Blog

“Judge not, and you shall not be judged. Condemn not, and you shall not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you” (Luke 6:37-38 NKJV).

Matthew’s parallel adds, “For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you” (chapter 7:2). This is perhaps one of the most sobering statements of Jesus. Yet we rarely pause to internalize it.

We often take it to mean that if we do not judge others, others will not judge us, but that misses Jesus’ point entirely. It’s not others who will not judge us; it’s not others who will not condemn us or forgive us; rather, it is God.

You mean how God will judge me and even forgive me depends on how I treat others? According to Jesus, the answer is yes. 

So, how do you want to be judged by God? If we desire God’s mercy, we must show mercy to others. If we want Him to forgive us, then we must forgive. “Forgive, and you will be forgiven.” And, if we want Him to give to us, we must generously give to others. 

In the manner we want God to act and treat us, we must behave to another as we would to ourselves. In fact, for Him, we demonstrate our love of God and obedience to Him by how we love others. “With the measure you use, it will be measured back to you.” 

How different would our world look if we took this startling statement of Jesus’ to heart? How would we relate differently to our families? In our workplaces? To strangers? Foreigners? Enemies? 

If we treated others in the same way that we want God to treat us, what testimony would we demonstrate to a world filled with anger, bitterness, judgment, condemnation, and unforgiveness?

We often water down the impact of Jesus’ words. We need to let them hit us anew—and afresh. How do I want God to judge me? Then I must judge others in the same manner. 

We all hope for God to show us mercy, so let us show mercy to others. When we hear Jesus and truly internalize His words, His challenging message rings just as relevant for us today as it did to His listeners 2,000 years ago.

Be merciful as your Father in heaven is merciful.

PRAYER

Father, forgive us for judging and condemning others without kindness and mercy. God, we need Your mercy; let us therefore show mercy toward others like ourselves. Amen.

By Marc Turnage

The name Ein Gedi means “spring of the kid (young goat).” Ein Gedi, which is the largest oasis on the western shore of the Dead Sea, sits between two riverbeds (in Hebrew, nahal, in Arabic, wadi): Nahal David to the north and Nahal Arugot to the south. The oasis contains four springs, Ein David, Ein Arugot, Ein Shulamit, and Ein Gedi, that flow year-round supplying three million cubic meters of water annually. 

The springs have allowed habitation, which dates back to the Chalcolithic period (ca. 4000 B.C.). Its most continuous inhabitation goes from the beginning of the seventh century B.C. until the early Arab period as indicated by archaeological and literary evidence. The book of Joshua locates Ein Gedi within the tribal territory of Judah (15:62). Ein Gedi’s location within the tribal territory of Judah explains David’s use of the oasis when he hid from Saul (1 Samuel 23:29; 24). During the biblical period, a road from the southern end of the Dead Sea and the lands to the east, Moab and Edom, ascended from Ein Gedi into the central hill country towards Bethlehem. 

Although located along the arid shores of the Dead Sea, the fresh-water springs and temperate climate year-round allowed Ein Gedi to flourish as a place of agriculture. Date palms and perfume-producing plants became the primary crops of the oasis. The book of Ben Sira mentions the date palms of Ein Gedi. 

In the first century B.C., the arrival of hydraulic plaster from Italy in Judaea enabled the Jewish leaders, the Hasmoneans, to construct aqueducts at Ein Gedi, which allowed them to expand the agricultural production at Ein Gedi. During the first century B.C. and A.D., Ein Gedi produced a perfume, balsam, which served as the cash-crop of the kingdom of Herod the Great and Judaea. It was exported all throughout the Roman world. Herod the Great’s construction of the palace fortress of Masada, just south of Ein Gedi, served to protect the produce of the balsam.

The dates of Judaea also were exported to Italy. The site of Ein Gedi was destroyed during the First Jewish Revolt (A.D. 66-73) but rebuilt in the years after the revolt and served as a location of a Roman garrison as well as a military and administrative center for the Jewish rebels during the Bar Kochba Revolt (A.D. 132-136). The Romans conquered Ein Gedi at the end of this Jewish revolt. Remains of the Jewish rebels and their belongings were discovered in caves near the oasis of Ein Gedi in the twentieth century.

Marc Turnage is President/CEO of Biblical Expeditions. He is an authority on ancient Judaism and Christian origins. He has published widely for both academic and popular audiences. His most recent book, Windows into the Bible, was named by Outreach Magazine as one of its top 100 Christian living resources. Marc is a widely sought-after speaker and a gifted teacher. He has been guiding groups to the lands of the Bible—Israel, Jordan, Egypt, Turkey, Greece, and Italy—for over twenty years.

Website: WITBUniversity.com
Facebook: @witbuniversity
Podcast: Windows into the Bible Podcast

“Wisdom is supreme—so get wisdom. And whatever else you get, get understanding. … I am teaching you the way of wisdom; I am guiding you on straight paths” (Proverbs 4:7, 11 HCSB).

Our modern world often equates wisdom with our intelligence or as the natural result of our life experience. In other words, we have little control over whether or not we are wise. We either possess it innately or automatically gain it through life experience. However, according to the Bible, it’s neither.

In the Bible, wisdom is a skill that can be acquired and learned, but it also requires discipline and practice.

Both Psalms and Proverbs associate wisdom with the “fear” of (or obedience to) God. Wisdom dwells with God and in His Word. Yet it is something to be acquired—to grow in and continually learn.

Wisdom first appears in the Bible in connection with Bezalel and his craftsmen (Exodus 35-36), who were tasked with constructing the elements and vestments of the Tabernacle. They were artisans. They are also the first people to be filled with the Spirit of God.

The way the Bible uses the term “wisdom” in the context of Bezalel shows that it is a skill acquired through disciplined, attentive action, and practice. Yes, God filled these artisans with His Spirit, but their ability came from their discipline, their wisdom.

In the Bible, God does not simply give us a skill or ability that we have not acquired and mastered through discipline and practice. David had practiced his slingshot thousands of times before he confronted Goliath.

Bezalel fashioned countless pieces, working on his art and his craft, before God called him to construct the elements of the Tabernacle. Our acquisition of wisdom, skill, and insight enables God to animate what we have mastered and expand its impact exponentially.

Life experience does not alone produce wisdom; neither is wisdom simply something one has or doesn’t have. Wisdom comes through discipline and practice, through obedience.

We can train ourselves to be wise. At the same time, wisdom—within the Bible—comes from God’s instructions, and learning His Word requires discipline, practice, and skill.

Biblical wisdom does not come to the lazy nor to those who want it quickly. We acquire it through discipline in our lives and in God’s Word. But the promise of wisdom is life.

PRAYER

Father, please grant us Your wisdom. May we acquire it and learn to walk in Your ways. Amen.

By Marc Turnage

The Golden Dome of the Rock provides one of the most iconic and recognizable images of any city’s skyline within the world. The Islamic shrine completed in A.D. 692 by the Umayyad Caliph Abd al-Malik stands upon the platform of the Temple Mount, which was constructed during the first centuries B.C. and A.D. The Temple Mount refers to the platform and complex upon which stood the Temple constructed by Herod the Great. This was the Temple known to Jesus, Mary, Joseph, Peter, and Paul. It stood on the northern end of the eastern hill of Jerusalem, what the Bible calls Mount Zion. 

Around 1000 B.C., David conquered the Jebusite city of Jerusalem and the stronghold of Zion, which sat on the eastern hill. He made this the capital of his united kingdom, Israel. When his son, Solomon, succeeded his father as king, he extended the city to the northern height of the eastern hill where he built his palace, administrative buildings, and the House of the God of Israel, the First Temple. This building remained situated on the height of the eastern hill until the Babylonians, under Nebuchadnezzar, destroyed it in 586 B.C. The Babylonians carried the Judeans into exile. When they returned to the land around Jerusalem, they rebuilt the Temple, under Zerubbabel. This building underwent renovations and additions in the subsequent centuries; however, our knowledge of this is limited due to the absence of clear descriptions within ancient sources and a lack of archaeological excavation in the area of the Temple Mount.

In the eighteenth year of Herod the Great’s reign as king of Judea, he began a massive remodeling and reconstruction of the Temple area, which ultimately resulted in the construction of the Temple Mount. The construction, which continued into the first century A.D., after Herod’s death in 4 B.C., created a series of four retaining walls that supported the platform, which covered the high point of the eastern hill turning it into the largest enclosed sacred space within the Roman world. The main portion of construction took nine-and-a-half years. Herod apparently oversaw the building of the Temple building, which stood twice the height of the golden Dome of the Rock, and the remodeling of the sacred precincts, an area of five hundred cubits square, during his lifetime. 

The heart of the Temple Mount was the Temple building and the surrounding sacred complex, which including the Court of the Women, the Court of the Israelites, the Chambers of Wood, Oil, Lepers, and Nazirites. Inside the Temple building was the Holy Place, which housed the golden lampstand (the menorah), the Table of Shewbread, and the altar of incense. Beyond the Holy Place was the Holies of Holies, which was entered only by the high priest once a year on the Day of Atonement.

The construction of the Temple Mount continued into the first century as the southern and northern portions of the platform expanded. The four retaining walls of the Temple Mount contained gates that offered access onto the Temple Mount platform. The northern retaining wall contained the Tadi Gate, which rabbinic sources claim was not used at all. The Shushan Gate stood on the eastern wall of the Temple Mount, of which portions seem to predate Herod, and it was lower than the other walls that surrounded the Temple Mount. 

The present eastern gate, known as the Golden Gate (or in Arabic, the Mercy Gate) was built much later than the first century. It was sealed, like most of the gates onto the Temple Mount by the Crusader, Knights Templar, who made the Temple Mount their headquarters. The western retaining wall had four gates. Two were upper and two lower, and they alternated lower and upper. The northernmost gate opened onto a street that ran alongside the western retaining wall. Today it is known as Warren’s Gate (named after the British explorer, Charles Warren, who found the gate). 

In the first century an arched bridge spanned from the western hill to the western wall of the Temple Mount. This bridge conveyed an aqueduct that provided water for the Temple worship. The bridge and the arched gateway that provided access onto the Temple Mount were identified by Charles Wilson in the nineteenth century and bear his name today. Today a portion of the western retaining wall serves as the prayer plaza of the Western Wall, a functioning synagogue, a site holy for Jews. In the women’s section of the Western Wall remains of a third gate can be seen. This gate, known as Barclay’s gate, after the American missionary, James Barclay, who discovered it, also provided access to the street that ran along the western wall. 

The fourth and final gate also offered another elevated access onto the Temple Mount platform. It was supported by a large arch with steps that ascended the southwestern corner of the Temple Mount. The arch, which was the largest arch in the Roman world at the time of its construction, is known as Robinson’s Arch, bearing the name of the American Edward Robinson who identified the spring of the arch, which is all that remains. The southern entrances of the Temple Mount served the majority of Jewish pilgrims who came to Jerusalem for the festivals of Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles. Two large double gates stood at the top of stairs providing access up a ramp onto the Temple Mount platform. Pilgrims entered on the right of the two gates and exited through the left two gates unless they were in mourning. If they were in mourning, they went the opposite direction in order to receive comfort from their fellow worshipers. 

The western and southern retaining walls were built in the first century A.D. Their construction enlarged the Temple Mount platform to the south, which created a large court outside of the sacred precincts. They also supported a large colonnaded structure that stood on the southern end of the Temple Mount known as the Royal Stoa. 

Herod’s Temple and the surround complexes were destroyed by the Romans in A.D. 70. During the second and third centuries a pagan shrine stood on the Temple Mount. During the period of the Christian Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire, a couple of churches stood on the Temple Mount. With the coming of Islam in the seventh century, the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa Mosque were constructed. These two buildings stand on top of the Temple Mount until today.

Marc Turnage is President/CEO of Biblical Expeditions. He is an authority on ancient Judaism and Christian origins. He has published widely for both academic and popular audiences. His most recent book, Windows into the Bible, was named by Outreach Magazine as one of its top 100 Christian living resources. Marc is a widely sought-after speaker and a gifted teacher. He has been guiding groups to the lands of the Bible—Israel, Jordan, Egypt, Turkey, Greece, and Italy—for over twenty years.

 Website: WITBUniversity.com  
Facebook: @witbuniversity
Podcast: Windows into the Bible Podcast

“Therefore, King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision, but declared first to those in Damascus and in Jerusalem, and throughout all the region of Judea, and then to the Gentiles, that they should repent, turn to God, and do works befitting repentance” (Acts 26:19-20 NKJV).

A key difference between the cultural world of the Bible and much of our modern world is that we tend to think and express ourselves in abstract ways today. We often place more importance upon our inner psychology, defining thoughts, feelings, and behaviors in a far more abstract manner. The world of the Bible expresses itself in a more concrete form.

We tend treat repentance as something psychological. I’m sorry for what I’ve done. We may acknowledge that we should not continue in the behaviors that we previously did, but the shift is mostly inward. The Bible looks at repentance differently. Repentance is not something you feel; it’s something you do.

When Paul stood in front of Agrippa, he spoke about his ministry to Jews and Gentiles. His message: Turn to God and do works in keeping with repentance. It’s active, not inward. Now, one might argue that external action begins inside the psyche of a person. And that can be true.

But the Bible does not define repentance as a feeling; rather, repentance is an action whereby one turns to God and performs deeds worthy of repentance. For the biblical mind, the manifestation of repentance, true repentance, appears in our actions, usually our actions towards others.

When we read Paul’s statement, “do works befitting repentance,” we should ask, what exactly are those? We find a similar phrase on the lips of John the Baptist in Luke 3.

John outlines that the fruits consistent with our repentance manifest themselves in our obedience to God, especially in how we care for others and particularly the poor: He replied to them, “The one who has two shirts must share with someone who has none, and the one who has food must do the same” (Luke 3:11 HCSB).

We run the risk in our modern world of turning repentance into something purely inward, private, between God and us. Yet, according to the Bible, if we want to repent, we must act, turn to God in obedience, and perform deeds worthy of repentance.

Repentance is not something we do once and then are completely done. Jesus challenged His followers to repent on a daily basis. Repentance is a lifestyle and a posture of humility toward God, recognizing that the fruit of our repentance is usually directed toward others.

PRAYER

Father, we turn to You today. We humbly submit ourselves to Your will today. Today, we will actively seek to perform deeds worthy of our repentance. Amen.

When Hamas invaded southern Israel last October, thousands of residents were forced to evacuate their homes and farms—leaving behind unharvested crops and triggering a chain reaction of food scarcity and price hikes. 

Many throughout the country feared that a dire situation was on the horizon for needy Israelis.

But thanks to compassionate friends like you, CBN Israel linked arms with Leket Israel, the nation’s top food bank, and sponsored two trucks (and drivers) that delivered 1.6 million pounds of rescued fresh fruit and vegetables along with 30,000 hot meals to people suffering from food insecurity during this time of war.

CBN Israel shares Leket’s mission: to rescue nutritious produce and collect hot meals that would otherwise be discarded—and redistribute them to those in need. Partnering with some 200 nonprofits, this helps ensure that thousands of people receive healthy food daily.

One nonprofit organization that receives hot meals each weekday thanks to the support of caring CBN Israel donors is Ort Beit Haarva. This vocational school in Jerusalem trains students from low-income families.

“For most of our students, the lunch they receive is the only hot meal they eat that day,” said Ilanit, the school’s social services coordinator. “Their parents aren’t able to provide for them … and that’s why it’s so important for them to receive it here at school.”

Odelle, one of the students, said she is encouraged knowing a meal is waiting for her. “I’m able to focus better on my studies because food is something that nourishes you and helps you keep going,” she said.

Thanks to kindhearted donors, other meals are distributed to a soup kitchen, a high school, and a home for the elderly.

Your gifts to CBN Israel can give hope and aid to so many in need who feel alone. You can offer them food, housing, financial help, and more.

Please consider a special gift today to bless those in need throughout the Holy Land!

GIVE TODAY

By Julie Stahl

God commanded the Jewish people to come up to Jerusalem three times a year. One of those occasions is for Shavuot.

“Three times a year all your males shall appear before the LORD your God in the place which He chooses: at the Feast of Unleavened Bread, at the Feast of Weeks, and at the Feast of Tabernacles; and they shall not appear before the Lord empty-handed” (Deuteronomy 16:16).

And in Exodus 34:22 we read, “You shall observe the Feast of Weeks, the firstfruits of wheat harvest, and the Feast of Ingathering at the year’s end.”

The New Testament records that Jews were gathered in Jerusalem when the Holy Spirit was poured out on Pentecost.

“When the Day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. Then there appeared to them divided tongues, as of fire, and one sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance” (Acts 2:1-4).

What’s the connection between God giving the Law to Moses and pouring out His Holy Spirit? Both are celebrated on the biblical Feast of Weeks or Shavuot, known in the New Testament as Pentecost. 

This year, the two holidays are celebrated a month apart. About seven times every 19 years, a second lunar month of Adar is added to the Jewish calendar to keep the year more or less in sync with the solar calendar—much the same way a day is added to February every four years. That’s why this year, Pentecost was in May and Shavuot is in June.

Fifty days (about seven weeks) after Passover, the Jewish people celebrate Shavuot (“weeks” in Hebrew), also known as the Feast or Festival of Weeks. In the same way, Christians celebrate Pentecost (“50 days” in Greek).

Many Jewish people stay up all night on Shavuot to study the Scriptures. Before dawn, those in Jerusalem head to the Western Wall on foot where they pray and bless God. The Ten Commandments are read, and in many communities, the book of Ruth is also read.

According to Jewish tradition, it was on Shavuot that God called Moses up to Mount Sinai and gave him the Law—the two tablets on which the Ten Commandments were written, as well as the entire Torah.

“There are so many beautiful parallels that take place for Shavuot,” said Boaz Michael, founder of First Fruits of Zion. “Imagine Mount Sinai with the mountains above it, the covenant given to the people of Israel. This reminds us of a chuppah (canopy) over a bride and a groom. It tells us that God is making a covenant with His bride, Israel. There’s a marriage that takes place.”

Michael told CBN News: “Shavuot is a celebration of the giving of the commandments, but more than that—we’ve been redeemed from Egypt. We’ve wandered through the wilderness. We’ve come to Mount Sinai, and we enter into an intimate relationship with God through the giving of His commandments and then the covenant that He gives to us, the Torah, at Mount Sinai.”

He further explained, “That links us to Acts 1:8, where tells His disciples to take His message to Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria and to all the ends of the earth.”

Julie Stahl is a correspondent for CBN News in the Middle East. A Hebrew speaker, she has been covering news in Israel full-time for more than 20 years. Julie’s life as a journalist has been intertwined with CBN—first as a graduate student in Journalism at Regent University; then as a journalist with Middle East Television (METV) when it was owned by CBN from 1989-91; and now with the Middle East Bureau of CBN News in Jerusalem since 2009. She is also an integral part of CBN News’ award-winning show, Jerusalem Dateline, a weekly news program providing a biblical and prophetic perspective to what is happening in Israel and the Middle East.

“When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not wholly reap the corners of your field when you reap, nor shall you gather any gleaning from your harvest. You shall leave them for the poor and for the stranger: I am the LORD your God” (Leviticus 23:22 NKJV).

Farming in the ancient world was incredibly difficult. A farmer had to plow his field—most often with oxen—then sow the seed into the broken-up earth. He then prayed for rain, because if the rains didn’t come within about a week, the seed he had sowed would be useless and would not produce a crop. After the rains he waited, letting his crop grow.

Then came the time to harvest. Having toiled in his field under the scorching sun, sowing seed in the hope of a growing crop, he received the reward for his hard labor, prayers, and patience. And then he was told to leave the edges of his fields unharvested and not to pick up whatever fell during the harvest. These—the edges of his field and the gleanings—belonged to the poor and foreigners. Doesn’t seem fair, does it?

The field belonged to him, and so did its crops. Yet God required that Israelite farmers leave the edges and the gleanings for the poor and foreigners.

We know that ancient Israelite farmers did exactly as God commanded. The story of Ruth and Naomi demonstrates this. Naomi instructed Ruth to gather the gleanings, which she was permitted to do and did.

Biblical spirituality assumes that we care about the well-being of those around us. One of the fascinating things about the law God gave Israel was that in very practical, everyday activities, God called upon the Israelites to demonstrate their obedience to Him.

He concludes the law of the gleanings with the statement: “I am the Lord your God.” You mean we demonstrate God’s lordship in how we care for the poor and the foreigner in our midst? Yes!

We show our relationship to God in how we treat others, especially those who are less fortunate and are outcast within our society. God blessed the work of the farmer by sending rain in its season so the crops would grow. In response, the farmer left portions of his field and harvest to those who had no claim to it.  

Do we look at those in our culture who have no claim to what is ours and say, “God has blessed me, so what I have I share with you?” We proclaim God’s lordship in our generosity to others, especially the poor and foreigners.

PRAYER

Father, today I choose to follow, obey, and pursue You, the source of all life. Please bring the freshness and newness of Your life-giving water into the dry places of my heart for Your glory. Amen.

By Julie Stahl

“I have set watchmen on your walls, O Jerusalem; they shall never hold their peace day or night. You who make mention of the LORD, do not keep silent, and give Him no rest till He establishes and till He makes Jerusalem a praise in the earth” (Isaiah 62:6-7 NKJV).

For centuries, the Jewish people had been in exile. For a generation, they had been without access to their ancestral city. Yet for six unforgettable days in early June 1967, surrounded by enemies, Israel stood alone and changed history forever.

By 1967, Israel had already fought two major wars, and in May of that year, Arab nations joined together with a stated goal to wipe Israel off the map. Less than 20 years after the birth of the modern Jewish nation, Israel was on the verge of extinction.

Israel, along with Jewish people around the world, thought they were facing another Holocaust. In Tel Aviv and Haifa, they had turned parks into potential graveyards and dug mass graves. But God had other plans.

After only six days (June 5-10, 1967), Israel had tripled in size—beating the combined armies of Syria, Egypt, and Jordan to win the Golan Heights, the Sinai Desert, and biblical Judea and Samaria. Perhaps the pinnacle of their success was reuniting the city of Jerusalem under Israeli-Jewish sovereignty for the first time in nearly 2,000 years.

It was on the third day of the war that Moshe Kempenski, an Orthodox Jewish author and Jerusalem shop owner, said he realized that he wasn’t just reading and studying the Bible, but he had actually experienced the fulfillment of prophecy. A Canadian teenager at the time, Kempenski said he knew on that day he would one day become a Jerusalemite.

“When I fully began to realize the significance of being here and my child playing in a Jerusalem park 30 years later, I recall wondering if my son, Yoni, was one of the children that Zechariah saw in his vision,” says Kempenski.

Kempenski is referencing the passage in Zechariah where God promises, “Once again old men and women will walk Jerusalem’s streets with their canes and will sit together in the city squares. And the streets of the city will be filled with boys and girls at play” (Zechariah 8:4-5 NLT).

During all those years of exile, the Jewish people always ended their holiday prayers with “Next Year in Jerusalem!” The Holy City, though far away and unattainable to most for all those years, was still in their hearts and minds.

So, when Commander Motta Gur uttered those famous words, “the Temple Mount is in our hands” (Har HaBayit B’Yadeinu), Jewish people around the world knew something miraculous had happened.

But despite Israel’s clear win in a war it hadn’t asked for, the international community never recognized Israeli sovereignty over united Jerusalem. After the war, Israel returned religious authority over the beloved Temple Mount to Jordan, who still manages it.

To this day, only Muslims are permitted to pray on the site where two Jewish Temples once stood in biblical times.

In 1980, the Israeli Knesset (parliament) passed the Jerusalem Law, which stated that all of Jerusalem (including the eastern part) was Israel’s united capital. Thirteen countries removed their diplomatic missions from Jerusalem after the UN passed a resolution declaring Israel’s law null and void. (Costa Rica and El Salvador moved their embassies back to Jerusalem in 1984 and then returned to Tel Aviv in 2006.)

In December 2017, in a historic move, U.S. President Donald Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, and on May 14, 2018—70 years after U.S. President Harry Truman recognized the State of Israel—Trump moved the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem. Guatemala moved its Embassy to Jerusalem shortly thereafter.

Jerusalem Day is celebrated in the city with a giant parade of Israeli flags that winds through downtown Jerusalem and ends at the Western Wall.

Julie Stahl is a correspondent for CBN News in the Middle East. A Hebrew speaker, she has been covering news in Israel full-time for more than 20 years. Julie’s life as a journalist has been intertwined with CBN—first as a graduate student in Journalism at Regent University; then as a journalist with Middle East Television (METV) when it was owned by CBN from 1989-91; and now with the Middle East Bureau of CBN News in Jerusalem since 2009. She is also an integral part of CBN News’ award-winning show, Jerusalem Dateline, a weekly news program providing a biblical and prophetic perspective to what is happening in Israel and the Middle East.

By Marc Turnage

The discovery at Qumran of the first seven Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947 required a suitable place to house them. The American Jewish architects Armand Bartos and Frederic Kiesler were tasked with designing a home for the scrolls at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. On April 20, 1965, the Shrine of the Book was dedicated. 

This landmark of modern architecture incorporated elements of the story of the scrolls as well as the community responsible for them to create a special building that symbolized a sanctuary. The architecture of the building seeks to convey the spiritual meanings of light and darkness and rebirth. The Shrine of the Book sits on the campus of the Israel Museum, which is next to Israel’s Parliament, the Knesset, key government offices, and the Jewish National Library at the Hebrew University’s Giv’at Ram campus. Its location among institutions of government, history, art, and learning, give it a national importance. Moreover, it acknowledges the Bible and ancient Judaism and their importance to the State of Israel. 

The buildings architecture incorporates several features that seek to tell the story of Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls. The unique white dome of the Shrine of the Book embodies the lid of the jars in which the first scrolls were found. Opposite the whited dome, under which is housed the Dead Sea Scrolls, stands a black wall. The contrast, white and black, symbolize light and darkness two themes that play prominently within the sectarian scrolls of the Dead Sea Scrolls. 

One must walk through the black wall to make your way to where the scrolls are housed under the white dome, passing through a tunnel that looks like a cave, but also symbolizes a birthing canal. The idea being that one passes from darkness to light in an act of rebirth. Cases line the walls of this tunnel with scroll fragments and other artifacts discovered at the site of Qumran, which sits on the northwest corner of the Dead Sea. This display seeks to convey daily life at Qumran. 

Passing through the tunnel, one enters underneath the white dome. At the center of the hall, in a case built to represent the handle of the rod used for rolling and unrolling a Torah scroll while one reads, sits a facsimile of the Isaiah Scroll. This scroll, found in Cave 1 at Qumran, contains the complete book of Isaiah. The manuscript of this scroll was written around 100 B.C. In cases around the room are portions of actual Dead Sea Scrolls, the Community Rule, Thanksgiving Hymns, Habakkuk Commentary, and Isaiah from Cave 1, and the Temple Scroll from Cave 11. 

Below the display of the Isaiah Scroll is a lower level that houses a display of the Aleppo Codex. The Aleppo Codex was originally written in Tiberias, Israel in the 10^th century A.D. The Aleppo Codex is the Old Testament-Hebrew Bible in book form. Prior to the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, it provided the earliest Hebrew text of the Old Testament. Its text contains traditions of pronunciation, spelling, punctuation, and cantillation handed down within the Jewish community and formalized in the codex by scholars known as “Masoretes.” The Aleppo Codex traveled from Tiberias to Egypt, and then later to Aleppo, Syria. It was smuggled into Israel in the 1950s. 

The Dead Sea Scrolls provide the single most important archaeological discovery of the 20^th century. They offer an unparalleled window into the world of ancient Judaism, as well as the history and transmission of the Hebrew Bible-Old Testament.

Marc Turnage is President/CEO of Biblical Expeditions. He is an authority on ancient Judaism and Christian origins. He has published widely for both academic and popular audiences. His most recent book, Windows into the Bible, was named by Outreach Magazine as one of its top 100 Christian living resources. Marc is a widely sought-after speaker and a gifted teacher. He has been guiding groups to the lands of the Bible—Israel, Jordan, Egypt, Turkey, Greece, and Italy—for over twenty years.

Website: WITBUniversity.com
Facebook: @witbuniversity
Podcast: Windows into the Bible Podcast