The Relationship Between “Jews” and “Israelites” After the Babylonian Exile
july 2022 | Vol. 10.7 By Jason Staples In his review of Karl Georg Kuhn’s Achtzehngebet und Vaterunser und der Reim, the Dutch Biblical scholar M.A. Beek fondly recalls
A Half a Century of Studying Biblical Coins
Why revise a book on coins for fifty years and six editions? For one thing there are more data than ever. For another, old questions with big implications keep sticking around, lik
David and Solomon’s Kingdom as a State: An Archaeo-Historical Anachronism
Archaeologists have spent much time and energy looking for ‘states’ in the past, including in ancient Israel. Not surprisingly, they find them. But what is a 'state', and how d
The Ancient Salt Industry on the Mediterranean Coast of Israel
The Exodus from Egypt was a foundational event for the Israelites. But where exactly did they cross the ‘Red Sea’? Scholars have debated this question for centuries, as have ma
From Texts to Scribes: Evidence for Writing in Ancient Israel
What do we know about ancient Israel’s scribal culture? Can two words in the biblical text, the verb ‘write’ (katav) and the noun ‘scribe’ (sofer) help us understand the
Genderbending Performances in Wartime: From Judges to Judith
February 2021 | Vol. 9.2 By Jacob Wright At the ancient biblical site of Achziv, 15 km north of Acco, archaeologists discovered what became known as the Tomb of the Horsemen. Depo
Pictures of Restraint: Hunting Carnivores on Mosaics from the Roman and Byzantine Periods
Many cultures hunt with animals. Roman mosaics give us insights about different techniques for restraining animals but also about the ideologies of their patrons.
“Terminate and Liquidate”: How the Megiddo Ivories were Almost Not Discovered
Money and local politics are always the bane of archaeological projects. For the Megiddo project in the late 1930s, these problems were so dire that they almost brought the end jus
Jewish Cliff Shelters and Hiding Complexes in the Roman Period Galilee
Josephus described fortifying Jewish sites in the Galilee before the Roman onslaught. New research has shown that many of those sites were hewn into cliffs and dug below settlement