Thanksgiving and Iron Age Israel

Sorry for such a long delay since my previous update. I want to say that I've been extraordinarily busy, but I haven't really. I just haven't really had anything to blog about lately. Anyway.

Thanksgiving was last week, and, as you all know, Israel does not formerly commemorate the holiday. Since the majority of the people in my program are American, we decided to do Thanksgiving ourselves. One of my classmates lives in Tel Aviv with her husband and baby daughter and is also from American, and she invited us all over for an Erev Thanksgiving (evening before Thanksgiving) at her apartment. It was potluck style, and everything was incredibly delicious! We all left later that night considerably heavier than when we arrived. Also Thanksgiving also reminded me of the things I am thankful for, including my wonderful family and friends back home who have been so supportive of my crazy dreams and also my new friends here, who really have become a second family to me. :)

In our recent classes, we've been learning about Philistine cities, so on Friday for our tours this week, we visited Lachish, Gat, and Qeiyafa. It was great. Although these sites are well known in the Bible, there are not really huge tourist destinations like Megiddo or some of those sites are. With that being said, Lachish wasn't exactly open to the general public, and we ended up bypassing some yellow tape warning us of the danger of going to the site since parts of it were unstable. We actually had to climb one of the fortification walls and enter through the ancient drainage system. It was so cool, and we of course made several jokes about how we felt like Sennacherib, who was responsible for the sacking of Lachish (as evidenced by the reliefs found in Nineveh depicting the event). 

Lachish: the "capital" of the Shephelah

You can see the vertical stratigraphy here, where the walls are from two different times!

We also visited Tel Qeiyafa and Gath (where Goliath is from). 

Tel Qeiyafa

Two-chambered gate at Qeiyafa

Gath

 We climbed to the very top of Tel Gath.

In academic news, my class on Iron Age archaeology has finished up, and I am quite sad that it's over, since it's probably my favorite time period to study. I have absolutely loved the class and the subject material. I pretty much have written down everything our professor has said and all the articles and books he referenced since I'll be doing further research in Iron Age/Deuteronomistic history in a few years hopefully! We focused a bit on the Davidides and the United Monarchy (when the northern kingdom of Israel was basically assimilated into the southern kingdom of Judah) and the compilation of the early history of the Davidic and Solomonic Dynasty. I really want to do further research on the figure of David and that dynastic succession in my later research! It's so fascinating! We talked a bit about the influences of the northern kingdom of Israel on the Bible. 

In the Book of Samuel (which was probably written around the 8th c. BCE), David is portrayed as a traitor who cooperated with the enemies of Israel, but there is also a spin on the story to blacken Saul and to resolve the allegations against David. Recent scholarship has called this The Great Apologia, which states that there was a need to provide an immediate explanation during Davidic times. There is also a Second Apologia, which is more of a succession history. However, we have no evidence of a compilation of things like The Great Apologia in the 10th c. BCE (the times of David). Another question this raises is the necessity of such a apologia during the 10th c. BCE. For instance, Chronicles (4th c. BCE) shows a different viewpoints on the history than Kings (around the 7th c. BCE). The chronicler portrays David very positively, so why is the same not done in Kings? Perhaps this can be resolved in changing the question to what is the time period when the author cannot eliminate the negative stories from the north. So the author would then need to incorporate these stories and manipulate the text at the end to spin David into a positive light. All of it is the result of the Fall of Israel in the late 8th c. BCE. In the wider scope, we can see here that there are two phases of major Judahite ideology. First, Pan-Israelite ideology directed inside to unite the population and second, Judah would be able to export their ideology after Assyria pulls out in the 7th c. BCE. But that is a topic for another time...

On another note, for more pictures and news, you should all like my program's facebook page! http://www.facebook.com/archaeologyandhistoryofthelandofthebible

I'm starting my class on Exilic and Post-exilic Archaeology tomorrow, so I have lots of reading to prepare for my class tomorrow. Also I'm about to go make a pita for lunch. Also:

!הודיה שמח לכולם

Field Trips part 2 and Biblical Exegesis

As part of our program, every other Friday we have archaeological field trips. This past week we went to Megiddo and Aphek and Betsarta (a small village near Aphek) and Migdal Tsedek. It was especially great to get back to Megiddo, since I spent all of last field season there! It was crazy busy with tourists. I also felt slightly out of place as a tourist. It really felt as though I should be in my dig clothes with my trowel with me. It will be so great to get back next season though!

So those are all pictures of Aphek, since last year I already took like millions of pictures of Megiddo. But if you want to see them and I haven't showed you, I will definitely show you again, because I obviously love talking about my experiences there.

Today we started our Iron Age Archaeology class sequence (the Iron Age comes after the Bronze Age chronologically). I absolutely love the class so far. I'm much more interested in the Iron Age than I am in the Bronze Age, since it is in the Iron Age that Israel rises up as a state. We talked a lot about biblical history and how much we can actually trust the bible as a historical source, which actually isn't a whole lot, which I'm sure some of my conservative readers will find controversial. But seriously in the book of Joshua, it details the Israelites' "conquest" of the Canaanites at Jericho in the Late Bronze Age, but there wasn't even a large settlement at Jericho in the LBA according to archaeological evidence. This is not to say that we cannot rely on the biblical texts to tell us about ancient traditions. 

Anyway, there are a few general rules to approaching such research. First, no texts, since biblical texts cannot really tell things as if it is an actual historical description. An example of this is that the entire book of Judges pretty much serves as an introduction to the Davidic dynyasty later on. Second, one has to be careful to not detach these processes from the general picture in the Ancient Near East. You have to remember the Edomites, Arameans, etc, as well as the Israelites. Third, you have to look at the long duree of history. It's impossible to gain an accurate picture and understanding if you're not looking at thousands of years of history. Fourth, one also has to bear in mind the differences between the urban sectors and the rural sectors. And last, it's also important to know what you mean when you talk about "Israel." A person? A nation? A geographical area?

We also talked a bit about the layers of the Book of Joshua, and how one can relate examining a biblical text like archaeology and look at the stratigraphy of the text and peel it back, layer by layer. Like in Joshua, there are vague memories of the past such as when it mentions that "Hazor formerly was the head of all those kingdoms," perhaps alluding to a time in the past when Hazor was the greatest of all the kingdoms. Another example of such memories is the Song of Deborah in the Book of Judges. It might be recalling memories of unrest in the northern valleys during the 10th century BCE, which is attested in a destruction layer of Megiddo VIA in the 10th c. BCE. A second layer is etiological stories. Joshua mentions a city called "Ai," which literally translates to "ruins." Perhaps the people around Ai passed the ruins everyday and that's how the city got its name. And the last layer is the reality and ideology of the time of the authors. Maybe the descriptions of the conquest in Joshua are more collected stories and traditions and myths, and the people put them together to advance their own ideology.

This is not all to say that I don't think that the Bible shouldn't be used as a basis of many faiths, quite the contrary actually. There is a big difference as having a text as part of your liturgical canon and viewing it as a historical source in academia, where you're supposed to view every text with a critical eye and look for extra-biblical sources (which do exist). It's all super interesting to me, and it's eventually what I would like to do further study in in later school!!! 

Field Trips

Shalom readers! So a ton has happened since my last blog update. I even made a sticky note of the things to include in this blog entry.

First, it's been rather chilly here lately. And by chilly, I mean between like 75 and 79. But really, it actually feels kind of cold to me now. I always knew I was made for a Mediterranean climate. Unfortunately, I have been way too busy to enjoy the beach. Classes are in full gear, so I've been hitting the books pretty hard. My class on Bronze Age Archaeology finished up last week, and this week we started Iron Age Archaeology (more on that later).

Last week we didn't have class on Wednesday, so I went to the city of Ramla, which has a ton of cool archaeology but is seriously underrepresented as far as excavations go. I'm not sure if it's just a funding issue or if people are really unaware of all the neat things there. For instance, there's a ton of stuff dating back to the Crusader period. Anyway, Ramla really seemed like a REAL Middle Eastern village to me. It used to be a predominately Arab neighborhood, but now it's like 80% Jewish. My friend Lianne's boyfriend's family also owns a restaurant there called Samir's, and it's seriously my new favorite restaurant hands down. I am still full from that meal. If any of you ever come to visit me while I'm here, I am taking you to Samir's restaurant.

We went canoeing in the Pool of Arches.

This is what the Pool of Arches looks like above ground.

An inscription on the wall of the Pool of Arches!!

Nobody has been allowed here in 15 years, but they let us in because we told them we were archaeologists!

We climbed to the top, where you can see 70% of Israel

Anyway, so that was Ramla. Definitely a neat place to check out and keep on your radar. Also in my photo uploading spree, I forgot what else I was going to talk about in my blog in this update. 

In other exciting news, I have officially found my apartment for the rest of my time in Israel! I'm so excited to move in in December! It's in a great location downtown in the city and close to the beach too. Which should give you all even more incentive to come visit me! We just had the lease agreement translated by Rachel's cousin, and we've opened our Israeli bank account, and we are all set to sign the lease later this week! So excited! 

Anyway, blogspot isn't letting me post any more pictures in this update, so I'm going to do another update in a separate update, since I have much more to write about.

First Week of Grad School

I think that I've gotten pretty good at navigating my way around this blog website in Hebrew, because I can't figure out how to get it in English regularly, so I'm sorry if there are lots of typos. Or as they say in Ivrit, "Slichah." 

Last week Saturday my friend Lianne had a Halloween party at her boyfriend's restaurant out in Ramla, which is about 20 minutes outside the city of Tel Aviv. The restaurant was built by Crusaders, so needless to say, we archaeology students were pretty geeked about that. :) Since Israel doesn't really observe Halloween, we made our own costumes out of the things we had around really, so they weren't really that spectacular. 

On Sunday was the first day of school. Honestly, it feels good to be back in the classroom. I did enjoy my extended summer vacation, but I think that being a student forms such a fundamental part of my identity, and now it feels like I'm back where I belong once again. I also feel as though this whole experience has really reinforced that I really do want to pursue a career in academia. It's also such an honor to be able to study with some of the best and most prominent scholars and teachers in archaeology and biblical history that many students wait several years to study with, and I get to all in just one year. Okay, nerd rant over. Sunday we had a class on the Middle Bronze Age archaeology of Canaan. The way that this MA program is structured is that each class meets for just two weeks, but they meet pretty much all day long, so the past few days have been pretty exhausting. We also have instructed reading for like three hours every week. This week we used that time to prepare presentations on certain geographical areas of Israel. Basically, I'm now an expert on the Jordan Valley. :) This semester we are also doing a seminar with one of the PhD students using Jerusalem as a case study, which I absolutely love so far, even though we've only had one 4-hour meeting so far. I think the reason I love it so much is that it's more biblical history than the science archaeology, and I love biblical history.

We've also had a ton of reading to prepare for all of our classes. I guess this is what being a grad student is like. Unlike in undergrad, I have to actually read everything really closely and take notes on it as well. Our teachers are really trying to get us to be critical of the papers we read and find flaws and where they are lacking, which is something that wasn't really emphasized in undergrad. It's difficult but it really forces you to develop your own opinion and use your own knowledge and logic to determine the validity of the argument of the author. We're also supposed to be examining the bibliography of the readings we do to further determine the soundness of the subject material by looking at their sources. 

Anyway, on Sunday I start my Hebrew class, and I can't wait. I loved Hebrew class in college, so hopefully I will really like it here too. It meets for like 5 hours every Sunday, oi vey. Here are a few pictures of campus:

Every other Friday (which is like Saturday for you all), we have tours. Last time we had a walking practical tour of Tel Aviv, and today we had another tour of Tel Aviv, which focused on the architecture of Tel Aviv. Unfortunately our tour was cut short because it started RAINING. I know, right? We talked a bit about the European and Oriental influences on the architecture in Tel Aviv and the perfectionistic style using simple geometric shapes, which still render the buildings functional. It was kind of intense, I felt like I was back in some of my art history classes at Michigan. Anyway, here are some pictures, and see for yourself if you can analyze the building designs!

Okay, this is already really long I think. Also it's storming out right now. Welcome to the Israeli winter. I have a Shabbat dinner to prepare for my friends and myself, so until next week. Shabbat shalom!!