Everyday Life in Bible Times [antikvár]

Jroreword\ CROSS THE VALLEY OF KiDRON Spread the massive walls and huddled houses, /\ the towers and domes of Jerusalem. As I stood on the Mount of Olives, gazing upon this Holy City of three great faiths, I thought of its momentous past. Here, tradition says, Abraham prepared to sacrifice his son Isaac. Here rose the City of David, and here Solomon built his temple in days of Israel's glory. I could almost hear the tinkling of the Queen of Sheba's caravan camels bearing "spices, and very much gold, and precious stones" shuffling soft-footed into Solomon's resplendent capital.Here Jesus walked during His last days. I saw the gleaming Dome of the Rock, site of Herod's Temple where Jesus scourged the money changers. Below me, gnarled olive trees in the Garden of Gethsemane reflected Jesus' agony. On Mount Zion, far to my left, stood the traditional Room of the Last Supper. In the distance ahead, I picked out the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, enshrining the place where He fulfilled His promise to "give his life as a ransom for many." I thought:If only there were a book that could capture the power of this scene, that could bring Bible times to life as did my own journey to Bible lands!So many ties link us to these desert-girt lands that arch through the Tigris-Euphrates vaUey, down the Levant coast, to the Nile's banks! Here in the Fertile Crescent man learned to harness oxen to his stick plow, to harvest grain and thresh it under the hoofs of cattle. He learned to save seed and plan for the river's seasonal retreat, when fields lay scorched and cracked.Irrigation required community effort and helped weld clans into nations. Apportioning water taught man government. A steady food supply enabled him to build towns, gave him leisure to speculate on laws of the universe, to devise a calendar and a system of writing, to enrich life with arts. The words that I write, the paintings and sculptures of daily life that adorn these pages were rooted in Biblical soil. The ancestor of the giant map in the back of the book was incised on Mesopotamian clay 4,500 years ago.How often my journey to Bible lands stirred memories of treasured Bible stories! In Damascus bazaars I rubbed shoulders with men in patriarchal robes and imagined Abraham coming to this Syrian oasis. On a cliff in Lebanon I gazed on 33 centuries of inscriptions among them hieroglyphs marking the return of Ramesses II from a war against the Hittites. Ramesses! "Pharaoh of the Oppression" from whose bondage Moses led the children of Israel. In mountain snows I found a remnant of the cedars of Lebanon. They were shipped to Solomon from Byblos, which gave us our word "Bible." Amid the pagan splendors of Baalbek I sensed the power of Rome, whose legions rendered Palestine unto Caesar. At Tarsus, Antioch, Corinth, I felt the presence of Paul, whose message changed history's course.To give readers the same rich experience. Book Service Chief Merle Severy and I planned Everyday Life in Bible Times. He too has traveled widely in Bible landsSAMARITAN WOMAN near Jacob's Well evoices Jesus' words: "whosoever driniceth of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst" (John 4:14). Scenes that span the centuries greet modern eyes in Bible lands.THOMAS NEBBIA