An aerial view of Tel Dor

Earlier we wrote about the excavation at Tel Dor here. Dr. Ayelet Gilboa, chair of the Department of Archaeology at the University of Haifa, and the co-director of the Tel Dor Excavation Project, was kind enough to provide us with one of the wonderful aerial photos of Tel Dor.

Aerial view of Tel Dor looking northeast. Photo courtesy: Dr. Ayelet Gilboa.

Click on the image for a photo suitable for use in a PowerPoint presentation.

Dor has a long history extending from the Canaanite period around the 20th century B.C. It was also controlled by the Phoenicians, the Sea People, the Israelites, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Persians, the Greeks, and the Romans. Dor was abandoned in the third century A.D. (Biblical Archaeology Review, Nov./Dec. 2002).

Dor is mentioned only a few times in the Old Testament Scriptures.

• When Jabin, king of Hazor, heard of the victories of Joshua and the Israelites he put together a confederacy of armies including the king of the “heights of Dor on the west” (Joshua 11:2).
• Joshua conquered “the king of Dor in the heights of Dor” (Joshua 12:32).
• Dor was allotted to the tribe of Manasseh (Joshua 17:11). The writer of Joshua quickly acknowledges that Manasseh could not take possession of these cities, “because the Canaanites persisted in living in that land” (Joshua 17:12; see Judges 1:27).
• Solomon appointed his son-in-law Ben-abinadad over the height of Dor (1 Kings 4:11).
• Ephraim’s territory extended to the border of Manasseh, including “Dor with its towns” (1 Chronicles 7:29).

For more information about the 2010 excavation season at Tel Dor check the official web site here.

Veterans Day – November 11, 2009

Flag of the United States of America. Photo by Ferrell Jenkins.

The history of Veterans Day is available here.

The Ark at Kiriath-jearim

The first reference to Kiriath-jearim is in Joshua 9:17 where it is listed as one of the cities of the Hivites along with Gibeon, Chephirah, and Beeroth. These cities were located on the western side of the Judean hill country.

The name, Kiriath-jearim, means “city of forests” or wood, and is identified with Deir el-Azar. The Arab village at the site today is called Abu Ghosh and can be seen about nine miles west of Jerusalem to the right of the main highway to Tel Aviv. Several other names are given for the place. It is called Kiriath-baal (Joshua 15:60; 18:14), Baalah (Joshua 15:9), possibly Baalath (1 Kings 9:18), and Baale-judah (2 Samuel 6:2). Perhaps the simplest and correct explanation is that the Israelites changed the name from a place that honored Baal to a geographical one, the city of forests.

When the Danites moved from their allotted territory to the north they camped a little to the west of Kiriath-jearim at a place they called Mahaneh-dan (Camp of Dan; Judges 18:11-12).

Kiriath-jearim’s highest honor is in the association with the ark of the covenant. The Israelites took the ark from the tabernacle at Shiloh to the battle field at Ebenezer when they were fighting with the Philistines (1 Samuel 4). The ark was captured by the Philistines and taken to Ashdod, then to Gath, and finally to Ekron before they decided to get rid of it. The ark was returned to Beth-shemesh (1 Samuel 4-6).

The men of Beth-shemesh sent messengers to the residents of Kiriath-jearim asking them to come and take the ark to their town. The ark was brought into the house of Abinadad on the hill. His son, Eleazar, was consecrated by the men of the city to keep the ark of the LORD. The ark remained there for many years until David had it brought to Jerusalem (1 Samuel 6:21-7:2; 2 Samuel 6).

A prophet named Uriah, a contemporary with Jeremiah, lived at Kiriath-jearim. He preached a message similar to that of Jeremiah regarding Jerusalem in the days of the Babylonian threat. When he was threatened by King Jehoiakim he fled to Egypt, but was captured and brought back to Jerusalem and put to death (Jeremiah 26:20-24).

The ark of the covenant was here at Kiriath-jearim before David took it to Jerusalem. Photo by Ferrell Jenkins.

Our photograph shows the hill of Kiriath-jearim. Our Lady of the Ark of the Covenant Church was built in 1911 on the ruins of a fifth century Byzantine church.

This article was published in Biblical Insights, June, 2007.

The fall of the Berlin Wall

Twenty years ago today the Berlin wall began to come down. The wall had been a vivid symbol of the Iron Curtain and of the Cold War.

The phrase Iron Curtain came into common use after the speech by Winston Churchill at Westminster College, Fulton College, March 5, 1946.

From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia, all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and, in some cases, increasing measure of control from Moscow.

My first visit to Berlin was March 25, 1978. I took a group there to be able to visit the fabulous Pergamum Museum. In my tour brochure I had included this statement from one of Arthur Frommer’s books. He says that the entire trip to East Berlin “is worthwhile just to see the Pergamon Altar…not even in Greece itself does one get a more solid idea of the glory of Greek civilization.”

I went back to Berlin several times prior to the fall of the Wall, and I have been back several times since then. This photo shows a small portion of the Wall that remains as a reminder of the previous division.

A remnant of the Berlin Wall. Photo by Ferrell Jenkins.

Sunset at Hierapolis

This is a sunset view I made at Pamukkale (biblical Hierapolis; Colossians 4:13). Hierapolis is famous for hot mineral springs and terraced travertine formations. It is now a World Heritage site.

For I bear him witness that he [Epaphras] has worked hard for you and for those in Laodicea and in Hierapolis. (Colossians 4:13 ESV)

Sunset at Hierapolis in the Lycus River Valley. Photo by Ferrell Jenkins.

Something lite for October 31

This is a photo I made in front of Stephen King’s house in Bangor, Maine.

The Western Wall tunnel

Most first time visitors to the Western Wall in Jerusalem, whether in 1967 or 2009, probably think they are looking at a wall seen by Jesus and other first century characters prior to AD 70. In a sense they are. That is, they are seeing the same wall, but not at the first century level.

The Western Wall is the western side of the temple platform enclosure built by Herod the Great. Jesus drove money changers out of the temple precinct (hieron) (John 2:13-17). In their discussion with Jesus the Jews called attention to the length of time the temple (naos) had been under construction (John 2:19-21).

Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The Jews then said, “It took forty-six years to build this temple, and will You raise it up in three days?” But He was speaking of the temple of His body. (John 2:19-21 NAU)

The photo below shows the largest visible stone in the western side of the Temple precinct. According to the Western Wall Tunnel web site, this stone is the largest one in the tunnel. It is 41 feet long, 11.5 feet high, and 15 feet deep. The web site says that this stone is 20 feet above the street level of the first century.

The largest visible stone in the Western Wall tunnel. Photo by Ferrell Jenkins.

The Tunnel was dug in the years following 1967, but an exit was not cut on the north end until 1996.

Israel plans major excavation at Western Wall

Israel National News reports, in an article by Samuel Sokol, plans to conduct a archaeological dig under the Western Wall in Jerusalem.

Israel is planning a major archaeological dig under the Western Wall (Kotel) plaza, opposite the Temple Mount, officials announced Thursday. The excavations will create an archaeological park directly underneath the area where worshippers currently stand while praying at the Kotel.

The current prayer area will remain open, supported by pillars, while a new area will be added underneath, at the level at which worshippers at the ancient Temple stood in the past.

The complete article may be read here, and another here from The Jerusalem Post.

This drawing shows the planned part underneath the present pavement at the Western Wall.

Proposed Western Wall archaeological park. Photo: Antiquities Authority.

Here is the way this area looks at the present time.

The Western Wall platform. View to north toward Wilson's Arch. Photo by F. Jenkins.

HT: Joseph Lauer

Pressing on toward the goal

Paul’s admonition to the brethren at Philippi is often used in sermons.

Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus. Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 3:12-14)

Most often we hear speakers compare what Paul said to the effort put forth by individuals running in a race. This is certainly not inappropriate. However, many years back I ran across a statement by E. M. Blaiklock that changed my thinking. Blaiklock was a noted classicist. This particular comment comes from Cities of the New Testament.

One mark of the Roman colony is perhaps to be detected in the letter which Paul wrote, over ten years later, to the Macedonian church which he had come to love. It is a hidden metaphor from the chariot race. Exhorting his Philippians to effort and single-minded endurance, Paul writes: ‘This one thing I do-forgetting the things behind, and stretching out to those before, I make for the mark, the prize of the upward calling’.

Commentators generally have not marked the fact that Paul appears to have in mind, not the athletic contests of the Greeks, from which he commonly drew illustration, but the chariot racing of Rome. He was writing to a Roman colony. He was writing also from Rome itself, and never was there such rivalry of racing colours, and circus fever than at that time. The common talk of the soldiers of the soldiers was of the chariot racing, and Paul would gain a vivid impression of this most perilous of sports.

Such a race as that which forms the substance of Paul’s figure is described well in Ben HUR. The charioteer stood on a tiny platform over sturdy wheels and axle. His knees were pressed against the curved rail, and his thighs flexed. He bent forward at the waist, stretching out hands and head over the horses’ backs. This is surely what he means by ’stretching out to the things before’. The reins were wound round the body, and braced on the reins the body formed a taut spring. It can easily be seen how completely the charioteer was at the mercy of his team’s sure feet and his own fine driving skill. Euripides, in his Hippolytus, tells how the hero fell and was killed in such conditions. Ovid describes the same disaster in Book XV of his Metamorphoses. In his intense preoccupation the driver dare not cast a glance at ‘the things behind’. The roaring crowd, crying praise or blame, the racing of his rivals, all else had perforce to be forgotten. One object only could fill the driver’s eye, the point to which he drove at the end of each lap.

Here is a photo that might help to illustrate what Blaiklock said. It was made at the RACE show (Romy Army and Chariot Experience) at Jerash, Jordan.

Chariot race at the RACE show in Jerash, Jordan. Photo by Ferrell Jenkins.

This is a reprint from April 30, 2008, but with a different photo suitable for use in presentations. Click on the image for the larger photo.

Appian Way mile marker

Mile markers were commonly used in the Roman world. Over the past forty years I have seen several in Israel and Jordan. Many of them have disappeared or have been taken to a secure place.

The marker here is the first one south of the city wall in Rome. Just as we have markers on our highways to indicate distances, so did the Romans.

Mile marker on the Appian Way in Rome. Photo by Ferrell Jenkins.