At first blush, Price seems like an unlikely candidate to head excavations amid one of the bitterest land disputes in the modern world. Though he never actually received a degree in archaeology, he built a global network around his brand of Near East biblical scholarship with an apocalyptic bent. He has written extensively for the website RaptureReady.com, given lectures suggesting that Iran is fulfilling the role of Antichrist, and has openly called for the United States to declare war on Islam.

Price says his own work underwrites Israeli precedence in some Palestinian land. "Despite the fact that Qumran is probably on the map as the Palestinians', the fact is we're unearthing ancient Jewish heritage," he said. "There's nothing here that speaks to any other people."

Price's politics are unlikely to disrupt his access to the Qumran plateau, however. Located in the West Bank, permits to excavate around Qumran are not issued by the Palestinian Authority, but rather by Israel's Civil Administration. It's a bizarre arrangement, which critics say allows Israeli officials and religious pseudo-scientists to cooperate in raiding cultural treasures.

Archaeology in the West Bank--specifically, who has the right to dig, interpret, and store artifacts--is a wedge issue that ties into broader struggles over resource control in the occupied territory. "Are we trying to be nationalist?" Price said. "In this conflict of religious ideas that affect the political situation, you have to take a side somewhere."

The notion that the modern state of Israel exists within a prophetic framework is one example of how religion and archaeology are injected into the politics of the region. In fact, they are historically inseparable.

Biblical archeology began as a largely evangelical academic movement about 200 years ago. Its most influential advocate, an American scholar named William Albright, spent the early 20th century building what became known as the Albrightian Consensus, the convention that archaeology provides physical evidence for the Old Testament--which, conversely, can be used as historical source material in planning and conducting digs.

Initial "proofs" included burned rubble near Jericho, which was attributed to the dramatic story in the Book of Joshua in which the Israelites brought down the city's walls using trumpets. Though Albright's movement was ultimately discredited, it continues to influence new generations of religious scholars who, as one popular adage goes, "hold the Bible in one hand and a spade in the other."

Backed by church funding, today's biblical archaeologists are often under pressure to deliver distinctly biblical discoveries. "There's so much riding on that," said Raphael Greenberg, a prominent Israeli archaeologist and a public critic of the biblical approach. "People feel like if they can't turn out that information, it defeats their national aspirations or their religious beliefs," he said.