Merry Christmas!

Joy to the world!

Temple Shekel Coin Discovered

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1048260.html

Conceptualizing the Son of God

Three recent books offer interesting insights into the way ancient Jews and Christians conceptualized the son of God as king, priest, mediator, etc. They also examine sacrifice and ascent. Idel's book looks at medieval Jewish mystical conceptualizations of the "Son." These works provide a number of fascinating insights.

A. Collins and J. Collins, King and Messiah as Son of God: Divine, Human, and Angelic Messianic Figures in Biblical and Related Literature, (Eerdmans, 2008), ISBN 0802807720

Levenson, Jon, The Death and Resurrection of the Beloved Son: The Transformation of Child Sacrifice in Judaism and Christianity, (Yale, 1993) ISBN 0300065116

Idel, Moshe, Ben: Sonship and Jewish Mysticism, (Continuum, 2007), ISBN 0826496660

Templars Live ...

... in Croatia:

http://www.javno.com/en/croatia/clanak.php?id=212032

I suppose I should join too!

http://www.theknightstemplar.org/index.html

High Priest's Crown

For a number of years the Temple Institute in Jerusalem has been reconstruction the vessels and furnishings of the temple in the hope of the rebuilding of the temple. Here is the High Priest's crown (tzitz).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oNDsITDlu8

Something I never thought I'd see

Solomon's Temple restored, by the Legos. That's what I said, Legos, not Logos.

http://assemblingthetemple.blogspot.com/2008/12/first-of-all-i-want-to-apologize-to-my.html

Herod's Tomb

National Geographic has an article on Herod in the Dec 2008 edition. It includes a large map insert with very nice drawings of the history of the Temple Mount.

Barker's Christmas book

Margaret Barker's new book, Christmas, the Original Story (SPCK Publishing, 2008, ISBN 0281060509), examines nativity traditions with an eye to temple theology. It has been available in England for over a month. However, I have not been able to find it available on any of the standard internet book dealers in the US.

For those of you who just can't wait 'til Christmas, it can be purchased from England via ABE Books

http://www.abebooks.com/

Then UK book distributor "TheBookCom" sells new copies for $11.81, with $10.33 for international shipping, which is about what you'd pay buying a new copy in the US given the exchange rate.

If anyone knows if the book is available in the US, let us know.

Herodian Temple Computer Model

This site has some nice screen snapshots and movies of a massive computer generated model of the Herodian Temple Mount.

http://www.ust.ucla.edu/ustweb/Projects/israel.htm