Taking a course on the bible and archaeology this term, and just finished my 1st class  . This isn't an anti-christian thread so all atheists get the fukc out now  !! I'll just be posting some cool stuff, that y'all might find interesting, from time to time. Hope you enjoy it.

Here's a link to some of the great archaeological finds related to the ancient Canaanites and early christians. some pretty cool stuff there. enjoy 

http://www.basarchive.org/bswbBrowse.asp?PubID=BSBA&Volume=35&Issue=4&ArticleID=15&UserID=2174&

haha. . .sorry guys. just realized u had to get membership. we can log in 4 free thru school and i didn't know the link wouldn't work for general access. i'll copy the stuff and post it here in a little bit.

Stepped Stone Structure
Jerusalem
Perhaps more than any other find from the City of David, the massive Stepped Stone Structure stands as a momentous reminder of just how grand David and Solomon’s Jerusalem might have been. Although at first glance it appears to be little more than a towering mass of twisted stone and rubble, this unique 12-story-high foundational structure—the largest Iron Age construction in Israel—likely supported a major fortress or administrative building. As archaeologist Eilat Mazar first reported in BAR, it may have even been used to buttress David’s palace.



Since the first steps of the massive structure were revealed in the 1920s, generations of archaeologists have puzzled over exactly who built the edifice and why. The great Kathleen Kenyon, who excavated much of the structure in the 1960s, dated portions of the stepped facade to Iron Age IIa, the period of David and Solomon. After his excavations in the 1980s, Yigal Shiloh agreed with Kenyon that the Stepped Stone Structure itself dated to the time of the United Monarchy, but that the feature’s substructure and rubble core was originally built at the end of the Late Bronze Age (13th century B.C.) or during Iron Age I (1200–1000 B.C.). These earlier terraced walls, Shiloh believed, were the fortifications of the ancient Jebusite “Fortress of Zion” that confronted David and his forces as they attacked the city (2 Samuel 5:7; 1 Chronicles 11:5). The debate over the exact date and function of the Stepped Stone Structure has continued to rage in the pages of BAR.
Still other scholars believe the Stepped Stone Structure is actually part of the mysterious Millo that appears several times in the Bible. Perhaps originally a Jebusite structure, the Millo appears to have been vital to the organization and defense of the City of David. Upon capturing Jerusalem, David is said to have “ built the city round about from the Millo inward” (2 Samuel 5:9), and later kings, including Solomon and Hezekiah, undertook major initiatives to ensure that the Millo remained strong and sound (1 Kings 9:15; 2 Chronicles 32:5).
But what exactly was the Millo? In most English translations of the Bible, the word is left untranslated, for the Biblical writers made no attempt to describe the structure or its exact whereabouts. The word itself is thought to derive from the Hebrew root ml’ (“filling”) and thus many scholars have suggested that the Millo was a massive constructional fill that supported the royal citadel. If so, the Stepped Stone Structure would seem to be an ideal candidate. But not so fast. As first argued by Kenyon, a better candidate for the Millo may actually be a series of broad stone terraces uncovered along the eastern slope of the City of David. These terraces, which nearly doubled the buildable area of the narrow ridge, would have supported a large number of private and public buildings and thus would have required constant repair and upkeep.

more to come. . .

Tel Dan (“David”) Stela
Northern Israel
In the world of modern Biblical archaeology, few discoveries have attracted as much attention as the Tel Dan stela—the ninth-century B.C. inscription that furnished the first historical evidence of King David outside the Bible.



Discovered in 1993 at the site of Tel Dan in northern Israel in an excavation directed by Israeli archaeologist Avraham Biran, the broken and fragmentary inscription commemorates the victory of an Aramean king over his two southern neighbors: the “king of Israel” and the “king of the House of David.” In the carefully incised text written in neat Aramaic characters, the Aramean king boasts that he, under the divine guidance of the god Hadad, vanquished several thousand Israelite and Judahite horsemen and charioteers before personally dispatching both of his royal opponents. Unfortunately, the recovered fragments do not preserve the names of the specific kings involved in this brutal encounter, though most scholars believe the stela recounts a campaign of Hazael of Damascus in which he defeated both Jehoram of Israel and Ahaziah of Judah.
For many scholars and especially the broader public, what was most exciting about the stela was its unprecedented reference to the “House of David.” The stela’s fragmented inscription, first read and translated by the renowned epigrapher Joseph Naveh, proved once and for all that David was a genuine historical figure and not simply the fantastic literary creation of later Biblical writers and editors. Perhaps more important, the stela, set up by one of ancient Israel’s fiercest enemies more than a century after David’s death, still recognized David as the founder of the kingdom of Judah.
There were skeptics, however, especially the so-called Biblical minimalists (see “BAR’s Crusades”), who attempted to dismiss the “House of David” reading as implausible and even sensationalistic. In a famous BAR article, Philip Davies argued that the Hebrew term bytdwd referred to a specific place (akin to bytlhm or Bethlehem) rather than the ancestral dynasty of David. Such skepticism aside, however, most Biblical scholars and archaeologists readily accepted that the Tel Dan stela had supplied the first concrete proof of a historical David.
Even though the Tel Dan stela has confirmed the essential historicity of David, scholars have reached little consensus about the nature and extent of his rule. Was David the great king of Biblical lore who founded his royal capital at Jerusalem and established an Israelite kingdom? Or was David a ruler of only a tribal chiefdom, as Israel Finkelstein of Tel Aviv University contends? Questions like these, which lie at the heart of the complex relationships among archaeology, history and the Bible, will continue to be debated in the pages of BAR for years to come.

more to come. . .

LOOK@ DIS LONELY SADDO CHATTING TO HIMSELF. *Shakes His Head*

“Yahweh and His Asherah”
Eastern Sinai Desert

In the summer of 1975, while excavating the small Iron Age site of Kuntillet ‘Ajrud in the eastern Sinai desert, archaeologist Ze’ev Meshel happened upon a handful of painted sherds that would forever change our perception of early Israelite religion.



Upon the shattered fragments of a large eighth-century B.C. storage jar, Meshel found an inscription that referred to “Yahweh of Samaria and his Asherah.” As Asherah was a well-known goddess of the Canaanite and Phoenician pantheons, the inscription, written in ancient Hebrew, suggested that at least some Israelites believed Yahweh had a female consort, an aspect of Yahwistic faith ignored by the more orthodox Biblical writers. This and other inscriptions found at the site also offered clear evidence that Yahweh was worshiped in a variety of regional guises within ancient Israel, including the northern “Yahweh of Samaria” and the more southern “Yahweh of Teiman.”



But these were not the sole religious insights provided by the sherds. Painted just below the inscription were two standing bovine-like figures, as well as a seated woman playing a lyre. If the inscription and drawings are linked, as many scholars believe, it is likely that two of the roughly painted figures represent Yahweh and his Asherah. Some scholars believe that the larger bovine figure, drawn to resemble a bull, represents Yahweh, while the smaller bovine figure should be interpreted as the goddess and consort Asherah. Other scholars, however, have proposed that the bull figures are actually representations of the androgynous Egyptian deity Bes and that the third human figure playing the lyre represents Asherah. It is also possible that a flowering sacred tree flanked by two ibexes, painted on the opposite side of the vessel, was intended to be a depiction of Asherah.



The site of Kuntillet ‘Ajrud, situated along a major caravan route through the Sinai desert, attracted both travelers and pilgrims from across ancient Israel, many of whom left blessings and divine images that reflected their diverse origins and beliefs. The findings from Kuntillet ‘Ajrud provided archaeologists, historians and religious scholars with fresh perspectives on the religious life of ancient Israel and archaeological evidence that Israelite religion—far from being the single monolithic Yahwistic faith depicted in the Bible—was practiced and understood in a variety of ways.



more to come. . .

chic2pimp:

LOOK@ DIS LONELY SADDO CHATTING TO HIMSELF. *Shakes His Head*

If I wozz u slap take your head stone wall!! U bloody vulcanizer.

Babylonian Siege Tower and Arrowheads
Jerusalem

In 586 B.C., the armies of Nebuchadnezzar attacked Jerusalem, burned the city and destroyed the Temple (2 Kings 25:1–17). Sick and starving survivors were deported in what became known as the Babylonian Exile. Thus ended the 400-year dynasty of King David.



The fall of Jerusalem was preceded, however, by two years of armed resistance. Archaeology provides a dramatic physical narrative of the conflict. In the 1970s, while excavating in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City, archaeologist Nahman Avigad excavated the remains of a watchtower from the late First Temple period (eighth and seventh centuries B.C.), now 45 feet below ground, that still stood to a height of more than 22 feet with walls 12 feet thick. Less than 150 feet away from the tower was a 22-foot-thick city wall, now known as the Broad Wall, that also protected the city.
This wall and watchtower helped confirm the theory that the city had expanded to the western ridge (now called Mt. Zion) during King Hezekiah’s reign (727–697 B.C.) before the city and its inhabitants were threatened by the Assyrian armies of Sennacherib. The Assyrians, however, were unable to conquer Jerusalem, protected as it was by this fortification system. Both the wall and watchtower were still standing when Nebuchadnezzar’s men laid siege to Jerusalem in the early sixth century.



Adjacent to the base of the tower, Avigad also uncovered remains of fortifications that date to the Hasmonean period 500 years later (second–first centuries B.C.). The construction of this later structure was vastly better than the earlier watchtower, with nicely squared ashlar stones in alternating header/stretcher courses compared to the crude boulders and chinking stones of the earlier tower, apparently constructed in haste. Only the corner stones of the earlier tower were shaped into square ashlars.
While the discovery of the wall system was a substantial contribution to our understanding of Jerusalem in the Israelite period, Avigad’s watchtower brought to light an even more dramatic snapshot of the forces that faced the city during the Babylonian siege. Around the base of the watchtower, a thick layer of charred wood, ashes and soot bore witness to the raging fire that accompanied the Babylonian destruction. Among the charred rubble, excavators found five arrowheads: four of iron, and one of bronze. The bronze arrowhead was of the Scytho-Iranian type used by the Babylonian army (see “The Riches of Ketef Hinnom”). The iron arrowheads were typical of those used by the Israelites. Lying in the ashes at the base of the ruined watchtower, these five small artifacts gave poignant testimony to the furious clash that preceded the fall of Jerusalem nearly 2,600 years ago.

more to come . . .

St. Peter’s House
Capernaum

For much of his adult life, Jesus resided in the small fishing village of Capernaum on the Sea of Galilee. It was here that he began his ministry in the town synagogue (Mark 1:21), recruited his first disciples (Mark 1:16–20) and became renowned for his power to heal the sick and infirm (Mark 3:1–5).




Early travelers to the site had long recognized the beautifully preserved remains of the ancient synagogue that many thought marked the site, if not the actual building, of Jesus’ earliest teachings. But an important question still remained: Where in the town had Jesus actually lived? Where was the house of Peter, where the Bible suggests Jesus stayed while in Capernaum (Matthew 8:14–16)?
As first reported in BAR more than 25 years ago, Italian excavators working in Capernaum may have actually uncovered the remnants of the humble dwelling Jesus once called home while in Capernaum.
Buried beneath the remains of a Byzantine martyrium church, excavators found the ruins of a rather mundane dwelling dating to the first century B.C. Although slightly larger than most, the house was a simple structure supported by coarse basalt fieldstone walls and roofed with nothing more than earth and straw. Like most early Roman-period houses, it consisted of a few small rooms clustered around two open courtyards. In a word, the house was ordinary. According to the excavators, however, it is what happened to the house after the middle of the first century A.D. that marked it as exceptional and most likely the home of Peter.
In the years immediately following Jesus’ death, the function of the house changed dramatically. The house’s main room was completely plastered over from floor to ceiling—a rarity for houses of the day. At about the same time, the house’s pottery, which had previously been basic domestic wares such as cooking pots and bowls, now consisted entirely of large storage jars and oil lamps. Such radical alterations indicate that the house no longer functioned as a residence but instead had become a place for communal gatherings, possibly even Christian gatherings.
More important, the excavators found that during the ensuing centuries, the plastered room from the original house had been renovated and converted into the central hall of a rudimentary church. The room’s old stone walls were buttressed by a newly built two-story-high arch that, in turn, supported a new stone roof. The room was even replastered and painted over with floral and geometric designs of various colors.
The Christian character of the building was confirmed by more than a hundred graffiti scratched into the church’s walls. Most of the inscriptions, according to the excavators, say things like “Lord Jesus Christ help thy servant” or “Christ have mercy.” They are written in Greek, Syriac or Hebrew and are sometimes accompanied by etchings of small crosses or, in one case, a boat. The excavators claim that the name of St. Peter is mentioned in several graffiti, although many scholars now dispute these readings.
This simple church survived for more than 300 years before it was finally replaced in the fifth century by a well-built octagonal martyrium church. Octagonal martyria were built to commemorate an important site, such as the original house that once stood here. The inner sanctum of the octagonal building was built directly above the remains of the very room of the first-century house that had formed the central hall of the earlier church.
Thus, even though there is no definitive proof that the original house uncovered by the excavators actually belonged to Peter, there is layer upon layer of circumstantial evidence to support its importance in earliest Christianity and association with Jesus and his foremost disciple. Were it not for its association with Jesus and Peter, why else would a run-of-the-mill first-century house in Capernaum have become a focal point of Christian worship and identity for centuries to come?

The Siloam Pool in Jesus’ Time
Jerusalem

The Siloam Pool has long been a place of sacred significance to many Christians, even if the correct identification of the site itself was uncertain. According to the Gospel of John, it was at the Siloam Pool where Jesus performed the miracle of restoring sight to the blind man (John 9:1–11). Traditionally, the site was believed to be the pool and church that were built by the Byzantine empress Eudocia (c. 400–460 A.D.) to commemorate the miracle recounted in the New Testament. However, the exact location of the pool itself as it existed during the time of Jesus remained a mystery until June 2004.



During construction work to repair a large water pipe south of Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, on the ridge known as the City of David, archaeologists Ronny Reich and Eli Shukron identified two ancient stone steps. Further excavation revealed that they were part of a monumental pool from the Second Temple period, the period in which Jesus lived. The structure Reich and Shukron discovered was 225 feet long, with corners that are slightly greater than 90 degrees, indicating a trapezoidal shape, with the widening end oriented toward Tyropoeon valley. The pool is adjacent to the area in the ancient City of David known as the King’s Garden, and is just southeast of the remains of the fifth-century church and pool originally believed to be the sacred site.



The pool is fed by waters from the Gihon Spring, located in the Kidron Valley. As with many sites in the Holy Land, the origins of the Siloam Pool reach back even further in history—at least seven centuries before the time of Jesus. Judah’s King Hezekiah (late eighth century B.C.) correctly anticipated a siege against Jerusalem by the Assyrian monarch Sennacherib. To protect the city’s water supply during the siege, Hezekiah undertook a strategic engineering project that would be an impressive feat in any age: He ordered the digging of a 1,750-foot tunnel under the City of David to bring water from the Gihon Spring, which lay outside the city wall, inside the city to a pool on the opposite side of the ridge. In the years that followed, “Hezekiah’s Tunnel” continued to carry fresh water to this section of Jerusalem, and different pools were built here over the centuries, including the Second Temple pool that Jesus knew.
What was the function of the pool during Jesus’ time? The naturally flowing spring water would have qualified the pool for use as a mikveh for ritual bathing. However, it could also have been an important source of fresh water for the inhabitants on that side of the city. One scholar has even suggested that it was a Roman-style swimming pool. Whatever its original purpose, the pool remains a place of great significance to many Christians, and its discovery represents a watershed moment in the field of Biblical archaeology.

The end. For now

Nice one krayola2 , i really enjoy articles like this as it re-inforces some of the occurences in the bible as historical facts.

chic2pimp:

LOOK@ DIS LONELY SADDO CHATTING TO HIMSELF. *Shakes His Head*

Commot from our classroom jo. Olodo.

Krayola2:

If I wozz u slap take your head stone wall!! U bloody vulcanizer.

Gerraway jor useless mutete . Have you finished your shift for the nite? Agbero cleaner.

Pastor AIO:

Commot from our classroom jo. Olodo.

What is dis devil's Incarnate doing on his forumn?

Hmmm!A pity archaeology cannot validate bible claims that Jesus walked on water,or the mass exodus of the jews from Egypt and their 40 years sojourning in the desert and the location of the fabled garden of eden.The location of the tower of Babel will also be most welcomed.
The biblical mythical stories cannot be ruled out as totally fictitious,though.Myths are known to be time capsules,meaning that they contain some truths,even though the way they are being presented are contorted,overdramatized and exagerated to the very extreme.

@ Chic2 love-vendor - We happen to be a serious minded lot who know each other and post with each other in mind. If History and Archaelogy do not interest you, please just let us be ok?

@ Krayola - this is truly tremendous stuff. There are many many archaelogical finds that validate bible traditions and accounts. The Bible is definitely a largely credible book. However as Krayola stated, there are also bits that will never be verified and probably belong in the realm of faith.

Since he mentioned the Garden of Eden, i would merely like to introduce my personal perspective on that: that garden was not an earthly one, and the events described therein not earthly events. What do you think?

Deep Sight:

@ Chic2 love-vendor - We happen to be a serious minded lot who know each other and post with each other in mind. If History and Archaelogy do not interest you, please just let us be ok?

@ Krayola - this is truly tremendous stuff. There are many many archaelogical finds that validate bible traditions and accounts. The Bible is definitely a largely credible book. However as Krayola stated, there are also bits that will never be verified and probably belong in the realm of faith.
Since he mentioned the Garden of Eden, i would merely like to introduce my personal perspective on that: that garden was not an earthly one, and the events described therein not earthly events. What do you think?

The garden was definitely an earthly one the location of the bible was actually given in the bible by describing it as the area were earthly rivers draw their source and three of those rivers are still in existence today.
Genesis 2:8-14:

8And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed.

9And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

10And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads.

11The name of the[b] first is Pison[/b]: that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold;

12And the gold of that land is good: there is bdellium and the onyx stone.

13And the name of the second river is Gihon: the same is it that compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia.

14And the name of the[b] third river is Hiddekel[/b]: that is it which goeth toward the east of Assyria. And the fourth river is Euphrates.

Let's not be spiritually myopic. All things physical are a reflection of a pre-existing spiritual reality. So the fact that Rivers are mentioned is no evidence that the garden was on earth.

After all, the bible speaks of a heavenly Jerusalem. That does not mean it refers to the capital of Israel in the middle-east.

Deep Sight:

Let's not be spiritually myopic. All things physical are a reflection of a pre-existing spiritual reality. So the fact that Rivers are mentioned is no evidence that the garden was on earth.

After all, the bible speaks of a heavenly Jerusalem. That does not mean it refers to the capital of Israel in the middle-east.

Since you have decided to be spiritually expressive could you explain or give any reasons why you think the garden of eden was not on this planet? The issue of heavenly jerusalem was expressive enough and i don't think it is an adequate analogy to use in this example of "heavenly eden"

Deep Sight:

@ Chic2 love-vendor - We happen to be a serious minded lot who know each other and post with each other in mind. If History and Archaelogy do not interest you, please just let us be ok?

@ Krayola - this is truly tremendous stuff. There are many many archaelogical finds that validate bible traditions and accounts. The Bible is definitely a largely credible book. However as Krayola stated, there are also bits that will never be verified and probably belong in the realm of faith.

Since he mentioned the Garden of Eden, i would merely like to introduce my personal perspective on that: that garden was not an earthly one, and the events described therein not earthly events. What do you think?

Shuush ya mouth douche bag.

chic2pimp:

Shuush ya mouth douche bag.

Davidylan Just lied that archaelogist searched extensively through the pages of the new testament to find king Herod's tomb . . . You can never get enough of these deluded goons. . .

So just clarify for us, Mazaje - is it your position that EVERYTHING in the Bible is a lie?

Or that there are absolutely NO historical truths contained in it?

Deep Sight:

So just clarify for us, Mazaje - is it your position that EVERYTHING in the Bible is a lie?

Or that there are absolutely NO historical truths contained in it?

No not at all. . .I have always maintained that the bible is the biased historical accounts of the jews. . .Just like our african historical accounts or any other historical accounts of other tribes and religions like the greeks, chinese, indians etc. . . Some of what is recorded in the bible is true and historical. . .some of what is recorded is pure myth, fiction and fantasy. . . that have no basis in reality. . . Our african cultures are really no different from the jewish culture in some sense because the Igbo's for example have their own biased history which has been passed from one generation to another like the jewish history. . The igbo history also contains actual historical truths but it is also mixed with mythology, fiction and fantasies. . Just like that of the Jews. . . .

Fair enough

Deep Sight:

St. Peter’s House
Capernaum
For much of his adult life, Jesus resided in the small fishing village of Capernaum on the Sea of Galilee. It was here that he began his ministry in the town synagogue (Mark 1:21), recruited his first disciples (Mark 1:16–20) and became renowned for his power to heal the sick and infirm (Mark 3:1–5).

Early travelers to the site had long recognized the beautifully preserved remains of the ancient synagogue that many thought marked the site, if not the actual building, of Jesus’ earliest teachings. But an important question still remained: Where in the town had Jesus actually lived? Where was the house of Peter, where the Bible suggests Jesus stayed while in Capernaum (Matthew 8:14–16)?
As first reported in BAR more than 25 years ago, Italian excavators working in Capernaum may have actually uncovered the remnants of the humble dwelling Jesus once called home while in Capernaum.
Buried beneath the remains of a Byzantine martyrium church, excavators found the ruins of a rather mundane dwelling dating to the first century B.C. Although slightly larger than most, the house was a simple structure supported by coarse basalt fieldstone walls and roofed with nothing more than earth and straw. Like most early Roman-period houses, it consisted of a few small rooms clustered around two open courtyards. In a word, the house was ordinary. According to the excavators, however, it is what happened to the house after the middle of the first century A.D. that marked it as exceptional and most likely the home of Peter.
In the years immediately following Jesus’ death, the function of the house changed dramatically. The house’s main room was completely plastered over from floor to ceiling—a rarity for houses of the day. At about the same time, the house’s pottery, which had previously been basic domestic wares such as cooking pots and bowls, now consisted entirely of large storage jars and oil lamps. Such radical alterations indicate that the house no longer functioned as a residence but instead had become a place for communal gatherings, possibly even Christian gatherings.
More important, the excavators found that during the ensuing centuries, the plastered room from the original house had been renovated and converted into the central hall of a rudimentary church. The room’s old stone walls were buttressed by a newly built two-story-high arch that, in turn, supported a new stone roof. The room was even replastered and painted over with floral and geometric designs of various colors.
The Christian character of the building was confirmed by more than a hundred graffiti scratched into the church’s walls. Most of the inscriptions, according to the excavators, say things like “Lord Jesus Christ help thy servant” or “Christ have mercy.” They are written in Greek, Syriac or Hebrew and are sometimes accompanied by etchings of small crosses or, in one case, a boat. The excavators claim that the name of St. Peter is mentioned in several graffiti, although many scholars now dispute these readings.
This simple church survived for more than 300 years before it was finally replaced in the fifth century by a well-built octagonal martyrium church. Octagonal martyria were built to commemorate an important site, such as the original house that once stood here. The inner sanctum of the octagonal building was built directly above the remains of the very room of the first-century house that had formed the central hall of the earlier church.
Thus, even though there is no definitive proof that the original house uncovered by the excavators actually belonged to Peter, there is layer upon layer of circumstantial evidence to support its importance in earliest Christianity and association with Jesus and his foremost disciple. Were it not for its association with Jesus and Peter, why else would a run-of-the-mill first-century house in Capernaum have become a focal point of Christian worship and identity for centuries to come?

The Siloam Pool in Jesus’ Time
Jerusalem
The Siloam Pool has long been a place of sacred significance to many Christians, even if the correct identification of the site itself was uncertain. According to the Gospel of John, it was at the Siloam Pool where Jesus performed the miracle of restoring sight to the blind man (John 9:1–11). Traditionally, the site was believed to be the pool and church that were built by the Byzantine empress Eudocia (c. 400–460 A.D.) to commemorate the miracle recounted in the New Testament. However, the exact location of the pool itself as it existed during the time of Jesus remained a mystery until June 2004.



During construction work to repair a large water pipe south of Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, on the ridge known as the City of David, archaeologists Ronny Reich and Eli Shukron identified two ancient stone steps. Further excavation revealed that they were part of a monumental pool from the Second Temple period, the period in which Jesus lived. The structure Reich and Shukron discovered was 225 feet long, with corners that are slightly greater than 90 degrees, indicating a trapezoidal shape, with the widening end oriented toward Tyropoeon valley. The pool is adjacent to the area in the ancient City of David known as the King’s Garden, and is just southeast of the remains of the fifth-century church and pool originally believed to be the sacred site.
(artists recreation)



The pool is fed by waters from the Gihon Spring, located in the Kidron Valley. As with many sites in the Holy Land, the origins of the Siloam Pool reach back even further in history—at least seven centuries before the time of Jesus. Judah’s King Hezekiah (late eighth century B.C.) correctly anticipated a siege against Jerusalem by the Assyrian monarch Sennacherib. To protect the city’s water supply during the siege, Hezekiah undertook a strategic engineering project that would be an impressive feat in any age: He ordered the digging of a 1,750-foot tunnel under the City of David to bring water from the Gihon Spring, which lay outside the city wall, inside the city to a pool on the opposite side of the ridge. In the years that followed, “Hezekiah’s Tunnel” continued to carry fresh water to this section of Jerusalem, and different pools were built here over the centuries, including the Second Temple pool that Jesus knew.
What was the function of the pool during Jesus’ time? The naturally flowing spring water would have qualified the pool for use as a mikveh for ritual bathing. However, it could also have been an important source of fresh water for the inhabitants on that side of the city. One scholar has even suggested that it was a Roman-style swimming pool. Whatever its original purpose, the pool remains a place of great significance to many Christians, and its discovery represents a watershed moment in the field of Biblical archaeology.

Mona Lisa of the Galilee
Sepphoris
In 363 A.D., an earthquake destroyed the Roman city of Sepphoris. Although the disaster was catastrophic for the Galilee city’s inhabitants, it proved crucial to the preservation of a mosaic floor in one of the city’s villas.
More than 16 centuries later, beneath the debris and collapsed buildings of the earthquake’s destruction, in the villa’s triclinium (dining room) archaeologists uncovered a white mosaic floor measuring 23 by 40 feet, at one end of which was a stunning 20-by-20 mosaic carpet of colorful tesserae in an excellent state of preservation.



The mosaic, which dates to the early third century A.D., is a fine example of Hellenistic art. The panels depict scenes from the life of Dionysus (the Greek god of wine) labeled with Greek inscriptions, surrounded by an elaborate border of hunting scenes and acanthus vines, and flanked on two sides by processional scenes. The crowning jewel of this mosaic, however, is the elegant portrait of an unnamed woman (or goddess) at the center of one end. The enchanting tilt of her head and near-smile earned her the nickname “Mona Lisa of the Galilee.” Although she had a counterpart in antiquity at the other end of the mosaic, that portion was unfortunately destroyed in the earthquake.
The high level of artistic skill in the mosaic is apparent. The artist used tiny tesserae (less than 0.2 in. square) in a wide range of natural stone colors. The bright whites of the subject’s earrings and the trim of her garment, as well as the gentle shading of her blush and the wreath that sits in her wavy hair, all demonstrate an exquisite attention to detail.
Perhaps as mysterious as the Mona Lisa is the character of the city in which she was found. The proximity of Sepphoris to Nazareth (hardly 4 mi. away) has focused scholarly attention on the influences from Sepphoris that surrounded Jesus as he grew up.
Some scholars have argued that Sepphoris in the first century was essentially a typical Roman city where Jesus was exposed to various Western ideas and philosophies. These scholars have suggested, for example, that Jesus’ repeated use of the word “hypocrites” (which comes from the Greek word for “actor”) reflects his familiarity with the grand theater at Sepphoris, which he and his father Joseph may even have helped build!
To be sure, first-century Sepphoris was a bustling urban center with highly developed infrastructure and some undoubtedly Hellenistic influences, but archaeology also paints a decidedly more Jewish picture of the city.
The dating of the theater’s construction is actually a subject of debate. Some archaeologists prefer a late-first-century or early-second-century date—after the time of Jesus. And further excavation shows that Sepphoris lacked many of the features of a traditional Roman city, such as a gymnasium, hippodrome, amphitheater, nymphaeum, shrines or statues. Moreover, archaeologists have uncovered several signs of Jewish culture: negligible amounts of pig bones (suggesting that pork was not part of the diet), several fragments of stone vessels (preferred for their resistance to ritual impurity) and mikva’ot (stepped ritual baths). And unlike most coins of the Roman Empire, the coins minted at Sepphoris bear no human or animal likenesses—probably in deference to the Second Commandment’s prohibition of graven images.
After the end of the First Jewish Revolt in 70 A.D., Sepphoris, which had opted for peace and welcomed the Roman soldiers, began to change. It still remained home to many Jews and was an important center of rabbinic study (the Mishnah was codified here in the second century A.D.), but it also became progressively more Hellenized in its art, architecture and culture. It was even renamed Diocaesarea. Thus did a major Jewish city from Jesus’ youth come to be home of one of the Roman world’s greatest works of art: the Mona Lisa of the Galilee.

The Nag Hammadi Library
Upper (Southern) Egypt
Until the discovery of the Nag Hammadi Library in 1945, the Gnostic view of early Christianity had largely been forgotten. The movement’s teachings—vilified since the rise of orthodox Christianity in the fourth century—had been virtually erased from history by the early church fathers, its gospels banned and even burned to make room for the view of Christian theology outlined in the canonical gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.


But when two peasants discovered a 13-volume library of Coptic texts hidden beneath a large boulder near the town of Nag Hammadi in upper Egypt, the world was reintroduced to this long-forgotten and much-maligned branch of early Christian thought. The 13 leather-bound volumes, which dated to the mid-fourth century, contained an unprecedented collection of more than 50 texts, including some that had been composed as early as the second century. Once translated and published by a team of scholars led by Claremont Graduate University’s James M. Robinson, the documents showed that Gnosticism (from the Greek word gnosis, “knowledge”) was not the depraved cult described by orthodox Christian writers, but rather a legitimate religious movement that offered a competing testament to Jesus’ life and teachings.



The writings, which represent a range of Gnostic attitudes and beliefs and include everything from competing gospels to apocalyptic revelations, all assert the primacy of spiritual and intellectual knowledge over physical action and material well-being. The Apocryphon of John, for example, is the most important tractate of classic Sethian Gnosticism. In it the risen Jesus reveals to John, son of Zebedee, the truth of creation. According to this myth the God of the Hebrew Bible is actually a corrupted lower deity. Only through the intervention of Sophia (Wisdom) can gnosis be revealed and salvation attained. Thus, while Christian Gnostics certainly acknowledged the role of Jesus in their faith, their theology placed greater significance on the intellectual revelation of his message than on his crucifixion and resurrection.



Also among the Nag Hammadi texts was the fully preserved Gospel of Thomas, which does not follow the canonical Gospels in telling the story of Jesus’ birth, life, crucifixion and resurrection, but rather presents the reader with a very early collection of Jesus’ sayings.b Although this mystical text was originally believed to be a Gnostic text, it now seems to reveal yet another strand of early Christianity.
From a historical perspective, the Nag Hammadi texts provided a clear picture of the diverse theological and philosophical currents that found expression through early Christianity. Indeed, Gnosticism and its classically inspired philosophical ideals permeated not just early Christian thought, but also the Jewish and pagan traditions from which Christianity arose. The Nag Hammadi library, widely regarded as one of the most significant finds of the 20th century, revealed this complex religious milieu and offered an unparalleled glimpse into alternative visions of early Christianity.

I spent an hour and a half putting some posts together, made them as short as possible, and the spam bot still got them. This is getting really annoying. At least someone should let us know what triggers the spam bot so we can avoid it.  What a fukn waste of my time

Krayola,
   Don't fret brother, just send a msg to Seun or AKO or any of the moderators and they will untag the post and it will show up. My own posts disappear from time to time too.

Btw, nice topic, I have been following behind the scenes, who woulda thot you dig bible archaeology? 

There you are Jesoul! I will respond shortly to your last post on the "Bleep at the Altar thread"

Apologies Krayola for the interuption, great thread, this.