Jerusalem Archives - Page 143 of 198

Weekend Roundup

Riccardo Lufrani counters the proposal of Amos Kloner that the tombs of St. Etienne were originally the resting places of the last kings of Judah. He essentially addresses the translation of Josephus’s “royal caverns.” He does not mention the fact of that these tombs are located in the midst of an Iron Age cemetery.

Zahi Hawass gives his side of the story and explains why he will not be going to jail. Hershel Shanks has a lengthy interview with Hawass to be published in the May/June issue of Biblical Archaeology Review and now online here. Shanks writes of his time with Hawass, “I found him confident, overbearing, domineering, brash and loud. But he was also sometimes reasonable and often even charming.”

A four-minute video gives some insight into the revived chariot races in Jerash (Gerasa), Jordan.

Italy has announced a major restoration of Pompeii, following the recent collapse of an ancient house.

Christians celebrated Palm Sunday in Jerusalem yesterday.

Bible Gateway has a complex graphic that illustrates the chronology and geography of events during the week leading to Jesus’ crucifixion. “Follow the lines in the chart to see at a glance what people were doing, where they were, and whom they were with at any point during the week.”

We wish a happy Passover to all of those celebrating this evening.

HT: Explorator, Jack Sasson, Carl Rasmussen

Tagged Egypt, Italy, Jerusalem, Jordan, Weekend Roundup

250,000 Tourists in Israel for Passover and Easter

This will be a busy week in Israel, with Passover beginning Monday evening and Good Friday and Easter a few days later. From the Jerusalem Post:

More than a quarter of a million tourists are expected to visit Israel during the Passover and Easter holidays, the Tourism Ministry reported on Saturday. Of these tourists, at least 100,000 are expected to visit Jerusalem alone. The seven-day Passover holiday begins on Monday evening and is one of the main periods of the year for tourism to Israel, along with the High Holidays in the fall. About a week after, Easter will begin, bringing tens of thousands of Christian pilgrims to Israel. One of the highlights of the pilgrimage for Orthodox Christians is the Holy Fire Ceremony, to be held next Sunday in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in the Old City of Jerusalem. The ceremony brings thousands of worshippers into the alleyways of the Old City as the fire is passed among the masses.

The story continues here. For a fascinating description of the Ceremony of Holy Fire, to be observed on Saturday, see here.

Tagged Jerusalem, Tourism

Weekend Roundup

If you would like to try your hand at identifying objects found in an archaeological excavation, the team at the Temple Mount Sifting Project is now soliciting input from those who may have information related to their finds. You can head over to the photo gallery to begin.

Zahi Hawass is back as Egyptian Minister of Antiquities because he learned that “antiquities cannot live away from me.” The nation’s trials have not ended and the Egyptian Museum in Cairo is again closed.

The spring season at Tel Burna has wrapped up, and the website now has links to photos and an easier way to donate.

Ferrell Jenkins recently explained the connections of Libya to the New Testament.

G. M. Grena debunks the claims that the earliest depiction of Jesus was found in the lead codices from Jordan.

Gerald Mattingly lectured yesterday afternoon at Lee University on the topic: “Is Anybody Finding
Anything Important Over in Jordan: The Top 10 Discoveries from Transjordan that Relate to the Bible.” Perhaps he will turn the presentation into an article one day.

Iran has cut ties with the Louvre. It’s too bad it’s not the other way around.

Glo users now can access the program on all of their PCs, Macs, iPads and soon iPhones.

Logos has released an updated version of Shibboleth and Mark Hoffman explains why it’s good and when an alternative may be better for you.

Only rarely does one see an original copy of the Survey of Western Palestine maps (26 sheets) for sale. A bookseller in the UK has one listed now, if you act quickly and are ready to part with $3,826 plus shipping. Alternately, you can get an electronic copy for $35 (including shipping) from us. In either case, you’ll benefit from the 160-page index (which we have painstakingly digitized).

HT: Jack Sasson

Tagged Egypt, Jerusalem, Lectures, Museums, Resources, Shephelah, Weekend Roundup

The Myth of the Burning Garbage Dump of Gehenna

I have long wanted to do a little work to debunk the endlessly repeated myth that the Hinnom Valley (Gehenna) was a perpetually burning trash dump. There simply is no evidence to support the idea, but because it seems a reasonable explanation for the origin of the Hinnom Valley as “hell,” writers and preachers accept and propagate the story.

Yesterday Louis McBride raised the issue (HT: BibleX). He writes:

I consulted over a dozen study Bibles on Matthew 5:22 and no less than eight of them made a reference to the rubbish heap. Almost every major commentary on Matthew that mentions Gehenna also spoke of the garbage dump. I’ve always thought that this was an established fact.

Then he quotes Peter Head, G. R. Beasley-Murray, and Lloyd Bailey in tracing the origin of this notion to Rabbi David Kimchi in AD 1200. Specifically, Bailey states:

[Kimchi] maintained that in this loathsome valley fires were kept burning perpetually to consume the filth and cadavers thrown into it. However, Strack and Billerbeck state that there is neither archeological nor literary evidence in support of this claim, in either the earlier intertestamental or the later rabbinic sources.

As with the legend about the rope around the high priest’s ankle, this popular myth seems to have originated in Jewish circles in the Middle Ages. McBride has more details and the sources in his post.

The explanation for the “fire of Gehenna” lies not in a burning trash dump, but in the burning of sacrificed children. Jeremiah is explicit that such occurred here:

Jeremiah 7:31–32 (ESV) — And they have built the high places of Topheth, which is in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire, which I did not command, nor did it come into my mind. Therefore, behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when it will no more be called Topheth, or the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter; for they will bury in Topheth, because there is no room elsewhere.

Isaiah had already envisioned Topheth as the fiery destiny of an enemy of God.

Isaiah 30:33 (HCSB) — Indeed! Topheth has been ready for the king for a long time now. His funeral pyre is deep and wide, with plenty of fire and wood. The breath of the Lord, like a torrent of brimstone, kindles it.

Thus already in Old Testament times, the Valley of Hinnom was associated with the destiny of the wicked. That the valley was just outside the city of Jerusalem made it an appropriate symbol for those excluded from divine blessing. Isaiah closes his book with these words:

Isaiah 66:24 (ESV) — “And they shall go out and look on the dead bodies of the men who have rebelled against me. For their worm shall not die, their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be an abhorrence to all flesh.”

It is not difficult to see, from these and other texts (e.g., 2 Kgs 23:10; 2 Chr 28:3, 33:6; Jer 32:35), why Jesus and his contemporaries used the word Gehenna (“valley of Hinnom”) as synonymous with the place of everlasting fiery torment. Indeed, there is no reason to search further for ancient burning piles of discarded newspapers, product packaging, and junk mail.

UPDATE (4/29): The views of various scholars on the matter is presented in a new post.

Hinnom Valley from south, 1966. Photo by David Bivin.

Tagged Analysis, Jerusalem

Western Wall Clean-Up

If you don’t check your mail for a while, at some point the mailbox will begin to overflow. The problem is increasing at the Western Wall with more and more visitors placing notes in the cracks between the stones. Authorities are now considering adding a third annual clean-up. From the Jerusalem Post:

Armed with wooden poles, Western Wall employees on Wednesday removed millions of handwritten notes, faxes and email printouts from between the ancient stones. The Western Wall Heritage Foundation, which gives the Kotel such a face-lift twice a year – before the upcoming Passover and ahead of the Jewish New Year – are considering a third annual clean-up, due to the growing influx of requests and notes.
The notes will be placed in a repository in accordance with Jewish law, with the laborers – working under the supervision of Western Wall and Holy Sites Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz – taking care to not read their content.

The full story is here.

Removing prayer notes from the Western Wall

Tagged Jerusalem, Temple Mount, Tourism

Recent Articles at Bible and Interpretation

Various articles posted at the Bible and Interpretation in the last month have drawn my eye. Some I hoped to interact with here, but as time passes, I realize it may just be best to point you directly to them.

Why the fishing town Bethsaida is not found along the shore of the Sea of Galilee. Fred Strickert explains that the reason why et-Tell (aka “Bethsaida”) is today distant from the Sea of Galilee is silting by the Jordan River. He also wonders if the site may have been elevated by seismic activity since biblical times. El-Araj is not a viable candidate for Bethsaida, he says, because the site was not settled in the first century.

From the Seal of a Seer to an Inscribed Game Board: A Catalog of Eleven Early Alphabetic Inscriptions Recently Discovered in Egypt and Palestine. This article by Gordon J. Hamilton considers three new inscriptions from the Middle Bronze, one from the Late Bronze, and seven from the Early Iron Age (including inscriptions from Gath, Tel Zayit, Tel Rehov, Beth Shemesh, and Kh. Qeiyafa). The bibliographic data alone is very useful. With regard to the Gath ostracon, note Maeir’s response.

On Archaeology, Forgeries and Public Awareness: The “James Brother of Jesus” Ossuary in Retrospect. Gideon Avni believes that the obviously forged inscriptions of the James Ossuary and Jehoash Tablet will be regarded as little more than a footnote in history books. Since a number of scholars consider the case to still be open, this article unfairly denigrates other conclusions by acting as if they don’t exist.

Zedekiah Cave or the Quarries of King Solomon in Jerusalem: A Subsurface Stone Quarry for Building the Second Temple by King Herod. Zeev Lewy of the Geological Survey of Israel has written a fascinating report suggesting reasons why Herod’s engineers selected a certain type of stone for use in the Temple Mount. This also explains why the massive quarry was accessed through a single small entrance.

The Bible and Interpretation has many other recent articles, and they now also have a mechanism for supporting their work.

Tagged Forgery, Galilee, Jerusalem, Weekend Roundup