Todd Bolen, Author at BiblePlaces.com

360 Degree Views in Jerusalem

360 degree views in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher – if you didn’t want to stand in the long line to enter the tomb, this gives you a perfect view without the crowds, noise, or fragrances.

360 degree views in the Dome of the Rock and Al Aqsa Mosque – if you’re not Muslim, you can’t stand in a line long enough. One other 360 degree view is the Western Wall, but these photos are less unique. The entry point to all three sites is here.

Line to enter tomb at Church of Holy Sepulcher, earlier this month. One tour guide estimated the wait time to be two hours.

Tagged Jerusalem, Tourism

Tuesday Roundup

Ynetnews has a story on renovations of David’s Tomb on Mount Zion.

Leen Ritmeyer’s recent lecture on how he identified the location of Solomon’s Temple is recounted in a story in the Baptist Press.

A sarcophagus cover with a Medusa decoration is the now on display at Caesarea. The IAA press release (temporary link) also has some high-resolution images (direct link).

A hoard of 1,300 silver coins apparently from the Hellenistic period have been discovered in Rafah in the Gaza Strip, announced the Hamas-run “ministry of tourism and antiquities.”

The Museum of Tolerance to be built in the Mamilla neighborhood of Jerusalem will be half the size of the original plan because of reduced sources of funding. Plaintiffs who filed suit against the
construction have lost their case and been fined by the court.

I’ve had little time this month for noting the latest stories. As time permits, I’ll continue to try to catch up.

HT: Joe Lauer and Paleojudaica

Tagged Jerusalem, Weekend Roundup

Glo for $40

I’ve recommended Glo before, and I see that it’s available for a few days (until 1/28) for only $40 from Rejoice Software (click “buy now” to see lower price). That’s quite a bit cheaper than I’ve seen it before. The email announcement I received claims that Zondervan has raised the retail price to $90.

You can learn more about this multimedia Bible program here.

(Disclosure: about half of the photographs in the product are mine, but I don’t benefit from the sales.)

Tagged Resources

Fishing Banned on Sea of Galilee

From Arutz-7:

Minister of Agriculture Shalom Simchon has announced a ban on all fishing in the Sea of Galilee (Kinneret) for two years. The ban also extends to the part of the Jordan River that empties into the Sea of Galilee, and to all the other rivers that empty into the famous lake.
The authority to ban fishing is within the Minister of Agriculture’s authority according to the official Fishing Order, and the ban is set to take effect on March 1, 2010, extending until February 28, 2012. Minister Simchon has asked the Finance Ministry to allot NIS 15 million for enforcing the ban and compensating the fishermen who will be hurt by it.
Simchon explained that according to Agriculture Ministry statistics, the quantity of fish in the Sea of Galilee has plummeted in the past decade, and especially in the last two years, by tens of percentage points annually. It has now reached a critical level, he said, and these statistics mean that the sea may be facing an ecological disaster in which all its fish would die out.

The full story is here.

Fishing boats on Sea of Galilee, early 1900s

This photo is from the Traditional Life and Customs volume of The American Colony and Eric Matson Collection (Library of Congress, LC-matpc-07411).

Tagged American Colony Photos, Galilee

Mount of Olives Cemetery Online

From the Jerusalem Post:

The world’s oldest Jewish cemetery just went online.
A new project undertaken by the City of David archeological Park, located south of Jerusalem’s Old City and at the foot of the Mount of Olives cemetery, has begun the process of identifying and documenting tombstones throughout the entirety of the Mount of Olives and uploading the data to the Web.
Tens of thousands of graves on the mount have already been mapped and incorporated into a database, in the first-ever attempt to restore the graves and record the history of those who were buried there. The project includes the creation of a Web site (www.mountofolives.co.il) that aims to raise awareness of the City of David and to honor the memory of those buried in the cemetery, as well as to inform about the tours and activities available.
Additionally, the Web site tells stories of the people buried in the cemetery and, through a simple search window, one can locate the documented graves by name.
“We hope that this Web site will give people all over the world the opportunity to remove the dust of generations from the graves of their loved ones, and to both restore and reveal the stories buried underground,” Udi Ragones, the public relations director for the project, told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday.
“There’s so much history there, so many stories, that this project is fascinating both from a personal perspective as well as an historical one,” he said.
While more than 20,000 gravestones have already been documented, organizers estimate that there are between 200,000 and 300,000 in the cemetery, which leaves an enormous amount of work left to be done.
The already documented graves include those of the reviver of the Hebrew language, Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, Nobel Prize for Literature laureate Shai Agnon, former prime minister Menachem Begin, Hadassah Women’s Organization founder Henrietta Szold, founder of the Bezalel Art School Boris Schatz, Chaim ben Moses ibn Attar, also known as the Ohr ha-Chaim after his popular commentary on the Torah, and Rabbi Avraham Yitzhak Kook, the first Ashkenazi chief rabbi of the British Mandate.

The full story is here.

HT: Joe Lauer

Tomb of Zechariah, religious ceremony, mat06376

Jewish ceremony in cemetery on Mount of Olives, early 1900s

This photo is taken from the Jerusalem volume of The American Colony and Eric Matson Collection (Library of Congress, LC-matpc-06376).

Tagged Jerusalem, Technology

The Ultra-Orthodox Western Wall

This editorial at Ynetnews gives one side’s perspective on how the Western Wall prayer plaza came to be controlled by the ultra-orthodox.

Here’s a snippet:

But then, for the first time in its history, iron barricades were placed in the forward part of the plaza, close to the Kotel itself. This was the first mehitzah, the first separation between men and women, in the history of the Kotel. There had already been such attempts in the past. At the end of Turkish rule and under the British Mandate attempts had been made to separate between the sexes in the area next to the Kotel, but they failed. During most of those years when Jews had access to the Western Wall and during those years when they did not, there was never a mehitzah at the Kotel. But now a mehitzah was put up, which put aside most of the area – and the best part thereof – for the use of the men; barricades were put up to mark the entrances; and ushers were placed to assure the separation and to distribute paper kippot to those men who wished to approach the Kotel itself.
[…]
The escalation of more recent years is due particularly to Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz, known as the “Rabbi of the Kotel.” He did not invent anything, but he perfected the system: swearing-in ceremonies of the IDF became fewer and further between; an attempt was made to separate the sexes at the ceremony in which new immigrants received their identity cards; signs calling for modesty were posted in every corner; Israeli flags suddenly disappeared (and meanwhile were returned). Most of world Jewry is not Orthodox, but the rabbi of the holiest place in the world to the Jewish people is Orthodox – and not just ordinary Orthodox, but Haredi.

The full editorial is here.

HT: The Bible and Interpretation

Jews praying at Western Wall, early 1900s
Source: The American Colony and Eric Matson Collection: Jerusalem

Western Wall prayer area, April 1968
Source: Views That Have Vanished

Tagged Jerusalem, Temple Mount