Jennifer Wright Knust is an associate professor of New Testament and Christian origins at the school of theology at Boston University. She is the author of Abandoned to Lust: Sexual Slander and Ancient Christianity.

The Bible and Interpretation is a scholar-based and moderated website that provides a roundup of articles, commentary and other resources on the latest issues in biblical archaeology. The site is maintained by Mark Elliott of Laramie County Community College in Cheyenne, Wyo., with the sponsorship of a number of other institutions.

The Catholic Biblical Association is a leading organization of biblical scholars, numbering more than 1,200 around the world. The Rev. Joseph Jensen is executive secretary of the CBA, which was founded in 1936 and is based at Catholic University of America.

The Society of Biblical Literature was founded in 1880 and is the pre-eminent academic organization for promoting biblical scholarship. The society has an annual meeting (usually in conjunction with the American Academy of Religion), and its website offers a range of valuable resources.

ASOR, or the American Schools of Oriental Research, is an association founded in 1900 and dedicated to promoting archaeology in the Near East and a better public understanding of the field. ASOR is overseen by some of the top archaeologists in the field.

Hershel Shanks is the founder of the Biblical Archaeology Society, based in Washington, D.C., and editor of the society’s publication, the Biblical Archaeology Review. Shanks and the BAR are alternately praised and pilloried for efforts to “popularize” biblical archaeology. They were a driving force behind efforts to promote the so-called James ossuary in 2003.

Eric M. Meyers is the Bernice and Morton Lerner Professor of Judaic Studies at Duke University in Durham, N.C., and a widely published author on biblical archaeology.

Jodi Magness is a professor of religious studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an expert in the archaeology of early Judaism, especially the excavations at Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls.

The Rev. Daniel Harrington is a Jesuit priest and a prominent biblical scholar at Boston College in Chestnut Hill, Mass.