Visiting Sevilla, Spain

We began our recent trip with several days near the city of Sevilla (usually labeled “Seville” in English). Some of us recall a storied barber (and rabbit?) from this city. In Spanish, the city name is pronounced [seh-VEE-ya]. Including its suburbs, modern Sevilla has a population of around 1.5 million. I posted a couple of weeks ago from Sevilla, drawing attention to the impressive Plaza España, a large and beautiful structure that happens to have been featured in a Star Wars movie.

The history of Sevilla goes back to the ancient Romans. They founded the original city, Hispalis, along the Guadalquivir River nearly 50 miles from the coast. The river is navigable for large ships. The city became a seat of Islamic government after the Moorish conquest in the early 8th century A.D. The city was taken in the mid-13th century during the Reconquista that expelled the Muslims from the peninsula. After the discovery of the Americas, Sevilla gained great wealth as the principal port for all trade from the Americas. Magellan embarked from Sevilla on his circumnavigation of the globe.

This tower is a landmark in downtown Sevilla. “La Giralda” was originally an islamic minaret constructed in the late-12th century. It had a counterpart across the Mediterranean Sea in Northern Africa. (Photo by Luke Chandler)

Following the successful Reconquista – a series of wars by the Christian Spaniards against the Moors who had occupied Spain for centuries – the minaret was converted into a bell tower for a new cathedral. Much of the upper brickwork and the bells were added when the tower’s height was increased in the late-16th century. (Photo by Luke Chandler)

Our time in the Sevilla area was largely spent with local Christians, including two hours of Bible teaching each night. The economy in Spain has been particularly affected by the current economic crisis. One of the consequences is an unemployment rate that has recently risen to around 25%. The problem is even more pronounced among the young adults, who have an unemployment rate of more than 50%.

Here are some of the Christians we were with in Dos Hermanas, a southeast suburb. The economic crisis is affecting a number of them. In spite of these obstacles they were warm and affectionate. We enjoyed our time with the people in Sevilla and pray for their love and security.

Some of the Christians in Dos Hermanas, a town near Sevilla, Spain. (Photo by Luke Chandler)

Short Video on the Ophel Excavations in Jerusalem

Archaeologist Eilat Mazar has been digging around the City of David for several years. A short video has been posted showing results from the last few months on the southern edge of the Temple Mount, an area known as the Ophel.

Mazar’s grandfather, Benjamin Mazar, excavated in this same area back in the 1970′s. Eilat worked there as a student under her grandfather and is currently directing fresh work there. She believes she has discovered walls and structures from Solomon’s time, in the mid-to-late 10th century B.C.

In this video, she and others discuss some of their most recent discoveries. Amir Kohen Klonymus, one of the supervisors, begins the video with some ash, a piece of 3,000 year-old wood, and lots of what he believes to be burned grapes. These are from an Iron IIA level. Iron IIA is basically considered the time of the United Monarchy.

This and several other interesting videos are on the Key to David’s City blog. You should enjoy watching them.

HT: Ferrell Jenkins

I’m still in Sevilla, Spain. We’ve met each day with churches here and have enjoyed time in the homes of some of the Christians. I’ve presented several Bible lessons as well as a presentation in Spanish on Khirbet Qeiyafa. There are Roman ruins throughout Spain, so people here have a strong interest in the ancient past. It’s even nicer when it happens to fall within the context of the Bible, as Qeiyafa does. I’ll post more soon, so be sure to check back.

In Spain for Two Weeks

I have arrived in Sevilla (a.k.a. Seville), Spain, to begin a nearly two-week visit in the country. This trip is primarily about being with Christians, but there are also some interesting things to see and learn about the area. I’m here with my father and we’ll be with two churches in the Sevilla area and with a congregation in Barcelona.

My previous visit here was four years ago. I understand that the severe economic crisis in Spain has cost a number of Christians here their jobs. Our hope is to offer some measure of strength and spiritual encouragement to anyone who may benefit from it. The Christians here have certainly encouraged me in the time we’ve previously shared.

Here is an interesting tidbit for “Star Wars” fans. The “Plaza de España” is located in Sevilla. It marks the reunification of Spain following the expulsion of the Moors in the 15th century. Scenes from Star Wars: Episode II: Attack of the Clones were filmed in the “Plaza de España,” including a scene on this very staircase. No doubt someone will recognize it, eh?

Staircase at the Plaza de España in Sevilla, Spain. Notice the intricate designs that reflect Islamic influence from the Moorish conquests many centuries ago. A scene from the Star Wars film “Attack of the Clones” was filmed on this staircase. (Photo by Luke Chandler)

More to come soon.

Remarkable video of a flood in the Harod Valley, Israel

Israel is having its heaviest winter rains in 30 years. The good news is the rising water levels in the Sea of Galilee, the country’s principal reservoir. The bad news is the flooding that can come with heavy rainfall.

Check out this video posted by Aren Maeir on the Tel es-Safi/Gath blog. It’s a scene from the Harod Valley, near the battlefield of Gideon and his 300 men.

To quote Aren, “Watch this till the end. It’s quite astounding!”

I find some Bible passages to be more vivid when reading them with this video in mind.

[In Deborah's song...] From heaven the stars fought, from their courses they fought against Sisera. The torrent Kishon swept them away, the ancient torrent, the torrent Kishon. (Judges 5:20-21 ESV)

David came to Baal-perazim, and David defeated [the Philistines] there. And he said, “The LORD has broken through my enemies before me like a breaking flood.” Therefore the name of that place is called Baal-perazim ["lord of bursting through"]. (2 Samuel 5:20)

Save me, O God! For the waters have come up to my neck.
I sink in deep mire, where there is no foothold; I have come into deep waters, and the flood sweeps over me. (Psalm 69:1-2)

Deliver me from sinking in the mire; let me be delivered from my enemies and from the deep waters.
Let not the flood sweep over me, or the deep swallow me up, or the pit close its mouth over me. (v. 14-15)

HT: Ferrell Jenkins

After nearly 1,500 years, the Frankincense tree returns to Israel

1,500 years after the last frankincense tree disappeared from the Holy Land, Dr. Solowey has managed to grow the first shoots of a tree whose scented white sap was once worth more than gold.

Matthew Kalman has an interesting article about a famous biblical plant long absent from the Bible Lands. The scientist attempting to resurrect the frankincense tree is Israel is the same one who brought the extinct Methuselah date palm to life from a 2,000 year-old seed.

“This is the first frankincense tree to set seed in Israel in 1500 years,” Dr. Solowey told me as she presented the tiny sapling for its first public photo-call this week. “It was necessary to bring this variety back to the country because the last people growing these trees near the Dead Sea left and the trees left with them.”

Dr. Solowey, Director of the Center for Sustainable Agriculture at the Arava Institute, has an international reputation as a plant-whisperer, able to revive ancient species, save plants threatened with extinction and domesticate crops for medical and commercial use.

Dr. Solowey in her plant nursery at Kibbutz Ketura in Israel. (Courtesy of Matthew Kalman)

Frankincense sap has a flowery aroma and produces a complex scent when burned as incense. It is said to have been a key ingredient in the priestly incense used in Solomon’s temple. The sap is a good anti-inflammatory and had numerous medicinal uses in antiquity.

The frankincense tree is surprisingly difficult to cultivate today. Of the three frankincense cuttings received from outside the country, only one of them eventually flowered. Dr. Solowey nurtured the new seeds and “succeeded for the first time since the Roman era to grow a new sapling” in Israel. This process required a special fertilizer made from seaweed. Dr. Solowey believes a cooler ancient climate was a factor in the tree’s ability to thrive long ago.

Ein Gedi, an oasis on the Dead Sea’s western shore, was a major cultivator of these trees and other spice/medicinal plants in antiquity.

An ancient inscription in the mosaic floor of the synagogue at Ein Gedi curses anyone “revealing the secrets of the town” – understood by scholars to be a primitive form of patent control over the secret methods of production. When the ancient Jews were driven from the Holy Land 1,500 years ago, they took their secrets and their wondrous trees with them to Yemen and Egypt.

The full article notes that ancient Ein Gedi, with its frankincense, myrrh, and other products, would have been a convenient stop for any Magi traveling from the Orient to the Judean highlands.

HT: Joe Lauer

Did William Dever just declare Low Chronology dead?

Two sources at this year’s ASOR conference in Chicago report a quote from Dr. Bill Dever at the end of the Qeiyafa sessions on Thursday. Anyone interested in the Bible’s relationship to archaeology and history will find this interesting.

“There was never a shred of empirical evidence for the Low Chronology… It’s the end of the late date chronology, and it’s time to lay this whole nonsense to rest.”

Low Chronology insists the biblical timeline for the Israelite kingdom is inaccurate. The Bible puts kingdom formation in David’s time ca. 1000 B.C. Low Chronologists claim the biblical history is fabricated and put the beginning of a kingdom close to a century later. Prof. Israel Finkelstein, a leading mind behind the Low Chronology, recently adjusted his date for the beginning Israel’s kingdom closer to 950 B.C. (For a summary of this see my third point on this previous post.)

Prof. William Dever with me during his visit to the Khirbet Qeiyafa excavations in 2011. (Photo by Royce Chandler)

The Low Chronology paradigm came about largely from a lack of physical evidence for the biblical timeline of Israel’s kingdom. Fresh evidence from the recent excavations at Khirbet Qeiyafa have led many scholars to reevaluate the Low Chronology. Prof. Dever is a significant figure in Levantine archaeology, so his comments above may resonate.

I was not able to attend this year’s meeting. Sure would have been nice to see those sessions in person. No doubt all Low Chronologists will now give up the whole idea…? (Just kidding.)

After using it, here’s my review of Todd Bolen’s Bible Lands photo collection:

I’ve used Todd Bolen’s Pictorial Library of the Bible Lands collection for several months. I’ve tried it with Bible classes, history classes, sermons, etc. and my conclusion is…

Wow.

I posted on the new expanded set a few months ago before I had actually obtained it. It was clearly a useful product. Now that I’ve used it, I can’t imagine life without such a valuable, enriching tool.

The Pictorial Library set includes some 17,500 photos of nearly everything you could imagine in the Bible Lands. For me, the best part is the 400+ PowerPoint presentations included with the set. The PowerPoint files contain all of the photos ready-to-go. They are organized by location and contain great slide notes that inform and complete your presentation.

I suppose someone might mention that Jesus taught successfully without such things. True in a sense, but let’s not forget that the Bible Lands (Galilee, Jerusalem, the Temple, shepherds, flocks, fields, et al.) were His backdrop. I don’t believe our church buildings and classrooms are as informative.

Let’s also remember that Jesus was an intensely visual teacher, constantly painting pictures with parables and illustrations. We simply can’t imagine the master teacher standing behind a podium framed by a blank wall. How long did He ever seem to go without some kind of visualization? This is especially relevant in our culture. For better or worse, people drift off without something visual. There’s no honor in teaching above the attention span of an audience. Good Bible-related photos help things work.

Whether or not you’ve visited the Bible Lands, this photo collection is a plus. I always travel with a camera, but Todd’s photos are as good or better than anything I’ve taken. (Usually, much better.)

You can buy the whole collection for a few hundred dollars or the individual collections for less. The complete catalogue is here. Don’t balk at the price of a few hundred dollars. How important to you is the quality of your teaching or preaching? Valuable things are worth the investment. Go cheap and you’ll be rewarded with disappointment. Go with Todd Bolen’s collections and you will find a *good* resource that lasts for years.

Dead Sea Scrolls coming to Cincinnati

An exhibition of select Dead Sea Scrolls opens this Friday, November 16th, at the Cincinnati Museum Center (near my old stomping grounds of Mason, Ohio). The Dead Sea Scrolls include the oldest surviving manuscripts of Bible books. Around 600 biblically-related artifacts on loan from the Israeli Antiquities Authority will also be displayed, including some recent discoveries.

The Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS) were discovered in caves near the Dead Sea in the late 1940′s and 1950′s. They include copies of Bible books that date from the 2nd century B.C. through the 1st century A.D. These are the oldest biblical manuscripts we possess.

Why does this matter? Dave Duszynski – a VP at the Museum Center – explains:

Before the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered, the oldest biblical texts were dated 1,000 years later,” he said. “So this goes back 1,000 years and we find extremely similar biblical texts to what exists in the Bible today. That’s something interesting, especially to people of the Jewish and Christian faith.

The DSS boost our confidence in the Bible’s textual integrity. You can read more information about the exhibition here. The article includes a slideshow of the exhibit.

The display will alternate between two sets of ten scrolls each in order to minimize the fragile scrolls’ exposure to light. This selection of scrolls is different from other recent exhibitions in the U.S., so it’s guaranteed to be a unique experience.

The exhibition runs through April 14th – lots of time to arrange a visit. I may be taking a trip to that area in the near future. If that works out, I will definitely work in a visit. This is a great opportunity for anyone interested in biblical things. One normally has to travel to Israel to see any DSS.

If you visit the DSS exhibition in Cincinnati, be sure to enjoy some Cincinnati chili, one of the top regional foods in the U.S. Of the things I miss from living there, cheese coneys (mini hot dogs with mustard, Cincinnati chili and finely-shredded mild cheddar cheese) are at the top of the list.

Update on the Khirbet Qeiyafa Dig: One More Season with a Twist

A few months ago it appeared 2012 would be the last dig season at Khirbet Qeiyafa, one year earlier planned. That is no longer the case, and there is a twist.

In the last days of the 2012 season, after concluding the site had been sufficiently excavated with all major questions answered, we turned up a 30 meter-long wall from the central administrative building that dates to the late-Iron I/early-Iron IIa period. (This is the biblical time of Kings Saul and David) The structure is located in Area A at the highest point of the site and appears to have a doorway facing the (southern) gate in Area C.

Area A at Khirbet Qeiyafa. The newly-discovered Iron Age wall runs from front-to-back-right in the photo. This wall dates to the time of Kings Saul and David. Notice how close the modern ground level is to the Iron Age level. The structure surrounding the trees left of center dates to the Byzantine period, some 1,500 years later than the Iron Age wall. (Photo courtesy of the Khirbet Qeiyafa excavation)

This discovery led to a change in plans. There will be one more season at Kh. Qeiyafa in 2013 to finish excavating the newly-discovered central building. Excavators also plan to clarify some structures in Area F along the northwestern side of the city.

The Twist: The work at Qeiyafa should require only a partial season, so the excavation team will use the remaining weeks to begin work at another Judahite site. The new site will be either Socoh (across the valley from Qeiyafa) or Tel Lachish, depending on how the permits work out. We should know the answer in a few weeks.

Both Socoh and Lachish are believed to have significant occupation levels from the 9th century B.C. This is important since we currently have so few physical remains from early Judah. Qeiyafa has filled in a lot of blanks as a 10th century B.C. site. Socoh or Lachish should provide fresh information from the 9th century. Biblically, these are the periods of the United and Early Divided Kingdoms.

Relatively little archaelogical work has been done in the Shephelah (Judean foothills). That is changing in large part from the rich finds at Khirbet Qeiyafa. There are now several digs operating in the region. They should eventually provide us with a much clearer snapshot of life in ancient Judah and the surrounding areas.

The 2013 dates are available on Qeiyafa excavation’s official web site. Go join a dig!

Ancient papyrus: Was Jesus Married? Don’t overlook this perspective…

Harvard professor Karen King is publishing her findings on an ancient papyrus that mentions Jesus’ “wife.” What to think? Here are four items that should shape our perspective.

a) According to the New York Times article, “the provenance of the papyrus fragment is a mystery, and its owner has asked to remain anonymous.” The collector claims he ”acquired it in a batch of papyri in 1997 from the previous owner, a German. It came with a handwritten note in German that names a professor of Egyptology in Berlin, now deceased, and cited him calling the fragment ‘the sole example’ of a text in which Jesus claims a wife.”

Great. We don’t even know where it came from. Did a now-deceased German Egyptologist study this “sole example” of a Jesus-wife without publishing anything on it? That’s odd. What’s more, the previous German owner is no longer around to clear things up. Do we just have to accept the (anonymous) current owner’s word?  Most scholars rightly view unprovenanced finds with suspicion. A number of these “discoveries” have turned out to be forgeries. The consensus among the few scholars who have personally examined this papyrus is that it’s not a forgery, but we still don’t know the circumstances or context of its discovery. Those details greatly shape the way we understand and interpret finds.

b) When was this papyrus written? According to Dr. King, “The text was probably written centuries after Jesus lived.” As to Jesus being married, she acknowledges that “all other early, historically reliable Christian literature is silent on the question.” So this “sole example” dates to, at best, generations after Jesus and all of the original Christian literature. How would someone who lived so much later, (and in Egypt or Syria, to boot) know something different about Jesus’ marital status than all the previous writers?

But maybe Jesus was married unbeknownst to the first several generations of disciples. It’s certainly plausible. Here is a recent example of another historical figure’s previously-unknown-but-recently-discovered side.

I’ll bet none of you had any idea. Sure, this information dates to generations after Lincoln’s death, but it may reveal the real, historical man, right? I imagine the circumstances and context of this discovery would affect your opinion of its veracity. What are the circumstances of the papyrus’ discovery? Nobody seems to know.

c) The header to the NYT article shows a magnified view of the fragment along with a translation. The text is broken. Some suggest the “Mary” could be Mary Magdalene (Jesus’ wife?? Remember The Da Vinci Code?) but in my opinion this more easily refers to Jesus’ mother who is mentioned in the first line. The reference to Jesus’ wife could be a New Testament-esque reference to his followers (see next point). Or it could refer to a spouse who is as historically genuine as Lincoln the Vampire Hunter.

d) The New Testament does in fact speak of Jesus having a wife. Jesus alludes to himself as a “bridegroom” in Matthew 9:14-15. (Also in Mark 2:18-20 and Luke 5:33-35) Paul taught that the husband-wife relationship is analogous to that of Christ and the Church. (Ephesians 5:31-32) The book of Revelation presents Jesus as a lamb in its 5th chapter and later reveals “the Bride, the wife of the Lamb” in Revelation 21. The “Bride” is a city whose gates are the tribes of Israel and whose foundations are the apostles. In short, New Testament writings present Jesus as the “husband” of His people. Ephesians 5:21-33 expounds on this relationship.

[Note: The Old Testament also shows God as a husband to His people. A few examples are Isaiah 54:4-8, Jeremiah 31:31-32, Ezekiel 16:30-32, Hosea 2:13-20, et al.]

Dr. King’s article on this newly-announced papyrus is slated to appear in January. The fragment probably provides insights into various things and I’m curious to see scholars’ conclusions. Whatever its historical value, the papyrus does not provide anything substantive for those seeking to get Jesus hitched.