Photo Resources Archives - Page 8 of 16

Weekend Roundup

Brian Peterson reviews the events and discoveries of Week 2 of the Shiloh excavations.

Scott Stripling is interviewed about the excavations at Shiloh on The Land of Israel Network (34 min).

Ferrell Jenkins looks at the importance of Shiloh, the longtime location of the tabernacle.

The Times of Israel has a lengthy follow-up on the study that suggests that the carbon-14 calibration scale for Israel is faulty.

ASOR has posted an update on the severe damage to the site of Ebla in Syria.

Israel is opening a new national natural history museum in Tel Aviv.

Israel’s Good Name went on a tour of the Tel Aviv Zoological Research Institute, a place not normally open to the public.

Aren Maeir has posted the lecture and field trip schedule for the Gath excavations.

The American Center of Oriental Research (ACOR) in Amman has posted 9,000 low- to medium- resolution watermarked images from Jordan and the surrounding region, including many taken by Jane Taylor.

Wayne Stiles writes about an important event at the Water Gate in Jerusalem.

Ron Traub writes about the Baram synagogue near the northern border of Israel.

Leon Mauldin is visiting Rome and sharing photos.

Mitchell First has written an article on “The Earliest Surviving Texts of the Torah” for Jewish Link of New Jersey.

The Vatican Library has made 15,000 manuscripts available online, with another 65,000 to come in the next couple of decades.

The ESV Archaeology Study Bible has some recent video posts of interest:

“The Biblical Archaeology Society is now accepting applications for the 2018 Joseph Aviram, Yigael Yadin, and Hershel Shanks fellowships that allow scholars to attend the annual meetings” of ASOR and SBL. (The announcement mentions that Aviram, at age 102, is still the president of IES!)

Norma Dever died on Thursday. William Dever writes an obituary that may surprise you.

HT: Charles Savelle, Agade, Joseph Lauer

Tagged 10th Century, Excavations, Israel's Coast, Italy, Philistines, Photo Resources, Sad News, Samaria, Syria, Weekend Roundup

Weekend Roundup, Part 1

I am home. I can’t say any more about it now, but those who follow our work will benefit from my trip in the months and years ahead. On to the first installment of what really amounts to a roundup for the month of May:

“Three extremely rare Jewish-minted coins dating from the 4th century BCE were recently discovered by the Temple Mount Sifting Project.”

“The study of four donkeys found buried under the houses of Canaanite merchants in the ancient city of Gath is giving archaeologists new clues about early international trade between ancient Egypt, Canaan and Mesopotamia 5,000 years ago.”

Infrared analysis has allowed researchers to view previously unknown text of some Dead Sea Scroll fragments.

“The Temple Mount Sifting Project takes its show on the road with a pilot program in which it uses dirt to connect students to the past and future of the Jerusalem holy site.”

A Bar Kochba Revolt coin discovered near Modiin suggests more widespread support for the rebellion than was previously believed.

An article in The Times of Israel addresses the sensationalized headlines about discoveries at Tel ‘Eton as well as some criticism from Israel Finkelstein.

David Gurevich looks at how archaeological discoveries in Jerusalem in recent decades affects our knowledge of the Great Revolt.

The Bible Lands Museum Jerusalem (which now allows photographs) has a new exhibit on the biblical tekhelet (blue).

Some scientists are calling for higher-resolution satellite imagery to be made available for Israel.

Mariusz Rosik interviews me about my photography work, including the new Photo Companion to the Bible. If you prefer the Polish translation, you can find it here.

HT: Joseph Lauer, Agade

Tagged Dead Sea, Discoveries, Excavations, Jerusalem, Museums, Photo Resources, Shephelah, Technology, Temple Mount, Weekend Roundup

Inside the Photo Companion to the Bible: The Scrolls

A significant new visual resource that we developed for the Photo Companion to the Bible is images of old and ancient scrolls of Old Testament books. This is particularly useful in illustrating the Gospels because of the abundance of quotations and allusions to the Hebrew Scriptures.

For instance, when Jesus quotes from Deuteronomy three times in his temptation, we provide photographs from an old Torah scroll of the verses he quoted. When he gives the Sermon on the Mount and contrasts God’s intended meaning of the Law with the Pharisaic misinterpretation, we have photographs of the relevant verses in the Pentateuch. When some of Jesus’s listeners declare that “Surely this man is the Prophet,” the reader needs to understand that this is an allusion to Deuteronomy 18:18.

One time the Pharisees tested Jesus by asking him if it was lawful for a man to divorce his wife (Matt 19:1-6). Jesus responded by quoting Genesis 1:27 and 2:24. Having a photograph of these verses reminds us that Jesus knew the Scriptures, believed the Scriptures, and insisted that they were still authoritative. The Torah scroll we have used for many of the photographs is of Yemenite origin and was copied about 400 years ago. The Hebrew script, without the vowel pointings or chapter numbers, is similar to what Jesus would have used.

Genesis-1-cited-in-Matthew-19-Torah-Scroll

The Photo Companion to the Bible also includes images from the Great Isaiah Scroll. The entire scroll is available through Wikipedia, and we have spent considerable time in identifying the relevant portions to go with the Gospels and creating high-quality close-up shots with the verses marked.

A favorite portion of the Isaiah scroll in Jesus’s ministry is the beginning of Isaiah 61 which Jesus quoted when he spoke in the synagogue of Nazareth. It’s amazing to think that this very scroll existed at the time when Jesus read these words!

There’s something else too that I love to point out to my students. The Great Isaiah Scroll was written in the 2nd century BC. That means that we have a document describing the Messiah before the birth of Jesus. There is no doubt that Isaiah spoke of a virgin giving birth and a Servant-King being killed and resurrected long before Jesus came. I think there is a powerful testimony in being able to see with our own eyes the text of Isaiah 53 written more than 100 years before Jesus was crucified and raised from the dead, just as Isaiah predicted!

Isaiah-53-allusion-John1-great-isaiah-scroll

The Photo Companion to the Bible provides valuable images that increase your understanding and save you time. In the case of Isaiah 53, you will find photographs of portions quoted or alluded to in many places, including Matthew 2:23, 8:17, 26:63, 27:12, Mark 9:12, 14:61, Luke 22:37, 23:33-34, 24:27, and John 1:29, 12:38.

Tagged Photo Resources

Inside the Photo Companion: Cultural Scenes

When we started taking photos in the Holy Land, our gaze was mostly fixed on the sites. That, after all, is the basis for most tour itineraries. This was reflected in our earliest photo collections, as they were organized by country, region, and site.

But as we began thinking about illustrating each verse of the Bible, we knew that we would need much more than photographs of piles of rocks at various sites. In this post we want to draw your attention to some of the many cultural scenes that we have illustrated in the new Gospels volumes of the Photo Companion to the Bible.

This scene shows a farmer plowing his field with his donkey. We captured this scene one day as we were passing through the Michmethath Valley on the way to Mount Gerizim (visible in the distance).

While certain elements like the headdress differ from the biblical period, we’re still amazed that we can see scenes like this that are so similar to ancient times.

I was walking through the suq (market) in Nablus last year (my first-ever visit there) and I saw through one doorway a father and son working on a carpentry project. This brought to mind another famous pair of father-son carpenters and I snapped a couple of pictures. While this scene too differs from what first-century Nazareth looked like, it’s still helpful to me in imagining how Jesus worked together with Joseph.

Some scenes are just difficult or impossible to capture today. The scene above was taken by an American Colony photographer in 1940, showing a scene of men gathered in a traditional village.

There are a number of biblical passages this could illustrate, but we’ve used it here to illustrate the story in Luke 15:1-7 where the rejoicing shepherd returns home to tell his neighbors that he has found his lost sheep.

When the prodigal son returned home, his father held a lavish feast, even slaughtering the fattened calf in his son’s honor (Luke 15:27). This American Colony photograph, taken in 1935, shows a group of Bedouin men preparing an animal for the fire. This image will also serve to illustrate other passages, including Abraham’s killing of a choice calf when three “men” came to visit (Gen 18:7).

I’ll close with a favorite. I took this picture at the Qatzrin Village in the Golan Heights (a worthwhile stop if you haven’t been). This display illustrates well the verse about the woman who lost one of her coins and in an effort to find it lit an oil lamp and swept the house (Luke 15:8). Many children (and adults) today would be hard pressed to picture what an oil lamp and a broom looked like in the time of Jesus.

It is a lot of fun to photograph these scenes or to find just the right image to illustrate a verse or concept. In creating the Photo Companion to the Bible, we intend to make Scripture not only more understandable but also more engaging and exciting.

Tagged Photo Resources

Weekend Roundup

I am traveling this weekend, and so this edition is shorter than usual. I’ll pick up any stories I missed next weekend.

Solomon’s Pools will be renovated with a $750,000 grant from the US Consulate in Jerusalem with hopes of turning it into a major tourism site.

An ancient inscription may provide contemporary evidence for the migration of the Philistines and other Sea Peoples, if it is authentic.

“Archaeologists have unearthed a 2,000-year-old olive oil mill in the ancient city of Tripolis in southwestern Turkey.”

The latest issue of Biblical Archaeology Review includes the sad news that Hershel Shanks is retiring after 42 years and turning editorship over to Robert Cargill. Shanks is 87.

Accordance Bible Software is running a sale that includes a 25% off any one item deal. You could use it for one of their photo collections, including The American Colony Collection or Views That Have Vanished.

Wayne Stiles explains the relationship between the Pool of Siloam, the Feast of Tabernacles, and the Messiah.

“The Dead Sea Scrolls at 70” is the title of a free conference that is being held at New York University on November 16-17. Speakers include Jodi Magness, Lawrence Schiffman, and many others.

Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary is hosting a “Foothills of Judah” Conference on November 13-14. Speakers include Itzhaq Shai, Steven Ortiz, and Chris McKinny.

John DeLancey is blogging his way through his current Greece Tour.

Israel’s Good Name recently visited Sachne (aka “Heaven on earth”) and explored some interesting sites in the area.

On Monday the Israel Antiquities Authority is hosting a press conference to reveal discoveries made in the last two years underneath Wilson’s Arch in the Western Wall Tunnels. I’ll post the story on the blog when I have it.

HT: Ted Weis, Joseph Lauer, Agade

Tagged Dead Sea, Discoveries, Greece, Holidays, Judah, Lectures, Photo Resources, Shephelah, Tourism, Turkey, Weekend Roundup

New Review of the Photo Companion to the Gospels

Pastor Jimmy Reagan writes about ministry and books on The Reagan Review and he has just posted a helpful review of the new Photo Companion to the Gospels. Here’s how it begins:

Wow! I hardly know what to say about this phenomenal collection of photographs on the Gospels. Over the years, I’ve seen attractive photos in books I have and noticed the name Todd Bolen in the photo credits. I had even heard others reference a website called BiblePlaces.com and talk about wonderful photo collections that could be purchased there. Now that I have Photo Companion to the Bible: The Gospels in my hands I know what all the hype was about. For the record, the hype was fully justified. All 89 chapters of the four Gospels are covered by more than 10,000 pictures. I suppose the most common usage for this resource would be for those who want to create sharp PowerPoint presentations. For that use, there’s nothing free on the Internet that even comes close to what we have here. Putting up a slide for a sermon on some passage in the Gospels will now be greatly upgraded for those who possess this resource. I see another use for this product that may not be as often discussed…

You can read the rest of the review at his site. While you’re there, you might want to poke around and read some of his other posts, including those in the categories of archaeology, Bible atlases, and Bible history.

Tagged Photo Resources