Global Smyrna Meeting on the Seven Churches of Revelation

I just received notice of a conference to be held next summer in Turkey. The invitation is open to all, and it looks like an outstanding slate of speakers and an outstanding itinerary including on-site tours led by the archaeologists. Opportunities like this, especially geared toward non-scholars, are all too rare. I expect it will be an very beneficial conference.

Below I have copied the invitation from Levent Oral (President, Tutku) and Mark Wilson (President, Seven Churches Network). Few people know biblical Turkey as well as Mark Wilson, and probably no one runs better tours of Turkey than Levent Oral.
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A unique Biblical event is coming to Turkey in June of 2020!  And we’d like you and your congregation to be a part of it. 

We invite you to the Global Smyrna Meeting on the Seven Churches of Revelation to be held in Izmir (ancient Smyrna) on June 21-27, 2020.

Not only will you visit each of the Seven Churches during the course of the Meeting, but you will also hear some of the world’s leading authorities discuss these churches from the perspective of history, religion, and archaeology. A time of worship will precede each of the inspiring evening sessions. So mark these dates on your calendar and make plans to experience the Seven Churches with us.


Lecturers:



♦ Dr. Mark Wilson http://sevenchurches.org/home/ Seven Churches Network & Asia Minor Research Center


♦ Dr. Ben Witherington www.benwitherington.com Asbury Theological Seminary


♦ Dr. Mark Fairchild http://www.huntington.edu/Bible/Faculty/Mark-Fairchild Huntington University.


♦ Dr. Carl Rasmussen www.holylandphotos.org Bethel College


♦ Dr. Jeff Weima http://www.jeffreyweima.com/ Calvin Theological Seminary


♦ Dr. Linford Stutzman http://www.sailingacts.com/the-sailors  Eastern Mennonite University


♦ Pastor Bernard Bell, Peninsula Bible College, Cupertino, CA https://pbcc.org/


♦ Bishop Daniel Balais,  Philippines https://www.intercessorsforthephilippines.com/


♦ …and more

Churches invited from:


USA, Canada, England, France, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Philippines, Russia, 
Ukraine, Singapore, Hong Kong, China, and more.

To reserve a place, simply email Erin Dailey: [email protected]

For further details, please visit: www.globalsmyrnameeting.com

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Weekend Roundup

Excavations in the Sharafat neighborhood in west Jerusalem revealed a Hasmonean-era agricultural village. Haaretz (premium) has a longer article with more photos.

A study of the garbage dumps of the Byzantine city of Elusa in Israel’s Negev reveals that the city’s decline was the result of climate change.

The Malham Cave, under Mount Sedom near the Dead Sea, has been identified as the longest salt cave in the world.

The third artifact in the TMSP’s 12 object series is a fiscal bulla inscribed “Gibeon / to the king.”

Amnon Ben Tor will be awarded the Israel Prize in the field of archaeology.

Gabriel Barkay, an Israeli archaeology, recalls his experience in excavating Susa in Iran. 

The Anglo-Israel Archaeological Society will be hosting lectures in the coming months by Amihai Mazar (on Tel Rehov), Jonathan Price (on Beth Shearim), and Jürgen Zangenberg (on Horvat Kur).

Andrea Berlin will be lecturing in Rockford, Illinois, on April 1, on “Phoenicians and Jews — A Tale of Two Peoples in Israel’s Upper Galilee.”

“Striking Power: Iconoclasm in Ancient Egypt” is a new exhibit at the Pulitzer Arts Foundation in St. Louis. A review article explains why so may of the statues’ noses are broken.

The latest video by the Institute for Biblical Culture is on “Ancient Israelite Fashion.” New classes in April include “The Prophets of Ancient Israel” and “The Geography of Biblical Israel/Canaan II.”

The founder of Sirin Riders explains why Israel is a great place to ride horses.

James Papandrea is on The Book and the Spade discussing his new book, A Week in the Life of Rome.

HT: Agade, Ted Weis

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Weekend Roundup

A winepress from the Byzantine period was discovered at Chorazin by a team doing conservation work.

The recent discovery of a depiction of the Egyptian god Bes in the City of David Givati parking lot excavation is the first of its kind ever found in Jerusalem.

 The Times of Israel features a well-illustrated story on the Beth Shemesh excavations including the controversy and the museum exhibit.

A new sound-and-light show, used advanced technologies, has been unveiled at Masada.

A shipwreck discovered in Heracleion matches the description of a Nile River boat described by Herodotus.

Excavation work at Macherus is complete after 11 years, but conservation work will continue.

Over a million people are expected between March-September to attend the Louvre exhibition of the  Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun. The show features the largest number of Tut items ever displayed together. As construction nears completion for the new Grand Egyptian Museum in Giza, the Egyptian Ministry for Antiquities states that after the six city world tour is completed, key pieces related to Tut will never again leave Egypt.

The Basrah Museum in southern Iraq has added three new galleries, totaling 2,000 pieces, focused on Sumer, Assyrian, and Babylonian objects.

Erin Darby will be lecturing on “The Archaeology of Women in Ancient Israel” in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, on April 2.

The History Channel has a photo essay of ten biblical sites.

Wayne Stiles recently visited the Royal Mummies Hall in the Cairo Museum.

Bible History Daily features a profile on Julia Berenice, the companion of King Agrippa II in Acts 26.

New from the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago: The Great Hypostyle Hall in the Temple of Amun at Karnak, by Peter J. Brand, Rosa Erika Feleg, and William J. Murnane. For purchase in hardback or a free download.

“The Setting of the Assassination of King Joash of Judah: Biblical and Archaeological Evidence for Identifying the House of Millo,” by Chris McKinny, Aharon Tavger, Nahshon Szanton, and Joe Uziel, is a paper read and illustrated by Chris McKinny.

The photo below, from DerStandard, shows the interior of the Golden Gate in recent times.

HT: Ted Weis, Agade, Charles Savelle, Alexander Schick, Paleojudaica

Interior of the Golden Gate
Photo from DerStandard
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Weekend Roundup, Part 2

An attempt to smuggle into Britain an ancient Babylonian kudurru as a “carved stone for home decoration” with a value of “300” failed.

“Music was ubiquitous in Ancient Greece. Now we can hear how it actually sounded.”

Israel has become the first country to list all cemetery tombstones online.

The February 2019 issue of the Newsletter of the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities includes the latest discoveries, repatriations, and news.

A Greek archaeologist has been working in Alexandria for 15 years in an effort to find the tomb of Alexander the Great.

A 3-minute video shows an animation of what the hanging gardens of Babylon may have looked like.

The Museum of the Bible is hosting a two-session lecture series on “Jerusalem and Rome: Cultures in Context in the First Century CE,” featuring Eric Meyers, Mary Boatwright, Lawrence Schiffman, and Steven Notley.

Eric Meyers will be lecturing on March 28 in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, on “Holy Land Archaeology: Where the Past Meets the Present.”

Six speakers will address the subject of “Egypt and Ancient Israel: Merneptah’s Canaanite Campaign—History of Propaganda?” in a conference at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary on March
26.

Chris McKinny’s recent lecture on “Tel Burna—After a Decade of Investigation” is now online. The video includes all of his visuals.

This is fascinating: Predators in the Thickets: A Film Interview with Two Botanists and a Zoologist in Israel. You’ll learn more about lions, bears, forests, thickets, the Zor, and the Ghor. The film is intended an introduction to the newly launched Dictionary of Nature Imagery of the Bible.

Amos Kloner died yesterday.

HT: Agade, Chris McKinny, Joseph Lauer

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2019 Conference for the Institute of Biblical Context

Signups are now open for this summer’s Institute of Biblical Context conference. I’ve been at this conference the last two years, and the response has been extremely positive. The Institute of Biblical ContextI don’t know anything else like this where all the sessions are devoted to unpacking the meaning of biblical passages using historical, geographical, literary, and archaeological insights. I plan to be there again this year and I recommend it to all of my readers.

You can read all of the details on the official website, but I’ll quickly note some highlights here. The theme this year is “The
Last Days of Jesus,” and they’ll be looking closely at events from the Passion Week. Scheduled talks include:

  • Triumphal Entry
  • Cleansing the Temple
  • Cursing the Fig Tree
  • What’s Up with Judas
  • Trials before Sanhedrin, Pilate, and Antipas
  • Barabbas
  • Flogging and Method of Crucifixion
  • Tearing of the Curtain

One thing that people like is that the presentations are shorter, which means that the speaker gets right to the main points, and they can pack more subjects in. Some favorite speakers from the past are returning, and there are several new additions as well. I always find that the speakers are extremely well-prepared, and their presentations are packed with great visuals.

The conference is held in Zeeland in western Michigan, which is beautiful and warm in June. You can download the conference brochure here, and the early bird price is available until April 10. I think the conference is a great investment, and an additional bonus is to meet up with like-minded people who love learning about the Bible and its world.

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Weekend Roundup

Researchers have constructed kilns to determine how iron was smelted in ancient Israel. (Haaretz premium)

New research has identified where refugees fleeing Mount Vesuvius’s eruption later settled.

The New York Metropolitan Museum of Art will return a recently purchased gold-gilded Egyptian coffin that turned out to be looted.

$55 million will be invested to renovate several sites in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City, including the Burnt House, the Wohl Archaeological Museum, and the Tiferet Yisrael Synagogue.

A new museum will join the complex of tourist attractions at Latrun, this one honoring Jews who fought in WWII.

The Madaba Plains Project is celebrating 50 years of archaeological work in central Jordan.

Cyrene, Leptis Magna, and other antiquities sites in Libya are being neglected and vandalized since the fall of Gaddafi.

“Israel is hundreds of years overdue for a massive earthquake,” writes Ruth Schuster (Haaretz premium).

Sebastian Fink explains the significance of salt in ancient Mesopotamia.

Wayne Stiles: “The Judean Wilderness illustrates the greener grass we envy.”

Ferrell’s photo of the week is of the Appian Way that Paul traveled as he approached Rome.

Mark Barnes explains why Jesus was baptized in the Jordan River, with reference to the ministries of Elijah and Elisha.

“Kings of Israel is a board game taking place in Israel (the Northern Kingdom) during the reign of its kings up until Israel’s destruction by Assyria. Players are on a team, with each person representing a line of prophets…” BibleX has a list of other Christian board games.

The Institute of Biblical Culture’s new course in March, “Daily Life in Ancient Israel,” will cover topics like agriculture, the calendar, tribalism, and lifecycles.

The topic of the Tyndale House Conference 2019 is “Exploring the Old Testament and Its World.”

HT: Agade, Ted Weis

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About the BiblePlaces Blog

The BiblePlaces Blog provides updates and analysis of the latest in biblical archaeology, history, and geography. Unless otherwise noted, the posts are written by Todd Bolen, PhD, Professor of Biblical Studies at The Master’s University.

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