April 4, 2008 - BiblePlaces.com

Golf Where Jesus Prayed

I’ve heard talk about a golf course planned on Arbel overlooking the Sea of Galilee for years, but this JPost article makes it sound like it’s getting closer to realization. (Interpreted for those unfamiliar with the Israeli system, that means that there are now less than 472,325 legal obstacles remaining.)

Here are a few numbers mentioned in the article:

2: Number of 18-hole golf courses in Galilee

150: Cost of the ultra-luxury resort (in millions of dollars)

8: Cost of water treatment plant already built (in millions of dollars)

The official website: www.israelbythesea.com

There will also is a golf course planned for Eilat, and JPost has a computer-generated image of what it might look like.

This blog post title is an allusion to the idea that Arbel may have been the mountain on which Jesus withdrew to pray (Matt 14:23; Mark 6:46; Luke 6:12). I should trademark it and trade it to the developers for one of the gazillion-dollar memberships.

Arbel and the Sea of Galilee from the west

Tagged Galilee, Not an April Fool's Joke

Book Released on Looting of Iraq

The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago has just published an 88-page book on the looting in Iraq in the aftermath of the war. From their website:

Catastrophe! The Looting and Destruction of Iraq’s Past
Edited by Geoff Emberling and Katharyn Hanson, 2008 With an introduction by Professor McGuire Gibson, this up-to-date account describes the state of the Iraq National Museum in Baghdad and chronicles the damage done to archaeological sites by illicit digging.

The book can be ordered for $30 or downloaded in pdf format for free. An exhibit of the same name opens at the Oriental Institute on April 10.

Tagged New Exhibits, Resources