Shanah Tovah!

Hello Everyone and Shanah Tovah (Happy New Year)! Since our last entry, we have had long days of endless class sessions, studies out in the field, exams, papers, you name it, all without a break. We also just entered the New Year according to the Jewish calendar and are now enjoying the high-holy day of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. In ancient Jerusalem, as many of you know, the cohen gadol, the high priest, would perform a sacrifice before Yahweh and sprinkle the blood on the Ark of the Covenant to purify the sons and daughters of Israel, as well as the sacred space of the temple from the sins committed throughout the year. Here in modern Jerusalem, devout Jews fast for twenty-five hours in preparation for the coming weekend in the hope of ensuring that God records their name in his book of people who are in his favor. In addition to the interesting reflective and theological nuances of this event, we also get a "three-day" weekend. I put that in quotes because here we go to school six to seven days a week. So, I guess we get two official days off of school. Woo-hoo!

To update you on what we've been up to at school lately, I'll share some of my observations from our latest field studies. We have had three since we last our last blog. We have spent time in the rolling chalky hills of the Judean Wilderness, in the small patch of territory known in the Bible as the Central Benjamin Plateau, and in the hills of Samaria at Shechem and Shiloh. These places are awe-inspiring to be in as you will hopefully be able to see when we get some pictures posted. Our studies are an interesting blend of geography, topography, toponymy (the study of place names), geology, textual and linguistic research, and archaeology. The journey is amazing and challenging in so many different ways - both in ways that we expected and in ways that we didn't. Anyway, here are some reflections from our latest field studies.

Our initial journey into the wilderness took us over the Mount of Olives. The high eastern hill overshadows the Temple Mount and is an important site topographically precisely because it is high; it is the highest hill in the immediate vicinity of what was once the ancient Israelite capital, of David and then of the Judahite kings. From the view from the hill, one is able to look down on the entirety of what was once the City of David. The modern Old City stands majestically behind the ancient core of Jerusalem. This is important to note because it means that at the City of David's eastern side an enemy could stand atop the hill and easily shoot arrows down into the city. It is interesting that this eastern hill would have been the place wherein the inhabitants of Judah would see the sun coming up over the horizon, which would then, in good ancient Near Eastern style, dictate a number of theological happenings on the mountain, and indeed, our sources are filled with them. One story that comes to mind is the event that we discussed from 2 Samuel 15-20 where David returns to reclaim his kingdom after it was usurped by Abshalom his son. He crossed the Jordan from the wilderness and presumably passed the Mount of Olives to head back into his city. Does this inspire any theological reflections of a more New Testament nature? This story is paralleled when Jesus enters Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives, crowded by people, and thronged with proclamations of his Messianic role - the coming king, like David of old, entering to claim his kingdom. Jesus is then said to have been taken into heaven from atop the Mount of Olives after his resurrection. Further, the stories both Jewish and Christian (and Muslim, interestingly enough) surrounding Messiah envision his appearance on the Mount of Olives.

The Mount of Olives is also important because it acts as a division between the land of the living and the haunt of the chaotic forces thought to exist in the barren places. From a more geological perspective, the Mount of Olives makes up the last bit of absorbent, fertile, Cenomanian limestone east of Jerusalem, which then tapers off into the dry Senonian chalk of the Judean Wilderness. The reasons for the distinction in terrain are scientifically evident, but the view, the distinction between the east and west side of the Mount, as well as the theological connotations associated with these places are breathtaking. The initial scene that is particularly poignant is when you come from the lush and densely settled western side of the mountain and look out to the east toward the dead sea; it looks like you just traveled to a different country even though you only went a couple of miles, if even that. The landscape changes dramatically from green and lush to brown and barren.

While western society has often romanticized the desert in various ways be it theological or practical, the biblical authors rarely had any open affection for the desert. Note that there were two main physical fears of the wilderness, which in my thinking could easily be transferred to spiritual fears: 1) fear of wild animals. In the ancient world, lions, bears, and wolves were real threats to the person in the wilderness. The area of the Jordan valley called Zor was a jungle like area (Jer 49:19; 50:17; Zech 11:3) that apparently had lions. 2) Getting lost in the wilderness, especially after being overcome by thirst (which as we have now experienced, only takes hours, if not minutes). It would not take a very big stretch of the imagination to envision chaotic creatures, with animal-like faces, dwelling in this area (there were many demons in the ancient world depicted with animal faces, especially that of the lion) and leading a weary traveler astray to their death. It is no wonder that ancient writers, for three-thousand or so years have viewed the wilderness area as the place where death (I'm thinking of the deified Death, named Môt in the Canaanite stories from Ugarit), demons (like 'Az'azel in Lev 16:6-10), and Satan (Mark 1:12-13) frequented. The City of David was thus in danger both from physical enemies from the east such as desert raiders and wild animals, but also from famine due to the hot and dusty east winds, as well as the chaotic spiritual beings, protection from which could only be found by being close to sacred space, i.e. the temple, safe and secure in the city walls.

Despite the difficulties of the wilderness, there were those who saw something beneficial about the solitude of the rolling, barren hills of the wilderness, and they may have been on to something. On our second trip to the wilderness, on our way to Jericho, we sat there above the rolling hills thinking thoughts of Senonian chalk deposits and all their properties, when we read the first couple verses of Psalm 139. The psalmist, probably writing from Jerusalem asks, "Where can I go from your spirit?" If he went to the sky, Yahweh would be there, in the depths (Hebrew, sheol, perhaps a metaphor of the wilderness) Yahweh is there, in flight path of the eagle who catches her prey in the morning, Yahweh is there. God would be light in the darkness (of the treacherous wilderness at night?). God creates a person in the womb as he created Israel in the wilderness. The writer might be touching on an aspect of the wilderness that is not very prevalent in the text, and that is it's purifying aspect. The wilderness strips a person of everything but trust in God - there is no food, not really any water, and there is danger from wild animals, raiders, and for the ancient person, from the chaotic deities that roam the wilderness, wild and unrestrained. The book of Numbers records a story in which the Israelites journeyed in the wilderness, but contrary to what most would have thought, they didn't die for lack of water or food. They didn't waste away, in fact they grew into a nation - they forged their identity in the wilderness when they encountered the God of the desert, who provided for them. Later Monastic monks would remember this and would intentionally move into the wilderness, forsaking the comforts of civilization, to go back to the roots of their faith... one of difficulties and living wholly on trust in God. As with many of our field studies thus far, we were reminded very visually where God has taken us. We have been moved away from the comforts of our known lives, giving up everything, to be led to a place where we can only trust God for his provision, knowing that he will provide food and water in our wilderness, and through our experiences, we will know him better.

On that inspiring note, we then move to the Central Benjamin Plateau. Here we find the heart of some of the major military episodes recorded in the Bible and modern Israeli history. If you check out 1 Kings 15 you'll read a story of how the king of Judah and the king of Israel fought over this crucial piece of land because of its importance for trade-route control. The Benjamin Plateau remains divided in various places between places held by the Palestinians and Israelis. Things have not changed much in this area of the world in three-thousand years.

With those reflections in mind, we visited Jericho. There are actually four Jerichos, three that were established in antiquity and the modern Palestinian city. The first is the familiar one that the Bible claims Joshua conquered (Josh 6), which was abandoned at some point only to be reestablished a few miles southwest in when Greece ruled the land and where Herod the Great had his palace. This is the Jericho that Jesus would have visited (remember the story of Zaccheus?). The city was then built again a few miles east of both the old Jericho and the New Testament Jericho in the Byzantine period (the later part of the Roman Empire when Christianity was legalized under Constantine). Of course the Jericho most interesting to us is the oldest site now identified with Tell es-Sultan. Many excavations were conducted here in the early part of the twentieth century through the 1960s, the main goal being the discovery of the fallen walls from the biblical story. It turned out that Jericho was a large and fortified city in the Neolithic period, which dates to around 8500 BC, some seven-thousand years before the biblical story of Joshua would've taken place. This is pretty amazing! What is even more amazing is that the Neolithic wall is still standing and can easily be seen from the ground level. The city was fortified throughout the main archaeological periods of Palestine, but there is no evidence of the kind of destruction that the biblical account warrants. We'll leave you to think through the issues there.

At any rate, while loaded with some incredible archaeological data, Jericho also reflects what the careful observer sees almost everywhere in modern Israel - some kind of division among the inhabitants of the land. From the top of the eight thousand year old tell of ancient Jericho, conquered by the ancient Israelites according to the Bible, the lush modern site of Jericho is visible when looking east, but this is not all one can see. To the north, the houses are obviously different. Why? These houses are the ones that were built by the Palestinian refugees who fled from the coastal sites when their land was resettled following the Israeli war of Independence in 1948. Crammed together with very little greenery (in contrast to the "City of Palms" right next door), these houses have evolved from tents to tin shacks to the modern stark concrete structures we observe today. These people weren't accepted among their own because they are neither official Palestinians nor are they Israelis. They live in a refugee town that is just now advancing to the point of having a school and other conveniences that we take for granted, while, literally across the street is the modern, thriving town. The complexity of the situation is laid out in an especially poignant manner, and the faces of the conquered take on a very human, tangible form...

We also spent some time in the northern sites of Shechem and at Tell Shiloh. These were both important sites for the biblical authors. You might recognize Shechem as the place that Abraham and Jacob journey at various times in their lives. Archaeological data shows that this city was inhabited from the Chalcolithic period (around 4300 BCE), but that it reached its economic peak in the Middle Bronze Age II (2000-1550). The city was large and well fortified at this point and had a massive rectangular temple in it that was 86 x 68 feet with walls that were 16 feet thick! This would have probably (though this is not clear) been the time that the patriarchs would have visited the city. Tell Shiloh on the other hand is a smaller mound that was probably a religious site in the Middle Bronze Age II and that as you know from the Bible, was used as Israel's first "temple mount." Shiloh was destroyed, probably by the Philistines (though this is not in the Bible), and is then never mentioned again in relation to Yahweh's dwelling. Why was this? Because not long after this point, David took the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem and transferred Israel's cultural heritage to the south. This event is reflected in the words of the Psalmist who notes that Yahweh, "forsook the tabernacle of Shiloh...he did not choose the tribe of Ephraim. He did choose the tribe of Judah, Mount Zion, which he loved" (Ps 78:60, 67-68). The trips thus far have been extremely impacting and has furnished our minds with images that we can only attempt to share with our students someday. However, we know now that unless you see these things and experience the feelings associated with them like the heat and the drastic change in landscape between the densely settled Jerusalem and the barren Judean Wilderness, it is difficult to fully appreciate the biblical (and extrabiblical references) and the theological conceptions in the text. The scenes that we see here on a daily basis and especially in our work in the field are beautiful and complex, just like the biblical text. The text is coming alive for us in a fresh way. We can, therefore, encourage people - you, our readers and our future students - in the words of the psalmist: "Walk around Zion (and I would add, "and its surrounding territories")...that you may recount it to a future age" (Ps 48:13-14).

Prayer Updates!

• Thank you all for your prayers for us! We have just come through a very stressful week with papers due and apartment issues (see below for details). Many students at JUC are sick right now. Thankfully, God has kept us well! Please pray for our fellow students to feel better soon and for the continued strength of our immune systems. :0)
  
• Urgent! We desperately need to find an apartment! Our current living conditions in our existing apartment have become stressful at best, with our landlady trying to sell (her initial buyers backed out) and showing our apartment multiple times every day. We need somewhere we can have privacy and quiet to study. We will be looking at several places this week. Please pray we can move soon and that God provides the resources for this extra expense.
  

We love you all!!!