For 2,000 years or more, the Bible and its precepts have shaped world culture and civilization, whether Judeo-Christian or not. The Bible is a touchstone of religious belief, literary accomplishment, morality, and history unlike any other. Biblical interpretations have changed over the millennia, but the past 100 years have witnessed some of the most important transformations in our perspective, and no recent influence has been greater than archaeology.

In the mid-20th century, the unearthing of the Dead Sea Scrolls—to cite just one of many modern finds—deepened our understanding of the Biblical world, its peoples, and their beliefs. Since then, new evidence has appeared—the Tel Dan