(Post by Seth M. Rodriquez)

Jesus began one his parables by saying, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead.” (Luke 10:30, ESV.)  Thus began the well-known “Parable of the Good Samaritan.”  Although that particular route would have been well-known to Jesus’ hearers, most readers of the Bible today are not familiar with it.

Enter the Pictorial Library of the Bible Lands … One of the most admirable features of the PLBL is that it takes you to out-of-the-way places that you have never visited but always wished that you had.

Our picture of the week is from Volume 4 of the PLBL and shows us the remains of the Roman road that led from Jerusalem to Jericho in Jesus’ day.  Elsewhere in the Bible, this route is referred to as the Ascent of Adummim (Josh. 15:7; 18:17).

In the picture, the viewer is looking east toward the rugged hills of the Judean Wilderness that lie between Jerusalem and Jericho.  In the foreground the remains of the road can be seen stretching out before the feet of the photographer.  The small cliff to the right seems to be man-made and was probably cut to give more space for the road. Only the foundation of the road remains today.

The PowerPoint notes from the PLBL provide the following insights into this significant road (the links have been added to the notes for the benefit of our readers):

The “Ascent of Adummim” was the main route from Jericho to Jerusalem in antiquity. It followed a ridge located south of the Wadi Qilt and north of Nahal Og, and near Jerusalem was forced to cross the Nahal Og at a more passable location. Among the biblical events which likely occurred on this route were David’s flight from Absalom (2 Sam 15-16), Zedekiah’s flight from the Babylonians (2 Kgs 25:4), the story of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37), and Jesus’ travels from Jericho to Jerusalem (e.g., Luke 19:28).

How long does it take to walk from Jericho to Jerusalem? On one recent occasion, it took a group of hikers 8 hours to cover the distance of 15 miles (24 km), with an elevation gain of about 3,400 feet (1,060 m). Not counting breaks, we walked for six and a half hours. Had it been hotter or had we run into any difficulties, the journey would have taken longer.

Jesus traveled this route many times. He likely came this way most of the times that he journeyed to Jerusalem from Galilee, though we know of at least two occasions when he attempted to travel through Samaria (John 4; Luke 9:52-53). Scripture records at least two trips by way of Jericho, but he probably went this way dozens of times in his life. It’s a reasonable conclusion that Jesus’ parents had to climb back up this route to Jerusalem after realizing that their twelve-year-old son was not in their caravan (Luke 2:41-50). Parts of the Roman road are still visible in places, and the way today is safe and pleasant.

This picture and over 1,500 others are available in Volume 4 of the Pictorial Library of Bible Lands and is available here for $39 (with free shipping).  More photos and information about this region are available on the BiblePlaces website here.  For further discussion and images that illustrate the story of the Good Samaritan, see this page on LifeintheHolyLand.com.

(Post by Seth M. Rodriquez)

When you understand the age of archaeological remains in the Middle East, it is almost comical to visit “old” historic places in the United States.  For example, half an hour down the road from where I live is My Old Kentucky Home in Bardstown, Kentucky.  I visited the site last year with my family.

As you walk through the old house, which is filled with pictures and artifacts from the 19th century, it is amazing to think of how that building has been standing for 200 years.  And yet that statistic pales in comparison to another building I was able to walk through on my last trip to Israel.  The Late Bronze Palace at Hazor is about 3,400 years old!

Our picture of the week comes from Volume 1 of the Pictorial Library of Bible Lands and features one of the most impressive archaeological finds in Galilee.  A large, modern, freestanding roof covers the remains of the Late Bronze monumental building which was most likely constructed by the Canaanites in the early 14th century B.C.  The 1,300-square-meter roof was necessary to preserve the mud-brick walls that were found here preserved to a height of about 2 meters.  This building has been interpreted as a ceremonial palace by one excavator and as a temple by another.

Over the course of the current excavation project (which started in 1990) the whole building was excavated along with a large, paved courtyard in front of the building.  The courtyard contains a large altar that was built with ashlars in its first phase, and at a later phase was crudely expanded to the east.  (The altar can be seen in the foreground of the picture.)  The building is approached by a broad staircase with four steps; at the top, two massive pillars stood on either side.  Only the basalt bases of the pillars have survived, leading the excavators to suggest that the pillars were made of wood, like so many other features of the palace/temple.  Large, wooden pillars have been reconstructed and stand on the bases today.  The two pillars stood on the edge of a wide porch which was retained by a long row of basalt orthostats.  After passing the pillars, a visitor then crossed the porch to enter the building through the main doorway.  Similar to the porch, the walls of the building had a long row of basalt orthostats at their base, and the upper portions of the wall were made of mud-bricks inlaid with wooden beams to give greater stability (only the negative image of the wooden beams remains, but new beams have recently been placed in the walls as part of the restoration efforts).  The walls are almost 15 feet thick.

Once inside, the visitor was standing in a large room, 40 by 40 feet, that was lined with walls that had even more orthostats along their bases.  Amazingly, the floor of this room seems to have been made up of wooden beams: the artifacts inside this room were found below the level of the orthostats in a level of ash.  The ash was tested and found to be cedar of Lebanon.  This is the first wooden floor that has been discovered in any excavation in Israel and it illustrates the luxurious nature of this building and, by extension, the wealth in the city of Hazor in the Late Bronze period. This large room is interpreted as the throne room by one of the excavators and it is surrounded on three sides by smaller rooms.  The pattern of the building is similar to a palace that has been discovered at Alalakh, north of Ugarit.

In the 13th century B.C., the building was destroyed in an intense fire, over 2350° Fahrenheit, that partially melted the mud-brick walls and even cracked the basalt orthostats.  The intensity of the fire was due to the large amount of wood in the structure, the large quantities of olive oil that were being stored there, and probably the high winds that typically come at mid-day.  This was explained to me during a tour of the site by Amnon Ben-Tor who directed the excavations for many years.  Ben-Tor attributes the destruction to Joshua and the Israelites, but following an early date for the Exodus and the Conquest, I would propose that this destruction should be attributed to the Israelites during the time of Deborah and Barak (Judges 4).

So if you would like to take a tour through an “old” building, come visit the historic, 19th-century home here in Kentucky.  But if you want to redefine what you mean by “old” then I recommend you visit the Late Bronze palace at Hazor.

This photograph and over 1,100 others are available in Volume 1 of the Pictorial Library of Bible Lands and is available here for $39 (with free shipping).  Further images and information about Hazor, including external links to other sites, are available on the BiblePlaces website here.

Information about the ongoing excavation project at Hazor is available here.  Information about visiting the site is available here.