gregoryjenks

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  • Re-imagining Luke

    A sermon for the feast of St Luke at St Mary’s in Exile, South Brisbane (18 October 2015).

    Special readings chosen for the liturgy:

    First reading: Luke 1:1-4
    Psalm: Magnificat
    Second Reading: Acts 2:38-39,41-47
    Gospel: Luke 4:14-19

    The gathering prayer:

    God beyond all names,
    we have heard the story of our ancestors journey of grace,
    and we catch glimpses of that grace in our own lives.
    Grant us eyes to see clearly,
    hearts filled with compassion,
    and strong hands to work for your justice;
    in the name of Jesus. Amen.

    The blessing prayer:

    May our eyes see clearly,
    our hearts overflow with compassion,
    and our hands be strong to work for justice
    this week and all weeks.

    Introduction

    In traditional liturgical communities across the city and around the world people will be observing today as the feast of St Luke. That is not a custom that has survived in our exile from the church up the road, but today I invite you to join with me in giving attention to this special day.

    On this day one can expect to hear sermons about the legacy of Luke. We owe to his literary imagination the cycle of the Church Year.

    Some preachers and pew sheet editors will venture to tell people that Luke was a gentile medical doctor from Antioch in Syria and a companion of Saint Paul.

    Others will extol his value as the primary historian of early Christianity, while others may talk about his excellent Greek language skills. He had the best Greek of any of the people who contributed to the New Testament.

    In some places the preacher will focus on theological themes in the double volume of Luke and Acts which we attribute to this otherwise unknown author. Worshippers will hear about Luke’s interest in the Spirit, his respect for women, his concern for the poor, his preservation of major parables, and his interest in the wealthy.

    Others will reflect on the significance of Luke’s Gospel being followed by a second volume, known to us as the Acts of the Apostles.

    Again, for some people, the big news is that Luke was (supposedly) a companion of Paul and in some ways his biographer.

    We are not going to do any of those things here today.

    Reimagining Luke

    We know nothing about the person who composed the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles, except for what we can glean by close attention to these two books.

    Together they comprise almost 25% of the New Testament.

    With another 25% of the NT coming from the Pauline letters, and since “Luke” (as we call this anonymous author) was a serious fan of Paul, we can see that the Pauline faction in early Christian dominates the New Testament.

    Paul’s legacy was not always so esteemed in earliest Christianity, and his heavy imprint on the New Testament may be largely due to the work of people such as Luke.

    For most of the last 2000 years Luke has been seen as a companion of Paul, but that is no longer a viable option. More likely, Luke comes from the generation after Paul; or even the generation after that.

    The opening paragraph of Luke’s Gospel (1:1–4) which we heard as the first reading is one of the few places where Luke speaks in his own voice. He tells us that he has a purpose in writing. He has a method. And he has sources, because he can access the earlier written works created by those who went before him.

    That pushes Luke back to a period after 100 CE, and perhaps as late as the middle decades of the second century.

    A sermon is not the time or place for a lecture on the dating of Luke’s two great literary works, but I invite you to think about the significance of Luke writing to meet the needs of the church in his own time about one hundred years after Easter.

    The diverse and still marginal Christian communities at that time faced two major challenges.

    The external challenge was the power of the Roman empire and especially the ongoing tensions between Rome and the Jews, with rebellions and uprising in the late 60s, the 80s, 115–117 and 132–135 CE. The Christians were caught between a desire to operate under the legal protection of being a Jewish sect, and the need to demonstrate to Rome that they were not a strange bunch of Jewish rebels. Having a leader who had been executed as a rebel was not really a good marketing strategy for that time and place.

    The internal challenge was a rising tide of Christian anti-Semitism, especially associated with a church leader called Marcion. Marcion proposed that Christians jettison all vestiges of their Jewish legacy. He rejected the violent and tribal God of the Old Testament, and he proposed a new Bible that comprised simply The Gospel (traditions about Jesus) and The Apostle (the letters of Paul).

    Marion’s ugly ideas found a ready hearing in a context where it was good politics to demonstrate loyalty to the Empire by denouncing Jews. Had his ideas won the day, Christianity would have been even more anti-Semitic than it would soon become, as it often has been, and in some expressions remains to this day.

    Luke and Marcion were both fans of Paul.

    They probably both misunderstood and misrepresented Paul.

    But Luke rescued Paul from Marcion and promoted a vision of Christianity that valued its Jewish past while claiming a place in the social order of the Roman empire.

    Luke valued the past, understood the present, and forged a path into the future.

    His legacy has shaped Christianity for much of the last 2000 years.

    Luke’s legacy

    I want to suggest that Luke’s offers an attractive template for us a community in transition.

    To unpack that idea I need to divert to Matthew ever so briefly. Bear with me.

    In Matthew 13:52 we find this short but powerful parable:

    “… every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.” (NRSV)

    While Luke did not know, or at least did not preserve, this parable of the scholar prepared for God’s kingdom, he certainly seems to fit the description very well.

    Luke was a scribe trained for the kingdom of heaven.

    Luke delved into his sources to find just what was needed for his own time.

    Luke valued the past but critiqued the traditions. He thought he could present a more accurate account than any of those who had gone before him; including, I suggest, Matthew, Mark and John.

    Luke was not afraid of creating new traditions, and refashioning older traditions, to serve his purposes and to meet the needs of the church in his time.

    Luke invites us to assess the traditions we have inherited and start all over afresh.

    Luke does not ask us to discard everything from the past, but he does invite us to catch a fresh glimpse of the God who feeds the hungry and overthrows the powerful.

    Luke was convinced that God is at work in the world for good, and he invites us to see where God is at work now and join that that project ourselves.

    For all these reasons we can celebrate Luke today. Amen.

  • Personal reflections on safety by a frequent visitor to Israel

    It is natural — and very understandable — that people would have some concerns about travel to the Middle East, including Israel, at this time.

    As a general comment, I remind people that Israel is actually a very safe destination for travel. While not entirely reassuring, I often observe that the most dangerous thing about being in Israel is driving on the highways. Then I assure them that our bus drivers are very good, and accidents involving tourist buses are rare.

    Short of an outbreak of full-scale war with a mass attack on Israel by its Arab neighbours, there is almost no risk of a Western tourist falling victim to military action or terrorist activity. Since most Arab neighbours are working in coalition with the Western powers to contain the threat posed by ISIS, there is a very low risk of an Arab attack on Israel at this time. Following the recent conflict in Gaza, it is unlikely that Hamas will initiative any military action against Israel for a couple of years.

    There are safety issues around certain locations that are the focus for internal tensions between Jews and Arabs in Israel and on the West Bank. The most notable of these is Gaza, and no responsible tour leader would take a group to such locations. We monitor the local situation on a daily basis and adjust our itinerary if we discern a need to avoid places that we had otherwise planned to visit. For example, I routinely avoid having people in the Old City on Fridays as that is the day for Muslim prayers at the Haram as-Sharif and there is a higher potential for demonstrations and riots. These pose no serious risk to tourists, but I prefer to be somewhere else on Fridays!

    The venues where we stay all have arrangements for security and personal safety, including air raid shelters.

    Despite all these precautions, it is impossible to guarantee that military activity will not erupt or that personal violence against an individual will not occur.

    On the other hand, millions of people go to Israel every year, and it is exceptionally rare for any visitor to be caught up in civil unrest or military activity.

    The program for the  Bethsaida archaeology project is mostly based in the north of Israel, and this is an area with very low risk factors.

    As a program under the auspices of Charles Sturt University a comprehensive risk management plan is prepared prior to each year’s trip, and the University has formal arrangements with international travel insurance providers to ensure emergency support is available for individuals or groups that require assistance. If local tensions rise, as happened during the 2014 tour program, the tour leader is in daily contact with CSU by email or phone to monitor the situation and confirm that appropriate steps are being taken to ensure everyone’s safety.

    Each participant needs to form their own assessment of the dangers involved in the travel and their own tolerance of the risks. Anyone who is deeply concerned about the level of risk is perhaps better advised to make other travel plans, even though they would almost certainly have a trip that is both safe and deeply rewarding.

  • Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost (21 September 2014)

    Contents

    Lectionary

    • Exodus 16:2-15 & Psalm 105:1-6, 37-45 [Jonah 3:10-4:11 & Psalm 145:1-8]
    • Philippians 1:21-30
    • Matthew 20:1-16

    Gospel: Pay them all the same!

    The parable of the laborers in the vineyard is known only from Matthew. That single attestation would tend to count against the historical value of this story, but the nature of the story is such that most critics accept it as authentic.
    Samuel T. Lachs [Rabbinic Commentary on the New Testament] offers some partial rabbinic parallels to this parable:

    There are three passages in rabbinic sources which are of note here; but not one combines both the form and the message of this parable. First, one could point to the well-known statement “Some obtain and enter the Kingdom in an hour, while others reach it only after a lifetime.” The idea here is parallel to that of the parable but not its form.

    When R. Bun bar R. Hiyya died, R. Ze’ira came in and delivered a eulogy over him: “Sweet is the sleep of the labourer whether he has eaten little or much. It is not written here ‘sleep,’ but whether he has eaten little or much. To what can R. Bun bar R. Hiyya be compared? To a king who hired many laborers and there was one who was more skilled in his work, more [than others]. What did the king do? He walked up and down with him. At evening the laborers came to get their wages and he gave him the same wages as he gave to them. Whereupon they murmured and said, “We labored the whole day long and this one worked but two hours and he gave him the same as he gave us.’ The king said to them, ‘This one did in two hours more than you did in the entire day.’ Similarly, R. Bun labored in the study of Torah for twenty-eight years and learned what a diligent scholar could learn in a hundred years.” [TJ Ber 2.8, 5c]

    … to what can this be compared? To a king who hired two laborers, one of them worked a whole day and received a dinar, and one worked one hour and received a dinar. Which one was more beloved to him [the king]? The one who worked one hour and received a dinar. Similarly, Moses our teacher served Israel for one hundred and twenty years, and Samuel served for fifty-two years, and the two of them were equal before the Omnipresent, as it is said, Then the Lord said to me, “Though Moses and Samuel stood before Me …” [Jer. 15.1], and likewise it is written, Moses and Aaron were among His priests, Samuel also was among those who called upon His name [Ps. 99.6], and similar to these verses it is said, sweet is the sleep of the laborer whether he has eaten little or much [Koh. 5.11]. [M. Semahot, ed. Higger, chap. 3, pp. 222-221]

    The parable was voted red by the Jesus Seminar, with the commentary in The Five Gospels as follows:

    This parable exaggerates the actions of the vineyard owner: he goes into the marketplace repeatedly to hire workers for the harvest. He begins at daybreak and continues the process until the eleventh hour of a twelve-hour day. The repetition of the owner’s activity and the play on words and themes are evidence of oral transmission.
    When the time to pay the laborers comes, those hired at the end of the day are paid a full day’s wage (v. 9). Those hired at the outset of the day now expect to be paid something more than they had bargained for (v. 10). But they are paid the same wage, which, in the context of the story, is surprising (the story evokes responses and expectations that run counter to daily routine and to the policy of hardened employers). The conclusion of the parable is upsetting and disturbing for those who worked under the boiling sun the whole day; but it was also surprising for those who were paid a full day’s wage for only a few minutes of labor. The behavior of the vineyard owner cuts against the social grain.
    In this parable, both groups of participants get what they did not expect: the first get less than they expected, in spite of their agreement with the owner (v. 2); the last get more than they expected, since as idlers they could not have expected much. This reversal of expectations comports with Jesus’ proclivity to reverse the expectations of the poor: “God’s domain belongs to you” (Luke 6:20) and the rich: “It’s easier for a camel to squeeze through a needle’s eye than for a wealthy person to get into God’s domain” (Mark 10:25 // Matt 19:24 // Luke 18:25). As a consequence, the Fellows awarded this parable a red designation, although it is attested only by Matthew. (p. 225)

    Gerd Lüdemann [Jesus] puts aside his usual historical skepticism and affirms the historicity of this parable:

    This piece, which has been handed down only by the First Evangelist, is stamped with Matthean language … But we can rule out the possibility that the whole pericope is a Matthean construction, since v. 16 has been put here by Matthew taking up 19.30, and picks up only one detail of the pericope: the order of payment in v, 8b. Here Matthew understands the parable wrongly, since it in fact stresses the equality of the recompense and the reason for it (v. 15). (p. 212)

    The parable inculcates one notion. God is gracious without discrimination to all who are active in his vineyard, Israel. It is free from ideas which could have come from the community, and also corresponds to Jesus’ message that God seeks the lost (cf. Luke 15.11-32; 18.9-14). The parable certainly goes back to Jesus. (p. 213)

    B. Brandon Scott [Reimagine the World] comments on the social significance of the parable:

    In the Vineyard Laborers, the first hired complain that by paying the last hired the same amount they have received, the master has made them equal. Their essential complaint is that the master has destroyed the order of the world. The entire Roman empire was organized as a patron-client system. The ultimate patron was the emperor, and power worked its way downward, with his clients in turn becoming patrons for yet other clients. And their fleas have fleas, too. Such a system ensures a hierarchically arranged social order in which no one is equal and every social engagement is a contest to determine one’s place in the hierarchy. (p. 132)

    David Flusser [Jesus] observes:

    The paradox of Jesus’ break with the customary old morality was marvelously expressed in the parable of the workers in the vineyard (Matt. 20:1-16). … Here as elsewhere the principle of reward is accepted by Jesus, but all the norms of the usual concepts of God’s righteousness are abrogated. One might think that this comes about because God, in His all-embracing love and mercy, makes no distinctions between men. With Jesus, however, the transvaluation of all values is not idyllic. Even misfortune does not distinguish between the sinner and the just man. … Jesus’ concept of the righteousness of God, therefore, is incommensurable with reason. Man cannot measure it, but he can grasp it. It leads to the preaching of the kingdom in which the last will be first, and the first last. It leads also from the Sermon on the Mount to Golgotha where the just man dies a criminal’s death. It is at once profoundly moral, and yet beyond good and evil. In this paradoxical scheme, all the “important,” customary virtues, and the well-knit personality, worldly dignity, and the proud insistence upon the formal fulfillment of the law, are fragmentary and empty. Socrates questioned the intellectual side of man. Jesus questioned the moral. Both were executed. Can this be mere chance? (p. 101f)

    Jeremias Jeremias [The Parables of Jesus, 34-38]offers this insightful interpretation of the parable:

    [Matthew] has inserted into a Marcan context the parable about the ‘first’ (Matt. 20.8,10) and the ‘last’ (Matt. 20.8,12,14), in order to illustrate the saying in Mark 10.31 (par. Matt. 19.30), “But many that are first will be last, and the last first,” with which Mark ends the previous address to Peter. … for Matthew our parable represented the reversal of rank which would take place on the last day. He will have drawn this conclusion from the instruction given to the steward, v. 8b:

    “Call the laborers and pay them their wages,
    beginning with the last, up to the first.”

    … But [the order of payment] is clearly an unimportant detail in the course of the parable. There can be no great significance in the order of payment; a couple of minutes earlier or later can hardly be said to assign precedence to anyone or deprive him of it. In fact, no complaint is made later on about the order of payment which, taken in context, should merely emphasize the equality of the last with the first. Perhaps it is simply intended to indicate how ‘the first were made to witness the payment of their companions.’ But it may be simpler to take arxamenos apo to mean, as it often does, ‘not omitting,’ ‘including,’ so that v. 8 was not originally concerned with the order of payment at all, but meant, rather — ‘Pay them all their wages, including the last.’ In any case the parable certainly conveys no lesson about the reversal of rank at the end of time since all receive exactly the same wage.

    … each hearer must have been compelled to ask himself the question, ‘Why does the master of the house give the unusual order that all are to receive the same pay? Why especially does he allow the last to receive a full day’s pay for only an hour’s work? Is this a piece of purely arbitrary injustice? a caprice? a generous whim?’ Far from it! There is no question here of a limitless generosity, since all receive only an amount sufficient to sustain life, a bare subsistence wage. No one receives more. Even if, in the case of the last laborers to be hired, it is their own fault that, in a time when the vineyard needs workers, they sit about in the marketplace gossiping till late afternoon; even if their excuse that no one has hired them (v. 7) is an idle evasion … yet they touch the master’s heart. He sees that they will have practically nothing to take home; the pay for an hour’s work will not keep a family; their children will go hungry if the father comes home empty-handed. It is because of his pity for their poverty that the owner allows them to be paid a full day’s wages. In this case the parable does not depict an arbitrary action, but the behaviour of a large-hearted man who is compassionate and full of sympathy for the poor. This, says Jesus, is how God deals with men. This is what God is like, merciful. Even to tax-farmers and sinners he grants an unmerited place in his Kingdom, such is the measure of his goodness. The whole emphasis lies on the final words: oti ego agathos eimi [because I am good] (v. 15)!

    Why did Jesus tell the parable? Was it his object to extol God’s mercy to the poor? If that were so he might have omitted the second part of the parable (vv. 11ff). But it is precisely upon the second part that the main stress lies, for our parable is one of the double-edged parables. It describes two episodes: (1) the hiring of the laborers and the liberal instructions about their payment (vv. 1-8), (2) the indignation of the injured recipients (vv. 9-15). Now, in all the double-edged parables the emphasis falls on the second point. What, then, is the purpose of the second part, the episode in which the other laborers are indignant, rebel, and protest, and receive the humiliating reply: ‘Are you jealous because I am good?’ The parable is clearly addressed to those who resembled the murmurers, those who criticized and opposed the good news, Pharisees for example. Jesus was minded to show them how unjustified, hateful, loveless and unmerciful was their criticism. Such, he said, is God’s goodness, and since God is so good, so too am I. He vindicates the gospel against its critics. Here, clearly, we have recovered the original historical setting. We are suddenly transported into a concrete situation in the life of Jesus such as the Gospels frequently depict. Over and over again we hear the charge brought against Jesus that he is a companion of the despised and the outcast, and are told of men to whom the gospel is an offence. Repeatedly is Jesus compelled to justify his conduct and to vindicate the good news. So too here he is saying, This is what God is like, so good, so full of compassion for the poor, how dare you revile him?

    Jesus Database

    • 031 First and Last – (1) GThom. 4:2 & P. Oxy. 654.4:2; (2) 2Q: Luke 13:30 = Matt 20:16;(3) Mark 10:31 = Matt 19:30; (4) Barn 6:13a [this last attestation is not included in Crossan’s version of this inventory]

    Liturgies and Prayers

    For liturgies and sermons each week, shaped by a progressive theology, check Rex Hunt’s web site

    Other recommended sites include:

    Music Suggestions

    See the following sites for recommendations from a variety of contemporary genre:

  • Palestine of Jesus 2014 – Day Fifteen

    Today we completed our Palestine of Jesus course at St George’s College in Jerusalem. It has been a fascinating two week experience as we combined several smaller sets of participants from Australia and the USA into a new short term  learning community. We have shared so much, learned so much, and come to love one another so much that the series of goodbyes that will begin later tonight will be very sad.

    140709 Abu Ghosh Chalice

     

    We began the day with an early morning walk to the Old City, entering through the Herod Gate at the bottom of Salah al-Din Street and joining the Via Dolorosa at the Church of the Condemnation.

    140709 Via Dolorosa SGC

     

    Participants took turns to carry the cross at the head of our prayerful procession, and to read selected Scriptures at the various stations.

    140709 Via Dolorosa Station 7

     

    We returned to College for breakfast and then headed out to Abu Ghosh, one of the traditional locations for Emmaus (Luke 24). Our destination was the French Catholic Convent of the Ark of the Covenant, whose large figure of Mary towers over the Muslim village of Abu Ghosh. As we approached this morning, I wondered about the lack of sensitivity that the architects of this structure demonstrated towards the faith of the local residents.

    140709 Abu Ghosh

     

    After spending an hour in small group discussion, as we reflected on the Emmaus story and its significance for us as we prepare to leave Jerusalem and return home, we shared in a Eucharist with the modern city of Jerusalem serving as the backdrop for our outdoor altar.

    140709 Abu Ghosh Eucharist

     

    The afternoon was left free, so that people could make last minute purchases and begin the process of packing for our departures during the next 24 hours. Meanwhile, the exchange of missiles and rockets continued, with reports of Hamas rockets striking Haifa in the north and of extensive destruction in Gaza as the air attacks by Israel continue. As all this is happening, life in Jerusalem continues almost without missing a beat, a sad testimony to the routine nature of the conflict.

  • Palestine of Jesus 2014 – Day Fourteen

    Today the focus of the Palestine of Jesus course has been on the events of Holy Week, as we visited several sites associated with Gospel traditions from the final days of Jesus. As I write this blog the events from this morning seem a long time ago, as we are currently experiencing an upsurge in the violence between Israel and Hamas, with air raid sirens sounding across several Israeli towns—including Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.

    Meanwhile, back on the schedule …

    We began the day with a visit to the Mosque that celebrates the Ascension of Jesus. This mosque is on the site of an earlier Byzantine Church, and some of the original columns of the open structure (which had no roof) can still be seen:

    140708 Mosque of the Ascension Mt Olives

     

    From the Chapel of the Ascension we continued our exploration of holy sites on Mt Olives by going to the Church of the Pater Noster (that celebrates Jesus as a prophetic teacher, in this case the Lord’s Prayer) and the Palm Sunday Church at Bethpage:

    140708 Pater Noster Church Mt Olives
    140708 Bethpage Church Mt Olives

     

    We then walked down the slope of Mt Olives towards the Kidron valley and the Old City:

    140708 Walking down Mt Olives

     

    We spent some time at the iconic Dominus Flevit church with its wonderful views across to the Dome of the Rock:

    140708 Jerusalem from Dominus Flevit

     

    Finally we went down to the Church of All Nations in Gethsemane that commemorates the agony of Jesus and his arrest:

    140708 Church of All nations Gethsemane

     

    In the afternoon we visited the traditional site of the Last Supper and Pentecost. This is one of the most hotly contested sites in this city, as a Jewish nationalist organisation has occupied the lower level with its ‘Tomb of David’ and is destroying the material evidence of many centuries of Islamic presence in the building. For our part, the Cenaculum is a large 14C Gothic structure, that has been venerated for centuries but has little claim to authenticity—not least because the events commemorated are themselves most likely fictional. Clearly, such questions do not deter the crowds.

    140708 Cenaculum

     

    I especially like this detail of a mother pelican feeding her young with her own flesh and blood—a nice Eucharistic touch.

    140708 Cenaculum Pelican

     

    After leaving the Mt Zion area we walked a short distance down the hill to the modern church of St Peter in Gallicantu that commemorates the trial of Jesus and his denial by Peter (‘before the cock crowed’). This is another impressive modern Catholic church, built on the remains of an earlier Byzantine or Crusader church, and offers some unusual angles on the Old City and the nearby Palestinian neighbourhoods.

    140708 St Peter Gallicantu

    140708 Old City from St Peter Gallicantu

     

    On the way back to the College I stopped  by my friend Ibrahim’s store in Nablus Road, and we went through some of his coins that were for sale. To my single coin from Year Two of the Jewish Revolt (ca 67/68 CE), purchased yesterday, I have now added these three coins:

    140708 3 Coins Obverse

     

    As the day drew to a close we learned that Israel had called up 40,000 army reserves to supplement its significant standing army in preparation for an invasion of Gaza. IDF planes have been bombing Gaza throughout the day, while rockets continued to be fired from Gaza into southern Israel. By early evening the government had ordered public bomb shelters to be opened, and we were soon given our first taste of an air raid siren. We assume the night will mostly pass without significant incidents, and look forward to our final day of the course tomorrow.

     

     

  • Palestine of Jesus 2014 – Day Thirteen

    This morning the participants in our Palestine of Jesus course had an extended opportunity to soak up the special places along the NW shore of the Sea of Galilee. We had a late checkout from our rooms at the Pilgerhaus, and people were able to visit the nearby Benedictine monastery or walk along the shore to Capernaum. Apart from the ubiquitous gum trees, this is about as close to ‘walking in the footsteps of Jesus’ as anyone could hope to experience.

    After a light lunch at Tabgha, the course went to Mt Tabor for an extended visit to reflect on the Transfiguration traditions. They then returned to Jerusalem by bus, arriving around 5.30pm.

    While this was happening, I left early so that I could pick up Clare from Ginosar and drop her to some friends at Tel Aviv University for a few days, before returning my rental car to the Avis service centre in King David Street. On the way we detoured via Ramat Hasharon, so that we could enjoy a coffee with Hanan Shafir, the dig photographer at Bethsaida.

    As I walked back to the College via the Mamilla Center and the Old City, everything seemed pretty calm and there were no unusual security measures. On the way I treated myself to an ancient coin, using some funds given to me for that purpose by Clare and Lizzie at Christmas time. My wee treasure is a prutah (small bronze coin) issued by the rebel Jewish government in the second year of the Great War with Rome (66/73 CE).

    IMG_8071

     

    Since then the security situation seems to have deteriorated somewhat. There are reports of rockets fired from Gaza towards towns in central Israel, and there are helicopters circling over the Old City and the Arab neighbourhoods. It is yet to be seen if this is simply a precautionary measure, or whether we are going to see a repeat of the civil unrest experienced in Arab towns throughout Israel since the murder of a 16 year old Arab by Jewish nationalists last week.