Todd Bolen, Author at BiblePlaces.com

My Favorite (Old) Travel Resources

Last month I pointed readers to a potentially great deal on a Logos Bible Software collection of works of early explorers. That offer is still available and accepting bids, but I commented at the time that an even better collection could be created. What are the best resources by 19th-century explorers of Palestine? Below is what I suggest would be a dream collection.

Burckhardt, John Lewis. 1822 Travels in Syria and the Holy Land. London: John Murray.

Clermont-Ganneau, Charles. 1896 Archaeological Researches in Palestine During the Years 1873-1874. 2 vols. London: Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund.

Conder, Claude R. 1878 Tent Work in Palestine. 2 vols. London: Richard Bentley & Son.

Conder, Claude R. 1889 Palestine. New York: Dodd, Mead & Company.

Dalman, Gustaf. 1935 Sacred Sites and Ways: Studies in the Topography of the Gospels, trans. Paul

P. Levertoff. New York: Macmillan. [This work is more recent than the others but uniquely valuable and out of copyright, I believe.]

Lynch, W. F. 1849 Expedition to the River Jordan and the Dead Sea. Philadelphia: Lea and Blanchard.

MacGregor, John. 1870 The Rob Roy on the Jordan, Nile, Red Sea, & Gennesareth, Etc.: A Canoe Cruise in Palestine and Egypt, and the Waters of Damascus, 2nd ed. London: John Murray.

Porter, J. L. 1882 The Giant Cities of Bashan and Syria’s Holy Places. London: T. Nelson and Sons.

Robinson, Edward and Eli Smith. 1841 Biblical Researches in Palestine, Mount Sinai and Arabia Petrea: A Journal of Travels in the Year 1838. 3 vols. Boston: Crocker & Brewster. [This is probably the most important work in this list.]

Robinson, Edward and Eli Smith. 1871 Later Biblical Researches in Palestine, and in the Adjacent Regions: A Journal of Travels in the Year 1852, 2nd ed. Boston: Crocker & Brewster.

Rogers, Mary Eliza. 1867 Domestic Life in Palestine. Cincinnati: Poe & Hitchcock. [Not as well known, but a fascinating read! It has recently been reprinted.]

Smith, George Adam. 1909 The Historical Geography of the Holy Land. 26th ed. New York: A. C. Armstrong and Son. [This is a classic.]

Thomson, William M. 1880 The Land and the Book. Vol. 1: Southern Palestine and Jerusalem. New York: Harper & Brothers.

Thomson, William M. 1882 The Land and the Book. Vol. 2: Central Palestine and Phoenicia. New York: Harper & Brothers.

Thomson, William M. 1885 The Land and the Book. Vol. 3: Lebanon, Damascus, and Beyond Jordan. New York: Harper & Brothers.

Tristram, Henry Baker. 1868 The Natural History of the Bible: Being a Review of the Physical Geography, Geology, and Meteorology of the Holy Land, with a Description of Every Animal and
Plant Mentioned in Holy Scripture, 2nd ed. London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.

1874 The Land of Moab. London: John Murray. [This is in the current Logos offering.]
Twain, Mark. 1869 The Innocents Abroad. Hartford: American Publishing.

Wilson, Charles, ed. 1881 Picturesque Palestine, Sinai and Egypt. 4 vols. London: J. S. Virtue & Co.

[This has been published in non-Logos format at LifeintheHolyLand.com.]

I have excluded works specifically on Jerusalem from this list, as those would make up their own collection. Also the size and challenge of digitizing another would surely necessitate a separate collection:

Conder, Claude R. and H. H. Kitchener. 1882 The Survey of Western Palestine, 11 volumes. London:

The Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund. [For a list of volumes, see here. A reprint edition now sells for about $4,000. We have produced electronic editions of the maps and index.]

Two final comments: (1) All of the resources listed above were used extensively in the creation of the annotations in the American Colony and Eric Matson Collection. (2) A Logos representative read my previous post and contacted me for this list. I am hopeful that they will catch the vision and bring back these rare and valuable works for our and future generations.

Tagged Resources

Noah’s Ark Theme Park Announced

From MSNBC:

A full-scale replica of Noah’s Ark will be the biggest feature of a creationism-themed amusement park expected to open in 2014 in northern Kentucky, Gov. Steve Beshear announced Wednesday.
The $150 million park will be built by a for-profit group called Ark Encounter LLC, which is partnering with Answers in Genesis, most widely known for its high-tech Creation Museum in Petersburg, Ky., Beshear said at a Capitol news conference.
Site selection is not decided, he said, but the organizers have options on 800 acres in Grant County off Interstate 15, about 40 miles from the Creation Museum, which is outside Cincinnati, Ohio. The Ark Encounter website says the park will go in the Grant County site.
“Bringing new jobs to Kentucky is my top priority, and with the estimated 900 jobs this project will create, I am happy about the economic impact this project will have on the Northern Kentucky region,” Beshear said in a prepared statement.
The park is expected to draw 1.6 million visitors a year, Beshear said, citing a feasibility study by America’s Research Group.
In addition to the full-size ark, the complex will include a walled city, live animal shows, a children’s interactive play area, a replica of the Tower of Babel, a 500-seat special effects theater, an aviary, a journey through biblical history, and a first-century Middle Eastern village.

The story continues here. The official site of Ark Encounter is here. Answers in Genesis has issued a press release here. There are several images available here.

My family had the opportunity to visit the Creation Museum mentioned above this summer. We thought it was excellent and would highly recommend a visit. This new park will certainly spark more conversation, as it brings closer to home questions such as (1) did Noah build such an ark for a local flood; (2) would all of the animals fit inside; and (3) how much faith would it take for one man to persevere in the construction. It’s interesting how much opposition there is today to the establishment of a theme park; I can’t imagine that Noah faced any less of a snarky, sneering response.

Proposed Ark Encounter theme park

Tagged New Exhibits

Give-Away: The Great Courses: The Holy Land Revealed

This week’s give-away is a treat for several reasons. First, this resource is brand new. When I received it in the mail a couple of weeks ago, it was not even listed on the publisher’s website.

Second, the value of this resource is much higher than any previous (or likely, future) give-away item. The retail value is $375, though it is on sale until the 28th for $99.95. Third, I have two copies to give away.

I would assume that most of my readers are familiar with The Great Courses. This company finds the best professors to teach on popular subjects and then makes the audio and/or video lectures available for a fraction of the cost of tuition. You don’t get credit, but you may save more than a thousand dollars from a comparable university course.

The latest course to be produced is entitled “The Holy Land Revealed.” The instructor is Jodi Magness, professor at U of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is well regarded for her historical and archaeological research, including her excellent book, The Archaeology of Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls.

The course is only available in video DVD format, and the set includes 36 half-hour lectures on 6 DVDs. You can see a complete list of the lectures in the right sidebar on this page, but I’ll just note a few of particular interest here.

Biblical Jerusalem’s Ancient Water Systems
Samaria and the Northern Kingdom of Israel
Discovery and Site of the Dead Sea Scrolls
Herod as Builder—Jerusalem’s Temple Mount
Monumental Tombs in the Time of Jesus
Masada—Herod’s Desert Palace and the Siege

I’ve only had time so far to watch three of the lectures. I chose one of Magness’ specialities:
“Discovery and Site of the Dead Sea Scrolls.” When that finished, I continued into “The Sectarian Settlement at Qumran.” (The third: “Synagogues in the Time of Jesus.”) Because I’ve studied this subject in some measure (and read Magness’ book), I did not expect to learn much. But I wanted to see how the information was covered, how visual aids were used, and how effective I would judge the course to be overall for people without graduate degrees in the field. Overall, I would rate these lectures at 9 out of 10. The information was solid (no surprise) and the visual aids were generally helpful (but why no photo of Cave 1 when she was describing the discovery?). The presentation was good too, though my first impressions were that it must be hard to lecture directly into the lens of a camera. I think when The Great Courses calls me up, I’ll request to have a live audience. (I’m not holding my breath!)

Another quibble: the course is entitled “The Holy Land Revealed.” This is a potentially ambiguous title. I was expecting more of a geography-type course. But this is clearly focused on archaeological discoveries that illuminate the land’s history. Not only that, you should know that it is not evenly balanced across the periods. This is not surprising if you know Magness’ expertise. Naturally she is going to teach at greater length what she knows best.

What that means is that only eight of the lectures cover the Old Testament period. Four are from the Roman, Byzantine, and Islamic periods, leaving twenty-four covering the Second Temple period.

That means that those who watch this course are going to get a great education in Pharisees, Maccabees, synagogues, Herod, and Jewish revolts. But if your interest is exploring the archaeological world of the Old Testament in depth, you may want to wait for the next course. I found on Magness’ university bio that she was preparing a 36-lecture course for The Teaching

Company entitled “The World of Jesus.” I’m guessing that this is the same course, but they changed titles without modifying the content very much. So if you think of this as a course primarily on “The World of Jesus,” I think you’ll be very satisfied.

There is much more information about the course here, and you can sign up for the free copies below. The rules: one entry per person, deadline is Friday noon (PST), and after the winners are notified, all names and email addresses will be deleted.

UPDATE (12/3): Congratulations to winners Etti and Alexander.

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Tagged Give-Away, Resources

Scientists Work with Archaeologists at Megiddo

Nature has a good article about the collaboration between archaeologists and scientists on an excavation.

Important evidence relating to this debate is being unearthed by a unique collaboration between archaeologists and natural scientists, working shoulder-to-shoulder at Tel Megiddo and several other important Israeli sites. "In the past, all too often, archaeologists and scientists worked together, but it was two parallel lines," says archaeologist Aren Maeir of Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan, Israel. It could take months or even years before finds were sent away to the lab, he says, with results taking just as long to come back. "On top of that, sometimes the samples weren’t taken correctly." The Tel Megiddo dig is different. Chemists make up half of the two dozen excavators on the team, which is being led by Finkelstein and Steve Weiner, a structural biologist specializing in mineralized tissues who is director of the Kimmel Center for Archaeological Science at the Weizmann Institute in Rehovot, Israel. Funded by a European Research Council grant worth €3 million (US$4 million) over five years, the pair hope that their work at Tel Megiddo and elsewhere will show that this model of close collaboration should become the norm for archaeology. […] When Nature visited Tel Megiddo in October, excavators were working with brushes, tweezers and teaspoons to gather sediment samples into small plastic vials before taking them to an infrared spectrometer set up on a folding table at the edge of the site. The chemical clues yielded by the spectrometer gave immediate feedback to the diggers as they collected further samples. Chemical analysis can distinguish between soil layers that look identical to the naked eye, explains Weiner. In a paper published this month, for example, he and his colleagues show how infrared spectrometry can reveal the distinctive origins of seemingly identical layers of calcite, a form of calcium carbonate (L. Regev et al. J. Archaeol. Sci. 37, 3022–3029; 2010). Wood burnt at above 500 °C produces calcite, although the mineral can also come from limestone slaked to make lime for construction, and is found in the soil used to make mud bricks. Each type of calcite has a distinctive infrared signature, providing information that helps archaeologists to distinguish between a floor, a wall or a kiln.

The whole article is worth reading.

Tagged Excavations, Technology

New Recommended Software: ScrollTag

A very powerful new Bible software program was released this weekend, with a special introductory sale beginning today. The best introduction is the preview video at the ScrollTag website. You can also get a quick sense for some of the program’s strengths and value from the Q&A below, which is a mixture of information from the website and my own reflections.

What is ScrollTag, briefly?

ScrollTag is a Bible program which enables users to organize all of their notes, markings and tags on Biblical texts. Notes are tagged directly onto Hebrew, Greek, or English words, phrases or entire verses to allow easy retrieval and revision…

How does ScrollTag differ from Logos, Accordance, and other Bible programs?

ScrollTag has been designed to meet a need which we saw no other Bible programs meeting adequately (Tagging, Organizing, Block Diagramming and Marking the text). ScrollTag does not intend to directly compete with these other major software packages which focus on other strengths. We intend to keep our focus on what we do well, and not branch out to try to do everything.

The answer to this next question is increasingly important to me as my children get older and begin serious Bible study.

How many users can share a single copy of ScrollTag?

ScrollTag is licensed per household…

What does this program have to do with biblical places?

First, anything that helps us to understand the Bible better gets us excited. We love the Bible first and the “places” second. Next, the program includes three very high-resolution satellite maps. The high resolution allows you to zoom in and use the maps for a variety of purposes.

Third, we have known the author of this program for many years. The programming genius is immediately obvious to those who watch the demo and read the notes, but we can attest to his love for people, his passion to know God’s Word, and his absolute integrity. We marvel at the skill and hard work that he has used over the years to create ScrollTag.

Why does the program cost $150?

The introductory special reduces the cost to $125. That includes paying required royalties for the various English, Hebrew, and Greek translations (e.g., USB4, AGNT, NASB, WHM). You can also get just a taste for the amount of work involved by this explanation of the origin of the Greek text that the author did not even end up using.

In addition, ScrollTag includes three high-resolution maps, a Hebrew Chartbook, and a Greek Chartbook. The full name of these books: Charts for the Acquisition of Biblical Hebrew/Greek: A Natural Approach to Language Learning for the Biblical Exegete. These two chartbooks contain a wealth of unique information and are recommended for students with or without ScrollTag (available separately here). The collection is a tremendous value for all that you get.

What can I get for free?

The three satellite maps are available in medium-resolution. The significantly improved Westcott and Hort electronic text is available here. There are also several ways you can enter to win a free copy of ScrollTag.

Tagged Resources

Weekend Roundup

Israel has surpassed the 3-million-tourist mark for 2010, breaking the annual record for tourists set in 2008. More than 60% of tourists are Christians and the nation’s goal is to reach 5 million tourists a year by 2015.

Last week’s annual meeting of the Near East Archaeological Society was attended by Ferrell Jenkins, who provides summaries of many of the lectures. Aren Maeir has posted his observations of one day of the ASOR meetings.

The Magdala excavations are continuing around the calendar and photos are now posted from November.

Israel is calling on the Palestinian leadership to reject the “study” that the Jewish people have no right to the Western Wall.

The PBS Special “Quest for Solomon’s Mines” is now available online, though viewing in some
countries is not permitted. UCSD’s role in the feature is discussed in a campus news story.

I have not yet seen it, but a trusted reader tells me that Anson Rainey’s Teaching History and Historical Geography of Bible Lands: A Syllabus that I mentioned here before “consists almost entirely of the text of biblical passages, without any commentary or other notes.” You might browse it before you buy.

This week I read A Promise Kept, a new book produced by Insight for Living. Subtitled “A Pictorial Journey of the Coming of Christ,” the beautifully illustrated and superbly written book was just what I needed to start the Christmas season. It’s available this month for a donation and will be on sale in the IFL store in December.

Tagged Excavations, Resources, Weekend Roundup