yosef garfinkel

By: Hershel Shanks

In BAR, Hershel Shanks examines a recent article published by archaeologist Amihai Mazar. Mazar contends that while the Biblical narratives were written hundreds of years after the reigns of Saul, David and Solomon, they “retain memories of reality.”

By: Biblical Archaeology Society Staff

Building and furnishing the Herodian Temple involved more than stone quarrying and laying, but the stones and foundations of Herod’s Temple can give us clues to Temple Mount history.

By: Nathan Steinmeyer

Despite King David’s prominence in the Hebrew Bible, little archaeological evidence has been directly linked to the early years of the Kingdom of Judah. As a result, some scholars have argued that Judah only became a developed polity in the ninth or even eighth century B.C.E. A 2021 study, however, seeks to refute this idea based on the findings of an extensive regional archaeological project in the Judean foothills, the very region where the Bible says David’s kingdom was born.

By: Biblical Archaeology Society Staff

In a BAR article, epigraphy scholar Christopher Rollston asks a seemingly straightforward question: What is the oldest Hebrew inscription?

By: Robin Ngo

Alan Millard examines the Proto-Canaanite script of the earliest alphabetic text ever found in Jerusalem. What can it tell us about literacy during the time of David and Solomon?

By: Megan Sauter

In the Bible, the inner shrine of Solomon’s Temple is described as having five mezuzot. What are they? The question has puzzled Biblical scholars for centuries. Does a recently discovered shrine model from Khirbet Qeiyafa hold the answer?

By: BAS Staff

The black basalt ruins of the Iron Age temple discovered at ’Ain Dara in northern Syria offer the closest known parallel to the Temple of King Solomon in the Bible.

By: Nathan Steinmeyer

According to a study in the Jerusalem Journal of Archaeology, evidence of royal architecture might prove the existence of the biblical kingdom of David and Solomon. […]

By: Shua Kisilevitz, Ido Koch, Oded Lipschits, and David S. Vanderhooft

In the most recent issue of BAR, Yosef Garfinkel claimed that an anthropomorphic (human-shaped) clay head from Khirbet Qeiyafa, two similar clay heads and two […]

By: Megan Sauter

What does God look like? In the Bible, the Israelites are charged to not create any idol—whether of a deity or living thing. This prohibition, […]