Todd Bolen, Author at BiblePlaces.com

The Ides of March

Today is the “Ides of March,” the day that commemorates the death of Julius Caesar. In March, the “Ides” always falls on the 15th, but that’s not true of other months. William Browning explains:

The Roman calendar had weird ways to determine times of the month. The Ides of March doesn’t necessarily refer to a holiday or festival on the Roman calendar but instead talks about how the Romans told time in the year….
The calendar organized months around three days — Kalends, Nones and Ides. Kalends noted the first of the month, so in modern terms the Kalends of June would be June 1. Nones served as the seventh day in March, May, July and October; it was the fifth in every other month. Ides were the middle of the month — they were the 15th of March, May, July and October but the 13th in others.
Days were noted by counting backwards from the upcoming monthly marker. For instance, Oct. 10 would be designated the “V Ides” or five days before the Ides of October. This method of dating lasted well into Medieval times before it was replaced with the Gregorian calendar used today.

The plot against Caesar was a reaction to his efforts to increase his power and become “dictator for life.” According to National Geographic:

The Romans had no love for kings. According to legend, they expelled their last one in 509 B.C. While Caesar had made pointed and public displays of turning down offers of kingship, he showed no reluctance to accept the office of “dictator for life” in February 44 B.C. According to Osgood, this action may have sealed his fate in the minds of his enemies. “We can see [now] that that was enough to get him killed,” Osgood said.
Caesar had pushed the envelope for some time before his death. “Caesar was the first living Roman ever to appear on the coinage,” Osgood said. Normally, the honor was reserved for deities. He notes that some historians suspect that Caesar might have been attempting to establish a cult in his honor in a move towards deification.

Caesar’s assassination did little more than delay the process, for his heir Augustus became Rome’s first emperor fifteen years later.

HT: Explorator

Tagged Italy

New CD: Seven Churches of Revelation

Leen Ritmeyer has just released a new CD with 105 pictures and captions of the sites where the seven churches of Revelation were located in the first century.

It begins on the beautiful Greek island of Patmos, where the Apostle John was told to write the visions which he saw in a scroll and send them to the Seven Churches (Greek singular:”ekklesia”) which were in Asia. We visit these sites: Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea in order, with additional slides devoted to Laodicea’s sister churches in the Lycus Valley: Colossae and Hierapolis, (without reference to these neighbouring churches, in particular their water supply, the letter to Laodicea would be unintelligible). The circular postal route of the messenger is mapped, with a separate map given to highlight his journey from one city to the next. Each section includes a slide containing the full message to each church (quoted from the NKJV) with a useful summary given in its caption. The church and its city is then placed in its geographical and historical setting, with links made to the local background in each letter. Images providing Scriptural insight, accompanied by detailed captions, are given of each city. In Ephesus, you can disembark at the ancient harbour and walk with the messenger up the Harbour Way to the Theatre where the great riot had taken place about thirty years earlier in the time of Paul. With reference to Smyrna, see a possible modern remnant of the “crown of life.” In Philadelphia, ponder the poignancy of the promise to the “overcomers” of that city, never more to have to “go out.” This was to a group of people who were used to always having to flee the city, in an area notoriously prone to earthquakes.

More information is given here, and the CD may be purchased for £15 (~$24) here.

Tagged Resources

The Disappearance of Artifacts from Sinai

Some important artifacts excavated by Israeli archaeologists in the Sinai Peninsula but since returned to the Egyptian government have disappeared, according to the former director of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, Zahi Hawass. Hershel Shanks writes of this revelation from a recent interview in which Hawass criticized Israel for not publishing the results of the Kuntillet Ajrud excavations.

In an editorial in the Jerusalem Post, Shanks declares that both problems have been or shortly will be resolved.

On March 3, the Egyptian press reported that 30 truckloads of antiquities had been moved for safekeeping from the Qantara storage facilities to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Included were “Sinai artifacts that were retrieved from Israel following the signing of the Egypt-Israel peace treaty.”

Concerning the publication of the excavations, Shanks reports:

I subsequently inquired about this of Joseph Aviram, president of the Israel Exploration Society. He told me that the publication of the inscriptions had recently been reassigned to two leading epigraphers, Shmuel Ahituv and Esther Eshel. They have completed their work and await only the contribution of excavator Ze’ev Meshel.
Aviram hopes to have the publication out this year. But, still, that’s 35 years after the excavation.

The artifacts involved include the Kuntillet Ajrud inscriptions that mention “Yahweh … and his Asherah.”

Tagged Egypt

Appreciation for Guest Bloggers

I want to express my appreciation to A.D. Riddle, Chris McKinny, and Seth Rodriquez for their interesting and insightful posts on this blog in my absence. I have asked them to consider making further contributions to the blog in the future, and I am hopeful that they will be able to do that.

If you were not following the blog closely this past month, posts to which I would particularly draw your attention include:

Hieroglyphic Luwian and King Taita

Chart: The Israelite Schism – 931-841 BCE

Chart: The Kingdom(s) of Israel

Ancient Slinging Techniques

Canaanite Water Tunnel at Gezer

Review: Biblical Turkey

Beth Haccherem – A Site Identification: Primer (and looking forward to the “more to come…”)

I might also add a sincere word of thanks to the blog readers, including those who have specifically encouraged all of us in recent days.

Guest Bloggers

For the next month, I will be stepping away from this blog as I begin a series of exams in my studies.

I am very thankful for several friends who have volunteered to contribute to the blog in my absence. I have known these three men for up to 15 years, traveled in Middle Eastern and/or European countries with all of them at various times, and have greatly benefited from their knowledge and friendship over the years. I am grateful for their willingness to serve you and relieve me in the weeks ahead. I would like to introduce you to Chris, A.D., and Seth.

Chris McKinny is finishing up his M.A. thesis at the Jerusalem University College. Last semester he taught full-time at the Israel Bible Extension campus of The Master’s College. Chris has a particular passion for archaeology, and he has spent summers excavating at Tell es-Safi (Gath) and Tel Burna (Libnah?) in the Shephelah of Judah. Chris lives in Jerusalem with his wife Mindy (whose photographic work has been featured on this blog in the past). He blogs occasionally at Seeking a Homeland.

A.D. Riddle is studying ancient Near East history and languages in the PhD program at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He recently completed a certificate in GIS and cartography at the University of Wisconsin. A.D. really likes to spend his time around maps and pictures of the Bible Lands. One of his projects was the winner of the 2009 NACIS Student Web Mapping Competition (viewable online here). A.D. is married to his wife of 13 years and has two sons, ages 2 and 4.

Seth Rodriquez recently completed the PhD program in Old Testament Archaeology & History at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. His dissertation was a detailed analysis of Iron Age weapons that examined both the biblical text and the archaeological record. He has earned two masters degrees in biblical studies and has studied long-term at both the Jerusalem University College and the Israel Bible Extension of The Master’s College. Seth lives with his wife and three children in northern Kentucky.

Oriental Institute Works Online

The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago continues to make available older but valuable resources in pdf format. In the next few weeks, all of the titles from the Oriental Institute series will be online. Some recent additions include:

The Sumerian King List. By Thorkild Jacobsen. Assyriological Studies 11. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1939

The Excavation of Armageddon. By Clarence S. Fisher. Oriental Institute Communications 4. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1929

The Annals of Sennacherib. By Daniel David Luckenbill. Oriental Institute Publication 2. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1924

The Babylonian Genesis: The Story of Creation. By Alexander Heidel. Miscellaneous publication. Second edition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951

The Gilgamesh Epic and Old Testament Parallels. By Alexander Heidel. Miscellaneous publication. Second edition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1949

The full catalog is accessible here. The current issue of The Oriental Institute News & Notes is also
available.

HT: Agade

Tagged Resources