People & Cultures in the Bible

By: James Riley Strange

In the early first century CE, Jesus’s hometown of Nazareth was a Galilean village like most others. With a population probably numbering only in the […]

By: Lawrence Mykytiuk

See a visualization of the Herodian family tree and key events in the New Testament related to members of the Herodian family.

By: Robin Ngo

New Testament scholar Simon Gathercole examines what the sayings of Jesus in the Gospel of Thomas reveal about the early Christian world in which they were written.

By: BAS Staff

Read the 114 sayings of Jesus from the Gospel of Thomas as translated by Stephen J. Patterson and James M. Robinson.

By: Lauren K. McCormick

In the Summer 2026 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review, New Testament scholar Helen Bond asks a provocative question: “Was Mary a Second Wife?” Replete with […]

By: BAS Staff

Was Joseph Jesus’ biological father? If not, who was Jesus’ biological father? Andrew Lincoln examines what early Christians thought about conception and explains how views about this subject have changed over time.

By: BAS Staff

Read letters published in the Q&C section of BAR debating the dates of Herod’s death, Jesus’ birth and to which lunar eclipse Josephus was referring.

By: Clinton J. Moyer

The Phoenicians were the maritime traders par excellence during the Iron Age. By the late ninth century BCE, they had ventured from their home cities […]

By: Nicola Denzey Lewis

Brown University Religious Studies professor Nicola Denzey Lewis answers frequently asked questions about the apostle Peter. Denzey Lewis appears in the CNN series Finding Jesus: Faith, Fact, Forgery, which aims to investigate artifacts that shed light on the world in which Jesus lived.

By: Megan Sauter

The New Testament recounts many episodes from the apostle Paul’s life. Yet it provides scant details about his visit to Arabia. In his letter to […]