The Custody of the Holy Land on Twitter

 Custody of the Holy Land:

The website of the Custody enables one to follow the life and reality of the Holy Land, in eight languages: English, Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, Hebrew and Russian.

From now, the Custody of the Holy Land has also been on Twitter, enabling all to participate in real time and in eight languages the events, celebrations and initiative that occur every day in the Holy Land.

Follow us on Twitter and on our website.

And the Twitter account is here.

 

 

The Church Alive – Saint John’s Bible

 
HT:  Catholic Bibles

More on the 2,000 Year Old Baby Judean Palm Tree

Remember the date palm growing from a 2,000 year-old seed? Well here is more.

HT

 

Archaeology and the Bible: A Veritable Minefield

The next time you hear someone talk about the “science” of archaeology or how some discovery (or lack of discovery) has proved or disproved this or that biblical claim, you may want to consider the words of one of Israel’s senior archaeologists, Amihai Mazar:

“The interpretation of archaeological data and its association to the biblical text is a veritable minefield, as it is often inspired by the scholar’s personal attitude towards the text . . . we face over and over again arguments that, at their core, are circular. This was as true at the time of William F. Albright and his followers as it is today. There are few items of data in the archaeological record that are not disputable.”

Source: Amihai Mazar, “The Spade and the Text: The Interaction between Archaeology and Israelite History Relating to the Tenth-Ninth Centuries BCE,” in Understanding the History of Ancient Israel, ed. H. G. M. Williamson, Proceedings of the British Academy, vol. 143 (Oxford: Oxford University Press for The British Academy, 2007), 145.

Source

 

Day of Archaeology

Today’s the annual ‘Day of Archaeology‘. Archaeologists, take note!

HT

 

King James Version and the Ordinariate

Cum Lazaro:

The Ordinariate (the body existing within the Catholic Church which retains elements of Anglican liturgical uses and generally serves as an attempt to bring Anglican traditions into full Communion with the Church) is introducing its Customary (a sort of truncated Book of Common Prayer) shortly (see news item 1 June here).

Excellent -and mine’s already on order! But I do worry about the apparent use of the Revised Standard Version translation of the Bible in the Customary rather than the King James Version. At least, I take it from the following (link as above) that the daily readings of scripture will be from the RSV rather than the KJV:

Thus, whenever the Customary quotes extensively from the Bible, it is the RSV that it uses.

Certainly, it is the RSV rather than the KJV that is authorized for use by the Vatican:

The Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments has published a Decree permitting the use of the Revised Standard Version(Second Catholic Edition) for liturgical use in the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham.

This edition of the Holy Bible allows those Catholics originally from the Anglican tradition, to worship using a version of scripture which is familiar to them. It also promotes the English Bible tradition and recent efforts to renew Catholic liturgy with more accurate translations.

Now, in many ways, I can quite understand this decision. Anyone attending Anglican services such as Evensong will recognize that whilst the liturgy may be in the Tudor English of the Book of Common Prayer, the Bible readings are usually from the RSV. So inasmuch as the Ordinariate exists to Catholicize present day Anglicanism, it makes sense to reproduce this pattern. Moreover, there is no doubt that the RSV is a more accurate translation than the KJV. So, on grounds of accuracy and current use, going for the RSV seems to make sense. But…

One of the things that fascinates me about the Ordinariate is its historical and cultural importance. There is something quite striking about the fact that there now exists within the Roman Catholic Church a body that has emerged from the Reformation and now returned. And given the way that the English Reformation created that cultural juggernaut that is the English language and English literature, the embracing of the sources of that juggernaut in the Book of Common Prayer and the King James Bible would be of huge symbolic importance.

Quite apart from the symbolism involved, there is something utterly seductive in the language of the KJV. I feel it which is why, normally, I use the Daily Office from the Book of Hours website which uses the Office from the Book of Divine Worship (an existing Catholic version of the Book of Common Prayer) with readings from the KJV. Others feel it including Richard Dawkins. This sense of the beauty of language and of the importance of that beauty in liturgy is surely very much in line with Benedict’s understanding of the Church. I certainly wouldn’t argue that the KJV should be the only version available for use in the Ordinariate, but to miss the chance to bring it into the Catholic fold and, in essence, to rebaptize it as fully part of our Catholic heritage strikes me as a lost opportunity.

I’m not involved in any way with the thinking behind the scenes in the Ordinariate, so I don’t know to what extent any thought has been given to the place of the KJV in its life. Reading the article by Monsignor Burnham in June’s Portal (the magazine of the Ordinariate), I suspect that there has been some discussion which explains the (to my mind, rather defensive) following:

Why the RSV and not the King James Bible? The answer lies in the subtle development of the English Bible tradition. For accuracy’s sake, twentieth century students began to rely on the Revised Version of 1881-1894. Meanwhile the Revised Standard Version of 1946-1957 was becoming established and, in 1966, was accepted by Catholics and Protestants as a ‘Common Bible’. It was the first truly ecumenical Bible and brought together the two traditions – the Catholic Douay-Rheims Bible and the Protestant Authorised Version. Thus, whenever the Customary quotes extensively from the Bible, it is the RSV that it uses. The Catholic Church in the 1970s in Britain opted (mistakenly as it now seems) for the ‘dynamic equivalent’ Jerusalem Bible translation. That version greatly helped public understanding of the Scriptures, but, like the Mass translation of the same period, was based on a theory of translation that is of great value in paraphrasing and communicating the meaning of, for example, modern literature written in other languages, but no longer thought appropriate for representing sacred texts written in ancient languages.

Although this does explain why not the Jerusalem Bible (and I quite agree with this decision), it doesn’t really explain why not the KJV. Reading the Anglo-Catholic website on this issue of language, there’s clearly a desire among other former Anglicans for a Catholic reception of the KJV.

So, come on! Let’s grab back the King James Bible and get King Jamie burling in his grave…

 

Ekron of the Philistines: From Sea Peoples to Olive Oil Industrialists

The excavations of Ekron radically changed the traditional perception of the Philistines, a tribe of the Sea Peoples who migrated from the Aegean in the 12th century BCE. They settled along the southern coast of modern day Israel, became the chief antagonists of ancient Israel, and after 200 years were assimilated into one of the major ethnic groups like the Canaanites, Israelites, or Phoenicians. The Ekron Excavations have produced dramatic new evidence documenting Philistine history for an additional 400 years until the destruction wrought by the campaign of the Neo-Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar in 604 BCE. It was in the last phase, during the 7th century, that Ekron achieved the zenith of its physical and economic growth, when it became the largest olive oil industrial center known in antiquity. Among the major finds of the period was the Ekron Royal Dedicatory Inscription, one of the three most important documents outside the Dead Sea Scrolls discovered in the 20th century in Israel. The excavations also provided an answer to one of the enigmatic questions involving the Philistines, why they eventually disappeared from the pages of history.

HT

 

The Best Maps of Israel

On the Bible Places blog:

The best maps for detailed work in historical geography of Israel are the 1:50,000 series published by the Survey of Israel and the Survey of Western Palestine maps produced in the 1880s by the Palestine Exploration Fund. The first set comprises 20 maps and the second 16 (only going as far south as Beersheba), indicating the level of detail involved. Maps in the first set cost about $20 each and the second set costs in the thousands of dollars in the rare event that one comes on the market. In order to gain access to the Survey of Western Palestine, when one went on the market for sale in Germany some years ago, we purchased it and “shared the cost” by making an electronic version available.

An excellent new resource is available that combines the two maps in a single (free) website entitled amud anan (“pillar of cloud”). You can navigate on either map and then toggle to the other to see the land 130 years earlier (or later). The differences are dramatic. In addition, a “3D” option overlaps the maps on Google Earth topography so that the hills and valleys look like hills and valleys.

The 1:50,000 maps are in Hebrew. If you need to use detailed maps of Israel, and you don’t think you need to know Hebrew for anything else, these maps provide sufficient justification to learn the alphabet. (It really doesn’t take that long; there are only 22 letters and everything is phonetic.)

With a a tablet and a good internet connection (or with purchase of the iPad app; Android coming), hiking in Israel may never be the same!

Northwestern shore of the Sea of Galilee, Survey of Western Palestine sheet 6

Earliest Known Metal Bit Unearthed in Israel

The earliest known metal equestrian bit has been unearthed by archaeologists in Israel.

The bit was discovered in an equid burial site at Tel-Haror, and had probably been used on a donkey.

Archaeologists led by Professor Eliezer Oren, from Ben Gurion University,  made the discovery in a layer of material dating from 1750 BC to 1650 BC, known as the Middle Bronze IIB Period.

It is among a growing number of sites in the Near East yielding the remains of horses and donkeys.

Dr Joel Klenck, a Harvard University-educated archaeologist and president of the Paleontological Research Corporation, led analysis of the remains in the Tel-Haror site.

He said the burial site is at the base of a dome-shaped structure.

The southeastern wall of the burial edifice was overlaid by a thick mudbrick partition that surrounded a nearby temple complex.

Klenck, an archaeologist specialising in the analysis of animal remains, noted the animal was a donkey, as evidenced by foot bone measurements and traits on the grinding surfaces of its teeth.

Klenck said the site yielded the earliest direct evidence of a metal equestrian bit.

“Until the excavation at Tel Haror, archaeologists had only indirect evidence for the use of bits,” he said.

“An example of this indirect evidence is wear marks on equid teeth at the fortress of Buhen in contexts dating to the 20th century BC.

“At Tel Haror, we retrieved the actual metal device.”

Round plates on either end of the ancient bit feature triangular spikes that pressured the lips of the equid if the reins were pulled from one direction.

He said the discovery provided important insights into ancient equestrian practices and methods of transportation in Near East.

Other discoveries in recent years in the Near East have painted a picture revealing the extensive use of donkeys and horses in ancient cultures.

The Vulture Stele, in Mesopotamia, dating to 2600BC to 2350BC, known as the Early Dynastic III period, portrays an equid pulling a chariot-like vehicle.

Various Mesopotamian manuscripts dating to this period mention the horse, donkey, hemione and hybrids such as the mule.

From Sumeria, terracotta reliefs from the early second millennium BC show equids pulling a chariot and a human riding horseback.

Hittite art from the 13th century BC, in modern Turkey, show a larger species of equid, perhaps a horse, pulling a chariot with three soldiers, in contrast to smaller equids in Egyptian murals pulling chariots with only two men.

Horse bones were found at Tell el-’Ajjul, in Israel, in contexts dated to around 3400BC and, in Turkey, at Bogazkoy, from the 17th century BC.

Archaeologists excavated donkey remains at Tell Brak in Mesopotamia dating between 2580BC and 2455BC.

Egyptian donkey burials dating to 2000 BC to 1550 BC, known as the Middle Bronze II periods, include those found at Inshas, Tell el-Farasha, Tell el-Maskhuta, and Tell el-Dab’a.

From similar time periods in the Levant – the area including most of modern Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian territories – archaeologists have excavated donkeys at Tell el-’Ajjul and Jericho.

 Source

Jericho – Garden City

Travelujah Website

Jericho is a special place, definitely worth visiting, as it is the lowest (230 meters below the sea lever) and the oldest (around 10 000 years) town on Earth. Arriving in Jericho you will be astonished by its natural setting, with its vibrant colours, aromatic fragrances and the backdrop of the Dead Sea and Moab Mountains beyond in Jordan. The city has a subtropical climate making it a perfect place for flora and fauna to thrive.

Jericho can be called an oasis as it is situated on a very rich land with a couple of perennial springs, surrounded by the wilderness of Judean Desert. For its perfect agricultural conditions, the town looks nowadays like a great plantation – dates, cabbages, eggplants, lettuce, zucchini and many more kinds of vegetables are grown here to support the people. In the winter time, plenty of citrus trees with yellow, orange and pink fruits are delighting our eyes with its bright colours.

But Jericho is actually called “City of Palms” date palms dominate the area. While touring Jericho you must buy a pack of its delicious dates – Majoul dates, which originally come from this region. Bananas also grow plentiful in Jericho, and they were introduced to the area during the Islamic period.

Jericho, with its alluvial soil, lively three springs and tropical climate was an attractive place for the ancient nations to settle the remains of which are called Tel es Sultan or simply Ancient Jericho. This site is also mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, It became a city of Joshua, who conquered it with the famous trumpets, symbolising the holy intervention of God. (Joshua 2:1-4:24)

Where is the Zacchaeus Tree?

Read on here.