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Last month Eisenbrauns released a new book that looks fantastic. Unearthing Jerusalem: 150 Years of Archaeological Research in the Holy City has a rich collection of articles authored by those who know the subjects best [with one glaring exception]. I have not read the book, and will not be able to for several months, but I know that some of the readers here will want to get this on their Christmas list. GALUNEART

The Eisenbrauns website has the publication details, but more helpful than the two-paragraph description is the table of contents. I’ve re-formatted that below for easier reading.

It should be noted that the book is based on a conference held in 2006 and thus those looking for the latest results from excavations will want to check elsewhere.

Frank E. Peters, Where Three Roads Meet: Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Pilgrimage to Jerusalem


Part 1: The History of Research

Shimon Gibson, British Archaeological Work in Jerusalem between 1865 and 1967: An Assessment

Ulrich Hübner, The German Protestant Institute of Archaeology (Deutsches Evangelisches Institut für Altertumswissenschaft des Heiligen Landes)

Joan R. Branham, The American Archaeological Presence in Jerusalem: Through the Gates of the Albright Institute

Dominique Trimbur, The École Biblique et Archéologique Française: A Catholic, French, and Archaeological Institution

Michele Piccirillo, The Archaeology of Jerusalem and the Franciscans of the Studium Biblicum

Ronny Reich, The Israel Exploration Society

Jon Seligman, The Departments of Antiquities and the Israel Antiquities Authority (1918–2006): The Jerusalem Experience


Part 2: From Early Humans to the Iron Age

Ofer Bar-Yosef, Prehistory of the Jerusalem Area

Aren M. Maeir, The Archaeology of Early Jerusalem

Israel Finkelstein, Jerusalem in the Iron Age: Archaeology and Text; Reality and Myth
Part 3: The Roman Period

Joseph Patrich, The Location of the Second Temple and the Layout of its Courts, Gates and Chambers: A New Proposal

Doron Ben-Ami and Yana Tchekhanovets, Has the Adiabene Royal Family “Palace” Been Found in the City of David?

Ronny Reich and Eli Shukron, The Pool of Siloam in Jerusalem of the Late Second Temple Period and Its Surroundings

Zvi Greenhut, A Domestic Quarter from the Second Temple Period on the Lower Slopes of the Central Valley (Tyropoeon)

Donald T. Ariel, Coins from Excavations in the Domestic Quarter of the City of David, Jerusalem

Hillel Geva, On the “New City” of Second Temple Period Jerusalem: The Archaeological Evidence

Jodi Magness, Aelia Capitolina: A Review of Some Current Debates about Hadrianic Jerusalem
Part 4: The Byzantine Period

Oren Gutfeld, The Urban Layout of Byzantine-Period Jerusalem

Leah Di Segni, Epigraphic Finds Reveal New Chapters in the History of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in the 6th Century

Jon Seligman, The Hinterland of Jerusalem during the Byzantine Period


Part 5: The Early Islamic and Medieval Periods

Gideon Avni, From Hagia Polis to Al-Quds: The Byzantine–Islamic Transition in Jerusalem

Donald Whitcomb, Jerusalem and the Beginnings of the Islamic City

Shlomit Weksler-Bdolah, Early Islamic and Medieval City Walls of Jerusalem in Light of New Discoveries

Mahmoud Hawari, Ayyubid Jerusalem: New Architectural and Archaeological Discoveries

Robert Schick, Mamluk and Ottoman Jerusalem

One last comment: the natural choice for the presentation/article on Iron Age Jerusalem is Gabriel
Barkay. He knows the city and this period far better than Israel Finkelstein and he does not suffer from the biases that make the latter’s work unreliable. Perhaps a logistical reason made Barkay’s participation impossible.

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Several years ago some private individuals developed the “Jesus Trail” for travelers who wished to walk from Nazareth to Capernaum. We described this effort at some length last year. Yesterday the government Israel dedicated the “Gospel Trail,” a route that travels the same ground as the “Jesus Trail” and apparently competes with it. The Jerusalem Post reports on the story:

Minister of Tourism Stas Misezhnikov inaugurated on Tuesday the new Gospel Trail pilgrimage route which has been created by the Ministry of Tourism along with the Jewish National Fund.
The trail, which cost NIS 3 million to develop over three years, is designed to further increase the already large numbers of Christian tourists and pilgrims who visit Israel each year.
[…]
The route of the Gospel Trail follows the path which Jesus walked at age 30 after he was evicted from Nazareth, as related by the New Testament.
The trail, which runs for 63 kilometers, starts at Mount Precipice just outside Nazareth and continues eastwards down to Capernaum, taking in a number of important Christian holy sites.
These include the Mount of Beatitudes, where Jesus gave the Sermon on the Mount; Magdala (Migdal today) the home of Mary Magadelene; Tabgha, the site of the Feeding of the Five Thousand; and Capernaum, where Jesus established his ministry and met his first disciple Peter.
Those traveling the trail will be able to do so by car, bicycle and, more traditionally, on foot – despite the current lack of amenities and accommodation along the route. The ministry says it is working on a program to encourage entrepreneurs to develop tourist facilities to provide services for those walking the trail.

The story includes a 3.5 minute video which features interviews with Christian pilgrims pleased with the announcement.

A search for Gospel Trail takes one to www.gospeltrail.com, a site owned by Jesus Trail™.

The Israel Ministry of Tourism website includes a description of the Gospel Trail route and the infrastructure created by the $700,000 investment. The site also includes links to a 12-page booklet (which includes the map posted below), a stage-by-stage guide, and a high-resolution satellite map with the trail marked.

Gospel-Trail-map

Map of the Gospel Trail from the Israel Ministry of Tourism booklet
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After the city engineer of Jerusalem demanded that the Mughrabi bridge be repaired or closed for safety reasons, Israel’s prime minister has ordered that the reconstruction of only non-Muslim access to the Temple Mount be postponed because of Muslim opposition. From the Jerusalem Post:

According to the report, work on the bridge – which received approval in March – was to have begun early Sunday morning.  The initial work of demolishing the existing structure would have necessitated the deployment of large IDF and security forces in Jerusalem and around the Temple Mount, as well as stepped up army preparedness in the West Bank. Channel 2 reported that Cairo and Amman warned Jerusalem that the work would likely lead to "disruptions" in both Jordan and Egypt.  
Officials in both the Prime Minister’s Office and the Jerusalem Municipality refused Sunday night to relate to the reports.
Previous work on the bridge caused widespread rioting in neighborhoods throughout the Jerusalem area and in Jordan. […] Under the plans, a permanent bridge is to be built to replace the current temporary wooden structure that has been in use since a 2003 earthquake and winter storm caused part of the original bridge to collapse. The bridge is used as the main entry point for non- Muslim tourists and security forces entering the Temple Mount.

The full story is here. Haaretz has additional details. For background, see this post from one month ago.

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News:

Plans are being made for a renovation of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, beginning with a long-delayed replacement of the roof.

Paleobabble gives a summary of Randall Price’s recent presentation on the 2011 search for Noah’s Ark.

The Israeli government is planning to relocate 30,000 Bedouin in the Negev.

The seed of the date palm discovered at Masada has now grown to a 8-foot (2.5 m) tall tree after more than five years. The tree was planted last week at Kibbutz Ketura in the Arabah. Previous updates were posted in 2006 and 2008.

A new study of textiles has determined that the Qumran inhabitants differentiated themselves from their contemporaries by what they wore.

“Moammar Gadhafi’s forces tried to flee Tripoli with a sack of ancient Roman artifacts in hopes of selling them abroad to help fund their doomed fight, Libya’s new leaders said Saturday as they displayed the recovered objects for the first time.”

The Jerusalem Post has added a two-minute video on the dating of the southwestern corner of the
Temple Mount, including sound bites from Ronny Reich and Eli Shukron.

Joseph Naveh passed away this week. His life and publications are remembered by Christopher Rollston.

HT: Biblical Flora, Joseph Lauer, Jack Sasson

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Museums:

The Museo Egizio di Torino has recently posted 11,000 objects from ancient Egypt online.

Six new galleries for ancient Egypt and Nubia opened today at the Ashmolean Museum. The Ashmolean is the most popular free UK museum outside of London.

The British Museum will close its Department of the Middle East to visitors from December 12, 2011 to January 20, 2012.

John E. Curtis will be lecturing on “Babylon: A Wonder of the Ancient World” at the Met on December 19.


Resources/Sales:

The latest production by SourceFlix is now available. You can watch the trailer of “The Sacrifice” at their site. It looks great.

The Logos version of Austen Henry Layard’s Nineveh and Its Remains will close in community bidding on Friday. It’s now at $18 but may well go down to $16 or $14.

BAS has dozens of items for sale this weekend only, including 50% off Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, Freeing the Dead Sea Scrolls, The Copper Scroll, and Scholars on the Record.

Glo Premium is available for only $35 through Monday. The special includes a free DVD.

Accordance is selling all Carta modules and combos for 20% off through December. The sale includes Ritmeyer’s The Quest, Rainey and Notley’s The Sacred Bridge, and Eusebius’ Onomasticon.

Tyndale Tech explains why Perseus, now available for free in Logos, is the best collection for studying backgrounds of the New Testament.

HT: Jack Sasson

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The discovery announced yesterday was analyzed by a number of writers:
Doug Petrovich (ANE-2) notes that “it long has been accepted” that King Herod did not finish the Temple Mount project and that “all this find does is to date more precisely the building of the SW corner of the Temple Mount (to AD 17/18).”

Ferrell Jenkins observes that “we already knew” what archaeologists claim to have discovered, given the record of Josephus and John 2.

Alexander Schick provides photos of the incomplete section on the northern end of the Western Wall, suggesting that the story is sensational only because the New Testament evidence was ignored.
(Google translation link)

Shmuel Browns was at the press conference and provides his own summary. He also makes some observations and poses some questions in a comment to yesterday’s post on this blog.

The Reuters story provides one solution to the press release by suggesting that academic historians are aware of Josephus but that tour guides are not.

Leen Ritmeyer explains the phases of construction of the western and southern walls of the Temple Mount. This is a must-read for any tempted to claim that Herod did not build the Western Wall.

Ritmeyer’s expert diagrams will help you to understand even if you are not familiar with some of the terms and place names. Read it!

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