uo;Baal of the covenant.” A large fortress temple discovered on the acropolis of Shechem has been identified as the temple of Judges 9 (Stager 2

er 1997: 22; Toombs 1993: 1347; 1992: 1178,1184;
1979: 70, 71, 72, 73, 78; 1976:58, 59; 1972: 106; Wright 1967: 364; 1965: 101–102). Lawrence Toombs, one of the excavators of Shechem, described the devastation as follows (1979: 73): The Iron I city underwent violent destruction, which obliterated its buildings and left the site a wilderness of ruins. At the time of its destruction, the culture of the city was fully developed Iron I. The end of the Iron I city is almost certainly to be attributed to its capture by Abimelech (Judges 9).The excavators date the destruction to ca. 1125–1100 BC (Campbell 1993: 1352; Seger 1997: 22), in excellent agreement with the Biblical time frame. The site then lay abandoned for some 100 years until it was rebuilt in the tenth century BC, the time of the United Monarchy. Recommended Resources for Further StudyBible and SpadeCD-ROM 100 Reasons to Trust Old Testament History Giving the SenseFootnotes1) The Hebrew word used in Judges 9 for the rulers of Shechem, baal, is used in a similar way in the Amarna Letters for city leaders, ca. 1350 BC (Moran 1992:175, n. 5).Bibliography Boling, Robert G. 1975Judges. The Anchor Bible 6A, Garden City NY: Doubleday. Campbell, Edward F., Jr. 1983Judges 9 and Biblical Archaeology. Pp. 263–71 in The Word of the Lord Shall Go Forth: Essays in Honor of David Noel Freedman in Celebration of His Sixtieth Birthday, eds. Carol L. Meyers and Michael O’Connor. Winona Lake IN: Eisenbrauns.1993Shechem, Tell Balâtah. Pp. 1345–54 in The New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land 4, ed. Ephraim Stern. Jerusalem: The Israel Exploration Society Carta. Campbell, Edward F., Jr., and Ross, James F. 1963The Excavation of Shechem and the Biblical Tradition. Biblical Archaeologist 26: 1–27. Moran, William L. 1992The Amarna Letters. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press. Seger, Joe D. 1997Shechem. Pp. 19–23 in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Archaeology in the Near East 5, ed. Eric M. Meyers. New York: Oxford University Press. Stager, Lawrence E. 1999The Fortress-Temple at Shechem and the “House of El, Lord of the Covenant.” Pp. 228–49 in Realia Dei: Essays in Archaeology and Biblical Interpretation in Honor of Edward F. Campbell, Jr., at His Retirement, eds. Prescott H. Williams and Theodore Hiebert. Atlanta: Scholars.2003The Shechem Temple Where Abimelech Massacred a Thousand. Biblical Archaeology Review 29.4: 26–35, 66, 68–69. Toombs, Lawrence E. 1972The Stratigraphy of Tell Balatah (Ancient Shechem). Annual of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan 17: 99–110.1976The Stratifi cation of Tell Balâtah (Shechem). Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 223: 57–59.1979Shechem: Problems of the Early Israelite Era. Pp. 69–83 in Symposia: Celebrating the Seventy-Fifth Anniversary of the Founding of the American Schools of Oriental Research (1900–1975), ed. Frank M. Cross. Cambridge MA: American Schools of Oriental Research.1992Shechem (Place). Pp. 1174–86 in The Anchor Bible Dictionary 5, ed. David N. Freedman. New York: Doubleday. Wood, Bryant G. 1997The Role of Shechem in the Conquest of Canaan. Pp. 245–56 in To Understand the Scriptures: Essays in Honor of William H. Shea, ed. David Merling. Berrien Springs MI: The Institute of Archaeology/Siegfried H. Horn Archaeological Museum. Wright, G. Ernest 1965Shechem: The Biography of a Biblical City. London: Gerald Duckworth. 1967Shechem. Pp. 355–70 in Archaeology and Old Testament Study, ed. D. Winton Thomas. Oxford, England: Clarendon.



The So-Called Jesus Family Tomb 'Rediscovered' in Jerusalem
Tags: jesus tomb, simcha jacobovici, ossuary, mary magdalene, resurrection--> See the 'Jesus Tomb' debunked in this cutting edge video. Click on image to pre-order TODAY! On Monday morning, February 26, 2007, I heard this opening statement by Matt Lauer on the NBC Today show: "Is this the tomb of Jesus? A shocking new claim that an ancient burial place may have housed the bones of Christ and a son. This morning a Today exclusive that could rock Christianity to its core." When I saw the interview with James Cameron and Simcha Jacobovici I said to myself, "This isn’t new. It is a rehashing of the 1996 'Easter special' by the BBC!"The segment on the Today show was an infomercial promoting the new book by Simcha Jacobovici and Charles Pellegrino, entitled The Jesus Family Tomb (hereafter footnoted as J&P 2007), and the documentary that would be aired later on the Discovery Channel called "The Lost Tomb of Jesus." The book is well written, very dramatic, and Rosetta Stone Chinese