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Dear BAS Library Member,
The history of ancient Israel is filled with dramatic tales of battle and war, from the stories of the Israelite conquest of Canaan in the Book of Joshua to the detailed account of Rome’s sacking of Jerusalem preserved in the histories of Josephus. These epic stories remind us that ancient history was typically a bloody affair, decided on the battlefield more often than not.
In the August 2011 issue of The BAS Library Explorer, we highlight articles that expose the realities of ancient warfare as revealed through archaeological, Biblical and historical evidence. Included are discussions of the ancient siege techniques used by armies from Mesopotamia to Rome, and the Biblical evidence for early espionage. Another article explores the strategic importance of the town of Megiddo in ancient history and the Book of Revelation. As a BAS Library Member, you will receive The BAS Library Explorer covering a new topic each month. We hope you enjoy this monthly guide to the vast array of material available in the BAS Library.
 Before delving into these selections about the realities of ancient warfare, I'd like to announce this month's members-only merchandise special, a substantial discount on the popular DVD lecture set The Jerusalem of Jesus & Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls. This 4-DVD set is available to BAS Library Members only for $89.95 during August 2011 (original price: $149.95). Members, log in and click on Member Offers in the blue menu bar to order this engaging lecture set at this incredibly low price. And remember, BAS Library members can also take 10% off any regularly priced merchandise at the BAS Store, any time. Just log in to the BAS Library to see the monthly members discount code.
In Under Siege!, Paul Bentley Kern discusses siege warfare, the most arduous and terrifying form of war in the ancient and Biblical worlds. For the attacked, defeat threatened not only their warriors but their women and children. For the attackers, a siege meant long weeks in a filthy camp, short rations and backbreaking labor under extremely hazardous conditions. Massacre, enslavement and rape often followed a siege—as starved, angry troops sacked the city in a wild, bloody frenzy.
But, as the late Ehud Netzer wrote in The Last Days and Hours at Masada, there were ways of successfully defending against a siege, at least for awhile. Jewish Zealots occupied the mountaintop fortress of Masada at the start of the First Jewish Revolt in 66 C.E. and held the site throughout the war and became the last outpost of resistance to the Romans after the fall of Jerusalem in 70 C.E. As Netzer explains, the Zealots were able to survive Rome’s repeated siege attempts for several years by concentrating their defensive efforts at the point where the Roman army had built its siege ramp and battering ram.
 The Bible is full of spy stories. Then as now, the Holy Land was a place of warring peoples, powerful states and rebellious factions, and these political conflicts made intelligence-gathering a necessity. In Spy Tales, military historian Col. Rose Mary Sheldon shows that, although the technology has changed over the past three millennia, the type of intelligence needed by military leaders was the same in Biblical times as today.
 Sons of Light
By John Merrill
Sons of Light is a sweeping saga of the Jewish struggle for freedom from the Roman Empire. The debut novel by John Merrill is a significant new look at the early years of the Zealot movement, led by Judas the Galilean and others, which culminated in the massacre at Masada. Merrill brings to life some of the first century’s greatest heroes and villains from Judas himself, to Herod the Great, Augustus Caesar, Hillel and John the Baptist. Their lives are intertwined with those of several well-drawn fictional characters as well as a number of familiar Biblical figures.
Sons of Light (The Harrow Press, 2004), Hardcover, 456 pages, $24.95
Finally, in Why Megiddo?, author Eric H. Cline explains why John, when composing the Book of Revelation in the late first century C.E., would have considered the ancient city of Megiddo in northern Israel to be a logical site for a dramatic end-time confrontation between the forces of good and evil. Not only has Megiddo been the scene of countless bloody conflicts over the centuries, but in John’s day the site was indelibly associated with the fall of the House of David. By routing the forces aligned with the Antichrist at Armageddon, the Messiah will restore the Davidic line and will establish a new kingdom of God on earth.
But don’t stop reading after these articles! There are countless other articles in the BAS Library ready to engage and fascinate you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The powerful and easy-to-use search features can guide you even further through every article we have published in the past 35 years (6,000 and counting). Every photograph, more than 18,500 of them, is also fully viewable—along with the captions, of course.
 The monthly video lecture for August is The Archaeology of “Jewish Christianity” by James Strange. James Strange, a frequent lecturer for BAS, is Professor of Religious Studies and Director of Graduate Studies at the University of South Florida. He has served both as Chairperson of Religious Studies (1990-93) and as Dean of the College of Arts and Letters (1981-89). He earned a B.A. in Philosophy from Rice University in 1959, an M.Div. from Yale Divinity School in 1964, and a PhD. in New Testament Studies from Drew University in 1970. He was Montgomery Fellow at the W.F. Abright Institute for Archaelogical Research in Jerusalem in 1970-71 and NEH fellow at the same Institute in 1980.
I hope you’ve had a chance to try some of the new features and sections that have been added to the BAS Library recently. Our new BAR Notables section takes you directly to every one of our articles footnoted in the current issue of BAR. We hope you’ll jump right in and find even more to fascinate and engage you online. You’ll find it front and center on the BAS Library homepage, and also as an item in the tan menu bar at top. Also, there is now an Image Search function in the blue Search box found in the right-hand column of every page. Additionally, the Topic and Author Search has been made easier to use. Simply type a topic or author into these fields, and a drop-down list of suggested topics and authors will appear.
Whether it’s to research a paper, to prepare a sermon, to deepen your understanding of scripture or history, or simply to marvel at the complexity of the Bible—the most important book in history—the BAS Library is an invaluable tool that cannot be matched anywhere else. I promise, you won’t be disappointed by the wealth of material you’ll find there.
Sincerely,
Sara Murphy, Web Editor
Biblical Archaeology Society
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