Jerusalem Archives - Page 175 of 200

The Israel Museum Renovation

The Israel Museum in Jerusalem is in the midst of a $100 million renovation and the Jerusalem Post has an update on the transformation. Here are some snips:

There are two main aspects to the renewal project. The first is to create a completely new approach from the entrance of the museum to the center of the museum campus. To do this, the museum has hired New York architect James Carpenter, who has worked on a variety of high-profile projects, such as the new Hearst headquarters (which involved saving the original facade of an existing building), the podium light wall of the Seven World Trade Center building in New York, a proposed multi-use sports enclosure for the Brooklyn Bridge Park, and the Madison Square Garden renovation…. This second main aspect of the campus renewal – the reconstruction of the original museum complex from within – has been taken up by Tel Aviv-based Zvi Efrat of Efrat-Kowalsky Architects. Efrat, who is also the head of the architecture department at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, has created a central circulation point from which all the museum’s main exhibit wings – Archeology, Judaica and Jewish Ethnography, Fine Arts, and Temporary Exhibitions – are accessible on the same level. To achieve this internal redesign without, in Snyder’s words, "increasing the breadth of the existing envelope," the museum is being gutted from the inside, its exhibit halls are reconfigured, and a number of connecting passages are being added. The key to the project, though, is turning an area previously dedicated to internal museum service activity into exhibition spaces, resulting in an additional 9,290 sq.m. of gallery space that does not involve expanding the museum campus…. One of the final touches to the renewal project was a revamping of the museum’s central outdoor plaza, raising two-thirds of it by a meter to improve its position as a vista point, and to split its length to make it more human-sized. The east side will lead to the underground passage that connects with the museum entrance, and the west side will open up on a wide staircase that feeds into the Isamu Noguchi-designed sculpture garden, making it more central to the campus.

The TimeOnline has a story about the new Egyptian gallery at the British Museum in London. (HT: Explorator)

Tagged Jerusalem, Museums, New Exhibits

New Archaeological Garden in Jerusalem

From Arutz-7:

A new archaeological garden dubbed “Peace be within thy Palaces” will be dedicated outside the Knesset chambers on Tuesday, the day after the 18th Knesset begins what is likely to be a long, hot summer session….
If the MKs want to find some peace, they can stroll through the Knesset’s new archeological garden, which includes 50 artifacts on loan from the Israel Antiquities Authority. They date from the Second Temple period through the Ottoman period.The heaviest item is a five-ton stone from the Temple Mount wall, dating from the Second Temple period.
Also on display is an olive press, ancient inscriptions, large impressive mosaics and a large Ottoman drinking installation.

The story includes a photo of a beautiful mosaic from the Kidron Valley.

UPDATE: Joe Lauer sends along a link to the press release and 4 photos (zip) by the Israel Antiquities Authority.

Tagged Jerusalem, New Exhibits

Website and Video: Pope’s Visit to Israel

If you’re interested in the visit of the Catholic Pope to Israel next month, the Israel Ministry of Tourism has established a website: Holyland Pilgrimage: A Bridge for Peace. Questions of just how interested in peace the pope is have been raised following reports of his plans to meet with a terrorist-supporting mayor in Galilee.

The ministry has also created a 5-minute video in preparation for the visit. The video features stunning aerial photography of numerous sites in Israel and is worth watching even if the pilgrimage doesn’t get you excited.

Tagged Galilee, Jerusalem, Tourism

Weekend Roundup

The Jerusalem Post has a tourist article on “Bethsaida.” The author, a senior fellow at the W. F. Albright Institute in Jerusalem, seems to be completely unaware of the disconnect between the archaeological and textual data that strongly throws into question the excavator’s identification of the site.

HT: Joe Lauer

Richard Freund, rabbi and archaeologist, will lecture in the Houston area on May 31 on “The Ten Greatest Archeological Finds of the Lands of Israel.”

Shimon Gibson has a new book out just in time for Easter, entitled “The Final Days of Jesus: The Archaeological Evidence.” As the title suggests, this work explores the archaeological information for crucifixion and burial in Jesus’ day. One of the “discoveries” Gibson allegedly makes is that Jesus was on trial not at the Antonia Fortress but at Herod’s Palace, and this becomes the basis for an Easter story by CNN. DailyMail has a similar story, but with a nice graphic that shows the alternate views. (Gibson’s view has been held by many scholars for decades.) I haven’t seen the book, but knowing Gibson’s usually careful work, I expect that this will be a very good resource for Bible students. A friend tells me that the book has an up-to-date bibliography.

“No city ever made a more dramatic entrance.” So begins a article in the Wall Street Journal on Petra, the impressive Nabatean city in modern-day Jordan.

UPDATE (4/14): Joe Lauer sends along a few updates of interest to the Shimon Gibson story above.

CNN has a 4.5 minute video with Gibson pointing out some of his discoveries. Haaretz covers the story and includes a quote by Meir Ben-Dov. Now before I tell you what it is, I’ll just note that whenever a story has a quote by this “senior archaeologist,” you are almost certain to be correct if you take the opposite view (MBD is like Jimmy Carter in that way). Ben-Dov says that it is “utter nonsense” that the Antonia Fortress is not located next to the Temple Mount. But, surely he (and the Haaretz article as a whole) has missed the entire point. The New Testament says that Jesus was condemned by Pilate at the Praetorium. The question is not where the Antonia Fortress was, but where the Praetorium was. Gibson, like many scholars for many decades now, believes that the Praetorium was located at Herod’s Palace, south of the modern-day Jaffa Gate.

Tagged Jerusalem, Resources

The Jesus Tomb Unmasked

I have received early word that Expedition Bible has just released The Jesus Tomb Unmasked. As you might expect from the title, this film reveals many of the falsehoods and distortions that were part of the recent sensational “discovery” of the burial place of Jesus, his wife, and his child in Talpiot, south of ancient Jerusalem.

The DVD can be purchased from Amazon for $7 (free shipping) and/or watched for free online. You can also view a trailer. The movie features some great footage and interviews with a number of knowledgeable scholars in Jerusalem, including Shimon Gibson, Stephen Pfann, and others. This movie deserves a much wider circulation than the $3 million production that this one refutes.

Tagged Jerusalem, Tomb of Jesus

Possible Finds of Hezekiah, Mistress of Lionesses, and more

An inscription with six paleo-Hebrew letters has been found in the City of David. The Israel Antiquities Authority strangely has a press release after the item has already been published in the Israel Exploration Journal (58:48-50) and Biblical Archaeology Review (March/April 2009). You can download a photo of the inscription here. The question of interest to Bible readers is whether the inscription preserves three letters of the name of Hezekiah. For analysis, I recommend Chris Heard’s blogpost and comments.

A press release from the American Friends of Tel Aviv University describes a Late Bronze Age plaque that may depict a female king, known in the Amarna Letters as the “mistress of the lionesses.” A copy of the article includes a high-res version of the plaque drawing.

The British Museum has plans to expand, but the Louvre had more visitors in 2008.

The Turkish Riviera Magazine covers the ancient city of Perge (Perga) in an article that includes some good photographs and diagrams. Paul visited the city on his first missionary journey (Acts 13:13-14; 14:25).

If you like to read the OT in Hebrew or the NT in Greek, but struggle with the vocabulary, you may have been attracted to one of the new “reader’s Bibles” that defines the less common vocabulary on the same page as the text. Now John Dyer has created a “make your own” version that looks like it could be quite useful. Even if you have a “reader’s Bible,” you could print off a chapter of the text instead of carrying multiple Bibles to church. (It’s a new site, and there may be bugs. Currently it’s not loading for me in Internet Explorer, but works in Firefox. To change the reading, select the chapter at the top and type over it.)

Hattips to Joe Lauer, Explorator, and Justin Taylor

Tagged Discoveries, Jerusalem, Shephelah