In the 1920s, archaeologists had the chance to study remains underneath Al Aqsa Mosque. The findings of a Jewish mikveh, Byzantine mosaic, and other pre-Islamic items were not made public until recently. Nadav Shragai describes their importance and connects them with the discoveries made in the Temple Mount Sifting Project.
Shragai mentions in that same article that rebar and other construction material is now laying on the Foundation Stone, the holy rock inside the Dome of the Rock. Leen Ritmeyer has photos.
The Tel Burna team has aerial photos showing the great progress they have made.
“The Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem on Friday became the first World Heritage Site to be listed under the name of Palestine.” (JPost)
Four caves in Mount Carmel with early evidence of human occupation were also designated as a World Heritage site.
The ESV Concise Bible Atlas is now available. The 64-page paperback sells for $10, and both size and price may be attractive to the weak and the poor. (See here for my comments on its big brother.)
John Monson is interviewed this week on the Book and the Spade, with attention given to his upcoming participation in the Khirbet Qeiyafa excavation and the shrines discovered there.
Matti Friedman retells the story of the discovery of the Cave of the Treasure, a cache of more than 400 copper objects more than 5,000 years old.
“An ancient Phoenician port in Beirut dating back to at least 500 B.C. was destroyed Tuesday,” said archaeologists. There’s no port there, according to the Archaeological Assessment Report.
The Day of Archaeology 2012 was yesterday, but posts will continue to be added for another week.
A report by Jordan answers questions about the work being done on the Temple Mount. From the Jerusalem Post:
Israelis got a rare glimpse of the planned renovations on the Temple Mount, Judaism’s holiest site, in a Jordanian report given to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). The report was issued ahead of a UNESCO conference in St. Petersburg, Russia, which starts on June 24.
UNESCO characterizes Jerusalem as a separate entity administered by both Israel and Jordan. The Wakf Muslim religious trust, a body under the auspices of the Jordanian government, retains administrative control over the city’s Muslim holy sites while Israel runs everything else.
Because the Temple Mount is administered by the wakf, it is difficult to discern exactly what work is being conducted. Both Jordan and Israel submitted plans and ongoing work in the Old City ahead of the St. Petersburg conference.
According to Jordanian authorities, workers are restoring the plastering and mosaics inside the Dome of the Rock, laying lead sheet over the roof of the Al-Aqsa Mosque complex, renovating the Al-Marwani mosque, and renovating the Khanatanyah School and library below the Al-Aqsa Mosque.
Relief from the afternoon sun is not in sight at the Western Wall prayer plaza because of a rabbinic decree that forbids anything that will overshadow the Wall. From Haaretz:
It was a beautiful, partially cloudy spring day in Jerusalem on Tuesday, with temperatures reaching 25 degrees Celsius in the shade. A perfect day for strolling around nearly any part of the city, with one truly glaring exception: the Western Wall Plaza. The glaring whiteness of the plaza pavement reflected the heat, and the complete absence of trees, buildings and pergolas ensured that there was not a speck of shade. The result is an almost unbearable experience for worshipers and tourists who congregate at Judaism’s holiest site. The situation will only become worse with the arrival of summer.
[…]
“I was at a bar mitzvah on the eve of Passover, which isn’t yet summer, and people said it was impossible to concentrate on the prayers,” recalls Ofer Cohen, chairman of an NGO, called the Lobby for Jewish Values. “Anyone who prays when it is hot has to finish the prayer quickly – it isn’t praying with a focused mind,” says Cohen, who has asked the ministers of tourism and religious affairs to try to solve the problem.
Tour guides are also irked by the harsh conditions at the plaza.
“The problem exists all year around, both in the rain and in the sun,” says Jerusalem guide Ben Lev Kadesh. “In this whole huge space there isn’t a single covered corner. Many of the tourists come from Europe and it isn’t easy for them to stand in the sun.”
[…]
Indeed all ideas for providing some kind of cover or shade in parts of the plaza have been rejected. The problem has been under discussion for decades, say officials in Rabinovitch’s office. “There have been discussions about how to deal with heat in summer and rain in winter. But most people from the areas of planning, history and archaeology have felt strongly that for the sake of the Wall’s splendor, glory, and the memory of the past, the Western Wall should be revealed without means of shading,” say the officials.
In excavations beginning at Abel Beth Maacah this summer, Robert Mullins expects to find a very large citadel at the northern end of the site and possibly an Assyrian siege ramp.
Now online: A lecture by Sy Gitin on “Ekron of the Philistines: From Sea Peoples to Olive Oil Industrialists.”
Can the Dead Sea be saved? A $4 million project, financed by the EU, is being launched this weekend to draw up a plan to make the area a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve.
What is ORBIS? “The Stanford Geospatial Network Model of the Roman World reconstructs the time cost and financial expense associated with a wide range of different types of travel in antiquity. The model is based on a simplified version of the giant network of cities, roads, rivers and sea lanes that framed movement across the Roman Empire. It broadly reflects conditions around 200 CE but also covers a few sites and roads created in late antiquity.” Very impressive.
The Common Swift, a unique bird that spends most of its life on the wing, returns to Western Wall for a short vacation from Africa. Nature-lovers are planning a welcoming ceremony Monday.
The Friends of the Swifts Association, the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel, and Tel Aviv University are working together to save existing nesting sites of the special bird. Its arrival at the Western Wall also symbolizes the approaching spring, said the sponsors of the welcoming ceremony.
[…]
They said that a special study to map the nests was conducted in 2002 by researcher Ulrich Tigges and by the late Prof. Mendelssohn, during which 88 nests were noted. This study map served as a guideline during the work of strengthening the Western Wall, keeping the nests unblocked.
Birds have been making their nests near the temple ever since the psalmist wrote, “Even the sparrow has found a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may have her young, a place near your altar….Blessed are those who dwell in your house” (Psalm 84:3-4).
In light of the current discussion concerning the so-called “Jesus Discovery” of the depiction of a Jonah/resurrection motif on a 1st century CE ossuary (see here) it is probably prudent to re-examine the typological relationship between the two prophets of Jonah and Jesus.
Besides the explicit connection of “the sign of Jonah” mentioned in Matt. 12:38-41; 16:4; Luke 11:29-32 there are several probable connections that can be derived through comparing the Gospels to the book of Jonah and 2 Kings 14:25 (i.e. the only Old Testament mention of the prophet outside of the prophetic book of Jonah).
Consider the following suggested similarities/parallels:
1. Each prophet heralded from and began his ministry in Lower Galilee. Jonah/Gath-Hepher and Jesus/Nazareth – 2 Kings 14:25; Matt. 2:23.
2. Each prophet’s ministry occurred during a time in which Israel’s hierarchical, wealthy members “trampled upon the poor.” Jonah/“cows of Bashan” during the time of Jeroboam II (8th cent. BCE); Jesus/”devourers of widow’s households” – Amos 4:1-3; 5:11-12; 8:3-7; Matt. 19:23-25; Mark 12:41-44; Luke 16:19-31; 20:46-47.
3. Each prophet preached Yahweh to Gentiles despite a desire to primarily minister to their own Israelite/Jewish population. Jonah joined Phoenicians on their way to North Africa (i.e. Tarshish) to avoid the goyim of Nineveh (Jonah 1:1-3) and Jesus stated that he was sent “only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matt. 15:24). However, both eventually ministered to Gentile populations – Jonah with Nineveh and Jesus for example with the Syro-Phoenician woman (Mark 7:25-28), Legion of the tombs of Gadera (Luke 8:26-34), and the centurion’s servant at Capernaum (Matt. 8:5-13).
4. Each prophet slept in the bottom of a ship in the midst of a raging storm while the ship’s sailors were wracked with fear and bewilderment due to the prophet’s slumber (Jonah 1:4-6; Mark 4:35-38). Additionally, each prophet was the reason for the ceasing of the storm (Jonah 1:7-16; Mark 4:39-41).
5. Explicit connection (see above) Each prophet spent “three days and three nights” in the “heart” of the earth before being “brought up from the pit.” Compare Jonah’s prayer (Jonah 2) and Jesus’ “sign of Jonah” (Matt. 12:38-41; 16:4; Luke 11:29-32) to Jonah’s expulsion (Jonah 3:1) and Jesus’ resurrection (e.g. Matt. 28:1-6).
6. Each prophet, despite being from northern Israel (i.e. Israel in the 8th cent. BCE and Galilee in the 1st cent CE), were obedient to the Law of Moses in worshipping Yahweh at his chosen location of Jerusalem (Deut. 12:5-7; 2 Sam. 7:13; 1 Kings 5:5). Compare Jonah’s “worship in the temple” (Jonah 2:4, 7), despite the enduring presence of the syncrestic temples of Dan and Bethel, to Jesus going up to Jerusalem for various feasts (e.g. Luke 2:41; 22:1).
7. Each prophet proclaimed coming destruction upon his audience’s capital city. Compare Jonah’s proclamation to Nineveh (Jonah 3) and subsequent, vengeful grief over their repentance (Jonah 4:1-4) to Jesus’ prophecy of doom to Jerusalem (e.g. Matt. 24) and subsequent, knowing grief over their rejection (Matt. 23:37; and especially Luke 19:41-44). As an aside, I find Jonah’s statement in Jonah 4:3 to be an ironic double entendre in the vein of Caiaphas’ statement in John 11:49-50.
8. Each prophet left the city that they had just preached in and went to the east of the city and prayed. Compare Jonah’s selfish, languishing prayer concerning the loss of his shade east of Nineveh and Yahweh’s response (Jonah 4:5-11) to Jesus’ selfless, anguish-filled plea to “let this cup pass” in Gethsemane and Yahweh’s silence (e.g. Luke 22:39-44).
More could be said about the typology of Jonah in relation to Jesus, especially with regards to the notable differences between the two. Nevertheless, in my opinion the above similarities undergird the connection between Jonah and early Christian motifs (see for example Jensen’s post which mentions 4th cent. CE depictions in Rome). Whether, the Talpiot ossuary is the first known example of this connection is an open, debatable question, but in either case it seems clear that the motifs derive from a clear typology that is rooted in the Gospels.
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.
