Lectures Archives - Page 75 of 90

Boca Symposium: Jesus and the Temple

A lecture series will be held next weekend in Boca Raton, Florida, with leading scholars of the Second Temple period. The conference is open to the public and free of charge. The purpose of the meetings is described as follows:

Focal Question: How significantly and in what ways did the Temple and its cult help define the social and spiritual life of early Jews, including Jesus and his earliest followers?

Purpose: To correct the popular impression that Jesus despised the Temple and its cult because he attacked the money changers and was apparently condemned by the leading high priests [the historicity of each event must be discussed]. To raise questions which are focused on pre-70 Jews, Jesus, his followers and the Temple and to seek a new consensus on the grid questions.

Lectures include:

Leen Ritmeyer: “Imagining the Temple Early Jews Knew”

Response: Dan Bahat: “Imagining and Excavating the Temple Area”

Dan Bahat: “The Architecture of the Temple”

Motti Aviam: “Temple Symbolism and the Lives of Galilean Jews”

Lawrence H. Schiffman: “The Importance of the Temple for Early Jews”

Dan Bahat: “Worship in the Temple”

James H. Charlesworth: “Jesus, the Temple Cult, and the Temple”

Gary A. Rendsburg: “The Davidic Psalms and the Temple”

James H. Charlesworth: “Jesus’ Followers and the Power of the Temple”

Harold W. Attridge: “The Temple and the High Priestly Jesus in New Testament Texts”

Loren Stuckenbruck: “The Temple in the Jewish and Christian Apocalypses”

PANEL DISCUSSION

An extension of the symposium is being held on Dec 18-19 in Miami Beach, Florida.

Though I have serious misgivings about the stated purpose of the symposium, I would certainly attend if I was able.

Full details are here. An RSVP is requested.

Tagged Jerusalem, Lectures

Lecture on Samaritans at Yeshiva University

I cannot find this posted online, so instead of including a link in the Weekend Roundup, I am posting it here in full. A portion of a previous interview by Dr. Tsedeka is online here.

Samaritans, Samaritanism and the Samaritan Pentateuch: Reflections on Samaritan Manuscripts in YU Special Collections

Lecture by Benyamim Tsedeka, Director, A-B Center for Samaritan Studies, Holon, and a leader of the Samaritan Israelite Community in Israel

Thurs, November 17, 2011, Furst Hall 311, Wilf Campus, Washington Heights (184th and Amsterdam Avenue)

Celebrating the completion of his catalog of the YU collection of Samaritan manuscripts, which will be published early next year, Benyamim Tsedeka, Director, A-B Center for Samaritan Studies in Holon, Israel and a leader of the Samaritan Israelite Community will speak on the significance of the YU manuscripts for the modern history of the Samaritans and for the history of the Bible on Thursday, November 17 at 6:45 in Furst Hall 311 on our historic Washington Heights campus (184th and Amsterdam Avenue).

This project is sponsored by the YU Center for Israel Studies.

HT: Jack Sasson

Tagged Lectures, Samaria

13th Annual Batchelder Conference for Biblical Archaeology

The conference began yesterday and runs through tomorrow. From the Omaha World-Herald:

The University of Nebraska at Omaha is hosting the 13th annual Batchelder Conference for Biblical Archaeology on Thursday through Saturday at the Thompson Alumni Center.
James Charlesworth, professor of New Testament Language and Literature at Princeton Theological Seminary, will deliver the key address Thursday at 7:30 p.m. Charlesworth will describe how researchers continue to uncover mysteries in the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Since 1990, UNO has led a group of institutions in uncovering and studying artifacts at the ancient city of Bethsaida on the northeast shore of the Sea of Galilee. It is one of the most frequently mentioned towns in the New Testament. At least three apostles were born there, and it is purported to be the site where Jesus performed several miracles.
Rami Arav, the archaeologist who discovered the site and directs the excavation each summer at the 20-acre site, will speak Friday night at 7:30. Arav teaches in the Department of Philosophy and Religion and the Department of History at UNO.
The addresses by Charlesworth and Arav, as well as 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. sessions Friday and Saturday, are open to the public. A $5 donation is suggested at the door.

Did Arav discover the site of et-Tell, or should this read that Arav is the most vocal proponent of its identification with Bethsaida? The NEAEH article, written by Arav, says that “Bethsaida was first identified with et-Tell…by…U. J. Seetzen…and again in 1838 by E. Robinson” (5:1611). The imprecise wording must originate with the newspaper and not the University.

The full schedule of the conference is available as a Word document.

Tagged Galilee, Lectures

Weekend Roundup

Ancient Israel: Highlights from the Collections of the Oriental Institute University of Chicago is a new 127-page publication written by Gabrielle Vera Novacek and illustrated with 66 beautiful photographs and diagrams. The book is available for pre-order from Amazon or as a free download (pdf).

Six lectures in Hebrew are now online from the 12th Studies of Ancient Jerusalem conference held in September in the City of David. The speakers included Israel Finkelstein, Ronny Reich, Gabriel Barkay, Asher Grossberg, Eli Shukron, and Yosef Garfinkel.

“Libya’s famed ancient Roman sites, including the sprawling seaside ruins of Leptis Magna, were spared damage by NATO during the recent airstrikes, says a London-based Libyan archaeologist.”

Muslims continue to bury their dead next to the eastern wall of the Temple Mount, according to the Committee to Prevent the Destruction of Temple Mount Antiquities.

The head of the Supreme Committee of the Grand Egyptian Museum was fired this week.

“Ultra-Orthodox young men curse and spit at Christian clergymen in the streets of Jerusalem’s Old City as a matter of routine.” Last week a judge ruled in favor of an Armenian seminary student who fought back.

HT: Daniel Wright, Jack Sasson, ANE-2, AWOL

Tagged Egypt, Jerusalem, Lectures, Museums, Resources, Temple Mount, Weekend Roundup

Weekend Roundup

A miniature prayer box from the 6th-7th centuries was discovered recently in the excavations in the Central Valley south of the Dung Gate of Jerusalem.

Haaretz: “The High Court of Justice yesterday criticized the agreement by which a private association, Elad, operates the City of David national park in Jerusalem, but said the agreement was legal.” One potential change to the agreement would open the site to tourists on Shabbat. The Jerusalem Post covers the story here.

A local watchman of the lower Herodium sued archaeologist Ehud Netzer days before his death.

Recent court proceedings rejected all of the plaintiff’s claims and observed that the watchman had been extorting the archaeologist for years. The article is in Hebrew, with a Google translation here.

China will help build a railway to Eilat. Israeli officials hope that this boosts tourism to the Red Sea resort city.

Time Magazine gives five reasons to visit Beirut.

“The largest collection of biblical artifacts ever displayed outside Israel” opened yesterday in New York City.

Shmuel Browns gives readers a tour of the four sites run by the East Jerusalem Development Company: Ramparts Walk, Roman Plaza, Zedekiah’s Cave, and the Davidson Archaeological Park.

Joe Yudin recommends hiking to Ein Akev in the Negev Highlands. (Am I the only one offended that the Jerusalem Post publishes material with very basic mistakes in English grammar?)

Peter Williams’ lecture on “New Evidences the Gospels Were Based on Eyewitness Accounts” primarily discusses data from recent studies of names, but he also includes a geographical section in minutes 36-42 of this Lanier Library Lecture now posted at Youtube. (He shares a photo from BiblePlaces.com, but by using a low-res web version his viewers have a hard time making out what he’s trying to show.)

HT: Joseph Lauer, Yitzhak Sapir, A.D. Riddle

Tagged Discoveries, Jerusalem, Lebanon, Lectures, Museums, Tourism, Weekend Roundup

Wednesday Roundup

Writing on the Malta Independent Online, Mark Gatt reviews Robert Cornuke’s The Lost Shipwreck of Paul and concludes that it is “fraught with mistakes and manipulated facts.”

Alan R. Millard will speak on “Are there Anachronisms in the Books of Samuel?” at Trinity
Evangelical Divinity School on Monday, Nov. 14. For details, see this flyer (pdf).

The International Women’s Club English Lecture Series at Tel Aviv University has some interesting topics slated for the coming months. The semester theme is “From Copper to Bronze: the
Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Ages.”

The Israel Exploration Journal is among a new group of journals available in JSTOR.

A Swiss architect is trying to save the mosaics of Hisham’s Palace near Jericho.

Work has resumed in the project to lower the ground water threatening five Egyptian temples in Luxor.

Wayne Stiles’ weekly column explains how Scripture uses water imagery to teach valuable lessons.

Eisenbrauns has conference discounts posted online for the benefit of all. Among the deals are two books by Eilat Mazar and one by Ronny Reich. Amnon Ben-Tor’s Back to Masada is 20% off.

Logos Bible Software is taking bids for Austen Henry Layard’s Nineveh and Its Remains (2 vols). Projected price is currently $20.

El Al is quietly cutting their luggage limit on international flights to one bag.

HT: A.D. Riddle, Jack Sasson, Gordon Franz

Tagged Lectures, Resources, Tourism, Weekend Roundup