Today was a gentle way to begin the middle session of the 2014 season.
Rather than leave on the bus at 5.30am we were able to sleep in and take a late breakfast before taking the bus at 8.30am. The morning was spent offering the 40+ volunteers an orientation to the site as well as covering the health and safety issues. Sadly, the morning was overshadowed by a medical event that required one of our staff to be evacuated to the local hospital by ambulance. Fortunately, there are two medical doctors and one emergency room nurse among the Australian volunteers this year, so medical assistance was available within seconds of the event.
Mid-afternoon the group went by bus to Ginosar, which is the usual base of our operations and also the location of our work rooms below the Beit Alon Museum. This allowed the volunteers to see examples of finds from previous seasons, including the processes for restoration and conservation of these precious items.
Tomorrow the serious work will commence, with an early departure for the dig at 5.30am.
After a mostly—and happily—uneventful flight from various Australian cities via Dubai and Amman, the 12 people in this year’s Bethsaida team from Australia arrived safely at Hakuk Balev (also spelt Huqoq) late Saturday afternoon. We checked into our rooms, enjoyed the opportunity for a shower, and gathered for dinner at 7.00pm. It was an early night all round, with the blessing of a real bed deeply appreciated after the 18 hours or so of air travel, plus varying amounts of land travel before and after the flights.
Hakuk is located in the hills to the west of the Sea of Galilee. It is about 5km inland from the main north-south road along the western side of the lake, and about 10 minutes north of our usual location at Ginosar. It offers wonderful views of the lake, as well as Tiberias and the Horns of Hattim.
Sunday was spent touring some selected sites in the northern area of Israel. Our driver (Fahim) and guide (Ghattas Zaher ) are both Christians from Nazareth, and we soon identified many common friends with both of these gentlemen. Fahim was also the person who picked us up from the Jordan Valley Border Crossing when we came through to Israel from Jordan, and they will both be with us for our program in Nazareth next Saturday and in Haifa the following day. Ghattas is the father of Linda, who works at the Sabeel office in Nazareth, so another special connection there.
After a visit to Chorazin, we headed north to Banias where we explored the site for a couple of hours. After doing the usual visit to the Cave of Pan, we walked down Banias Stream (one of the four sources of the Jordan) to Banias Falls. The walk took about 90 minutes as detoured via the palace of Agrippa II, bought cherries and pita from the Druze man near the old flour mill, and made our way across the grassy hilltops in the far north of Israel.
After a picnic lunch at Banias Falls we headed back to the Sea of Galilee where we visited the quiet prayer gardens at Mt Beatitudes, the Church of the Primacy at Tabgha, and the beautiful Greek Orthodox Church at Capernaum. Sadly, the Benedictine monastery at Tabhga was closed so we did not get to see the Byzantine mosaic of the loaves and fishes. We also missed the Franciscan area at Capernaum as we arrived just a few minutes after their shiny new gate was locked for the day. We shall go back there on our way to Haifa next Sunday.
By the end of dinner all of the volunteers for this middle session of the 2014 season at Bethsaida had arrived, so our new community is beginning to take place. It was another fairly early night for people, but already we are beginning to feel very much at home in the quiet setting of Hakuk and in this beautiful corner of a very special place.
A few photos relating to each day’s program, including today, will be posted on my Facebook page.
This has been the second last week of my period of study leave. It has been a time for drawing together some of the loose ends, and a time when the mind naturally begins to think about what lies just ahead when life returns to its ‘normal’ setting in a few weeks’ time.
Sunday and Monday were spent at the coin department of Israel Antiquities Authority, as we worked through the last 50 or so coins concerning which there were unresolved questions. After carefully reviewing the annotations (in handwritten Hebrew) on the index cards during the previous few days, I was well prepared for the visit and we made great progress. There remains a lot of work to update the records, fill gaps, find missing information in the field records, etc. However, the critical elements—and those parts best done while in the country and with access to the physical coins—have been finished.
Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday were spent on the dig at Bethsaida, as we opened up a new square in Area T. Work in this area had begin only in 2012. We are seeking to find evidence for the presence of non-elite population at the site. After going down just 40cm across the 5m x 5m square, we have already found a packed earth floor from the Mamluk period (ca 1300–1500 CE) and some domestic walls. We have lots of pottery shards and the occasional items in glass and iron. By the time we finish the season at the end of June we may well have found material from the Early Roman period as well.
Friday has been spent at the house, leaving Area T in the hands of my colleagues while I attended to some key writing tasks as well as the growing pile of unanswered emails. My paper for the Biblical Characters in the Three Traditions seminar at the International SBL meeting in St Andrew’s, Scotland next month is now finished, and so is the Keynote presentation that I will use on the day. The current big task is to finish the Bethsaida Coin Report for the years 2001 to 2012, and then find a way to turn it into a presentation for the Bethsaida Seminar at St Andrew’s as well as a vaguely interesting chapter for a colleague’s Festschrift.
I have also begun to pile up (and weigh) the books and other papers that have accumulated during my study leave. They will need to be posted back to Australia in the next week or so, as that extra 10 kg just cannot be added to my checked luggage!
It is now just one more week before the Australian volunteers will arrive to join us for the dig, and then stay for a special one-week course at St George’s College in Jerusalem. Once that happens I shall have moved from sabbatical mode back into teaching mode. It will be good to see so many familiar faces from home here in this place that has become so special to me. At the same time, it will be hard to begin the process of saying good-bye to people here who are now such a special part of my life. Happily, I am coming back in November to serve as a speaker at the Sabeel conference in Jerusalem.
This week began with some unseasonal rain, including thunder and lightning through much of Saturday here in Tiberias. The drop in temperatures was enough to send me searching for the ancient electric radiator, much to the delight of Fifi, my canine companion. He promptly settled down in front of the heater with a satisfied expression on his face. The rain continued through Sunday, while the cold weather lasted until Monday. By Tuesday things were beginning to warm up again.
I left for Jerusalem early on Sunday morning, with hopes of attending the 9.30am Arabic service at St George’s Cathedral. However, the traffic was exceptionally bad and what should have been a 2.5 hour trip took me over 4.5 hours. It seems to have been the result of road closures on Highway 1 during a visit by the US Secretary for Defence, exacerbated by wet weather and the usual Sunday morning traffic peak. Happily the traffic was much better when I returned home on Tuesday afternoon, and I was also able to break my journey for brief visits with Yuval Hollander (Director for the Bethsaida DVD last year), and Hanan Shafir (the dig photographer).
My three days at the IAA Coin Department were very productive. By Tuesday afternoon I had completed the first draft of the detailed numismatic descriptions for most of the coins between 2012 and 2001. The remaining 45 coins need some additional work by Donald Ariel before I can prepare their descriptions. The annual coin reports for seasons up until 2000 already have such descriptions, but these had not previously been compiled for the last 12 seasons. This should make the coins much more accessible to other researchers, and in the process I have learned a great deal about the study of coins. There remains a great deal yet to learn, but working closely with the head of the IAA Coin Department has been a fantastic introduction to the field.
After returning from Jerusalem I switched back to the book project, and by Friday morning I had another chapter completed: ch 10, Easter people. This explores the relevance of the resurrection of Jesus for Christians today, and was by far the most challenging for me of the chapters done so far. Overnight Thursday I also received the contract from Polebridge Press for the book, so that has now been signed and returned!
I am hoping to get one more chapter completed before Eve arrives next Wednesday evening, as I doubt there will be much time for writing during the next three weeks!
A sunny morning in Tiberias catching up on reading
It is now three weeks since I arrived in Israel for my sabbatical, and the place is abuzz with preparations for Passover and—for the Western Christians in Jerusalem—Holy Week.
For the local Christians, Easter will be observed on the first weekend in May and outside Jerusalem all the Christian communities have agreed to observe the Orthodox calendar this year. This creates some liturgical dissonance for visitors such as myself, but I welcome the grassroots collaboration between often competing Christian communities and rejoice in the messiness of it all.
The shops have been crazy; like a pre-Christmas shopping frenzy back home. And I am told the traffic will be chaotic after the weekend as people take advantage of the holidays to visit family and friends.
During this third week of my study leave I seem to have settled into more of a pattern. I went to Jerusalem on Sunday, without needing to use the GPS (despite taking at least one wrong turn in the process). Not long after arriving at St George’s College I ran into John Stuart, an Australian serving as chaplain to SGC this year, and we made arrangements to celebrate St Patrick’s Day at a nearby Irish Pub in West Jerusalem. O’Connells did not offer Irish Stew (despite it being on the menu), so we settled for “Australian Burgers” and Guinness. It was lovely couple of hours, and we found that we have so much in common. Finding such interesting people in unexpected places is one of the joys of travel.
Monday and Tuesday were spent in the coin department at Israel Antiquities Authority beneath the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. Some real progress has been made with the coin database project, although at times it seems that really just means I am getting a clearer sense of the mess I am seeking to clean up.
The other major project on my agenda is beginning to call for my attention. Before my study leave is finished, I need to have the first draft of a new book for Polebridge Press. This will be the long-awaited (by me, at least) ‘Jesus book’ and it will draw together some of my work at Bethsaida, as well as other historical Jesus projects and biblical studies. The last few days I was able to spend some time on questions around the towns Jesus visited and avoided, including what we now know about Nazareth in the first couple of decades of the Common Era.
While at a wonderful concert in Nazareth on Wednesday evening, I met a local gentleman with a deep connection to Nazareth Village project. We soon discovered that we hold very different views on the size of Nazareth in the first century, and the date of its founding as a Jewish village. He has offered to guide me through some of the local archaeological sites not open to tourists, and I am very much looking forward to that. In the meantime I have done some further reading on the key archaeological investigations at Nazareth so I am well prepared for our discussions (and re-assured in my existing opinions!).
It has been good to have a break from the obsession with coins, although it was a real thrill to hold in my hands this last week a coin minted by Cleopatra during her ill-fated relationship with Mark Antony, as well as a coin of Agrippa II (who crossed paths with Paul of Tarsus according to Acts 25) dated to 82/83 CE. This date is about 10 years after the end of the Jewish War, while Agrippa continued to reign—and around the time that Josephus was sending Agrippa drafts of his own book project, The Jewish War, for comment and correction. Both coins were found at Bethsaida in 2012.
With the imminent holy days I am planning to take a break from the research and enjoy time with friends here. I suspect the highlight 0f the next few days will be a visit to the Herod exhibition at the Israel Museum on Sunday. I have walked past it several times already, so now I plan to go and see the exhibition for myself. From all reports it is definitely well worth seeing.
A number of people coming to Bethsaida in 2013 are thinking about participating in the Sabeel International Young Adults Conference which will happen immediately after we finish our time on the dig.
As you may already have noticed, the event has a new name: GLOBAL YOUNG ADULTS FESTIVAL
The dates are July 1-6, 2013 – but participants are encouraged to arrive the previous day (June 30 – when we are scheduled to arrive in Jerusalem in any case).
This program will be based in Bethlehem and runs in parallel to the special one week program arranged for us at St George’s College, Jerusalem.
Remarkably, the cost for the week is just US$500.00 and that includes accommodation, meals, land transport, tips and gratuities.
The program is described as a celebration of environmental sustainability, economic justice, human rights, and community.
The theme of the conference is:
MOVING MOUNTAINS | RE-SHAPING THE WORLD Aiming for miracles through creative activism.
For more information about the Global Young Adults Festival , please contact Sabeel directly at youth@sabeel.org
If you are between 18 and 35 years of age and interested in taking the Sabeel conference as an alternative to the St George’s College program, please advise Audrey Warren at Mission Travel asap so that we can plan for the appropriate numbers at SGC.
For those who meet the age requirements and are considering the relative costs as part of their decision, the cost for the St George’s College program is US$1,750 while the Sabeel conference costs US$500.
Meanwhile, we still have a number of vacancies for the 2013 trip, so please talk about the program to anyone you know who may be interested. We are keen to have a full group of 25 people for 2013.
Do get back to me if you have any questions about the program.
