Todd Bolen, Author at BiblePlaces.com

Archaeology Conference in Tzfat

Joe Lauer sends word that a conference entitled “Ancient Tzfat and the Galilee – Archaeology, History and Heritage,” will be held tomorrow, Thursday, March 31, 9 am – 5 pm, at the Yigal Allon Center in Tzfat (Safed). From Arutz-7:

New discoveries in the old city of Tzfat will be revealed for the first time at a special conference to take place March 31st at the Yigal Allon Center in Tzfat. The conference will be held on behalf of the Northern Antiquities Authority, in cooperation with the University of Haifa, the Tzfat Municipality and Tfzat College. The conference will focus on archeology, history and heritage. The Israel Antiquities Authority states that ancient Tzfat (also known as Safed) is a unique, urban heritage, dating back to the Mamluk period in the 13th century. Tzfat is home to the Ari synagogue where prayer services have taken place for over 500 years in a row and houses one of the world’s oldest known Torah scrolls.

A press release in Hebrew may be found here and here.

Tagged Lectures

Seven Years of Drought in Israel

The rainy season in Israel is over and the results are not good. This marks the seventh consecutive year of drought. From the Jerusalem Post:

This year, the North received much more water than the center and the south, reaching a bit more than 90 percent of Israel’s average rainfall, according to Schor, but he cautioned that this is not worthy of celebration. […] To be 100% average, Schor explained, is not sufficient, particularly because this is the seventh consecutive year in which we are “taking more water than we get.” Overall, including the South and Center, the country achieved an accumulation of only 70% of average, he said. Meanwhile, despite heavy rains in the past few months that have brought water levels in the Kinneret [Sea of Galilee] above the red line, Schor warned that “we are missing almost four meters of water” from the reservoir.

The full story is here.

Tagged Weather

Bible Reference Finalists

The Christian Book Expo has listed award finalists for 2011. In the “Bible Reference” category, four of the five nominated books have been praised here before.

A Visual Guide to Gospel Events, by James C. Martin, John A. Beck, and David G. Hansen

Crossway ESV Bible Atlas, by John D. Currid and David P. Barrett

The Story of the Bible: The Fascinating History of Its Writing, Translation and Effect on
Civilization, by Larry Stone [not noted on this blog]

Zondervan Atlas of the Bible, by Carl G. Rasmussen

Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary, John H. Walton, General Editor

If judging on the basis of unique value to a Bible student, I would give the award to the five-volume (3,000-page!) commentary set. The other books are more affordable, and all make 2010 an outstanding year for works in the field.

Tagged Resources

NY Times: Excavating in Ashkelon

The Travel section of the New York Times features an article by a volunteer to last summer’s excavations of the Philistine city of Ashkelon. Sam Roberts writes:

The expedition is a mix of Outward Bound and summer school. The classes are all outdoors — below ground, mostly — in deep pits excavated in grids marked on a 130-acre bowl atop an eroding cliff that overlooks the beach below. The site is part of a national park, populated by picnickers and jackals and mongoose, with guest appearances by the pink, black and white-crested hoopoe, Israel’s national bird. The accommodations are vastly improved from the first year when, with the group camping out near the dig, the director stumbled into a cesspool and had his pants stolen. These days, the accommodations compare very favorably with sleepaway camp and the hotel food is tolerable (it’s served at a buffet, so at least there’s plenty of it). […] What is striking, too, is the juxtaposition of ancient ruins and modern technology. Each artifact and the daily changing dimensions of the dig are meticulously digitized. “Every field book is typed onto a laptop, every bucket is assigned a bar code to enable us to communicate the results to the archaeological community faster,” said Dr. Daniel M. Master, an archaeology professor at Wheaton College and the expedition’s new co-director with Dr. Lawrence E. Stager, a Harvard archaeology professor and director of the Harvard Semitic Museum, who has overseen the dig for 25 years.

The article includes information about qualifications to volunteer at Ashkelon as well as the cost and deadline. (The cost doubles for those getting academic credit from Harvard.) The writer includes the Israelites as among the ancient groups that lived in the city, but I’m having difficulty recalling when that could have been.

Tagged Excavations, Philistines

En Gedi Never Fails to Disappoint

This article by Yoni Cohen may be the most worthless piece of reporting I’ve seen in years of reading the Jerusalem Post. I can’t imagine that it took more than five minutes to write, nor can I understand why the Jerusalem Post is not exercising some editorial oversight over an article linked from the site’s front page. Perhaps these days it’s all about getting the “clicks,” but ultimately I think it’s a bad strategy.

The five photos are all blurry (to my eyes), but the three brief comments currently posted are more helpful than the article itself.

[This blog post took less than five minutes to write, but this illustrated page about En Gedi took much longer to create.]

Tagged Dead Sea, Tourism

Recent Articles at Bible and Interpretation

Various articles posted at the Bible and Interpretation in the last month have drawn my eye. Some I hoped to interact with here, but as time passes, I realize it may just be best to point you directly to them.

Why the fishing town Bethsaida is not found along the shore of the Sea of Galilee. Fred Strickert explains that the reason why et-Tell (aka “Bethsaida”) is today distant from the Sea of Galilee is silting by the Jordan River. He also wonders if the site may have been elevated by seismic activity since biblical times. El-Araj is not a viable candidate for Bethsaida, he says, because the site was not settled in the first century.

From the Seal of a Seer to an Inscribed Game Board: A Catalog of Eleven Early Alphabetic Inscriptions Recently Discovered in Egypt and Palestine. This article by Gordon J. Hamilton considers three new inscriptions from the Middle Bronze, one from the Late Bronze, and seven from the Early Iron Age (including inscriptions from Gath, Tel Zayit, Tel Rehov, Beth Shemesh, and Kh. Qeiyafa). The bibliographic data alone is very useful. With regard to the Gath ostracon, note Maeir’s response.

On Archaeology, Forgeries and Public Awareness: The “James Brother of Jesus” Ossuary in Retrospect. Gideon Avni believes that the obviously forged inscriptions of the James Ossuary and Jehoash Tablet will be regarded as little more than a footnote in history books. Since a number of scholars consider the case to still be open, this article unfairly denigrates other conclusions by acting as if they don’t exist.

Zedekiah Cave or the Quarries of King Solomon in Jerusalem: A Subsurface Stone Quarry for Building the Second Temple by King Herod. Zeev Lewy of the Geological Survey of Israel has written a fascinating report suggesting reasons why Herod’s engineers selected a certain type of stone for use in the Temple Mount. This also explains why the massive quarry was accessed through a single small entrance.

The Bible and Interpretation has many other recent articles, and they now also have a mechanism for supporting their work.

Tagged Forgery, Galilee, Jerusalem, Weekend Roundup