The title of this article at the Jerusalem Post will get your attention, but it’s a bit misleading. If you think of it primarily as ways to leave Jerusalem, it’s more accurate. The top 5 are:
HT: Charles Savelle
Israel’s left-wing newspaper, Haaretz, reports on an agreement between Tel Aviv University and the Israel Antiquities Authority for a new excavation in the City of David.
A right-wing organization active in settling Jews in controversial parts of East Jerusalem, is providing the funds for excavations by Tel Aviv University archaeologists on a contentious site near the City of David.
The excavations funded by the Elad organization have drawn the ire of Palestinian residents, as well as international and Israeli left-wing organizations. Some archaeologists say that the methodology – tunneling under village houses, and the speed at which the excavations are to be performed – violates accepted professional norms.
This is the first time a university has decided to formally take part project in such an excavation. The dig will be conducted by Tel Aviv University’s Institute of Archaeology in coordination with the Israel Antiquities Authority, which will transfer funds from Elad to the university.
[…]
The excavation plans envisions work in what is known as area E, in the lowest part of the park, adjacent to the El-Bustan neighborhood of Silwan, where the Jerusalem Municipality is planning to establish a park called “King’s Garden.”
Critics question the role of Elad in the dig. “It’s hard to believe that the Antiques [sic] Authority, with its meager budget, has suddenly found sources to fund someone else’s projects,” says archaeologist Yoni Mizrachi of Emek Shaveh.
TAU archaeologist Prof. Rafael Greenberg, another Emek Shaveh activist, is more outspoken: “This is a clear politicization of research. Whoever is familiar with the area is aware that all the diggings are annexed to Elad, supervised by Elad, and separate from the site of the City of David. In practice, the project is to become part of Elad’s settlement drive.”
You can decide who is guilty of the “politicization of research.” Greenberg is wrong to imply that the archaeologists working in the City of David are forced to produce results compatible with a right-wing agenda. But you can understand why it’s driving the left-wingers nuts that one of their own would join the “enemy.”
The full article provides responses by Tel Aviv University and Elad.
SourceFlix has just released a new video short, “Follow Me,” with some great footage of sheep and shepherds.
Hezekiah’s Pool (aka Patriarch’s Pool) in the Christian Quarter of Jerusalem has long been a swampy dump. The area was cleared last year and recently it held what Tom Powers believes is the first public gathering in its history.
Wayne Stiles: Beersheba epitomizes the faith God required to live in the Holy Land….God used this unassuming, barren place to shape some of the most significant lives in the Bible.
Heavy rains in the Eilat mountains and southern Aravah led to flooding of the Hai-Bar Yotvata Nature Reserve. Workers safely evacuated animals in danger of drowning.
Peter James answers some difficult questions about the Step Pyramid of Saqqara and the Bent
Pyramid of Dashur based on his years of repairing damaged structures in Egypt.
The Penn Museum is opening to visitors its conservation process of ancient Egyptian mummies.
Back issues of Christian History magazine are available as free pdf files.
Here is what looks to be like an interesting lecture this evening (in Hebrew): “The Tomb of David on
Mount Zion? Pierotti’s Cave?”
Amit Reem, IAA. At the Bible Lands Museum Jerusalem, 7:30pm. Free with museum admission.
HT: Jack Sasson
The olive trees in the Garden of Gethsemane are about 900 years old and were all shoots of a single tree, according to a three-year study by the National Research Council announced last week in Rome. From TerraSanta.net:
The research results show that three of the eight olive trees (the only ones on which it was technically possible to carry out the study), as dating from the middle of the twelfth century. Hence, the trees are about nine hundred years old. But one point needs to be made clear: the date indicated refers only to the aboveground part of trees – the trunk and foliage. In fact, the same research has shown that the part below ground, i.e. the roots, is certainly more ancient.
The outcome of the investigation must also be put in relation with ancient travel chronicles of pilgrims, according to which the second of Gethsemane basilica was built between 1150 and 1170 (the period during which the Crusaders were engaged in the reconstruction of the great churches of the Holy Land and Jerusalem in particular). It therefore seems likely that, during the construction of the Basilica of Gethsemane, the garden was rearranged, creating a renovation of the olive trees present at that time.
The rest of the story describes the genetic relationship between the trees. Pat McCarthy (seetheholyland.net) informs me that radiocarbon tests carried out by the University of California in 1982 dated some of the tree roots to 2,300 years old. I have not been able to locate a reference for that study yet. Reuters covers the story here.
The Jerusalem Post reports on recent discoveries made in connection with development projects in the Jerusalem area. (Emphasis added.)
In order to secure the necessary construction permits from the Interior Ministry, public works projects need approval from the IAA [Israel Antiquities Authority]. Preconstruction surveys during preparation for the expansion of Highway 1 around the Motza Interchange have yielded a plethora of new discoveries, including Iron Age buildings at Tel Motza, explained Dr. Doron Ben Ami, a chief researcher at the HU archeology institute. At the Motza Stream, archeologists discovered ruins dating back to the Neolithic period and an enormous underground water reservoir from the Crusaders.
Pre-construction surveys of the Ramot highway have yielded discoveries of Roman terraces. And when baseball fans in Ramat Beit Shemesh decided to build a baseball field, they discovered a new field of dreams: Just a few centimeters below the surface, there were hundreds of clay pots and figurines.
Nearby, archeologists discovered an enormous burial ground from the Bronze Age.
Even in the posh Jerusalem neighborhood of Rehavia, construction of fancy new apartments can sometimes lead to the most startling archeological discoveries. A 6-meter-high column was unearthed during construction of a new apartment building on the leafy neighborhood’s Abarbanel Street, leading scholars to believe it could have been a Byzantine era quarry. The column was mostly likely destined for one the magnificent cathedrals of the era before it cracked and became dangerous to move.
The full story is here.
HT: Joseph Lauer
Haaretz’s article on the Third Temple and Jewish visits to the Temple Mount is probably the most thorough and helpful report I’ve read on the subject.
They are proposing what they consider to be the key to solving all of our problems: building a Third Temple. In the meantime, they are trying to get permission to pray on the Temple Mount, where Jewish religious ritual has been prohibited since East Jerusalem was taken by Israeli forces in the 1967 war.
Shortly after the war, the government decided not to allow Jews to pray on the Temple Mount (which is known to Muslims as Haram al-Sharif, the Noble Sanctuary, and is the site of two major Muslim holy places, Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock). Jews could pray below the Mount, at the Western Wall, Israeli authorities decreed.
In terms of religious ritual, the Temple Mount remains a Muslim preserve. According to a survey conducted by the joint directorate of the Temple movements, only 17 percent of Israeli Jews, religious and secular alike, want to see a Third Temple built. However, the numbers shoot up in regard to the possibility of praying on the Temple Mount, with 43 percent of the secular public and 92 percent of the religious public in favor, which averages out to 52 percent of the entire Jewish public.
The police, though, are convinced that allowing Jewish religious ritual to be performed on the Temple Mount will stir unrest among Muslims on a scale that is hard to gauge. Accordingly, the police make every effort to enforce the long-standing government decision, even though this involves repeated skirmishes with the Temple movements. Some of their activists, Yehuda Glick among them, are barred from even approaching the entrance to the Temple Mount.
The full, lengthy article describes a meeting with leaders interested in rebuilding the temple, a visit to the Temple Mount on a bride’s wedding day, the modern Bezalel, preparations for rebuilding the sacrificial altar, and a plot to blow up Al-Aqsa Mosque.
HT: Bill Soper
