Lecture Programmes
Hyperlinks below are to lecture summaries. Past lecture summaries can be found elsewhere
London
Unless stated otherwise lectures commence at 6.00pm and are held in the Stevenson Lecture Theatre, Clore Education Centre at the British Museum . Members and non-members are welcome, there is no charge and no ticket is required. Telephone inquiries: 0208 349 5754
Monday, 18th January 2010
Dr. Nigel Tallis (British Museum)
A CREAKING DOOR LASTS LONGEST: THE BALAWAT GATES OF ASHURNASIRPAL
(Richard Barnett Memorial Lecture)
Monday, 15th February 2010
Prof. Bezalel Porten (Hebrew University Jerusalem
THE JOY OF STUDYING ARAMAIC OSTRACA
Thursday, 18th March 2010
Prof. Piotr Bienkowski (University of Manchester)
THE FIRST NABATAEAN PALACE IN PETRA
(jointly with Palestine Exploration Fund)
Monday, 10th May 2010
PROFESSOR HUGH WILLIAMSON (Oxford University)
THE BIBLE AND ARCHAEOLOGY - WHERE ARE WE NOW?
TUESDAY 1st JUNE 2010 at 6.00 p.m.
PROFESSOR GERSHON GALIL (University of Haifa)
THE KHIRBET QEIYAFA INSCRIPTION AND THE KINGDOM OF DAVID AND SOLOMON
JOINTLY WITH KING'S COLLEGE, LONDON
(A response will be given by Professor Alan Millard (Liverpool University)
At King's College London, Edmond J Safra Lecture Theatre Ground Floor, Strand Building, London WC2R 2LS
Monday, 14th June 2010 at 6.00 p.m.
Dr Douglas Baird (University of Liverpool)The Nature of Neolithic Religions in the Near East
(AGM lecture: AGM commences at 5.30 p.m.)
Manchester
These lectures are held with the support and collaboration of the Centre for Jewish Studies, University of Manchester; the Centre for Biblical Studies, University of Manchester and Joe Dwek CBE.
For further information or to indicate your wish to attend please contact:
Dr Adrian Curtis, Religions and Theology, University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PL (phone 0161 275 3606; e-mail: adrian.curtis@man.ac.uk)
Thursday 13th May 2010
Professor John Healey (University of Manchester)
Everyday life in Aramaic Documents and Inscriptions: from Elephantine to Edessa
LECTURE COMMENCES AT 7.00 p.m.
(Light refreshments from 6.30 p.m.)
Room A113
All welcome - Admission free
Arguments continue to rage about the proper association of archaeology with Biblical studies. Some continue to believe that archaeology should be used mainly as a handmaiden to Biblical history, supporting the written text and illustrating it where appropriate. Others take the completely opposite view and think that the history of Israel should be written exclusively on the basis of archaeology (this being first-hand evidence) and the Biblical account can then be seen to be largely erroneous and should be corrected accordingly. And of course, many others sit somewhere between one or other of these extremes. This lecture will be a very personal take on this dispute, drawing on the lecturer's experiences of excavation at Lachish and Jezreel while being professionally a teacher of the Hebrew Bible. He will suggest that the current debate has important issues of method to raise about the proper approach to ancient history but that both sides are guilty of misrepresenting one aspect of the topic or another; archaeology and textual study can be better viewed as complementary rather than as exclusive undertakings. Hugh Williamson, who has been the chairman of our Society for twenty years, has been the Regius Professor of Hebrew at Oxford University since 1992. Before that, he studied and taught in Cambridge. While his main expertise is in the history of the literature of the Hebrew Bible he has always taken an active interest in the archaeology of Israel and its value for historical research. He excavated for four seasons at Lachish and for five at Jezreel, while administratively he has been much involved over the years with the Palestine Exploration Fund and the British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem (now the Kenyon Institute under the wider auspices of the Council for British Research in the Levant). His principal publications have been on the books of Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah and Isaiah.