ABSTRACT
There are probably more controversies, debates, and excavation reports written about this small region than any other comparable area of the world. The Levant, the coastal region that stretches from modern Syria to the border of modern Egypt (Figure 17.1), is the homeland to two of the five major world religions of today: Judaism and Christianity. The wealth of archaeological sites in the region, and the detailed descriptions of places, people, and events reported in sacred texts, have produced innumerable debates about the origins of these two religions. Some textual and excavated data mesh nicely, providing a firm basis for understanding the events that shaped the people and their religions; more often, the two do not match, or there is no archaeological evidence available at all. It is at these junctures that scholarly debate about how to understand the development of the religions, and the major figures in them, ensues.
