Real People of the Bible - What Archaeology Tells Us About David and more than 50 Other Biblical Characters

press release: Lawrence Mykytiuk is Associate Professor of Library Science and has a courtesy appointment as Associate Professor of History at Purdue University. He holds a Ph.D. in Hebrew and Semitic Studies from the University of Wisconsin and is the author of the book Identifying Biblical Persons in Northwest Semitic Inscriptions of 1200–539 B.C.E. (Society of Biblical Literature, 2004) and a related article, “Corrections and Updates . . .” in Maarav (2009).

Professor Mykytiuk's 2014 Biblical Archaeology Review article, Archaeology Confirms 50 Real People in the Bible, pushed the list to even more figures from the Hebrew Bible who have been confirmed archaeologically through his careful analysis. But that wasn't the end of it. "All told," he reports, "counting both published and unpublished results, I find 55 people in the Hebrew Bible and 30 in the New Testament whose historical existence stands documented in writings from their times."