The Associated Press reports on the Carchemish excavations. Six photos are featured. (A version with photos embedded is here.)

NT Blog: The Jesus’ Wife Fragment: How the Forgery Was Done

Logos Bible Software, my Bible study program of choice for more than 15 years now, has released version 5. The Biblical Studies and Technological Tools blog is reviewing it. In Part 1, Mark Hoffman provides excuses for upgrading, and in Part 2, he gives reasons, with plenty of illustrated examples.

Eisenbrauns’ Deal of the Weekend is Exploring the Longue Duree: Essays in Honor of Lawrence E. Stager. Don’t let the title fool you: there are many interesting articles in this book. (Click on the Table of Contents link for a full list.)

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You can read or download the last three years of Palestine Exploration Quarterly for free with a simple registration, for a limited time. You can see the table of contents here. The issues from 2009-2011 appear to be free without registration from the table of contents. Here are a few recent articles that caught my eye:

What Would the Egyptian Pharaoh Shoshenq I Have Seen If He Had Visited the Central Jordan 
Valley?, by Lucas P. Petit.peq

Palestinian Antiquities Looters, Their Skill Development, Methodology And 
Specialised Terminology: An Ethnographic Study, by Salah H. Al-Houdalieh.

The Location of Ziklag: A Review of the Candidate Sites, Based on Biblical, 
Topographical and Archaeological Evidence, by Horton Harris.

The Location of Tarichaea: North or South of Tiberias?, by Nikos Kokkinos.

The Protestant Garden Tomb in Jerusalem, Englishwomen, and a Land Transaction in Late Ottoman Palestine, by Ruth Kark and Seth J. Frantzman.

Members of the Palestine Exploration Fund receive four issues of PEQ a year (as of 2013) as well as other privileges.

UPDATE (11/10): They changed the free access noted above. You should still be able to get to the content by registering for their free and informative mailing list.

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Shimon Gibson’s excellent work is the “Deal of the Weekend” at Eisenbrauns right now. Marked down from $49.95 to $14.99, this is a great deal.

The publisher’s description:
Jerusalem in Original Photographs brings together pictures taken by the early travel photographers who captured unique moments in history. jerusalem-original-photographsStructured around a contemporary map of the town, the selection of illustrations leads the reader on a walking tour through streets often little changed over the course of the intervening century. These black and white photographs have been drawn from the Palestine Exploration Fund archives and are accompanied by masterful commentary by the renowned archaeologist, Dr. Shimon Gibson.

From a review in Near Eastern Archaeology:

Jerusalem in Original Photographs, 1850–1920 is an impressive volume, an entry point to important archival materials, a contribution to the history of photography in the Middle East, and an opportunity to reclaim the visual legacy of the last century. Photographs are valuable resources for research into the past. The immediacy of the images, the scope of the representation covering small details up to landscapes, and the visual information make for intriguing insights… “Jerusalem in Original 


Photographs, 1850–1920 is a multifaceted book. It could be displayed on a coffee table and examined for its fine images. The layout of the volume is an engaging way to remember the late Ottoman and early British Mandatory city. The volume documents an important mode of representing the city. For the specialist in the period, the book is a superb resource to examine critically architectural and other material changes during the transition from Ottoman to British rule. Reading and studying this book may prove a very enlightening endeavor for many types of audiences. Gibson deserves congratulations for producing an important scholarly resource and an attractive compilation.” — Uzi Baram, New College of Florida in Near Eastern Archaeology 65:4, 2002

The Eisenbrauns website has more details. Recommended!

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A dog fell into a hole in Jerusalem and now it will become an open biblical tourist park.

Work continues in Georgia in constructing a museum for artifacts from Israel.

The next time you travel to the Golan Heights, you can remember your day this way: Bastions, Burials, Battles, and Borders.

Ferrell Jenkins shares a photo of a beautiful sunrise over the Sea of Galilee.

The Church of the Holy Sepulcher may close its doors for a day to protest its bank account being frozen for not paying its water bill.

Al Jazeera posts 15 photos on the Western Wall prayer plaza and excavated tunnels.

The Zondervan Atlas of the Bible is marked down to $14.99 for the Fabulous Friday sale at christianbook.com. (Amazon: $26.39). It might make a great gift for someone who wants to understand the Bible better.

The latest SourceFlix video short is about the olive harvest. (If you appreciate their work, you might consider making a donation some time.)

A special exhibition opens next week at the Lynn H. Wood Archaeological Museum on “The Battle over King David: Excavating the Fortress of Elah.”

I bet that this is the first (future) motion picture reference to Shaaraim in connection with the David and Goliath story. (If they ever read 1 Samuel 17, they’ll get rid of it. Shaaraim is not Qeiyafa and it’s not the Philistine base either.)

HT: Charles Savelle, Joseph Lauer

Woman harvesting olives near Bethlehem, tb111106855
Woman harvesting olives near Bethlehem
Photo from Cultural Images of the Holy Land
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Hershel Shanks: Authentic or Forged? What to Do When Experts Disagree? His example: Geologists vs. philologists on the Jehoash Inscription.

Michael S. Heiser recommends the archive of ISIS, the journal of the ancient chronology forum.

Charles E. Jones lists titles relating to antiquity from the Brooklyn Museum Publications now available online.

A husband and wife team have been leading an excavation of  ‘Ayn Gharandal in southern Jordan.

“A new ancient city considered to be the Zeugma of the West and thought to be one of the lost cities of Anatolia has been unearthed in İzmir.” (Hurriyet Daily News)

The Exhibition Indiana Jones and the Adventure of Archaeology is now open at the Discovery Science Center in southern California.

Israel: Seeing is Believing – This six-minute film has some nice footage. The focus is as much on the modern as on the ancient.

At only $8.54, the ESV Study Bible for the Kindle is a great deal. Note that the index feature does not work with Kindle 1, Kindle Fire, or the Kindle apps.

HT: Charles Savelle, Jack Sasson, G. M. Grena

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SourceFlix has just released a new video short, “Follow Me,” with some great footage of sheep and shepherds.

Hezekiah’s Pool (aka Patriarch’s Pool) in the Christian Quarter of Jerusalem has long been a swampy dump. The area was cleared last year and recently it held what Tom Powers believes is the first public gathering in its history.

Wayne Stiles: Beersheba epitomizes the faith God required to live in the Holy Land….God used this unassuming, barren place to shape some of the most significant lives in the Bible.

Heavy rains in the Eilat mountains and southern Aravah led to flooding of the Hai-Bar Yotvata Nature Reserve. Workers safely evacuated animals in danger of drowning.

Peter James answers some difficult questions about the Step Pyramid of Saqqara and the Bent
Pyramid of Dashur based on his years of repairing damaged structures in Egypt.

The Penn Museum is opening to visitors its conservation process of ancient Egyptian mummies.

Back issues of Christian History magazine are available as free pdf files.

Here is what looks to be like an interesting lecture this evening (in Hebrew): “The Tomb of David on
Mount Zion? Pierotti’s Cave?”

Amit Reem, IAA. At the Bible Lands Museum Jerusalem, 7:30pm. Free with museum admission.

HT: Jack Sasson

Dashur Bent Pyramid northeast corner, tbs102049811
The Bent Pyramid of Dashur
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