SWBTS discontinues its archaeology program

ANOTHER CANCELLATION: Southwestern Ends Largest Evangelical Archaeology Program. Coronavirus interrupts excavation projects across Israel (Gordon Govier, Christianity Today).

The nation’s leading evangelical archaeology program is closing, partly in response to COVID-19. Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (SWBTS) will shut down its archaeology program in May, terminating five professors and discontinuing its degree program, which currently has more than 25 graduate students.

The decision came as “part of campus-wide budgetary reductions necessitated by the financial challenges associated with COVID-19,” according to a statement SWBTS sent to Christianity Today.

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That's a pity. The publication prospects for the SWBTS Gezer excavation are also now up in the air.

As the subheading indicates, excavations are halting all over Israel:

The end of SWBTS’s program will not be the only setback for biblical archaeology this year. Across Israel, excavation plans are being canceled or postponed in response to the spread of coronavirus.

The article goes on to discuss the situation of a number of prominent digs in Israel.

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