Search Results (19)

The framing of the Hebrew Bible in the Mesopotamian–Babylonian landscape is evident in two of its central themes. First, Abraham, the forefather of the Hebrews, is presented as a native of Ur in south Mesopotamia, whence he left for Harran and then reached the Promised Land. Second is the exile of the Judahite elites to Babylonia, and the later return of some of them to Jerusalem to build their Second Temple. As the Bible was written, rewritten, and compiled by Babylonian exiles, primarily authored after the Fall of Jerusalem, its compilation by Judean exiles reveals a certain legitimization for existence in Exile, namely, the first revelation of YHWH outside of the Promised Land. This article examines the impact of the Babylonian surroundings on the Exiles’ approach to the representation of YHWH. It surveys the role of the Levantine goddess ’Ašerah, while proposing that alongside ’Ašerah, there may have been a male god named ’Ašer who, in pre-exilic times, was probably part of the Yahwistic religion and who was subsequently eliminated or degraded by the Judean exilic compilers of the Bible as it has reached us. Full article

Background/Objectives: The archaeobotanical taxon “Triticum parvicoccum” was first described in 1980 as a small-grained, naked, free-threshing, and dense ear tetraploid wheat species (2n = 4x = 28) identified from archaeological remains. This primitive tetraploid, cultivated in the Levant approximately 9000 years ago and subsequently dispersed throughout the Fertile Crescent, represents a potential contributor of the BBAA genomes to T. aestivum. This study aims to resolve the complex nomenclatural status of this taxon, which has remained ambiguous due to competing interpretations under fossil and non-fossil taxonomic regulations. Methods: We conducted a comprehensive nomenclatural review to evaluate the taxonomic validity of T. parvicoccum, analyzing previous research on the classification of archaeobotanical materials in relation to fossil status. Results: Our analysis demonstrated that archaeobotanical materials do not qualify as fossils and led to the validation of the taxon at a subspecific rank as a non-fossil entity: T. turgidum subsp. parvicoccum Kislev. subsp. nov. The holotype was established using a charred rachis fragment from Timnah (Tel Batash), an archaeological site on the inner Coastal Plain (Shfela) adjacent to the western piedmont of the Judean Mountains, Israel. Conclusions: This study resolves the longstanding nomenclatural uncertainty surrounding this archaeologically significant wheat taxon, providing a valid taxonomic designation that reflects its biological and historical importance while adhering to current botanical nomenclature standards. Full article

The Bir el-Umdan cistern, a prominent archaeological site in the Judean Desert, is one of the largest and best preserved water systems in the region. Hewn in chalk, the cistern area measures 114 m² and has a ~700 m³ volume. Two massive columns, each with a base diameter of 2.5 m, support the ceiling within the cistern’s interior. This impressive structure is estimated to date back to the Hellenistic to Late Antiquity periods based on its architectural characteristics. Historical records indicate that the cistern was documented on 19th-century maps but disappeared from the 1935 and 1943 British Mandate maps. Its reappearance on the 1967 Survey of Israel map includes an upstream road disconnecting the cistern from its natural drainage basin. Despite its renovation in the 2010s, the cistern’s water supply remains limited due to its reduced catchment area, which now constitutes only 25% of its original size. Runoff coefficients calculated for the cistern’s drainage basin are relatively low (1.4% to 8.1%) compared to other desert regions. We analyzed the 21st-century runoff coefficient and recurrence interval over the original drainage basin (0.12 km²) to estimate the water volumes in antiquity. Our analysis suggests that using an 8.1% runoff coefficient, the estimated water volume is 806 m³, implying a cistern overflow every 6–7 years. A more conservative estimate using a 5% runoff coefficient yields a water volume of 500 m³ and a 15-year recurrence interval. Sediment analysis reveals that silt particles dominate the sediment accumulated in the cistern and its upstream sedimentation basins. The consistent grain size distribution throughout the system indicates rapid water flow during flood events. Reconstructing the sedimentation history is challenging due to potential maintenance and possible dredging and cleaning operations. Full article

The purpose of Byzantine hospitals—whether primarily curative facilities or caring hospices—has long intrigued scholars. This paper proposes a third perspective on Byzantine hospitals, suggesting that the Basilian monastic hospitals of the fourth to sixth centuries were not merely philanthropic facilities for the sick and destitute but also centers for ascetics’ spiritual growth. Basil of Caesarea incorporated charitable actions by ascetics as essential to achieving Christian perfection within the coenobitic community, developing a theology of compassion that advocated for the purification of harmful passions like anger and pride through the virtue of compassion. In the fifth and sixth centuries, Theodosius the Cenobiarch, who founded a coenobium and hospitals in the Judean Desert, upheld Basil’s idea of the purification of the soul through compassion for the sick. Additionally, the nosokomeion (hospital) of the sixth-century Monastery of Seridos in Gaza emphasized the healing of spiritual diseases through compassion for the sick, as reflected in various epistles. Thus, Basil of Caesarea’s theology of compassion in pursuit of Christian perfection was a foundational element in the emergence and development of hospital spirituality in Christian Late Antiquity. Full article

Genealogies, knowledge, and purity all can provide separate identities with the means for competing self-definition. This article assumes a social location near Ephesus with Samaritan Israelites and Judeans in a Jesus-believing network. Rather than providing an analysis in which divisions are transcended, this reading suggests that a negotiation in John 4:4–45 of these three characteristics navigates divisions to create a complex, merged superordinate identity. Full article

Scholars have paid much attention to the attribute of hesed in the book of Ruth, pinpointing it as a pivotal feature and the main message of the book. However, the protagonists in the tale do not seem to exhibit hesed out of free will or as part of their natural conduct. They rather resort to such a maneuver in order to survive and extricate themselves from dire predicaments. This article argues that the virtue of hesed attributed to the protagonists in the book of Ruth reflects a mechanism for surviving in the confining communal structure of the Judean patriarchal society, which allowed limited social mobility. While the actions exhibited in the story can be argued to be an amendment of the previous generations’ perversions, the story effectively accepts and preserves the common inflexible social system. Full article

This article studies the main titles documented for the high priest of Jerusalem in the Hebrew Bible as well as in a few other sources from the Persian and Hellenistic periods. In dialogue with recent scholarship on the topic, particularly an important article by Noam Mizrahi it argues that the title הכהן הגדול (ha-kohēn ha-gādôl), “high” or “great priest” probably originates in the late monarchic period (seventh century BCE), but only became the standard designation for the high priest during the fifth century BCE. An alternative title, כהן הראש (kohēn ha-ro’š), “head” or “chief” priest, was introduced in Chronicles and other writings in order to designate the high priests of the preexilic period specifically. Finally, a third title, המשיח (ha-kohēn ha-māšîaḥ), “the anointed priest”, was used for some time in priestly circles as part of a bid to transfer a key royal attribute (anointment) to the high priest of Jerusalem, but was eventually replaced with the more standard designation הכהן הגדול. Full article

Interpretation of Ephesians and Colossians has often proceeded on the basis that the stance of the original authors and recipients towards Israel is supersessionist, i.e., that the church has entirely replaced or superseded Israel as the locus of divine scriptural promises. By contrast, this article presents a post-supersessionist reading of Ephesians and Colossians. The reading strategy seeks to read the letters as situated within the dynamics of the apostolic mission to proclaim the gospel of Jesus as the Jewish christos/messiah to the nations. This mission is envisaged in Acts as a priestly dynamic in which the blessings of salvation in the christos/messiah began within a distinctly Israelite original community and proceeded to the nations without necessarily negating Jewish distinctiveness. The reading highlights key instances of this Israel-centered missionary dynamic in Ephesians and Colossians. It also seeks to demonstrate how this dynamic helps to provide satisfactory answers to key exegetical questions in the letters. Furthermore, it offers alternative non-supersessionist readings of critical passages concerning circumcision, law, and Jewish identity in the two letters. The article is a distillation and summary of research in the author’s previously published book Reading Ephesians and Colossians After Supersessionism: Christ’s Mission through Israel to the Nations. Full article

This article addresses a body of works by the video artist Ruth Patir, in which Israeli womanhood in the 2020s is interrogated through Iron Age female statuettes, known as Judean Pillar Figurines. By means of motion capture technology and 3D animation, Patir features contemporary Israeli women uncannily moving and speaking through the bodies of millennium-old female figurines, whose history and function are still under debate. In Petah Tikva (2020), Patir situates these hybrid figures in a modern IVF clinic, offering a biopolitical perspective on Israeli society’s compelling maternal impulse. Marry Fuck Kill (2019), in turn, ponders Israeli women’s legitimation of their femininity, across the generational gap between the artist and her mother, here cast in the role of an imposing Iron Age figurine. The paper addresses Patir’s work in both biopolitical and phenomenological terms, arguing that the sensual appeal of the archaeological objects often undermines the videos’ political critique. Full article

During recent decades, bumble bees (Bombus terrestris) have continuously expanded their range in the Mediterranean climate regions of Israel. To assess their potential effects on local bee communities, we monitored their diurnal and seasonal activity patterns, as well as those of native bee species in the Judean Hills. We found that all bee species tend to visit pollen-providing flowers at earlier times compared to nectar-providing flowers. Bumble bees and honey bees start foraging at earlier times and colder temperatures compared to other species of bees. This means that the two species of commercially managed social bees are potentially depleting much of the pollen, which is typically non-replenished, before most local species arrive to gather it. Taking into consideration the long activity season of bumble bees in the Judean hills, their ability to forage at the low temperatures of the early morning, and their capacity to collect pollen at early hours in the dry Mediterranean climate, feral and range-expanding bumble bees potentially pose a significant competitive pressure on native bee fauna. Their effects on local bees can further modify pollination networks, and lead to changes in the local flora. Full article

Bats are primarily forest mammals and forest structure may affect their communities through the level of vegetation clutter. Pine plantations are typically even-aged managed forests that lack structural complexity. However, an understory layer can enhance the heterogeneity of these forests, making them suitable for several animal taxa. We hypothesized that species composition, richness, and foraging activity of insectivorous bats in pine plantations vary according to forest structure, specifically with the density of the understory. We measured pine density, Diameter at Breast Height (DBH), canopy closure, and vegetation cover of 29 pine (Pinus halepensis) plantations of the Judean Lowlands, Israel, and collected acoustic data on resident bats. We found that bat species richness and total activity increased in forests with large tree DBH and dense shrubs. Cluttered-habitat species foraged preferentially in forests with large tree DBH and high pine density, while open-habitat species preferred forests with well-developed canopies and dense shrubs. Pipistrellus pipistrellus and Eptesicus serotinus foraged in mature forests with well-developed bushes and these species are endangered in Israel. We conclude that mature planted pine forests with a well-developed under-canopy are suitable foraging grounds for insectivorous bats. Management plans for planted pine forests should consider our findings to support bat populations, including rare and endangered species. Full article

A recurrent theme in the Hebrew Bible is brotherly animosity. Cain and Abel, Jacob and Esau, and Solomon and Adonijah are but a few examples. This variety seems to reflect a fundamental conflict in ancient society. In this article, I argue that all these stories function as ethos myths. After describing the various stories with an attempt to single out the motivations behind them, they will be put into the social context that probably fueled them. Although the stories are extremely varied, they all share at least one common element, namely: it is always the younger brother who turns out to be God’s favorite. A second element is the jealousy of the older brother in the special status of the younger. Against the historical background of long-lasting civil war between the smaller kingdom of Judah and the larger, militarily stronger, and more financially stable kingdom of Israel, I argue that these stories were adapted to fit into the Judean narrative for the sake of strengthening its self-image as a small kingdom struggling against a stronger opponent who is motivated by jealousy. The mythical conflict reflects the complexity of the struggle between the two kingdoms, in which Judah identifies itself as being the ‘younger child’ or the ‘little brother’, who is blessed by God. Such myths give justification to the military struggle and feed the self-conviction narratives of the superiority of Judah as being divinely chosen. Full article

Instead of trying to recreate the ancient life of Jesus, Mark Dornford-May’s film Son of Man depicts many famous scenes from the gospels, reworked to tell the story of Jesus in the fictitious “Kingdom of Judea, Afrika” with the concerns of local and global poverty, violence, and imperialism. Jesus’s life turns when he directly challenges the Judean leadership, and his arrest, torture, and death reinterpret the dynamics of power from first century imperial Rome in brilliantly analogous fashion both for a localized South African setting and for global settings that struggle under violently repressive governments. Jesus’s death stands as the focal point of communal resurrection, inspiring Mary to challenge the oppression perpetrated by those in power. Jesus’s death serves to express the complexities of international injustice in South Africa and other countries in Africa and around the world, to embolden and unite an oppressed community, and to shine a light on a mother as the leader of this resurrected community. Full article

Discriminating between woody plant species using a single image is not straightforward due to similarity in their spectral signatures, and limitations in the spatial resolution of many sensors. Seasonal changes in vegetation indices can potentially improve vegetation mapping; however, for mapping at the individual species level, very high spatial resolution is needed. In this study we examined the ability of the Israel/French satellite of VENμS and other sensors with higher spatial resolutions, for identifying woody Mediterranean species, based on the seasonal patterns of vegetation indices (VIs). For the study area, we chose a site with natural and highly heterogeneous vegetation in the Judean Mountains (Israel), which well represents the Mediterranean maquis vegetation of the region. We used three sensors from which the indices were derived: a consumer-grade ground-based camera (weekly images at VIS-NIR; six VIs; 547 individual plants), UAV imagery (11 images, five bands, seven VIs) resampled to 14, 30, 125, and 500 cm to simulate the spatial resolutions available from some satellites, and VENμS Level 1 product (with a nominal spatial resolution of 5.3 m at nadir; seven VIs; 1551 individual plants). The various sensors described seasonal changes in the species’ VIs at different levels of success. Strong correlations between the near-surface sensors for a given VI and species mostly persisted for all spatial resolutions ≤125 cm. The UAV ExG index presented high correlations with the ground camera data in most species (pixel size ≤125 cm; 9 of 12 species with R ≥ 0.85; p < 0.001), and high classification accuracies (pixel size ≤30 cm; 8 species with >70%), demonstrating the possibility for detailed species mapping from space. The seasonal dynamics of the species obtained from VENμS demonstrated the dominant role of ephemeral herbaceous vegetation on the signal recorded by the sensor. The low variance between the species as observed from VENμS may be explained by its coarse spatial resolution (effective ground spatial resolution of 7.5) and its non-nadir viewing angle (29.7°) over the study area. However, considering the challenging characteristics of the research site, it may be that using a VENμS type sensor (with a spatial resolution of ~1 m) from a nadir point of view and in more homogeneous and dense areas would allow for detailed mapping of Mediterranean species based on their seasonality. Full article

Vines and olives are two important and widespread traditional agricultural crops that are also connected to the Judeo–Christian–Muslim tradition. The goal of the research was to demonstrate the importance of using cartographical sources to obtain a more accurate and complete view of the past. To this end, the aims were: (1) to reconstruct the former agricultural land-use in three periods, 1873–1874, 1917, and 1943–1945; (2) to analyze the different spatial physical factors that could explain the spatial distribution of traditional agricultural landscapes; (3) to identify the changes which took place between the three reconstructed timestamps. The research employed different cartographic sources and the implemented analyses were conducted using GIS tools and methods. The results show that, in the past, the distribution of vines and olive groves greatly depended on several physical geographic factors (climate, slopes, direction). Nonetheless, human factors such as political instability, cultural and religious beliefs contributed as well. Moreover, this research showed how GIS has advanced historical geography research. Lastly, the research demonstrated that obtaining the most complete view of the past can be achieved by a combination of sources together with the use of GIS tools and methods. Full article