote about it all with dash and style.

And why do we care that tool or toy Outlast their use, or find This jar’s cheek shapelier that it was made By hands long gone to tangled bone? What is the comfort of these layered towns, The sun upon long buried stones, heaved here, Fallen just so from citadel?

The Bible Comes to Life” could well be the secondary title for “The Book and the Spade,” an exhibit on archaeology and the Bible which can be seen currently through December 1977 (Sunday through Thursday afternoons) at the Jewish Museum in New York City. Models, maps, charts, and photographs supplement over one hundred ancient […]

A number of American and foreign expeditions will be in the field this summer in the Holy Land. Almost all offer opportunities for amateurs as well as professionals. So if you have your Ph.D. or no experience at all, here’s your chance.