The latest issue of Biblical Archaeology Review (BAR) arrived in my mailbox at the end of last week and it is now time to write my traditional In the BAR post.

There were several items in this issue that caught my eye.

The first item was in the Milestones section and an article about the passing of Vassilios Tzaferis who was a Biblical archaeologist from Greece. He was involved in excavations at Jerusalem, Tel Dan, Banias, Capernaum and Beth Shean which are all places I have visited. He was also at Ashkelon and other places in Israel.

He is most famous for discovering a skeleton at Giv’at Ha-Mivtar. The skeleton was of crucified man and it still had a nail in the ankle. I took the picture above at the Israel Museum when I visited there. See: Unfolding History

The item on display is not the original, so this is just a picture of a copy. However, the picture in BAR of the original looks very much the same except it is in a different position. I took a picture of it because it was very interesting to me, I didn’t know that I would find a reason to post it someday.

Next I saw a nice article about Synagogues: Before and After the Roman Destruction of the Temple by Rachel Hachlili.

This reminded me of my visit to Capernaum and seeing the ruins of a synagogue there. The picture above shows remains of a building that may be the synagogue where Jesus taught.

See Galilee Sea and Daily Bible Reading for more information about the synagogues in Capernaum.

Another feature article is A Short History of the Dead Sea Scrolls and What They Tell Us by Lawrence H. Schiffman. There was also an article about the Dead Sea Scrolls in the last issue, see my post In the BAR IX to see what I wrote about Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls.

In the previous post I shared several more pictures from Qumran. The picture above was also used in my post Well Below Sea Level. This picture shows one of the caves where the scrolls were found.

In the Reviews section there was a good review of Biblical Lachish: A Tale of Construction, Destruction, Excavation and Restoration by David Ussishkin. The review is titled Murder, Mayhem and Resolve in Biblical Lachish and is by Larry G. Herr. After reading the review I am even more excited about digging at Lachish this summer.

See Research Reading II for more information about the book and Lachish at the Museum for more about Lachish.

I hope that you enjoyed my thoughts about the contents of this issue of BAR.

Steven

Here are the previous In the BAR posts:

In the BAR

In the BAR II

In the BAR III

In the BAR IV

In the BAR V

In the BAR VI

In the BAR VII

In the BAR VIII

In the BAR IX