Norma Franklin (“Lost Tombs of the Israelite Kings,”) is a researcher at the Tel Aviv University Institute of Archaeology and a founding member of the university’s Megiddo Expedition, where she plans to open a new excavation area in 2008. Her main field of interest is archaeology of the Iron Age II period in the northern kingdom of Israel.

Lisbeth S. Fried (“Why Did Joseph Shave?”) is a visiting scholar at the Frankel Center for Judaic Studies and the Department of Near Eastern Studies at the University of Michigan. She has published numerous works on the Persian empire and contributed to several journals and books.