Digging Up Masada #14 Along the western shore of the Dead Sea, amid the vast and unforgiving wilderness of Judea, we find a precipitous plateau, isolated by millions of years of erosion that turned it into an impregnable fortress. The Hebrew word for “fortress” is Masada, by which it is still called to this day. Its greatest claim to fame derives from events that transpired at the end of the Great Revolt against Rome, when for three brave years (70-73 C.E.), the freedom fighters on this ancient Gibraltar managed to hold off 10,000 Roman troops armed with every contemporary siege weapon. The story is immortal, the remains incredible!

Digging Up Jesus #13 Let’s have a look at some things you might not know about how archaeology weighs in on the historical Jesus, whose real name in Hebrew was Yeshua… Just think. If Indiana Jones could search for the Holy Grail, what do you suppose we can come up with? From Bethlehem to Nazareth to Jerusalem, we’ve got it all covered…

Digging Up Herod #12  When we consider the archaeological sites across Israel today, none are more impressive than the remains of ancient structures built by King Herod the Great. With the aid of his Roman allies, Herod conquered the land of Israel, including Jerusalem, and established himself as king in the year 37 B.C.E. Herod has been described as a manic depressive, paranoid schizophrenic, with aggressive tendencies. In his manic state he built some of the grandest structures on earth in his day. What can we learn by digging them up?

Digging Up Qumran (Episode 11) During the early 1950s the riddle of the Dead Sea Scrolls takes a new turn. Father Roland de Vaux, under the supervision of the Jordanian government, organizes a major excavation of the site of Khirbet Qumran. As the diggers meticulously remove the rubble, an entire ancient settlement begins to appear. The amazing thing is that, even after two long millennia, the Dead Sea Scrolls and the legacy they convey still belong to everybody. And with the tools of archaeology at our disposal, everybody may one day know a great deal more about who lived in this barren wilderness known today as Khirbet Qumran. Dr. Kenneth Hanson, http://drkenhanson.com/

Digging Up the Dead Sea Scrolls (Episode 10) ) The world changes -- silently and without fanfare -- on a particular summer day in 1947. A goat belonging to a Bedouin flock wanders off among the multiple caves that dot the desert hillsides. Young Muhammed Adh-Dhib is a Bedouin lad, responsible for tending these goats, and it should come as no surprise that he becomes more than a little agitated over the fate of this lost animal. He runs off to search among the rocky crags of the Judean wilderness. This is only the beginning of an incredible saga of discovery that will bring to light what may well be the most important archaeological find of the 20th century – the Dead Sea Scrolls. Dr. Kenneth Hanson, http://drkenhanson.com/

Digging Up Beit She'an (Episode 9) It's time to shine a spotlight on one of the most important sites in all of biblical archaeology. It's the Galilean city of Beit She’an, which had important strategic value across multiple historical epochs. This ancient and classical hellenistic city fell into a long slumber, which only the spade of the archaeologists has in the last century awakened once more. There is no single site that spans so many centuries and so many cultures, weighing in so profoundly on what we know about the land of Israel in ancient times. Dr. Kenneth Hanson, http://drkenhanson.

Digging Up the Two Kingdoms (Episode 8) One of the most famous of all biblical sites, Megiddo, features prominently in the battle for Solomon, for if Solomon where everything he was made out to be, we would expect to find important traces of his kingdom at this ancient city. But while traditionalists insist that we have such evidence, our minimalist friends beg to differ. In this episode we encounter multiple issues of this sort, such as two tiny silver scrolls bearing the priestly benediction. We also find more evidence in the city of Jerusalem, including King Hezekiah's famous water tunnel. The archaeological plot thickens!Dr. Kenneth Hanson, http://drkenhanson.com/

Digging Up Solomon (Episode 7) We might go as far as to say that the real history of Israel as a kingdom begins not with King Saul or even King David (the extent of whose kingdom is still very much in debate), but with Solomon, who (for better or for worse) solidified what had been a tribal confederacy into a true monarchy. As with David, the natural place to look for archaeological evidence of Solomon is Jerusalem. Yet, religious restrictions have made digging in the most promising areas effectively off limits. The challenges are endless, as we continue digging for the truth!.Dr. Kenneth Hanson, http://drkenhanson.com/

Digging Up David (Episode 6) Israel's first great king, whose praises are chanted in the streets of the holy city even to this day, is also the focus of another conflict, this one between competing scholarly camps in the ever changing field of biblical archaeology. As we look for evidence of King David, we need to take a look at “underground Jerusalem,” where the only light is artificial, but the controversies (both scholarly and political) are all too real. That’s because Jerusalem is today as it has always been, a focal point of geopolitics. From the days in which David first conquered it, Jerusalem has been attacked 52 times, captured and recaptured 44 times, besieged 23 times, and destroyed twice. Ironically, we’d be hard-pressed to find any place on earth more prone to violence and bloodshed than this “City of Peace.” The fact that that subterranean archaeology is on the front line in today's conflict is but a new wrinkle in the ongoing battle for David...Dr. Kenneth Hanson, http://drkenhanson.com/

Digging Up the Judges (Episode 5) As Late Bronze Age culture collapsed, culturally inferior settlements arose in place of the earlier ones. That's just what we would expect to find if semi-nomadic tribes were in the process of settling down, and it seems rather consistent with the biblical conquest narrative and subsequent period of the Israelite settlement. Yet, when it comes to the period of the biblical Judges, we find two competing camps, minimalists and traditionalists, each with serious points to make. Throw into the mix the inevitable bias and cultural baggage with which each investigator is inevitably saddled and the debate becomes very volatile indeed. Will a new generation of archaeologists, spade in hand, someday discover, once and for all, what really went down so long ago? Dr. Kenneth Hanson, http://drkenhanson.com/