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"

Digging at Khirbet Qeiyafa.

The New Biblical Archeology

Every summer, the Israel Antiquities Authority holds a reception for foreign archeological teams excavating in Israel. This year's reception was attended by over 200 archeologists, who are investigating sites ranging in age from the Paleolithic through Islamic periods.

The Eye of the (Archeological) Storm  Israel Finkelstein,  Forward.  Whatever the controversial expeditions in the City of David turn out to have revealed, they have definitively exposed the baselessness of Palestinian claims about the site.  SAVE

Digging the Bible’s Bad Guys  Associated Press.  Excavations at Goliath-the-giant's hometown of Gath are helping to paint a more nuanced portrait of the Philistines, perennial enemies of the Israelites.  SAVE

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On Faith and Forgeries

Remnants of the biblical world continue to surface like uncharted reefs along the shore, looming up and weirdly fascinating our nominally secular minds. One such set of objects, recently emerged, is a series of lead plates that appear to be embossed with writings and images and bound into books or "codices." What are they, how have they been received, and what does their reception tell us about our willingness to believe?

The First-Ever Portrait of Jesus?  Nick Pryer,  Daily Mail.  "The image is eerily familiar: a bearded young man with flowing curly hair."  SAVE

His Mona Lisa Smile  James Deitrick,  Deorientation.  Was the image of Jesus on the lead codices copied from a Roman mosaic originally in Sepphoris?  SAVE

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Tunnels, City of David.

The Archeology War

The Islamic Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (ISESCO) was founded in 1979 by the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC). It has three basic goals. The first is to spread a Saudi version of Koranic education throughout the Islamic world. The second is to publicize Islam to the non-Islamic world. The third goal is to oppose the "Judaization of Al-Quds"—i.e., Jerusalem.

The Stakes in Jerusalem  Justus Reid Weiner,  Jewish Political Studies Review.  As Palestinians continue to move into Jerusalem, their leadership protests ever more vociferously against the city's "Judaization." Why?  SAVE

Clerics against Judaization  Ahmed el-Beheri,  Al Masry Al Youm.  According to some Islamic judges, Israel is building a "subway tunnel" under the Al-Aqsa mosque and has injected its walls with "certain chemicals" that will hasten the building's erosion.  SAVE

Mobilizing the Dead  Allan Nadler,  Jewish Ideas Daily.  In July 2010, Palestinian activists pointed to a sudden efflorescence of "old" gravestones as evidence that Israel was bent on destroying a historic Arab burial ground.  SAVE

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