Free lunches and other biblical myths

Today, I attended a one-day symposium about Mediterranean archaeology of the Late Bronze and Iron Ages. These periods are very important in biblical archaeology, a subject I try not to get involved in. My own research subjects lived in the Early Bronze Age, a period that took place one to two thousand years before today's topic. In fact, in Israel you are one of three cuts of archaeologist: prehistoric, biblical or classical. If I had to align myself with one of these, I'd pick prehistoric, only because I deal with a pre-biblical era of history. But I've asked around, and even though the Early Bronze Age long pre-dates even the earliest purported dates for Abraham, I am unfortunately classed as a biblical archaeologist.
So, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to learn about my subject and hear from some of the most famous biblical archaeologists working today. Biblical archaeologists of the past such as Robinson, Albright, Mazar, Aharoni, Avi-Yonah, and Yadin are famous for their contributions to building the modern mythology of Israel (though Yadin may be better known as the Chief of Staff of the IDF just after the 1948 war). Some of the current scholars of biblical archaeology try to continue in the footsteps of their famous predecessors by attempting to confirm descriptions found in the biblical texts. But today's symposium showed me that many of today's biblical archaeologists are not even interested in addressing biblical aspects of their sites and of the materials they excavate. Today's group included important professors from Israel as well as a few from Austria, Germany, Turkey and USA. I skipped out on a few, like those with the names Isiah and Jeremiah in the titles. But of those that I saw, I heard about Hyksos period Egypt and Minoan influences at a site in the Delta, the Uluburun shipwreck and microscopic evidence for the origin of its cargo, and the origins of Phillisitine writing. So if this cross-section represents what biblical archaeology is all about these days, it has come a long way from simply connecting modern ruins with biblical place names. Oh, and I got a free lunch out of it.