BIBLE HISTORY DAILY

Biblical Archaeology Books on the Go

New eReader versions of Leonard Greenspoon's The Bible in the News and four popular BAS books now available

The Bible in the News

How the Popular Press Relates, Conflates and Updates Sacred Writ

By Leonard Greenspoon

(Washington, DC: Biblical Archaeology Society, 2013), $7.99

 
For more than a dozen years, Leonard J. Greenspoon’s “The Bible in the News” column has been one of the most popular and enjoyed sections of the widely read magazines Bible Review and Biblical Archaeology Review (BAR). For his column, Greenspoon, who is the Philip M. and Ethel Klutznick Chair in Jewish Civilization at Creighton University, scours the world’s newspapers and popular media looking for interesting, entertaining and often surprising references to the Bible and its timeless collection of sayings, characters and fables. Greenspoon’s perceptive eye and insightful commentary are matched by a charming, tongue-in-cheek humor that always brings a sly smile to the reader’s face.

Developed exclusively for eReaders, this book brings together all of Greenspoon’s “The Bible in the News” articles and columns into a single collection, beginning with his August 2000 feature article “Extra! Extra! Philistines in the Newsroom!” until his recent column in the November/December 2012 issue of BAR. This entertaining array of columns, whose topics range from Adam and Eve in pop culture to North American highways and byways numbered 666 (the number of the beast according to Revelation 13:18), has been conveniently arranged into chapters focusing on biblical episodes and passages from both the Old and New Testaments. The book’s final chapter explores general biblical themes and topics that often appear in media reports, from exceptional Bible translations to champagne bottles named for lesser known biblical characters like Rehoboam and Melchizedek. These and many other fascinating stories about the Bible’s vibrant and continued presence in today’s media culture are found in this eBook, The Bible in the News.

Leonard J. Greenspoon is author of BAR’s popular “The Bible in the News” column, and holds the Philip M. and Ethel Klutznick Chair in Jewish Civilization at Creighton University in Omaha. He is editor-in-chief of the Studies in Jewish Civilization series, which is publishing its 24th volume this fall. He also co-authored, with the late Harvey Minkoff, BAS’s free guide to modern Bible translations, The Holy Bible: A Buyer’s Guide.
 

Frank Moore Cross: Conversations with a Bible Scholar

Hershel Shanks, Frank Moore Cross

(Washington, DC: Biblical Archaeology Society, 2013), $9.99

 
Celebrate the life of the late renowned Biblical and archaeological scholar Frank Moore Cross with a comprehensive but readable overview of his broad-ranging scholarship. This collection of five interviews with Cross by Biblical Archaeology Review editor Hershel Shanks brings Cross’s insightful and path-breaking scholarly contributions to a wide, general audience, from his ideas about the origins of Israelite religion to his prominent role in the discovery and study of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Also included are thought-provoking discussions of the origins of the alphabet and the significance of ancient Hebrew seals and inscriptions for understanding the Biblical past. Furthermore, this new electronic edition of Frank Moore Cross: Conversations with a Bible Scholar allows readers to take full advantage of all of the portability and functionality of their eReader devices, including convenient in-text links that jump directly to specific chapters and notes.

Frank Moore Cross, at the young age of 36, was appointed to one of the oldest and most prestigious positions in academia, the Hancock Professorship of Hebrew and Other Oriental Languages at Harvard University, a chair he held for 35 years, until his retirement in 1992. His bibliography includes more than 200 scholarly publications. Even more important than their quantity is their often path-breaking quality, as is widely recognized in the profession. His books include Early Hebrew Orthography (with David Noel Freedman), The Ancient Library of Qumran and Modern Biblical Studies and Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic. He served as president of the Society of Biblical Literature, as well as of the American Schools of Oriental Research. He received many awards and honors, including the Percia Schimmel Prize in Archaeology from the Israel Museum, the W.F. Albright Award in Biblical Studies from the Society of Biblical Literature, the Medal of Honor from the University of Madrid, as well as honorary degrees. He passed away in 2012 at the age of 91.
 

Aspects of Monotheism

How God is One

Donald B. Redford, John J. Collins, William G. Dever, P. Kyle McCarter Jr., Jack Meinhardt (editor), Hershel Shanks (editor)

(Washington, DC: Biblical Archaeology Society, 2013), $4.99

 
Stemming from a popular symposium sponsored by the Biblical Archaeology Society and the Smithsonian Institution, Aspects of Monotheism: How God Is One—now available in this convenient eReader edition—presents an exciting, provocative and readily understandable discussion of the origins and evolution of monotheism within Judaism and Christianity. Four distinguished scholars from different fields of study—Donald Redford, William Dever, P. Kyle McCarter and John Collins—tackle broad ranging issues related to how the Israelite god came to be identified with the one universal God of the Judeo-Christian tradition. For example, were the ancient Israelites really the first to worship a single god, or did the Egyptians beat them to the punch? And were the ancient Israelites really monotheists, or was the idea of a single, universal God a late development in Israelite history? And what of Christianity? How are we to understand the divinity of Jesus, alongside his Father? Even more difficult, how are we to understand the Trinity? This book grapples with these intriguing questions and provides some often surprising answers. The new electronic edition of Aspects of Monotheism also allows readers to take full advantage of all of the portability and functionality of their eReader devices, including convenient in-text links that jump directly to specific chapters and notes.

Donald B. Redford is the foremost authority on Akhenaten, often called the world’s first monotheist. Professor of Classics and Ancient Mediterranean Studies and History at Pennsylvania State University, Redford has been the director of the Akhenaten Temple Project at the University of Pennsylvania since 1972, which led to his production of a film on the project’s findings. Redford’s publications include Egypt, Israel and Canaan in Ancient Times (Princeton Univ. Press, 1992) and Akhenaten: The Heretic King (Princeton Univ. Press, 1984). He is also editor-in-chief of the Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt (Oxford Univ. Press, 2001) and has written a libretto for an opera, Ra.

William G. Dever is a Near Eastern archaeologist specializing in the Bible. He earned his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1966 and went on to serve as director of the American Schools of Oriental Research in Jerusalem from 1971 to 1975. In 1975, he joined the faculty of the University of Arizona, Tucson as professor of Near Eastern archaeology and anthropology. Professor Dever retired from the University of Arizona in 2002 and currently divides his time between his home in Cyprus and Lycoming College in Pennsylvania, where he is Distinguished Visiting Professor of Near Eastern Archaeology.

P. Kyle McCarter, Jr., is the William Foxwell Albright Professor of Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies in the Near Eastern Studies Department at The Johns Hopkins University. A past president of the American Schools of Oriental Research, he is the author of commentaries on 1 and 2 Samuel in the Anchor Bible Series. His other writings include contributions to the Oxford Companion to the Bible, Harper’s Study Bible and Harper’s Bible Commentary.

John J. Collins is the Holmes Professor of Old Testament at Yale Divinity School. He has served as president of the Catholic Biblical Association and as editor of the Journal of Biblical Literature. He is also a member of the expanded team of Dead Sea Scrolls editors. His publications include a commentary on Daniel (Fortress Press, 1993), The Scepter and the Star: The Messiahs of the Dead Sea Scrolls (Doubleday, 1995), Apocalypticism in the Dead Sea Scrolls (Routledge, 1997) and Seers, Sibyls and Sages in Hellenistic-Roman Judaism (Brill, 1997).
 

The Rise of Ancient Israel

Hershel Shanks (editor), William G. Dever, Baruch Halpern, P. Kyle McCarter, Jr.

(Washington, DC: Biblical Archaeology Society, 2013), $4.99

 
The Rise of Ancient Israel, now available in this convenient eReader edition, is an accessible and engaging overview of one of biblical archaeology’s most critical and hotly debated subjects—the emergence of biblical Israel on the historical stage. Based on a 1991 Smithsonian Institution symposium organized by the Biblical Archaeology Society, this handsomely illustrated book brings together four authoritative and insightful lectures from world renowned scholars that carefully consider the archaeological and historical evidence for ancient Israel’s origins. Furthermore, the new electronic edition of The Rise of Ancient Israelallows readers to take full advantage of all of the portability and functionality of their eReader devices, including convenient in-text links that jump directly to specific chapters and notes.

In the book’s introduction, moderator Hershel Shanks, editor of Biblical Archaeology Review, not only defines the broad range of issues involved in tackling Israel’s beginnings, but also provides the basic information needed to appreciate the scholarly debates. William Dever, America’s preeminent Biblical archaeologist, then assesses the archaeological evidence that is usually associated with the Israelite settlement in Canaan beginning in about 1200 B.C.E. The often controversial views presented by Dever are followed by brief responses from leading scholars who study Israelite origins, including Israel Finkelstein, Norman Gottwald and Adam Zertal. In the book’s final chapters, Baruch Halpern, a senior professor of Jewish studies and biblical history at Penn State University, describes how the Book of Exodus may preserve authentic historical memories of Israel’s emergence in Egypt, while famed biblical scholar P. Kyle McCarter, Jr., discusses the fascinating and perhaps unexpected origins of Israelite religion. The book concludes with an informal but revealing panel discussion spurred by questions from Shanks and the symposium audience.

Author, moderator and editor Hershel Shanks is editor of Biblical Archaeology Review. He is also the editor and author of many books, including Understanding the Dead Sea Scrolls (Random House, 1992) and Jerusalem: An Archaeological Biography (Random House, 1995).

William G. Dever is a Near Eastern archaeologist specializing in the Bible. He earned his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1966 and went on to serve as director of the American Schools of Oriental Research in Jerusalem from 1971 to 1975. In 1975, he joined the faculty of the University of Arizona, Tuscon as professor of Near Eastern archaeology and anthropology. Professor Dever retired from the University of Arizona in 2002 and currently divides his time between his home in Cyprus and Lycoming College in Pennsylvania, where he is Distinguished Visiting Professor of Near Eastern Archaeology. Dever is perhaps best known in archaeological circles as the excavator of Gezer.

Baruch Halpern is a professor of ancient history and holds the Chaiken Family Chair in Jewish studies at Pennsylvania State University. A co-director of excavations at Megiddo, his several books include David’s Secret Demons: Messiah, Murderer, Traitor, King (Eerdmans, 2001).

P. Kyle McCarter, Jr., is the William F. Albright Professor of Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies at the Johns Hopkins University, in Baltimore, Maryland. He taught at the University of Virginia from 1974 to 1985 and has held visiting professorships at Harvard University and Dartmouth College. A former president of the American Schools of Oriental Research, McCarter wrote the commentaries on 1 Samuel and 2 Samuel in the Anchor Bible series. His many other writings include Ancient Inscriptions: Voices from the Biblical World (Biblical Archaeology Society, l996). Most recently, he has written and contributed to several important articles on the paleography of the newly discovered Tel Zayit abecedary.
 

Feminist Approaches to the Bible

Hershel Shanks (Editor), Phyllis Trible, Tikva Frymer-Kensky, Pamela J. Milne, Jane Schaberg

(Washington, DC: Biblical Archaeology Society, 2013), $4.99

 
This book, developed from a popular symposium sponsored by the Biblical Archaeology Society and the Smithsonian Institution, invites readers to ask how modern notions of gender equality can be reconciled with the largely patriarchal world in which the Bible was written and understood. Four outstanding scholars—Phyllis Trible, Tikva Frymer-Kensky, Pamela J. Milne and Jane Schaberg—examine the stories of a number of prominent women in the Bible, including Eve, Miriam and Mary Magdalene, to highlight the various ways feminists have approached the biblical text and its traditional interpretation by men. They ask how these stories reflect the concerns of women, and in what ways women are treated, described and given voice by the biblical writers. In addition, they look at the lives of the Bible’s women from a modern perspective and, in so doing, ask how modern, 21st-century readers should relate to the text. Can this inherently patriarchal document be reclaimed as source of spiritual inspiration for modern women, as argued by Trible and others? Or, as viewed by Milne, has the Bible been so distorted by patriarchal tradition that feminists simply have no choice but to reject it all together? Readers will critically grapple with these and other tough questions in Feminist Approaches to the Bible.

Now available in this convenient eReader edition, Feminist Approaches to the Bible allows readers to take full advantage of all of the portability and functionality of their eReader devices, including convenient in-text links that jump directly to specific chapters and notes.

Hershel Shanks, moderator and editor, is editor of Biblical Archaeology Review. He is also the editor and author of many books, including Understanding the Dead Sea Scrolls (Random House, 1992) and Jerusalem: An Archaeological Biography (Random House, 1995).

Phyllis Trible is University Professor in the School of Divinity at Wake Forest University. She is the author of God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality (Fortress Press, 1978), Texts of Terror: Literary Feminist Readings of Biblical Narratives (Fortress Press, 1984) and Rhetorical Criticism: Context, Method, and The Book of Jonah (Fortress Press, 1994).

Tikva Frymer-Kensky was professor of Hebrew Bible at the Divinity School of the University of Chicago and director of biblical studies at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in Philadelphia. Her publications include In the Wake of the Goddesses (Free Press, 1992) and The Judicial Ordeal in the Ancient Near East (Styx, 1995). She passed away in August 2006.

Pamela J. Milne is professor of Hebrew Bible at the University of Windsor, Ontario, and the author of an introduction and annotation for the Book of Daniel in The NRSV: Harper’s Study Edition (HarperCollins, 1993) and “The Patriarchal Stamp of Scripture” (Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, 1989).

Jane Schaberg was professor of religious and women’s studies at the University of Detroit-Mercy, where she had taught since 1977. A specialist in the New Testament, Schaberg was the author of The Illegitimacy of Jesus: A Feminist Theological Interpretation of the New Testament Infancy Narratives (Crossroad, 1990) and “The Gospel of Luke” in The Women’s Bible Commentary (Westminster/ John Knox Press, 1992). She passed away in April 2012.
 

The Search for Jesus

Modern Scholarship Looks at the Gospels

Stephen J. Patterson; Marcus J. Borg; John Dominic Crossan, Hershel Shanks (editor)

(Washington, DC: Biblical Archaeology Society, 2013), $4.99

 
This engaging and accessible book, developed from a popular symposium sponsored by the Biblical Archaeology Society and the Smithsonian Institution and now available in this convenient eReader edition, presents scholarly discussions on the birth, life and death of the historical Jesus. Top New Testament and historical Jesus scholars Stephen Patterson, Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan give their views on who Jesus was, what he said and how the Jesus of history differs from the Jesus of faith. Included are detailed explorations of the historical and archaeological evidence for Jesus outside the Bible, as well as investigations into the various methods scholars use to dissect the Gospels for evidence of what Jesus may have actually said and done. Along the way, readers will follow Patterson, Borg and Crossan through the thickets of ancient texts, theology, archaeology, anthropology, the Nag Hammadi codices and even the Dead Sea Scrolls as they reveal what modern scholarship has learned about the historical Jesus, the first-century man the Gospels tell us was born in Bethlehem, preached in Galilee and was crucified in Jerusalem. The new electronic edition of The Search for Jesus also allows readers to take full advantage of all of the portability and functionality of their eReader devices, including convenient in-text links that jump directly to specific chapters and notes.

Hershel Shanks, moderator and editor, is editor of Biblical Archaeology Review. He is also the editor and author of many books, including Understanding the Dead Sea Scrolls (Random House, 1992) and Jerusalem: An Archaeological Biography (Random House, 1995).

Stephen J. Patterson is George H. Atkinson Professor of Religious and Ethical Studies at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon. Patterson is a former contributing editor of Bible Review and the author of numerous books, including Beyond the Passion: Rethinking the Death and Life of Jesus (Fortress Press, 2004). His research focuses on the historical Jesus, Christian origins and the Gospel of Thomas.

Marcus J. Borg is Hundere Distinguished Professor of Religion and Culture at Oregon State University, past chair of the Historical Jesus Section of the Society of Biblical Literature and a Fellow of the Jesus Seminar. He is the author of several books, including: Conflict, Holiness and Politics in the Teachings of Jesus (Edwin Mellen, 1984); Jesus: A New Vision (1987) and Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time (1994), both published by HarperSanFrancisco; and Jesus in Contemporary Scholarship (Trinity Press International, 1994).

John Dominic Crossan is professor emeritus of religious studies at DePaul University in Chicago. He is a founder of Semeia: An Experimental Journal for Biblical Criticism and was general editor from 1980 to 1986. He was also a founder and co-director (with Robert W. Funk) of the Westar Institute Jesus Seminar from 1985 to 1993. He has written more than 25 books on the historical Jesus in the last 35 years, including The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant (1991), Excavating Jesus (with archaeologist Jonathan L. Reed in 2001) and In Search of Paul (2004), all published by Harper San Francisco.