ABSTRACT
Throughout the practice of archaeology in the southern Levant during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the Bible and the geographical areas now known as Israel, The Palestinian Territories and Jordan have been almost inseparable in the consciousness of the West. This connection has been present in western thought for centuries. For many people in the West, the thought of the southern Levant conjured up images of shepherds and olive trees, of dusty hills and donkeys, of Jerusalem as it existed at the time of King David or Bethlehem at the time of Jesus. It was a land without history, its people and places frozen in a biblical time frame. As Edward Robinson, professor at Union Theological Seminary in New York, wrote during his visit to Jerusalem at Easter in 1838:
We counted it no loss [missing the events of Holy Week] … for the object of our visit was the city itself, in relation to its ancient renown and religious associations, not as seen in its present state of decay and superstitious and fraudful degradation. (Robinson 1977: 329 [orig. 1841])
