Books in the Schweich Lectures on Biblical Archaeology series

This is a lively portrayal of the ways in which different ethnic, religious and linguistic communities co-existed and conflicted in the Roman Near East in the three centuries between the conversion of the Emperor Constantine to Christianity in 312 and the beginning of Muhammad's preaching in about 610.

Professor Yadin's 1970 Schweich Lectures first describe the history of Hazor as recorded in the Egyptian Execration Texts, the Mari archives, Egyptian New Kingdom documents, the Armarna Letters, and finally the Old Testament. They proceed to give an authoritative account of the various results achieved in the five seasons of excavation.

The broad perspective of the Mari documents, from prophecies to political intrigue, provides opportunities for comparative research into early Israel, the Bible and Biblical Hebrew. This volume attempts to utilize those possibilities to obtain a new perspective on early Israelite times.

The origins and development of the Church in Egypt remain one of the vexed problems of early Christian history. Dr C. H. Roberts examines the evidence of the Christian papyri discovered in Egypt to see what light they cast on the problems, and how far they support statements in our ancient authorities or the theories of modern scholars.

These lectures investigate the numerous miniature baked clay images from Canaan, Israel and Judah (c. 1600-600 BC). They constitute vital evidence for the imagery and domestic rituals of ordinary people, but significantly are not explicitly mentioned in the Old Testament.

From the Biblical record it is clear that the principal occupants of Palestine at the time of the advent of the Israelites were the Amorites and the Canaanites. Who were these two peoples? Excavations have shown that towards the end of the third millennium nomadic groups disrupted the urban civilization of the Early Bronze Age in Palestine. Delivered in 1963, these lectures describe these groups and show that they can be linked with the Amurru of Syria. They are thus the ancestors of the Biblical Amorites.

Delivered in 1946, these lectures discuss the use of textual criticisms in the attempt to recover the original text of Paul's Epistles. In particular, there is a detailed analysis of the manuscript P46.

The story of the Exodus has been one of the most vexing historico-Biblical problems to confront scholars. The fundamental chronological problems are of the utmost complexity, yet they materially affect the view that is taken of Israel's religious development. Delivered in 1948, these lectures consider the Biblical traditions, the surviving extra-Biblical texts, and the archaeological evidence.

In his Schweich Lectures delivered at the British Academy in 1972, Father Couasnon describes the history of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, in detail, revealing the fresh discoveries which have enabled the site to be planned with a modern authority.

In the first of his three Schweich lectures (delivered in 1976), Professor Gurney traces the historical development of the Hittite pantheon; while in his second and third lectures, he selects some aspects of Hittite religion which can be compared with ancient Hebrew and Canaanite institutions.

This examination of the reign of Nebuchadrezzar II of Babylon (605-562 BC) includes revised interpretations of the "Babylonian Chronicles" for his reign, especially for the years of the campaigns against the West and the capture of Jerusalem.