In this episode, Avraham Burg sits down with Dr. Katja Soennecken, Assistant Professor of Biblical Archaeology at the Luxembourg School of Religion & Society and Deputy Director of the German Protestant Institute for Ancient Studies of the Holy Land in Jerusalem, who has been part of numerous excavations across the Holy Land. Together, they explore the question of “what is biblical archaeology” and how much is it affected by modern political and religious motivations. Dr. Soennecken highlights the academic independence of the field of archaeology, even with an ideologically charged climate which often seeks to utilize archaeology for its own ends. Soennecken also addresses the complicated question of the history of Jerusalem and what that does and does not mean for modern identity politics.