Negev Trip Day 2: The Biblical Negev

Andrew Sharp

Physical Settings

Negev Day 2 

10/13/13

[Notes and additions in brackets by Alana.]

We set out early in the morning to see Arad. [I have to add that it was one of the most beautiful mornings I've seen at Arad - the sun rising on the Judean hills with the clouds and mist still clinging to them - spectacular.]  A temple complex sits at the top of a large mound of Eocene, a mound surrounded by loess soil in the middle of the eastern most bowl of the Negev. It is here that a small town survived through outside support, some of the trade from the east-west spice route that runs through the Negev, and by digging cisterns into the Eocene bedrock. The town itself is nearly shaped like a slightly bowled and warped saucer [the Early Bronze town], channeling the rainwater into the cistern for collection. In support of this, all the major roads head straight toward this central point, or around it. Looking like a wheel with spokes.

The people [who manned the Israelite Iron-Age fort] had a temple built according to the specifications given in the Pentateuch, but there were two incense altars and 3 standing stones in and near the holy of holies. An indication of multiple deity worship [possibly]. [The picture above is taken from the back of the "Holy of Holies" area, and the two incense altars are visible, along with the sacrificial altar.]  Initiating a conversation on henotheism, the believing in one god out of many as “your” god, the choosing of one god above all others, but not denying the existence of other Gods. This lead to a point where no student could think of a passage in the Pentateuch that clearly said “there are no other gods.” An interesting point considering that there are other powers in this world, evil ones, and at no point does God encourage us to deny that fact, but rather tells us to fear the devil.

Also, there were lizards.

Next we donned hard hats at Beer Sheba. And looked at a Terebinth tree and a cut, stone altar found there. (The stones in [an altar] weren’t to be cut stones, so the prescriptions weren’t followed for this particular altar.)

[Learning about space syntax in a four-room house.]

Then we went up to the city and noted that the well was outside the gate. Odd since the people inside the gate wouldn’t want to have to go farther than necessary to draw water. But this was a practical thing to do, and in many cases wells were left purposely outside the city gate. Why? Because when shepherds, travelers, merchants, etc. come to town, they need to water their flocks/camels/donkeys and if you have the well in the middle of town, you also have a poop ridden walkway between the well and the gate, and poop all around the well, and sheep blocking your roads, and camels belching in your window. Something not highly thought of. SO the wells were outside.

We also talked about how the well was at least 40 feet deep present day [the current brochure for Tel Beer Sheva says that it's 69 m to water level], and its dry on the bottom and that’s because it was filled in long ago and when the location was excavated, digging down another 40 feet or more through dirt and rocks didn’t seem like fun, especially when there likely weren't any archaeological finds down there. (some suggest the well was 80 METERS deep, but that may be rather excessive) So imagine dropping a 1 to 3 gallon jar, on a rope, over a pulley, down an 80 (or 200 if you want to go that far) foot hole, letting it fill up, then cranking it up 80 feet, and pouring out the water into a trough for a camel. Now imagine the camel slurps that up reeeal quick like, and looks at you for more. Because a camel can drink 30-55 gallons at a time.

Imagine that Rebekah, walks with her water jar down to the well amongst the other women in the cool of the day, the evening, going there to fetch a jar full of water, and take it back to the house, maybe a few times. And when she approaches the well, here is a stranger, someone who is required by middle eastern hospitality, to take care of, to welcome into your home and provide for. In fact, to do so much that it’s a dishonor and shame on you to have your guest ever once ask for something that was not provided them. (see Jesus and his foot washing being neglected as an example)

Now imagine said person came riding a camel, or worse, he came with more than one (which is extremely likely) and all the women who are drawing water at the well, waiting their turn, are praying and hoping not to make eye contact with this stranger lest they need to help water all his camels.

But Rebekah sees all this immense work, and (likely after waiting for most of the other women to have their turn) goes and draws water for his camels.

This is the woman chosen to be Isaac’s wife. This is a working woman, and a serving woman. Maybe the well was only 80 feet deep, maybe the camels were small, not entirely thirsty, and there were only two. But that’s still way more work than anyone would ever want to do. Pulling 60 gallons of water up a grand total of 2400 feet. (80 feet, per 2 gallons, 30 times)

Now, Rebekah didn’t use this particular well, she didn’t live in Beer Sheba, but like I pointed out, only 80 feet, for only two camels, and only drinking 30 gallons a piece would be an immense amount of extra work.

Women didn’t sit at home. They worked, hard. And Rebekah took up the gauntlet to go above and beyond. No wonder she was chosen.

That aside, while at Beer Sheva (Sheba and Sheva are interchangeable in this case because we aren’t sure which was the intended pronunciation in the ancient Hebrew) we talked about the bent access gate. Meaning the gate to the town was set up so that immediately upon entering you had to turn left and go a short ways before you could turn right and enter the main of the city. Why? Because if your enemy has a shield in their left hand, and have to move into your gate then turn left, their unprotected on their right side, where you can have men with arrows shooting at them as they enter. It also keeps the enemy from having a straight shot into town, with either a sprint on foot, a racing war horse or an arrow. Either way you need to slow down to enter and do battle. A clever defensive technique.

[Learning about bent-access gates at Tel Beer Sheva with our lovely hard hats.]

Then we used our hard hats and went through the underground tunnel that composed the huge cisterns hewn out for the city’s use.

Next we took a short little hike, and saw some Ibex, and a deep wadi canyon.

[Climbing out of Wadi Zin.]

Then Av Dat (spelling?) ask Alana for info on that, she’s got a video series going.

[Using the baptismal in one of the churches at Avdat.]

[Avdat (or Oboda) is a Nabatean city.  The most famous Nabatean city is, of course, Petra, in southern Jordan.  There are Nabatean ruins to be found all over southern Jordan, the Negev of Israel, and even the Sinai peninsula.  (Quite possibly other places too, but those are the only place I've personally seen.)  The Nabateans controlled the spice trade for a number of years until the Romans decided that was too lucrative a trade to not have a finger in the pie.  So Nabatea became subject to the Romans.  Around the same time, the Nabateans themselves converted to Christianity (at least many of them.)  Some of the most spectacular ancient church ruins in Israel today are to be found in Nabatean cities.]

Then lastly an outlook point over the biggest erosion crater down south. Kind of like a grand canyon, only round, not… snakey. [Makhtesh Ramon - the largest erosion crater in Israel, and in the world.]

Then we went back to the youth hostel for the night. The end!

[Enjoying the hike together.]

Negev Trip Day 1: Shephelah and Costal Plain

Impression Report 7

Shephelah and Coastal Plain

Andrew Sharp

10/12/2013
[Edits and additions in brackets by Alana.]

First we took a look near Zorah and Eshtaol, stopping and leaving the bus at the mouth of the Sorek wadi system, a major wadi system just to the west of Jerusalem. We had a good vantage point from atop a hill, looking out west towards the Philistine plain. [I hadn't been here before - it was a great place to note the transition from hill country to Shephelah, and you could see fairly clearly the cut of the chalk trough.]

Then we hopped back into the bus and drove a few minutes further west to Beth Shemesh, another ruin, rock walls, dirt dug out, the typical stuff. It was just to the west of our first outlook. I leaned on a destruction layer by accident. A destruction layer is a layer in the ground where there’s clearly broken stuff and ash and black and other obvious signs of the town being destroyed and burned. On the side of the pits dug out of the town you can see the layers of dirt removed and in that dirt you could clearly see bits of pottery and a black line. It was here that was a location where no pig bones were found. And the towns to the west did have pigs bones. This is an indication, based on the Jewish laws about what is and isn’t kosher, that the Israelites lived here, and more importantly, the Philistines didn’t live in this location either. Joshua 19:40 discusses the territory of Dan, something we could clearly see from here. I got a picture with Alana more or less holding the territory with her hand on the map.

Next, back to the bus again as we drove further south. Here we went to an unknown Iron Age city [Khirbet Qeiyafa]. It had two gates suggesting it was the town “two gates” (can’t remember the way it was said in Hebrew) [Sha'arayim or Shaaraim] but there were many towns that had two, so it’s rather speculative to call it that, and state that the location and title were tied together.

Some thought this area was the location of Israel’s encampment when going up against the Philistines in the story of David and Goliath, but that doesn’t seem to make sense with the topography [and geography]. If it was on this particular hill, the Philistines would have more or less been able to just walk past Saul and the Israelites, rather than needing to push through them [on their way into the hill country]. Not to mention it talks about the Israelites and Philistines being encamped on opposing heights with a valley between, but the valley at the location of this Iron Age City was quite wide, likely too wide for one camp to yell to the other, which kind of happens when the Philistines call out to the Israelites to send out their best man. Plus Goliath is decked out in bronze armor, not iron and the Iron Age City, is, you guessed it, from the Iron Age, when the account likely would have mentioned the use of iron, not bronze. 1 Sam 17 tells the story by the way.

Also, it might have been Goliath’s knee that was hit given David kills him twice in the story. Odd. But the term for forehead and the term for knee are very similar and the knee may have been one of the only places unprotected by Goliath’s armor. Not to mention he falls forward when he gets hit by David, which seems unlikely if he’s hit in the forehead, though one needs to account for the fact he may have been moving down hill, and the weight of his armor in motion may have been enough to cause this too. Though a baseball sized rock moving something similar to the speed of a pro MLB pitcher’s speed ball, maybe a bit faster? That’d knock most anyone over backwards if it hit your head. But Goliath had a helmet on, so the knee isn’t that unlikely. [To get an idea of how slings are used in similar ways even today, you can follow this link: http://www.timesofisrael.com/video-shows-idf-soldiers-outmatched-by-rock-slinging-palestinians/.]

Next we stopped atop Beth Guvrin. Saw an old church dome and had lunch.

Next we went to Lachish, saw a big siege mound and anti-siege mound. 2 Chor. 32 talks about Lachish and it’s being sieged in the time of King Hezekiah, the same king who built the “Hezekiah’s Tunnel” we walked through, the long underground tunnel that lead to/from a spring in Jerusalem. Also in 2 Kings 18.

Us on top of the seige ramp

We went to the beach and saw the Canaanite city gate. One of the oldest mud brick gate arches in existence I think. Then went to a hostel for the night, exhausted.