More on Sha'arayim

Shaw points us to another story about the city of David and Goliath:

The remains of an ancient gate have pinpointed the location of the biblical city Sha'arayim, say archaeologists working in Israel.

In the Bible young David, a future king, is described as battling Goliath in the Elah Valley near Sha'arayim.

Body and soul on the border

Mussy alerts us to this in the Times:

Found: An Ancient Monument to the Soul

In a mountainous kingdom in what is now southeastern Turkey, there lived in the eighth century B.C. a royal official, Kuttamuwa, who oversaw the completion of an inscribed stone monument, or stele, to be erected upon his death. The words instructed mourners to commemorate his life and afterlife with feasts “for my soul that is in this stele.”



University of Chicago archaeologists who made the discovery last summer in ruins of a walled city near the Syrian border said the stele provided the first written evidence that the people in this region held to the religious concept of the soul apart from the body. By contrast, Semitic contemporaries, including the Israelites, believed that the body and soul were inseparable, which for them made cremation unthinkable, as noted in the Bible. ...

The discovery and its implications were described last week in interviews with archaeologists and a linguist at the University of Chicago, who excavated and translated the inscription.

“Normally, in the Semitic cultures, the soul of a person, their vital essence, adheres to the bones of the deceased,” said David Schloen, an archaeologist at the university’s Oriental Institute and director of the excavations. “But here we have a culture that believed the soul is not in the corpse but has been transferred to the mortuary stone.”

Not the Da Vinci Code

Interesting piece in the Wall Street Journal:

Did Michelangelo Have a Hidden Agenda?

Mr. Doliner believes that Michelangelo, whose unconventional education at the court of Lorenzo de Medici included the study of Judaic and Kabbalistic texts, meant the 1,100-square-meter ceiling of the chapel as a mystical message of universal love -- a bridge of understanding between the two faiths.

Open Yale Courses

Here's a resource some might wish to know about: lecture courses from Yale faculty, online and free. Currently on offer:

Introduction to Ancient Greek History with Professor Donald Kagan

Introduction to the Old Testament (Hebrew Bible) with Professor Christine Hayes

Entire course list

Some Wikipedia links for Samuel

There are of course many excellent sources to help with our questions relating to the text of Samuel. Here are some possibly helpful links to Wikipedia vis a vis elements of our last discussion:

Abinadab 

Ephod 

Urim and Thummim 

Hebron 

The most famous historic site in Hebron sits on the Cave of the Patriarchs. Although the site is holy to Judaism,Christianity and Islam also accept it as a sacred site, due to scriptural references to Abraham. According toGenesis, he purchased the cave and the field surrounding it from Ephron the Hittite to bury his wife Sarah, subsequently Abraham Isaac, Rebecca, Jacob and Leah were also buried in the cave (the remaining Matriarch,Rachel, is buried outside Bethlehem). For this reason, Hebron is also referred to as 'the City of the Patriarchs' in Judaism, and regarded as one of its Four Holy Cities. (Excerpt)

Olive Pits from the time of David?

Mussy sends along this story touching on David's time from the Times:

KHIRBET QEIYAFA, Israel — Overlooking the verdant Valley of Elah, where the Bible says David toppled Goliath, archaeologists are unearthing a 3,000-year-old fortified city that could reshape views of the period when David ruled over the Israelites. Five lines on pottery uncovered here appear to be the oldest Hebrew text ever found and are likely to have a major impact on knowledge about the history of literacy and alphabet development.

The five-acre site, with its fortifications, dwellings and multi-chambered entry gate, will also be a weapon in the contentious and often politicized debate over whether David and his capital, Jerusalem, were an important kingdom or a minor tribe, an issue that divides not only scholars but those seeking to support or delegitimize Zionism. 

...for the state of Israel, which considers itself to be a reclamation of the state begun by David, evidence of the biblical account has huge symbolic value. 

...But the archaeological record of that kingdom is exceedingly sparse — in fact almost nonexistent — and a number of scholars today argue that the kingdom was largely a myth created some centuries later. A great power, they note, would have left traces of cities and activity, and been mentioned by those around it. Yet in this area nothing like that has turned up — at least until now. more...