Peoples and Cultures

The season of excavation at Tell es-Safi/Gath, the 20th year of this project, has revealed yet more fantastic finds. The most exciting finds from this season are, without a doubt the remains of the massive fortifications of the lower city of Philistine Gath, dating to the 10th-9th cent BCE (the time of David and […]

Trash and garbage are not what they used to be—discarding unwanted things has become a science. As the stress of dealing with our vast amounts of unwanted stuff mounts, we strive to recycle, reuse and generally use less. Our wasteful habits and the current state of the global environment have prompted a new appreciation for […]

The Bible makes it clear that the official state religion of Israel was the sole worship of the God Yahweh, centered at the Jerusalem Temple. However, in “Religion and Cult” Professor Dever shows that there’s always another side to the story. Archaeological remains demonstrate that popular Israelite religion was in fact quite diverse. It included […]

While the Bible focuses on the kings, prophets and heroes of ancient Israel, most people led a very different existence. In “Everyday Life in Biblical Times,” Professor Dever uses archaeology to bridge the gap between social classes and shed light on what life was really like for the majority of Israelite people. From pottery styles […]

Out of the uncertainty of the patriarchal period, a somewhat clearer picture emerges in “Who Were the Early Israelites, and Where Did They Come From?” Here Professor Dever presents the earliest definitive cultural and inscriptional evidence of a new people called “Israel” living in the Holy Land. If archaeology shows that they were there, can […]

Some say that your greatest enemies are those who are most like you. Professor Dever looks within and beyond Israel’s borders in “Israel’s Neighbors in the Light of Recent Archaeological Research” to demonstrate that, although Israel had a distinct culture, it was not necessarily unique among its West Semitic neighbors. From the Philistines and Canaanites […]

Archaeologists are uncovering the hometown of the Biblical giant and in the process are finding more evidence that the Philistines had a great culture—and were anything but philistine. This was part of the Jug Dug Up DVD.

It has been said that the past is like a foreign country, that “they do things differently there.” This includes the way they viewed human personality. Using social identity theory, we will explore the fact that ancient persons like Paul or Peter or James, while certainly individuals, were not individualists in the modern sense at […]

Anthony J. Saldarini characterizes the Qumran community, the Jesus movement and the followers of Matthew as contemporary reform groups within the broad categories of Jews and Christians. He theorizes that Matthew would have been aware of the Qumran community’s beliefs (just as we are aware of various religious beliefs today) and notes similarities between the […]

Manuscript and archaeological discoveries have shed light on Jesus and the exorcists of his time, including what people feared and what they hoped the exorcist could accomplish. This presentation will review these fascinating and illuminating materials, as well as a very intriguing discovery that could suggest that Jesus’ fame as an exorcist was early and […]

In this lecture, Sean Freyne will address various aspects of Galilean life and culture that have emerged from archaeological exploration of the region over the past few decades, such as the markers of Jewish ethnicity, signs of urbanization and the contrasts between city and village life. Freyne will also discuss the uses and misuses of […]

The study of world religions continues to fascinate both student and scholar alike. There are many different methodologies (historical, phenomenological, sociological, etc.) that may be utilized in the exploration of world cultures and traditions. These methodologies have become especially important in the realm of biblical studies, which can help to shed light on the complex […]

In this film from the Biblical Archaeology Society, Hershel Shanks visits Nazareth, Galilee, Capernaum, Bethsaida, Qumran, Sepphoris and Jerusalem to view sites where Jesus walked. Along the way, Shanks meets with the world’s most prominent archaeologists and Biblical scholars to discuss the archaeological discoveries that link these sites to Jesus. Their lively, in-depth conversations offer […]

This introductory session will consider stories that take place at “set scenes.” In this case we’ll examine stories that are set against the backdrop of a well, such as Abraham’s servant and Rebekah (Genesis 24), Jacob and Rachel (Genesis 29), Moses and Jethro’s daughters (Exodus 2), and Saul and the maidens of Zuph (1 Samuel […]

Scholars of memory – from such fields as psychology, sociology, and anthropology – have long known that we not only forget things (all the time), we also misremember them or even invent them in our heads. How does that apply to the memories of Jesus among his early followers before the Gospels were written? Did […]

External origins and the displacement of nations have been themes exhibited throughout the Bible and studied through biblical archaeology. Dr. Bruce Routledge questions whether the role of Moab as portrayed in the Bible has helped or impeded with the archaeological study of Moab in the Iron Age, the period of the emergence of Israel. Routledge […]

Richard Rohrbaugh elucidates the concepts of honor and shame, which he sees as core values in Mediterranean culture and thus of the Biblical world. Rohrbaugh draws on his experiences of living in both the Mediterranean world and the West. He concentrates on passages in the New Testament that are influenced by the culture of the […]

Recent events surrounding the “James ossuary” controversy and the discovery in the second Talpiot tomb of an image that is arguably one of “Jonah and the big fish” have sparked renewed consideration of the question of whether Jesus’ earliest followers left behind any distinctive archaeological remains. This lecture considers this century-old question and asks how […]

Speculating on the whereabouts of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel has been popular for longer than the search for the Ark of the Covenant and the Holy Grail. Suggestions for where they ended up have ranged from America and Britain to India and Africa, and virtually every place in between. However, few proper investigations […]