We're currently offering two opportunities for employment at the Biblical Archaeology Society. One is for a full time job in our editorial department. The other is for an internship. Descriptions of each with contact information can be found here.
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Dinosaurs in Eden?
A culture critic for the New York Times pays a visit to the just-opened Creation Museum near Cincinnati, which presents dinosaurs coexisting with people and believes the earth was created 6,000 years ago.
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
King Tut Would Have Loved a Philly Cheesesteak
By Steven Feldman
May 29, 2007
Greetings from the City of Brotherly Love. I’m writing this within the elegant halls of Philadelphia’s Union League. The first day of our seminar has just concluded, and it has been great so far.
The BAS Seminar group gathers around Prof. James Hoffmeier as Big Ben watches.
We’ve gathered to hear two fine Egyptologists, James Hoffmeier and Ellen Morris, lecture on King Tut and his world. The seminar was built around a visit to the spectacular Tut exhibit currently at the Franklin Institute, Philadelphia’s venerable science museum.
Before our group headed out for the exhibit, Jim gave us an introduction the Boy King, explaining that Tut, though he had a relatively short reign (he was dead by 19) played a key role in Egyptian history. His predecessor, Akhenaten, revolutionized Egypt by restricting religious worship to Aten, portrayed as the sun disc. That’s why he’s sometimes called the first monotheist. Tut, who may have been Akhenaten’s son or his younger brother, reestablished traditional Egyptian religion; in the process, he changed his name from Tutankhaten (“the living image of Aten”) to Tutankhamun.
The BAS group after seeing the King Tut exhibit in Philadelphia.
Ellen then gave us an overview of ancient Egyptian royal tombs and burial practices. Poor Tut seems to have had his intended tomb usurped by his successor, Ay, and was buried in a much less grand tomb that likely was meant for a non-royal figure.
But if Tut’s tomb was second-rate, I’d sure like to see a first-class tomb. The objects on view in the Tut exhibit are simply stupendous—beautiful objects of all sorts, made of gold and other precious materials. The mind boggles at how many hours must have gone into the making of these objects.
I’ll conclude by mentioning what two participants told me on the bus back to the Union League. The first told me how stunned he was to see many objects in the Tut show painted the same beautiful shade of blue as a Persian vase he owns from the 15th century A.D. Two cultures separated by nearly 3,000 years, yet they seem to have shared the same decoration techniques. The second person asked if we could share the names and addresses of our seminar participants because he was already making great friendships—after not even a full day! That’s what BAS seminars are like. You won’t know what you’ve been missing until you attend one yourself.
Friday, May 25, 2007
Scanning the Temple Mount
An Israeli firm has made 3-D laser scans of Herod’s retaining wall to study the displacement caused by a February 2004 earthquake. You can read about it at The American Surveyor.
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Ham-Fisted IAA Damages Ancient Scroll
The Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) is becoming an expert in contaminating and, in the words of the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, “manhandling” objects in its possession.
We have already reported (http://www.bib-arch.org/bswbOOossuary_Krumbeinsummary.asp) how the IAA has contaminated with a red putty-like substance the ossuary (bone box) on which is engraved “James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus.” (An IAA committee declared the inscription a forgery, but leading paleographers have pronounced it authentic.)
More recently, the IAA cut a chunk out of a Dead Sea Scroll fragment of Leviticus obtained by Scroll scholar Hanan Eshel from Bedouin looters who found the fragment in a cave in the Judean Desert.
Keep reading here . . .
We have already reported (http://www.bib-arch.org/bswbOOossuary_Krumbeinsummary.asp) how the IAA has contaminated with a red putty-like substance the ossuary (bone box) on which is engraved “James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus.” (An IAA committee declared the inscription a forgery, but leading paleographers have pronounced it authentic.)
More recently, the IAA cut a chunk out of a Dead Sea Scroll fragment of Leviticus obtained by Scroll scholar Hanan Eshel from Bedouin looters who found the fragment in a cave in the Judean Desert.
Keep reading here . . .
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
BAS Seminars: A Behind-the-Scenes Look
By Catherine Van Bebber
May 22, 2007
It was June 1992. As I got on the plane to coordinate my first BAS seminar at Guilford College, in North Carolina, little did I know that this was the beginning of a wonderful friendship. And for the past 14 years it has been my pleasure to watch over and attend to all of the distinguished professors and wonderful participants who make these lecture series so successful. Not only do I make sure that things run smoothly for everyone during the day, but I also get to “wine and dine” the professors, away from the hustle and bustle of the seminar. Some have become close personal friends.
I thought I’d take a minute or two to share some of my favorite memories with you.
At that first seminar, Tony Saldarini from Boston College was the lecturer. As he talked about the early Christian groups and their battle for survival, he kept saying that “everything was going to hell in a hand basket” in the Roman Empire. At the banquet on Friday night, the participants presented him with 6 or 7 baskets so he could have a hand basket, too. James Tabor was also at that seminar, talking about his search for the latrines at Qumran—nothing much has changed, has it? [Professor Tabor announced late in 2006 that he believes he has located the latrines near Qumran.—Ed.] A Methodist minister presented him with a wooden outhouse, saying, “We’ve finally found them!”
When Charlie Hedrick of the Jesus Seminar came to Guilford and talked about the parables of Jesus, there was a little lady sitting in the audience who we dubbed the “but-but” lady. Every time Charlie would try to make a point, she would raise her hand, slowly lift herself out of the seat, and, as she rose she would say, “But….but,” because she objected to most everything Charlie was saying.
One of my favorite lecturers is Jodi Magness. The first time I met her was at one of the Bible Fests. Because we have professors coming and going every hour, we are on a very tight schedule during the Fests, and the lectures have to start and stop on time. Anyone who has ever heard Jodi lecture knows that she only stops when she is finished giving you all the information she wants to give you. Her hour was up, I was giving her the signal that she needed to stop, and she kept on talking…only faster and faster. I finally turned off the slide projector and turned the lights up in the room, but she still kept lecturing. It was only when I went up to her and took the microphone away that she stopped!
If you can believe it, there once was a time when Bart Ehrman was not as famous as he is now, and he did not have his very own Ehrman Book-of-the-Month club. Bart is one of BAS’ most popular lecturers, and everyone flocks to his seminars. We have had great times at a brew-pub in Greensboro, which we dubbed the BAR bar. Every evening after a day’s worth of studying, a group of participants and Bart would walk over to the bar to continue the discussion of the day. We always got odd looks from the other customers when we would have heated discussions about religion and which beer was the best.
Professor James Hoffmeier of Trinity University is another favorite lecturer. He has a sly sense of humor, and it takes a few minutes to realize that he has told a clever, clever joke. Then you laugh out loud and the people around you wonder why. This year, my family and I journeyed to Egypt for a 10-day study-tour with Jim. It was one of the best trips we have ever taken. We went to Cairo, Luxor, Sharm el-Sheikh, Mt. Sinai and Tanis. The trip was exhausting, but we acquired an incredible amount of knowledge.
I will close my trip down memory lane by saying a few words about Hershel Shanks. One of the first things I noticed when I started working with BAS was the connection he has made with his subscribers. At every meeting, someone always comes up to me and asks whether Hershel is coming. Notice that they ask if Hershel is coming. They don’t know him, yet they don’t ask if Mr. Shanks is coming. They don’t ask if Hershel Shanks is coming. They call him by his first name as though they have a personal relationship with him. And that is what is so great about Hershel and the magazine. He has provided a service that people have desperately wanted, and for that they are thankful.
So for the past 14 years it has been my privilege to run the BAS seminars, and I love it. I get to meet and hear and question the greatest professors in the world, and I get stay abreast of the latest and most up-to-the-minute breaking news in the field of archaeology and Biblical studies. Oftentimes, participants come up to me and volunteer to take over my job if ever I should quit. NO, YOU CAN’T HAVE IT.
To learn about exciting upcoming travel/study seminars, go to www.bib-arch.org/bswbTravel.html.
May 22, 2007
It was June 1992. As I got on the plane to coordinate my first BAS seminar at Guilford College, in North Carolina, little did I know that this was the beginning of a wonderful friendship. And for the past 14 years it has been my pleasure to watch over and attend to all of the distinguished professors and wonderful participants who make these lecture series so successful. Not only do I make sure that things run smoothly for everyone during the day, but I also get to “wine and dine” the professors, away from the hustle and bustle of the seminar. Some have become close personal friends.
I thought I’d take a minute or two to share some of my favorite memories with you.
At that first seminar, Tony Saldarini from Boston College was the lecturer. As he talked about the early Christian groups and their battle for survival, he kept saying that “everything was going to hell in a hand basket” in the Roman Empire. At the banquet on Friday night, the participants presented him with 6 or 7 baskets so he could have a hand basket, too. James Tabor was also at that seminar, talking about his search for the latrines at Qumran—nothing much has changed, has it? [Professor Tabor announced late in 2006 that he believes he has located the latrines near Qumran.—Ed.] A Methodist minister presented him with a wooden outhouse, saying, “We’ve finally found them!”
When Charlie Hedrick of the Jesus Seminar came to Guilford and talked about the parables of Jesus, there was a little lady sitting in the audience who we dubbed the “but-but” lady. Every time Charlie would try to make a point, she would raise her hand, slowly lift herself out of the seat, and, as she rose she would say, “But….but,” because she objected to most everything Charlie was saying.
One of my favorite lecturers is Jodi Magness. The first time I met her was at one of the Bible Fests. Because we have professors coming and going every hour, we are on a very tight schedule during the Fests, and the lectures have to start and stop on time. Anyone who has ever heard Jodi lecture knows that she only stops when she is finished giving you all the information she wants to give you. Her hour was up, I was giving her the signal that she needed to stop, and she kept on talking…only faster and faster. I finally turned off the slide projector and turned the lights up in the room, but she still kept lecturing. It was only when I went up to her and took the microphone away that she stopped!
If you can believe it, there once was a time when Bart Ehrman was not as famous as he is now, and he did not have his very own Ehrman Book-of-the-Month club. Bart is one of BAS’ most popular lecturers, and everyone flocks to his seminars. We have had great times at a brew-pub in Greensboro, which we dubbed the BAR bar. Every evening after a day’s worth of studying, a group of participants and Bart would walk over to the bar to continue the discussion of the day. We always got odd looks from the other customers when we would have heated discussions about religion and which beer was the best.
Professor James Hoffmeier of Trinity University is another favorite lecturer. He has a sly sense of humor, and it takes a few minutes to realize that he has told a clever, clever joke. Then you laugh out loud and the people around you wonder why. This year, my family and I journeyed to Egypt for a 10-day study-tour with Jim. It was one of the best trips we have ever taken. We went to Cairo, Luxor, Sharm el-Sheikh, Mt. Sinai and Tanis. The trip was exhausting, but we acquired an incredible amount of knowledge.
I will close my trip down memory lane by saying a few words about Hershel Shanks. One of the first things I noticed when I started working with BAS was the connection he has made with his subscribers. At every meeting, someone always comes up to me and asks whether Hershel is coming. Notice that they ask if Hershel is coming. They don’t know him, yet they don’t ask if Mr. Shanks is coming. They don’t ask if Hershel Shanks is coming. They call him by his first name as though they have a personal relationship with him. And that is what is so great about Hershel and the magazine. He has provided a service that people have desperately wanted, and for that they are thankful.
So for the past 14 years it has been my privilege to run the BAS seminars, and I love it. I get to meet and hear and question the greatest professors in the world, and I get stay abreast of the latest and most up-to-the-minute breaking news in the field of archaeology and Biblical studies. Oftentimes, participants come up to me and volunteer to take over my job if ever I should quit. NO, YOU CAN’T HAVE IT.
To learn about exciting upcoming travel/study seminars, go to www.bib-arch.org/bswbTravel.html.
Thursday, May 17, 2007
BTW, I'm Jewish
By Steven Feldman
May 17, 2007
In most circumstances, my religion—or anyone else’s, for that matter—isn’t anyone’s business. I raise it now because I want to bring to the surface an issue that has been an undercurrent in discussions regarding the recent “Tomb of Jesus” controversy. Recently we posted on our Web site an article by Professor Craig Evans and me that argues that the recent Discovery Channel documentary claiming that the tomb of Jesus (and indeed some of his remains) had been found is, in the words of our article’s subtitle, “Wrong on Every Count” (read it here).
Soon after the article was posted, a friend wrote to say that he assumes that I consider the bones of Jesus to be findable, at least in theory. I answered that I do. His point was that some Christians objected to the television documentary because they believe Jesus ascended bodily to heaven and would not have left behind any remains for archaeologists to find. I’m Jewish, so I don’t believe that. I also believe you can be a perfectly fine Christian, not just morally but also theologically, if you don’t believe that.
My friend’s note reminded me of something I had heard in the wake of the James ossuary controversy. As Managing Editor of Biblical Archaeology Review in late 2002, I was closely involved in the publication of the article that announced the existence of a bone box inscribed “James son of Joseph brother of Jesus” and also in the firestorm that followed (the Israel Antiquities Authority soon declared the inscription, or at least a part of it, a modern forgery). BAR, under editor Hershel Shanks, has been the leading defender of the inscription’s authenticity. What I just recently recalled is that in the midst of the controversy, a writer who had just published an article on the ossuary in a national magazine told me that some people in Israel’s archaeology circles believed that Hershel and I were born-again Christians. Apparently they could not believe that we might be convinced of the inscription’s authenticity other than out of religious convictions (for the record, I’m not sure if the inscription is authentic or not, though I tend to believe it is—on most days, that is).
Anyone who knows either Hershel or me will find the idea of either of us being born-again Christians quite funny. I don’t mean any disrespect to Christians (born again or not)—but can you imagine Mel Brooks as a Christian? Or Woody Allen? Or, to find a non-nebbish example, Itzhak Perlman? Hershel and I are not as talented as Perlman (though he comes a lot closer than I do), and we’re not as funny as either Brooks or Allen, but we’re just as Jewish.
There are those who wish for the James ossuary to be authentic because they yearn for a palpable connection to the family of Jesus, and there are those who dismiss the “Jesus tomb” because they believe in Jesus’ bodily ascension to heaven. I’m not one of them. Both issues need to be decided on evidence, not faith.
May 17, 2007
In most circumstances, my religion—or anyone else’s, for that matter—isn’t anyone’s business. I raise it now because I want to bring to the surface an issue that has been an undercurrent in discussions regarding the recent “Tomb of Jesus” controversy. Recently we posted on our Web site an article by Professor Craig Evans and me that argues that the recent Discovery Channel documentary claiming that the tomb of Jesus (and indeed some of his remains) had been found is, in the words of our article’s subtitle, “Wrong on Every Count” (read it here).
Soon after the article was posted, a friend wrote to say that he assumes that I consider the bones of Jesus to be findable, at least in theory. I answered that I do. His point was that some Christians objected to the television documentary because they believe Jesus ascended bodily to heaven and would not have left behind any remains for archaeologists to find. I’m Jewish, so I don’t believe that. I also believe you can be a perfectly fine Christian, not just morally but also theologically, if you don’t believe that.
My friend’s note reminded me of something I had heard in the wake of the James ossuary controversy. As Managing Editor of Biblical Archaeology Review in late 2002, I was closely involved in the publication of the article that announced the existence of a bone box inscribed “James son of Joseph brother of Jesus” and also in the firestorm that followed (the Israel Antiquities Authority soon declared the inscription, or at least a part of it, a modern forgery). BAR, under editor Hershel Shanks, has been the leading defender of the inscription’s authenticity. What I just recently recalled is that in the midst of the controversy, a writer who had just published an article on the ossuary in a national magazine told me that some people in Israel’s archaeology circles believed that Hershel and I were born-again Christians. Apparently they could not believe that we might be convinced of the inscription’s authenticity other than out of religious convictions (for the record, I’m not sure if the inscription is authentic or not, though I tend to believe it is—on most days, that is).
Anyone who knows either Hershel or me will find the idea of either of us being born-again Christians quite funny. I don’t mean any disrespect to Christians (born again or not)—but can you imagine Mel Brooks as a Christian? Or Woody Allen? Or, to find a non-nebbish example, Itzhak Perlman? Hershel and I are not as talented as Perlman (though he comes a lot closer than I do), and we’re not as funny as either Brooks or Allen, but we’re just as Jewish.
There are those who wish for the James ossuary to be authentic because they yearn for a palpable connection to the family of Jesus, and there are those who dismiss the “Jesus tomb” because they believe in Jesus’ bodily ascension to heaven. I’m not one of them. Both issues need to be decided on evidence, not faith.
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
The Man Who Found Gilgamesh
Smithsonian magazine profiles George Smith, who in 1872 identified the Mesopotamian flood epic among the cuneiform tablets in the
Wednesday, May 9, 2007
Six Degrees of Biblical Separation
By Steven Feldman
May 4, 2007
The play and movie Six Degrees of Separation made popular the notion that we are only about six people away from anyone else in the world. For example, if I found George Bush’s personal copy of his high school yearbook at a yard sale and figured he’d appreciate it back but worried that putting in the mail simply addressed “White House” would get it lost for years in some faraway security screening location, I’d give the yearbook to our friend Jeff, who works for a television network and is based at the White House, and ask him to give it to Press Secretary Tony Snow to pass on to the president—only two people between me and the President of the United States.
It occurred to me that we can also think of Degrees of Biblical Separation—the number of steps between something in our daily lives and something mentioned in the Bible. I was thinking of this because yesterday I attended a press conference/lunch meeting with Sallai Meridor, Israel’s ambassador to the United States. Meridor spoke about the large political problems facing his country—Iran’s looming nuclear capability, Hezbollah’s missiles in southern Lebanon and Hamas’s desire to acquire more deadly missiles in Gaza. None of this is directly related to the Bible (I do not play Guess the End Times with the Bible), but something at the meeting started me thinking about a particular Biblical figure. Meridor began by quipping that he was glad he was meeting the press on a day when there was so little news from Israel. Everyone laughed because we all knew that there had been quite a bit of news from Israel this week. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is fighting for his political life in the wake of a scathing report that found great fault with his performance and that of his government during last year’s war against Hezbollah in Lebanon. Many people in Israel have called for Olmert to resign, and just before Ambassador Meridor met with us, Israel’s Foreign Minister, Tzipi Livni, also called for Olmert to step down. And it was Livni who got me to thinking about the Bible.
How so? Like many people in Israel, Livni is known by her nickname—Tzipi is short for Zipporah. Her name goes back to the Biblical Zipporah, the wife of Moses. Zipporah plays a fairly small role in the Bible except for the enigmatic episode in Exodus 4:24-26, in which God attacks Moses (or perhaps Moses and Zipporah’s son) but lets him go once Zipporah circumcises their son. This odd little story is treated by Bible scholar William Propp as part of a larger discussion of the meaning of circumcision to the early Israelites; Propp’s article, “Circumcision: The Private Sign of the Covenant,” appeared in the August 2004 issue of Bible Review.
As long as I’m at it, I’m going to introduce another concept: Six Degrees of Biblical Archaeology Separation. When I mentioned the connection of Israel’s Foreign Minister and the Bible to Susan Laden, our publisher, she told me that her daughter had adopted Zipporah as her Hebrew name; she had been named Faygel, after her grandmother, but that is a Yiddish name and she wanted an “official” Hebrew name; both names mean “bird.” When Sue mentioned that, I remembered that Sepphoris, the beautiful site in Galilee, is called Tzippori in Hebrew—which also means “bird.” Sepphoris was a boom town in first-century A.D. Roman Galilee, and it’s possible that Jesus and Joseph may have worked there as carpenters—Sepphoris was only an hour’s walk from Nazareth. Biblical Archaeology Review has written extensively on Sepphoris; you can start with “Sepphoris—An Urban Portrait of Jesus,” by Richard A. Batey and “The Sepphoris Synagoge Mosaic,” by Zeev Weiss.
So now you, too, can look for degrees of Biblical separation. But be warned—it might become habit forming.
May 4, 2007
The play and movie Six Degrees of Separation made popular the notion that we are only about six people away from anyone else in the world. For example, if I found George Bush’s personal copy of his high school yearbook at a yard sale and figured he’d appreciate it back but worried that putting in the mail simply addressed “White House” would get it lost for years in some faraway security screening location, I’d give the yearbook to our friend Jeff, who works for a television network and is based at the White House, and ask him to give it to Press Secretary Tony Snow to pass on to the president—only two people between me and the President of the United States.
It occurred to me that we can also think of Degrees of Biblical Separation—the number of steps between something in our daily lives and something mentioned in the Bible. I was thinking of this because yesterday I attended a press conference/lunch meeting with Sallai Meridor, Israel’s ambassador to the United States. Meridor spoke about the large political problems facing his country—Iran’s looming nuclear capability, Hezbollah’s missiles in southern Lebanon and Hamas’s desire to acquire more deadly missiles in Gaza. None of this is directly related to the Bible (I do not play Guess the End Times with the Bible), but something at the meeting started me thinking about a particular Biblical figure. Meridor began by quipping that he was glad he was meeting the press on a day when there was so little news from Israel. Everyone laughed because we all knew that there had been quite a bit of news from Israel this week. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is fighting for his political life in the wake of a scathing report that found great fault with his performance and that of his government during last year’s war against Hezbollah in Lebanon. Many people in Israel have called for Olmert to resign, and just before Ambassador Meridor met with us, Israel’s Foreign Minister, Tzipi Livni, also called for Olmert to step down. And it was Livni who got me to thinking about the Bible.
How so? Like many people in Israel, Livni is known by her nickname—Tzipi is short for Zipporah. Her name goes back to the Biblical Zipporah, the wife of Moses. Zipporah plays a fairly small role in the Bible except for the enigmatic episode in Exodus 4:24-26, in which God attacks Moses (or perhaps Moses and Zipporah’s son) but lets him go once Zipporah circumcises their son. This odd little story is treated by Bible scholar William Propp as part of a larger discussion of the meaning of circumcision to the early Israelites; Propp’s article, “Circumcision: The Private Sign of the Covenant,” appeared in the August 2004 issue of Bible Review.
As long as I’m at it, I’m going to introduce another concept: Six Degrees of Biblical Archaeology Separation. When I mentioned the connection of Israel’s Foreign Minister and the Bible to Susan Laden, our publisher, she told me that her daughter had adopted Zipporah as her Hebrew name; she had been named Faygel, after her grandmother, but that is a Yiddish name and she wanted an “official” Hebrew name; both names mean “bird.” When Sue mentioned that, I remembered that Sepphoris, the beautiful site in Galilee, is called Tzippori in Hebrew—which also means “bird.” Sepphoris was a boom town in first-century A.D. Roman Galilee, and it’s possible that Jesus and Joseph may have worked there as carpenters—Sepphoris was only an hour’s walk from Nazareth. Biblical Archaeology Review has written extensively on Sepphoris; you can start with “Sepphoris—An Urban Portrait of Jesus,” by Richard A. Batey and “The Sepphoris Synagoge Mosaic,” by Zeev Weiss.
So now you, too, can look for degrees of Biblical separation. But be warned—it might become habit forming.
Stength in Numbers
By Kenneth Kerr
May 2, 2007
I’d like to go off topic from the regular subject matter of our site and talk a little about how we run things here at the Biblical Archaeology Society. As I’m sure many of you are aware, the post office is just about to raise rates across the board for the second year in a row. While for most of us this only means the price of a stamp will increase by a few pennies, for magazines the cost will rise between 11% and 25%. For any business, this is a huge increase. For non-profits, like BAS, it’s potentially lethal.
But I’m not here to ask for donations, or even to bemoan our circumstances. When you’ve been in business for 30 years, you learn to deal with the changes the world throws your way.
Instead, I’d like to talk about one of the ways we are able to keep some of our costs down while still producing the beautiful magazine we deliver to you every other month.
BAS is a member of a cooperative of magazine from all across the country. Almost all of them are run by state agencies, usually dealing with their state’s park services, game boards and conservation services. The function of our co-op, very much like a farmer’s co-op, is for the group to carry more weight than its individual members. Because of this, we are able to negotiate prices and discounts for services that would normally be beyond our means. For example, thanks to banding together into a co-op, we’ve been able to shave a nickel off of the cost of each label we generate to mail our magazine. Five cents doesn’t sound like much, but when you’ve got 150,000 subscribers receiving six issues a year, it adds up to quite a bit.
I’ve just come back from a meeting of our co-op in South Carolina, and I’d like to give each of my fellow co-op members a big thank you for their ideas and contributions. We really couldn’t exist without their help and support.
If any of you reading this already subscribe to one of their magazines, please accept my thanks for supporting their efforts. And if any of you live in or vacation in their states, I’d ask you to throw them a little help if you can, either by subscribing or just dropping them a line to let them know their efforts aren’t unappreciated. Each of their magazines is special in its own way and all will give you a greater appreciation of the state publishing them.
Here’s a listing of our fellow co-op members:
Outdoor Alabama
Arizona Wildlife News
Arkansas Wildlife
Colorado Outdoors
Iowa Outdoors
Kansas!
Kansas Wildlife and Parks
Maine Boats, Homes & Harbors
Massachusetts Wildlife
Montana Outdoors
New York State Conservationist
Outdoor Oklahoma
South Carolina Wildlife
Virginia Wildlife
Wisconsin Natural Resources
Wyoming Wildlife News
Moment Magazine
May 2, 2007
I’d like to go off topic from the regular subject matter of our site and talk a little about how we run things here at the Biblical Archaeology Society. As I’m sure many of you are aware, the post office is just about to raise rates across the board for the second year in a row. While for most of us this only means the price of a stamp will increase by a few pennies, for magazines the cost will rise between 11% and 25%. For any business, this is a huge increase. For non-profits, like BAS, it’s potentially lethal.
But I’m not here to ask for donations, or even to bemoan our circumstances. When you’ve been in business for 30 years, you learn to deal with the changes the world throws your way.
Instead, I’d like to talk about one of the ways we are able to keep some of our costs down while still producing the beautiful magazine we deliver to you every other month.
BAS is a member of a cooperative of magazine from all across the country. Almost all of them are run by state agencies, usually dealing with their state’s park services, game boards and conservation services. The function of our co-op, very much like a farmer’s co-op, is for the group to carry more weight than its individual members. Because of this, we are able to negotiate prices and discounts for services that would normally be beyond our means. For example, thanks to banding together into a co-op, we’ve been able to shave a nickel off of the cost of each label we generate to mail our magazine. Five cents doesn’t sound like much, but when you’ve got 150,000 subscribers receiving six issues a year, it adds up to quite a bit.
I’ve just come back from a meeting of our co-op in South Carolina, and I’d like to give each of my fellow co-op members a big thank you for their ideas and contributions. We really couldn’t exist without their help and support.
If any of you reading this already subscribe to one of their magazines, please accept my thanks for supporting their efforts. And if any of you live in or vacation in their states, I’d ask you to throw them a little help if you can, either by subscribing or just dropping them a line to let them know their efforts aren’t unappreciated. Each of their magazines is special in its own way and all will give you a greater appreciation of the state publishing them.
Here’s a listing of our fellow co-op members:
Outdoor Alabama
Arizona Wildlife News
Arkansas Wildlife
Colorado Outdoors
Iowa Outdoors
Kansas!
Kansas Wildlife and Parks
Maine Boats, Homes & Harbors
Massachusetts Wildlife
Montana Outdoors
New York State Conservationist
Outdoor Oklahoma
South Carolina Wildlife
Virginia Wildlife
Wisconsin Natural Resources
Wyoming Wildlife News
Moment Magazine
Learning the Ropes
By Steven Feldman
April 26, 2007
There’s no better way to learn than to spend time with scholars. At a recent academic conference, I saw two of Israel’s leading archaeologists, Gabriel Barkay and Ronny Reich. I had visited Barkay at his home on Rav Hovel Street in Jerusalem some years back, and I asked him who Rabbi Hovel was (Rav means “master” and is the Hebrew title for Rabbi). Barkay told me that Rav Hovel was not a rabbi but was the title for the captain of the ship in the Book of Jonah; the title, Barkay explained, literally means “master of the ropes.”
At the same conference Reich mentioned that he had recently become a grandfather for the first time. “Ah, sabbah…” I began to tease him. He cut me off and said that he would not be called sabbah. “It’s not Hebrew,” he said. I was taken aback—all over Israel you hear children calling sabbah and savtah to their grandfathers and grandmothers. “It’s Aramaic,” Reich explained. He’s right, of course: the Hebrew word for grandfather is sav, while grandmother is sabbah (spelled samekh, bet, heh, not to be confused with the Aramaic sabbah for grandfather, which is spelled samekh, bet, aleph). Whatever he’s called, I hope Reich will get great enjoyment from his grandchild, a universal pleasure that will need no translation.
April 26, 2007
There’s no better way to learn than to spend time with scholars. At a recent academic conference, I saw two of Israel’s leading archaeologists, Gabriel Barkay and Ronny Reich. I had visited Barkay at his home on Rav Hovel Street in Jerusalem some years back, and I asked him who Rabbi Hovel was (Rav means “master” and is the Hebrew title for Rabbi). Barkay told me that Rav Hovel was not a rabbi but was the title for the captain of the ship in the Book of Jonah; the title, Barkay explained, literally means “master of the ropes.”
At the same conference Reich mentioned that he had recently become a grandfather for the first time. “Ah, sabbah…” I began to tease him. He cut me off and said that he would not be called sabbah. “It’s not Hebrew,” he said. I was taken aback—all over Israel you hear children calling sabbah and savtah to their grandfathers and grandmothers. “It’s Aramaic,” Reich explained. He’s right, of course: the Hebrew word for grandfather is sav, while grandmother is sabbah (spelled samekh, bet, heh, not to be confused with the Aramaic sabbah for grandfather, which is spelled samekh, bet, aleph). Whatever he’s called, I hope Reich will get great enjoyment from his grandchild, a universal pleasure that will need no translation.
Matters of Faith
By Kenneth Kerr
April 11, 2007
A lot of discussion in the press has been devoted of late to the subject of faith, or lack thereof, and how a person’s life circumstances have reinforced or weakened their religious beliefs. An interview in our March/April 2007 issue, here, examines the topic from the point of view of archaeologists and biblical scholars. Two of the scholars interviewed have had their faith strengthened by their research, two have had their beliefs destroyed. The article serves as a useful guide to the perils of knowledge, and also to the rewards. I particularly find the case of Bill Dever poignant; he was ordained a minister and has two degrees in theology but lost his faith while working the in Holy Land.
Some of the other sites around the web where such discussions are taking place include the dialogue between Andrew Sullivan and Sam Harris on Beliefnet. Readers may know Mr. Sullivan from his blog, The Daily Dish, or from his presence on some of the Sunday talk shows. He is a practicing Catholic who, despite his misgivings about the direction of the Church, hasn’t really wavered in his faith since his early adulthood (according to his recent book, The Conservative Soul). Sam Harris, on the other hand, is a noted atheist whose books include The End of Faith and Letter to a Christian Nation. Both he and Richard Dawkins seem to be showing up all over the air waves recently, so it’s good to see what Mr. Harris says in his own words. The dialogue between Mr. Sullivan and Mr. Harris is both passionate and, at times, disturbing. It’s also quite extensive, as they’ve been arguing back and forth for about a month and a half.
Another site I find quite illuminating on these issues is called Killing the Buddha. The premise of the site is to give people who are both interested in and uncomfortable with religion a forum for discussion and exploration. Make sure to read the “Manifesto” section, which explains the site’s name. They have a real gem of an article here about an unlikely convert and how her understanding of Christianity didn’t arrive at the same time as her belief in it.
I’ll go into some of my own thoughts about all this in a later post, particularly the role education plays in these matters.
April 11, 2007
A lot of discussion in the press has been devoted of late to the subject of faith, or lack thereof, and how a person’s life circumstances have reinforced or weakened their religious beliefs. An interview in our March/April 2007 issue, here, examines the topic from the point of view of archaeologists and biblical scholars. Two of the scholars interviewed have had their faith strengthened by their research, two have had their beliefs destroyed. The article serves as a useful guide to the perils of knowledge, and also to the rewards. I particularly find the case of Bill Dever poignant; he was ordained a minister and has two degrees in theology but lost his faith while working the in Holy Land.
Some of the other sites around the web where such discussions are taking place include the dialogue between Andrew Sullivan and Sam Harris on Beliefnet. Readers may know Mr. Sullivan from his blog, The Daily Dish, or from his presence on some of the Sunday talk shows. He is a practicing Catholic who, despite his misgivings about the direction of the Church, hasn’t really wavered in his faith since his early adulthood (according to his recent book, The Conservative Soul). Sam Harris, on the other hand, is a noted atheist whose books include The End of Faith and Letter to a Christian Nation. Both he and Richard Dawkins seem to be showing up all over the air waves recently, so it’s good to see what Mr. Harris says in his own words. The dialogue between Mr. Sullivan and Mr. Harris is both passionate and, at times, disturbing. It’s also quite extensive, as they’ve been arguing back and forth for about a month and a half.
Another site I find quite illuminating on these issues is called Killing the Buddha. The premise of the site is to give people who are both interested in and uncomfortable with religion a forum for discussion and exploration. Make sure to read the “Manifesto” section, which explains the site’s name. They have a real gem of an article here about an unlikely convert and how her understanding of Christianity didn’t arrive at the same time as her belief in it.
I’ll go into some of my own thoughts about all this in a later post, particularly the role education plays in these matters.
Blogs Flog “Jesus Tomb” Claims
By Steven Feldman
March 28, 2007
When The Lost Tomb of Jesus was broadcast in early March on the Discovery Channel, it received tremendous attention in the news media. As often happens, the initial news reports only touched on the main issues involved and, as also frequently happens, the media attention died down quickly.
But the program made some very large claims, most notably that Jesus’ remains had been found (but not recognized for what they are) in a tomb accidentally discovered in Jerusalem in 1980 and that Jesus had married Mary Magdalene and had fathered a son with her. These claims have now become the subject of extensive scrutiny in the blogosphere.
Most of what I’ve seen has been negative, and some criticism has veered towards sarcasm and personal attacks (see my earlier blog below), particularly against Simcha Jacobovici, the film’s director, and James Tabor, head of the religious studies department at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and a consultant on the film, who has emerged as the primary academic defender of film’s claim that the tomb may have been the tomb of Jesus and his family.
One of the first lengthy discussions of a key aspect of the program came on the Higgaion blog (http://www.heardworld.com/higgaion/) maintained by Christopher Heard, a professor of religion at Pepperdine University. Heard wrote a devastating series of blogs last fall that demolished the claims in a previous film made by Jacobovici, The Exodus Decoded. In response to a widely touted statistic offered in the The Lost Tomb of Jesus by Andrey Feuerverger, a professor at the University of Toronto, that the tomb in question was almost certainly (to the tune of 600 to 1!) the tomb of Jesus of Nazareth, Heard pointed out that Feuerverger himself had noted that his calculations were based heavily on the assumption that one of the ossuaries in the tomb was that of Mary Magdalene. If that assumption was wrong, Heard wrote, then “the whole set of calculations begins to look like a house of cards.”
The program’s claim that the remains of Mary Magdalene were in one the ossuaries (bone boxes) in the tomb came from its reading of one ossuary inscription as Mariamenou e Mara, which the show claimed should be read as “Mariamene the Master”; the show further claimed that Mary Magdalene was called Mariamene in later Christian texts and, because of her importance in the early Christian movement, she would have been accorded the title “Master.”
Those claims have been a focus of heated debate. Richard Bauckham, professor at New Testament at the University of St. Andrews, in Scotland, was one of the first scholars to take issue with that identification. His views appear as a guest post on the Chrisendom blog maintained by Chris Tilling (http://www.christilling.de/blog/ctblog.html); you have to scroll down the blog’s home page and click on “Some Popular Posts.” After a fairly technical discussion of the name, Bauckham concludes, “There is no reason at all to connect the woman in this ossuary with Mary Magdalene, and in fact the name usage is decisively against such a connexion.”
Craig Evans, a professor at Acadia Divinity College in Nova Scotia, has posted a comment that calls the program’s conclusions “very doubtful” (http://www.craigaevans.com/tombofjesus.htm). Evans considers all the inscriptions in the tomb, and he, too, rejects the identification of the Mariamene in the tomb with Mary Magdalene.
Perhaps the most forceful opponent of the Magdalene identification has been Stephen Pfann, of the University of the Holy Land, in Jerusalem, who argues that the inscription does not say “Mariamene the Master” but rather “Mariame and Mara” and that the ossuary held the remains of at least two women, neither of them Mary Magdalene. Pfann’s views can be found on the SBL Forum page of the Society of Biblical Literature (www.sbl-site.org).
Taking aim at the statistical claims made by the program, Randy Ingermanson, at (http://www.ingermanson.com/jesus/art/stats.php) takes issue with some of the assumptions behind the calculations in The Lost Tomb of Jesus and runs some numbers himself. Based on the prevalence of Jewish names in the Late Second Temple and Roman periods in Palestine, Ingermanson concludes that there likely would have been about 1000 men in the first century A.D. named Jesus son of Joseph. He further concludes that about 11 of these men would have had family members with the names found in the tomb.
This is actually one of the most valuable figures I’ve come across in this entire debate because it is based solely on statistics generated by the best data we have available and not heavily weighted by dubious historical assumptions (unfortunately, Ingermanson did not stop there and went on to make some dubious assumptions of his own and concluded that the chances are 10,000 to 1 against the Jesus in the tomb being Jesus of Nazareth). But note that Ingermanson’s calculation yields only a 1 in 11 chance that the tomb is that of Jesus of Nazareth, which is a far cry from the 600 to 1 near certainty that it is, which is what the program claimed.
I was alerted to Ingermanson’s blog by James Tabor, who worked closely with the filmmakers and who has become something of a voice in the wilderness as an academic defender of the show’s claims. Tabor has been posting daily to his blog (http://jesusdynasty.com/blog/), and he deserves some type of award for sheer doggedness. My sense, however, is that he’s fighting a losing battle; the more discussion I see, the weaker the program’s case becomes.
Two other blogs to keep an eye on for this topic are the NT Gateway blog
(http://ntgateway.com/weblog/), by Mark Goodacre of Duke University, and the Codex blog (http://biblical-studies.ca/blog/index.php), by Tyler F. Williams of Taylor University College in Edmonton. Even in the blogosphere, the debate over The Lost Tomb of Jesus is starting to quiet down, but I expect some more lively discussion before it’s all over.
March 28, 2007
When The Lost Tomb of Jesus was broadcast in early March on the Discovery Channel, it received tremendous attention in the news media. As often happens, the initial news reports only touched on the main issues involved and, as also frequently happens, the media attention died down quickly.
But the program made some very large claims, most notably that Jesus’ remains had been found (but not recognized for what they are) in a tomb accidentally discovered in Jerusalem in 1980 and that Jesus had married Mary Magdalene and had fathered a son with her. These claims have now become the subject of extensive scrutiny in the blogosphere.
Most of what I’ve seen has been negative, and some criticism has veered towards sarcasm and personal attacks (see my earlier blog below), particularly against Simcha Jacobovici, the film’s director, and James Tabor, head of the religious studies department at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and a consultant on the film, who has emerged as the primary academic defender of film’s claim that the tomb may have been the tomb of Jesus and his family.
One of the first lengthy discussions of a key aspect of the program came on the Higgaion blog (http://www.heardworld.com/higgaion/) maintained by Christopher Heard, a professor of religion at Pepperdine University. Heard wrote a devastating series of blogs last fall that demolished the claims in a previous film made by Jacobovici, The Exodus Decoded. In response to a widely touted statistic offered in the The Lost Tomb of Jesus by Andrey Feuerverger, a professor at the University of Toronto, that the tomb in question was almost certainly (to the tune of 600 to 1!) the tomb of Jesus of Nazareth, Heard pointed out that Feuerverger himself had noted that his calculations were based heavily on the assumption that one of the ossuaries in the tomb was that of Mary Magdalene. If that assumption was wrong, Heard wrote, then “the whole set of calculations begins to look like a house of cards.”
The program’s claim that the remains of Mary Magdalene were in one the ossuaries (bone boxes) in the tomb came from its reading of one ossuary inscription as Mariamenou e Mara, which the show claimed should be read as “Mariamene the Master”; the show further claimed that Mary Magdalene was called Mariamene in later Christian texts and, because of her importance in the early Christian movement, she would have been accorded the title “Master.”
Those claims have been a focus of heated debate. Richard Bauckham, professor at New Testament at the University of St. Andrews, in Scotland, was one of the first scholars to take issue with that identification. His views appear as a guest post on the Chrisendom blog maintained by Chris Tilling (http://www.christilling.de/blog/ctblog.html); you have to scroll down the blog’s home page and click on “Some Popular Posts.” After a fairly technical discussion of the name, Bauckham concludes, “There is no reason at all to connect the woman in this ossuary with Mary Magdalene, and in fact the name usage is decisively against such a connexion.”
Craig Evans, a professor at Acadia Divinity College in Nova Scotia, has posted a comment that calls the program’s conclusions “very doubtful” (http://www.craigaevans.com/tombofjesus.htm). Evans considers all the inscriptions in the tomb, and he, too, rejects the identification of the Mariamene in the tomb with Mary Magdalene.
Perhaps the most forceful opponent of the Magdalene identification has been Stephen Pfann, of the University of the Holy Land, in Jerusalem, who argues that the inscription does not say “Mariamene the Master” but rather “Mariame and Mara” and that the ossuary held the remains of at least two women, neither of them Mary Magdalene. Pfann’s views can be found on the SBL Forum page of the Society of Biblical Literature (www.sbl-site.org).
Taking aim at the statistical claims made by the program, Randy Ingermanson, at (http://www.ingermanson.com/jesus/art/stats.php) takes issue with some of the assumptions behind the calculations in The Lost Tomb of Jesus and runs some numbers himself. Based on the prevalence of Jewish names in the Late Second Temple and Roman periods in Palestine, Ingermanson concludes that there likely would have been about 1000 men in the first century A.D. named Jesus son of Joseph. He further concludes that about 11 of these men would have had family members with the names found in the tomb.
This is actually one of the most valuable figures I’ve come across in this entire debate because it is based solely on statistics generated by the best data we have available and not heavily weighted by dubious historical assumptions (unfortunately, Ingermanson did not stop there and went on to make some dubious assumptions of his own and concluded that the chances are 10,000 to 1 against the Jesus in the tomb being Jesus of Nazareth). But note that Ingermanson’s calculation yields only a 1 in 11 chance that the tomb is that of Jesus of Nazareth, which is a far cry from the 600 to 1 near certainty that it is, which is what the program claimed.
I was alerted to Ingermanson’s blog by James Tabor, who worked closely with the filmmakers and who has become something of a voice in the wilderness as an academic defender of the show’s claims. Tabor has been posting daily to his blog (http://jesusdynasty.com/blog/), and he deserves some type of award for sheer doggedness. My sense, however, is that he’s fighting a losing battle; the more discussion I see, the weaker the program’s case becomes.
Two other blogs to keep an eye on for this topic are the NT Gateway blog
(http://ntgateway.com/weblog/), by Mark Goodacre of Duke University, and the Codex blog (http://biblical-studies.ca/blog/index.php), by Tyler F. Williams of Taylor University College in Edmonton. Even in the blogosphere, the debate over The Lost Tomb of Jesus is starting to quiet down, but I expect some more lively discussion before it’s all over.
“Jesus Tomb” Debate Gets Ugly Fast
Is there a BAR Crowd?
By Steven Feldman
March 16, 2007
You didn’t have to be a genius to know that the television program The Lost Tomb of Jesus would generate boatloads of debate and criticism. The show claims to have identified the ossuary (or bone box) of Jesus and his family; according to the program, the Jesus family tomb was discovered in 1980 in south Jerusalem and then ignored because the archaeologists who discovered it were oblivious to its significance. The show further suggests that Jesus married Mary Magdalene and that they had a son together named Yehuda (Judah or, ironically, Judas); joining Jesus in the tomb, the show continues, are the remains of Mary, the mother of Jesus, and Jose, a brother of Jesus according to the Gospel of Mark. As if those claims were not enough, the program also suggests that a controversial ossuary inscribed “James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus,” was a tenth ossuary originally discovered in the tomb but then went missing, only to turn up in the possession of an antiquities collector (the inscription has been branded by some as either a complete or partial modern forgery).
With such dramatic claims—which many saw as a challenge to the very heart of Christian belief—the reaction was bound to be fierce. And it has been. Unfortunately, some of the reaction has also been nasty and threatening. The program was directed by Simcha Jacobovici, a Toronto-based filmmaker, and produced by James Cameron, famous for having directed Titanic. Also closely associated with the program is James Tabor, chairman of the religious studies department at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte; I have known Tabor for many years and consider him a friend. I have strong doubts about the program’s assertions, but I have no doubt that ugly personal attacks have no place in the discussion. No sooner had the program aired than I saw references to “Jews in Hollywood” once again trying to destroy Christian values. Cameron is a part of the film industry, of course, but he’s not Jewish (neither is Tabor), and the last time I looked at a map, Toronto and Charlotte were not in southern California.
Less ugly, though still barbed and personal, was the reaction by Joe Zias, a physical anthropologist who used to work for the Israel Antiquities Authority. In a posting on his web site, Zias strongly condemns the program and the people involved with it, including what he calls the “BAR crowd,” referring to Biblical Archaeology Review, which is published by the same organization that sponsors this Web site. In Zias’ words, this “crowd” “is a collection of individuals who have been deeply involved with BAR, mainly textual scholars who pose from time to time, when convenient, as archaeologists.”
Zias is thinking primarily of Jacobovici, Tabor and Shimon Gibson, all of whom were involved with the television program and who have had in the past a connection to BAR. Jacobovici directed a documentary about the James ossuary shortly after it was first described in the pages of BAR, and Tabor and Gibson have written for the magazine. But if Zias thinks that makes them a part of the “BAR crowd” or that we agree with their claims, he’s quite wrong.
BAR was very critical of an earlier program directed by Jacobovici called The Exodus Decoded. It claimed that a volcanic eruption of the Mediterranean island of Thera was the impetus for the Biblical Ten Plagues. BAR published a critical article about the show’s claims that was written by Manfred Bietak, who excavates in Egypt and who was interviewed for the program by Jacobovici. We also published a strongly negatively review, by Bible professor Ronald Hendel, on our Web site.
Tabor and Gibson appeared in BAR most recently to lay out their case that a cave they have excavated had been used by John the Baptist. But BAR had already reported, when Tabor and Gibson first announced their claim, that many archaeologists in Israel scoffed at the idea. Nor did Gibson fare any better in our review of his book on the subject. For that matter, Tabor’s book, The Jesus Dynasty, also received a critical review in BAR (going over this history, I’m impressed that Tabor has stayed friends with me!).
So there’s no “BAR crowd,” just scholars who have written for us in the past (such as Zias!), which includes many of the world’s leading archaeologists and Bible scholars. And, for Zias’ information, we had no involvement with The Lost Tomb of Jesus. The program can be challenged on many grounds (and it already has been), but keep the personal attacks and the misinformation out of the debate.
By Steven Feldman
March 16, 2007
You didn’t have to be a genius to know that the television program The Lost Tomb of Jesus would generate boatloads of debate and criticism. The show claims to have identified the ossuary (or bone box) of Jesus and his family; according to the program, the Jesus family tomb was discovered in 1980 in south Jerusalem and then ignored because the archaeologists who discovered it were oblivious to its significance. The show further suggests that Jesus married Mary Magdalene and that they had a son together named Yehuda (Judah or, ironically, Judas); joining Jesus in the tomb, the show continues, are the remains of Mary, the mother of Jesus, and Jose, a brother of Jesus according to the Gospel of Mark. As if those claims were not enough, the program also suggests that a controversial ossuary inscribed “James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus,” was a tenth ossuary originally discovered in the tomb but then went missing, only to turn up in the possession of an antiquities collector (the inscription has been branded by some as either a complete or partial modern forgery).
With such dramatic claims—which many saw as a challenge to the very heart of Christian belief—the reaction was bound to be fierce. And it has been. Unfortunately, some of the reaction has also been nasty and threatening. The program was directed by Simcha Jacobovici, a Toronto-based filmmaker, and produced by James Cameron, famous for having directed Titanic. Also closely associated with the program is James Tabor, chairman of the religious studies department at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte; I have known Tabor for many years and consider him a friend. I have strong doubts about the program’s assertions, but I have no doubt that ugly personal attacks have no place in the discussion. No sooner had the program aired than I saw references to “Jews in Hollywood” once again trying to destroy Christian values. Cameron is a part of the film industry, of course, but he’s not Jewish (neither is Tabor), and the last time I looked at a map, Toronto and Charlotte were not in southern California.
Less ugly, though still barbed and personal, was the reaction by Joe Zias, a physical anthropologist who used to work for the Israel Antiquities Authority. In a posting on his web site, Zias strongly condemns the program and the people involved with it, including what he calls the “BAR crowd,” referring to Biblical Archaeology Review, which is published by the same organization that sponsors this Web site. In Zias’ words, this “crowd” “is a collection of individuals who have been deeply involved with BAR, mainly textual scholars who pose from time to time, when convenient, as archaeologists.”
Zias is thinking primarily of Jacobovici, Tabor and Shimon Gibson, all of whom were involved with the television program and who have had in the past a connection to BAR. Jacobovici directed a documentary about the James ossuary shortly after it was first described in the pages of BAR, and Tabor and Gibson have written for the magazine. But if Zias thinks that makes them a part of the “BAR crowd” or that we agree with their claims, he’s quite wrong.
BAR was very critical of an earlier program directed by Jacobovici called The Exodus Decoded. It claimed that a volcanic eruption of the Mediterranean island of Thera was the impetus for the Biblical Ten Plagues. BAR published a critical article about the show’s claims that was written by Manfred Bietak, who excavates in Egypt and who was interviewed for the program by Jacobovici. We also published a strongly negatively review, by Bible professor Ronald Hendel, on our Web site.
Tabor and Gibson appeared in BAR most recently to lay out their case that a cave they have excavated had been used by John the Baptist. But BAR had already reported, when Tabor and Gibson first announced their claim, that many archaeologists in Israel scoffed at the idea. Nor did Gibson fare any better in our review of his book on the subject. For that matter, Tabor’s book, The Jesus Dynasty, also received a critical review in BAR (going over this history, I’m impressed that Tabor has stayed friends with me!).
So there’s no “BAR crowd,” just scholars who have written for us in the past (such as Zias!), which includes many of the world’s leading archaeologists and Bible scholars. And, for Zias’ information, we had no involvement with The Lost Tomb of Jesus. The program can be challenged on many grounds (and it already has been), but keep the personal attacks and the misinformation out of the debate.
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