A friend just wrote to let me know that he has just released the first Hebrew Bible designed for the Kindle. That means the vowels and cantillation marks all line up and look great! The Bible is also linked to an English translation so you can easily look up those challenging verses.

Here are a few other features:

  • All 39 books of the Tanak (Torah, Nevi’im, Ketuvim) [Genesis through 2 Chronicles] in Hebrew.
  • Crisp, beautiful, large Hebrew characters that can be resized smaller or larger, as needed.
  • Easy click-through navigation to other books and chapters.
  • Hebrew text from the Codex Leningradensis (digitized through the Westminster Leningrad Codex Tanach).
  • Unicode Hebrew characters.
  • Ability to add primary Hebrew-specific font to Kindle for use with this book.

And the cost is only $5.99! I’m trying to think of a better book I’ve ever bought for less money. Still thinking…. 🙂

There are more details and screenshots at The Bible Student. You can purchase it here.

The Hebrew Bible for Kindle
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Next week I’ll end my streak of 20 years of avoiding the hotels of the Sea of Galilee’s most popular tourist city. I will miss, apparently, the Tiberium Light Show that once displayed three times each evening on the promenade along the Sea of Galilee. In the words of one website, “the Tiberium Light

Show mixes two giant screens, dozens of skittering water fountains, artistic laser lights, music and pyrotechnics to create a dazzling display of water and light.”

Four free shows presented Galilee-themed subjects:

“1. My Sea of Galilee- An Israeli show that describes the development of the Sea of Galilee, the settlement around it till this day.

2. An artistic presentation- An experience of sound, color and rhythm. The show is young and dynamic, with different communal aromas.

3. Past grows the Future- Integrates a huge project of the Municipality of Tiberias that participates the young generation in conserving tradition.

4. Classical show- Classical music creations with international artistic creations.” (Source: Go Galilee).

But the show’s demise is the cause of rejoicing among some of Tiberias’s residents. According to an article in Merkaz HaInyanim Zafon that was reported in the Caspari Center Media Review, the mention of Jesus walking on the water was not welcome.

The attraction caused an uproar within the religious community since it included a portrayal of “that man” walking on the water. Furthermore, the paper claims that the event was a gathering place for missionaries. The rabbis of Tiberias forbade the religious public from attending the event and asked the municipality to remove the Christian content. But when the municipality refused to do so, the hand of God seemed to take over, and the fountain began to sink into the sea. The municipality tried to save the display, but then the motor “mysteriously” disappeared as well. “It turns out,” writes Avi Yehudai, “that ‘that man’ wasn’t the only one to walk on water, as the Christians claim, but there are others who walked on the water without being noticed, and they didn’t sink, even though the precious motor was in their hands.”

Conflicts between the secular (who pursue money, and therefore tourism) and the religious (who prioritize purity) are part and parcel of Israel’s society, and vandalism by the religious community is not uncommon. In this case, an attraction that has been compared to the Fountains of Bellagio in Las Vegas and the Magic Fountain of Montjuïc in Barcelona has been lost.

Two videos capture some of the sound and light show: a 2.5-minute clip and a more impressive 12-minute version below.

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The Rogueclassicist finds plenty to be suspicious of in the discovery of the “Apollo of Gaza” – Part I, Ia, and Ib.

Can the Jordan River Be Saved? National Geographic asks the question in light of the increased demands caused by the Syrian civil war.

Oded Golan has another ossuary that André Lemaire considers more significant than the James Ossuary.

Japanese archaeologists have discovered a tomb in Luxor dating to 1200 BC.

The Jerusalem Post runs a travel article on Tiberias and some of the new attractions in the area.

G. M. Grena reports on a recent conference where Gabriel Barkay gave four lectures on the history and archaeology of Jerusalem.

Jerusalem’s geography can relieve your doubts – if you understand it.

Registration is now open for this year’s season at Tel Burna.

The city of Jerusalem plans to make life easier for tourists by giving English lessons to taxi drivers.

I’m on The Book and the Spade this week talking with Gordon Govier about the Iron Age water tunnel discovered near Jerusalem and some wooden temple beams that may go back to Solomon’s temple. (Direct link to mp3 here.)

HT: Charles Savelle, Jack Sasson

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(Posted by Michael J. Caba)

This inscribed basalt stone contains the oldest reference to King David outside of the Bible.*  Being roughly a foot tall, it was written in Aramaic in the mid 9th century BC and is known as the Tel Dan Stela.  The text actually refers to the “House of David,” meaning his royal family. Found during excavations in the ancient city of Dan in 1993/94, it is now located in the Israel Museum.

The artifact is particularly significant in the discussions related to the historicity of the Biblical accounts of the kingdom of David. Prior to its discovery some critics had maintained that the Biblical figure of King David was mythological in nature. However, subsequent to this finding scholarly opinion is now summed up well by Eric Cline from The George Washington University: “At a single blow, the finding of this inscription brought an end to the debate and settled the question of whether David was an actual historical person.”

It is of course true that the Bible is an ancient source in itself that can be trusted outright; still, support such as this further strengthens the case for the Bible’s reliability on historical matters.

(Photo: BiblePlaces.com. Significant resource for further study: The Context of Scripture, Volume 2, pages 161-162.)

*Possible additional references to David which are contemporaneous, or older, than the Tel Dan Stela are found on the Moabite Stone (Mesha Stela) and at Karnak Temple in Egypt (10th century BC).

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In a presentation last week at the conference on “The History of the Caves of Qumran,” Yonatan Adler reported the discovery of a group of phylacteries (tefillin) containing nine small manuscripts.

These were discovered in Caves 4 and 5 in 1952 but only recently did Adler determine that they contained texts.

The discovery was reported in the Italian press (with a photo) and Joseph Lauer has provided a translation of the article:

***

LUGANO – The discovery of new Qumran manuscripts was announced during the International Research Seminar on “The History of the Caves of Qumran,” organized by the Institute of Culture and Archaeology of the Biblical Lands of the Faculty of Theology of Lugano (chaired by prof. Dr. George Paximadi).

Working on materials from the archaeological excavations of the ‘50s, archaeologist Yonatan Adler found some intact phylacteries (the boxes – used by religious Jews – which contain small manuscript rolls with a biblical text).

It was possible to detect the manuscripts in them thanks to special photographs (multispectral imaging) carried out by the Israel Antiquities Authority.

The phylacteries are from Qumran caves 4 and 5, excavated in 1952 by the archaeologist Roland de Vaux.

Among the material processed by the Israel Antiquities Authority’s laboratory for the conservation of the scrolls, were three packs containing nine small scrolls manuscripts.

“It does not happen every day to discover new manuscripts. It was really a great feeling,” said Yonatan Adler, Ariel University.

“I am very proud that in our laboratory, using the most advanced technologies, we can reconstruct the history of two thousand years ago,” said Pnina Shor, director of the laboratory for the conservation of the scrolls of the Israel Antiquities Authority.

The seminar curated by Prof. Marcello Fidanzio, direttore del settore ambiente biblico dell’ISCAB, Facoltà di Teologia di Lugano, brought together 65 of the most important scholars of Qumran world, including Emanuel Tov (Hebrew University of Jerusalem), Jodi Magness (University of North
Carolina), E. Puech (École Biblique et Archéologique Franҫaise, Jerusalem), Sidnie White Crawford (University of Nebraska-Lincoln), J. Taylor (King’s College London), Jurgen Zangenberg (Leiden University).

***

Lauer has located some related resources:
Drew Longacre’s notice of this and another discovery reported at the seminar.

Adler’s previous lecture on “The Tefillin of Qumran–Archaeology and Halacha.”

A photograph of a previously discovered phylactery.

Qumran caves 4 and 5, tb010810138-ppt-screenshot
Qumran Caves 4 and 5
Screenshot from Qumran Caves presentation in volume 4 of the
Pictorial Library of Bible Lands
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(Post by A.D. Riddle)

Beginning at 9am on Friday, March 7, and running through 1:30pm on Saturday, the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago will be hosting its annual symposium. This year’s topic is “The Early/Middle Bronze Age Transition in the Ancient Near East: Chronology, C14, and Climate Change.” The symposium is free and open to the public; no registration is required.

During the late third millennium BC one of the biggest transformations of the ancient Near East took place, affecting almost all regions from Egypt to Anatolia and from the Mediterranean Sea to the Iranian plateau. This period not only saw the collapse of urbanization in the southern Levant at the end of the Early Bronze Age III and the following pastoral Intermediate Bronze, and the rise and decline of the Akkad empire in the Upper Euphrates region, but also the end of the Egyptian Old Kingdom in the Nile valley. In recent years it has been argued that climatic reasons, especially rapid climate change in the late third millennium BC (the so-called 4.2 ka BP event) might have triggered this supra-regional collapse in western Asia and Egypt, linking it to a period of aridification and cooling.
This seminar brings together specialists working in different fields of the ancient Near East, including Egypt, Israel, Lebanon, and Syria, as well as scholars working on radiocarbon dating and climate data. Three major topics will be discussed: The radiocarbon evidence for the mid- to late third-millennium BC Near East, the chronological implications of new dates and how historical/archaeological chronologies should/could be adapted, and — based on this evidence — if and how climate change can be related to transitions in the late Early Bronze Age. Furthermore, written sources concerning late Early Bronze Age Near Eastern interrelations and/or transformation and collapse from Egypt to Syria/Mesopotamia will be taken into account.

Here is the list of presenters and topics. Several of them look very interesting. See the website for additional information. The schedule for sessions is located here.

Elisabetta Boaretto and Johanna Regev
“High Resolution Early Bronze Age C14 Chronology from the Southern Levant: Micro-archaeological Approach for Context Characterization and Archaeological Interpretation”
Aaron Burke
“Amorites and Climate Change: The Negotiation of Amorite Identity during the Transition from the Early to the Middle Bronze Ages”
Michael W. Dee
“Comparing Climatic Signals from the Blue Nile Catchment with the Decline of Old Kingdom Egypt Using High-precision Radiocarbon Dating”
Aron Dornauer
“Bioclimatic and Agro-ecologic Properties of Crop Taxa: A Survey of the Cuneiform Evidence Concerning Climatic Change and the Early/Middle Bronze Age Transition”
Hermann Genz
“The Transition from the Early to the Middle Bronze Age on the Lebanese Coast”
Raphael Greenberg
“No Collapse: Reimagining the Demise of EBA Urbanism in the Southern Levant”
Roman Gundacker
“On the Significance of some Old Kingdom Toponyms and Ethnonyms”
Felix Höflmayer
“A New Chronology for the Late Early Bronze Age Levant and Its Implications for the Collapse of the First Urbanization”
Sturt Manning
“The Chronology and Complications of Climate-related Change ca. 2200 BC in the East Mediterranean/Southwest Asia”
Nadine Moeller
“The Early / Middle Bronze Age Transition in View of Evidence from Egypt during the Old Kingdom and First Intermediate Period: A New Evaluation”
Peter Pfälzner
“The EBA to MBA Transition in the Syrian Jezireh: A Multi-tracked Passage?”
David Schloen
“Economic and Political Implications of Raising the Date for the Collapse of Urbanism in the Early Bronze Age Southern Levant”
Thomas Schneider
“Walking on Shaky Ground: The History of the First Intermediate Period from an Epistemological Perspective”
Glenn Schwartz
“Western Syria and the Early/Middle Bronze Age Transition”
Harvey Weiss, Alexia Smith, Wilma Wetterstrom, R. Meadow, A. K. Patel, D. Reese
“‘Seventeen Kings Who Lived in Tents’: Shubat Enlil before Shamshi-Adad”
Bernhard Weninger
“Archaeological and Palaeoclimatological Data to Evaluate the Potential Impact of the 4.2 ka calBP event in the Aegean and Southeast Europe”
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