I’m sorry for not blogging lately. Whenever I have had downtime in recent days, thoughts of Philip and his family crowd out other thoughts, and I’m not ready to share anything else here in that regard. The service yesterday was very nice, though I had to leave the reception early to pick up the semester group. I was given the great and unexpected honor of being a pallbearer (with two of Philip’s brothers and Bill). There was a huge number of people there. The number would have been ten-fold, I believe, if those scattered across the U.S. and world that Philip has touched in a significant way were able to have been there.
Another Photo with Philip
Forgive me for posting twice on this in one week, but it has been much on my mind and I finally found this picture that I had been looking for. We took it at a picnic in IBEX Park in the summer of 2004. Philip’s family is the front row (except for the boy in the backwards cap, who is our son Luke). All of these are special people to us, but Philip was one-of-a-kind.
About This Blog (and a new one)
When I started this blog (Todd’s Thoughts), I didn’t really have a clear purpose. I wasn’t sure who my audience would be, and I wasn’t sure what subjects I would discuss. It’s been almost two years now and I think I’ve kinda figured it out. Though I still think the name is uncreative, it accurately reflects the content matter which covers many (but not all) subjects. I generally avoid politics, though I think much about them, and I tend to avoid making this a preaching pulpit. I also am not much interested in extended discussions in the comments section. I like comments because they show me that someone is reading, and this encourages me to continue. But in general I have little time or interest in discussions online.
I have also avoided promoting this blog. There are no links to it from my other websites, with the exception of one from my family website. A time or two when I wrote about BiblePlaces matters, I linked temporarily to this blog, but then moved the content so this blog wouldn’t be noticed by outsiders. Somewhere along the way, people started linking to me and now, I fear, there are readers whom I don’t know. When I realized this early on, I removed the link from this blog to my family webpage, trying to make it a bit harder to find for those I don’t know.
It’s all a bit of foolishness, I suppose, as by its very nature, the internet is public. So I’ve given up any pretense of this being a restricted blog. But I haven’t given up the notion that I’m talking to certain people, and not to the rest of the world. The world can listen, but I’m not necessarily talking to them here. It remains the situation that I am not trying to promote this blog to those I don’t know.
I have decided, for reasons that I can’t remember at the moment, to begin a BiblePlaces Blog. This will be a more public “announcement board” of things related to that subject. Some of the items that formerly would have been placed here will now go there instead. In fact, in order to create the blog “with the appearance of age,” I pulled various posts from the last few months over. This gave the benefit of demonstrating the nature of the blog to the BiblePlaces Newsletter recipients when it was announced (a blog with no posts wouldn’t make a very dramatic announcement). And indeed, I stumbled immediately after the announcement by going on a trip for a week and making no posts.
The point here, to readers of this blog, is that if you are interested in BiblePlaces matters, now you’ll have to look there. If you are solely interested in BiblePlaces matters, you can skip this blog and miss my often frivolous posts (yes, that is a main reason I started 
the BiblePlaces Blog; some readers care about that only and have to suffer through the rest and I am intending to spare them). If you read this for the more personal matters and don’t give a rip about biblical sites, then you’ll have fewer disappointments along this road. Some of you may have to look both places.
I don’t promise to not do things related to biblical sites here. In fact, that is a significant part of my “thoughts.” But they will be the more personal and less academic posts that make it here, like this week’s photo of Beth Shean.
I expect my blogging pace to remain the same as before, though now split between two blogs. Thus I’ll aim for not more than one post a day, either here or there.
The Things That Make Me Happy
I’ve heard from a reliable source that Eugene Merrill is going to be working on a second edition of Kingdom of Priests. I know many students will be happy to get an up-to-date edition of this excellent work. It’ll take a few years to produce; may the Lord supply Dr. Merrill with all of the strength, sharpness, and time necessary.
The Most Influential Christians
The Church Report has this year’s list of the “50 Most Influential Christians in America.” I wonder how many of them are actually going to heaven.
(HT: JT)
In Glory: Philip Berg
This morning Philip Berg collapsed in his home and died. He is survived by his wife Martha and his five children, ages 7 years to 5 months. Philip impacted thousands (or tens of thousands) of people through his work at the Institute of Holy Land Studies (now Jerusalem University College) and Shevet Achim, where he facilitated the heart surgeries of babies from Gaza and Iraq.
Kelli and I knew Philip since we were dating in Jerusalem and we were there when he met his wife Martha. We both earned the same degree, an M.A. in Biblical History, and our oldest children were born five months apart. Like, us, they had five children, and we even followed the same order (3 boys and then 2 girls). We both went through hard hospitalization experiences with a child in the summer of 2001. But there are significant differences. Philip’s life was characterized by selfless service and generous love. More than anyone else that I have ever met, Philip was a servant who loved people. In fact, the closest picture that I have on earth of Jesus is Philip. That is not an exaggeration and it’s not something I just thought after he passed away. I wrote this about him a few years ago:
Philip is quite simply one of the most God-honoring people I know. He is a quiet servant who has helped thousands of people in big and small ways in the last decade. Everyone who knows him loves him.
Philip served the Lord as a single man for many years before marrying. Like his father, Philip had heart trouble in his middle years, but he had hoped that he would enjoy long life like his father who is now 85. Philip was 55.
I don’t know that I will ever be able to calculate the impact that Philip has had on me. I have known numerous scholars whose work is impressive, but few servants who sought no glory. Philip was like his Master and now he is with his Master.
You can pray for the family in this tough transition and in the years ahead. These five kids haven’t just lost their daddy, they’ve lost a very special daddy. They are Asher (7), Adam (5), Nathaniel (4), Sara (2), and Anna Marie (5 months).
Update: Craig Dunning has commented on Philip’s ministry to him here.
Update #2: The burial will be on Jan 22 in Jerusalem. If you live in Israel and want more info on that, email me.
Back from Galilee
I’m back and behind. I was reminded that it rains in Galilee in January. I took this picture this morning.
Beth Shean
One of My Best Days
One of my best days in Israel was this day three years ago. It was a beautiful day with very clear air. Days this good happen maybe once a year. But what made it so good for me is that I was able to get in an airplane and take photos. I have done this before and since, but this was the best of all because the air was so clear. It is important that the air is clear because often I want broad perspective shots (e.g., the whole Dead Sea) or because in places the plane is not allowed to fly lower than 6,000 feet (which makes a shot though 6,800 feet of air for Jericho). It was also ideal because unlike some other flights we actually got approval and got off the ground before the sun was setting. The three-hour flight wasn’t cheap, but it was worth it as we circled around from Beersheba and Arad up to Masada and the Dead Sea before cutting across to Jerusalem and then south through the Shephelah.
I put out a “temporary” CD of those photos a few months later entitled “Aerials of Judah and Jerusalem,” and soon after they were incorporated into the regular volumes of the Pictorial Library. When I started the Pictorial Library one of my major goals was to save money to pay for photo flights. Now the obstacle isn’t so much the money as it is finding a day clear enough to fly when 1) I don’t have other obligations that I can’t get out of; 2) I can get approval (this is the Middle East, not the US) in sufficient time. On the latter, one of my least favorite days was my birthday a year ago when I sat in an airport all day in an unsuccessful attempt to take pictures. If you’re inclined to pray for future success in this area for me, I’d be grateful. I know there are lots of more important things, but there is some value in this too.
Low Rolling Hills of the Shephelah,
with view to the Judean Hill Country
Is Cancer Good News?
John Piper has cancer and has released a letter which you can read on Between Two Worlds. What is stunning is the paragraph that begins, “This news has, of course, been good for me.” It is worth reading in full. I wonder how the letter will read when it becomes my turn to write it.
Kathleen Kenyon Born 100 Years Ago
Jim West notes that Kathleen Kenyon was born 100 years ago today, three days after my wonderful grandmother. His tribute to the dead archaeologist is a little bit kinder than mine. I recognize that her contribution is significant, and I also recognize that she made major, significant mistakes at all three sites at which she dug in Palestine (Samaria, Jericho, Jerusalem). My “tribute” is to cite from a letter to the editor of BAR magazine from July/August 1990.
Kathleen Kenyon deserves some of the archaeological sainthood conferred on her by fellow archaeologists for improvements in methodology, but she was better at “collecting infinite amounts of useless detail” than she was at analysis. A noted archaeologist made the following comment a few years ago about the time he, as a graduate student, had worked under her direction at Jericho:
“Sometimes we were trying to trace charcoal lines from a destruction level or accidental fire for our site drawings. The line sometimes would disappear, and then a few meters away there might be two or three or four charcoal lines, any (or none) of which might be the continuation. Ms. Kenyon would scan the nominations, then imperiously point to the ‘correct ‘ one. She walked away oblivious to the snickers of the grad students.”
I have long thought that Ms. Kenyon drew mountains of conclusions from the tiny unrepresentative area she actually dug at Jericho.
Dr. Erich A. von Fange
Tecumseh, Michigan
And here are a few quotes from the Dame herself.
“Our trenches…all produced unambiguous evidence that there was no occupation before the first century A.D. Early Jerusalem was confined to the eastern ridge” (Kenyon 1974: 93).
“I believe that our excavations have produced a plan of earliest Jerusalem that can only be disproved if further excavations produce more factual (by which I mean stratigraphical) evidence. I do not believe that opportunities for such excavations survive, mainly because of ancient quarryings, but also modern building activities. If they do, I wish the excavators luck” (Kenyon 1974: 94).
This is the classic methodology of the minimalists (though she was a different kind of minimalist): base your (strongly worded, unambiguous) conclusion on absence of evidence. Even when evidence to the contrary is revealed, maintain your position!
“An intriguing new possibility has been introduced by Israeli excavations in the area of the Jewish Quarter on the eastern slope of the western ridge. Here houses were located, assigned by the excavators to the eighth century B.C., built on bedrock. The second stage is a wall which from its massiveness and width, 3 metres, can reasonably be interpreted as a town wall” (Kenyon 1974: 148).
Yep, you read that right. This wall which is clearly 7-8 meters wide is only 3 metres wide when it completely contradicts the “factual evidence” already “proven” by Miss Kenyon. Unfortunately, her legacy lives on.