Highlights of 2011:
Part II

 

Part II of our round-up of the past year's most popular features on Jewish Ideas Daily. (Part I is here.)

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Part II"

Urban Planning, Hasmonean-Style

 

In the early 1990s, construction began on Modi'in, Israel's new "City of the Future." Designed by renowned architect Moshe Safdie and located mid-way between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, Modi'in is in many ways typical of modern planned communities.

Honoring Our Heritage  Howie Mischel,  Ynet.  A citizen of the New Modi'in asks the government to take more interest in the old one.  SAVE

The Hasmoneans Were Here—Maybe  Ran Shapira,  Haaretz.  Umm el-Umdan? Titura Hill? The competition continues among theories on the location of ancient Modi'in.  SAVE

Holy Land of Holy Graves  Shmuel Rosner,  International Herald Tribune.  Archeologists may fiercely debate the graves' authenticity, but worshipers favor tradition over suspiciously secular science.  SAVE

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The Dead Sea Scrolls, Alive in Times Square

 

In the basement of a converted theater on West 44th Street, tucked between the legendary Sardi's restaurant and a bowling alley, a block from Times Square and across the street from the musical Memphis, is Discovery Times Square.

A Dead Issue?  Elli Fischer,  Jewish Ideas Daily.  Since the electrifying discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls at Qumran in the late 1940's, the scholarly consensus has been that they were produced by the Essenes. But is this true?  SAVE

Virtual Qumran Tour  Orion Center, Hebrew University.  Take a virtual tour of the Qumran community and the caves in which the Dead Sea Scrolls were found.  SAVE

Digital Dead Sea Scrolls  Israel Museum.  This digital gallery allows viewers to examine the Dead Sea Scrolls in unprecedented detail.  SAVE

Old and New Tools  Jean Duhaime,  H-Net.  In a collection of essays, scholars consider and reconsider their methods of understanding the Dead Sea Scrolls and the world in which they were composed.  SAVE

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Synagogue, Dura-Europos, ca. 245 C.E.

Diversity at Dura-Europos

 

A new exhibit at New York University's Institute for the Study of the Ancient World brings to life the ancient city of Dura-Europos, which stands high above the Euphrates River on the eastern border of modern Syria, a monument to vanished eras.  

Excavating Antiquity  Yale University Art Gallery.  Aerial site views, historical background, and excavation history of Dura-Europos.  SAVE

Crossroad of Cultures  Carly Silver,  Archaeology.  A brief history of the rediscovery of the "melting pot of the ancient Middle East."  SAVE

Considering Dura: Part III  Richard McBee,  Jewish Press.  The final installment of a series on the lessons in the murals of the 3rd-century synagogue. (Parts I and II are here.)  SAVE

On the Dura-Europos Synagogue Paintings  Meyer Schapiro,  Images.  Where the artists borrowed from others, and where they were original and distinctive: a 1968 talk by a pre-eminent art historian. (PDF; Schapiro comments begin on page 6.)  SAVE

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View More in Ancient Near East

Insight & Analysis

Analyzing Ashkelon  Sam Roberts.  New York Times.  Science is revolutionizing the study of ancient Ashkelon—revealing mysterious cylinders as parts of ancient looms, proving that what we thought were palaces may really have been stables.  SAVE

Found on Hanukkah  Zafrir Rinat.  Haaretz.  Excavations near the Western Wall unearthed a rare clay seal that appears to have been used to authenticate the purity of ritual objects used in the Second Temple.  SAVE

From Haran to Hebron  Moshe Gilad.  Haaretz.  One anthropologist is on a campaign to mark the 1,200 kilometer path traveled by the patriarch Abraham through Jordan, Syria, Iraq, and Israel.  SAVE

Tangled Up in What?  Joel Davidi.  Toledot Am Ha-Sefer.  Josephus refers to "a remembrance upon the arms" (which may or may not be figurative); Aristeas refers to a "sign around the hand" (same). Why are the earliest Jewish sources on tefillin so ambiguous?.  SAVE

Holy Land Stonehenge  Associated Press.  In Arabic, the site's name means "stone heap of the wild cats." In Hebrew it is known as the "wheel of ghosts." Just what is the mysterious prehistoric structure?.  SAVE

Dead Sea Discoveries  Edward Rothstein.  New York Times.  In a new exhibition, the Dead Sea Scrolls are treated not as the beginning of a history, but as its culmination—almost the reverse of their usual treatment.  SAVE

Who Lived in Qumran?  Biblical Archaeology Society.  Bible History Daily.  An architectural analysis of the area where the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered supports the identification of the community as a Second Temple-era Jewish sect known as the Essenes.  SAVE

Q & A

But for the Grace of Babylon: A Conversation with Irving Finkel

 

On the way to work from his home in south London, Dr. Irving Finkel often finds himself sitting on a bus reading the Hebrew Bible while surrounded by black church ladies studying their Bibles. "If they only knew what I was thinking," he muses.

Unlike his fellow passengers, what the Assistant Keeper of Ancient Mesopotamian Inscriptions at the British Museum is thinking is that the Bible is not the literal word of God, but that it was crystallized during the sixth-century B.C.E. Babylonian exile by a displaced people from Judea who had lost their country, whose deity was invisible, abstract, and unforgiving, and whose monotheism had gone wobbly. Their decision to create "scripture," something that had never before been attempted, saved the refugees' civilization and enshrined their religious identity. The result was Judaism.

Continue Reading "But for the Grace of Babylon"  Elliot Jager,  Jewish Ideas Daily.  A British Museum scholar offers a Darwinian explanation for Judaism's survival.  SAVE

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