At the same site as the Franciscan church we saw in the last post, we also have one of the more remarkable ongoing digs in all of Israel, at Migdal. What we have is a giant garum factory, making the much popular fish pickle sauce out of small fish.  So we have brine vats etc.  But what we also have is two synagogues at Migdal, and we will be concentrating on the one where the remarkable small altar was found.... Read more

Ah the sea of Galilee, or Tiberias, or Kinnert, but it’s not really a sea.  It’s just a decent sized lake fed by the headwaters of the river Jordan. It is a mere 13 miles long, and 8 miles wide at its widest.  And it is the major source of water for all the crops in the area during the dry months especially.  This year however for the first time in a very long time, the lake was full. Notice... Read more

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The old city of Jerusalem is a fascinating cornucopia of all kinds of things, including all things religious. We will pay a lot of attention to the church of the Holy Sepulchre in this post but let’s consider the old city itself first with its religious districts, street vendors, and ancient history, including the remnants of the Roman cardo running from Damascus gate right through the center of the old city. What would the city have been like during festival... Read more

It had been a very long time since I had been in the Israeli Antiquities Museum.  And we had to race through it, so I had to concentrate on just the relevant materials from the NT period. Here is the actual famous Pilate inscription stone from Caesarea Maritima. There are lots of interesting and famous ossuaries or bone boxes in this museum including Caiaphas’ ornate one. What is interesting about it is not just its style and beauty but that... Read more

The Holy Land Hotel model of first century Jerusalem (no longer housed at the hotel, but rather at the Israeli Museum complex and still being updated regularly) is an amazing look back at the city as Jesus saw it… Here’s the holy of holies and the court of the men in the temple, as well as the west gate into the city. This is looking from the south, from the city of David up to the southern entrance into the... Read more

When you think of Bethlehem you may think of sheep and shepherds in fields like this one where I last saw such a thing…. Or images like this… Or this… The main focus should be on the church of the Nativity, commissioned and funded by Queen Helena the mother of Constantine who came here in 336, and what remains is one of the oldest churches in the world, recently refurbished, and looking much better than in previous years when I’ve... Read more

Since we are in the northern part of the land we will go to Zippori aka Sepphoris next which is just on the back side of Nazareth, only a few miles over the hill. It is possible that Joseph and his boys worked there because a huge building project was underway, as Herod Antipas was building himself a second main city of sorts.  Here are some shots from Sepphoris, which famously has a very unorthodox synagogue, but it dates to... Read more

Having been to Israel numerous times since 1985, I will focus on some things I’ve not posted, or not posted much about on the blog, for instance what’s in the Israeli museum.  But perhaps first it will be wise to present you with the recreation village, Nazareth village, to give you a sense of daily life in Jesus’ day and hometown.  The site is located right in the middle of downtown, and it is amazing they got this land to... Read more

This is a Roman milestone found in the Nabatean kingdom, showing the Romans had already surveyed the region by the late second century.   Roman miles were shorter than modern American miles. The Roman mile was a thousand paces, or 4860 feet compared to our 5,280 feet. Gadara was an important city, indeed it was a cultural center which once had a great temple…. It was the home of the great poet Meleagrus The earliest representation of human figures was in... Read more