Biblical Archaeology Review, September/October 1992
Features
In the last issue, we printed a letter from Professor Elisha Qimron of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev regarding the lawsuit he has brought against BAR and its editor (“Letters on the Qimron Lawsuit Against BAS,” BAR 18:04). Professor Qimron is claiming over $200,000 in damages because we printed a photocopy of a page […]
Jesus and the Riddle of the Dead Sea Scrolls: Unlocking the Secrets of His Life Story Barbara Thiering (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1992) 451 pp., $24.00
The history of archaeology is filled with accidental discoveries. With all our scientific tools and methodologies, chance continues to be a major component of our success. So it was that we discovered the final resting place of the Caiaphas family, one of whose priestly members presided at the trial of Jesus. Whether we have […]
Very few of the hundreds of people who walk through the pages of the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament have been attested in archaeological finds.a Now, to that small list, we may add, in all probability, the high priest who presided at Jesus’ trial—or at least a member of his family. A form […]
No less than 1,600 Jewish epitaphs—funerary inscriptions—are extant from ancient Palestine and the Diaspora dating to the Hellenistic and Roman-Byzantine periods (300 B.C.E.–500 C.E.a). They tell us a great deal about the life and ideas of Jews living almost all over the then-known world. This, in turn, sheds considerable light on problems of Jewish […]
I have had a long-standing public disagreement with my friend Bill Dever, one of the United States’ leading archaeologists, concerning the term “Biblical archaeology.” Some years ago Bill argued that Biblical archaeology was not an academic discipline at all and therefore the term should simply be abandoned.a More recently, he has somewhat modified his […]