BiblePlaces Blog

Seven Wonders of Israel

Seven wonders of Israel were selected last year in an online vote sponsored by an Israeli television station. Stas Misezhnikov, the Israeli Minister of Tourism, declared the following winners according to the number of votes received:

1. Baha’i Gardens, Haifa

2. Dead Sea

3. Western Wall, Jerusalem

4. Masada

5. Coral Reef, Eilat

6. Stalactites Cave, Judean Hills

7. Caesarea

One obvious omission from this list are large erosional craters (machteshim) in southern Israel. I would also vote for the Sea of Galilee, surely a wonder in a land with limited fresh water supplies.

Machtesh Ramon from west (source)

Tagged Dead Sea, Tourism

Weekend Roundup

Archaeologists excavating at Magdala have discovered a sword from the Roman period.

Two ancient synagogues in Israel were vandalized in the last week: Hammat Tiberias and Naaran (near Jericho).

The judge in the James Ossuary forgery case gave the prosecution a month to justify their desire to confiscate dozens of objects from the collection of Oded Golan.

Joe Yudin describes the aliyah (“going up”) to Jerusalem from Israel’s international airport.

Though housed in a single building, the traditional tomb of David and the Upper Room don’t seem to have much in common. Wayne Stiles disagrees.

Mark Wilson has crossed a Pauline site off of his “bucket list” with his recent visit to Antipatris. We might note that the new Pictorial Library of Bible Lands has photos of every site that Paul is recorded as having visited, with one exception.

HT: Paleojudaica

Vandalism of Hammat Tiberias synagogue.
Photo by Moti Dolev/National Parks Authority.

Tagged Discoveries, Galilee, Weekend Roundup

Ferrell Jenkins on the New Pictorial Library

Ferrell Jenkins has warm words for the new edition of the Pictorial Library of Bible Lands, suggesting that “every church should have a set of this material for the teachers to use in their teaching.” He knows from his own experience what is involved in creating a collection such as this:

Would you prefer to make your own photos? Try buying a good digital SLR camera starting at about $1500, flying to Israel (not to mention Lebanon, Egypt, Turkey, Greece, the Greek Islands, Italy, et al.), renting a car for a few weeks, buying the gas. Oh, and don’t forget to hire a private plane for a few hours so you can get some good aerial photos. That might cost at least $389. And what if the lighting conditions were not right for a good photos the day you were at a site? What if you don’t have time to get your photos organized and write a description of each one? Need I go on to make a point? Did I mention that living and teaching in Israel for a decade helps?
Every church should have a set of this material for the teachers to use in their teaching. Over the years I have found that some short-sighted groups (churches) will not make such an expenditure. The other choice is to buy the set for yourself.
I hear several lessons a week, and every one of them could be improved by the use of photos from this wonderful collection.

Thank you, Ferrell! And we thank all the others who have written us privately to express their appreciation. You can read the rest of Ferrell’s review here.

One of the first planes we hired for aerial photos of Jerusalem.

Tagged Photo Resources

The Recovered Gezer Boundary Inscription

Eric Mitchell and Jason Zan have written an article for the Baptist Press about their success this season in discovering a new Gezer boundary inscription and recovering one lost for more than 100 years. The article includes a photo of the recovered inscription (#4), and promises a full report in a journal in due course.

This lost boundary inscription was discovered in 1881 by Charles Clermont-Ganneau and his description of the episode helps to explain why scholars failed to locate it in the last century. From Archaeological Researches in Palestine 2:232:

In 1881, seven years after this incident, I had occasion to return to Palestine, and resumed, on my own account, the exploration of the neighbourhood of Gezer, which had been so unduly broken off. I had been persuaded all along that some more inscriptions must be in existence, similar to those I had discovered, marking out the boundary of the town towards the north-west. I started searching in this quarter, with the help of the fellahin, as on the previous occasion; it was not long before my labours were crowned with success, for about two or three hundred yards to the northwest of the first inscription I discovered some large characters, absolutely similar to the former, and cut into the face of a rounded rocky platform with almost perpendicular sides.
I have no record of these characters, but a rough sketch hurriedly made in my note book. I meant to go back and take a squeeze of them, fix the exact position of the inscription, and pursue my investigations on the spot; but, unfortunately, I was suddenly recalled to France, and was unable to carry out this intention. I regret this, for I am convinced that there still remains quite a series of these texts to be collected round about Gezer, I am certain that a search of this kind would not be unfruitful, and recommend it to future Palestine explorers.

As of this month, 13 boundary inscriptions have been found near Gezer, but I have to ask, did no other cities have similar markers?

Clermont-Ganneau’s sketch of “Inscription D”

Tagged Discoveries, Shephelah

Interview at BibleX

Over at the BibleX blog, Charles Savelle has interviewed me about the new photo collection and its value for those teaching the Bible. He asks:

1. How does understanding the geography and archaeology of the Holy Lands contribute to the practice of Bible exposition?

2. You have just released a revised and expanded edition of the Pictorial Library of Bible Lands (PLBL). How have you used pictures like those in the PLBL in your own teaching and preaching ministry?

3. The Pictorial Library of Bible Lands contains more than 17,500 images. Do you have any suggestions for relatively new Bible teachers on how best to use these images without getting overwhelmed?

4. How can a Bible teacher be more effective by using the Pictorial Library of Bible Lands?

The full interview is here.

01-18-Pictorial-Library-Complete-Collection-front

Pictorial Library of Bible Lands, Revised and Expanded edition, released earlier this month

Tagged Photo Resources

Judge Proposes Destruction of James Ossuary and Jehoash Inscription

From the Jerusalem Post:

A Jerusalem judge will announce on Wednesday whether he has decided to order the destruction of a burial box that could have held the bones of the brother of Jesus and an inscribed tablet that could have come from the First Temple.
At a Jerusalem District Court hearing in April, Judge Aharon Farkash said he might exercise “the judgement of Solomon” and order both items to be destroyed.

It’s hard to believe that the judge was being serious, especially since he has concluded that the artifacts may be authentic. Advocates on both sides of the forgery debate are against destruction of the objects.

Andre Lemaire, the Sorbonne scholar who published the first analysis of the ossuary in 2002 and has stood by its authenticity, said its destruction would be “scandalous” and “a manipulation of historical evidence.”
“It would be necessary from a scientific point of view to start a new suit, on a real basis this time, for voluntary destruction of historical evidence and tentative manipulation of history,” Professor Lemaire told The Jerusalem Post.
Christopher Rollston, professor of Old Testament and Semitic Languages at Emmanuel Christian Seminary who appeared as a prosecution witness, said “it is never prudent to destroy antiquities, regardless of the controversy surrounding them.”
“I would certainly not wish to see the Ya’akov (“James”) Ossuary destroyed. Indeed, to destroy the ossuary would only fuel the controversy, effectively turning this ossuary into an archaeological martyr of sorts. I wish to see it returned to its legal owner,” he said.

The full article is here.

HT: Joseph Lauer

Tagged Forgery