A severe drought gripped Israel in 1985 and 1986. The winter rains barely came. Water was pumped from the Sea of Galilee to irrigate parched fields throughout the country. Predictably, the Kinneret (the Hebrew name of the freshwater inland lake also known as the Sea of Galilee) shrank. Wide expanses of lakebed, normally covered with […]
Highlights- Coin of Herod the Great, 35/34 BCE Ossuary of Simon the Temple Builder, 1st century BCE – 1st century CE Qumran Phylactery, 1st century CE The Place of the Trumpeting, 4 CE Ossuary of the High Priest Caiaphas, 18-36 CE Crucifixion Bone Fragment, 21 CE Pontius Pilate’s Tiberium Inscription, 26-36 CE Silver Shekel from […]
Maagan Michael Ship In 1985 a kibbutznik named Ami Eshel of Kibbutz Ma‘agan Mikhael was diving not far from the beach of the kibbutz, 20 miles south of Haifa, when he noticed an unusual pile of rocks with a beam of blackened wood protruding from it. This was, it turned out, what fellow-kibbutz-member Elisha Linder […]
Long-lost city found north of Galilee shore Bethsaida is the town that disappeared. Soon after playing a prominent role in the Gospels—Bethsaida is mentioned more often in the New Testament than any city except Jerusalem and Capernaum—this fishing village on the Sea of Galilee simply became lost to history. Early Christian pilgrims went in search […]
The excavator of Dan recalls growing up in pre-state Israel, great archaeologists he’s known and why he’s a Biblical archaeologist On October 23, 1999, Avraham Biran, director of the Nelson Glueck School of Biblical Archaeology at Hebrew Union College in Jerusalem, will celebrate his 90th birthday. He will also have completed his 34th season at […]
When Canaanites Became Phoenician Sailors History runs deep at Tel Dor—45 feet deep to be exact! Layer upon layer of ancient cities, each built on the ruins of its predecessor, have formed this immense mound on Israel’s Mediterranean coast, about 12 miles south of Haifa. As extraordinary as the mound’s size is the large number […]
Click here to view the original article. This is the story mostly of what will be rather than what has been. It is a report on what we hope to do more than what we have already done. It tells of the tantalizing clues that keep us awake nights wondering what we will find. It […]
From Text to Tradition The Daily Life of the Jew Sanctuaries in Time The Sanctified Table Marriage and the Family Ritual Purity and Impurity Life Cycle Historical surveys Isaiah M. Gafni. “The World of the Talmud- From the Mishnah to the Arab Conquest.” Part III. Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism- a Parallel History of their Origins […]
And they shall come that were lost in the land of Assyria, And they that were dispersed in the land of Egypt. Isaiah, 27/13 During the first decade of its independence, Israel gave home and shelter to approximately half a million Jews who were formerly resident in the Arab countries of the Middle East and […]