PUBLIC MARKS from msgbeepa with tags hebrew & bible

A 3rd Century CE Roman grave has revealed a startling find- a small golden scroll with the Hebrew prayer, known as the Shema, quot;Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one quot; (Deuteronomy 6:4). The scroll is a Greek transcription of the prayer, and was found resting in an infant’s grave. This finding may push back by 600 years the evidence of a Jewish Presence in modern day Austria.

A new biblical seal has been uncovered in the Old City of Jerusalem. The Hebrew name on the seal is "Shlomit" and may have belonged to a women! If true this is exciting evidence of women's involvement in the Palace Administration of the King's of Judah, and tells us that women held positions of authority! The cultic scene on the seal is reminiscent of Babylonian icons and teaches us more about the connection with Judah and the Babylonian Empire.

The city of Bethel is located north of Jerusalem and is identified as what is now the Arab village Bitan. It is first mentioned as a place near which Abraham first settled when arriving in Canaan, and is mentioned throughout Israelite history in the Bible. The archaeological findings date as far back as the 21st century BCE.

The Tetragrammaton Yhwh is the personal name for the God of Israel and Judah as revealed to Moses in the Wilderness (Exodus 3:14). This name is first attested to outside the bible in the late ninth century Mesha Inscription, where the enemy king of Moab announces “I took the vessels of Yhwh and dragged them before Chemosh” (line 17).

The Second Temple Period is one that extends from the return of the first of the exiles in 539 BCE following the declaration of Cyrus, or with the dedication of the Temple in 516 BCE, until the Temple’s destruction in 70 CE. Interesting article from Classical Hebrew Blog who write about the Bible, biblical Hebrew and online bible study.

The City of Ugarit was a well-known city and kingdom which flourished during the second millennium BCE, located on the coast of the Mediterranean in today’s northern Syria. The location of the city was unknown until 1928, when a grave discovered by accident in the village of Ras Shamra turned out to be part of the Ugarit necropolis.

The main source of water in ancient Jerusalem was the Gihon spring, located just outside the city walls. When the Assyrians waged an attack against Judah towards the end of the 8th century BCE, led by king Sennacherib, king Hezekiah realized that in order to sustain throughout an Assyrian siege, the city must be better protected and the water must be accessible from inside the walls of the city.

The patriarchal age is one of great importance for the people of Israel: it begins with Abraham’s journey, a daring voyage to a strange land led by faith in a then new, single God, who said unto him: “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you” (Genesis 12:1).

The city of Lachish, located in the maritime lowlands of Judea, is first mentioned in the Bible during Joshua’s conquest. After the Gibeonites deceptively made a covenant with Joshua, many of the Canaanite kings were alarmed that they might be conquered with Gibeonite assistance, and therefore set out to fight the Gibeonites. Joshua took over all of these rebellious cities, and Lachish, being one of them, was later part of the territory assigned to the tribe of Judah.

The name Canaanites denotes the inhabitants of the land of Canaan who inhabited the land prior to the Israelite settlement, and remained among the Israelites throughout the First Temple Period. The Bible stresses that the Israelites must stay apart from them, and the Patriarchs set an example for proper behavior by not marrying Canaanite women despite the fact that that would have been the easy and obvious choice.

The oldest part of Israelite Jerusalem, known as the city of David, is located on a narrow ridge just south of the walls of the current old city of Jerusalem. After conquering Jerusalem from the Jebusites, David established the city as his capital and began to develop it. David’s Jerusalem was extremely small and was populated mainly by the king and his staff.