Samford Summer in Israel

Second Letter from Nazareth Dear Family and Friends, I am writing later than usual this Sunday because of morning chores.   More about that momentarily. Last week I mentioned that I met Dad everywhere.   That is still the case, and I don’t imagine it will end.   I cannot ask him all of the questions I have about his experiences digging in the 1970s and 80s, why he dated certain pottery forms the way he did, or any of the other things only he could tell me.   Their number must be countless because I’m not running out.   I ask and not hearing his answer reminds me to grieve.   Did you ever hear him speak?   Maybe you know what I’m talking about.   At Kiddish last Friday Mom told me, “I miss his voice.” Morning chores began when Tom McCollough and I met Motti Aviam at an archaeological site north of the eastern end of the Beit Netofa Valley, near the ancient divide between “Lower” and “Upper” Galilees.   Th...

Dear Family and Friends, It is late in the morning on Sunday June 3.   I did not write last Sunday because by then I had only been in the country two days.   About 11 of us arrived Friday May 25 and 22 more the 26 th .   When all is said and done, we will be about 47 strong.   Students from Samford University, University of South Florida, Randolph-Macon College, Southeastern University, and the University of Lausanne make up our youngest stratum, and our volunteers come from Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee, Florida, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Kentucky, Illinois, Nebraska, Texas, Missouri, Utah, Israel, and Switzerland.   I may have left out some spots. The relatively cool temperatures and clouds have felt like a blessing.   We have even endured the threat of rain, yet rain did not prevent the archaeology from happening, despite some students’ hopes.   Speaking of archaeology, it has gone well so far...

Sunday June 11 Through Sunday June 18, 2017 As I begin, it’s Sunday evening and tomorrow we start our last week in the field.   I’m sitting near the top of a hill called Jebel Qat, just east of our site and a little over a mile north of Sepphoris.   I’ve driven students to their field exam among the ruins on this hill, and I am listening to the wind rattle the loose cover of the porch roof that shades my head.   The porch belongs to a hut that houses young men who guard the surrounding fields from produce and livestock poachers.   The western breeze cools me. This is the week I most wish to be back home but have the most to do.   Closing down a dig season may require more work than starting one.   Crew members will be at their busiest too, as they finish digging, trim and draw balks, sweep for final photos, and help other squares to do the same.   Many will spend both mornings and afternoons at the site, so we will be on ...

Sunday June 4, 2017 Dear Family and Friends, Today is Pentecost Sunday for Christians, the month of Ramadan for Muslims, and a few days past the feast of Savuoth (Weeks) for Jews, and we are now at the midpoint of the dig.   It seems improbable that time could move so swiftly.   We must start thinking about how to close down excavations, and I am anticipating returning to Laura and sharing the rest of my summer with her.   The work, however, is immune to such longings.   It still demands precision.   For its part, precision requires that we care about what we’re doing.   That is part of the human element I talked about last week. In the life cycle of the Shikhin Excavation Project, it is also time to start thinking about when to halt, or to interrupt, excavations in order to publish.   Digging not only uncovers buildings and objects, it also reveals more questions, and we have to decide which ones we will try to answe...

--> Sunday, May 28, 2017 Dear Family and Friends, It has been a busy 11 or so days in Israel, and I missed my deadline for my first letter.   I have been pleased with the people and the weather: both are suited for our operations. This year I feel acutely the void left by my parents, Jim (“Abuna”) and Carolyn Strange.   This is not because we cannot operate without them.   After all, expeditions all over Israel get by without either of them setting foot on their sites.   It is because of who they are to me and to the dig.   I feel it most, not at breakfast, which my mother brings to the site, or at pottery reading, for which I rely on my father’s expertise, but as I pass by their room while knocking on doors at 4 a.m.   I hope for their return in 2018. The early crew arrived on Tuesday May 16 and quickly got to work the next day.   They prepared our store room, oversaw the delivery of tools and toilets to the site, began ...

19 June 2016 Dear Family and Friends, This Father’s Day turned out to be special.   I hugged my dad this morning and we wished one another “Happy Father’s Day.”   Then I left with a group of students and others for a tour of the Old City designed to take us to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and then to the Russian Mission in Israel, down the Via Dolorosa, and thence to the Pool of Bethesda compound, which includes the Church of St. Anne, the mother of Mary.   The Russian Mission houses some antiquities at the eastern extent of the original Sepulcher compound, some of which date to the time of Hadrian and others to the time of Constantine.   According to Christian tradition, Jesus walked bearing his cross on the “Way of Sorrow.”   If he did walk this route, he was several meters below the level of the current street. Because today is Sunday, various masses being held by different branches of Christianity made some parts of the...

12 June 2016 Dear Family and Friends, Today is Shavuot (also Pentecost) for Jews.   This year the holiday falls within the Muslim month of Ramadan.   Western Christians observed their own Pentecost on May 15, which marks the gift of the Holy Spirit.   So now we are in the second period of “Ordinary Time.”   Shavuot has a dual significance: it is a harvest festival and a time to celebrate God’s gift of the Torah.   Ramadan is a month of daytime fasting, also to celebrate God’s first revelation to Muhammad and to engage in almsgiving.   The color for Ordinary Time is green, and even in mid June the lingering green here reminds us of God’s gifts of rain, sun, crops and herds.   That is, of life.   The authors of both Genesis 1 and John know that God’s speech is life giving. I write this from the top of a Galilean hill.   Monday the heat will come but for now temperatures are in the mid 70s Fahrenheit.   A ...