Jerusalem Archives - Page 179 of 199

Autumn Nights in the Old City of Jerusalem

If you want to avoid the crowds and get a different glimpse of Jerusalem, there are some great opportunities in the Old City for the next two weeks. From the JPost:

After putting their heads together, the Jerusalem Development Authority, the municipal Tourism Authority, the Tourism Ministry and the municipal company Ariel came up with a brilliant move called Autumn Nights in the Old City. Successful beyond their wildest dreams, it consists of special (free) Monday and Thursday programs offered from the beginning of September until the end of October. Among the goodies are two light-hearted guided tours, evening performances of vastly diverse music programs and discounted museums kept open until evening.

The article has lots of details of the sites that are open and the costs. If you like to take photographs, I’d recommend the Ramparts Walk and the Tower of David.

Temple Mount and excavations from southwest

Tagged Jerusalem, Opportunities

“Son of the High Priest”: Sarcophagus Fragment Found

Arutz-7 reports:

Archaeologists excavating north of Jerusalem have found a piece of a sarcofagus – a stone coffin – belonging to a son of a High Priest. The visible inscription reads, “the son of the High Priest” – but the words before it are broken off. It thus cannot be ascertained which High Priest is referred to, nor the name or age of the deceased…
The precise location of the find is not being released, for security reasons.
The sarcophagus cover fragment – 60 centimeters (2 feet) long by 48 centimeters (19 inches) wide – is made of hard limestone, is meticulously fashioned, and bears a carved inscription in Hebrew letters that are both similar to today’s script and typical of the Second Temple period.
A number of High Priests served in the Temple in its final decades – it was destroyed in 70 C.E. – and there is no way of knowing which one is noted in the fragment. Among the known High Priests of the end of the Second Temple period were Caiaphas, Theophilus (Yedidiya) ben Chanan, Shimon ben Baitus, Chanan ben Chanan and others…
Other discoveries at the site include public and residential buildings, agricultural installations, pools and cisterns.

Tombs from the 1st centuries B.C. and A.D. are very common in Jerusalem. There was a large upper class that built lavish stone tombs, approximately 1,000 of which have been found.

The full story (and a tiny photo) is here.

UPDATE: The Israel Antiquities Authority press release includes a link to a zip file with three high-res photos, including one of the excavation site and two of the inscription.

HT: Joe Lauer

UPDATE (10/8): Haaretz has the story with some new details, and the Jerusalem Post has a 2-minute video about the excavation and discovery.

Tagged Discoveries, Excavations, Jerusalem

Recent News and Resources

I’ve been collecting items of interest over the past week:

Archaeologist Shimon Gibson claims that a concert near Jaffa Gate would damage antiquities (JPost).

A Christian organization in Colorado Springs is spending $2.3 million on a replica of the Western Wall, and a building to showcase it. 50 million tons of stone will be brought from Israel.

King Tut comes to Dallas on Friday.

The JPost Magazine has a profile of Eilat Mazar, currently excavating in the City of David. She says,
“I work with the Bible in one hand and the tools of excavation in the other. The Bible is the most important historical source.”

The ESV Study Bible, which was mentioned before here, is due out in a couple of weeks and its visual components (maps, charts, drawings) gets further explanation in an interview with Justin Taylor.

Leen Ritmeyer, renowned for his architectural work on the Temple Mount, is now offering some of his excellent work in affordable PowerPoint files.

I’ve just added Ferrell Jenkins’ Travel Blog to the blogroll.

This is not new, but I do not remember really recognizing all that is here before, so perhaps you did not either. The Archaeological Study Bible website has many dozens of photos, charts and maps (medium-resolution) available for download. You can find your way around from here, or go directly to Introduction, Old Testament, New Testament, or Maps.

David Padfield has photos of a Roman army enactment performed at Jerash. There are 15 free PowerPoint-size images.

If you’re an image junkie, you’ll save time downloading images from the last two sites if you have a download manager. (I use Free Download Manager with FlashGot on Firefox)

Shana tova (happy new year)!

Tagged Jerusalem, New Exhibits, Resources

A Student's Perspective on Israel

A friend who works for the Jerusalem Post has alerted me to the first in a new series of articles: perspectives on Israel from college students studying near Jerusalem. You can read the first one about a visit to the Old City of Jerusalem here.

The students writing in this series are studying at the Israel Bible Extension (IBEX) of The Master’s College. The school is located in the Judean hills west of Jerusalem, and students come from the United States to study biblical geography, archaeology, history, Hebrew, and more. The semester-long program is very popular among students, and, in my opinion, is one of the best things a college student can do, anywhere, ever. I’m not unbiased; I taught at the school for many years until my present study leave.

Tagged Jerusalem

"First Wall" of Jerusalem found

The Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs has a press release today describing the discovery of part of the southern wall of Jerusalem during the time of Christ. Built by the Hasmoneans sometime after 150 B.C., Josephus dubbed it the “First Wall,” in distinction to Herod’s (?) “Second Wall” and Herod Agrippa’s “Third Wall.” The “First Wall” encompassed the city on all four sides (unlike the later two), and had sixty towers. Archaeologists recently discovered one of those towers preserved to a height of 10 feet (3 m). The wall was in use until the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70.

Some more details:

The wall was discovered on “Mount Zion,” the modern name for Jerusalem’s Western Hill.
The results were revealed in a press conference on Mount Zion today.
The area had been excavated 100 years ago by Frederick Jones Bliss and Archibald Dickie, once described in the Jerusalem Post as “archeologist Blis Vediki.” No kidding! (In Hebrew, “ve” means “and.”)
Archaeologist Yehiel Zelinger lectured on his discoveries about 6 weeks ago at the Bible Lands Museum in Jerusalem.
Portions of this wall have previously been excavated in Area G, the Citadel complex, south of the Citadel underneath the Turkish wall, and near the Broad Wall next to the “Israelite Tower” (unfortunately closed to the public now for years).
The chief contribution of this discovery will not be in revealing where the wall was (we already knew that), but in giving us more details about that wall, by means of careful stratigraphic excavation. Bliss and Dickie excavated by digging underground tunnels, hardly the method for understanding the history of a structure.
The archaeologist is impressed: “This is one of the most beautiful and complete sections of construction in the Hasmonean building style to be found in Jerusalem.”
Apparently the remains will be preserved in the Jerusalem City Wall National Park.
Remains were also unearthed of the Byzantine period wall constructed by Empress Eudocia.

The story is also carried by the Jerusalem Post, Haaretz, and BBC (with two great photos).

UPDATE: The Israel Antiquities Authority has made five photos available for download. The aerial photo reveals that the excavation is on the west side of the Catholic cemetery on the south side of Mount Zion. The most famous inhabitant of the cemetery is Oskar Schindler. His tomb is visible on the lower right of the photo.

Tagged Discoveries, Jerusalem

New Book: Walking in the Footsteps of Jesus

A new book is out this week that I want to recommend highly. Walking in the Footsteps of Jesus: A Journey Through the Lands and Lessons of Christ combines passion with humor in a unique “tour” through Jesus’ life. Author Wayne Stiles has not written a “life of Christ” book, nor has he produced a work recounting the geographical background of Jesus’ ministry. What he has done, through his deep knowledge of Jesus’ life and land, is to take the reader on a delightful and challenging journey to the physical and spiritual places where Jesus lived and taught.

Stiles’ skill as a writer and “tour guide” makes the book engaging and rich with insights. As a pastor for many years, Stiles is gifted in making lofty ideas of Scripture readily understandable to the average person, and he does so with many fun anecdotes and helpful analogies from his travels in Israel.

From Bethlehem, to Galilee and Jerusalem, and ending in Patmos, the book largely travels “in the footsteps of Jesus.” Here is a snip related to the wilderness:

I have walked in the wilderness where Satan tempted Christ, just west of where He was baptized. Good grief, what a place. This is the wilderness of Judea where God shaped the character of the future King David in “the valley of the shadow of death” (Ps. 23:4). Here David prayed, “my flesh yearns for You, in a dry and weary land where there is no water” (Ps. 63:1). David wasn’t kidding. Endless piles of rocks, steep hills, no trees, modest vegetation, little water, slight shade, and lizards. As far as my eye could see, it was empty, dry, and depressing. I tried to imagine the silence, solitude, and struggle Jesus would have endured here for over a month. But I could not.
We can barely stand to fast for a day or two. Can you imagine fasting forty days? Jesus did so in preparation for temptation—and became desperately hungry and needy. And in His moment of need, the devil slipped in. He waits for moments like these.
“If You are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread” (Luke 4:3).
The devil is no idiot—and also no gentleman. When he tempts, he plays dirty. No rules. No concessions. No mercy. He waited for a moment of vulnerability and then tempted Jesus to satisfy His legitimate need for food in an illegitimate way: “Turn this stone to bread—use your power to gratify your need.” What a cheap shot. Every stone would then become a temptation. And believe me, the Wilderness of Judea has plenty of stones! Jesus’ reply—although He was physically hungry—showed that He was spiritually full.
“It is written, ‘Man shall not live on bread alone.’”

If you haven’t yet been on a trip to the Holy Land, you’ll enjoy visiting it virtually through this book.

If you have been, you’ll see it in ways that you haven’t before, even if you’ve visited countless times.

This journey combines so many of my favorite things in one book: the places of the land of the Bible, the life of Christ, fascinating stories, excellent writing, and God-exalting, people-challenging truth.

Pick this up for your next plane ride to Israel (or anywhere) and enjoy!

Tagged Galilee, Jerusalem, Resources