BOLIVAR – Southwest Baptist University will open the special exhibit “Khirbet el-Maqatir – A Journey through Biblical History” with a biblical archaeology conference, featuring Dr. Scott Stripling, on Saturday, Feb. 24, on the Bolivar campus. Registration deadline is Feb. 21. To register email Dr. Bing Bayer at bbayer@SBUniv.edu. Cost is $10 and may be paid at the door.
The program will consist of two presentations and a tour by Stripling, provost of The Bible Seminary and recent director at the Khirbet el-Maqatir excavation. Registration for the conference begins at 8:30 a.m. with the first presentation – “The Problem of Ai: Solved After 40 years of Excavation in the West Bank” – to be held at 9 a.m. in the Jester Learning and Performance Center. “Mass Murder at Maqatir” will be the presentation at 10 a.m., followed by a tour of the exhibit at 11 a.m., led by Dr. Stripling. The second tour will begin at 11:40 a.m.
The exhibit will be on display through Dec. 8 in the Joyce Sells Heritage Center of the Harriet K. Hutchens Library and features about 50 artifacts from ancient Israel, Mesopotamia, Egypt and Syria. The exhibit will be open Mondays-Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., and will be closed on holidays and on March 17, March 24, and March 30.