Posted by Naama Baumgarten on March 9, 2008 under Historical Geography | 
The city of Bethel is located north of Jerusalem and is identified as what is now the Arab village Bitan. It is first mentioned as a place near which Abraham first settled when arriving in Canaan, and is mentioned throughout Israelite history in the Bible. The archaeological findings date as far back as the 21st century BCE.
According to the Book of Genesis, Bethel, literally “The House of God,” which was originally named Luz, was thus named by the Patriarch Jacob. It was there that Jacob, when sleeping on the road after escaping from his brother, Esau, saw a vision of a ladder reaching up into the heavens and angels ascending and descending on it. It was during this vision that he was promised the land of Israel for his descendants, and he proceeded to make a vow to God: “If God will be with me, and keep me in this way that I am going . . . so that I return to my father’s house in peace, then YHWH shall be my God” (Genesis 28:20-21).
Later in the History of Israel, the city was conquered by Joshua and became part of the inheritance of the tribe of Joseph. Bethel was a major city in the times of the Judges and of the prophet Samuel, and an important place of worship. Bethel gained a special status upon the division of the United Kingdom in the days of Jeroboam, and was one of the two major places of worship where the golden calves were placed (along with the northern city of Dan).
Bethel was not destructed during the Assyrian attack against the Israelite kingdom, but it was conquered by the Judean king Josiah, who destroyed the cultic center as part of his religious reformation (circa 622 BCE).
Bethel was resettled after the return of the Jews from the Babylonian exile and thrived throughout the Second Temple Period, and was probably still sparsely populated until the Byzantine period.
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Tags: Abraham, Babylonian exile, biblical history, City of Bethel, Genesis, history of Israel, Israelite history, Jacob, Joseph, Joshua, prophet Samuel, Second Temple, vision of the ladder
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Posted by Naama Baumgarten on February 24, 2008 under Archaeology |
The main source of water in ancient Jerusalem was the Gihon spring, located just outside the city walls. When the Assyrians waged an attack against Judah towards the end of the 8th century BCE, led by king Sennacherib, king Hezekiah realized that in order to sustain throughout an Assyrian siege, the city must be better protected and the water must be accessible from inside the walls of the city. Hezekiah, considered to be one of the better kings of Judah both from a moral standing and as a leader of the people, substantially enlarged the area surrounded by a defensive wall to include more civilians, and built a tunnel that led the water from the Gihon spring into the city. Thus, when the Assyrians attacked in 701, Jerusalem withstood their attack and they eventually withdrew. The great importance of Hezekiah’s building projects is emphasized in the summary of his reign: “And the rest of the deeds of Hezekiah and all his might and the building of the pool and the tunnel bringing the water into the city are written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah” (2 Kings 20:20).
While the tunnel had been well known, the Siloam inscription was discovered by accident in 1880 by a young student from the nearby mission, who happened to look up while walking through the dark tunnel and noticed the inscription. The Siloam tunnel is a rare case in which we have an archaeological finding, including a written inscription, which enriches our knowledge of a biblical report of events. In order to build the tunnel, the workers split into two teams, digging from either end of the future tunnel while following a crack in the rock. When the two work-teams approached each other, they heard the sound of the axes of the other team and knew that the breaking through of the tunnel was almost complete. The inscription they placed at the place of the meeting of the two teams describes the day on which this meeting occurred.
The Siloam inscription is one of the only pieces of written evidence surviving from the First Temple period. Aside from the historical data it provides, it also supplies us with knowledge of the scribal practices of the time (separation of words using dots), the evolution of Ancient Hebrew handwriting, and facts about grammar and pronunciation which are very valuable to the linguistic research of biblical Hebrew.
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Posted by Naama Baumgarten on February 17, 2008 under History |
The patriarchal age is one of great importance for the people of Israel: it begins with Abraham’s journey, a daring voyage to a strange land led by faith in a then new, single God, who said unto him: “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you” (Genesis 12:1). At a late age of 100, 25 years after having arrived in Canaan, Abraham and Sarah give birth to their son, Isaac, and he and Rebecca then give birth to Esau and Jacob. Jacob, Rachel, Lea and their handmaids give birth to twelve sons. Jacob is renamed Israel, and the family started by Abraham and distinguished by the monotheistic faith starts to become a nation, comprised of twelve tribes. The land of Canaan, to which God led Abraham, becomes the land of the people of Israel.
Historically, the patriarchal age is believed to have begun some time between the 21st and the 15th century B.C.E., and to have lasted for a few hundred years. At this time, the patriarchs were foreigners in the land of Canaan, then inhabited by many small nations. Having originated in Mesopotamia (current Iraq; Abraham’s native city was in the southern part of this region), Mesopotamian traditions and practices, such as dedication of holy places when a revelation has taken place, are described in the Bible as part of the patriarchs’ every-day life. The patriarchs also distinguished themselves from Canaanite practices and social ties by their insistence that the sons of the family not marry local women, and marry only members of the extended family who resided in Haran (current south-east Turkey). This distinction from the Canaanite nations is later apparent in various biblical decrees against intermarriage.
The patriarchs are not only the genealogical fathers of the nation: they are also the first prophets and the founders of the covenant between God and the people of Israel.
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Posted by Sigal Zohar on February 14, 2008 under Archaeology |
The city of Lachish, located in the maritime lowlands of Judea, is first mentioned in the Bible during Joshua’s conquest. After the Gibeonites deceptively made a covenant with Joshua, many of the Canaanite kings were alarmed that they might be conquered with Gibeonite assistance, and therefore set out to fight the Gibeonites. Joshua took over all of these rebellious cities, and Lachish, being one of them, was later part of the territory assigned to the tribe of Judah.
Lachish, located on an important cross-roads between the coast and Hebron, became a major city in the Judean kingdom during the reign of Rehoboam, and was conquered by the Assyrians in the time of Hezekiah (in 701 BCE), when it became the Assyrian local headquarters. Due to the fact that the Assyrians failed to conquer Jerusalem, it was Lachish that was depicted as the main Judean city overcome during the Assyrian invasion and carved reliefs describing its destruction were placed in the central room of Sennacherib’s new palace in Nineveh.
The archaeological findings from Lachish are extensive and include a temple, inscriptions and more from the Canaanite period, and an impressive fortress which should probably be dated to the Israelite period. Many ostraca, stamps and weights containing Hebrew writing that probably should be dated to a period after the destruction by the Assyrians when the city was re-inhabited teach us of the every-day life there.
Most famous among the archaeological finds are the “Lachish Letters.” In these letters, which were written on re-cycled pieces of broken earthenware pottery (known as “ostraca”) we find an extensive correspondence between an outpost in the vicinity of Lachish and the Lachish military headquarters. The letters were all written within a few days, and deal with a book (meaning, a letter) which was read by someone unauthorized to do so or possibly was misread and misunderstood. These letters also mention a military delegation sent to Egypt and other information. Based on archaeological data, the letters are apparently from the eve of the Babylonian destruction, and therefore can be connected to the Babylonian conquest of Judea and the siege over the few remaining cities – Jerusalem, Lachish and Azeka.
Interested in learning Biblical Hebrew? Sign up for a trial lesson at www.classicalhebrew.com
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The city of Bethel is located north of Jerusalem and is identified as what is now the Arab village Bitan. It is first mentioned as a place near which Abraham first settled when arriving in Canaan, and is mentioned throughout Israelite history in the Bible. The archaeological findings date as far back as the 21st century BCE.
