The history of archaeology is generally told as the making of a secular discipline. In nineteenth-century Britain, however, archaeology was enmeshed with questions of biblical authority and so with religious as well as narrowly scholarly concerns. In unearthing the cities of the Eastern Mediterranean, travellers, archaeologists and their popularisers transformed thinking on the truth of Christianity and its place in modern cities. This happened at a time when anxieties over the unprecedented rate of urbanisation in Britain coincided with critical challenges to biblical truth. In this context, cities from Jerusalem to Rome became contested models for the adaptation of Christianity to modern urban life. Using sites from across the biblical world, this book evokes the appeal of the ancient city to diverse groups of British Protestants in their arguments with one another and with their secular and Catholic rivals about the vitality of their faith in urban Britain.

A popular introduction to archaeology and the methods archaeologists use to reconstruct the history of ancient Israel.

The incredible discoveries at Qumran are unveiled in this compelling volume by one of the world's foremost experts on biblical archaeology and the ancient Qumran community. Drawing on the best of current research and a thorough knowledge of all the Dead Sea Scrolls, Hartmut Stegemann analyzes the purpose of the Qumran settlement, paints a picture of how daily life was carried on there, explores the relation of the Qumran community to John the Baptist, to Jesus, and to early Christianity, and uncovers the true nature of the Qumran writings, which continue to have a profound impact on biblical studies today

For many people it is clear: the actions and beliefs of Ancient Israel are described in the Bible. The stories about its peoples and kings, struggles and wars, deities and shrines, are supposed to have been told and retold throughout the ages and recorded in ancient archives. At a certain moment in time these stories have been assembled in the Bible which becomes history. However, from the 19th century at least, scholars have doubted the historical reliability of many biblical stories, and archaeological research has hardly been able to confirm their historicity. The aim of this book is to describe the often-complicated relationship between archaeology and the Bible. It is not a book on `biblical archaeology', and archaeology is not used to illustrate the biblical stories, let alone to prove that the Bible is right. On the contrary, it focuses on the information that archaeology can provide of the lives and beliefs of the ancient peoples that inhabited the land in which the Bible was written, and on the question of how this information relates to the biblical stories. It aims at providing some examples of how this interplay of archaeology and biblical stories works, and how to interpret the discrepancy that may exist between the results of archaeological research and the biblical narrative. It thus offers an introduction into the field from the standpoint of an archaeologist. The book is intended for the general public, and will also be of interest to biblical scholars, historians and teachers, as well as archaeologists in other fields. It differs from the average non-scholarly book on this subject in that it is more personal, more eclectic, more archaeological. Reviews of the Dutch edition praise the passionate style and the way it focuses on the scientific process of researching problems, instead of on finding answers and presenting the solution.

This new fourth edition of the Oxford Bible Atlas, now with twenty-seven full-color maps and eighty-one color illustrations, has been thoroughly revised to bring it up to date with both the most recent biblical scholarship and the most modern discoveries in archaeology and topography.
This authoritative Atlas illuminates the landscape of the biblical world, allowing readers to better understand the geographical context in which the Bible emerged and which formed its background. The colorful, highly accurate maps capture the many ancient locales of the Bible's stories and carefully reflect the successive stages of the Bible's accounts, while specially chosen full-color illustrations bring the countries and their peoples to life. The Atlas covers everything from Genesis to the stories of David and Solomon, the trade routes of the ancient world, the vast empires of Alexander the Great and Rome, and the ministry of Jesus and the formation of the early Church. The accompanying text describes the land of Palestine, and its wider ancient Near Eastern and east Mediterranean settings. It outlines the successive historical periods, and describes the major civilizations with which Israelites, Jews, and early Christians came into contact. There is also an illustrated survey of the relevance of archaeology for the study of the Bible. Finally, the book includes a full chronology, suggestions for further reading, an index of place names, and a general index.
An essential resource for all students of the Bible, the Atlas provides a superb guide to the geography of the Holy Land throughout history, from the Exodus to New Testament times.

Esther is the most visual book of the Hebrew Bible and was largely crafted in the Fourth Century BCE by an author who was clearly au fait with the rarefied world of the Achaemenid court. It therefore provides an unusual melange of information which can enlighten scholars of Ancient Iranian Studies whilst offering Biblical scholars access into the Persian world from which the text emerged. In this book, Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones unlocks the text of Esther by reading it against the rich iconographic world of ancient Persia and of the Near East. Ancient Persia and the Book of Esther is a cultural and iconographic exploration of an important, but often undervalued, biblical book, and Llewellyn-Jones presents the book of Esther as a rich source for the study of life and thought in the Persian Empire. The author reveals answers to important questions, such as the role of the King's courtiers in influencing policy, the way concubines at court were recruited, the structure of the harem in shifting the power of royal women, the function of feasting and drinking in the articulation of courtly power, and the meaning of gift-giving and patronage at the Achaemenid court.

Blumell and Wayment present a thorough compendium of all published papyri, parchments, and patristic sources that relate to Christianity at Oxyrhynchus before the fifth century CE. Christian Oxyrhynchus provides new and expanded editions of Christian literary and documentary texts that include updated readings, English translationsaasome of which represent the first English translation of a textaaand comprehensive notes. The volume features New Testament texts carefully collated against other textual witnesses and a succinct introduction for each Oxyrhynchus text that provides information about the date of the papyrus, its unique characteristics, and textual variants. Documentary texts are grouped both by genre and date, giving readers access to the Decian Libelli , references to Christians in third- and fourth-century texts, and letters written by Christians. A compelling resource for researchers, teachers, and students, Christian Oxyrhynchus enables broad access to these crucial primary documents beyond specialists in papyrology, Greek, Latin, and Coptic.

Thebestselling Tabernacle pamphlet brings to life the Old Testament teaching on the Tabernacle in the Wilderness of Sinai, the place where God promised to dwell among his people. The full-color, glossy pamphlet features a cutaway illustration that provides an inside look at the Tabernacle. The artist's illustration indicates more than 15 important features of the Tabernacle, such as the Ark of the Covenant, the High Priest, and the Sacrifice, and how they related to our relationship with God today through Christ. Size: 8.5x 5.5, unfolds to 33 long. Fits inside most Bible covers. Compared to other Tabernacle study aids, The Tabernacle pamphlet is designed and written to be easy-to-understand and may be used for personal study or by a wide variety of groups. The Tabernacle is a tremendous teaching aid and an informative guide to teach on topics such as: What it was like to enter the Tabernacle The Pattern of Worship and the furnishings of the Tabernacle How the 12 Tribes of Israel camped around the Tabernacle in a specific order The Ark of the Covenant Old Testament Symbols of Jesus Aaron as High Priest and Jesus as the better High Priest The Tabernacle pamphlet illustration, created exclusively for Rose Publishing by renowned Bible artist Stan Stein, provides an amazing inside look at the Tabernacle and all its furnishings. But this visual teaching aid not only explains the Old Testament Tabernacle in detail, but also helps young and old alike understand the symbolic relationship between the Tabernacle and Jesus Christ.

FROM THE MULTI-MILLION-COPY BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF FINGERPRINTS OF THE GODS 'Nail-biting' SUNDAY EXPRESS 'An intellectual whodunit by a do-it-yourself sleuth' GUARDIAN ___________________________________ The greatest secret of the last 3000 years is about to be shattered. After nine years investigating the exact location of the ultimate religious icon, the Ark of the Covenant, British researcher and investigative journalist Graham Hancock reveals his status-quo shattering discoveries. Part mystery thriller, part true adventure and part travel book, this gripping piece of historical research challenges society's principal religious preconceptions and takes the reader on a rollercoaster ride through ancient history. ___________________________________ 'It should cause widespread discussion, and it deserves to' Daily Telegraph 'Eat your heart out, Harrison Ford' Gerald Seymour 'Highly readable' The Times 'Part travelogue, part sensation, part unravelling, a fascinating story.' Catholic Herald

Theban Tomb 188 is the sole archaeological site in the ancient Theban necropolis securely dated to the reign of the "heretic pharaoh" Akhenaten (1353-1336 BCE). The result of several years of clearance and recording by Dr. Susan Redford, director of the Akhenaten Temple Project's Theban Tomb Survey, this richly illustrated book provides a detailed description of the remaining wall scenes and texts of this historically important ancient monument. In the fourteenth century BCE, Pharaoh Akhenaten attempted to institute a radical religious reform and moved his capital city to Amarna. This book publishes important evidence related to the Amarna period in ancient Egypt, specifically the plans, reliefs, and inscriptions of Theban Tomb 188, belonging to Parennefer, the tutor and butler of the king. Dr. Redford's detailed archaeological study traces the rapid evolution of ideology, iconography, and iconoclasm, as revealed in Parennefer's tomb. The decoration kept pace with the momentous changes in the king's thinking, so that, when dovetailed with the pictorial evidence from the excavations of the great Gem-pa-aten temple at Karnak, it becomes possible to chronicle these rapid changes. This definitive study of the tomb of Parennefer will appeal to archaeologists, Egyptologists, historians of religion, and art historians working on the ancient Near East.

Cognitive Perspectives on Israelite Identity breaks new ground in the study of ethnic identity in the ancient world through the articulation of an explicitly cognitive perspective. In presenting a view of ethnicity as an epistemological rather than an ontological entity, this work seeks to correct the pronounced tendency towards 'analytical groupism' in the academic literature. Challenging what Pierre Bourdieu has called 'our primary inclination to think the world in a substantialist manner,' this study seeks to break with the vernacular categories and 'commonsense primordialisms' encoded within the Biblical texts, whilst at the same time accounting for their tenacious hold on our social and political imagination. It is the recognition of the performative and reifying potential of these categories of ethno-political practice that disqualifies their appropriation as categories of social analysis.

Since their discovery in 1947, the Dead Sea Scrolls have become an icon in popular culture that transcends their status as ancient Jewish manuscripts. Everyone has heard of the Scrolls, but amidst the conspiracies, the politics, and the sensational claims, it can be difficult to separate the myths from the reality. In this Very Short introductions, Timothy Lim discusses the cultural significance of the finds, and the religious, political and legal controversies during the seventy years of study since the discovery. He also looks at the contribution the Scrolls have made to our understanding of the Old Testament or Hebrew Bible, and the origins of early Christianity. Exploring the most recent scholarly discussions on the archaeology of Khirbet Qumran, and the study of the biblical texts, the canon, and the history of the Second Temple Period, he considers what the scrolls reveal about sectarianism in early Judaism. Was the archaeological site of Qumran a centre of monastic life, a fortress, a villa, or a pottery factory? Why were some of their biblical texts so different from the ones that we read today? Did they have 'a Bible'? Who were the Essenes and why did they think that humanity is to be divided between 'the sons of light' and those in darkness? And, finally, do the Scrolls reflect the teachings of the earliest followers of Jesus? ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

This volume presents a batch of incisive new essays on the relationship between Roman imperial power and ideology and Christian and Jewish life and thought within the empire. Employing diverse methodologies that include historical criticism, rhetorical criticism, postcolonial criticism, and social historical studies, the contributors offer fresh perspectives on a question that is crucial for our understanding not only of the late Roman Empire, but also of the growth and change of Christianity and Judaism in the imperial period.

How do we understand religious spaces? What is their role or function within specific religious traditions or with respect to religious experience? This handbook brings together thirty-three essays addressing these questions using a range of methods and approaches to examine specific spaces or types of spaces around the world and across time. The authors here represent and draw upon many disciplines: religious studies and religion, anthropology, archaeology, architectural history and architecture, cultural and religious history, sociology, geography, gender and women's studies and others. Their essays are snapshots, each offering a specific way to think about the religious space(s) under consideration: Roman shrines, Jewish synagogues, Christian churches, Muslim and Catholic shrines, indigenous spaces in Central America and East Africa, cemeteries, memorials, and more. Some overarching principles emerge from these snapshots. The authors demonstrate that religious spaces are simultaneously individual and collective, personal and social; that they are influenced by culture, tradition, and immediate circumstances; and that they participate in various relationships of power. These essays demonstrate that religious spaces do not simply provide a convenient background for religious action but are also constituent of religious meaning and religious experience; they play an active role in creating, expressing, broadcasting, maintaining, and transforming religious meanings and religious experiences. By learning how religious spaces function, readers of this collection will gain a deeper understanding of religious life and religions themselves.

In The Destruction of Sodom, the Biblical account of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah is examined under the spotlight of modern science against a cultural backdrop of history and archaeology. In this scientific reconstruction, the account of events described in the book of Genesis is verified and it is established that the destruction occurred at about 2350 BC as a result of an earthquake-induced landslide transporting Sodom to the depths of the Dead Sea. Strands of geography, geology, and engineering science are drawn together to provide comprehensive treatment of all relevant scientific aspects pertinent to a rational understanding of the mechanics of the disaster. The detailed scientific argument follows a discussion of the Genesis account and considerations of Canaanite culture and commerce, with specific attention to the trade in bitumen. On this point, Graham Harris provides evidence that the mainstay of Canaanite commerce was the exploitation of the bitumen resources of the Dead Sea, that the Sodomites were among the world's first chemical engineers, and from the resources of the region a large number of processed materials also would have been exported to Egypt. The Destruction of Sodom is an example of the application of science to a fuller understanding of one of the most intriguing events of the Old Testament, and will be of direct interest to scholars as well as to the wider public.

Reise in den Orient (1846) is the German biblical scholar Constantin von Tischendorf's recollection of his journey to Egypt, Israel and Greece at the beginning of the 1840s. The work is a travel diary that vividly describes Tischendorf's meeting with mythological places and impressive men, and a learned account of the Christian history of the area. Volume 1 describes his encounter with Ibrahim Pasha and the humanism of Mehmet Ali. Tischendorf undertakes research in the Library of the Patriarch of Alexandria and visits the pyramids, only to compare them with one of the great German cathedrals. At the Monastery of Saint Catherine on Mount Sinai, Tischendorf makes an extraordinary and significant discovery - a fourth-century manuscript, one of the main witnesses to the Septuagint. Thereafter he sets off for Jerusalem and en route takes delight in the fascinating and ancient traditions of the Bedouins, and their camels.

Reise in den Orient (1846) is the German biblical scholar Constantin von Tischendorf's recollection of his journey to Egypt, Israel and Greece at the beginning of the 1840s. The work is a travel diary that vividly describes Tischendorf's meeting with mythological places and impressive men, and a learned account of the Christian history of the area. Volume 2 of this work largely focuses on Tischendorf's time in Israel. He writes about Jesus' crucifixion and Golgotha's significance, and gives an historical account of Jerusalem as the centre of all religions. He pays particular attention to the Anglican Diocese of Jerusalem, which leads him to explain the differences between German and English Protestantism. On his return journey, he is enraptured by Smyrna and Constantinople, and enjoys visiting the Athenian Acropolis and the other ruins of the ancient city.

In this book, Philip Zhakevich examines the technology of writing as it existed in the southern Levant during the Iron Age II period, after the alphabetic writing system had fully taken root in the region. Using the Hebrew Bible as its corpus and focusing on a set of Hebrew terms that designated writing surfaces and instruments, this study synthesizes the semantic data of the Bible with the archeological and art-historical evidence for writing in ancient Israel. The bulk of this work comprises an in-depth lexicographical analysis of Biblical Hebrew terms related to Israel's writing technology. Employing comparative Semitics, lexical semantics, and archaeology, Zhakevich provides a thorough analysis of the origins of the relevant terms; their use in the biblical text, Ben Sira, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and ancient Hebrew inscriptions; and their translation in the Septuagint and other ancient versions. The final chapter evaluates Israel's writing practices in light of those of the ancient world, concluding that Israel's most common form of writing (i.e., writing with ink on ostraca and papyrus) is Egyptian in origin and was introduced into Canaan during the New Kingdom. Comprehensive and original in its scope, Scribal Tools in Ancient Israel is a landmark contribution to our knowledge of scribes and scribal practices in ancient Israel. Students and scholars interested in language and literacy in the first-millennium Levant in particular will profit from this volume.

There was probably only one past, but there are many different histories. As mental representations of narrow segments of the past, 'histories' reflect different cultural contexts and different historians, although 'history' is a scientific enterprise whenever it processes representative data using rational and controllable methods to work out hypotheses that can be falsified by empirical evidence. A History of Biblical Israel combines experience gained through decades of teaching biblical exegesis and courses on the history of ancient Israel, and of on-going involvement in biblical archaeology. 'Biblical Israel' is understood as a narrative produced primarily in the province of Yehud to forge the collective memory of the elite that operated the temple of Jerusalem under the auspices of the Achaemenid imperial apparatus. The notion of 'Biblical Israel' provides the necessary hindsight to narrate the fate of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah as the pre-history of 'Biblical Israel', since the archives of these kingdoms were only mined in the Persian era to produce the grand biblical narrative.The volume covers the history of 'Biblical Israel' through its fragmentation in the Hellenistic and Roman periods until 136 CE, when four Roman legions crushed the revolt of Simeon Bar-Kosiba.

This volume is a collection of paper by colleagues, friends and students, in honor of Jeffrey Chadwick. The papers cover the various topic that he has dealt with in his career, including biblical historical geography, and the archaeology and history of the Levant and its environs during the Bronze and Iron Ages, and the Second Temple Period. Following a preface and introduction about the honoree, the volume is divided into 4 sections: Biblical Historical Geography; Bronze Age Canaan and its Neighbors; Iron Age Israel and its Neighbors; Second Temple Israel.

Islam is the only biblical religion that still practices animal sacrifice. Indeed, every year more than a million animals are shipped to Mecca from all over the world to be slaughtered during the Muslim Hajj. This multi-disciplinary volume is the first to examine the physical foundations of this practice and the significance of the ritual. Brannon Wheeler uses both textual analysis and various types of material evidence to gain insight into the role of animal sacrifice in Islam. He provides a 'thick description' of the elaborate camel sacrifice performed by Muhammad, which serves as the model for future Hajj sacrifices. Wheeler integrates biblical and classical Arabic sources with evidence from zooarchaeology and the rock art of ancient Arabia to gain insight into an event that reportedly occurred 1400 years ago. His book encourages a more nuanced and expansive conception of "sacrifice" in the history of religion.