Saturday, January 17, 2009

PROFESSOR DAN SCHOWALTER is speaking on Herodian archaeology at Arizona State:
Scholar explores fusing archeological remains, historic texts
January 29, 2009
7 p.m.


Scholar Dan Schowalter will investigative the three temples built by Herod the Great that Jewish historian Josephus writes about in his texts at a lecture at 7 p.m., Jan. 29 in Life Sciences A Building, room 1919, Arizona State University Tempe campus. Schowalter will examine the difficulty of integrating material remains at these archeological sites with textual evidence from Josephus’ texts and the New Testament.

The lecture is sponsored in partnership by the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Department of Religious Studies, School of Human Evolution and Social Change, School of International Letters and Cultures, and the Central Arizona Society of the Archaeological Institute of America.

Schowalter will discuss the political significance of holy places in both the ancient and modern world. The remains of the temples at the cities of Caesarea Maritima and Samaria Sebaste in Israel have been discovered for years. But the discovery of a three-phase temple site at Omrit, in northern Israel, has created a debate about the location of the third temple.

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These would be pagan temples built to please the Roman authorities etc., not to be confused with his "third" (i.e., heavily reconstructed second) Jewish Temple in Jerusalem.