Tanach Thoughts

Long time no see... Life has been incredibly busy and is still a bit busy, but at least I have time for making a post on occasion. Here's an interesting thought about the Girgeshites. The Girgeshites (הגרגשי) were one of the seven Canaanite nations. According to Yerushalmi Sheviit 6:1 : "For Rebbi Samuel bar Naḥman said, Joshua sent three orders to the Land of Israel before they entered the Land: Those who want to evacuate should evacuate, those who want to make peace should make peace, those who want to go to war should go to war. The Girgasites evacuated, believed in the Holy One, praised be He, and went to Africa." Famously, Procopius also brought a version of this tradition in his work The History of Wars, IV : " In that country there dwelt very populous tribes, the Gergesites and the Jebusites and some others with other names by which they are called in the history of the Hebrews.  Now when these nations saw that the invading general was an irresistible prodigy...

As promised, a post on why I was unable to find time to make the second part of the Shiloh destruction posts for over a month. It was because, as previously mentioned here , I had gone on a month-long excavation in Tel Tibnah/Tibna/Tibneh (however you want to spell), an archeological tel in Southwest Shomron (Samaria). We were quite busy there and between the archeological work and my work as a volunteer translator of our social media posts, as well as occasional breaks, I couldn't find the time to make the post. I thought I would use the following post to discuss some of the Tanachic-era findings from the site. Not everything has been properly studied yet, though, so there's not that much to say right now. The site is identified by pretty much all scholars with the Roman-era regional capital city Timnah. Some scholars also identify it with Timnat Serach or Timnah Cheres, the city of Yehoshua bin Nun. During this first season of excavations, we mostly found Roman and Hellenisti...