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Women Dance in Shiloh

Hundreds of women came out last night to celebrate the Tu B’Av (15th of Av) holiday on the biblical site of Shiloh in the Benjamin region, renewing an ancient tradition. For centuries, the young women of Shiloh would go out to the vineyards and orchards and dance on the joyous holiday of Tu B’Av. Last night, the women returned to the orchards in a multifaceted celebration of dance, organized by the Benjamin Regional Council.

The story of the women dancing is recorded in Judges 21. There the women didn’t fare so well when they were carried off by surviving scoundrels from the tribe of Benjamin.

The full story and photos are here.

Tagged Samaria

A New Theory on the Death of Herod Agrippa I

Have you ever thought that some ruler/king/president/official was just so evil that the Lord should strike him down? Of course not. But there was a king whose life was ended by God not long after Jesus’ crucifixion. The book of Acts describes the failure of Agrippa I to give glory to God with the result that he was eaten by worms and died (Acts 12:20-23).

The New Testament records that the episode occurred in Caesarea, but Josephus is more specific and writes that Agrippa was in the theater. For that reason, I’ve always read the story of Acts 12 with my students while in the theater. Now, however, I think I was wrong. Josephus, it seems to me, undermines his own presentation.

I make my case in an article posted this week at The Bible and Interpretation. I’d be happy if you’d read it and note in the comments if you’re convinced or not. As far as I know, no one has made these observations before.

Tagged Analysis

Google Ancient Places

Google is funding a project that will allow you to find books based on time and location.

A University of Southampton researcher is part of a team which has just secured funding from Google to make the classics and other ancient texts easy to discover and access online.
Leif Isaksen at the University’s School of Electronics and Computer Science (ECS) is working together with Dr Elton Barker at The Open University and Dr Eric Kansa of the University of California-Berkeley on the Google Ancient Places (GAP): Discovering historic geographical entities in the Google Books corpus project, which is one of 12 projects worldwide to receive funding as part of a new Digital Humanities Research Programme funded by Google.
The GAP researchers will enable scholars and enthusiasts worldwide to search the Google Books corpus to find books related to a geographic location and within a particular time period. The results can then be visualised on GoogleMaps or in GoogleEarth.

The full article is here.

HT: Explorator

Tagged Resources, Technology

Weekend Roundup, Part 2

The renewed campus of the Israel Museum was inaugurated yesterday, as reported in articles in the Jerusalem Post and Arutz-7. I don’t like the idea that the amount of display space has doubled but fewer items are on display.

A report at Device Magazine has some additional details about the cuneiform fragments found at Hazor. They date to the 18th-17th centuries and include the words “master,” “slave,” and possibly “tooth.” It is not clear whether the tablet was written at Hazor or brought to the site from somewhere else. The article (and a similar one at Arutz-7) includes photos.

The current excavations of Megiddo are profiled in this Jerusalem Post article. The team had the privilege recently of hosting Lord and Lady Allenby.

The Galilean synagogue discovered this summer at Horvat Kur is the subject of a brief article published by the university excavating the site.

The Second Qumran Institute Symposium will be held October 21-22, 2010 at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. The subject is “The Jewish War agaist Rome (66-70/74): Interdisciplinary Perspectives.” Nearly all of the lectures are in English and most sound quite interesting.

Chris McKinny has posted some aerial photos of Tel Burna and labeled some of the observable features on the surface. What a dream to have a site without later periods “in the way.” Chris’s wife
Mindy has some nice photos of the recent excavation of Burna.

The excavations of a temple at Tel Tayinat in Turkey are profiled by the Ottawa Citizen.

A Brazilian mega-church is building a $200 million replica of Solomon’s temple, although unlike the original, this will seat 10,000 people.

HT: Paleojudaica and Joe Lauer

Tagged Dead Sea, Galilee, Jerusalem, Shephelah, Temple Mount

Fire in Jerusalem Hills

A fire started by teenage hikers has destroyed 250 acres in the forested area west of Jerusalem, reports the Jerusalem Post.

Several teenagers were taken in for questioning in connection with a fire near the capital’s southwestern edge that destroyed 1,000 dunams (100 hectares) of forest, forced the partial evacuation of the moshavim of Ora, Aminadav and Even Sapir, and came close to doing the same for Hadassah University Hospital in Ein Kerem, Jerusalem police announced on Sunday night.
According to a police spokesman, students from a haredi school in the Jerusalem area were hiking near Ein Hamdak, inside the Aminadav Forest. Some of the students were apparently playing with fire and started the blaze, which got out of control. The group then allegedly left the scene and continued toward Jerusalem before being found by detectives from the Moriya District.

The full story is here. The Haaretz story is here.

Even Sapir, one of the towns threatened

UPDATE (7/26): A resident of Even Sapir has written that this moshav was not evacuated, contrary to media reports. The JPost article linked to above now reports that the first fire and a second one at Khirbet Sa’adim are both under control and evacuated residents are returning.

Tagged Jerusalem

Weekend Roundup

A couple of fragments of a cuneiform tablet were found recently at the excavations of Hazor. Details released thus far are limited, but the tablet is from the Middle Bronze Age (2000-1500 BC) and has parallels to the Law Code of Hammurabi. The excavators’ notice of the discovery is online here. I have heard that the find was made on the surface, and that publication won’t take long.

Roman period tombs have been discovered in Petra with skeletal remains and ancient artifacts.

A small basalt statue dating from about 4000 BC has been found in Jordan near the border of Saudi Arabia.

Stephen Gabriel Rosenberg has written an “Archaeology in Israel Update,” including summaries of the medieval aqueduct in Jerusalem, graves in Ashkelon, MB artifacts near Jokneam, MB tombs in Nazareth, and the 18th anniversary of the Bible Lands Museum in Jerusalem.

New excavations begin today at Shiloh and the team is looking for volunteers (article in Hebrew).

If you prefer to “experience” excavations without getting dirty, take a look at the live video feed from Gath (during working hours only).

HT: Roi Brit

Tagged Discoveries, Excavations, Galilee, Jordan, Samaria, Shephelah, Weekend Roundup