One of the readers of a previous post drew attention to a Palestine Exploration Fund (PEF) photograph of the lintel of Barclay’s Gate. In the caption, we are taken to task for publishing an incorrect interpretation of the lintel in BAR XV No.6, pages 23-42.
We wrote the following comment below this photograph:
The incorrect black outline on the photograph on p. 28 of the BAR issue was unfortunately added by the editors and not by ourselves. For the correct drawings of the lintel of Barclay’s Gate, see our book The Quest, Revealing the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, pp. 26, 28.
Whoever put up this caption didn’t look carefully at the drawing next to the photograph in the BAR issue, where the lintel is drawn correctly.
Barclay’s Gate is one of the four gates in the Western Wall of the Herodian Temple Mount:
This study drawing shows the depth of the original gate, which is still buried underground:
This drawing shows that only the upper three stone of the left jamb of Barclay's Gate can be seen today, the rest are still buried below ground. The size of the original gate is based on the explorations of Charles Warren in the 1870's.
This close-up photograph shows that the projection on the left side of the lintel is not very sizeable:
This photograph shows the projection on the left side of the lintel.
A central part of the lintel can be seen in the small room where women pray:
The central part of the lintel over Barclay's Gate - photo Clare Ritmeyer
Here is a view of the same lintel from inside the Temple Mount:
The lintel of Barclay's Gate seen from inside the Temple Mount - photo: Eric Matson Collection
Barclay’s Gate is one of the two lower gates in the Western Wall, the other is Warren’s Gate. Both these gates had internal passageways with steps by which one could ascend to the Temple Mount. This reconstruction drawing shows how Barclay’s Gate worked in the Second Temple period:
The 16th Annual Conference of the Ingeborg Rennert Center for Jerusalem Studies on “NEW STUDIES ON JERUSALEM” will be held on Thursday, December 16th, 2010 in the Mintz Auditorium (Building 404), Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan. Here is the program:
8:20 Gathering
8:45 Opening remarks:
Prof. Joshua. Schwartz, Director of the Ingeborg Rennert Center for Jerusalem Studies
Prof. Avraham Faust & Dr. Eyal Baruch, conference organizers
Session 1 – 9:00- 10:50 Chair: Aren Maeir
09:00 Gabriel Barkay – Kathleen Kenyon in Jerusalem – The Excavations which Terminated a Brilliant Career
09:20 Tsvika Tsuk – The Water Sources of the First Temple at Jerusalem
09:40 Gershon Galil – King David’s First Decade as King of Jerusalem and his Relations with the Philistines in Light of the Qeiyafa Excavation and Inscription
10:00 Moshe Garsiel – The Latent Literary Encounter between Samuel, the Prophet from Shiloh and Ramah, and Nathan, the Prophet of the Jerusalemite Court
10:20 Hillel Geva – The Development of Northern Jerusalem during the Second Temple Period: the Archaeological Evidence and its Significance
10:40 Discussion
10:50 Break
Session 2 – 11:20- 13:10 Chair: Joshua Schwartz
11:20 Ram Bouchnick, Guy Bar-Oz & Ronny Reich – On the Importance of Poultry in the Animal Economy of Judea in the Late Second Temple Period
11:40 Joseph Patrich – The Building Project of Simeon the Just on the Temple Mount: the literary sources, suggested remains and a graphical representation
12:00 Ofer Sion – The Upper Aqueduct of Jerusalem in the area of Jaffa Gate
12:20 Emmanuel Friedheim – Was There a Meeting between Jewish Monotheism and Polytheism in the Second Temple?
12:40 Michael Ben Ari – The Battle of Jerusalem: Destructive Divisiveness or Strategic Coordination, A New Reading of the Writings of Josephus Flavius
13:00 Discussion
13:10 Lunch Break
Session 3 – 14:20-16:40 Chair: Moshe Fischer
14:20 Yehoshua Peleg – The Passover Sacrifice in the Herodian Temple
14:30 Naomi Sidi, Eli Shukron & Ronny Reich – Late Second Temple Period Pottery from the Stepped Street in the Tyropoenon Valley and from the Drain Under It: A ComparativeStudy
14:50 Boaz Zissu & Amos Kloner – Horvat Midras (Kh. Durusiya) – A Reassessment of an Archaeological Site from the Second Temple Period and the Bar-Kokhba Revolt
15:10 Ze’ev Safrai – The Memory of the Temple
15:30 Amos Kloner & Boaz Zissu – A Street Pavement Along Lions Gate Street and its Dating to the First Century CE
15:50 Eitan Klein – The Origins of the Rural Settlers in the Judean Mountains and Foothills during the Late Roman period
16:10 Bat-Sheva Garsiel – The Status of Jerusalem in the Period of the Umayyad and the Abbasid Dynasties (From the mid seventh to the ninth Century CE)
16:30 Discussion
16:40 Break
Session 4 – 17:00- 18:40 Chair: Adrian Boas
17:00 Michael Ehrlich – The Ovens of the Holy Sepulcher during the Crusader Period
17:20 Shlomo Lotan – Exploring and Recovering the Concealed Part of the German Crusaders Church of Saint Mary in the Center of the Jewish Quarter in Jerusalem
17:40 Perez Reuven – A Manuscript Fragment in Arabic Written in Hebrew Letters from the Mamluk Period Found at the Al-Aqsa Mosque
18:00 Gérald Finkielsztejn – The Convent Outside the New Gate that Saved West Jerusalem (1894-1948)
18:20 Oded Shay – “Jerusalem is the Washington of Israel”: The journey to Jerusalem of the Zionist Functionary Dr. Otto Abeles, 1925
18:40 Discussion
The Conference is dedicated to the Memory of Israel Shalem z”l, a Fellow of the Rennert Center. The meeting is open to all (free of charge)
The conference proceedings (approximately 300 pp., including 17articles in Hebrew, with English abstracts) will be on sale during the conference
For additional information, please contact the Ingeborg Rennert Center for Jerusalem Studies:
Ferrell Jenkins has an interesting post on the Pinnacle of the Temple.
In my reading the most common view is that the southeast corner of the Temple Mount is the place mentioned in Mark and Luke as the pinnacle of the temple.
An overall view of a model of the Temple Mount looking from the south.
He aso quotes from Benjamin Mazar’s book The Mountain of the Lord:
Benjamin Mazar, The Mountain of the Lord, shows a photo of the southeast corner of the wall with the comment that this “is known as the ‘pinnacle of the Temple’ (Mark 11:11; Luke 4:9),” page 149.
Although this statement does appear in the book, I remember discussing this problem with him and he said that he actually saw the southwest corner of the Temple Mount as a more likely candidate for the pinnacle of the Temple. One needs to determine what was the most important element in the temptation of Jesus to throw himself down from the pinnacle. Was it the height of the corner above what lay below or did the temptation lie in impressing as many people as possible with that jump?
The southwest corner of the Temple Mount may have been the site of the 'pinnacle' of the Temple.
As the southwest corner was a busy junction between the major north-south street running through Jerusalem and the Plaza in front of the Southern Wall of the Temple Mount, there would have been many more people to impress here than on the much quieter southeast corner.
It is in a setting such as this that we can visualise the dramatic scene that would have taken place had not Jesus challenged the temptation with the power of God’s Word.
For Francophiles and Susaphiles, a lecture will be given by Jean Perrot, one of world’s greatest archeologists, who headed the French teams working in Iran from 1968 to 1978. Now, at 90 years of age, the author of “Le Palais de Darius à Suse” will give a lecture to launch his book.
Venue: Zoroastrian Cultural Centre, 2 bis Ave Montespan. 75116 Paris. (Niveau 177 Ave Victor Hugo), Métro : Rue de la pompe – Victor Hugo – Trocadéro.
If you are in Israel and interested in the Middle Bronze Age, you wouldn’t want to miss this conference:
Below is the program for the upcoming Middle Bronze Age Study Group,
which will be held on December 23rd, 2010, at the University of Haifa.
We, the organizers, would love to see you at the meeting.
The Middle Bronze Age Study Group
The 2010 Workshop
Patrician and Palatial:
The Middle Bronze Age Sites of Tel Ifshar and Tel Kabri”
Thursday, December 23rd, 2010
Leon Recanati Institute of Maritime Studies
University of Haifa, Multi-purpose Building, Room 108
(Lectures will be in English)
9:00 – Gathering
9:30-9:40 – Dr. Yaacov Kahanov, Director, Recanati Institute of
Maritime Studies: Greetings
Lecture Session: 9:30 – 12:00
Chair: Prof. Aren Maeir
9:40-10:20 – Dr. Ezra Marcus and Dr. Yosef Porath: The Middle Bronze
Age IIa sequence of Tel Ifshar and its relative and absolute
chronology.
10:20-11:00 – Dr. Assaf Yasur-Landau and Prof. Eric H. Cline: The
Middle Bronze Age I (IIa) and II (IIb) palace at Tel Kabri
11:00-11:20 – Prof. Manfred Bietak: Respondent
11:20-12:00 – Discussion
12:00-13:00 – Lunch break
Pottery Session: 13:00 – 15:00
Tel Ifshar: Dr. Ezra Marcus
Tel Kabri: Ms. Inbal Samet
Tel Esur/el-Assawir: Dr. Shai Bar and Assaf Bar-Hadas
In order to provide ample room to accommodate all those attending for
the morning session, the organizers kindly request that you RSVP,
including car plate number (if you wish to park within the Haifa
campus) by December 15 to either assafyasur@hotmail.com or ezra@research.haifa.ac.il.
David Ilan, Aren Maeir, Ezra Marcus, Joe Uziel and Assaf Yasur-Landau
Organizing Committee
Shimon Gibson, a co-director of the dig on Mount Zion, has launched a fund-raising drive for work on the finds from excavations conducted in the area in the 1970’s.
More than thirty years ago major archaeological excavations were conducted on Mount Zion in Jerusalem, with the discovery of the remains of King Herod’s palace, well preserved first-century houses, and rich artefacts. But the results of this work were never fully published. The archaeologist Shimon Gibson because of his professional interest in ancient Jerusalem, decided a decade or so ago to take on the responsibility of publishing these excavations. It was only a year ago that the finds, plans and field notes that had been presumed to be lost were unexpectedly discovered. This presented him with the daunting task of having to deal with enormous quantities of material, much of it in a very bad state of preservation owing to the substandard storage conditions they had been kept in. He has been battling this past year to raise funds for work on these amazing artefacts and this has now led him to publish an appeal for funding on the internet. Have a look at the site.
This exhibition will be a great reason to visit London in the Spring. Glad we’re not trying to get to the British Museum today, when the city is experiencing drifting snow and Arctic conditions!
The 200 objects on display will include Mesopotamian-influenced gold from 2,000BC, Indian-inspired ivory fittings and Greek carvings from the outpost of Alexander the Great’s empire. The show will also include delicate coloured glass from palaces founded when the nomadic tribes settled and coveted the Hellenic luxuries they had first destroyed.
Mark Wilson: Biblical Turkey, A Guide to the Jewish and Christian Sites of Asia Minor, Ege Yayinlari, 2010.
Biblical Turkey is one of those rare books that will move only from our desks to our rucksacks. It might not ever make it to our bookshelf and in order to facilitate lending it out, we will have to purchase another copy! Much-anticipated and prodigiously researched, the publication of this small triumph fills a huge gap in the guide literature to Turkey, a country which Wilson points out that, apart from Israel, hasmore Biblical sites than any other country. He emphasises illuminatingly, that: “approximately two thirds of the New Testament was written either to or from Asia Minor.”
Now the most sought-after tour guide to Biblical sites in Turkey, the New Testament scholar would attribute his expertise to the nine years he has spent actually living in the country with his wife. In the introduction, he writes: “I have travelled tens of thousands of miles/kilometers via plane, train, boat, bus, minibus, taxi, dolmuş, and on foot, visiting nearly every site mentioned in this volume.” When you consider that over one hundred sites, spread over seven regions, covering 9412 square miles, are discussed here, that is a staggering achievement. And being steeped in the works of William Ramsay, whose The Letters to the Seven Churches of Asia and The Cities of St. Paul were controversial classics, (Wilson was Revising Editorfor a number of Ramsay’s works) was a rigorous early schooling. Previous to the issue of Biblical Turkey, one had to rely on the easily procurable Fant and Reddish’s, A Guide to the Biblical Sites of Greece and Turkey (Oxford, 2003), (which actually only covered 24 sites in Turkey) and the books one was fortunate enough to pick up when visiting the various sites. On this last matter, Wilson writes that his “rule of thumb with books in Turkey is this: if you see a book you’re interested in, buy it immediately because you might never find it again.” We can vouch for the truth of this statement!
Wilson has gone with a Turkish publisher Ege Yayinlari, whose website says that they publish “everything that helps to understand the past of Turkey.” The book’s layout provides much to feast on. For some sites, we are given, apart from the expected site information, a section called Ancient Voices, which features the words of a local author. For example, at Antioch on the Orontes, the Seleucus Inscription may explain why the family of Paul was granted Roman citizenship. Sections called Sidetrips direct you to nearby sites of Biblical interest. The In-Site section is the most valuable of all, providing unique insights into the Biblical text. Questions that have exercised commentators, such as Why did John Mark leave Paul and Barnabas and the reason for Paul’s Walk to Assos are given reasonable answers that are informed by intimate acquaintance with the terrain involved.
The photographs are stunning and a labour of love. We were intrigued to read Wilson’s words in an interview that was published online: “I really love the cover photograph, which was taken in March 2008 at Miletus. Normally I’m not at the site in the evening. Rainwater was standing in the area that used to be the theater harbor. I was able to catch the reflection of the theater in the water just as it would have appeared in antiquity.” There is no such comment in the book, which brings us neatly to the only quibble we would have with it. That is, that it is clear that Wilson was under tremendous pressure to be brief, resulting in a rather dense volume. This means that when you go to a site to read up on it, you come away feeling cheated, fully aware that he knows much more than he is able to give here. On the other hand, you realise how up-to-date the book is when you visit sites such as the recently excavated Laodicea which is presently being restored. Here, Wilson’s notes nicely supplement the site’s excellent new information panels.
Laodicea: The large marble temple complex located north of the main street. This temple has not yet been identified and therefore is simply referred to as Temple A. It is being reconstructed at the time of writing (2010).
You certainly cannot travel in Turkey with only this book in your luggage. Wilson states that he always carries one of the well-known guide books such as a Rough Guide or a Lonely Planet and that he will not be providing directions to sites, only when: “the site is obscure and not known generally through other means.” We think he might revise this decision for some sites that are fiendishly difficult to find, such as Colossae!
The unexcavated mound of Colossae under snow-capped Mount Honaz
We found this evocative, unexcavated mound, under the snow-capped peak of Mt. Honaz, only because we had looked it up in advance in Google maps. None of our friends who have toured Turkey, bar one, have been able to find it. Even the local policeman, parked a mile away from the site, did not know where it was! It would also be helpful if the maps could be standardised for the next edition, as they were taken from relevant prior publications and not made especially for this book.
As an aside, it is inspiring to learn that Wilson was galvanised to commence his Asia Minor Study Centre in Izmir, which focuses: “on the intersection of early Judaism and Christianity in the Greco-Roman world in Asia Minor,” by a short study programme he followed in Jerusalem. Here he saw the abundance of study centres devoted to the history and archaeology of Israel and compared that with the complete absence of an equivalent in Turkey. Now he directs two non-profit organisations in the country, the latter and the Seven Churches Network which providesmore general information on Turkey and its Biblical sites.
We sincerely hope that this pioneer’s wonderfully clear-eyed book will get the distribution and the sales it deserves. Order from www.zerobooksonline.com
Update 12/03/’10: Mark Wilson informed us that his book will be distributed by David Brown/Oxbow Books in North America and the UK, hopefully in the near future.
The presumed Tomb of Jesus in the Holy Sepulchre has recently been discussed again, this time on The Bible and Interpretation website. In this article, which is a follow-up of a previous one, PhD student Eldad Keynan of the Bar Ilan University suggests that the tomb in the Holy Sepulchre was a Sanhedrin tomb that was used for the temporary burial of Jewish felons and that the permanent tomb of Jesus was elsewhere.
The tomb beneath the rotunda was not a “normal” or a “standard” tomb. However, we believe it is indeed the temporary tomb of Jesus. It was significantly smaller than the standard\normal tombs; it was different in structure; it was connected to another tomb nearby.
In this reconstruction drawing, we see a newly hewn tomb that could have been used for the first phase of burial, the so-called “primary burial,” where the body was laid out on a bench.
A newly hewn, but unfinished tomb could have been used for primary burial, as we explained here:
Over 1,000 tombs have been studied around Jerusalem, and we know now that the first stage in tomb construction is the cutting out of a single chamber with benches arranged along the three sides, leaving a pit in the middle, so that the workmen could stand upright while working. A tomb could be left like this for a while, until the other chambers were added.
Such a newly hewn tomb could be used for the first phase of burial, the so-called “primary burial,” where the body was laid out on a bench. A year or so later, when only bones were left, these were placed in “ossuaries” or bone boxes. This was called “secondary burial.”
If the tomb in the Holy Sepulchre was a Sanhedrin tomb, then it could hardly have been a “new sepulchre”, as described in John 19.41. It would also contradict the fact that Jesus was laid in Joseph of Arimathea’s “own new tomb, which he had hewn out in the rock” (Matthew 27.60; Luke 23.53).
Keynan appears to be a supporter of the Talpiot Tomb as the permanent tomb of Jesus. The fact, however, that Jesus came from Nazareth is often overlooked in the discussion. We believe that Jesus was raised from the dead, but if, for the sake of argument, Jesus was buried in a permanent tomb, that would have been his family tomb in Nazareth and not in Jerusalem. It is nevertheless interesting to read about Jewish burial practices, as Jesus was a Jew and must have been buried according to Jewish customs.
This report was in the San Diego news a couple of days ago:
Thomas Levy, a UCSD professor of anthropology and Judaic studies, has
pioneered three highly sophisticated digging excavations in an area
called Khirbat en-Nahas, located in southern Jordan, attracting the
attention of NOVA/National Geographic Television, which sent a crew to
Jordan with him last fall.
Levy, also the associate director of the Center of Interdisciplinary
Science for Art, Architecture and Archaeology (CISA3), wasn’t looking
for King Solomon’s mines at first. He was actually researching the
role of ancient technology on the evolution of society. But what he
found in Jordan was groundbreaking — thousands of tons of slag, a
by-product of smelting ore, and different types of blowpipes. Using
the process of radiocarbon dating, his team discovered there was
industrial-scale metal production of copper precisely in 10th century
BC.
“It would have been like the Pittsburg of Palestine,” said Levy.
There are two sides to the King Solomon debate, he said. First, there
are those who “minimize the historicity of the Old Testament, saying
there was no Solomon because during the 10th century there were no
societies capable of creating a kingdom, only petty nomads.” On the
other side, there are those who maximize the content of the Old
Testament, he said.
“We don’t have proof that we have found Solomon’s mines, but what we
have proof of is that there were kingdoms in the 10th century,” said
Levy. “I think he existed.”
You can see a preview of the movie here:
HT: Jack Sasson
Update: The “Quest for Solomon’s Mines” is being streamed (53 minutes) at PBS, but in the UK you can’t see it, for a message says: “We’re sorry, but this video is not available in your region due to rights restrictions.” Sad …
