Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Do You Fear When "Shabbat" and a "Rock" Come Together?

Don't.

Shabbat boundary rock with Hebrew etching discovered

An ancient rock inscription of the word “Shabbat” was uncovered near
Lake Kinneret this week – the first and only discovery of a stone
Shabbat boundary in Hebrew. The etching in the Lower Galilee community of Timrat appears to date from the Roman or Byzantine period.

...Mordechai Aviam, head of the Institute for Galilean Archeology at Kinneret College...“This is the first time we’ve found a Shabbat boundary inscription in Hebrew,” he said. “The letters are so clear that there is no doubt that the word is ‘Shabbat.’”

Aviam said Jews living in the area in the Roman or Byzantine era (1st - 7th centuries CE) likely used the stone to denote bounds within which Jews could travel on Shabbat. The Lower Galilee of Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages had a Jewish majority – many of the Talmudic sages bore toponyms indicative of Galilee communities.

So, Jews were the original inhabitants, long before the Arabs and continuously so.

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