Cities of the Bible

Dr. Robert R. Cargill is the Roger A. Hornsby Associate Professor in the Classics at the University of Iowa where he teaches courses in Hebrew Bible, Second Temple Judaism, biblical archaeology, and biblical languages including Hebrew and Aramaic. He joined Iowa in 2011 after receiving his PhD in 2008 from UCLA’s Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures. He has published Melchizedek, King of Sodom: How Scribes Invented the Biblical Priest-King (Oxford University Press, 2019) and a popular volume, The Cities That Built the Bible (HarperOne, 2016), which was subsequently released in paperback in multiple foreign languages, along with articles in peer-reviewed journals ranging from Aramaic Studies to Near Eastern Archaeology. He has excavated at the sites of Banias, Omrit, Haẓor, and Tel Azekah (all in Israel). An expert in contemporary media and public-facing scholarship, he a veteran of the television and documentary film industry, where he has been active for over 20 years including hosting Nat Geo’s “Writing the Dead Sea Scrolls,” appearing and consulting on CNN’s “Finding Jesus” and “Jerusalem: City of Faith and Fury,” History Channel’s “Bible Secrets Revealed,” “Jesus: His Life,” “Colosseum,” and “Ancient Empires,” FoxNation’s “Jesus: Crown of Thorns,” and Netflix’s “Mysteries of the Faith.” He is a regular contributor on “History’s Greatest Mysteries with Lawrence Fishburne,” “The UnXplained with William Shatner,” “Mysteries Unearthed with Danny Trejo,” and “Holy Marvels with Dennis Quaid,” all of which appear on History Channel. He is the Co-Founder and Editor of public facing Bible & Archaeology YouTube media project at Iowa, which is an educational platform that informs the public, recruits students to the department, markets the University of Iowa brand, develops undergraduate and graduate student public scholarship abilities, and offers job training in digital media and content creation to Iowa students.