Mt Zion
I have been in Jerusalem a week and only now, today, on Shabbat, have a bit of time to write about our excavation on Mt. Zion (the NW hill now outside the Old City of Jerusalem) and its relevance to Herodian Jerusalem. I plan to post a few photos and a short report later on but wanted to let regular readers know I was alive and well after an incredibly eventful and important week. I also have some thoughts about the 40th anniversary of the Six Day War which falls this week. I have given my students a walking tour of the Old City, examining all the sites and places that I mention in my book, The Jesus Dynasty, as related to the “last days of Jesus,” namely the last week of his life. I am pleased to say that John Dominic Crossan is in town and staying a stone’s throw away from us, so we plan to get together and have an informal mini-seminar on this topic with my students. The paperback edition of Crossan’s co-authored book (with Marcus Borg), Last Days of Jesus: What the Gospels Really Teach About Jesus’ Final Days in Jerusalem, is now available. Crossan and I have many significant differences and I look forward to exchanging views. He is also quite interested in the Talpiot Jesus tomb and we plan to go through the latest in that regard as well. Amos Kloner visited our excavation site on Thursday and was pleased to let us know that he had retrieved his original file on the Talpiot tomb from the editors of `Atiqot, the IAA journal where he published his 1996 article. His original submission was much longer with more information, including photos taken inside the tomb during the excavation. I also want to give my impressions of the Herodium tomb that Ehud Netzer announced last month which our group visited on Tuesday, ably guided by Boaz Zissu. More on all this later.