archaeological

archaeological Latest

1813 painting Vesuvius Erupting by Pierre-Henri de Valenciennes

Mar 22 Blog

The Destruction of Pompeii—God’s Revenge?

The eruption of Mt. Vesuvius destroyed the opulent vacation destinations of Roman elites in August 79 C.E.—almost exactly nine years after Roman troops destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem. Did this seem like more than mere coincidence to the ancients?

A stone relief created in 1958 by sculptor Ferdinand Heseding. The relief, which appears on a fountain in Dusseldorf, Germany, depicts the Biblical spies Joshua and Caleb carrying a cluster of grapes back from the Promised Land (Numbers 13:1-33)

Mar 20 Blog

No, No, Bad Dog: Dogs in the Bible

By: Ellen White

Dogs—or celeb in Hebrew—were not well loved in the Bible. Given the negative associations with dogs, it is surprising that one of the great Hebrew spies bears this name.

Mar 18 Blog

Herod the Great and the Herodian Family Tree

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.

Mar 16 Blog

How Bad Was Jezebel?

By: Janet Howe Gaines

For more than two thousand years, Jezebel has been saddled with a reputation as the bad girl of the Bible, the wickedest of women. But just how depraved was she?

Mar 15 Blog

Ancient Crucifixion Images

By: BAS Staff

Crucifixion images abound today—from sculptures and icons in churches to the masterful paintings hanging in museums. But how many of these actually give us a realistic idea of what Jesus’ crucifixion looked like? Do these artistic crucifixion images accurately reflect ancient Roman crucifixion methods?

Mar 11 Blog

Searching for Biblical Mt. Sinai

By: Robin Ngo

Where is Mt. Sinai? At a 2013 colloquium in Israel, an international group of scholars debated the question. At the center of the debate was Har Karkom, a mountain ridge in the Negev Desert that archaeologist Emmanuel Anati believes to be the Biblical Mt. Sinai.

Mar 4 Blog

King Hezekiah in the Bible: Royal Seal of Hezekiah Comes to Light

By: Robin Ngo

For the first time, the royal seal of King Hezekiah in the Bible has been found in an archaeological excavation.

Feb 27 Blog

The Aleppo Codex

By: Jennifer Drummond

The world’s oldest Hebrew Bible, the Aleppo Codex, is missing pages—and not just a couple leaves, but four of the Five Books of Moses! What happened to them?

Gospel of Ebbo, France, 9th, Saint Matthew, Evangelist

Feb 23 Blog

The Canonical Gospels

By: BAS Staff

BAS editors have hand-selected articles from the BAS Library that cast each of the canonical Gospels in a new light.

A rock-hewn altar carved out of limestone located about a mile from Shiloh. The four corners point to the four directions on a compass (Exodus 27:1-2). Photo: Yoel Elitzur

Feb 22 Blog

High Places, Altars and the Bamah

By: Ellen White

The open-air altar shrine, called a bamah (plural bamot), is known through several books of the Biblical canon. Often referred to as “high places” in translations of the Bible, bamot were worship sites that usually contained an altar.

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