EDITOR'S DESK

Faith, wrote the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, "is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Yet the stories of the three great monotheistic religions--Judaism, Christianity and Islam--unfolded in real time, in real places, and there is much evidence about ancient civilizations buried in the sand and soil of the Middle East. For centuries archeologists have traveled there in search of clues about the lost worlds of Abraham, Jesus and Muhammad, wondering: Are the different faiths' canonical texts really accurate? What did the hanging gardens of Babylon look like? Was there actually a King David? How, exactly, was Jesus crucified?

There will always be tension between sacred history and temporal history; for most believers, the "truth" of scripture is a given, whatever archeologists may say. Still, the quest to learn what we can about the milieu that formed so many faiths is fascinating--and becoming ever more difficult. As Melinda Liu and Christopher Dickey report, looting and the wages of war are destroying many of the 10,000 sites of interest in Iraq, the center of Mesopotamian culture. The country created by the British after Versailles is, among other things, purportedly home to the Garden of Eden and to Abraham's birthplace at Ur. The ransacking of so many archeological sites may well cost us the chance to shed light on antiquity--an intellectual and scientific disaster. Farther to the west, Jerry Adler and Anne Underwood explain, the intifada is cutting into the number of digs in Israel, limiting crucial research. Edited by Lisa Miller, the package takes us inside the world of Biblical archeologists--a subculture of religious funding, exotic claims and tantalizing possibilities.

From Athens to New York, our Olympics team did heroic work to bring us compelling images and fresh reporting in print and online. George Hackett edited the coverage, with Mark Starr, Devin Gordon, Bret Begun and T. Trent Gegax getting the stories on the ground; Kelli Reed Grant, Amy Pereira-Frears, Dave Black and Rick Rickman produced fantastic photos; and Al Pryzbylkowski, our man for all Olympic seasons, kept our operation together in Greece.

Looking ahead, check out our Fall Arts Preview, edited by Jeff Giles and David Gates, for our critics' best bets in movies, books, TV and music. We may need as much diversion as we can get as this ever-dirtier presidential campaign grinds on through the autumn.