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Weekend Roundup, Part 1

“An archaeological study of the floor under the Church of the Holy Sepulchre will be possible for the first time, after a two-year undertaking to repair and restore its pavement stones got underway in an inaugural ceremony on Monday.”

Turkish officials deny the report that Turkey will be returning the Siloam Inscription to Israel. The Jerusalem Post explains the history of this significant artifact.

The discovery of a thousand charred linseed at Tel Burna (Libnah?) has led to the suggestion that the economy of the Shephelah greatly changed after Sennacherib’s invasion.

A carved stele from the 4th millennium was lost in the storage area of the Israel Museum, but now after five years of restoration, it has been put on display for the first time.

Leen Ritmeyer’s post on Capernaum includes a number of beautiful reconstruction drawings.

Ferrell Jenkins is back in Israel and shares a photo of a sunrise over the Sea of Galilee.

A rare March snowfall blanketed Jerusalem and parts of Israel in white this week.

Andrew Lawler’s article for Scientific American on the history of excavations in Jerusalem would have convinced me not to read his book. (I did read it, and it’s much better than some of the revised history he presents here.)

A recent study concluded that “Evangelical Christian travelers would prefer to visit Israel on a trip led by a well-known Christian leader or Bible teacher.”

Video from the 2022 Azekah Conference is now online. You can listen to all seven talks in 1.5 hours.

New release: Excavating the Evidence for Jesus: The Archaeology of Christ and the Gospels, by Titus Kennedy (Harvest House, $25)

On sale at Faithlife: 30 Days in the Land with Jesus: A Holy Land Devotional, by Charles H. Dyer ($5.99).

I am back for part two of “The Babylonian Destruction of Jerusalem” on Digging for Truth (25 min). In this episode I talk about the extensive evidence of the 586 BC destruction, including numerous discoveries in the last five years.

HT: Agade, Joseph Lauer, G. M. Grena, Explorator

Tagged Galilee, Jerusalem, Lectures, Museums, Resources, Shephelah, Tourism, Turkey, Weather, Weekend Roundup

Weekend Roundup, Part 1

An Israeli official claims that Turkey has agreed to return the Siloam Inscription to Israel. This inscription was discovered and removed from Hezekiah’s Tunnel in the 1880s. Those who know the history here will believe it when they see it.

“Three 1,500-year-old ‘magic’ incantation bowls and hundreds of other rare artifacts — some dating to the biblical period — were seized from an apartment in an ultra-Orthodox Jerusalem neighborhood under suspicion of illegal antiquities trade.”

Lawrence Schiffman suggests that Manetho’s records give evidence that the Israelite exodus was preserved in Egypt’s historical memory.

A new book in German gives the history of the Gihon/Siloam water system. The publisher’s website has a nice summary in English.

The Huqoq excavations were recently featured in National Geographic’s “100 Wonders of the World.”

I’m not quite sure why the Jerusalem Post published this short piece on Magdala.

A new documentary entitled “The Samaritans: A Biblical People,” by Moshe Alafi and Steven Fine, will be presented on March 27 at the Yeshiva University Museum. It will presumably be made more broadly available sometime after.

Save the date – May 18: “The First International Academic Conference on New Studies in Temple Mount Research Hosted by The Menachem Begin Heritage Center, Jerusalem. Lectures will be in Hebrew or English, and the conference will be broadcast live. I don’t see details online yet (but see this), but speakers include Aharon Tavger, Tehilla Lieberman, David Gurevich, Avraham Solomon, Rina Avner, Peretz Reuven, Yuval Baruch, Dror Czitron, Joseph Patrich, David Jacobson, Nikos Kokkinos, Zachi Dvira, Gabriel Barkay, and others.

Logos has announced a number of solid Carta reference works available at pre-publication discount, including:

The New Encyclopedia Of Archaeological Excavations In The Holy Land (4 volumes, I presume, but not the 5th)
Bound for Exile: Israelites and Judeans Under Imperial Yoke; Documents from Assyria and Babylonia, by Mordechai Cogan
Under the Yoke of Ashur: The Assyrian Century in the Land of Israel, by Mordechai Cogan
Landscape, Nature and Man in the Bible: Sites and Events in the Old Testament, by Menashe Har-El
Parables of the Sages: Jewish Wisdom from Jesus to Rav Ashi, by Steven Notley

HT: Agade, Joseph Lauer, Arne Halbakken, Alexander Schick, Explorator

Tagged Antiquities Trade, Exodus-Conquest, Galilee, Jerusalem, Lectures, Museums, Resources, Samaria, Turkey, Weekend Roundup

Weekend Roundup, Part 2

A cache of embalming materials was discovered in a tomb in Abusir dating to the 26th Dynasty.

A number of museums in Egypt are planned to open or re-open in 2022.

Marissa Stevens looks at structural similarities between two civilizations that had no contact with each other: Egypt’s New Kingdom and China’s Han Dynasty.

An Elamite inscription attributed to Xerxes has been discovered at Persepolis.

Tom Garlinghouse has written a primer on the ancient Persians.

More looting of Palmyra has occurred in recent days.

“The Jordanian Antiquities Ministry and the US Embassy in Jordan held a ceremony in Jordan’s capital, Amman, on Tuesday showcasing the objects that were ‘illegally smuggled from Jordan and obtained by an antiquities collector in the United States.’”

“A shipwreck originating from the Greek island of Rhodes, dating back to the third century AD, was found in the depths of the Gulf of Fethiye.”

Carl Rasmussen shares photos of Vespasian’s Temple of Peace, where Josephus says he placed the golden vessels from the Jerusalem temple.

Tzilla Eshel suggests that there may have been multiple places named Tarshish in biblical times, on the basis of Phoenician inscriptions and the chemical fingerprint of silver.

The Database of Religious History “is intended as a platform for unprecedented academic collaboration, reflecting a commitment to rigorous, scholarly standards and a deep appreciation for interdisciplinary work in the sciences and humanities.” It is free and no registration is required.

ASOR webinar on March 8: “Where Are They Now?: A Preview of 2022 ASOR-Affiliated Fieldwork Projects,” with Michael Given, Xenia-Paula Kyriakou, Stephen Batiuk, Monique Roddy, Kent Bramlett, Friedbert Ninow, and Michael Hoff.

Online lecture on March 9: “How Did Roman Painters Create Frescoes?,” by John Clarke

ASOR webinar on March 20: “Uncovering What is Nubian Beneath the Veneer of Egyptianness: Excavating the Archives,” by Debora Heard.

HT: Agade, Joseph Lauer, Arne Halbakken, Explorator

Tagged Antiquities Trade, Discoveries, Egypt, Italy, Jordan, Lectures, Mediterranean Islands, Museums, Persia, Syria, Weekend Roundup

Weekend Roundup, Part 1

A tourist found an intact clay pot in Qumran Cave 53.

Steven Notley not only wants to convince you that Bethsaida was located at el-Araj but also that Peter’s house was there and not under an octagonal church in Capernaum.

Chris McKinny and Mary Buck discuss the discovery and significance of the Lachish Letters on the Biblical World podcast.

Online Colloquium on March 10: A Brief History of Tel Azekah: Towards the Tenth Excavation Season at the Site. Register at the excavation’s official website. Since a list of topics doesn’t seem to be online, I am including them here:

Opening Remarks, Oded Lipschits
The Shephelah in the 2nd Millennium BCE: A View from Tel Azekah, by Sabine Kleiman, Helena Roth & Oded Lipschits
The History of Azekah in the Light of the Coin Findings, by Manfred Oeming
Trouble Brewing from the North: Excavations in Area N1, by Josef Briffa
The House of the Rising Sun: the LB Temple of Area E3, by Nitsan Shalom & Hannah Ripps
When the Breeze Blows South: Life and Death in Area S1, by Alexandra Wrathall
Facing Azekah: The Entrance to the Tel from Area S3, by Helena Roth
Wild Wild West: Excavating the Unknown in Area W1, by Abra Spiciarich & Maddison Quail-Gates

ASOR’s Annual March Madness Challenge this year is to support The Levantine Ceramics Project—an open, interactive website focused on ceramics produced in the Levant from the Neolithic era through the Ottoman period.

Hybrid workshop on March 10: “Legacy Collections, White Levy, and the Case of Tel Yaqush,” by Yorke M. Rowan.

Enrollment in academic programs related to the land of Israel has dropped significantly in the last decade.

I am a guest again on Digging for Truth, this time discussing the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem. In this first of two parts, our focus is on the situation in Judah’s final days, including the eyewitness testimony provided by the Lachish Letters.

HT: Agade, Joseph Lauer, Arne Halbakken, Explorator

Tagged Discoveries, Galilee, Jerusalem, Lectures, Shephelah, Weekend Roundup

Weekend Roundup, Part 1

A marble column from a Byzantine church was discovered by a beach patrol near Ashdod.

Tel Jarmuth (Yarmuth) is now surrounded by the fast-growing city of Beit Shemesh. The relationship between the community and the archaeologists may serve as a model for others.

A plan to expand the Jerusalem Walls National Park to include 68 additional acres, many on the Mount of Olives, has been shelved following opposition from church leaders.

The Times of Israel provides an overview of the $40 million renewal project of Jerusalem’s Tower of David Museum, slated to be finished by the end of this year.

Andrew Califf provides a fascinating look into “a day in the life of an antiquities crime-buster in Israel.”

i24News reports on lions in the Holy Land, including comments from Natan Slifkin, director of the Biblical Museum of National History.

Susan Schmidt has released a new video on “Hiking to the 11 Qumran Dead Sea Scroll Caves and Scrolls Trail.” This 6-minute tour not only introduces the new trail but it identifies where each of the 11 caves are located.

Ynet has an article about the new Dead Sea Scrolls Trail. The article is in Hebrew, but Google’s translation is pretty good.

Hybrid lecture on March 3 in Jerusalem: “The Foundation Date and Northern Defenses of Aelia Capitolina,” by Jodi Magness.

Zoom lecture on March 9: “Architectural Development of Ancient Galilean Synagogues,” by Paul Flesher.

Leen Ritmeyer has created a beautiful reconstruction drawing of the Magdala synagogue. His post provides more details about the synagogue, and a non-watermarked version of the reconstruction is available in his impressive image library.

Bible History Daily provides a summary of three pilgrimage paths from Galilee to Jerusalem, based on a recent BAR article by Jeffrey P. Garcia.

Oded Lipschits has been awarded the 2022 EMET Prize in Archaeology.

Israel is dropping its requirement for tourists to be vaccinated as of March 1.

How can photos, drone videos, and illustrations help you and your audience better understand the Bible? Brad Gray provides a valuable guide to a number of available resources and how they can be used (17 min).

HT: Agade, Joseph Lauer, Keith Keyser, Arne Halbakken, Alexander Schick

Tagged Dead Sea Scrolls, Discoveries, Galilee, Israel's Coast, Jerusalem, Lectures, Museums, Shephelah, Tourism, Weekend Roundup

This Year’s IBC: John: His Life, Legacy & Last Words

The dates, locations, and subject of this year’s Infusion Bible Conference have been announced. The topic is “John: His Life, Legacy & Last Words.” Here’s a brief description:

The Apostle John is unquestionably one of the central characters of the New Testament. He was a disciple. He was the caretaker of Mary after Jesus’s death. He was a pastor to the churches in Asia. He was a writer who penned a gospel and three epistles. And then there’s Revelation. Something about this man led Jesus to entrust him with the final words in Scripture. He’s seen a vision of the end and has words for us in the present. In a sense, John is the Church’s first elder statesman. He was there in Galilee with Jesus in the beginning, and he’s there in Asia at the end of the first century leading and guiding the Church.

90% of John’s gospel includes material that doesn’t show up in the other gospels. And there’s a reason for that. He’s writing last. He’s got a specific audience in Asia, and he’s had six decades for the Jesus story to simmer in his memory and heart. Many of us don’t realize how multi-dimensional his life was and how critical it was to the expansion of the Jesus movement. As a result, we misunderstand and misinterpret things he wrote, and also miss out on so much of what he was saying.

The conference will be held twice in August:

August 8-10 in Franklin, Tennessee
August 15-17 in Parker, Colorado

The three-day conference is loaded with short talks on everything you can think of and a lot more. The conference faculty this year is Brad Gray, Cyndi Parker, Brad Nelson, and Randy Smith—all who have traveled extensively in the biblical lands. One of the conference favorites is the IBC Notebook which includes detailed notes on all of the presentations as well as additional resources.

I’m planning to bring my wife to the Tennessee conference (during which time we will celebrate our 30th anniversary). Kris Udd will be at the event in Colorado. I think that the topic of John is a perfect follow-up to last year’s focus on Paul, and I hope I’ll see many of you there. As I have said here before, this is the best conference I know of for backgrounds of the Bible.

Registration is now open.

Tagged Lectures