Biblical Archaeology Review, Winter 2024

During the fourth century, monumental churches arose across Roman Palestine to commemorate major events in the life of Jesus. Starting with the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, these commemorative churches became stations on a pilgrim’s Holy Land itinerary to contemplate the tenets of the Christian faith—from the annunciation to the ascension. Exploring their architecture reveals common features designed to construct the identity and beliefs of early Christians.

Some two dozen fragments of ancient Egyptian statues have turned up in the excavations of the Canaanite city of Hazor in the Upper Galilee. Intriguingly, these statues were destroyed already in antiquity, and most were found in archaeological contexts dating centuries after the pieces were first made. Explore how, when, and why these high-end artifacts ended up at Late Bronze Age Hazor.

When the Assyrians conquered Samaria in 720 BCE, the once-prosperous Northern Kingdom of Israel came to a disastrous end. Massive deportations of Israelites followed, and the land was resettled by deportees from other parts of the Assyrian Empire. Later biblical tradition remembered these events as the disappearance of ancient Israel’s ten northern tribes. Explore the archaeological evidence from Gezer, an important stronghold in the Judean foothills.

The story of Jesus’s raising of Lazarus (John 11) is one of the most memorable in the Gospels. Integral to the narrative are Lazarus’s two sisters, Mary and Martha, who petition Jesus for healing and then bear witness to their brother’s resurrection. But there is manuscript evidence that an early version of the story included just one sister, Mary, possibly Mary Magdalene. Was Martha a later addition to the story?