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A Video (Herod's Tomb) and a Photo (Village Discovery)

A few recent items of note:

Arutz-7 has a 3-minute video of Ehud Netzer talking about Herod’s tomb on location. Unfortunately, he doesn’t say much of significance. It apparently was more of a random clip rather than a prepared explanation of what was found and why he believes it is Herod’s tomb. If I didn’t mention it before, the Society of Biblical Literature has a few choice photos of Herodium and the discovery.

During construction near the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv highway, a village from the time of the Bar Kochba Revolt was recently uncovered. The photo on the Jerusalem Post indicates that some of the ruins are well-preserved.

Top Ten Sites in Jerusalem

The Biblical Archaeology Society seems to have mastered internet marketing, judging from the frequent newsletters in my box. Usually there is at least 1/3 real content vs. sales pitches, but today’s was 100% ad. But I was happy to see “The City of David” for $50 off the regular price (now $100). I’ve been waiting to get this gem, and I can’t expect the price to get any lower. I’d be happy to tell you why it’s so great, but I’ll let you read about it yourself here.

But when I clicked the ad, it brought me to the “Father’s Day” sale page (until 6/18), at the bottom of which was a promo to get you to subscribe to BAR. If you pay when you order, you get the free guide, The Glories of Jerusalem: The Top Ten Sites in the Holy City, by Jerome Murphy-O’Connor. I had not heard of this book before, and it motivated me to come up with my own list. My list is free to you, and you don’t have to subscribe to anything. If you want, you can subscribe to the BiblePlaces Newsletter, which itself is free and filled with 100% good content and no ads.

I might preface my list by saying that while I am light years behind the distinguished author of the above guide, I have spent considerable time living in and teaching about Jerusalem. I gave my first college-level tours of the city soon after my 21st birthday, and I have taught a course on Jerusalem archaeology many times. This city is always fascinating, and there is always more to learn.

My top ten sites in Jerusalem are:

Temple Mount – this place really is the center of it all. Every time I am there, I am impressed with just how large the area is. Today it seems to be anything but a holy place, with kids playing soccer, women having picnics, and piles of trash unmoved for years. I still am inspired every time. (more)

Western Wall – large Herodian stones are cool, but this place gets a mention because of the people. Every sort of normal and strange person comes through the plaza, and they are interesting to watch and to talk to. (more)

Tomb of the Kings – most tourists never see this, because 1) the staircase is tough for old people; 2) climbing through tiny doorways inside the tomb is even more challenging; 3) it takes some work for the guide to explain what this tomb is all about; and 4) the owners of the site (the government of France) is positively rotten about allowing visitors. In my view, the government of Israel should force them to have regular hours, and they might, except for points #1-3 above. But the fact of the matter is, this is the best tomb in all of Israel, and it perfectly illustrates the types of burials in use at the time of Jesus. The tomb was carved ten years after the crucifixion of Christ and belonged to Queen Helene of Adiabene. See, I lost you already. (but more here)

Garden Tomb – it’s not the actual place of Jesus’ resurrection, but it sure feels more like it than anywhere else in the city. (more)

St. Etienne’s Iron Age tombs – forgive me for including yet a third tomb in the list, but I simply must. These are the best Old Testament period tombs in the city (probably in the country). A strange irony: these tombs are located on the property where Jerome Murphy-O’Connor has lived for many decades, but there is not a word about them in his excellent guide book, The Holy Land. Possibly they don’t want visitors (indeed, they don’t), and possibly he wants to avoid getting into hot water with intransigent French priests (his colleagues) who insist that these tombs are from the Roman period.

Hezekiah’s Tunnel – this is any kid’s dream – to walk through a rock-hewn tunnel for 1750 feet. Add to that the certainty that it was dug by King Hezekiah’s men and it is mentioned twice specifically in the Bible. (more)

Southern Temple Mount excavations – besides the impressive archaeological remains of streets, shops, staircases, and ritual baths, this is one area where you can be certain that Jesus saw in substantially the same form. That’s easy to miss in the rest of the dense buildings of the Old City. (more)

Mount of Olives – for the view, not the churches. (more)

Petra Hostel rooftop – ok, the view is actually better from the “Tower of David” (in the Citadel museum), but the entrance fee is less and thus I go here much more often.

Pool of Siloam – not the Byzantine one now covered with a mosque and reduced to a fraction of its former size, but the 1st century pool recently uncovered by archaeologists. (more)

The Jerusalem model – formerly at the Holyland Hotel, now at the Israel Museum. I suppose this isn’t a “site” in its own regard, but it is such an excellent presentation of how the city used to look that I cannot omit it from the list.

Honorable mention:
St. Anne’s Church/Pools of Bethesda

Church of the Holy Sepulcher (more)

Broad Wall (more)

Herodian Quarter

“Solomon’s Quarries”

There are many books about Jerusalem that describe the above-mentioned sites, but you might consider purchasing the Jerusalem volume of the Pictorial Library of Bible Lands. This CD ($25) includes 650 photos of the city along with all of my teaching notes. You’ll like it! (Sorry for sneaking that ad in!)

Tagged Jerusalem, Temple Mount

Identification Problem

Perhaps one of this blog’s readers can help with identifying the photos below. They are clearly of the same structure. The first one is from a book from the 1890s, where it is identified as the “Temple of the Ark” at Shiloh. The second shows Ephraim Stern teaching with the bullhorn on June 25, 1968. I have asked a few smart people about this, but without success. I am doubtful that this is at Shiloh, but I’m sure it is somewhere in the hill country north of Jerusalem. Does anyone know?

UPDATE (6/11): Indeed this structure is at Shiloh, to the east of the Visitor’s Center, and now partially hidden by bushes. It apparently was a synagogue (Byzantine period?) before being converted into a mosque. Thanks to MB for the answer!

Tagged Challenge

The Dangers of Wikipedia

I like and use Wikipedia for all kinds of things. The more I know about the subject, however, the poorer the quality of the articles. This morning I was going through some photos I took a few months ago, including some that I took of Har Nitai, across the Wadi Hammam from Arbel. This picturesque mountain is not easily accessible as there are no roads and no good footpaths (that I could find). The site has significant ruins on the surface, but as far as I could tell, no excavations have been carried out.

A quick search for the site on Google brought me to this Wikipedia entry, which is largely a page written by a single person (“Truthresearch”). That should be the first clue; anybody with a username like that is immediately suspect.

The entry gives a little information about the site, but quickly goes to a suggested identification of the site as Nazareth. The basis for this identification appears to rest solely on the location of a steep cliff here (fitting the story in Luke 4 where Jesus is nearly thrown off a cliff). If that’s the method for site identification, then we can rearrange the entire map of Galilee. The writer acknowledges that the present-day Nazareth has the evidence of tradition, but it tries to make that a negative, explaining that it is only about 300 A.D. when Nazareth is mentioned in ancient sources. He fails to note that most Christian traditions are not attested until that time because Christianity was persecuted until the end of the Roman empire (circa 300 A.D.). Nazareth’s insignificant status and size explain its lack of mention in non-Christian sources. None of this of course is any sort of an argument that Har Nitai is the real Nazareth. But there is a cliff; what more do you need?

The link at the bottom of the article to a geocities site (“The Real Nazareth?”) suggests that the author of the two is identical.

All of this does of course give me the excuse to share a photo of the Arbel cliffs taken from Har Nitai. No sign yet of the planned golf course on top of Arbel.

Tagged Analysis

Asher Kaufman Lecture on Temple Location

See the press release below. The theory is several decades old, and few, if any, scholars hold to his view which places the Temple significantly north of the Dome of the Rock.

The Temple Mount: Where is the Holy of Holies? by Asher Kaufman, Ph.D.

Tuesday Evening, June 19, 2007; Lecture in English (there will be no Hebrew translation). Location: Jerusalem Menachem Begin Heritage Center (near the junction of King David and Emek Refaim).

Lecture starts promptly at 8:30pm and will finish with questions and answers at 10:30pm. Doors open at 7:30 pm; Cost: 20 NIS per person, payable at the door. This lecture is being sponsored and filmed by the Israel Media and Global Education Network TV (IMAGENET.TV) Dr. Kaufman will be making his book available for sale.

Dr. Kaufman was born in Edinburgh, Scotland. He received his training in physics, earning a Ph.D. from the University of Edinburgh. In the 1950’s he was engaged in nuclear fusion research. In 1959, he made aliyah to take up an academic appointment in the physics department of the Hebrew University (now the Racah Institute of Physics). Dr. Kaufman is currently Honorary Research Fellow, the College of Judea and Samaria and Emeritus Professor, the Hebrew University. His latest work, The Temple Mount: Where is the Holy of Holies was published in 2004 by Har Yera’eh Press, Jerusalem. The reunification of Jerusalem in 1967 was an electrifying event in Jewish history. For the first time in nearly 2,000 years, the Old city of Jerusalem came under Jewish sovereignty. Now with free access to the Temple Mount, Kaufman and others unknown to him at the time, were spurred on to find the pearl of Jerusalem archeological research-the location of the ancient Temple.

At first, Kaufman played with the idea of trying to fit the sanctified outer court of the Second Temple within the larger area of the Temple Mount. Later, as he perused further the ancient text of tractate Middot, he came across the passage mentioning the conduit that led from the Altar conveying sacrificial blood into the Qidron Valley. As a physicist, he suggested that sensitive physico-chemical methods could perhaps be used to detect blood remains. This idea transformed him from a plasma physicist into an investigator of the Temple.

As a research project, the blood approach was replaced by another, the red heifer ceremony (Numbers Chapter 19). Within a half a year, Kaufman, fond of measurement, was sure that he had located the Second Temple to within about a meter. His book presents an unusual combination of ancient Jewish texts and Josephus’ writings with the scientific method applied to archeological objects discovered on the Temple Mount. The research has led him to the discovery of the Foundation Stone and the architectural plan of the Temple sited on the Temple Mount. Kaufman’s scientific research offers each of us some fresh thoughts in light of a very old issue: Where is the Holy of Holies?

Logos' "Ultimate Archaeology Collection"

A commenter on the previous post noted that Logos Bible Software also offers a package of electronic works on archaeology. For an extra $125 (total: $400), the Logos collection also includes Biblical Archaeologist, Archaeological Encyclopedia of the Holy Land (ed. A. Negev), and a few others. Biblical Archaeologist includes 60 years (1938-1998) and normally sells for about $120. The Archaeological Encyclopedia is an older edition (earlier even than the current 2001 edition), but still useful. The other works (need I comment on “Photos from the Holy Land“?) are not significant. One other advantage of this offer is that it doesn’t seem to have an expiration date.
UPDATE (6/9): Interesting timing here, as days after this anonymous commenter (Logos employee?) mentions the set, it is featured in the Logos newsletter. The price is still $400, but I feel compelled to address this prominent claim:

If you ever use visual aids for your sermons and lessons and include images to enhance or illustrate your text – you will love The Ultimate Archaeology Collection.

That statement is false. I think there are many good reasons to purchase the collections, but the pictures is not one of them. Many people have told me this, and I have observed it myself. I use thousands of pictures from multiple sources in teaching various courses on the Bible and archaeology, but I don’t use these pictures.