Most archaeological work today focuses on the larger cities, such as Megiddo (15 acres) and Gath (100 acres).  Smaller villages receive less attention, despite what they can contribute about the daily lives of more “average” ancient peoples.  An archaeologist at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville has received a large grant from the National Endowment of Humanities to study villages in the Late Bronze and Early Iron Ages.  From the University of Tennessee:

A University of Tennessee, Knoxville, archaeologist who excavates ancient villages in the Near East has received a grant to reshape the modern understanding of the region’s political, economic and social structure by studying its smallest rural settlements. J.P. Dessel, a UT Knoxville historian who specializes in Bronze and Iron Age villages of ancient Israel, has received a $50,000 award from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) that will allow him to integrate his own research with other studies to show how rural villages affected the social landscape of ancient Israel, otherwise dominated by major cities like Jerusalem and Megiddo. "I hope to rebuild our understanding of the biblical region from the village up," Dessel said. "Most of what we know about the ancient Near East in the Bronze and Iron ages is the result of studying major urban areas, cities that represent the social and economic elites of the time. "By looking at small settlements, I expect to show that rural villages were just as vibrant and dynamic as some of the city-states in their midst." […] Dessel’s own excavations have focused on two tiny village sites near Nazareth — Tell el-Wawiat and Tell ‘Ein Zippori — that were occupied between 1550 and 1000 B.C.E., but his yearlong study will include a review of other archaeological data from village sites. His focus on a rural heartland will offer a contrast to urban-focused archaeology that emphasizes ancient texts and elite culture. "This project will show that these villages were diverse and culturally complex entities rather than simple sites focused on agricultural production," he said. "We’ll be able to understand the culture of the region against a backdrop of an extensive rural settlement that spanned both the late Bronze Age and the early Iron Age."

The full press release is here.

From the Jerusalem Post:

Police officers stumbled on a large stash of jugs and coins dating back from the Second Temple era in the Galilee village of Mazara on Thursday, during an arms raid. The archeological finds were kept in a yard belonging to family suspected by police of keeping arms. "We’re looking to see how it got to this yard," a Galilee police spokesman told The Jerusalem Post. After finding the artifacts, a representative of the Israel Antiquities Authority was called out to the scene, and he dated the findings to the Second Temple period, the spokesman added.

Mazara (Mazra’a) is an Israeli Arab village located near the coast, midway between Acco and Nahariya.  The Jerusalem Post has five photographs of the loot.

• Was Jesus a carpenter?
• Did Jesus have short hair?
• Did Jesus grow up with siblings?
• Did Jesus work in Tiberias and Sepphoris?

These and other issues are discussed in a review article by Paul N. Anderson on the National Geographic special, “Jesus: The Man.”  Anderson recommends the program but his summary and analysis may be read without seeing this episode in the “Mysteries of the Bible” series.

Anderson explains the value of the presentation:

The value of this larger series, and this episode in particular, is that they cast valuable archaeological and historical light on the story of Jesus presented in the gospels. The correctives to some supposed knowledge are helpful in that they create new understandings of Jesus—the realism of his engaging Greco-Roman society, the ethical-political thrust of John’s ministry, economic and social backdrops of Jesus’ teachings on the Kingdom of God. The peasant-class status of Jesus and his family helps contextualize Jesus’ ministry, and imagining a worker with stone helps some of his teachings in the gospels come alive, including (I might add) later references to Jesus’ being referred to as the stone the builders rejected, which ironically became the cornerstone of the new household of God (Ac. 4:11; 1 Pet. 2:1-10).

The article is worth reading.  One quibble: his comment about the scribal conjecture of Bethany gets the evidence backwards.  The earliest manuscripts read Bethany, but Origen couldn’t find a Bethany on the east side of the Jordan River and changed it to Bethabara.  For more, see J. Carl Laney’s article (pdf) or my comment to this post.

Gordon Franz has just written a unique article entitled “Jesus at Hazor.”  It’s unique because while there are many biblical stories that explicitly mention the city and area of Hazor, none of them are from the New Testament.  Yet Franz has found a number of connections.  He writes:

In this essay, a case will be suggested that Jesus walked past the mound on at least two occasions with His disciples. The first time they might have visited Hazor was when Jesus took His disciples on a tour of the cities and villages of Galilee. The second time might have been when Jesus and His disciples went to Tyre and Sidon. They could have viewed the site from a distance when they went to and from Caesarea Philippi.

Franz gives a careful look at the sites and routes in Galilee that Jesus probably visited and traveled upon, but which are not known by many tourists or students today. He also has written a separate article on spiritual lessons that Jesus might have taught the disciples while at Hazor.