ISRAEL HISTORY

Archaeologists Uncover Babylonian Destruction of Jerusalem Just How Bible Describes It
Aug 23, 2019 04:43 pm
Archaeologists Uncover Babylonian Destruction of Jerusalem Just How Bible Describes It
(CBN) – Academics are saying the Bible is trustworthy after discovering evidence of the 6th century Babylonian siege of Jerusalem as it is described in 2 Kings, Chapter 25. Archaeologists from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, excavating on Mount Zion in Jerusalem, say they have found physical evidence of the Babylonian attack, including burnt material, arrowheads, carbonized wood, bronze, iron, jewelry, and broken pottery. Dr. Shimon Gibson, co-director of the university’s Mount Zion archaeological

project, told CBN News the discoveries were “unexpected.” The Bible describes King Nebuchadnezzar’s forces burning “every great house” down, including the house of the Lord – Solomon’s Temple.

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Archaeologists Uncover Babylonian Destruction of Jerusalem Just How Bible Describes It
08-23-2019
Emily Jones
Courtesy: Dr. Shimon Gibson
JERUSALEM, Israel - Academics are saying the Bible is trustworthy after discovering evidence of the 6th century Babylonian siege of Jerusalem as it is described in 2 Kings, Chapter 25.
Archaeologists from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, excavating on Mount Zion in Jerusalem, say they have found physical evidence of the Babylonian attack, including burnt material, arrowheads, carbonized wood, bronze, iron, jewelry, and broken pottery.
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Dr. Shimon Gibson, co-director of the university's Mount Zion archaeological project, told CBN News the discoveries were "unexpected."
The Bible describes King Nebuchadnezzar's forces burning "every great house" down, including the house of the Lord – Solomon's Temple. The soldiers also took bronze pillars and vessels from the Temple and carried them back to Babylon while the children of Israel were thrown into exile.
"What we're finding are the results of that destruction," Gibson said, adding that Nebuchadnezzar was known as the "Destroyer of Nations" at the time.
The researchers also found a particularly rare piece of jewelry with unclear origins.
"It might have been an earring. It might have been a tassel, some kind of ornament. It's unclear at this point in time. It consists of a golden bell out of which extends this bunch of grapes made out of silver," Gibson said.
While he cannot say conclusively that the archaeologists stumbled upon the remnants of the Babylonian attack, Gibson said it "lines up very well" with the Bible.
In fact, Gibson believes the discoveries prove the Bible to be a reliable and historically accurate document.
"There have been over the past several decades a lot of discussion as to the veracity of the biblical account. Some would like to see it more as mythically based, maybe having a basis in history, but still largely a document that is not really to be relied upon," he explained.
"Our excavations prove that to not be the case."
Gibson said the archaeologists will return to Jerusalem next summer to excavate the site in its entirety.

90 Years Ago: The Hebron Massacre of 1929
BY EMANUEL MILLER  AUGUST 23, 2019
In the eyes of many, the Hebron massacre of 1929 is the defining event of the 1929 Arab riots in Palestine.

For centuries, the small Jewish community of Hebron coexisted alongside a much larger Muslim community. Although Jews were never accorded full equality and often faced rampant discrimination and even extreme violence, at times relations were cordial.

All that changed exactly ninety years ago, as violent Arab riots against Jewish immigration swept through Palestine, which was then administered by the British.

Triggered by a baseless rumor that Jews were planning to march to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem and claim ownership of their holiest place, thousands of Arab villagers streamed into Jerusalem to pray at the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount, many armed with sticks and knives. The crowds worked themselves into a frenzy, with some 20-30 gunshots reported fired in the vicinity of the Temple Mount by rabble-rousers. A British report on the events describes the excited Arab crowds as intent on mischief and possibly murder. Fed by rumors that two Arabs had been killed by Jews elsewhere in Jerusalem, Arabs in the Old City went on the rampage, attacking and murdering Jews.

The rumors, and the violence  they prompted, spread swiftly across the land – most notably to Hebron, where a massacre unfolded.

The Massacre Begins
As Jews prepared to marked Shabbat, the holy day of rest, reports of the violence in Jerusalem made their way to their Arab neighbors.

The first to be targeted were the Ashkenazi Jews, who lived separately from both the Sephardi Jewish community and from the Arab population. Although their community had been established in the town for at least a century, their isolation fed the Arab views that these “Zionist immigrants” were suspicious and thus hated.

Despite the suspicion borne towards the Ashkenazi Jews, some recall being on good terms with the Arab neighbors. So peaceful was the city that only one British policeman guarded the entire city.

He oversaw a small force of 18 mounted police, together with 15 constables on patrol. All but one of whom were Arabs. Many were infirm and elderly.

Arab youths took to hurling rocks at the Ashkenazi yeshiva students passing by. That afternoon, a Jewish student named Shmuel Rosenholtz went to learn at the yeshiva. Around 4pm, Arab rioters forced their way in to the building. The caretaker managed to hide in a well, but Rosenholtz wasn’t so lucky. Absorbed in study, he didn’t see his attackers till too late.

The killing frenzy had started.

Rabbi Slonim, who was sheltering many Jews in his home, was approached by the rioters. They offered him a deal. If he agreed to hand over all the Ashkenazi yeshiva students to the Arabs, the rioters would spare the lives of the Sephardi community.

Such an act would have meant certain death for dozens of Jews. The Rabbi refused, saying “we are all one people”. In retaliation, he, his wife and 4-year-old son were promptly shot dead.

The following hours were hell for Hebron’s Jewish community, as the attacks turned into a massacre of the helpless Jewish community.

The following day, 24 August, saw Arab mobs gather and attack the Jewish quarter. The resulting carnage became known as the Hebron Massacre of 1929.

By 8am on Saturday morning, Arabs began to gather around the Jewish community. Armed with clubs, knives and axes, the mobs prepared to attack. Women and children threw stones while men ransacked Jewish houses and destroyed Jewish property.

With only a single police officer in all of Hebron, the Arabs were able to enter Jewish courtyards with literally no opposition.

Jews of all ages were attacked at random – men, women and children alike were the targets of the fury of the Arab mob. Women were raped, children were bludgeoned to death, and men stabbed and mutilated.

The Beit Romano police station turned into a shelter for the Jews on the morning of Saturday, August 24. It also became a synagogue when the Orthodox Jews gathered there said their morning prayers. As they finished praying, they began to hear noises outside the building. Thousands of Arabs descended from Har Hebron, shouting “Kill the Jews!” in Arabic. They even tried to break down the doors of the station.

The small police force was overrun and utterly incapable of stemming the mob. Some Arab policemen even joined in the killings.

The Beit Hadassah Jewish hospital, operated by the Hadassah Medical Organization, which provided equal treatment for Arabs and Jews alike, wasn’t spared. The rioters destroyed the pharmacy, and torched a synagogue on the top floor, destroying the Torah scrolls inside. The pharmacist there, a crippled man who had served both Jews and Arabs for four decades, was forced to watch as his daughter was raped and then murdered. He was then killed himself.

Photographs from the time show a girl struck on the head by a sword with her brain spilling out, a woman with bandaged hands, people with their eyes gouged out, a man whose hand had been savagely amputated, and other grisly sights.

It’s important to note that some Arabs did try to help Jews as the Hebron massacre unfolded. Nineteen Arab families saved dozens, if not hundreds, of Hebron’s Jews. Zmira Mani wrote about an Arab named Abu Id Zaitoun who brought his brother and son to rescue her family. The Arab family protected the Manis with their swords, hid them in a cellar along with other Jews they had saved, and eventually found a policeman to escort them safely to the police station at Beit Romano.

The Aftermath of the Hebron Massacre
In all, 67 Jews were murdered, and dozens injured.

Following the attacks, the British High Commissioner Sir John Chancellor visited Hebron. He later wrote to his son, “The horror of it is beyond words. In one house I visited not less than twenty-five Jews men and women were murdered in cold blood.” Sir Walter Shaw concluded in The Palestine Disturbances report that “unspeakable atrocities have occurred in Hebron.”

With their homes laid to waste and their synagogues destroyed, the few hundred Jewish survivors were relocated to Jerusalem.  The aftermath left Hebron barren of Jews for the first time in hundreds of years.

In 1948, Israel gained its independence from Britian, but Hebron was captured by King Abdullah’s Arab Legion during the War of Independence and ultimately annexed to Jordan. Jews only returned to the city in 1968, a year after Israel liberated Hebron from Jordanian control in the Six-Day War.
Emanuel Miller
Emanuel Miller is a Jerusalem-based writer who has previously worked for the Jerusalem Post and the Times of Israel, and helped establish the English media department of My Truth, an organization that documents the experiences of Israeli soldiers while facing an immoral, cynical enemy. He regularly speaks about Israel, media bias, and Israel's geopolitical complexities to audiences including Birthright groups, student leaders visiting Israel, and for those seeking to get a more nuanced understanding of Israel.
https://honestreporting.com/90-years-ago-the-hebron-massacre-of-1929/?utm_source=pushengage&utm_medium=push_notification&utm_campaign=pushengage

https://www.faithwire.com/2019/08/13/archaeologists-in-jerusalem-discover-compelling-evidence-of-historic-biblical-conquest/?fbclid=IwAR3_j1TWvdJkfrqy5GMZBce-Li8JLAHzQwMYsnQhKrau6FUGg42iX8am8Vg
Archaeologists in Jerusalem Discover Compelling Evidence of Historic Biblical Conquest
Photo by Robert Bye on Unsplash
By Will Maule
Author
16 hours ago
Archaeologists excavating Mount Zion in Jerusalem have discovered evidence of the Babylonian conquest of the city, as accounted for in the Bible.
Researchers from the University of North Carolina retrieved ash deposits, arrowheads and broken pieces of pots and lamps at the site. But that wasn’t the most important item — they also uncovered an item of jewelry which was popular among the “elites.” This tiny detail, they say, confirms the Biblical narrative of Jerusalem’s wealth prior to the conquest in 587-586 BC.

The jewelry is a “clear indication of the wealth of the inhabitants of the city at the time of the siege,” Shimon Gibson, co-director of the university’s Mount Zion archaeological project, told CNN.

The Prophet Jeremiah prophesied about the impending attack:

“The Lord says, “People of Benjamin, run for safety!
    Run away from Jerusalem!
Blow trumpets in the city of Tekoa!
    Warn everyone in Beth Hakkerem!
Horrible trouble is coming from the north.
    The Babylonians will destroy everything with awful power.” — Jeremiah 6:1.

The attack was recorded later, in Jeremiah 52, as well as 2 Kings. The assault was led by Babylonia King, Nebuchadnezzar.

“On the tenth day of the tenth month of the ninth year of Zedekiah’s reign, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon attacked Jerusalem with his entire army,” reads 2 Kings 25:1

For archaeologists, an ashen layer can mean a number of different things,” Gibson said in a statement, expanding on the team’s discovery.

“It could be ashy deposits removed from ovens; or it could be localized burning of garbage. However, in this case, the combination of an ashy layer full of artifacts, mixed with arrowheads, and a very special ornament indicates some kind of devastation and destruction. Nobody abandons golden jewelry and nobody has arrowheads in their domestic refuse.”

After Announcing He’s ‘Losing’ His Faith, Hillsong Worship Leader Posts List of Christian Apologists

The arrowheads, in particular, are also a compelling piece of evidence to suggest that the Babylonians completed their conquest as documented in the Bible.

The arrowheads were “fairly commonplace” in battle sites from the 7th and 6th centuries BCE, and were often used by Babylonian warriors, according to Gibson.

“This evidence points to the historical conquest of the city by Babylon because the only major destruction we have in Jerusalem for this period is the conquest of 587/586 BCE,” he added, noting that the broken pieces of pottery that were discovered at the site was a “jumble that you would expect to find in a ruined household following a raid or battle.”

“It is very exciting to be able to excavate the material signature of any given historical event, and even more so regarding an important historical event such as the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem,” added Rafi Lewis, a co-director on the research team.

Incredible!

https://www.faithwire.com/2019/08/13/archaeologists-in-jerusalem-discover-compelling-evidence-of-historic-biblical-conquest/?fbclid=IwAR3_j1TWvdJkfrqy5GMZBce-Li8JLAHzQwMYsnQhKrau6FUGg42iX8am8Vg
Archaeologists in Jerusalem Discover Compelling Evidence of Historic Biblical Conquest
Photo by Robert Bye on Unsplash
By Will Maule
Author
16 hours ago
Archaeologists excavating Mount Zion in Jerusalem have discovered evidence of the Babylonian conquest of the city, as accounted for in the Bible.
Researchers from the University of North Carolina retrieved ash deposits, arrowheads and broken pieces of pots and lamps at the site. But that wasn’t the most important item — they also uncovered an item of jewelry which was popular among the “elites.” This tiny detail, they say, confirms the Biblical narrative of Jerusalem’s wealth prior to the conquest in 587-586 BC.

The jewelry is a “clear indication of the wealth of the inhabitants of the city at the time of the siege,” Shimon Gibson, co-director of the university’s Mount Zion archaeological project, told CNN.

The Prophet Jeremiah prophesied about the impending attack:

“The Lord says, “People of Benjamin, run for safety!
    Run away from Jerusalem!
Blow trumpets in the city of Tekoa!
    Warn everyone in Beth Hakkerem!
Horrible trouble is coming from the north.
    The Babylonians will destroy everything with awful power.” — Jeremiah 6:1.

The attack was recorded later, in Jeremiah 52, as well as 2 Kings. The assault was led by Babylonia King, Nebuchadnezzar.

“On the tenth day of the tenth month of the ninth year of Zedekiah’s reign, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon attacked Jerusalem with his entire army,” reads 2 Kings 25:1

For archaeologists, an ashen layer can mean a number of different things,” Gibson said in a statement, expanding on the team’s discovery.

“It could be ashy deposits removed from ovens; or it could be localized burning of garbage. However, in this case, the combination of an ashy layer full of artifacts, mixed with arrowheads, and a very special ornament indicates some kind of devastation and destruction. Nobody abandons golden jewelry and nobody has arrowheads in their domestic refuse.”

After Announcing He’s ‘Losing’ His Faith, Hillsong Worship Leader Posts List of Christian Apologists

The arrowheads, in particular, are also a compelling piece of evidence to suggest that the Babylonians completed their conquest as documented in the Bible.

The arrowheads were “fairly commonplace” in battle sites from the 7th and 6th centuries BCE, and were often used by Babylonian warriors, according to Gibson.

“This evidence points to the historical conquest of the city by Babylon because the only major destruction we have in Jerusalem for this period is the conquest of 587/586 BCE,” he added, noting that the broken pieces of pottery that were discovered at the site was a “jumble that you would expect to find in a ruined household following a raid or battle.”

“It is very exciting to be able to excavate the material signature of any given historical event, and even more so regarding an important historical event such as the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem,” added Rafi Lewis, a co-director on the research team.

Incredible!

Jewish Roots: Building the Land of Israel
BY DOV LIPMAN  AUGUST 7, 2019
Third Aliyah pioneers, 1921
 https://honestreporting.com/jewish-roots-building-the-land-of-israel/?utm_source=pushengage&utm_medium=push_notification&utm_campaign=pushengage
The Land of Israel, known as Palestine at the time, was a wasteland in the late 19th century.  Mark Twain visited the region in 1867 and wrote in his travel book The Innocents Abroad:

Of all the lands there are for dismal scenery, I think Palestine must be the prince. The hills are barren, they are dull of color, they are unpicturesque in shape. The valleys are unsightly deserts fringed with a feeble vegetation that has an expression about it of being sorrowful and despondent.… It is a hopeless, dreary, heart-broken land.

Small shreds and patches of it must be very beautiful in the full flush of spring, however, and all the more beautiful by contrast with the far-reaching desolation that surrounds them on every side.…

Palestine sits in sackcloth and ashes. Over it broods the spell of a curse that has withered its fields and fettered its energies.… Renowned Jerusalem itself, the stateliest name in history, has lost its ancient grandeur, and is become a pauper village…the wonderful temple, which was the pride and the glory of Israel, is gone.… The noted Sea of Galilee…was long ago deserted by the devotees of war and commerce, and its borders are a silent wilderness.…Palestine is desolate and unlovely.

Just 100 years later, the Land of Israel was filled with lush forests with trees and flowers growing throughout the country, surrounding heavily populated cities connected by congested highways.

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When and how did this change transpire?
It’s important to emphasize that there was a continued presence of Jews in Palestine from the time of the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE and throughout the ensuing 2,000 years. The first major emigration of Jews to their homeland took place in the wake of the 1492 Spanish Inquisition, in which Jews were forced to either convert to Christianity or be expelled from Spain.  Then in the late 18th century and early 19th century, very religious Eastern European Jews returned to the Land of Israel, not to build a state but to be the spiritual emissaries in the Holy Land for Jews throughout the world.

Despite the Arab population’s persecution of the Jews, in adherence to the Muslim institution of “dhimmitude,” referring to infidels who are not Muslim, who according to their faith must remain inferior to the Muslims, Jews continued to emigrate to Palestine and by 1840 they numbered 17,000 in Jerusalem – a majority of the city’s population.


Related reading: The Jewish Connection to the Land of Israel

Return to Zion
Then, in the mid-1800s, the Jewish people began the process of truly rebuilding their desolate homeland and creating a structured society.  In 1855, Sir Moses Montefiore purchased land for Jewish homes west of Jerusalem’s Old City walls. Today they are the neighborhoods of Mishkenot Shaananim and Yemin Moshe, marked by the legendary Montefiore windmill.  In 1854, Jerusalem’s Jewish community opened two hospitals – Bikur Cholim Hospital and Misgav Ladach Hospital. By 1868,  Jerusalem had 21 synagogues.

A reawakening of interest in emigrating to Palestine emerged among Eastern European Jews in the late 1800s and between 1881 and 1903, tens of thousands made their way to Palestine in what became known as “the First Aliyah.”

These people, along with the help of the Jews previously living there and with the financial assistance of Baron Edmond de Rothschild, began farming the land and building agricultural settlements. These included Gadera, Rishon LeZion, Zichron Yaakov, Rosh Pina, Metulla,  Hadera, Rehovot, Ness Ziona, and Petah Tikva, which began as farming settlements, eventually becoming neighborhoods of Tel Aviv.


Rishon LeZion in the 1890s.
It is critical to emphasize that all this took place before there was an entity called Political Zionism.

Once Political Zionism and the official effort to establish a state began at the very end of the 19th century, the drive to physically regrow this desolate wasteland and build a structured society in this land, which had nothing of the sort for thousands of years, continued with full steam.

The Second Aliyah, from the beginning of the 20th century until World War I, was mostly made up of Jews who saw labor as the highest of ideals, and led to the emigration of another 35,000 Jews and the establishment of agricultural communes called “Kibbutzim.” These Jews drained swamps, cleared rocks, plowed barren land, and planted trees. In 1908, Jews moved to sand dunes north of Jaffa, drew lots for land, and established Tel Aviv from nothing.  This wave of immigrants worked to bring back the use of the Hebrew language which had been dormant for 2,000 years and created Hashomer, the Jewish population’s first official defense organization to protect the Jewish communities from Arab attackers.

TelAviv-Founding
Tel Aviv was founded on land purchased from Bedouins, north of the existing city of Jaffa. This photograph is of 1909 auction of the first lots.
Re-flourishing of the land
The re-flourishing and rebuilding of the land was aided by world Jewry who donated to the cause of planting trees in Israel and other projects through organizations like the Jewish National Fund which was established in 1901.

During this period, the Jewish population established its first official bank, Bank Leumi (National Bank). Its official name was the Anglo Palestine Company – a subsidiary of the Jewish Colonial Trust which was formed in London to promote the industry, construction, agriculture, and infrastructure for the Jewish people in Palestine.

Agriculture. Construction. Defense. Banking.

All the necessary elements needed to form a state were being put into practice by the Jewish people in Palestine decades before the Israeli state would become an official reality.  These refugees from persecution all around the world and Jews who had already been in Israel for centuries were motivated by the spirit of the prophets, including Amos who declared (Chapter 9:13-15) thousands of years prior that:

Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord… And I will turn the captivity of My people Israel, and they shall build the desolate cities, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and drink their wine; they shall also make gardens, and eat their fruits. And I will plant them upon their land, and they shall no more be uprooted out of their land which I have given them, says the Lord your God.

In short, the Jewish people did not wait for the international community to grant them a state in the Land of Israel, their biblical and ancestral homeland. They defied all odds and through blood, sweat and tears, revived this 2,000-year-old wasteland and marshland into a flourishing landscape and structured society.

See the Israel

The Kibbutz Movement: Past, Present, and Future
BY MARGO DICKSTEIN  JULY 22, 2019
https://honestreporting.com/the-kibbutz-movement-past-present-and-future/?utm_source=pushengage&utm_medium=push_notification&utm_campaign=pushengage
The kibbutz movement is one of the pillars of the State of Israel. It is a uniquely Israeli institution, beloved by many. But what are the origins of the kibbutz, and does it have a future in the modern State of Israel?

The Kibbutz Movement Origins
Jews arriving in Ottoman Palestine from Eastern Europe at the turn of the century were influenced by the revolutionary socialist ideals from their home countries. Rejecting earlier Jewish settlements that utilized Arab labor, they sought a “conquest of Labor,” believing that only Jewish labor would lead to the land being redeemed and a Jewish state being established.

While these early pioneers sought to work the land themselves, they could not compete with experienced Arab laborers who would work for less pay. In order to meet the needs of the new pioneers, the Zionist Settlement Office set up agricultural schools.

A group from the school was sent to work on land near the Sea of Galilee then called Um Juni. They left after less than one year. A new group of pioneers who were successful at farming on land near Hadera was sent to Um Juni with the hopes of similar success. They faced many challenges, including crumbling infrastructure left by the past group, as well as attacks from local Arabs.

This group of pioneers were the first to stay in one place and not move to another settlement, like other socialist Jews were doing at the time. They decided to rename the settlement Degania, after the word dagan, Hebrew for the cereals they were growing, and after degania, the cornflowers that grew in the area. Kibbutz Degania became the first kibbutz in Israel in 1910 .

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Life in Degania, and other early kibbutzim in general, was difficult. The land was difficult to work with and uncultivated, as well as most new immigrants coming from Europe having little to no farming experience. Arabs living near new Jewish settlements also largely resented their presence, and plundering was common. Because of this, early Jewish settlers created the Hashomer defense force.

Kibbutzim served as centers for absorption of new immigrants and provided defense fighters to the Haganah during Mandate Palestine.

Kibbutz Degania
A member of Kibbutz Degania-B plowing a field in 1945
Changes
Initially, kibbutzim were almost entirely agricultural, and entirely socialist. Families lived in modest, similar housing, and all meals were eaten communally in the dining hall. In some kibbutzim, children slept in a children’s house at night rather than with their parents. All income earned went into the kibbutz, and it would then be split communally and equally. There was no link between individual contribution to the community and income.

In the 1960s, only four percent of Israelis lived on kibbutzim, yet members of the kibbutz movement made up 15% of the Knesset.

But in the 1980s, Israel faced an economic crisis, and the kibbutzim were especially hurt. Due to mounting debts, inflation, and people leaving for the for cities, the kibbutz movement decided that maintaining a fully socialist framework would be impossible. Most moved to partially privatize.

By 2015, only two members of the Knesset were members of a kibbutz. The weakening of the political power of kibbutzim correlated with a weakening of the Labor Zionism movement as a whole.

kibbutz
Cows on an Israeli kibbutz
The Kibbutz Today
Today’s kibbutzim follow one of three economic models:

The Communal Kibbutz: Division of income is communal and equal, not depending on one’s individual contribution to the community;
The Integrated Kibbutz:  A member’s individual income is based on an initial, equal sum given to each kibbutz member, an additional sum based on how long they have lived on the kibbutz, and an additional sum based on salary/contributions to the kibbutz;
The Renewed Kibbutz:  Division of income is differential. The more one earns, the more one receives. However, a certain percentage is deducted from each kibbutz member’s salary to cover community expenses and supplement the income of members whose income falls below the minimum salary set by the kibbutz.
The vast majority of kibbutzim today, almost 190, chose to become “renewed kibbutzim,” seeing themselves as “reformers,” adapting the kibbutz method to the economic and social changes of the 21st century. Around 60 kibbutzim operate on the communal method while 20 are integrated.

All kibbutzim function as democracies, with members voting to formulate policy, elect officers, authorize the kibbutz budget, and approve new members. Kibbutz members also elect members to committees, who make decisions affecting things such as housing, finance, production, planning, health, and culture.

Kibbutzim production makes up 5.2% of Israel’s gross national product, and 9.2% of Israel’s industrial production. While kibbutzim are less powerful agriculture producers than they used to be, they still leave a huge impact on the state, with 34% of all of Israel’s agriculture coming from kibbutzim. Kibbutzim own 10% of the land within the state.

Related reading: The Roots of Zionism

The Kibbutz Movement’s Future
Kibbutzim today have expanded far beyond the small, socialist communes they once were. Many industries that operate on kibbutzim are traded on the Tel Aviv and foreign stock exchanges.

Israelis are also taking these ideals to 100 so-called “urban kibbutzim” where an estimated 2,000 Israelis live. The urban kibbutz movement has sprouted abroad as well, especially in the US, Australia and Germany.

Many believe that the kibbutz movement is having a revival, with kibbutzim expanding and people moving from cities to the periphery to experience the rural kibbutz lifestyle. Most argue that this expansion is only possible due to the evolution of the kibbutzim.

It is also clear that this expansion is not aided by a political expansion of the labor movement. It is something deeper – something calling people to abandon the ease of city life and come to live on kibbutzim, taking the 100 year-old movement into the 21st century.

In short, the kibbutz is here to stay in the modern State of Israel.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/ancient-galilee-church-unearthed-said-to-be-home-to-apostles-peter-and-andrew/
Ancient Galilee church unearthed, said to be home to apostles Peter and Andrew
Israeli archaeologist says dig at El-Araj, near Sea of Galilee, confirms it as the site of fishing village Bethsaida
By STEPHEN WEIZMAN
19 July 2019, 4:21 pm
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In this file photo taken on August 6, 2017, a general view of an archaeological excavation site, believed to be the location of a biblical village that was home to Saint Peter, near the Sea of Galilee in northern Israel. (Menahem Kahana/AFP)
In this file photo taken on August 6, 2017, a general view of an archaeological excavation site, believed to be the location of a biblical village that was home to Saint Peter, near the Sea of Galilee in northern Israel. (Menahem Kahana/AFP)
AFP — Excavations in Israel’s Galilee have uncovered remains of an ancient church said to mark the home of the apostles Peter and Andrew, the dig’s archaeological director said Friday.

Mordechai Aviam of Kinneret Academic College, on the shore of the Sea of Galilee in northern Israel, said this season’s dig at nearby El-Araj confirmed it as the site of Bethsaida, a fishing village where Peter and his brother Andrew were born according to the Gospel of John.

The Byzantine church was found near remnants of a Roman-era settlement, matching the location of Bethsaida as described by the first century AD Roman historian Flavius Josephus, Aviam said.

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The newly discovered church, he added, fitted the account of Willibald, the Bavarian bishop of Eichstaett who visited the area around 725 AD and reported that a church at Bethsaida had been built on the site of Peter and Andrew’s home.

According to Willibald, Aviam says, Bethsaida lay between the biblical sites of Capernaum and Kursi.

“We excavated only one third of the church, a bit less, but we have a church and that’s for sure,” Aviam told AFP.


Co-directors of the Galilee early church excavations at their recent dig site, historian Jacob Ashkenazi and archaeologist Mordechai Aviam from the Kinneret Institute for Galilean Archaeology at the Kinneret Academic College (courtesy Mordechai Aviam)
“The plan is of a church, the dates are Byzantine, the mosaic floors are typical… chancel screens, everything that is typical of a church.”

“Between Capernaum and Kursi there is only one place where a church is described by the visitor in the eighth century and we discovered it, so this is the one,” he said.

Christians recognize Saint Peter, originally a fisherman, as one of the first followers of Jesus and the leader of the early Church following the ascension.

The Catholic Church also venerates him as its first pope.

El-Araj, known as Beit Habeck in Hebrew, is not the only candidate for the site of Bethsaida.

About two kilometers (more than a mile) away at e-Tell, digging has been going on since 1987 and according to the National Geographic website has unearthed major ninth-century BC fortifications and “Roman-period houses with fishing equipment, including iron anchors and fishing hooks, and the remains of what may be a Roman temple.”

Aviam is convinced that he and his international team, with professor R. Steven Notley of New York City’s Nyack College as academic director, are digging in the right spot.

“We have a Roman village, in the village we have pottery, coins, also stone vessels which are typical of first century Jewish life, so now we strengthen our suggestion and identification that El-Araj is a much better candidate for Bethsaida than e-Tell,” he said.

“It has been excavated for the past 32 years. We started digging two years ago because we thought it’s the better one and now we have the proofs.”

Notley, interviewed in Israeli daily Haaretz, is a little more cautious, saying the clincher will be if complete excavation of the El-Araj church reveals an inscription.

“It would be normal to find an inscription in a church of the Byzantine period, describing in whose memory it was built, for instance,” he told the paper.

https://www.jewishpress.com/news/israel/jerusalem/archaeologists-find-fabled-crusader-moat-outside-jerusalems-old-city-walls-part-ii/2019/07/16/?fbclid=IwAR3ynwLtX6tgRkSN1GhKN2jrakMbjQ3UnGdU1IVaBwKSkb-amdOpw7yQWM8
Archaeologists Find Fabled Crusader Moat Outside Jerusalem’s Old City Walls
By JNS News Service - 13 Tammuz 5779 – July 16, 20190
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Photo Credit: Virginia Winters courtesy of Israel Nature and Parks Authority

The excavation near the Old City's southern wall. / Virginia Winters courtesy of Israel Nature and Parks Authority
Archaeologists have discovered an 11th century moat just outside Jerusalem’s Old City walls—the first hard evidence of a fabled Crusader siege against the city 920 years ago. Attested to in several historical documents, many scholars nonetheless believed the siege was a myth.

The groundbreaking find was made as part of the Mount Zion Archaeological Project, a joint international effort led by by professor Shimon Gibson and Prof. James Tabor of the University of North Carolina in Charlotte in cooperation with Dr. Rafi Lewis of Ashkelon Academic College. The excavation site is part of the Jerusalem Walls National Park, where archaeologists have previously found a first-century Jewish mansion and a rare gold coin stamped with the face Roman Emperor Nero.

Related Story: Magnificent Gold Jewelry Excavated in Mount Zion National Park

The five-week battle for Jerusalem between Crusader armies and the Fatimid Caliphate which controlled the region in 1099 C.E. came to a head in July 15 of that year, with Raymond IV, Count of Toulouse, one of the leaders of the First Crusade, attacking the city from the south while another Christian force erected a tower to breach the city walls from the north.

Raymond of Aguilers, who wrote a contemporary account of the battle, described a moat dug by the Muslim defenders to thwart attackers to the south. According to his chronicles, the count promised golden dinars to all Crusaders who would help fill the ditch so he could build a stable siege tower against the wall.

“Anyone who ever dealt with the Crusade in Jerusalem knows this story. … It’s a very saucy bit of story,” said Mount Zion team co-director Lewis according to GeekWire. “But nobody ever found the ditch, so people said maybe [the story was] made up.”

Professor Gibson said the realization they had uncovered the ditch began to set in when he noticed that the dirt layers were not sloping away from the city wall, but rather toward it, in a manner consistent with a ditch or moat which had been filled in.

According to Raymond’s account, the siege ultimately succeeded, but the tower was burnt down. When the northern force conquered the city, Crusaders spent a week slaughtering Muslim and Jewish residents of the city.

Over five years, the team mapped and dated the layers and artifacts, revealing a 13-foot-deep, 56-foot-wide moat. A blackened layer found atop the moat is believed to be evidence of the 1153 civil war between Crusader King Baldwin III of Jerusalem and his mother, Queen Melisende.

In a house discovered adjacent to the site archaeologists also found arrowheads, two cross pendants of the type typically worn by Crusaders, and a 3-inch piece of gold jewelry with pearls, jade and glass, consistent with Fatimid Muslim style.

'This is Not Mythology': Archaeologists Dig Up the Bible at Ancient City of Shiloh
01-12-2019
Chris Mitchell
Help CBN News reach more people with the Christian Perspective on today's headlines – please share this story with your friends.

JERUSALEM, Israel – Driving along the route known as the Way of the Patriarchs in Samaria, the heart of biblical Israel, you'll come to ancient Shiloh.
https://www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/israel/2018/july/this-is-not-mythology-archaeologists-dig-up-the-bible-at-ancient-city-of-shiloh?fbclid=IwAR0mCuEfQKCEcqM3sG8nUQlf7jOkdOTg4PFWD9G9Aa6lkrYqQ154hzEEyOw

Aerial view of ancient Shiloh, Photo, CBN News, Jonathan Goff

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The Bible Confirmed: The War that Catapulted Archaeology in Jerusalem
The Bible says this is the place where Joshua parceled out the Promised Land to the 12 tribes of Israel. It's also where the Tabernacle of the Lord stood for more than 300 years.

Dr. Scott Stripling directs the excavations at Shiloh. Along with dozens of volunteers, he and his crew are digging into history.


Excavation Director Dr. Scott Stripling, Photo, CBN News, Jonathan Goff
 
"Welcome to ancient Shiloh," Stripling greeted us. "This is the first capital of ancient Israel and it's a sacred spot because the Mishkan was here, the Tabernacle, where people came to connect with God."


Photo, CBN News, Jonathan Goff
 
"We're dealing with real people, real places, real events," he continued. "This is not mythology. The coins that we excavated today – we're talking about coins of Herod the Great, Pontius Pilate, Thestos, Felix, Agrippa the First, Agrippa the Second. The Bible talks about these people. We've got the image right here."

That 'image' includes a fortified wall built by the Canaanites. The team finds a treasure trove of artifacts there, which includes ancient coins and some 2,000 pieces of pottery a day.


Photo, CBN News, Jonathan Goff

"Now, this one was from yesterday," he said. "It's been washed already so you see the same form right out of the ground in yesterday and those are those handles from the stone vessels. Remember, Jesus' first miracle in Cana? There were stone jars full of water. That's that ritual purity culture of the first century."

An archaeologist like Dr. Stripling looks at these shards as a fine time piece.   
 
"Just like your great grandmother's pottery is different from your pottery that you're using today…once we learn the pottery, then we can use it as our primary means of dating."


Unearthing ancient pottery, Photo, CBN News, Jonathan Goff

Stripling says literally digging into the Bible can change your life."

"You can read the Bible, you can walk the Bible, but the ultimate is to dig the Bible," he said. "You know, when we actually get into the swill, like these students from Lea University. They're literally – it's under their fingernails and in their nose and in their mouth and their ears and they're exposing this ancient culture. It becomes one with you. It's sort of like we came out of the soil and as we dig into the soil, we connect with God and with each other, I think, in a very important way," he said.


Photo, CBN News, Jonathan Goff

Abigail Leavitt, a student at the University of Pikesville, serves as object registrar.
"I love getting my hands dirty. I love digging in the dirt. It's my favorite thing," she told CBN News.  

While people of all age volunteer at the dig, the main drivers are students like Abigail.

"It's tiring and exhausting, but it's really rewarding," she said. "It's exciting to find ancient things – things that have been just waiting for us for thousands of years."


Abigail Leavitt, Photo, CBN News, Jonathan Goff
 
Leavitt says the Bible comes alive in the dirt.

"I read the Bible totally differently than I did before I came here, and I can see when I read the Bible I know the places, I know what's going on. I understand it more deeply, especially where previous archaeologists have claimed the archaeology disproves the Bible. But when we dig here, we find that everything matches. You read it in the Bible. You dig in the dirt and there it is," she said.

Stripling said, "Archaeology doesn't set out to prove or disprove the Bible. What we want to do is to illuminate the biblical text, the background of the text, so to set it in a real world culture to what we call verisimilitude."

"So, we get an ancient literary description. Now, we have a material culture that matches that," he continued. "Chris, you're sitting where Samuel and Eli and Hannah and these people that we have read about, they came just like us, needing answers, needing to connect with God, needing forgiveness."

Stripling says they dig into the past and find lessons for the present.



"One of the faith lessons for us is that God is the potter and we are the clay. And even if our lives are broken like these vessels are, God told Jeremiah after He had told him to go to Shiloh and see what He had done, He told him to go to the potter's house and look at a flawed vessel and see how the potter puts it back on the wheel and works out the imperfections. So my faith lesson is this: Yes we're imperfect, but if we will allow God, He wants to put us [on] His potter's wheel and make us a vessel of honor."

Stripling often cites Psalm 102.

"O Zion, your servants take delight in its stones and favor its dust." (Ps. 102:14)

"For me this is sacred soil. This is where the Mishkan was that answers the most basic of all human questions: 'How do I connect with God?' And I think that's their most basic question," he said.

"I know I messed up. I know that God is holy. How do I bridge that gap when I sin against other people, when I sin against God. Ultimately, Chris, if the Bible is true, then the God of the Bible has a moral claim on our lives. And as we establish the veracity of the biblical text, I hope that everyone watching would just think about that – that God loves us and He has a moral claim on our lives."

What Ever Happened to the Treasures of the Second Temple? click Here to Learn More.
Where Are The Treasures Now?
In A.D. 70, Roman legions destroyed the second temple of Jerusalem. But centuries of eyewitnesses say the temple treasures survived and were carried away to Rome, Carthage and Byzantium, leaving an ominous trail of destruction. Where is what’s left of the treasure today?

CBN Documentaries presents a story of mystery. Why did the unimaginable wealth contained in Jerusalem’s Second Temple seem to carry a curse to every place it rested? The pages of ancient history, modern archeology, and the Bible itself have lured treasure-seeking explorers to attempt to piece together this puzzling mystery.

Now the CBN Documentaries team has traced the journey of the treasure and uncovered more tantalizing clues to its final resting place.

Hosted by Gordon Robertson, Treasures of the Second Temple picks up where unsuccessful explorers have long given up. The once-cold trail has heated up to reveal an intriguing possibility: Could the treasure be in Jerusalem? Is it stored deep under the Old City, never to be found? What is the destiny of the treasures of the Second Temple? How much longer will the mystery remain unsolved?

https://worldisraelnews.com/biblical-ziklag-found-city-where-king-david-fled-saul/?
Biblical Ziklag found: City where King David fled Saul
 July 8, 2019
Biblical Ziklag found: City where King David fled SaulSite believed to be the location of the biblical Ziklag. (IAA)
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The Israel Antiquities Authority says it has found the biblical city of Ziklag.
By World Israel News Staff

Researchers from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, the Israel Antiquities Authority and Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, believe they have discovered the Philistine town of Ziklag, immortalized in the Biblical narrative.

Ziklag is mentioned multiple times in the Bible in relation to David (in 1 Samuel and 2 Samuel). According to the Biblical narrative, Achish, King of Gat, allowed David to find refuge in Ziklag while fleeing King Saul.

It was from Ziklag that David departed to be anointed king in Hebron. According to scripture, Ziklag was also the scene of a dramatic event, in which the Amalekites, desert nomads, raided and burned the town taking women and children captive.

The excavation, which began in 2015 at the site of Khirbet a-Ra‘i in the Judaean foothills – between Kiryat Gat and Lachish, has proceeded in cooperation with Prof. Yosef Garfinkel, Head of the Institute of Archaeology at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Saar Ganor of the Israel Antiquities Authority and Dr. Kyle Keimer and Dr. Gil Davis of Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia.

Ziklag volunteers
Volunteers at excavation (IAA)

The excavation was funded by Joey Silver of Jerusalem, Aron Levy of New Jersey, and the Roth Family and Isaac Wakil both of Sydney. The excavation has been ongoing for seven seasons with large areas being exposed – approximately 1,000 square miles, leading to this new identification for Ziklag.

The name Ziklag is unusual in the lexicon of names in the Land of Israel, since it is not of the local Canaanite-Semitic language. It is a Philistine name, given to the town by an alien population of immigrants from the Aegean.

Twelve different suggestions to identify Ziklag have been put forward, such as Tel Halif near Kibbutz Lahav, Tel Sera in the Western Negev, Tel Sheva, and others.

However, according to the researchers, none of these sites produced continuous settlement which included both a Philistine settlement and a settlement from the era of King David. At Khirbet a-Ra‘i, however, features from both these populations have been found.

Ziklag excavation
Volunteer exposing pottery at site (IAA)

Evidence of a settlement from the Philistine era has been found there, from the 12-11th centuries B.C.E. Spacious, massive stone structures have been uncovered containing finds typical of the Philistine civilization.

Additional finds are foundation deposits, including bowls and an oil lamp – offerings laid beneath the floors of the buildings out of a belief that these would bring good fortune in the construction.

Stone and metal tools were also found. Similar finds from this era were discovered in the past in excavations in Ashdod, Ashkelon, Ekron and Gath–the cities of the Lords of the Philistines.

Above the remains of the Philistine settlement was a rural settlement from the time of King David, from the early 10th century B.C.E. This settlement came to an end in an intense fire that destroyed the buildings.

Nearly one hundred complete pottery vessels were found in the various rooms. These vessels are identical to those found in the contemporary fortified Judaean city of Khirbet Qeiyafa – identified as biblical Sha‘arayim – in the Judaean foothills. Carbon 14 tests date the site at Khirbet a-Ra‘i to the time of King David.

Clay vessels from Ziklag (IAA)

The great range of complete vessels is testimony to the interesting everyday life during the reign of King David. Large quantities of storage jars were found during the excavation – medium and large -which were used for storing oil and wine. Jugs and bowls were also found decorated in the style known as “red slipped and hand burnished,” typical to the period of King David.

Following a regional archaeological study in the Judaean foothills managed by Professors Garfinkel and Ganor, a picture of the region’s settlement in the early Monarchic era is emerging: the two sites – Ziklag and Sha‘arayim – are situated on the western frontier of the kingdom.

They are both perched atop prominent hills, overlooking main routes passing between the Land of the Philistines and Judea: Khirbet Qeiyafa in the Elah Valley sits opposite Philistine Gath, and Khirbet a-Ra‘i, sits opposite Ashkelon.

This geographic description is echoed in King David’s Lament, in which he mourns the death of King Saul and Jonathan in their battle against the Philistines: “Tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the streets of Ashkelon.”


https://www.timesofisrael.com/archaeologists-say-they-found-town-where-future-king-david-took-refuge-from-saul/?
Archaeologists say they found town where future king David took refuge from Saul
For decades scholars sought the elusive site of Ziklag, where the Bible says David was given shelter by Philistine King Achish
By AMANDA BORSCHEL-DAN
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Volunteers excavate pottery from Khirbet a-Ra'i, which archaeologists have identified as biblical Ziklag. (Excavation expedition to Khirbet a-Ra‘i)
Volunteers excavate pottery from Khirbet a-Ra'i, which archaeologists have identified as biblical Ziklag. (Excavation expedition to Khirbet a-Ra‘i)
In a finding sure to inflame the debate about the historicity of the biblical King David, an international team of archaeologists claims to have identified the lost city of Ziklag.

Based on artifacts and carbon 14 dating results of excavations since 2015, scholars proposed Monday that the archaeological site of Khirbet a-Ra‘i in the Judaean foothills is the site of the elusive Philistine town.

As attested in the books of Samuel, Ziklag, located between Kiryat Gat and Lachish, provided refuge to the future king David when he was on the run from King Saul. After his sojourn in Ziklag, David ascended the throne in Hebron.

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According to a joint press release from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and the Israel Antiquities Authority, archaeologists discovered remains of a Philistine settlement from the 12-11th centuries BCE, which was followed by a rural settlement dating to the early 10th century BCE, which is in keeping with the biblical account. Carbon 14 dating supports the archaeologists’ timeline and identification, according to the press release.


A volunteer excavates pottery from Khirbet a-Ra’i, which archaeologists have identified as biblical Ziklag. (Excavation expedition to Khirbet a-Ra‘i)
As recorded in the Hebrew Bible, David settled at Ziklag for 14 months under the patronage of the Philistine King Achish of Gat, with 600 of his men and their families, and used it as a base to raid neighboring peoples.

While the then-Philistine vassal David attempted to join the army of his Philistine lord Achish to defeat Saul, retaliating Amalekites razed the town and took off with the Israelites’ women and children, along with much booty. (Spoiler: In the end, David prevailed.)

According to the press release, in addition to the cultural transition between Philistine buildings and the presumed later Israelite camp, the Davidic-era settlement shows remains of an intense fire that destroyed it.

Later in the Hebrew Bible, in the Book of Nehemiah, the town is mentioned again as a base for Jews who returned from Babylon.


A volunteer excavates at Khirbet a-Ra’i, which archaeologists have identified as biblical Ziklag. (Excavation expedition to Khirbet a-Ra‘i)
For decades, archaeologists have sought the location of the elusive Ziklag, for which roughly a dozen sites have been suggested, without scholarly consensus. Those previous sites were largely dismissed due to lack of signs of settlement transitioning from Philistine cultural evidence to Israelite remains from the time of David, or due to lack of evidence of the widespread ruin wrought by the Amalekites, as described in the Hebrew Bible.

According to leading archaeologists Prof. Yosef Garfinkel, head of the Institute of Archaeology at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem; the IAA’s Saar Ganor; and Dr. Kyle Keimer and Dr. Gil Davis of Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, the proposed site of Khirbet a-Ra‘i has all the required qualifications.

The joint IAA and Hebrew University press release said that after seven dig seasons that uncovered some 1,000 sq.m., the archaeological team found evidence of a Philistine-era settlement from the 12-11th centuries BCE, among which were massive stone structures and typical Philistine cultural artifacts, including stylized pottery in foundation deposits — good luck offerings laid beneath a building’s flooring.

Those artifacts, along with stone and metal tools, are similar to ones found in other Philistine cities, including Ashdod, Ashkelon, Ekron and Gath.


Pottery assemblage from Khirbet a-Ra’i, which archaeologists have identified as biblical Ziklag. (Excavation expedition to Khirbet a-Ra‘i)
The name Ziklag is of Philistine origin and does not have roots in Semitic languages. Recently, a large scientific study of Philistine DNA matched their origins to the Aegean region, which had similar pottery styles during the 12th century BCE, the time period in which the Philistine ancestors are thought to have migrated to the Land of Israel.

At Khirbet a-Ra‘i to date, archaeologists have uncovered some 100 complete pottery vessels used for storing wine and oil, among other uses. According to Garfinkel, who led excavations at the contemporary fortified Judaean city of Sha‘arayim (Khirbet Qeiyafa), jugs and bowls decorated with a “red slipped and hand-burnished” finish are typical of the period of King David.

The excavations leading to the new proposed identification for Ziklag were funded by Joey Silver of Jerusalem, Aron Levy of New Jersey, and the Roth Family and Isaac Wakil both of Sydney.

https://worldisraelnews.com/dna-shows-that-the-philistines-arch-enemy-of-the-israelites-came-from-europe
DNA shows that the Philistines, arch-enemy of the Israelites, came from Europe
 July 4, 2019
DNA shows that the Philistines, arch-enemy of the Israelites, came from EuropeBattles between the Israelites and the Philistines (Wikipedia)
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DNA remains extracted from 10 individuals buried in Ashkelon display molecular links showing “an affinity with European-related populations,” say researchers.

By World Israel News Staff 

A study to determine the place of origin of the Philistines has shown that “a substantial proportion of their ancestry was derived from a European population,” according to the international team from the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History and the Leon Levy Expedition to Ashkelon.

DNA extracted from the remains of 10 individuals buried in Ashkelon, along Israel’s southern Mediterranean coast where the Philistines were known to be based, displayed molecular links which “showed an affinity with European-related populations,” say the researchers.

Using advanced technology, the researchers analyzed genome-wide data that had been retrieved from people who lived in Ashkelon during the Bronze and Iron Age. The European-derived ancestry that was discovered by the team was said to have been introduced into the Ashkelon area around the time of the estimated arrival of the Philistines in the 12th century BCE.

A paper by the researchers was published Wednesday in Science Advances magazine.

“This genetic distinction is due to European-related gene flow introduced in Ashkelon during either the end of the Bronze Age or the beginning of the Iron Age. This timing is in accord with estimates of the Philistines’ arrival to the coast of the Levant, based on archaeological and textual records,” explains Michal Feldman of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, leading author of the study.

The Philistines are known from their biblical battles with the ancient Israelites, including the Philistine Goliath’s defeat at the hands of the young David. “However, the ancient texts tell little about Philistine origins,” the researchers noted.

From 1985 to 2016, the Leon Levy Expedition to Ashkelon, a project of the Harvard Semitic Museum and under license from the Israel Antiquities Authority, took up the search for the origin of the Philistines at Ashkelon, one of the five Philistine cities mentioned in the Bible. The excavations culminated in the discovery, between 2013 and 2016, of the first Philistine cemetery ever to be found, according to the team involved in the work.

Ancient Artifacts Found in Israel ‘Prove the Bible’ Is True
https://www.faithwire.com/2019/06/11/these-ancient-artifacts-found-in-israel-prove-the-bible-is-true/?utm_source=FWNL
By Lindsay Elizabeth
Author
June 11, 2019
Often times the relationships we see between Palestinians and Israelis is that of negativity. The mainstream media highlights the ever-mounting tensions between the two regions, only showcasing the negative relationships.

Four Rappers Went to Israel. Here’s The Beautiful Truth They Found.

In a recent Israel Collective film, the crew spoke to a Palestinian man living in Israel, who believes that the God of love is what can unite the two people groups.

The Israel Collective, a group “dedicated to building vibrant relationships between American Christians and the people of the Holy Land,” works to unify the two people groups under the teachings of Jesus.


In the video, Zak Mishriky shows the Israel Collective around his families store: Zak’s Jerusalem Gifts.

“This is a very interesting coin that has Paleo-Hebrew on it,” he said, holding up the coin to the camera. “This is Hasmonean or Maccabees, you know 100 B.B., and has Hebrew.”

Mishriky’s family has been in Israel for over 300 years, selling artifacts that tie ancient Israel with the present.

“I grew up on the border of a refugee camp located in Anathoth (East Jerusalem);  the same place where Jeremiah, the Prophet was born.   I was the oldest child of four children,” he writes on his antique shop’s website. “Because of the family situation, I had to find ways of contributing to the day to day expenses.”

“We are Palestinians, we grew up in Jerusalem,” he explained to the Israel Collective. “My business first is Biblical antiquities. You know my vision is to have gifts that are connected to the Bible.”

“We’re respecting the law, and working hard, and we’re getting prosperous in Jerusalem, like anywhere else,” he added.

He explained that over time his family saw that Israeli’s were trying, and that made the family want to support them.

“Not to look on an identity, but to look on human beings and that they are made in the image of God,” he explained.

“This is the oldest coin I have, it’s a 4th century B.C. Judah, or you know, Yehud. I don’t know if the camera can see this but next to this, next to the eagle here,” he said holding up the coin, “it has three ancient Hebrew letters.”

“It says “Yehud, like Judah, or Jews. Like Jews were here under the 4th century B.C.” he explained.

Mishriky explained that this meant that the Jews were in the region in the 4th century B.C. and that the fact that Palestinians and Israeli’s had to be enemies was ignorance.

“You know, people were like, one day were enemies, and we said that they were our enemies,” he added. “Then just like meeting them, and understanding that they’re trying very hard not to have another Holocaust, and they’re doing their best to keep the law and give equality for their people.”

“It made us appreciate them more. Our hearts were open, and we saw that their hearts were too,” he added. “You know to people in the land, even if we are not Jews.”

Mishriky explained to the Israel Collective that at the end of the day, God calls his children to show love and compassion to all people.

“You will not understand it if we don’t understand that God is love,” he explained. “God did all of this as a reaction of His love. God keeps His covenant because He is a loving God.”

“God, you know, takes care of His people because He is a loving God,” he explained. “God sent His son to manifest love He is love.”

Mishriky pointed out that he loves selling Biblical antiquities because they prove the Bible to be true.

“And the Biblical archeology proves the Bible,” he said. “And these items just open up the Bible. You know you see something and you can understand the verse in a better way.”

“If my first identity is Christian,” he ended with.

https://honestreporting.com/jewish-ties-temple-mount/
Jewish Ties to the Temple Mount – What’s the Story?
BY PESACH BENSON  MARCH 7, 2019
Jewish Ties Temple Mount
Much of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is about land. There are strong Christian, Muslim and indeed Jewish ties to the region. But there’s one particular parcel of land that is fraught with history, symbolism and meaning, not just to the Jews and Palestinians living in Israel, but to people around the world.

The Temple Mount.

This trapezoid-shaped esplanade is the most sensitive 37 acres in Israel, maybe even in the world. Most prominent is the iconic glittering golden-roofed Dome of the Rock. Inside is the Foundation Stone, which many believe is the location of the Holy of Holies. Sitting on the southern edge of the plaza is the Al-Aqsa Mosque. At the bottom of the western side of a retaining wall surrounding the Temple Mount is the Western Wall.

Temple Mount
Photo by Yossi Zamir/Flash 90 with additions by HonestReporting
On any given day, pilgrims from all over the world come to Jerusalem looking for God, or at least some kind of spiritual experience. Within walking distance of the Temple Mount are Mount Zion, the Mount of Olives, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the Via Dolorosa, Siloam’s Pool and Hezekiah’s tunnel and other sites associated with the Bible.

With so many holy and historical sites, why is the Temple Mount the one place that arouses so much more passion?

Jewish starJewish ties to the Temple Mount run deep. In Jewish tradition, the Temple Mount is considered the holiest spot in the world, the site of the First and Second Temples built by King Solomon and Zerubbabel respectively. Ground zero would be the Holy of Holies, the Temple’s inner sanctum which the High Priest only entered once a year.

Known in Hebrew as Har HaBayit (Temple Mount) or Har HaMoriah (Mount Moriah), the Temple Mount’s holiness is so transcendent that many observant Jews will not go there while in a state of ritual impurity (more on that below). This restriction on visiting complicates efforts to strengthen Jewish ties to the Temple Mount. The closest spot to the Temple where the vast majority of Jews pray is the Western Wall, a retaining wall around the Temple Mount.

The Foundation Stone (Even ha-Shtiyya in Hebrew), which is inside the Dome of the Rock, is assumed by many to be the spot where the Ark of the Covenant sat inside the Holy of Holies, the first place where earth appeared on the third day of creation, and the spot where Abraham prepared his son Isaac as a sacrifice.

According to Jewish tradition, the Third and final Temple will be built there too.

Muslim crescentFor Muslims, the Temple Mount is known as Haram al-Sharif (the Noble Sanctuary). The Al Aqsa Mosque is Islam’s third holiest site.

Much of the Temple Mount’s prominence stems from the story of the prophet Mohammed’s Night Journey. According to Islam, Mohammed flew from Mecca to Jerusalem on a winged horse which landed atop the Western Wall. At the site of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, Mohammed led prophets in prayer.  From the Foundation Stone, he ascended to heaven and met with other prophets before returning to Mecca.

The Dome of the Rock is among the oldest works of Islamic architecture extant and its glittering gold dome is the most iconic image associated with Jerusalem today. In Arabic, the Western Wall is called the Wall of Buraq (Hait al-Buraq) after the horse.

Christian crossFor Christians, the Temple is where Jesus was found at a young age debating law with the rabbinic elders (the Finding in the Temple), and where he later expelled the money changers and merchants (the Cleansing of the Temple).

Christianity’s historical Jewish roots make the Temple Mount a very popular pilgrimage site. Although they don’t have a formal role in administering the holy site, church leaders follow developments on the Temple Mount and often speak out on issues regarding its status quo. The remains of a Byzantine era mosaic found under the Al-Aqsa Mosque — the only archeological excavation ever undertaken there — are thought to be the remains of a church or monastery.

The purpose of this article is not prove or disprove any side’s claim, but to better understand Jewish ties to the Temple Mount.

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The status quo
The existing state of affairs currently governing the Temple Mount goes back to 1967, when Israel captured eastern Jerusalem from Jordan. Days after the war, defense minister Moshe Dayan met with Jerusalem’s Muslim leaders. Fearing a wider religious war, Dayan agreed to let the Jordanian-run Islamic Waqf continue administering the Temple Mount.

(A waqf is a trusteeship. The waqf overseeing the Temple Mount today is also responsible for other Muslim institutions in Jerusalem, including schools, mosques, religious courts, orphanages, libraries, museums, and other properties.)

The informal status quo coming out of that meeting was as follows:

Jews and non-Muslims would be allowed to visit the Temple Mount.
Jews and non-Muslims visiting the Temple Mount would respect Muslim religious feelings.
Jews and non-Muslims would not be allowed to pray on the Temple Mount.
The Western Wall would be the primary place of Jewish prayer.
The Islamic Waqf would oversee daily administration of the Temple Mount while Israel would retain “overall sovereignty.”
After the war, the Knesset passed the Preservation of the Holy Places Law, ensuring freedom of access and protection to holy sites under Israeli jurisdiction, including eastern Jerusalem.

Six Day War Temple Mount
Israeli paratroopers on the Mount of Olives view the Temple Mount during the Six Day War.
The Israeli courts have rebuffed challenges to the ban on Jewish prayer. In a 1976 ruling on a case in which the police expelled a Jew from the Temple Mount for praying, Supreme Court president Aharon Barak wrote:

The basic principle is that every Jew has the right to enter the Temple Mount, to pray there, and to have communion with his maker. This is part of the religious freedom of worship, it is part of the freedom of expression. However, as with every human right, it is not absolute, but a relative right… Indeed, in a case where there is near certainty that injury may be caused to the public interest if a person’s rights of religious worship and freedom of expression would be realized, it is possible to limit the rights of the person in order to uphold the public interest.

The Israel-Jordanian peace agreement of 1994 (article 9) enshrined a “special role” for the Jordanian monarchy in the administration of Jerusalem’s Muslim holy sites, including the Temple Mount. However, in a separate deal with the Palestine Liberation Organization in 1994, Jordan transferred the role of Grand Mufti — the leading religious figure –to the Palestinian leadership. The current Grand Mufti, appointed by Mahmoud Abbas and receiving a PA salary, is Mohammed Hussein, who rejects Jewish ties to the Temple Mount — specifically denying that the Temple ever existed there.

More recently, in February, 2019, Jordan expanded the size of the Waqf council to add more Palestinians. This enlarged council includes former mufti Sheikh Ekrima Sabri, who is close to Ankara and helping expand Turkish influence in Jerusalem.

Related reading: Stories I’d Like to See: Background on the Temple Mount Troubles

The Temple Mount’s history
Creation: In Jewish tradition, the Temple Mount was the first land to appear when land and water were separated on the third day of creation.
c. 2000 BCE Abraham prepares Isaac as a sacrifice (Binding of Isaac) (Genesis, ch. 22).
c. 1000 BCE King David purchases the threshing floor from Arunah the Jebusite (Samuel II, ch. 24 and Chronicles I, ch. 21). The purchase marks the beginning of formal Jewish ties to the Temple Mount.
825 BCE: Solomon builds the First Temple.
423 BCE: Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar destroys the First Temple.
353 BCE: Jews rebuild Second Temple.
164 BCE: Hasmoneans revolt against Greeks, purifying and rededicating the Temple in events commemorated by the Chanuka holiday.

Second Temple
A model of the Second Temple refurbished by King Herod.
20 BCE: King Herod begins refurbishing the Temple, expanding the Temple Mount and building a retaining wall around it. (The Western Wall is the only remaining part of this retaining wall.)
70 CE: Romans destroy Second Temple, building on top of it a temple to Jupiter Capitolinus.
335 CE: Byzantines consecrate the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. They viewed the Temple’s destruction as a fulfillment of Christian victory over the Jews. As Christian worship shifts to the Holy Sepulchre, the Temple Mount becomes a garbage dump.
638 CE: Umayyad Muslims conquer Jerusalem and begin cleaning up the Temple Mount.
692 CE: The Umayyads complete the construction of Dome of the Rock.
705 CE: The Umayyads build the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the site of a small Muslim prayer house at the edge of the Temple Mount.
1099: Christian crusaders led by Godfrey of Bouillon capture Jerusalem. They convert the Dome of the Rock into a church and Al Aqsa into a Templar headquarters.
1187: The Ayyubids, led by Saladin, take Jerusalem from the Christians and refurbish  the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa.
1517: The Ottomans conquer the holy land.
1917: British forces defeat the Turks in World War I. Palestinians appointed by Britain to the Supreme Muslim Council are given responsibility for administering the Temple Mount.
1948: The Israeli War of Independence. Jordan seizes eastern Jerusalem, including the Temple Mount. The Jordanian-run Islamic Waqf is given responsibility for overseeing the Temple Mount.
1967: Israel captures the Temple Mount in the Six Day War.
1996: In violation of the status quo, the Islamic Waqf begins converting an underground passage into a massive prayer hall called the Marwani mosque. Thousands of tons of dirt and rubble containing remnants of antiquities from the Temple period are dumped without archaeological supervision. The Waqf dismisses charges it is systematically destroying Jewish ties to the Temple Mount.
2017: Two Israeli police officers are killed by a terrorist who smuggled a gun onto the Temple Mount. Palestinians riot when Israel installs metal detectors, which are later removed.

Jewish ties to the Temple Mount in tradition
Tisha B'Av
Jews at the Western Wall on Tisha B’Av mourning the Temple’s destruction.
Jewish ties to the Temple Mount have been kept alive over the centuries through a number of Jewish practices, including:

Around the world, Jews pray facing Jerusalem.
In Jerusalem, Jews pray facing the Temple Mount.
In theory, Jews praying on the Temple Mount would face the Holy of Holies.
Jewish prayers three times a day include a plea for the Temple’s restoration.
A Jew seeing the ruins of the Temple is supposed to tear his clothing and say “Our house of holiness and glory in which our ancestors sang praise to You, and all that we hold precious has been destroyed.”
Jews fast and mourn the destruction of the Temples which both fell on Tisha B’Av.
The Passover seder and Yom Kippur prayers both end with the words, “Next year in rebuilt Jerusalem,” which refers to the Temple.
At Jewish weddings, the groom breaks a glass and quotes part of Psalm 137 about not forgetting Jerusalem and “may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy.”
As an additional sign of mourning, Jewish ties to the Temple Mount are underscored by many observant Jews leaving a small portion of their home unplastered and unpainted.
Despite the long-standing Jewish ties to the Temple Mount, many rabbinical authorities forbid Jews from entering the compound because laws of ritual purity still apply to specific areas.  The precise location of the Temple’s inner courtyards and the Holy of Holies are not certain because of different ways to understand the Temple Mount’s measurements described by the Talmud, and because the Temple Mount is significantly larger than it was when the Talmud was codified.

In recent years, some rabbinic opinions have argued that Jews may ascend and visit the areas of the plaza that are certainly not where the inner courtyards or Holy of Holies were because the laws of ritual purity do not apply to the entire Temple Mount. Some rabbis even encourage Jews to visit the hilltop plaza to actively maintain Jewish ties to the Temple Mount.

The details of these rulings and the issues they raise are beyond the scope of this article.

Temple Mount aerial view
An aerial view of the Temple Moiunt
* * *

Spurning Jewish ties to the Temple Mount helps the Palestinians undermine Jewish claims on Jerusalem and negate the very concept of Israel as a Jewish national homeland. That’s why Palestinians value organizations such as the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) passing resolutions insisting that Israel has no legal or historical claims on Jerusalem.

Because the Temple Mount goes to the very heart of core Jewish, Muslim and Christian narratives, it poses the greatest sticking point to future Israeli-Palestinian arrangements.

Featured image: CC0 Pixabay; star, crescent and cross via Wikimedia Commons; Second Temple via Wikimedia Commons; Tisha B’Av via Wikimedia Commons; aerial view via Wikimedia Commons;

Passover and the Spanish Inquisition
https://www.aish.com/jw/s/Passover-and-the-Spanish-Inquisition.html?s=mm
Apr 15, 2019  |  by Dr. Yvette Alt Miller
Passover and the Spanish Inquisition
Generations of secret Jews defied the Spanish Inquisition to celebrate Passover and other holidays.

Five centuries ago, the Jews of Spain were faced with an unimaginable choice: convert to Christianity or leave the country. When King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella united Spain under Catholic control, they celebrated by decreeing that Spain should be an entirely Christian country. As of August 11, 1492, no Jew could remain in the country. Any Jew who would be found in Spain after that date would be tortured to death.

Most of Spain’s Jews fled. August 11, 1492 coincided with the somber Jewish holiday Tisha B’Av, when Jews recall the destruction of the ancient Temples in Jerusalem. Added to these national tragedies was the expulsion from Spain. Hundreds of thousands of Jews lined the ports and harbors, embarking on boats headed for North Africa, for Turkey, for Italy and other points unknown. Many of these unfortunate Jews were tricked by unscrupulous captains; some were sold into slavery or even murdered once they left Spanish waters.

Some Jews remained, publicly embracing Christianity but continuing to practice Jewish rituals in secret. Doing so was to court death. Seeking to root out secret Jews, the Catholic Church established the Spanish Inquisition in 1480, tasked with interrogating, torturing and - if they determined that people were practicing Judaism in secret - burning Jews in public mass executions. Despite the promise of death by unimaginable torture, many Jews continued to cling to their Jewish tradition, observing Jewish holidays and eating kosher food as best as they could. They were known as conversos.

The brutal Inquisition authorities appealed to the public to observe their neighbors and be alert to any sign of Jewish practices. They asked household servants to report any suspicious behavior to church figures. Many of these testimonies have been collected and documented by the husband and wife team Dr. David M. Gitlitz and Dr. Linda Kay Davidson, both former professors at the University of Rhode Island.

In each city in which it was active, the Inquisition published a document called the Edict of Grace, which enumerated the offences that could mark someone as a secret Jew and have them hauled before the Inquisition and tortured. According to one local Edict, Jews were people who:

…(keep) the Sabbaths (by) cooking on...Fridays such food as is required for the Saturdays and on the latter eating the meat thus cooked on Friday as is the manner of the Jews...not eating pork, hare, rabbit, strangled birds...nor eels or other scaleless fish, as laid down in the Jewish law… Or who celebrate the Festival of unleavened bread (Passover), beginning by eating lettuce, celery or other bitter herbs on those days.

Ironically, as years went by and it became harder and harder for Spain’s secret Jews to transmit their heritage to their children, the Edict of Grace acted as a guide to some Jews, outlining what they should do if they wished to hold on to their Jewish heritage. Central to Jewish practice was preparing and eating special foods for Passover and holding secret Passover Seders.

In the annals of the Inquisition are testimonies of servants and neighbors accusing Jews of secretly celebrating Passover. They paint a heartbreaking picture of committed Jews who tried hard to follow the religion of their ancestors, and suffered terribly for their Jewish devotion.

Juan Sanches Exarch was tried by the Inquisition in the city of Teruel in October 1484. Even though Jews had not yet been expelled from Spain, many Jews faced pressure from local officials to convert to Christianity. Juan Sanches Exarch was seemingly one of these Jews who gave into repeated requests and publicly embraced Christianity but continued to maintain a Jewish lifestyle in secret.

Fifty-three articles laid out the charges against him; Passover observance featured prominently. “He celebrates the Passover, on that day eating matzah, celery, and lettuce as the Jews do” the Inquisition put forth. “He gets unleavened bread from the Jewish neighborhood on the Passover. He buys new dishes for the Passover. He does everything else the Jews do on Passover…. He washes his hands before praying (as is the custom at the Passover seder, and at other Jewish meal times).”

Juan Sahches Exarch faced a two year trial and in the end was found guilty; he was condemned to death in 1486.

In 1492, a high level advisor to King Joan II of Aragon, Pedro de la Caballeria, was questioned by the Inquisition and accused of being a secret Jew. According to another secret Jew who was forced to testify against him, Pedro de la Caballeria admitted that he maintained a Jewish lifestyle in secret. “Who hinders me, if I choose, from fasting on Yom Kippur and keeping (Jewish) festivals and all the rest? Now I have complete freedom to do as I like; those old days (of being restricted because he was a Jew) are gone.”

One of the ritual items that was associated with Pedro de la Caballeria was a dish favored by secret Jews: huevos haminados. This dish of eggs boiled with onion skins, olive oil and ashes, resulted in tinted eggs that had a flavor of onions, and were often eaten on Passover.

Another Passover dish embraced by secret Jews was Bunuelos, or dough made from matzah meal that’s fried in oil and then drizzled with honey. Many Sephardi Jews continue to make these Passover sweets today. Historians have uncovered a description from a Spanish woman named Margarita de Rivera who lived in Mexico in 1643, who described making bunuelos in secret. One hundred and fifty years after her ancestors were forced to hide their Jewishness, her family continued to make this classic Passover pastry.

Matzah was perhaps the most damning Passover foods that could bring Jews before the Inquisition. The Inquisition in the town of Almazan recorded several cases of secret Jews making matzah. A woman named Angelina, identified as the wife of Christoual de Leon of Almazan, was accused of making “the dough of flour and eggs, and formed some round, flat cakes with pepper and honey and oil” and baking these curious, flat breads in the Spring.

In 1505, also in Almaan, a Christian woman in the town named Olalla testified to the Inquisition that she sat behind one of her neighbors, a woman named Beatriz, in church, and observed that week after week, Beatriz would take the communion wafer in her mouth, then discreetly spit it out instead of eating it. During her trial, probably after being tortured, Beatriz admitted that she and a friend, identified only as the wife of Ruy Diaz Lainez, “made some cakes separately of another dough that had no leavening and they kneaded it with white wine and honey and clove and pepper, and they made about twenty of those and they kept them...in a storage chest” out of sight of prying eyes.

Some conversos seem to have had the custom of adding finely ground dirt to their matzah dough, perhaps to imply that the Israelites had so little flour in Egypt that they had to add dust, or perhaps to illustrate that matzah is also known as bread of affliction. Whatever the reason for this curious addition, it comes up in Inquisition documents from the 1620s in the town of Ciudad Rodrigo, in Salamanca near Spain’s border with Portugal. A secret Jew named Isabel Nunez was accused of “making a Passover bread which they used to mix without leavening or salt, saying certain prayers over it”. Her friend Ana Lopez was accused of eating “Passover bread”. (Ana Lopez was acquitted and set free; tragically, it seems that Isabel Nunez was found guilty of being a secret Jew.)

For generations, Spanish Jewish families maintained their Jewish lifestyles under pain of death and against the greatest odds. Untold numbers were tortured and killed, burned to death and murdered. May the memories of the secret Jews who kept Passover under unimaginable circumstances and danger be a blessing, and may their memories inspire us today to celebrate Passover with joy and pride.

Top 7 Biblically Significant Archaeological Discoveries of 2018
Compiled & Edited by Christian Headlines Editorial
 Top 7 Biblically Significant Archaeological Discoveries of 2018
2018 was a big year for archeologists. On Christian Headlines alone, we covered almost 20 Biblically significant archeological discoveries. From potentially finding the location of the Ark of the Covenant to finding the oldest known manuscript of the Gospel of Mark, scientists have put their best feet forward in the quest to finding artifacts from way back.

Here are 7 of the most significant Biblical archaeological discoveries of 2018.
https://www.crosswalk.com/slideshows/top-7-biblically-significant-archeological-discoveries-of-2018.html?utm_source=&utm_campaign=Daily%20Disciples%20-%20Crosswalk.com&utm_medium=email&utm_content=2685573&bcid=aca0ec8e3bea4e78ac0738d678528c86&recip=488938472%20

1. 1,500-year-old- Pool Discovered in Israel May Hold Biblical Significance

Fox News reported in February that a discovery was made at Ein Hanniya Park, Israel. Reportedly, the Israel Antiquities Authority discovered a system of Byzantine-era ancient pools. The group said that the pools appear to have been built around the fourth and sixth centuries A.D. The pools are thought to possibly be the site where Phillip baptized the Ethiopian eunuch in the book of Acts. 


2. Discovery of Ancient Israelite City Supports Biblical Account of King David

In May, archaeologists made strides in proving the existence of King David. Reportedly, many experts have doubted the biblical account of David, noting that there is no evidence suggesting that there was even civilization in the time David is said to have ruled. According to Breaking Israel News, Professor Avraham Faust, who led the archaeological dig, said that scientists really only started doubting David’s existence in the last 25 years. He said, “Until 25 years ago no one doubted that King David was a historical figure.” He continued, “In the last 25 years or so, however, David’s historicity, and especially the size of his kingdom, are hotly debated.”

All of that changed, however, when archaeologists discovered a large ancient city in Israel.

“The new discovery at Tel ‘Eton, located in the Judean Shephelah to the east of the Hebron hills, seems to suggest that the highland kingdom controlled larger areas than some scholars believe,” Faust told Breaking Israel News. While no artifacts were found relating directly to Kind David, this discovery did answer the question of the existence of civilization during the time of David.


3. ‘Oldest Manuscript’ of Gospel of Mark Discovered

At the end of May, Scientists were able to identify the age of an ancient fragment of the Gospel of Mark. The fragment was dated by the Egyptian Exploration society to the late second to early third century A.D, marking it as the oldest fragment of the gospel of Mark ever found. The fragment which retains brief passages from the Biblical book was the center of controversy in 2012 when news broke that the fragment could date to as far back as the first century. While the fragment was eventually dated to be 100 to 200 years older, it still became the oldest known manuscript of the Gospel of Mark.


4. Archeologists Discover Biblical Gate Related to 12 Tribes of Israel

In July, Archaeologists in Israel declared that they had discovered the entrance gate to a biblical city from the Old Testament called Zer. Zer, which was later called Bethsaida in the New Testament, was found in the Golan Heights area in Israel. The city is mentioned as the site to many of Jesus’ miracles throughout the Gospels. In Mark, Jesus healed a blind man in Bethsaida and in Luke Jesus fed 5,000 people there. Additionally, Bethsaida is said to be the home town of three important biblical figures, Andrew, Peter, and Philip. 


5. Archaeologists Discover 1,500-Year-Old Painting of Jesus Being Baptized

In November archeologists discovered a 1,500-year-old painting of Jesus being baptized. The painting, which scientists say contains the oldest known depiction in Israel of Jesus being baptized, was found inside of a church in the Shivta village, in Israel. According to the Antiquity journal, thus far this painting “is the only in situ baptism-of-Christ scene to date confidently to the pre-iconoclastic Holy Land.” In laymen’s terms, this is the only painting of Jesus being baptized that is in its original location and that dates to the 8thand 9thcenturies.


6. Have Archaeologists Uncovered Pontius Pilate’s Ring?

According to the Jerusalem Times, archaeologists discovered a 2,000-year-old ring with the phrase “of Pilate” inscribed on it. Scientists believe that the “stamped ring,” which dates back to Jesus’ time, may have belonged to the biblical figure who is best known for his part in the crucifixion of Jesus, Pontius Pilate. Pilate ruled in Rome as the governor of Judea from A.D. 26-26. The copper ring falls within that timeline dating between the first century B.C. and mid-first century A.D.


7. Explorer: Ark of the Covenant May Have Been Found

Perhaps the most sensationalized Biblical artifact of our time, the Ark of the Covenant may have possibly also been located this year. According to Bob Cornuke who is the president of the Biblical Archaeology Search and Exploration Institute (BASE), the Ark of the Covenant and the Ten Commandment tablets may have been found in a church in Ethiopia. St. Mary’s of Zion Church in Axum Ethiopia, which is guarded by a “Guardian of the Ark” is said to be the home of both of these ancient Biblical relics. While no one beside the Ark’s guardian would be allowed to see it, there is evidence that suggests that the Ark did indeed make its way to Ethiopia. St. Mary’s of Zion Church has now been investigated by both BASE and the Smithsonian Magazine, but according to the Guardian, man cannot lay eyes on the Ark or they will pollute to holy relic, so for now, the lost Ark will remain a mystery.

The Story of David and Goliath Is Not Just A Story – It REALLY Happened!
By Phil Schneider -  January 31, 2019 2265 0
https://israelunwired.com/the-story-of-david-and-goliath-is-not-just-a-story-it-really-happened/
Archaeology is not just the science of the covered past. It is the fuel of the future. The story of David and Goliath is not just a relic of the past. It inspires us today. In general, people look at history as something that may or may not connect to our lives today. This is completely wrong when it comes to Israeli finds.
The Bible is literally covered up by the ground that we walk on today. So, anytime that a new discovery is made, it is as if another chapter in the Bible comes to life.
Archaeology: David's Israel made room for God
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mM9-HKyGurw&ab_channel=ActsNewsNetwork
The Bible and Archaeology
“I can’t ignore the biblical text and I cannot ignore archaeology,” says Professor Yosef Garfinkle. Proof of life and events just as scripture describes them are right here in the archaeological discoveries. This clip really gives you food for thought.
David, the young shepherd who battled the giant Goliath – the leader of the Philistines, fought in the Elah valley. Today, tens of thousands of Jews live right outside the area and are rebuilding the Holy Land right next to the areas being dug up by archaeologists.

Life in Israel is not merely inspired by the Bible. It is the source of our very life here. It is also the best proof of the rights of the Jewish people to the Promised Land. From the roads that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob walked, to the palace of Solomon. to the place where David and Goliath battled, and even to the areas where God brought the walls of Jericho down – today, the Bible is an open book that anyone who visits can experience and walk in.

Massive 1,500-year-old Cistern Set to Become Jerusalem’s Latest Attraction
Jan 25, 2019
Recommended by
Israeli archaeologists discovered a huge, ancient cistern under a playground in Jerusalem and the municipality is determining how to turn the amazing discovery into the city’s next top tourist destination.
By: JNS.org
The Jerusalem Municipality began renovating a playground on Wednesday in the Katamon neighborhood, where a 1,500-year-old water cistern uncovered more than a decade ago might now become a national site.
Discovered in 2005 as a well-preserved relic, the cistern was approximately half the size of an Olympic-sized pool, according to documentation by now-retired Israel Antiquities Authority archaeologist Uzi Dahari and engineer Ofer Cohen.
Measuring 2,422 square feet in area, its maximum volume is around 300,000 gallons.
:https://unitedwithisrael.org/massive-1500-year-old-cistern-set-to-become-jerusalems-latest-attraction/?

Inheritance Laws in Ancient Israel
by Bruce Wells
In 1Kgs 21:3, Naboth says that he will not sell his “ancestral inheritance.” The implication is that Naboth inherited his vineyard (the one that King Ahab is asking for) from his father, who inherited it from his father, and so on. Even today, it can be hard to part with one’s childhood home. But Naboth is saying more than that.

Land was a family’s most important economic asset. It could be bought and sold, but inherited land was special. In the ancient Near East, if a family sold inherited land for its full price, ownership passed permanently into the hands of the buyer. If a family sold it for a lower price, due to economic hardship and the need to sell quickly, family members were generally allowed to redeem (repurchase) the land at the same or a similarly low price. It was important to give families the chance to keep their inheritance (see, for example, the story about Naomi’s land in Ruth 4).

It is difficult to paint a complete picture of family law in ancient Israel; the Hebrew Bible presents a variety of texts from different times that may be used to reconstruct this law, and it is uncertain whether the rules and concepts in these texts all functioned simultaneously. Several texts suggest that a man’s principal heirs were the sons born to him by his wife (or wives). Sons by other women (concubines, slaves, prostitutes) were not included (Judg 11:2). Daughters were provided a dowry in lieu of an inheritance share but could be granted possession of their father’s estate in the absence of sons. If they were, they were not allowed to marry outside their father’s clan or extended family (Num 27:5-11, Num 36:5-9), in order to keep all property within the clan. After daughters, according to Num 27:11, the next in line were the deceased’s brothers, followed by his paternal uncles, followed by “the nearest kinsman of his clan.”

Upon the father’s death, his heirs could divide the estate immediately, or they could keep it intact for a time, perhaps while waiting for a younger son to come of age. Special rules applied to brothers living on an undivided estate. For example, Deut 25:5-10 stipulates that if one brother married but died childless, another brother was to marry the widow and hope to impregnate her with a baby boy, who would then inherit the share that the deceased had been entitled to.

When it came time to divide, the father’s estate was apportioned into equal shares. Assigning specific shares to each heir was likely done by casting lots. Deut 21:17 suggests that typically the eldest son received two shares and other sons one each. A father could, by virtue of a testament, designate a younger son as the “firstborn” and reassign the right to a double share to him. He could not do so, however, if he was married to multiple women and had previously chosen to “hate” (probably meaning “demote”) the mother of the biologically oldest son. In this case, the oldest retained the status of firstborn (Deut 21:15-17).

Families who fell on hard times and had to sell inherited land retained the right to redeem it. But cunning investors found ways around this. Documents from the Late Bronze Age (c. 1550–1200 B.C.E.) site of Nuzi in Iraq, for instance, show that one particular businessman was adopted as a son by dozens of families in the area. The texts actually record discounted sales of land disguised as adoptions. People in dire straits sold their land to this man for a reduced price and adopted him into their family. In the eyes of the law, the land never left the family and thus was not eligible for redemption. Similar schemes may be the target of texts such as Mic 2:2, which condemn those who defraud others of their inheritance.

Scholars disagree as to whether Naboth is saying that he is not allowed to sell his vineyard or simply does not want to sell it. In either case, Ahab is not offering a reduced price. He wants a fair sale or trade. This would permanently place the vineyard in his possession and eliminate any opportunity for Naboth or his heirs to redeem the land, and thus Naboth insists that it stay in the family.

Bruce Wells, "Inheritance Laws in Ancient Israel", n.p. [cited 25 Jan 2019]. Online: https://www.bibleodyssey.org:443/en/passages/related-articles/inheritance-laws-in-ancient-israel

Fate of Ark of the Covenant Revealed in Hebrew Text
By Owen Jarus, Live Science Contributor | January 7, 2014 09:07pm ET
https://www.livescience.com/42398-ark-of-covenant-fate-revealed-in-hebrew-text.html?cmpid=514627_20140108_16774324&fbclid=IwAR2tMaQDU4sgU5we2ZLcAf_pSHG2OA3KFwwOceHo1ewAs-IWbN1YTDoCv_0
Fate of Ark of the Covenant Revealed in Hebrew Text
This bas-relief image showing the Ark of the Covenant being carried is from the Auch Cathedral in France. A newly translated Hebrew text claims to reveal the locations of treasures from King Solomon's Temple and discusses the fate of the Ark itself.
Credit: Photo by I. Vassil, released into public domain through Wikimedia
A newly translated Hebrew text claims to reveal where treasures from King Solomon's temple were hidden and discusses the fate of the Ark of the Covenant itself.

But unlike the Indiana Jones movie "Raiders of the Lost Ark," the text leaves the exact location of the Ark unclear and states that it, and the other treasures, "shall not be revealed until the day of the coming of the Messiah son of David …" putting it out of reach of any would-be treasure seeker.

King Solomon's Temple, also called the First Temple, was plundered and torched by the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar II in the sixth century B.C., according to the Hebrew Bible. The Ark of the Covenant is a chest that, when originally built, was said to have held tablets containing the 10 commandments. It was housed in Solomon's Temple, a place that contained many different treasures. [Religious Mysteries: 8 Alleged Relics of Jesus]

The newly translated text, called "Treatise of the Vessels" (Massekhet Kelim in Hebrew), says the "treasures were concealed by a number of Levites and prophets," writes James Davila, a professor at the University of St. Andrews, in an article in the book "Old Testament Pseudepigrapha More Noncanonical Scriptures Volume 1" (William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2013).

"Some of these (treasures) were hidden in various locations in the Land of Israel and in Babylonia, while others were delivered into the hands of the angels Shamshiel, Michael, Gabriel and perhaps Sariel …" writes Davila in his article.

The treatise is similar in some ways to the metallic "Copper Scroll," one of the Dead Sea Scrolls found near the site of Qumran in the West Bank. The Copper Scroll also discusses the location of hidden treasure, although not from Solomon's Temple.

The Treatise of the Vessels (Massekhet Kelim) is recorded in the 1648 Hebrew book Emek Halachah, published in Amsterdam. In the book the Treatise is published as Chapter 11 (one of its two pages shown here). The two pages also contain material from other book chapters. 
The Treatise of the Vessels (Massekhet Kelim) is recorded in the 1648 Hebrew book Emek Halachah, published in Amsterdam. In the book the Treatise is published as Chapter 11 (one of its two pages shown here). The two pages also contain material from other book chapters.
Credit: Scanned images courtesy www.hebrewbooks.org, they can also be seen here and here.
The treatise describes the treasures in an imaginative way. One part refers to "seventy-seven tables of gold, and their gold was from the walls of the Garden of Eden that was revealed to Solomon, and they radiated like the radiance of the sun and moon, which radiate at the height of the world."

The oldest confirmed example of the treatise, which survives to present day, is from a book published in Amsterdam in 1648 called "Emek Halachah." In 1876, a scholar named Adolph Jellinek published another copy of the text, which was virtually identical to the 1648 version. Davila is the first to translate the text fully into English.

A story of legends

The writer of the text likely was not trying to convey factual locations of the hidden treasures of Solomon's Temple, but rather was writing a work of fiction, based on different legends, Davila told LiveScience. [In Photos: Amazing Ruins of the Ancient World]

"The writer draws on traditional methods of scriptural exegesis [interpretation] to deduce where the treasures might have been hidden, but I think the writer was approaching the story as a piece of entertaining fiction, not any kind of real guide for finding the lost Temple treasures," he wrote in the email.

The structure of the story is confusing. In the prologue it states that Shimmur the Levite (he doesn't appear to be a biblical figure) and his companions hid the treasures, "but later on the text mentions the treasures being in the keeping of or hidden by Shamshiel and other angels," Davila said. "I suspect the author collected various legends without too much concern about making them consistent."

Similarities to the Copper Scroll

The Copper Scroll, which dates back around 1,900 years, and is made of copper, shows several "striking parallels" with the newly translated treatise, Davila said.

The treatise says that the treasures from Solomon's Temple were recorded "on a tablet of bronze," a metal like the Copper Scroll. Additionally, among other similarities, the Treatise of the Vessels and Copper Scroll both refer to "vessels" or "implements," including examples made of gold and silver.

These similarities could be a coincidence or part of a tradition of recording important information on metal.

"My guess is that whoever wrote the Treatise of Vessels came up with the same idea [of writing a treasure list on metal] coincidentally on their own, although it is not unthinkable that the writer knew of some ancient tradition or custom about inscribing important information on metal," wrote Davila in the email, noting that metal is a more durable material than parchment or papyrus.

An ongoing story

The study of the treatise is ongoing, and discoveries continue to be made. For instance, in the mid-20th century a copy of it (with some variations) was discovered and recorded in Beirut, Lebanon, at the end of a series of inscribed plates that record the Book of Ezekiel.

Those plates are now at the Yad Ben Zvi Institute in Israel, although the plates containing the treatise itself are now missing. Recent research has revealed, however, these plates were created in Syria at the turn of the 20th century, about 100 years ago, suggesting the treatise was being told in an elaborate way up until relatively modern times.

Judy Siegel-Itzkovich 3 hours ago Categories Inspiration
Grape Growers Have Learned Something Since the Time of Noah
https://www.breakingisraelnews.com/119726/ariel-university-make-vines-thirsty/amp/
The sun rises over Jewish vineyards in Samaria, the historical and Biblical central region of the ancient Land of Israel. (Credit: Seth Aronstam/Israel365 calendar)

Grapes have been cultivated for making wine since the time of Noah or even before. Although alcohol got the man of the Ark into trouble, wine indeed gladdens the heart of humankind and is a way for people to celebrate as long as they don’t overdo it and get intoxicated.

Growing grapes to make wine is a big industry in California, Israel and numerous other Mediterranean countries due to their climate. Most cultivated vineyards worldwide are located in semi‐arid and arid regions where drought is common and vines have to be irrigated.

There has been very limited information in the scientific literature about the effects of stress on the development of the adult grapevine system or on the implications of the plant’s ability to cope with drought.

Now, a new study published by scientists at Ariel University of Samaria and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem – published in the American Journal of Botany – has suggested a way to create higher-quality grapes and red wines. The growing season in Israel is from early spring to late summer.

Their article is titled “Water availability dynamics have long‐term effects on mature stem structure in Vitis vinifera.” This variety of Merlot grapes grow on a climbing vine that is of global economic importance.

The research was conducted by doctoral student Sarel Munitz, under the joint supervision of Dr. Yishai Netzer and Dr. Ilana Shtein of Ariel University and Hebrew University Prof. Amnon Schwartz. The team spent four years studying perennial vines and grapes grown in Kibbutz Hulda in central Israel. The vineyard was planted there in 1998.

It is relatively easy to get a large grape harvest that is considered poor for wine production – simply watering the vines a lot. But overwatering creates damage to the vine and the grape pulp.

When the vines get abundant water, the grapes are large and fat, but the wine will turn out to be relatively tasteless and flat, and the colors of the grape juice is pinking. Vines that undergo “thirst” – or “stress” – produce grapes with a better aroma and taste and make the wine better, the researchers wrote.


Their technique involves changing the natural anatomy of the vines so they suit the exact needs for creating the desired wine. Irrigation of the vines is increased during the early part of growing season and reduced at the end. This means that the plants are made to be “thirsty” in a controlled way, at the proper time, without harming the harvest  This increases the amount of grapes grown and improves the quality of the wine.

The big question is how much farmers should irrigate to create the right balance. The recommendation of the research team is to water the vines more at the beginning of the season and make them “thirstier” in the weeks before they are harvested.

It turns out that plants have “memory,” which means that plants recall what exists within their anatomy. The memory mechanism is deeply embedded in the diameter of the tubes, called xylem, that transport water from the soil to the leaves and the fruits. The vascular tissue that transports soluble organic compounds manufactured during photosynthesis– especially the sugar sucrose – to parts of the plant is called phloem. Both types of tubes are comprised of dead cells.

The plant actually spreads risks: On the one hand, it can produce wide tubes that allow transport of large amounts of water, but there is a risk of air bubbles entering and blocking them. If the tubes created by the plant are narrow, less water reaches the leaves and fruit, but air bubbles are much less likely to form – even under severe dry conditions. Both narrow and fat tubes are found in the same vine.

The technologies they developed makes it possible to control the amount of stress in the vine and measure and control on a daily basis the exact amount of water used for irrigation and how much each vine needs to “drink.”  The plant actually tells the farmer what its needs are to create high-quality wine and to prevent significant damage to the vine.

When the vines are watered generously, large, fat grapes are produced and the wine has a pinkish color. A plant that undergoes stress produces color, taste and aroma that give the wine uniqueness and quality. The balance between abundant water and thirst creates the ideal grapes for making wine.

“Our research can contribute to the understanding of mature stem xylem structure and how it is affected by drought stress in the long term” the Israeli researchers concluded. “This long‐term memory of xylem structure can be relevant for other woody plants, particularly in those in which xylem annual rings are hydraulically active for several years. High water availability during xylem formation period, results in wider vessels and increased hydraulic conductivity. This improved hydraulic system, even though favorable during periods of high water availability, is more prone to cavitation during drought periods.”
RELATED https://www.breakingisraelnews.com/117602/genetic-study-ark-story/

Nir Hasson Dec 21, 2018 8:10 AM

In recent weeks, a small group of ultra-Orthodox Jews has been gathering alongside a locked iron gate on Nablus Road in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah. They pray and protest alongside the...

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Another First Temple Weight, This One With Mirror Writing, Found in Jerusalem Sifting Project

This tiny stone weight found by the foundation stones of the Western Wall may have been used in the First Temple itself, if users were unfazed by its backwards engraving

https://www.haaretz.com/archaeology/MAGAZINE-second-first-temple-weight-this-one-with-mirror-writing-found-in-jerusalem-sifting-1.6676037

By Ruth Schuster Nov 21, 2018

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Bekas were used to weigh silver donations by the faithful to the Temple. A beka (half a shekel) weighs about 5.6 grams Eliyahu Yanai / City of David

Artifacts from the First Temple period are extremely rare, especially in Jerusalem. Yet now archaeologists report finding a second stone weight from that era that may well have been used in Solomon's Temple itself.



These stone weights, called bekas (singular – beka) were used on scales to ascertain the value of worshippers’ donations.





This second beka was found while sifting archaeological soil taken from the foundations of Robinson’s Arch at the Western Wall. This is the last remnant of the wall that had surrounded the Second Temple courtyard.



Archaeologist Eli Shukron directed the previous excavations on behalf of the Antiquities Authority, and tells Haaretz he found the first beka a few years ago in much the same spot.



Both the first and second wee weights are inscribed in ancient Hebrew script with the word beka, which pretty much decides what they were used for.





Both the first and second beka weights found in Jerusalem have the word “beka” engraved on them in ancient Hebrew script. But while the first was carved into the stone properly, from right to left, this “new” one is written backwards.



“Beka weights from the First Temple period are rare; however, this weight is even rarer because the inscription on it is written in mirror script. The letters are engraved from left to right instead of right to left,” says Shukron. “It can therefore be concluded that the artist who engraved the inscription on the weight specialized in engraving seals – since seals were always written in mirror script so that, once stamped, the inscription would appear in regular legible script.”



Shukron’s theory is that the beka maker was guilty of human error: The craftsman was used to making seals and used to writing in mirror script, so he did that on the weight too. Given the time it takes to carve letters finely into stone, one wonders how nobody noticed, or whether the first one evinced an early example of dyslexia and this one was “correct.”



Taxing for men



Jews in the era of the First Temple, which was supposedly built by King Solomon around 3,000 years ago, didn’t have coins (David and Solomon ostensibly reigned between roughly 1050 B.C.E. and 930 B.C.E.) The Jews would pay their “temple tax” in precious silver, Shukron tells Haaretz. Coins would only reach Israel in the Persian era of the land, in the fifth century B.C.E., he added.



Though women did make pilgrimages to the Temple in Jerusalem, they were exempt from this “tax,” adds linguist Elon Gilad.



“When the half-shekel tax was brought to the temple during the First Temple period, there were no coins so they used silver slivers,” says Shukron. “In order to calculate the weight of these silver pieces, they would put them on one side of the scales, and on the other side they placed the beka weight.”



The Temple would apparently use these donations for its maintenance, to buy animals for sacrifice, and so on.





King Hezekiah's own seal, found in 2015 in the City of David. Uriah Tadmor, courtesy of Eilat Mazar

The word beka comes from the verb meaning “to split” – i.e., it represented a fraction of a larger measure, in this case the biblical shekel, explains Gilad.



As explained in the Bible itself, beka weights were used in the First Temple to evaluate the half-shekel donation that Jews aged 20 years and up were expected to offer for the temple’s upkeep:



"This they shall give, every one that passeth among them that are numbered, half a shekel after the shekel of the sanctuary – the shekel is twenty gerahs – half a shekel for an offering to the Lord" (Exodus 30:13).



In case anybody remained unconvinced, the Bible continues:



"A beka a head, that is, half a shekel, after the shekel of the sanctuary, for every one that passed over to them that are numbered, from twenty years old and upward, for six hundred thousand and three thousand and five hundred and fifty men" (Exodus 38:26).



To be clear, the biblical shekel weighed 11.33 grams. The half-shekel, and therefore this stone beka, weighed half of that, or just over 5.5 grams.



The reason certifiable artifacts and remains from the First Temple period, in Jerusalem especially, are extremely rare is multiple. One issue is that stones from the homes and walls – and possibly the First Temple itself – were probably repurposed during the city’s many phases of destruction and rebuilding.



And from that, Shukron postulates, it seems that the artisans who carved the stone weights during the First Temple period were the same ones who made seals.



Among other momentous discoveries by the Emek Tzurim National Park sifting project is a seal mark that may well have been made by King Hezekiah (or on his behalf) 2,700 years ago. That had been discovered, in 2015, in excavations by the Temple Mount.



Another seal impression from exactly the same time was found last January, which renowned Jerusalem archaeologist Eilat Mazar, of Hebrew University, believes is engraved with the letters Yeshayahu NBY – meaning Isaiah the Prophet, who was quite the bugbear to Hezekiah back when. The seal is damaged, so part of the lettering seems to be missing. Not everybody buys that it had belonged to Isaiah, partly because the ancient sage would have needed a seal calling himself “Prophet.”



“This 3,000-year-old beka weight inscribed with ancient Hebrew was likely used in the First Temple, anchoring once again, the deep historical connection of the Jewish people to Jerusalem," said Doron Spielman, vice president of the City of David Foundation.



The City of David Foundation notes that the beka weight will be on display to the general public in Emek Tzurim National Park during Hanukkah.



The sifting was done in the national park under the auspices of the City of David Foundation.

Ruth Schuster

Haaretz Correspondent



What’s More Important, the Biblical King Hezekiah or Expanding Route 38?
A too-narrow road in central Israel bisects a First-Temple-era city that recovered from the devastation wreaked by Sennacherib, archaeologists discover, and the fight is on


https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium.MAGAZINE-what-s-more-important-the-biblical-king-hezekiah-or-expanding-route-38-1.6763609

https://worldisraelnews.com/archaeologists-say-they-located-biblical-city-of-sodom
Archaeologists: We’ve located biblical city of Sodom
 December 10, 2018
Archaeologists: We’ve located biblical city of SodomThe destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah by John Martin, 1852 (Wikipedia)

Archaeologists believe they have found the ancient city of Sodom, whose destruction is described in the Bible. They say it was caused by a meteorite.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

Archaeologists excavating the Bronze Age city of Tall el-Hammam in Jordan believe it to be the biblical city of Sodom, destroyed some 3,700 years ago.

According to the Bible, God obliterated the sinful cities of Sodom and Gomorrah and the plain upon which they stood by raining down on them “brimstone and fire.”

A report last Tuesday on the Universe Today website, which publishes space and astronomy news, quotes archaeologists as saying there are clear indications that a meteorite exploded in the air above what is now the Middle Ghor plain, wiping out a civilization that existed there for over 2,500 years.

Archaeologist Phillip Silvia of Trinity Southwest University presented the findings on November 15th at the annual meeting of the American Schools of Oriental Research. He and colleague Steven Collins say that the damage to the structures as well as to the 100-foot-thick and 50-feet-high walls around Tall el-Hammam was directional, which supports the theory of an immensely strong shock wave hitting the city from a mid-air explosion.

The huge magnitude of the blast destroyed an area of no less than 500 square kilometers. It is estimated to have been the equivalent of a 10-megaton nuclear warhead exploding about one kilometer above the ground.

A thick layer of ash that covers the site indicates that a fire had consumed the city. However, the discovery of a pottery shard with one side melted to glass shows that it was no petro-chemical blaze, perhaps set off by an earthquake, which was the prevailing theory as to what had destroyed the ancient city.

A study of the glass side of the shard shows that it had been exposed to a temperature of 8,000-12,000 degrees Celsius. In addition, the glass layer was only one millimeter thick, meaning that the concentrated burst of heat must have happened quickly, taking less than a few milliseconds.

Another proof that the city was destroyed by a meteorite explosion, the archaeologists say, is the discovery of a “melt rock” – three different rocks melted together, about a pound in weight and, like the shard, covered in glass. It, too, must have been exposed to intense heat, though for a few seconds longer than the clay piece.

The final proof that a meteorite had destroyed the city, according to the archaeologists, is the fact that the area – described in both the bible and historically as rich agriculturally – was not reinhabited for the next 700 years because the soil’s consistency had completely changed. Soil samples below and above the ash level were analyzed geochemically and found to contain three to four times the salt content allowing for the growth of wheat and barley.

The scientists theorize that the shock wave from the meteor blast spread a layer of salt from the nearby Dead Sea throughout the area, making the land agriculturally useless for centuries.

Inscription confirms ancient ring belonged to Pontius Pilate, man who ordered Jesus’ crucifixion
Published time: 29 Nov, 2018 12:49
Edited time: 30 Nov, 2018 10:34
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Inscription confirms ancient ring belonged to Pontius Pilate, man who ordered Jesus’ crucifixion
Workers from the Israeli Antiquities Authority work in the Herodium fortress. File Photo: Global Look Press / Gil Cohen Magen
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The name of Pontius Pilate, the Roman official who ordered the crucifixion of Jesus Christ according to Christian scripture, has been deciphered on a bronze ring discovered some 50 years ago near Bethlehem.
READ MORE: ‘Flying pastor’ swings off church ceiling to portray Jesus’ return (VIDEO)

The ancient ring was found in the late 1960s during an archaeological dig at the site of the Herodion fortress, built by Herod the king of Judea.

His name was deciphered on the ring after it, and thousands of other finds, were handed over to the team currently working on the historical site. Pilate was an infamous Roman governor of Jerusalem in the years 26 to 36 who also allegedly ran Jesus’ trial.

After a thorough cleansing, the ring was photographed using a special camera at the Israel Antiquities Authority Labs, revealing the crucial name. The stamping ring bears a picture of a wine vessel surrounded by Greek writing that translated into “Pilatus.”

Read more
FILE PHOTO Max Rossi / ReutersPakistani PM claims Jesus ‘had no mention in history’, Twitterati don’t turn the other cheek
A stamping ring was also a hallmark of status in the Roman cavalry, to which Pilate belonged. Researchers believe it was either used by Pilate in his day-to-day work as governor or by his team to sign his name on official documents.

“I don’t know of any other Pilatus from the period and the ring shows he was a person of stature and wealth,” Professor Danny Schwartz told Haaretz.
Pilatus, the name linked to Pontius Pilate in the New Testament as the man who ordered Jesus’ crucifixion, was rare in Israel during that era, says Schwartz. It’s also not the first find at the site inscribed ‘Pilatus.’ In the 1960s, Hebrew University of Jerusalem Professor Gideon Forester Forster also unearthed a stone decorated with the name.

Herodian was built by King Herod and after his death it became a huge burial site, however Roman officials ruling over Judea used the upper tier as their administrative headquarters.
Research into the ring was led by Professor Shua Amurai-Stark and Malcha Hershkovitz. They published their findings in the new issue of the Israel Exploration Journal.