Galilee Archives - Page 62 of 84

Road Found at Bethsaida from Time of Jesus

Archaeologists have uncovered what they believe is a road that was traveled by Jesus and the disciples in the ancient town of Bethsaida.
In conducting a dig near the Northeastern shore of the Sea of Galilee in Israel, which was originally meant to serve as a mission to find artifacts from the Roman period, archaeologists came across a distinctive discovery.
“We uncovered a paved street from the time of Jesus’s disciples, which runs westward through the residential area from the corner of the Fisherman’s House down toward the Jordan valley,” Nicolae Roddy of Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska, one of the leaders of the dig, told the publication Popular Archaeology. “I tell people that Andrew, Peter and Phillip almost certainly walked on it because they would have had to have gone out of their way to avoid it!”

The article does not include a photo, and I don’t see any other reports on this besides this brief one.

HT: Joseph Lauer

Newly discovered road ran from the “house of the fisherman” shown above toward the Jordan River. Photo from the Pictorial Library of Bible Lands.

Tagged Discoveries, Galilee

Wednesday Roundup

Google Maps now includes floor plans of dozens of museums around the world, including the British Museum and the Smithsonian.

A couple of museums in Israel moved treasures to the vault because of danger from rockets from Gaza.

You can wait years to see an article about the New Testament city of Nain. Miriam Feinberg Vamosh ends the wait.

David Bivin thinks that the Nain where Jesus raised the boy from the dead is near Jerusalem in the upper reaches of the Wadi Qilt (subscription req’d for full article).

Joe Zias attempts to clear things up with regard to his role with the James Ossuary.

Perhaps you didn’t know: Wayne Stiles’ weekly column is available each Monday at the Jerusalem Post, but the edition on his personal site includes more content and higher-resolution photos. This week he travels to Chorazin (“Capernaum with a View”).

The PowerPoint presentation for Itzhaq Shai’s recent lecture on Tel Burna is available for download.

It is interesting to look through even without the audio.

Ferrell Jenkins shares some of his observations from the recent annual meeting of the Near East Archaeological Society.

The Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit formerly at Discovery Times Square and Philadelphia’s Franklin Institute has now rolled into Cincinnati.

A golden brooch from the treasure of King Croesus is returning to Turkey after the museum director sold it to pay off his gambling debts.

The National Museum of Iraq is scheduled to have a grand re-opening early next year.

Conservation efforts at Herculaneum are more successful than at its sister site of Pompeii.

HT: Jack Sasson, Joseph Lauer

Herculaneum Cardo IV from west, tb111405666

Ruins of Herculaneum from the west
Photo from the Pictorial Library of Bible Lands

Tagged Dead Sea, Galilee, Italy, Mesopotamia, Museums, Shephelah, Turkey, Weekend Roundup

Weekend Roundup

A dog fell into a hole in Jerusalem and now it will become an open biblical tourist park.

Work continues in Georgia in constructing a museum for artifacts from Israel.

The next time you travel to the Golan Heights, you can remember your day this way: Bastions, Burials, Battles, and Borders.

Ferrell Jenkins shares a photo of a beautiful sunrise over the Sea of Galilee.

The Church of the Holy Sepulcher may close its doors for a day to protest its bank account being frozen for not paying its water bill.

Al Jazeera posts 15 photos on the Western Wall prayer plaza and excavated tunnels.

The Zondervan Atlas of the Bible is marked down to $14.99 for the Fabulous Friday sale at christianbook.com. (Amazon: $26.39). It might make a great gift for someone who wants to understand the Bible better.

The latest SourceFlix video short is about the olive harvest. (If you appreciate their work, you might consider making a donation some time.)

A special exhibition opens next week at the Lynn H. Wood Archaeological Museum on “The Battle over King David: Excavating the Fortress of Elah.”

I bet that this is the first (future) motion picture reference to Shaaraim in connection with the David and Goliath story. (If they ever read 1 Samuel 17, they’ll get rid of it. Shaaraim is not Qeiyafa and it’s not the Philistine base either.)

HT: Charles Savelle, Joseph Lauer

Woman harvesting olives near Bethlehem
Photo from Cultural Images of the Holy Land

Tagged 10th Century, Galilee, Golan, Museums, Resources, Temple Mount, Weekend Roundup

Trail around the Sea of Galilee

Much progress has been made on the 40-mile trail encircling the Sea of Galilee, reports Miriam Feinberg Vamosh in Haaretz:

Now, about 45 of the trail’s 60 kilometers (28 out of 38 miles) are cleared, and the path is returning the lakeshore to a natural treasure open to all. You don’t have to be a seasoned hiker to enjoy a walk on the Kinneret Trail; just follow the markers – a purple stripe between two white ones, guiding you through the lake’s premier natural, historical and religious attractions.
The trail is divided into seven segments, allowing a casual trekker to meander one segment for an easy walk and a more adventurous hiker to combine several into a full day’s outing. Part of the trail has been paved, and information and directional signs are on hand to guide you from site to site.
One segment that will appeal to heritage buffs and pilgrims is the two-hour walk from Capernaum National Park on the Kinneret’s north shore to the inlet of the Jordan River, a bird-watcher’s paradise. It takes in the little-known Greek Orthodox Church of the Apostles with its trademark red domes, and continues to the Ayish Ruins, where the very first lakeside cottage may have been built back in the second millennium BCE.

The full article is here. I agree that the northern shore is the most interesting for hikers.

Sea of Galilee from the west (photo source)

Tagged Galilee, Tourism

Recent IAA Excavation Reports

The final report of a small excavation of biblical Japhia (Josh 19:12) has been published. The excavators identified possible hiding places used during the Jewish Revolt but not the double fortification described by Josephus.

Another stone workshop was excavated two miles north of Nazareth in the village of er-Reina.

Remains date from the Persian to Late Roman periods.

A final report was also recently published for Khirbet Keila near Zorah and Eshtaol, with remains from the Early Bronze, Intermediate Bronze, and Byzantine periods.

A final report is now available for a survey along the northern part of the “Diagonal Route,” from Shaar HaGai to the Elah Valley. The survey included portions of Tel Bet Shemesh and the area around Beit Jimal and Moshav Zekhariya.

Beth Shemesh and “Diagonal Route”
Labeled slide from Judah and the Dead Sea

Tagged Excavations, Galilee, Shephelah

Weekend Roundup

Charles Jones has put created an excellent Roundup of Resources on Ancient Geography. Bookmark this one!

There are enough scholars who have serious doubts about the authenticity of the “Gospel of Jesus’ Wife” that when a report circulated that Harvard Theological Review had decided to not publish the article, many scholars believed it. Brian LePort has some of the back and forth.

Mark Hoffman excavated at et-Tell (Bethsaida?) this summer and is sharing his photo book of the dig. (No account is needed to flip through it, and full screen provides the best view.)

Jodi Magness is interviewed in the WAMC Academic Minute about her excavations of the Huqoq synagogue.

Cornell University has received a $200,000 grant from the National Science Foundation for dendrochronology and radiocarbon dating research in the Near East.

A conference at Tel Aviv University in late October will focus on Ancient Greece and Ancient Israel:
Interactions and Parallels (10th to 4th Centuries BCE). The details are available here.

SourceFlix’s latest short is called “Fishers of Men.”

Biblical Archaeology Review is now available as a digital subscription, with the bonus that you get last year’s digital issues.

Robert Mullins gives a day-by-day account of the first season at Abel-beth-maacah. His excitement is justified.

HT: Joseph Lauer, Jack Sasson

Abel Beth Maacah from northwest, tb062900201

Abel Beth Maacah from the northwest
Photo from Pictorial Library of Bible Lands

Tagged Galilee, Greece, Lectures, Resources, Technology, Weekend Roundup