BiblePlaces Blog - Page 346 of 571

New Blog: Feet to Follow, Eyes to See

Many of the blogs related to Israel and biblical sites are focused on matters of academic or current interest. The purpose of David Lang’s new blog is to help the reader to connect facts to faith. Lang is the author of the Bible Lands PhotoGuide for Accordance Bible Software and he is currently writing a book, Feet to Follow, Eyes to See. He writes:

Ultimately, that’s my goal in writing this book. There are plenty of excellent books which offer facts about biblical backgrounds, but I want to bridge the gap between fact and faith. I don’t just want you to understand the Bible more clearly; I want you to hear God speaking to you through His Word.

His series “Dotwatch” helps readers to “connect the dots” for readers who live in a different time and place than biblical writers. In his most recent post in this series, he reflects on the difference between what his intense study of the land of Israel prepared him for and the reality he experienced on his first trip.

Even though my in depth study of all those photos gave me a good sense of what to expect, there was one thing those photos could not adequately give me: a proper sense of scale. There’s a difference between seeing a photo of the colonnaded street of Beth-Shan and actually standing at the foot of one of those massive columns. Even if the photo actually shows people standing next to those columns, so that your mind is able to conceive the difference in height, it is somehow not the same thing as actually being there. Getting a sense of scale from a photograph is a clinical kind of knowledge. It cannot convey the experiential knowledge of actually being dwarfed by something and feeling awe at its grandeur. Somehow, this second kind of knowledge is deeper and far more real. I suppose you could say it’s the difference between seeing in three dimensions rather than two.

I appreciate Lang’s insights and personal style. I look forward to following along with him on his journey.

Tagged Resources

Reports on Latest Excavations and Surveys in Israel

The latest issue of Hadashot Arkheologiyot: Excavations and Surveys in Israel has now been published online. Most of these excavations are salvage digs, conducted quickly in advance of a building project. The list of sites is impressive and includes:

Ashkelon
Bethlehem of Galilee
Caesarea
En Gedi
Omrit
Jerusalem: Sultan’s Pool, City of David, Via Dolorosa
Kafr Kanna (Cana?)
Kinneret: Path around the Sea of Galilee
Nein (Nain of Luke 7)
Ono
Tel Dor
Tel Qasile
Tel Rekhesh
Zippori (Sepphoris)

One report, however, is missing. Last week reader Roi Brit alerted me to the report on “Jerusalem, the Old City, Wilson’s Arch, and the Great Causeway.” This is now missing from the list and the link is defunct. One can still see, however, evidence of its existence in the list of “Recently Published” on the home page (just above the notice of “Copyright Legalicy” [!]). I can only speculate why the report was removed, but given the sensitivity of the area of Wilson’s Arch and the Great Causeway, it’s tempting to suppose that political considerations are involved. The Wayback Machine is not helpful this time.

Great Causeway near Western Wall of Temple Mount

Tagged Excavations, Jerusalem

Wednesday Roundup

Hezekiah’s Pool is now clean, for the first time in decades if not centuries. Tom Powers gives the report and includes many photos. He suggests that the workers found a paved or plastered floor.

(Background here.)

Biblical Archaeology Society has a ~~brand spanking~~ new blog that includes an RSS feed and welcomes readers with a new 140-page ebook entitled the “Ten Top Biblical Archaeology Discoveries.” The new site also allows readers (upon sign-in) to control which email subscriptions they receive. The blog is part of a complete re-design of the BAS website.

Olof Pedersén has posted his list of ANE Placemarks for Google Earth.

Foreign Policy has posted a photo essay entitled, “Once Upon a Time in Damascus.” More than a dozen photos from the American Colony/Eric Matson collection are featured.

The work of Gustaf Dalman is being celebrated in a program to be held at the Austrian Hospice in Jerusalem on August 18-19. I’ve been working on publishing a Dalman project myself but I will not be finished in time for the 70th anniversary of his death.

Restoration work is scheduled to be restarted at the Stepped Pyramid of Djoser (Zoser) at Saqqara (with photo). The article notes that already a second successor to Zahi Hawass is in office.

The Pantheon in Rome may have been built as a massive sundial.

In recent weeks, Wayne Stiles has visited En Gedi and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.

CBN News has a 30-second video of the tunnel where they discovered the Roman sword and etching of a menorah. Ynet News posts a two-minute video of the tunnel with English subtitles (to start you may need to click the smaller button on the right side of the screen).

HT: Charles Savelle, Joseph Lauer, Jack Sasson

Tagged Egypt, Italy, Jerusalem, Syria, Weekend Roundup

Hyraxes a Nuisance in Israel

What some people view as cute critters are becoming a troublesome pest to others. Hyraxes, also known as rock badgers or coneys, are mentioned in Leviticus 11:5, Deuteronomy 14:7, Psalm 104:18, and Proverbs 30:26. A BBC report describes how these relatives of the elephant and aardvark are leaving the crags and entering villages.

“A lot of people in the west haven’t heard of the hyrax, but it’s very common in the Middle East,” lead researcher Arik Kershenbaum told BBC Nature.
“It’s even mentioned in the Bible as one of the main inhabitants of the land.”
But, as Mr Kershenbaum explained, around Galilee the animals are no longer behaving in a “biblical way” – making their homes in the rocky hills and cliffs of the countryside.
“They’re coming into the villages and eating everything they can find,” said Mr Kershenbaum.
[…]
“It turns out that it’s the piles of boulders [created by clearing sites for building] that attract the hyraxes,” said Mr Kershenbaum.
They make their homes in the underground caverns and crevices created by these man-made rubble piles.
[…]
But early research indicates that simply filling in the boulder piles would drive hyraxes out of the villages and back to the cliffs, just as it says in the Bible.

For more information about the hyrax, see the Anchor Bible Dictionary 6:1143.

HT: The Land and the Book

The high mountains belong to the wild goats; the crags are a refuge for the coneys (Ps 104:18).

Summer 2011 at Tel Zayit

Tel Zayit is a small site in the Shephelah of Judah best known for the 10th-century abecedary discovered in 2005. Tel Zayit is 5 miles (8 km) south of Gath (Tell es-Safi), 6 miles (9 km) southwest of Azekah, and 4.5 miles (7 km) north of Lachish. The excavator, Ron Tappy, has suggested that Tel Zayit is biblical Libnah, though for that identification Zayit is competing with Tel Burna (pdf), only 2.5 miles (4 km) to the east.

Gordon Franz joined the Tel Zayit team this summer and he has posted some of his personal reflections and experiences on his blog.

There were no spectacular small finds at Tel Zayit this summer. The most important discovery, however, was a clearer understanding of the stratigraphy of the site. In K-20 it was the newly discovered Persian period level as well as another phase of the Roman period. In O-19 all indications point to the abecedary being clearly dated to the 10th century BC. If this date is correct, it would demonstrate that Israelites living in this out-of-the-way city were literate and, therefore, not a bunch of hillbillies living in some little cow town!

I’ve heard that the team will not be in the field next summer, but you may want to consider joining as a volunteer in 2013.

Important sites in Shephelah. Source: Google Earth. For other images with marked routes, see Chris McKinny’s blog.

Tagged Excavations, Shephelah

Tourism in the Middle East in 2011

Tourism in the Middle East this year is up and down, depending upon the country and the month.

Best bets: Israel, Jordan, and Egypt. From the Jerusalem Post:

Travel to the Middle East this year was supposed to reach record highs, but the Arab Spring sent the numbers tumbling, as the violence and turmoil kept many away. But there are signs of recovery in Egypt and in Israel, even as tourism continues to drop in Syria, Lebanon and the Palestinian areas.
Egypt’s Tourism Ministry has announced special discounts for Ramadan (Muslim holy month) visitors, particularly targeting the Gulf states. Egyptian Finance Minister Hazem El-Beblawi told Reuters that the Egyptian government forecast revenues from tourism would total $10 billion in the financial year that began on July 1, compared with $11.6 billion in 2009/10.
El-Beblawi said the tourism minister told him “occupancy in Sharm A-Sheikh and other places on the Red Sea was systemically and constantly recovering. If this trend continues, by the end of the year we will reach the normal level.”
According to the UN’s World Tourism Organization, which monitors tourism trends, recovery has already been seen through statistics showing that Egypt suffered an 80% drop in tourism in February at the height of the anti-regime protests, but that by May it had halved to 41% less.
[…]
Syria and Lebanon, on the other hand, have seen tourism die a painful death as Syrian President Bashar Al-Asad’s troops ratchet up the bloody crackdown on popular unrest that erupted in March.
“We would be happy to arrange for you a package that doesn’t take in the risky spots. The hotels are offering very many special deals now,” a travel agent at Syritours, one of the leading tour operators in Syria, said cheerfully when reached by telephone.
The Syrian Tourism Ministry’s “Damascus in August” brochure is offering Ramadan night tours in the old market sponsored by the Iranian cultural chancellery; and a film festival at the Russian culture center.
The alleys of the Damascus suk [marketplace] should have been filled with tourists this summer. Ironically, it was just a year ago that the New York Times rated Syria in the top ten of the hottest places to visit in 2010. UNESCO has cited Syria as the number one place in the world for archaeological sites.
And until this Arab Spring and the bloody, ruthless suppression of anti-regime protests during which human rights organizations say nearly 2,000 people have been killed, tourist numbers had been steadily climbing. The United States and European Union have issued severe travel warnings against visiting Syria and have urged their citizens there to “depart immediately.”

The full story is here.

Tagged Tourism