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Questions about Christmas

Religion News Service has begun a few feature called “Ask the Experts” and the first edition is focused on Christmas. They ask half a dozen scholars to weigh in on the following questions. I provide responses to three questions.

Why do some Christians celebrate Christmas on January 7th?
Why do we repeatedly hear about the “three wise men,” when biblical scholars tell us there were in fact many magi who attended Jesus after his birth?
Why did Mary and Joseph have to go to Bethlehem? How did civil authorities determine which town people had to report to at census-taking time?
Is it true that the word translated “inn” – kataluma – could also mean guest room? In other words, could Mary and Joseph been seeking shelter in relative’s guest rooms, rather than at the inn?
How was the birth of Christ celebrated before Constantine?
Is it true that most Christian churches did not celebrate Christmas in significant way until about a hundred years ago?
Is it true that department stores were the ones that started many of the traditions that we celebrate today?

The statement that Bethlehem was not on a major road is wrong. Bethlehem is located along the central ridge of the hill country and virtually everyone traveling to Jerusalem from the south would have passed by it. For more about the kataluma issue, see my previous post here.

Read all of the questions and answers here.

Shepherd with flock near Bethlehem.
Photo from The American Colony Collection.

Tagged Holidays, Jerusalem, Judah

Weekend Roundup

The Nash Papyrus is now online, thanks to the University of Cambridge. The Jerusalem Post article gives a new meaning to the word “second”: “It is the world’s second oldest known manuscript containing a text from the Hebrew Bible. The oldest are the Dead Sea Scrolls.”

This Jerusalem Post article suggests the Top 5 Christmas activities in Jerusalem.

The traditional King David’s tomb has been vandalized by a man desperate to get married.

If you missed last week’s Christmas broadcast of the Land and the Book radio program, you can listen to it in the archives.

Simcha Jacobovici is suing Joe Zias in an Israeli court because the warnings of the latter led the Discovery Channel and National Geographic to cancel the broadcast of films of the former. (Note: this article, like many cited on this blog, is on the Haaretz website. Free access to 10 articles per month is available with an easy registration.)

Mark Goodacre notes the publication of Archaeology, Bible, Politics, and the Media and he shares his article “The Talpiyot Tomb and the Bloggers.”

The Huffington Post has a slideshow of the year’s archaeological highlights. None are related to the biblical world.

The full-size replica of Noah’s Ark floats.

Officials are optimistic about the rainfall in Israel this winter. Amir Givati: “To see the Jordan River flowing at this time of year – that’s a phenomenon that takes place once every 20 years.”

Smuggling gangs in Iraq are using satellites to locate antiquities.

HT: Jack Sasson

A view of David’s Tomb taken ca. 1900 before the construction of the Dormition Abbey. Photo from the American Colony and Eric Matson Collection.

Tagged Jerusalem, Mesopotamia, Weather, Weekend Roundup

Picture of the Week: Pyramids of Gizeh

(Post by Seth M. Rodriquez)

People often wonder how the Great Pyramids of Giza were built and how much work it took to construct them. But have you ever asked yourself, “How much work would it take to tear down the pyramids?” In the late twelfth century, some people tried to do just that. Volume 4 of Picturesque Palestine, Sinai and Egypt provides us with the story.

The image below is entitled “Pyramids of Gizeh” and is one of the few steel engravings in this volume. (The rest of the images are wood engravings.) In the section below, the author summarizes the work of a 13th century physician known as ’Abd-el-Latif of Baghdad. ’Abd-el-Latif visited Egypt and wrote of his experiences there. In 1196, the governing authorities decided to tear down one of the pyramids to provide raw material for a new construction project.

’Abd-el-Latif tells us how he saw the workmen of El-Melik El-’Azîz, son of Saladin, employed in 1196 in pulling down the Third Pyramid—that at the left in our steel engraving of the Three Pyramids of Gîzeh, from a sketch made during the inundation. A large body of engineers and miners pitched a camp close to the Red Pyramid (as the Third was called from its beautiful granite casing), and with their united and continuous efforts achieved the removal of one or two stones a day. The blocks fell down with a tremendous shock, and buried themselves in the sand, whence they were extricated with immense toil and then were laboriously broken up. At the end of eight months the treasury was exhausted and the work of destruction abandoned. To look at the quantity of stone taken away you would think, says the observer, that the whole monument had been razed to the ground; but when you lift your eyes to the Pyramid itself, it is hard to see that it has suffered the least diminution! One day ’Abd-el-Latîf asked one of the workmen, who had assisted in laboriously removing one stone from its place, whether he would put it up again for a thousand gold pieces? The man answered that they could not do it if the reward were many times multiplied. And so in spite of the efforts of man and the wearing of time, the Red Pyramid of Menkara still stands besides its two sisters at Gîzeh, and verifies the saying that “Time mocks all things, but the Pyramids laugh at Time.”

Quote taken from Picturesque Palestine, Sinai and Egypt, vol. 4, pp. 170-173. This and other images of nineteenth-century Egypt are available in Picturesque Palestine, Volume IV: Sinai and Egypt and can be purchased here. Additional images of the Giza Pyramids can be seen here and here.

Tagged Egypt, Picture of the Week

Dead Sea Scrolls Now Online

More than 5,000 high-resolution images of the Dead Sea Scrolls are now online at www.deadseascrolls.org.il. From the announcement by the Israel Antiquities Authority:

On the occasion of the 65th anniversary of the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Israel Antiquities Authority and Google are pleased to launch today the Leon Levy Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Library website, www.deadseascrolls.org.il. The public is invited to experience, view, examine, and explore this collection of over 5000 images of Dead Sea Scrolls, in a quality never seen before.
The library was assembled over the course of two years, in collaboration with Google, using advanced technology first developed by NASA. It includes some 1000 new images of scroll fragments; 3500 scans of negatives from the 1950s; a database documenting about 900 manuscripts, two-thousand years old, comprising thousands of scroll fragments; and interactive content pages. It enables scholars and millions of users worldwide to reveal and decipher details hence invisible to the naked eye. The site displays infra-red and color images at a resolution of 1215 dpi, at a 1:1 scale, equivalent in quality to the original scrolls. Google has provided hosting services and use of Google Maps, image technology and YouTube. The project was made possible by an exceptionally generous grant from the Leon Levy Foundation, and further contribution by the Arcadia Fund, as well as the support of the Yad Hanadiv Foundation.
One of the earliest known texts is a copy of the Book of Deuteronomy, which includes the Ten Commandments; part of chapter 1 of the Book of Genesis, dated to the first century BCE, which describes the creation of the world; a number of copies of Psalms scrolls; tiny texts of tefillin from the Second Temple period; letters and documents hidden by refugees fleeing the Roman army during the Bar Kochba Revolt; and hundreds of additional 2000-year-old texts, shedding light on biblical studies, the history of Judaism and the origins of Christianity.
Shuka Dorfman, Director of the Israel Antiquities Authority, said: “Only five conservators worldwide are authorized to handle the Dead Sea Scrolls. Now, everyone can “touch” the scrolls on-screen around the globe, and view them in spectacular quality, equivalent to the original! On the occasion of the 65th anniversary of their discovery, the IAA, in collaboration with Google, presents the scrolls online, using the most advanced imaging technology. Thus, this most important national treasure is available to the general public, preserving it for future generations.”

This project was first announced in October 2010. Many news stories can be found here. This really is a fantastic resource and I hope they will expand it to include every scroll fragment.

4QDana includes portions from Daniel chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10, and 11. Image from the Leon Levy Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Library.

Tagged Dead Sea, Museums, Technology

No Room for the Dead on the Mount of Olives

From thestar.com:

For the past 3,000 years, Jewish families have been bringing their dead to the Mount of Olives cemetery.
A maze of hillside tombs, this graveyard is the holiest place for those in the Jewish faith to be laid to rest.
Many Jews believe that when the Messiah comes to Earth riding on a white donkey, the dead will rise from their graves and walk to the holy Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City.
From the Mount of Olives cemetery, that’s only a few hundred metres.
“Everyone in that cemetery is buried with their feet facing the Temple Mount so they come straight up and don’t even have to turn around. No one is going to get confused on the walk,” said Ira Rappaport, 67, who moved from New York to Israel 41 years ago and whose parents are buried in the cemetery.
“Some Jews also believe in a mystic interpretation of the scriptures that the dead roll over in the grave to get rid of their sins,” Rappaport said. “But because the land at the Mount of Olives is so pure, you don’t have to worry about that.”
Authorities have identified more than 150,000 burials here — the cemetery has been used for more than 3,000 years so there are surely other undiscovered plots — but administrators say new plots are becoming scarce.
In as few as 10 years, there will be no room for new graves, said Chananya Shachor, manager of the Jerusalem Burial Society, the largest of 13 societies that arrange funerals.

The rest of the article gives some more history and gives the price of a plot. It is interesting that the author connects the resurrection with Zechariah 9 and the Messiah on the donkey and not Zechariah 14 where the Lord lands on the Mount of Olives to save Jerusalem.

HT: Charles Savelle

Cemetery on the Mount of Olives.
Photo from the Pictorial Library of Bible Lands

Tagged Jerusalem

Recent IAA Excavation Reports

Most of the settlement layers of Tel Afula were destroyed by construction activity in the 1950s, but a recent salvage dig found remains from the Early Bronze I and Roman period.

Archaeologists working in the Ir Gannim neighborhood of Jerusalem excavated a winepress possibly first used in the Iron Age II and again in the Hasmonean period. A large storage pool was built here in the first century AD.

A preliminary report from the 2011 season at Horbat Huqoq describes the project’s goals (synagogue and 2-3 houses) and reports on the initial progress including the excavation of a mikveh. This report does not describe the beautiful mosaic floor depicting Samson that was found in the 2012 season.

Excavations near a site that Charles Wilson incorrectly thought was Capernaum have exposed three strata from the 13th-14th centuries. The dig at Huqoq Beach is 80 meters east of the entrance to the Khirbet el-Minya Umayyad palace.

Excavations on the east side of the Mount of Olives were prompted by the chance discovery of a relatively rare Armenian mosaic from the Byzantine period.

Two adjacent quarries were excavated in Beit Hanina north of Jerusalem. They provided Jerusalem with maleke limestone from the time of Jesus until modern day.

Quarry K in Beit Hanina, looking north. Photo by IAA.

Tagged Excavations, Galilee, Jerusalem, Jezreel Valley