Apr 22
By: Elie Wiesel
I have a problem with Aaron, number two in the great and glorious epic that recounts the liberation of the Jewish people from slavery in Egypt. He is a man of peace. He succeeds at everything. Everyone admires, even loves him. Whether great or small, they need him, his understanding and his mediation. Whatever he does, he is well regarded.
Apr 21
By: James Tabor
The various types of the heavenly journeys we have reports about can be divided into four basic categories, based upon the fundamental purpose or outcome of the ascent as reported in a given text. Generally speaking, the first two categories are more characteristic of the Ancient Near Eastern, or archaic period, which would include most texts of the Hebrew Bible (OT). The latter two categories are more typical of the Hellenistic period, which reflects the perspective of the NT.
Apr 20
By: BAS Staff
A newly published inscription from Tel Lachish in southern Israel is the earliest alphabetic writing discovered in the southern Levant. The fragmentary inscription features a mere handful of letters inscribed on a tiny pottery sherd, measuring just 4 by 3.5 cm. The sherd is dated by radiocarbon to the 15th century B.C.E., or the first part of the Late Bronze Age.
Apr 19
By: Jennifer Drummond
Vestis Virum Facit—clothes make the man. While this quote has been (wrongly) attributed to Roman educator Marcus Fabius Quintilianus, its dubious authenticity doesn’t make it […]
Apr 18
By: Shawna Dolansky
The serpent in the Garden of Eden is portrayed as just that: a serpent. The story in Genesis 2–3 contains no hint that he embodies the devil, Satan or any other evil power. So where does the devil come into the details of Eden? Biblical scholar Shawna Dolansky examines how the serpent became Satan.
Apr 17
By: Hershel Shanks
I’ve been reading a new book titled Pseudo-Cyril of Jerusalem “On the Life and the Passion of Christ”: A Coptic Apocryphon by the Dutch scholar Roelof van den Broek.1 In case it has escaped your attention, it provides a new translation of an eighth-century Gnostic gospel in Coptic from Egypt that has been in the Morgan Library in New York since 1908, a gift of J.P. Morgan.
Apr 16
By: Megan Sauter
During the Iron Age, when Israel and Judah ruled Canaan, the kingdoms of Ammon, Moab and Edom ruled east of the Jordan River. Recent archaeological discoveries vastly increase our understanding of these kingdoms and their religion.
Apr 15
By: Megan Sauter
Despite numerous cancelations in 2020, it was excavation as usual at ‘Auja el-Foqa, an ancient Israelite fortress in the Jordan Valley. Directed by David Ben-Shlomo […]
Apr 14
By: Janet Howe Gaines
In most manifestations of her myth, Lilith represents chaos, seduction and ungodliness. Yet, in her every guise, Lilith has cast a spell on humankind. Who is Lilith in the Bible?
Apr 12
By: BAS Staff
New excavations near Luxor have revealed an extremely well-preserved urban settlement from Egypt’s 18th Dynasty. It was a time when Egypt’s powerful pharaohs ruled over an expansive empire that stretched to the land of Canaan and beyond. Known in antiquity as Aten, the settlement dates to the reign of Amenhotep III (1391–1353 B.C.E.) and his successors. The “lost golden city” may have been established to support and help administer the pharaoh’s royal residence, located nearby at the site of Malqata.
