Eliott, I was trying to be helpful to someone who was obviously lacking in knowledge about the discipline of historical archaeology. You must be a lay person or undergraduate. Biblical archaeology uses textual data, as does Greek, Roman, Chinese, etc. archaeology. But that does not make it into that discipline normally called historical archaeology. I suggest you attend a Society for Historical Archaeology meeting or read its journal, Historical Archaeology, before you shoot off your mouth about something you know so little. Furthermore, if you will note, I sent you the message privately, to save you the embarassment of having my message posted to the HISTARCH list. I suggest you take an ethics course on revealing private correspondence to the public. What I said in that message was meant for you alone, but if you choose to tell hundreds of people how ignorant you are about historical archaeology that is your business. Biblical archaeology posts belong elsewhere, on ARCH-L perhaps, and on other lists. But not on HISTARCH. It is a waste of band width. William H. Adams