CURRENT NEWS, GALLERIES AND COMMENTARY

October 7, 2005, Jerusalem, Israel: It’s the time of the High Holidays in Israel: Rosh haShannah (New Year’s Day), Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) and Succot (the eight-day Festival of Booths). In addition, the first day of the month of Ramadan, the holy month of fasting and prayer for Muslims, began on Rosh haShannah. Jerusalem will be a crowded city in October. The month provides opportunity for our students to touch aspects of the social and religious fabric of the modern Middle East. It is also a chance to reflect on the great work of atonement and renewal provided to us by Jesus on the Cross, and the redemption found in Him.

It seems as though “everyone in the world” is making plans to come to Israel in 2006. Now that the political situation has shown real signs of stabilization—at least as much as can be expected in the Middle East—the floodgates of travel are spilling over. Already virtually every bed around the Sea of Galilee has been spoken for, for spring and early summer. The fellow who runs the sailing company that gives boat rides doesn’t have enough wooden “Jesus boats” to meet the expected demand. The bus companies are buying new busses, and so on. This is the tourist-visitor side of things, but it does impact the programs of Jerusalem University College in two ways. First, it means that our programs, too, are filling up, and some of them fast. Second, it means that field trip experiences will be crowded again and some of our itineraries may have to be tweaked in order to avoid crowds, yet provide full-site exposure. We’ll see together! 

I would be remiss in not voicing a large and public thank you to our supporters who faithfully saw us through the last few difficult years. We have survived, and are on the verge of thriving. Lessons have been learned, of course, that will allow us to operate in ways that are sound, responsible and faithful and to our constituency, donors and students. l’Shana Tova! To a good year!

This fall, for the first time in several years, we are able to offer the semester course Regional Explorations in the Historical Geography of the Holy Land. This is a graduate seminar for second-year MA students pursuing the degree in Biblical History and Geography. The aim of the course is to give students the opportunity to practice the disciplines of historical geography in practical, tangible ways. It is third in a sequence of four courses taken over four semesters:

• First, Physical Settings of the Bible (taken during the student’s first semester), the introductory, field-trip intensive course that gives students an initial exposure to the land of the Bible and the way that the landscape lays the foundation for understanding and interacting with the events and descriptions of the Biblical text. This, the baseline of our curriculum, is the most popular course that we offer. Its three-week “cousin,” The Geographical and Historical Settings of the Bible, forms the backbone of our short-term program.
• Second, Historical Geography of the Land of the Bible During the Old Testament Period (taken during the student’s second semester), an intensive, in-depth examination of biblical and extra-biblical texts in their historical and geographical context. This course has been taught for decades by Dr. Anson Rainey, who has just finished his magnum opus, The Sacred Bridge, a full and detailed treatise of the historical geography of the land of Israel. The book has been published by Carta, with a publication date of 2006. Copies are just now available through Carta and, in a few weeks, through Carta’s US distributor, Eisenbrauns. This is truly a monumental work.
• Third, Regional Explorations in the Historical Geography of the Holy Land (taken during the student’s third semester), in which students take the data from all JUC courses taken the previous year (history, geography, archaeology and Hebrew) and apply it to specific issues such as site identification, regional studies and textual material. The goal of this course is learn and practice the methodology of historical geography. The course includes field trips to sites not previously visited, where students present the results of their research. The key here is exploration, both in the library and in the land.
• Fourth, Seminar in Historical Geography (taken during the student’s fourth semester), in which the student pulls together data and ideas to create a base-line course in the manner of the 3-week Historical and Geographical Settings course. This course aims to be intensely practical, turning the student into a teacher who can gather, organize and present the ideas of the historical geography of the Biblical world in ways that are meaningful and relevant to newcomers in the field. If Physical Settings and Historical Geography are the “here it is” courses and Regional Explorations is the “how-to” course, the Seminar is the “now do it” course.

This curriculum, both in its constituent parts and its whole, is totally unique among universities and graduate schools anywhere in the world, including Israel and North America. Undergirding the entirety is a desire for students to become teachers who know, appreciate and love the Bible, its real, landed context, and the Lord God whose hand continues to move among his people. To the extent that Jerusalem University College is able to help students and teachers like yourself to learn and grow, we are humbled and grateful. 

Last weekend, this year’s students in the Explorations course spent a full day around and above the upper Sorek Valley in the Shephelah. We went to three sites—Zorah (eg. Judg 13:2), Zanoah (eg. Neh 3:11) and Jarmuth (eg. Josh 10:3). Each student presented, on site, material about an aspect of the region: Sara Lawson on the upper Sorek, Joanna Henzel on Zorah, Vernon Naron on the Chalk Moat, Owen Chesnut on Zanoah and Angela Manthei on Jarmuth. We hiked, explored, climbed up and over and down and in, made connections from point to point on the horizon, traced highways and lines of communication, discussed issues of biblical relevance and so on. None of these sites are visited very often—Zorah probably the most because of its association with Samson, but the other two are well off the beaten track. In fact, we saw precisely one other person (he was on a mountain bike on Zorah) on all of the sites. Its great to have the places to ourselves! Zanoah is virtually untouched from the days that the team of the Survey of Western Palestine visited the site in 1881. Their record noted “the stones are much water-worn . . . a rude cave-tomb . . . a pillar with a Latin cross deeply incised lies toward the southern part of the site” and so on. We can attest that the site lies as they say it. Two more Exploration days in the field await! 

In the meantime, it’s off to Galilee for Physical Settings on Saturday.

Click each photo to go to the respective galleries.

Last Update, I attached come comments on the first three verses of Psalm 122. Here’s part II. 

While the old city of Jerusalem may look wildly unfamiliar to an outsider, a closer look at its layout reveals a decidedly western stamp. The old city today is roughly square in shape, and divided into four "quarters" of unequal size by two intersecting streets that run at right angles, oriented north-south and east-west. This 90-degree layout is not Middle Eastern at all, but Roman, impressed upon the city in the centuries following the close of the New Testament when the Romans turned the city into a Greco-Roman polis named Aelia Capitolina.  

Today, these quarters are informally named after the main groups of people who live there: the Moslem Quarter in the northeastern portion of the city, the Christian Quarter in the northwest, the Armenian Quarter in the southwest and the Jewish Quarter in the southeast. The Moslem Quarter is the largest in size, while the Jewish Quarter, the smallest of all, seems to be wedged in among the rest. The focal point of each is a building or structure held sacred by the majority of its residents: for the Jewish Quarter, its the Western (or Wailing) Wall; for the Armenian Quarter, the Church of St. James; for the Christian Quarter, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre; and for the Muslim Quarter, the Temple Mount.  

Altogether, about 30,000 people live in the old city of Jerusalem. They represent a veritable mosaic of religious, ethnic, cultural, social, economic and nationalistic identities hailing from every region of the Middle East and beyond, all set into an urban frame slightly more than one-half square mile in size. Their every-day interaction on the street and in the marketplace belies deep—and usually suspicious—divisions between the city's many sub-groups, most of which are more exclusive in their orientation toward the “outsider” who lives next door than not.  

Historically, Jerusalem has always had a mixed population. This was as true during the time of the Bible as it is today. In the first century AD, Jerusalem was home to persons who identified themselves as Judeans, Galileans, Idumeans, Greeks and Romans--both Jew and gentile--and during Jewish pilgrimage festivals persons representing every corner of the Mediterranean world packed into the city (cf. Acts 2:1-11). The Old Testament, too,  bears witness Jerusalem’s mixed ethnic base, counting among its residents a variety of peoples including Hittites (2 Sam 11:3; cf. Ezra 9:1-2), Egyptians (1 Kgs 9:24), Phoenicians (Neh 13:16) and, of course, the Jebusites, Jerusalem’s native population during the time that David conquered the city (2 Sam 5:6; 24:16). 

Living in a city packed tight with competing ideologies and jostling with all manner of agendas, it’s only appropriate that the writer of Psalm 122 continues: 

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem:
"May those who love you prosper;
may there be peace within your walls,
 prosperity within your fortresses."
Because of my brothers and my friends,
I will say, "Peace be with you."
Because of the house of the LORD our God,
I will seek your good (Ps 122:6-9). 

For the psalmist—as well as all biblical writers—“peace” was not just an absence of hostilities but the enveloping presence of personal and social well-being that God has intended for His people since the Garden of Eden. God’s peace is a wholeness that transcends the clamor of ethnicity and culture, binding the vast human mosaic by a frame that only He can put into place. Jerusalem represents both the challenge and the ideal, a world tragically fallen yet gloriously redeemed. The city that is so in need of peace today reminds us of the work that God is doing in our lives, and of our certain future when His work will be complete.