A colleague posted this notice to me and since it's not far, I thought I'd
let y'all know about it:
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NASHVILLE, TENN.  Haim Goldfus of Ben Gurion University in Israel
will be presenting a lecture and slide show demonstrating the ways
political agendas in Israel have influenced the archeological
accounts of the 2000-year-old mountain fortress Masada.

        "The Uses and Abuses of Archeology: The Case of Masada"

will be presented in Room 126, Wilson Hall, April 18, from 5:30-6:30 p.m.

Contemporary political and religious agendas are frequently supported by
biased academic scholarship, said Shai Cherry, Mellon assistant professor
of Jewish Thought at Vanderbilt. Dr. Goldfus uses Masada as a case study
in how suspect accounts of ancient battles between the Jews and Romans are
being used to justify modern actions in the Middle East.

Goldfus teaches in the Department of Bible and Ancient Near Eastern
Studies at Ben Gurion University. He completed a Ph.D. in art and
archeology at Princeton and is the author of Tombs and burials in Churches
and Monasteries of Byzantine Art and Palestine (324-628 A.D.) Masada, a
mountain fortress built by King Herod, was the scene of a lengthy battle
between Jews and Romans in the first century B.C.

This free public event and the reception following are sponsored by the
Jewish Studies Committee, Robert Penn Warren Center for the Humanities,
Department of Archeology and the Graduate Department of Religion at
Vanderbilt. -VU-

David Glasgow
VU News Service
322-2706







Dr. Yigal Levin
Dept. of Philosophy and Religion
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
615 McCallie Avenue
Chattanooga TN 37403-2598
U.S.A.