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This year the Israeli government took over maintenance of the public beaches on the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee.  Visitors during Passover week were given free entrance and garbage bags, a change from years when fees were charged in exchange for services.  It didn’t work so well, as the visitors apparently don’t know how to use the garbage bags.  From Haaretz:

"It’s a catastrophe," said Shai, who had come to Lavnun Beach from Azor, with 11 of his friends. "It’s like being inside a garbage can," he said. The Kinneret Association of Towns issued a press release before Pesach, announcing that no entrance fees would be charged during the holiday week at three beaches on the eastern side of the lake – Kursi, Halukim and Lavnun. In addition, the boulders preventing parking along the beach were to be removed. "The association requests that visitors keep the beaches and environs clean," the announcement said.

Maybe the visitors were told how to use the garbage bags, but it didn’t help.

Visitors were handed garbage bags and an explanatory flyer at the entrance, and there were many inspectors on patrol. Nevertheless, the beaches were scattered with garbage, broken glass, and charcoal from beachgoers’ barbecues. In addition, wooden beach shelters were destroyed, and toilets – upgraded in advance of the holiday – were broken and filthy.

The former operator of the beaches blamed the government association.

Shlomo Guetta operated the beach for nearly 30 years before he was convicted of illegally erecting fences and various structures on the beach and was forced out. Guetta, who was also at the beach during the holiday, likened the association’s attempt to manage the beaches to someone who "tries to hijack a plane after killing the pilot, before learning how to land the plane alone. There was a crash here. People were promised free beaches and what they got was garbage in their faces. I protected the beach for years and in the end they made me the bad guy who took it away from the public. But why do you think people came here all those years? Because the beach was kept up properly," Guetta said. Eli Raz said that he comes to Lavnun Beach every year, from his home in Jerusalem. "This was the Kinneret’s most beautiful beach, now I’ve got to get out of here," because of the filth.

The rest of the sad story is here.

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There’s been a recent wave in the email circulation of archaeological evidence for giants, usually with a tagline that this is proof of the Bible’s accuracy.

I might suggest a simple principle for dealing with matters like this in the future: if you heard about it first in an email forward, it’s not true.

Indeed, these photographs were created for a contest for images of an archaeological hoax.  These came in third place in a 2002 competition.

Circulation of the images as “real” apparently began in 2004.  National Geographic debunked them in 2007.  PaleoBabble posted on them in February.  Truth or Fiction has a full copy of the email that
I’ve been forwarded many times now.

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Several works that we have mentioned here are finalists for the 2010 ECPA Christian Book Awards, including A Visual Guide to Biblical Events (Martin, Beck, and Hansen), The New Moody Atlas of the Bible (Beitzel), The Zondervan Encyclopedia of the Bible (Tenney and Silva), and Glo.

Yesterday I noted Glo’s Easter Gallery.  Biblical Studies and Technical Tools has posted a brief review of the impressive media components of Glo.

Aren Maeir posts word of a “very exciting bona fide, new archaeological find from Jerusalem.”  I concur with his assessment, but cannot say more yet.  Publication is expected soon.

Leen Ritmeyer posts a beautiful photographic rendition of the 1st century temple from a new project called The Messiah in the Temple.

A bed-and-breakfast owner in Sepphoris discovered an ancient tomb on his property, but he called the rabbis instead of the antiquities authority.  This Haaretz article gives some insight into the on-going conflict over the excavation of graves.

The Museum of Biblical Art is reopening in Dallas five years after it was destroyed by fire.

Eisenbrauns is selling some new titles as of April 1.

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Glo has a gallery of several dozen Easter images available for free download (in high-resolution). 

These include photographs (including a few of ours), as well as ancient and modern works of art.  It’s probably too late to use for this year’s teaching, but they could be handy for future years.  Glo is available from Amazon for $57 and includes many thousands of images like these.

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Today is the 100th anniversary of Blogger Appreciation Day.  According to long-standing tradition, readers who have visited any given blog more than 13 times are obligated to send an appropriate gift to the blogger.  The Blogging Association of Rational Females has designated that the appropriate gift for members of their society are bouquets of pink and yellow flowers.  Male bloggers, however, need books.  You can show your support for this blog by purchasing for us one of these newly released titles today.

  • Every Bible Place in the Far Eastern Shephelah
  • A Dummy’s Guide to Cenomanian, Senonian, and Eocene Limestone
  • Men Are from Maresha, Women Are from the Valley of Elah
  • The True and Amazing Story of How I Found the Ark of the Covenant Inside Noah’s Ark
  • A Liberal Bible Critic’s Guide to Making Money off of True Believers
  • The Updated Revised New Bible Atlas, 2nd edition
  • The Lost Qeiyafa Code
  • A Fundamentalist Archaeologist’s Guide to Making Money off of True Believers
  • Look At Me: The Unauthorized Autobiography of Hershel Shanks
  • Skeletons in Their Labs: Exposés of the World’s Most Famous Biblical Archaeologists
  • Towering Balks: The Stories of Nine Excavation Volunteers Who Gave Their Lives

Please make certain that you purchase these books from an authorized bookseller before the end of today, April 1.

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I sent out the latest issue of the BiblePlaces Newsletter this morning.  If you didn’t receive it, check your spam folder or subscribe here.  New subscribers won’t get the March issue by email, but you can view it online here.

The new CD this month is People of Palestine, and it includes a wide variety of fascinating photographs of individuals, couples, and groups from the early 1900s.  The American Colony photographers recorded the lives of Jews and Arabs, Christians and Muslims, as well as Samaritans, Druze, and foreigners.  Of the last category, none were quite as obvious as this guy, seen near the Damascus Gate of Jerusalem in January.

Foreigner near Damascus Gate, tb010910292 Foreigner in Jerusalem
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