Joshua 22:1-24:33
ARCHAEOLOGY DAY
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Monday, February 27, 2012
Continued from Monday 2/27
The History
Nehemiah, royal cupbearer to the Persian king, was born to the tribe of Judah and may have been a native of Jerusalem. At that time (5th century b.c.e.), Judah was a province of the Persian Empire. The history of how this came to pass is complicated. As related in Chapter 11, the united kingdom of Israel had split into two states, Israel in the north and Judah in the south, in the 10th century b.c.e. Both kingdoms were able to maintain their autonomy, despite the conflicts they had with each other, because their neighbors were relatively weak. But in the 8th century b.c.e. the Assyrians conquered Israel and deported many Israelites into captivity. At the beginning of the 6th century b.c.e. the Babylonians, having destroyed the Assyrian empire, took control of Judah. The Babylonians razed the Temple at Jerusalem and carried away the Ark of the Covenant (which disappears from history at this time), essentially severing the living connection between the Jews and God. Nebuchadnezzar II, the Babylonian king, ordered the deportation of most of Judah's people to Babylon. This period of exile, when the Jews were enslaved in Assyria or Babylon or were forced to flee to Egypt or other lands, is known as the First Diaspora, or Dispersion. In the mid-6th century b.c.e. the Persian Empire, under King Cyrus the Great, conquered Babylonia and most of western Asia, including all of Israel. Cyrus permitted a number of Jews to return to Jerusalem, and under the leadership of Sheshbazzar, they began to build the Second Temple.
When Artaxerxes I became king of Persia in the 5th century b.c.e., he granted Nehemiah's request to return to Jerusalem in order to help in the rebuilding of the city. Beginning in 446b.c.e., Nehemiah governed Jerusalem for about thirteen years, restoring the traditional religious observances and continuing the reforms begun by Ezra, his predecessor. When Nehemiah returned to Persia, however, Jerusalem quickly fell back into corruption and idolatry. At this point the prophet Malachi began to exhort the Jews to return to the Law, and Nehemiah rushed back to Jerusalem after an absence of only two years, shocked at the quick decline in the moral state of his people and determined to bring them back to God. He was able to maintain public order and worship and remained in his post as governor until his death in about 413 b.c.e. Afterward, Judah became a part of Syria, under the administration of the high priest.
Sunday, February 26, 2012
Saturday, February 25, 2012
Friday, February 24, 2012
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Thursday, February 23, 2012
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Monday, February 20, 2012
THE GEZAR CALENDAR
The Gezer Calendar is a limestone tablet about 4inches (10cm) tall. It dates from the time of Solomon, in the mid-10th century BC. It describes the agricultural cycle month by month, giving the tasks to be performed at certain times of the year.
August and September are times of harvest, October and November for planting. February is devoted to cultivation of flax, and March to the barley harvest, etc.
This is illustrated by a stone tablet from Gezer (see top of page, Ancient Farmer's Calendar) assumed to be part of a 10th century BCE schoolboy's exercise. It is not an official calendar.
In seven lines, it lists the months and seasons as:
- 1: 2 months Olive Harvest (Sept/Oct or Oct/Nov), first the picking of the olives then the pressing for oil.
- 2: 2 months Sowing: The next two months (Nov./Dec or Dec/Jan) come, in Israel, after the first winter rains and, as a rule, after the ploughing, done at the end of October and early November. This was the grain-sowing season.
- 3: 2 months Late Planting: January to March was the time for sowing millet, sesame, lentils, chick peas, melons, cucumbers and so on.
- 4: 1 month Hoeing: This was especially the period for cutting the flax. This was done with a hoe as the plants must be cut close to the ground so that the full length of the stalk can be used, when dried and treated, to make thread and cloth.
- 5: 1 month Grain Harvest: Barley is harvested in April in the south and in May in the north. Wheat and spelt come later in May/June. The grain was cut by a sickle, made before the 10th century BC from flint chips set in a haft made of wood or bone. Later, a small curved wooden blade was affixed to a wooden handle. The grain was separated from the straw and husks by spreading the cut plants on a specially prepared threshing floor outside the village and then driving oxen round and round over it, pulling a threshing sledge which might be flat or on small rollers. The grain was then winnowed and sieved, and finally stored in large jars. Rooms full of such jars are not uncommon in excavations.
- 6: 1 month Festivals: Seven weeks from the beginning of the grain harvest (Dt. 16:9) or at about the time it was completed, a pilgrimage was made to the sanctuary bearing an offering of "first fruits" for the festival of Pentecost (Shavuoth). In later usage, the Hebrew terms for "early harvest" or "first fruits" have acquired the wider meaning of "choice" fruits or produce.
- 7: 2 months Vine Tending: During the hot summer months of June/July or July/August, after the grain harvest, vines were pruned and the vineyards weeded and cleaned in preparation for the grape harvest.
- 8: 1 month Summer Fruits: The last month of the agricultural calendar (August/Sept.) was devoted to harvesting summer fruit, especially grapes, figs and pomegranates.
According to the oldest liturgical calendars, (Ex. 23:14-17; 34:18-23), the first month, Nisan, during which the feast of Unleavened Bread was celebrated, began in the spring, approximately March-April in modern terms.
Sunday, February 19, 2012
Saturday, February 18, 2012
RECIPES
MEAL: Abigail Cooks to Appease
Abigail's Lentil Dish
1 bay leaf
3 sprigs parsley
1 onion, chopped
3 Tbsp. oil
1 cup cooked rice
ó tsp. mace
salt and pepper
1 ½ cups tomato sauce
Wash the lentils and soak in water for about an hour; do not drain. Add bay leaf and parsley and
cook until tender—about 1 hour. Meanwhile, brown the onion in the heated oil; then add the
remaining ingredients with the exception of the sauce. Heat through, and serve with sauce in a
side dish.
Yield: 8 servings
14 … One of the young shepherds told Abigail, Nabal's wife, what had happened: ´David sent
messengers from the backcountry to salute our master, but he tore into them with insults.
15 ´Yet these men treated us very well. They took nothing from us and didn't take advantage of
us all the time we were in the fields.
16 ´They formed a wall around us, protecting us day and night all the time we were out tending
the sheep.
17 ´Do something quickly because big trouble is ahead for our master and all of us. Nobody can
talk to him. He's impossible—a real brute!µ
18 Abigail flew into action. She took two hundred loaves of bread, two skins of wine, five
sheep dressed out and ready for cooking, a bushel of roasted grain, a hundred raisin cakes, and
two hundred fig cakes, and she had it all loaded on some donkeys.
19 Then she said to her young servants, ´Go ahead and pave the way for me [with David]. I'm
right behind you.µ
20 As she was riding her donkey, descending into a ravine, David and his men were descending
from the other end, so they met there on the road.
21 David had just said, ´That sure was a waste, guarding everything this man had out in the
wild so that nothing he had was lost—and now he rewards me with insults. A real slap in the face
Friday, February 17, 2012
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
THRESHING FLOOR
THRESHING FLOOR
Floors for
Gen_50:10-11; Jdg_6:37; Rth_3:2-14; 1Sa_23:1; 2Sa_6:6; Hos_9:2; Joe_2:24
A threshing floor is a specially flattened surface, usually circular and paved, where a farmer would thresh the grain harvest and then winnow it, before the advent of threshing machines from the nineteenth century onwards. The threshing floor was either owned by the entire village or by a single family. It was usually located outside the village in a place exposed to the wind.
Structure
Threshing floors are usually located near a farm or farmhouse, or in places easily accessible from growing areas. They are usually paved with material that may be of various kinds, for example round stonecobbles about the size of a fist; slate; tile; or sometimes the underlying bedrock itself is exposed. Unpaved earthen threshing floors are also sometimes found. The floors usually have a slight slope, to avoid water standing on them after rain; and the paving may be divided by rays traced from a central focus to facilitate the pavement.
To overcome possible unevenness, and isolate them from water running off after rain so helping to preserve them, threshing floors are often surrounded by a stout low wall. The construction was often in a high place, to take advantage of soft and steady winds to facilitate the work of winnowing, separating the grain from the chaff, once the threshing had been completed.
Use
Sheaves of grain would be opened up and the stalks spread across the threshing floor. Pairs of donkeys or oxen (or sometimes cattle, or horses) would then be walked round and round, often dragging a heavythreshing board behind them, to tear the ears of grain from the stalks, and loosen the grain itself from the husks.
After this threshing process, the broken stalks and grain were collected and then thrown up into the air with a wooden fork-like tool called a winnowing fan. The chaff would be blown away by the wind; the short torn straw would fall some distance away; while the heavier grain would fall at the winnower's feet. The grain could then be further cleansed by sieving.
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