Almost every issue opens with an angry letter from some Christian or another canceling his/her subscription for publishing an article that presents evidence rather than doctrine or describes pagan beliefs (or contains a photo of a female excavation volunteer dressed in a straw hat, shorts and a halter top).

Academic battles among the "minimalists", "literalists" and everyone in between can rage on for months, in both the form of articles and letters, and some of them can get pretty mean spirited.

And BAR is often fiercely attacked by the hard core "politically correct" of academic archeology for publishing information on artifacts that are "without provenance", in other words not excavated by a qualified archeologist, and by the hard nosed former general who runs the Israel Antiquities establishment.

In addition there's the publisher's often frustrated hopes of finding some solid archeological evidence of the historical Jesus which adds a little extra entertainment.