Zarathustra (also given as Zoroaster, Zartosht, Zarathustra Spitama, l. c. 1500-1000 BCE) was the Persian priest-turned-prophet who founded the religion of Zoroastrianism (also given as Mazdayasna “devotion to Mazda”), the first monotheistic religion in the world. He was a priest of the Early Iranian Religion who received a vision from Ahura Mazda – the chief deity of that faith's... [...]

Each spring I am somewhere in the eastern Mediterranean, leading a BAS group that's visiting archaeological and biblical sites. But with the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, all such tours have been canceled through much of 2020. One of my favorite itineraries follows the footsteps of Paul in Turkey. We begin in the southeast at Antakya, ancient Antioch on the Orontes, and end on the northwest Aegean coast at Alexandria Troas. It [...]

The Spanish Armada was a fleet of 132 ships assembled by King Philip II of Spain (r. 1556-1598 CE) in order to invade England in 1588 CE, his ‘Enterprise of England'. The Royal Navy of Elizabeth I of England (r. 1558-1603 CE) met the Armada in the English Channel and, thanks to superior manoeuvrability, better firepower, and bad weather, the Spanish were defeated. The remains of the... [...]

AN INCREDIBLE FIND. In December 1928, a work crew from kibbutz Beth Alpha was digging a drainage channel when mosaic pieces began to appear in their shovel loads.

Ein Harod is a spring that rises in the valley of Jezreel at the foot of Mt. Gilboa. Gideon gathered his men there to sort out the good soldiers from the bad ones (Judges 7). From the pool, the spring makes its weary and meandering way east [...]

Omar Khayyam (also given as Umar Khayyam, l. 1048-1131 CE) was a Persian polymath, astronomer, mathematician, and philosopher but is best known in the West as a poet, the author of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. The Rubaiyat was translated and published in 1859 CE by the English poet Edward Fitzgerald (l. 1809-1883 CE) and would become one of the most popular, oft-quoted, and frequently anthologized... [...]