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"Pilgrim's Route" in Jericho area

Haaretz has a story on the new “Pilgrim’s Route,” select portions of which are below.

Some three million tourists are expected to visit Israel next year. And when they arrive, they will discover a new “Pilgrim’s Route” leading from Jerusalem to the Dead Sea. Along the way, they will be able to visit the site where the New Testament story of the Good Samaritan took place; the Qumran caves; and the site where, according to the New Testament, John the Baptist baptized Jesus.

It is not clear what is meant by “Pilgrim’s Route.” Ideally, there will be a walking path along the ancient Roman road. More likely, there will be signs installed at each place designating it as part of the “Pilgrim’s Route.”

The Good Samaritan site is just off the highway leading from Jerusalem to the Dead Sea. During the Byzantine era, a church was built at that spot to commemorate the New Testament’s tale of a man attacked by robbers while en route from Jerusalem to Jericho, who is refused help by all the passersby except the Good Samaritan. Archaeologists recently reconstructed the entire mosaic floor of the church.

It is unlikely that this site is anything more than a traditional place to remember the story. If there was an inn, it was probably in Jericho, not in the middle of the inhospitable wilderness. Furthermore, this may have been a story that Jesus created to teach a point and not a historical event (Luke 10:25-37).

Concerning the baptismal site:

According to Shai Weiner, the Tourism Ministry’s deputy director general for economics, planning and infrastructure, the first stage of the site’s development, which includes setting up shaded areas and making it wheelchair accessible, will be finished in about two months. The ministry has thus far invested some NIS 3.5 million in the site, and the Defense Ministry will invest about another NIS 1 million to improve the access road.

In addition to shaded areas, they need to get some of those amusement-park-type misters.

Weiner said that other Christian pilgrimage sites in Israel typically attract between 400,000 and 600,000 visitors a year, and he expects the same at this site. The ministry noted that the site would also jump start other businesses in the area, such as restaurants and souvenir shops.

Note to investors: buy stock in these new shops and sell your holdings in Yardenit.

Oni Amiel, CEO of Amiel Tours, which specializes in Christian pilgrims, said it is about time Israel began competing with the Jordanian site. “There’s an enormous flow of tourists there,” he said. “It’s important that the site on our side also be respectable – and above all, that there be water in that dried-up Jordan.”

So you get a flow of tourists where there once was a flow of water. Not such a good trade-off.

The full story is here.

HT: Joe Lauer

Jordan River near Jericho

Tagged New Exhibits

Excavations in Turkey

From Today’s Zaman:

Excavations on some historical sites are not being carried out properly and the Culture and Tourism Ministry is not even sure if excavations are still continuing on others, the head of the ministry has said.
“If the excavation heads and professors who are not excited about the excavations any longer or are just carrying on their duties in a monotonous manner will let us, we will look for excavation heads who are more excited and enthusiastic to improve the conditions at the excavation sites both physically and scientifically,” Culture and Tourism Minister Ertuğrul Günay told the Anatolia news agency.
Noting that he has visited many excavation sites, the minister said he respected excavation leaders who care for their excavations and the antiquities they find like children and who attempt to improve the situation of their sites.
There are currently 134 excavation projects being carried out in Turkey — 90 by local teams and 44 by foreign teams. More than 100 surface research projects are under way.
In the excavation projects carried out by Turkish teams, the majority of the excavation heads are professors from İstanbul University and Ankara University. Currently most excavation heads are from Ankara University.

The story continues here.

HT: Explorator

Tagged Excavations

"First Wall" of Jerusalem found

The Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs has a press release today describing the discovery of part of the southern wall of Jerusalem during the time of Christ. Built by the Hasmoneans sometime after 150 B.C., Josephus dubbed it the “First Wall,” in distinction to Herod’s (?) “Second Wall” and Herod Agrippa’s “Third Wall.” The “First Wall” encompassed the city on all four sides (unlike the later two), and had sixty towers. Archaeologists recently discovered one of those towers preserved to a height of 10 feet (3 m). The wall was in use until the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70.

Some more details:

The wall was discovered on “Mount Zion,” the modern name for Jerusalem’s Western Hill.
The results were revealed in a press conference on Mount Zion today.
The area had been excavated 100 years ago by Frederick Jones Bliss and Archibald Dickie, once described in the Jerusalem Post as “archeologist Blis Vediki.” No kidding! (In Hebrew, “ve” means “and.”)
Archaeologist Yehiel Zelinger lectured on his discoveries about 6 weeks ago at the Bible Lands Museum in Jerusalem.
Portions of this wall have previously been excavated in Area G, the Citadel complex, south of the Citadel underneath the Turkish wall, and near the Broad Wall next to the “Israelite Tower” (unfortunately closed to the public now for years).
The chief contribution of this discovery will not be in revealing where the wall was (we already knew that), but in giving us more details about that wall, by means of careful stratigraphic excavation. Bliss and Dickie excavated by digging underground tunnels, hardly the method for understanding the history of a structure.
The archaeologist is impressed: “This is one of the most beautiful and complete sections of construction in the Hasmonean building style to be found in Jerusalem.”
Apparently the remains will be preserved in the Jerusalem City Wall National Park.
Remains were also unearthed of the Byzantine period wall constructed by Empress Eudocia.

The story is also carried by the Jerusalem Post, Haaretz, and BBC (with two great photos).

UPDATE: The Israel Antiquities Authority has made five photos available for download. The aerial photo reveals that the excavation is on the west side of the Catholic cemetery on the south side of Mount Zion. The most famous inhabitant of the cemetery is Oskar Schindler. His tomb is visible on the lower right of the photo.

Tagged Discoveries, Jerusalem

Crediting Sources

The lead story yesterday at Arutz-7 is entitled “Supreme Moslem Council: Temple Mount is Jewish.”

It begins:

The widely-disseminated Arab Moslem position that the Temple Mount is not Jewish has been debunked – by the Supreme Moslem Council (Waqf) of Jerusalem, in a Temple Mount guide published in 1925.

It then includes a couple of scanned images from the 1925 guide. The story credits the guide to the Temple Institute.

The Jerusalem-based Temple Institute (http://www.templeinstitute.org) reports that it has acquired a copy of the official 1925 Supreme Moslem Council Guide Book to Al-Haram Al-Sharif (the Moslem name for the Temple Mount).

We are honored that our story was picked up by a major news organization. They didn’t give us credit, even though the basis of their story and the scans that they post came from here. Reader Sean Q purchased the booklet, scanned it, and we posted it. The Temple Institute took the story and pdf file and presented it as their discovery. This isn’t a copyright issue, but it is an ethical one. Perhaps they’ll do better next time.

Tagged Analysis

New Book: Walking in the Footsteps of Jesus

A new book is out this week that I want to recommend highly. Walking in the Footsteps of Jesus: A Journey Through the Lands and Lessons of Christ combines passion with humor in a unique “tour” through Jesus’ life. Author Wayne Stiles has not written a “life of Christ” book, nor has he produced a work recounting the geographical background of Jesus’ ministry. What he has done, through his deep knowledge of Jesus’ life and land, is to take the reader on a delightful and challenging journey to the physical and spiritual places where Jesus lived and taught.

Stiles’ skill as a writer and “tour guide” makes the book engaging and rich with insights. As a pastor for many years, Stiles is gifted in making lofty ideas of Scripture readily understandable to the average person, and he does so with many fun anecdotes and helpful analogies from his travels in Israel.

From Bethlehem, to Galilee and Jerusalem, and ending in Patmos, the book largely travels “in the footsteps of Jesus.” Here is a snip related to the wilderness:

I have walked in the wilderness where Satan tempted Christ, just west of where He was baptized. Good grief, what a place. This is the wilderness of Judea where God shaped the character of the future King David in “the valley of the shadow of death” (Ps. 23:4). Here David prayed, “my flesh yearns for You, in a dry and weary land where there is no water” (Ps. 63:1). David wasn’t kidding. Endless piles of rocks, steep hills, no trees, modest vegetation, little water, slight shade, and lizards. As far as my eye could see, it was empty, dry, and depressing. I tried to imagine the silence, solitude, and struggle Jesus would have endured here for over a month. But I could not.
We can barely stand to fast for a day or two. Can you imagine fasting forty days? Jesus did so in preparation for temptation—and became desperately hungry and needy. And in His moment of need, the devil slipped in. He waits for moments like these.
“If You are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread” (Luke 4:3).
The devil is no idiot—and also no gentleman. When he tempts, he plays dirty. No rules. No concessions. No mercy. He waited for a moment of vulnerability and then tempted Jesus to satisfy His legitimate need for food in an illegitimate way: “Turn this stone to bread—use your power to gratify your need.” What a cheap shot. Every stone would then become a temptation. And believe me, the Wilderness of Judea has plenty of stones! Jesus’ reply—although He was physically hungry—showed that He was spiritually full.
“It is written, ‘Man shall not live on bread alone.’”

If you haven’t yet been on a trip to the Holy Land, you’ll enjoy visiting it virtually through this book.

If you have been, you’ll see it in ways that you haven’t before, even if you’ve visited countless times.

This journey combines so many of my favorite things in one book: the places of the land of the Bible, the life of Christ, fascinating stories, excellent writing, and God-exalting, people-challenging truth.

Pick this up for your next plane ride to Israel (or anywhere) and enjoy!

Tagged Galilee, Jerusalem, Resources

The Dead Sea Scrolls Online

Fifteen years ago, virtually no one could see the Dead Sea Scrolls. In a few years, maybe everyone will be able to, without leaving their home. From the NY Times:

In a crowded laboratory painted in gray and cooled like a cave, half a dozen specialists embarked this week on a historic undertaking: digitally photographing every one of the thousands of fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls with the aim of making the entire file — among the most sought-after and examined documents on earth — available to all on the Internet.
Equipped with high-powered cameras with resolution and clarity many times greater than those of conventional models, and with lights that emit neither heat nor ultraviolet rays, the scientists and technicians are uncovering previously illegible sections and letters of the scrolls, discoveries that could have significant scholarly impact….
The entire collection was photographed only once before — in the 1950s using infrared and those photographs are stored in a climate-controlled room since they show things already lost from some of the scrolls. The old infrared pictures will also be scanned in the new digital effort.
“The project began as a conservation necessity,” Ms. Shor explained. “We wanted to monitor the deterioration of the scrolls and realized we needed to take precise photographs to watch the process. That’s when we decided to do a comprehensive set of photos, both in color and infrared, to monitor selectively what is happening. We realized then that we could make the entire set of pictures available online to everyone, meaning that anyone will be able to see the scrolls in the kind of detail that no one has until now.”
The process will probably take one to two years — more before it is available online — and is being led by Greg Bearman, who retired from the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Data collection is directed by Simon Tanner of Kings College London. Mr. Bearman is also using a specially made, $75,000 spectral camera that can produce a photographic image of previously illegible sections.

The rest of the story is here.

HT: Joe Lauer

Tagged New Exhibits, Technology