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Dr. Robert R. Cargill is Roger A. Hornsby Associate Professor in the Classics at The University of Iowa. He teaches ancient Judaism, biblical archaeology, and early Christianity.
He was born in Los Angeles, California to Leonard and Sharon Cargill (née Costales) on February 22, 1973 (Pisces, Ox). He is of Spanish/Basque descent on his mother's side, and Italian on his father's side, with the Cargill name being of Scottish origin. His family soon relocated to Madera, a small town in central California that he called home for 15 years. Dr. Cargill has experienced every level of public education in California: elementary, junior high, and high school, graduating from Bullard High School in 1991. He turned down undergraduate admission offers to attend UC Berkeley, USC, and Pepperdine, choosing instead to attend local community college. By working the graveyard shift at a local Walgreens, he put himself through Fresno City College, where he earned his A.A. degree and won a state championship in 1992 as a catcher with the baseball team. He then transferred to California State University, Fresno, where he followed a premedical curriculum and earned a B.S. degree in Human Physiology.
Dr. Cargill then accepted the J.P. Sanders Scholarship to attend Pepperdine University, where he earned a Master of Science degree in Ministry and his seminary degree, the Master of Divinity. While studying biblical studies at Pepperdine, he began studying archaeology and ancient southwest Asian cultures. He then accepted a fellowship to attend UCLA, and earned an M.A. in Ancient Near Eastern Civilizations and his Ph.D. under Dr. William Schniedewind in the UCLA Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, with an emphasis in Second Temple period archaeology and biblical studies. His dissertation work focused on the archaeological remains of Qumran, the site associated with the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Prior to coming to Iowa, Dr. Cargill taught at Pepperdine University, Azusa Pacific University, Portland State University, and UCLA. He teaches courses on the Dead Sea Scrolls, the History of Jerusalem, and a course comparing the evolution of the Mythologies of Otherworld Journeys in various religions. He teaches popular online courses including Cities of the Bible and Ancient Origins of Religious Conflict, along with courses in Biblical Hebrew, Aramaic, and biblical studies.
Dr Cargill's first book, Qumran through (Real) Time: A Virtual Reconstruction of Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls (Gorgias Press, 2009), was one of the early attempts to incorporate virtual reality and other digital technologies to examine the settlement of Qumran (the site associated with the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls) and to produce a virtual digital archaeological reconstruction of Qumran to support his hybrid occupation theory of the site.
His second book, The Cities that Built the Bible (HarperOne, 2016), was a popular book that "blends archaeology, biblical history, and personal journey as he explores these cities and their role in the creation of the Bible." It was awarded the 2017 Illumination Book Awards Gold Medal in the Bible Study category. It has been published in hardcover and paperback, and has been translated into Chinese, Simplified Chinese, and Japanese.
His third book, Melchizedek, King of Sodom: How Scribes Invented the Biblical Priest-King (Oxford University Press, 2019), explores the biblical figure of Melchizedek and claims that the text of Genesis 14:18 originally names Melchizedek as the king of Sodom, not Shalem. It contends that Shalem was not an early name of Jerusalem, but was only associated with Jerusalem much later during the Second Temple period.
Robert Cargill is an established public scholar who has appeared as an expert on over three dozen television shows and documentaries airing on CNN, History, Discovery, NatGeo, and other networks. Among them, he hosted the 2010 National Geographic special, Writing the Dead Sea Scrolls. In 2013, Dr. Cargill served as the Consulting Producer and appeared in the History series, Bible Secrets Revealed. In 2017, he appeared on season 2 of CNN's Finding Jesus: Faith, Fact, Forgery. In 2019 he served as consultant and contributor for History's Jesus: His Life. In 2021, he served as a consultant and appeared in CNN's Jerusalem: City of Faith & Fury.
On Jan. 1, 2018, Dr. Cargill was named Editor of Biblical Archaeology Review, after having served as Associate Editor for much of 2017. He served as editor until January 2021, when he launched a new University of Iowa online publication entitled Bible & Archaeology, where he serves as Editor.
Dr. Cargill was married to his partner, Roslyn, on March 20, 2010. He has a daughter, Talitha; a son, MacLaren; fraternal twins-a son, Quincy; and a daughter, Rory Kate; and a son, Judah. He resides in Iowa City, IA. He is a member of American Mensa and spends much of his spare time YouTubing, camping, reading, and building things in the yard.
