Five hikers were wounded when a mine exploded near Mount Avital in the Golan Heights.
Richard S. Hess has written an essay on the “Names in Genesis 11” at The Bible and Interpretation.
Professor Donald Wiseman passed away this week.
You can see and read more about the 1st century boat found at the Sea of Galilee at the new website entitled the “Jesus Boat Museum.” I can’t say I like the name they’ve chosen for marketing purposes, but they have some good photographs and explanations about an important archaeological discovery.
The Biblical Learning Blog has a post about “25 Open Courseware Classes about Early Christianity.” The title is a bit misleading, but you may find some subjects of interest here, including a Notre Dame course on Ancient Rome, a MIT course on Ancient Greece, or a Boise State course on the Crusades.
One thought on “Weekend Roundup”
The new web-site for the "Jesus Boat" is interesting indeed, from a number of angles. Under "About Us" it says:
"Jesus Boat, Inc. is owned and managed by the Kossonogi family and Don Stillman, and they maintain exclusive global marketing rights to the Jesus Boat, without any connection to the jesusboat.com site."
Sounds to me like a bit of a turf war going on… For some reason, I can't access that "other" site at the moment, which I think is essentially an on-line mall for Jewish-Christian souvenier items, from the people who run the big store on-site at Ginnosar (or did, anyway).
Then, under the "Foundation" link is this information:
"The many improvements to the Jesus Boat experience under development include:
*Finishing construction of the Museum’s 900 seat indoor theater production of dramatic multimedia shows recreating key events of Jesus’ ministry in Galilee.
*Creation of a state-of-the-art global TV broadcast center for “Live from the Galilee” events.
*A totally redesigned Jesus Boat exhibit to dramatically introduce the boat to visitors.
*Large U.S.-to-Galilee region tour bus excursions keyed toward visiting the Yigal Allon Museum."
Oddly enough, if someone wanted to actually VISIT the boat, the information – opening times, prices, etc. – is simply not there! What gives?
Anyway, to me it all sounds pretty glitzy and top-heavy on marketing. I hope the wonder of the ancient boat itself doesn't get lost in the shuffle…
TOM POWERS
Jerusalem