The Fall of Israel in the Old Testament Explained

The Bible states that the kings of Israel sinned greatly. But Israel fell because it was just too attractive to the Assyrians. 

At first the Assyrians ignored Samaria, then the capital of Israel, thinking it was too isolated. But eventually they attacked it and conquered the city, along with rest of the kingdom.

If you believe the Old Testament, the kingdom of Israel suffered and ultimately fell because its rulers and people just couldn’t be monogamous with the god Yahweh. (They also supposedly burned their sons and daughters as offerings and practiced divination and sorcery, among other sins.) 

But, looking at the archaeological record, “Israel’s greatest misfortune — and the cause of its destruction and the exile of many of its people — was that as an independent kingdom living in the shadow of a great empire, it succeeded too well,” write Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman in The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology’s New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts.

Yes, Israel fell because of jealousy — not God’s but the Assyrians’. 

“Israel — with its rich resources and productive population — was an incomparably more attractive target than poor and inaccessible Judah,” the authors explain. 

Israel’s prosperity sparked Assyria’s envy. The minute the Israelites considered a revolt, the Assyrians launched an attack.

Assyria’s Bitch: The Complaints of the Prophets Amos and Hosea

For a time, Israel was a subservient vassal to Assyria, paying tribute to maintain peace. 

This age of prosperity began around 800 BCE and greatly upset two biblical prophets, Amos and Hosea. They abhorred Israel’s dependence upon Assyria and its economic disparity between the ruling elite and the poor. Amos railed against those who slept on beds of ivory, chilled out on couches, ate lamb and calves, sang songs while playing the harp, drank wine from bowls, anointed themselves with fine oils and built houses of hewn stone, amongst other egregious transgressions. 

The prophet Amos railed against the rich and their exploitation of the poor.

His contemporary Hosea didn’t appreciate deals made with Assyria or the export of oil to Egypt. 

Hosea, another prophet, ridiculed allegiances with Assyria and Egypt.

This condemnation of a wealthy lifestyle and foreign influence on the Israelite way of life would greatly influence the Old Testament’s stodgy philosophy.

The Assyrian monarch Tiglath-pileser III, who conquered Israel

The Decline and Fall of the Israelite Kingdom

A new Assyrian king, Tiglath-pileser III, also known as Pul in the Bible, began a campaign to conquer and annex the region, deporting its residents at his whim.

Israel at this time had been subject to the assassinations of four kings in 15 years. A military officer named Pekah joined with King Rezin of Damascus to attempt a united resistance against Assyria. 

The plan backfired. Tiglath-pileser III conquered and/or destroyed city after city, executing Rezin and bringing Israel to its knees. Ironically, the one city that was spared Assyria’s wrath was Samaria, which happened to be the capital of Israel. Why? Tiglath-pileser felt it was too “isolated,” as he boasted on a monumental inscription. 

A man named Hoshea assassinated Pehkah, becoming what would be the last king of Israel. In the time between the death of Tiglath-pileser and the succession of Shalmaneser V to the Assyrian throne, Hoshea devised a plan. He asked the lords of the Egyptian delta for help and, in the meantime, stopped paying tribute to Assyria. It didn’t turn out well.

Shalmaneser instantly marched upon Samaria, laying siege to the city. Either he or his successor, Sargon II, who came to the throne in 722 BCE, finally bested Samaria’s defenses. Many Israelites, possibly the aristocracy and artisans, were deported deep into Assyrian territory, while people from other conquered countries were brought to repopulate Samaria. 

The kingdom of Israel fell to the Assyrians, its cities conquered and its people deported.

“It was all over,” write Finkelstein and Silberman. “Two stormy centuries had come to a catastrophic end. The proud northern kingdom and a significant part of its population were lost to history.” –Wally

The Forgotten History of King Ahab, Jezebel and the Omride Dynasty

The Old Testament maligns these rulers, glossing over the fact that they founded the first Israelite kingdom — not David and Solomon. 

Vilified in the Bible, King Ahab and Queen Jezebel, as seen in this painting by Frederic Leighton, circa 1863, were among the first rulers of Israel as a true kingdom.

King Solomon, son of the legendary giant-killer David, has long been held up as a founder of the first Israelite kingdom. Historical and archeological evidence, though, shows that this wasn’t the case. 

King Solomon has been given credit for many of the impressive building projects that actually happened during the Omride Dynasty.

“Most Jews and Christians don’t want to hear that the first kingdom of Israel wasn’t founded by David or Solomon but by the supposedly devious sinners Ahab and Jezebel. ”

A true kingdom — featuring monumental building projects, a professional army and bureaucracy — didn’t appear on the ancient Near East scene until the early 9th century BCE, during what’s known as the Omride Dynasty. 

This won’t sit well with biblical literalists, given that the most famous figures from this line are King Ahab and his notorious wife, Jezebel, a demonized princess from Phoenicia. 

Jezebel, in an 1896 painting by John Liston Byam Shaw, wouldn’t be the first woman to get a bad rap in the Bible. (Incidentally, she was originally painted nude, but the work wasn’t selling, so Byam Shaw added clothes.)

Ahab and Jezebel’s Bad Rap

The most famous (or should I say “infamous”?) Omride couple, King Ahab and Queen Jezebel, are accused of “repeatedly committing some of the greatest biblical sins: introducing the cult of foreign gods into the land of Israel, murdering faithful priests and prophets of YHWH, unjustly confiscating the property of their subjects, and violating Israel’s sacred traditions with arrogant impunity,” explain Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman in The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology’s New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origins of Its Sacred Texts. 

Judging by the evidence, the authors of the Bible could instead have said that Ahab was “a mighty king who first brought the kingdom of Israel to prominence on the world stage and that his marriage to the daughter of the Phoenician king Ethbaal was a brilliant stroke of international diplomacy,” the authors write. “They might have said that the Omrides built magnificent cities to serve as administrative centers of their expanding kingdom.”

Part of their success was certainly due to the fact that they had one of the most powerful armies in the region. 

Omri, the founder of the dynasty, and his son Ahab weren’t particularly pious and did act brutally on occasion. “But the same could be said of virtually every other monarch of the ancient Near East,“ say Finkelstein and Silberman. 

King Omri founded the first powerful Israelite dynasty — sorry, King David!

Israel vs. Judah: The North vs. the South

The Bible tells us that the Israelite kingdom of Judah developed in the south, home to the city of Jerusalem. But it was actually the northern region of Israel that progressed faster.

“Judah was always the most remote part of the hill country, isolated by topographical and climatic barriers,“ write Finkelstein and Silberman. “By contrast, the northern part of the highlands consisted of a patchwork of fertile valleys nestled between adjoining hilly slopes.”

That northern region, Israel, was a more productive area, allowing for grain growing as well as the cultivation of olive orchards and vineyards. With the specialization of oil and wine, some villages turned to trade to get the grain and animal products they needed.

“The result was increasing complexity of the northern highland societies and, eventually, the crystallization of something like a state,” write Finkelstein and Silberman. “Export trade to the people of the lowlands and, more important, to the markets in the great cities of Egypt and the ports of the Phoenician coast pushed things still further.“

King David didn’t rule over a powerful kingdom — he was a mere hill country chieftain.

A Look at the Evidence 

The story of Ahab and Jezebel’s bad behavior was written over 200 years after their deaths. “The biblical narrative is so thoroughly filled with inconsistencies and anachronisms, and so obviously influenced by the theology of the seventh century BCE writers, that it must be considered more of a historical novel than an accurate historical chronicle,” write Finkelstein and Silberman. 

In the 9th century BCE, we finally have firsthand testimonies of events and personalities from the Old Testament in the records of the Assyrians and other neighboring powers. Omri is mentioned in the Mesha stele, found in 1868 in Jordan, at the site of biblical Dibon, the capital of the kingdom of Moab. 

Most famously, the Monolith Inscription, discovered in the 1840s at the ancient Syrian site of Nimrud, mentions how fierce an enemy Ahab was. 

The archaeological evidence shows that Omri and his court arrived at Samaria, what would become their capital city, around 880 BCE. The remains of an impressive palace have been unearthed there. 

“For visitors, traders and official emissaries arriving at Samaria, the visual impression of the Omrides’ royal city must have been stunning,” write Finkelstein and Silberman. “Its elevated platform and huge, elaborate palace bespoke wealth, power and prestige.”

The cities of Megiddo, Hazor and Jezreel followed. The architectural styles all follow certain patterns and were built during Omride rule — and not a century before by King Solomon, as had been previously supposed. 

The Monolith of Shalmaneser III mentions a battle the Assyrian army fought against “Ahab the Israelite.”

On top of this, there’s the pottery. You'd be amazed by how much archaeologists can learn from broken pots. They’re all distinct in their way and help pinpoint dates and populations in the various layers of ancient sites. The shards of pottery at these and other locations can be used as a clear dating indicator for the Omride period. 

In a battle with the king of Aram, Ahab disguised himself — but was slain by a stray arrow.

Israel’s Forgotten First Kingdom

I’m sure most Jews and Christians don’t want to hear that the first kingdom of Israel wasn’t founded by David or Solomon but by the supposedly devious sinners Ahab and Jezebel. But that’s what happens when you don’t take the Bible as the gospel truth (so to speak) and look to architectural and historical evidence to corroborate (or, as the case may be, disprove) the ancient stories. 

Ahab coveted a garden, but when its owner, Naboth, refused to sell it, Jezebel had him stoned to death. The prophet Elijah shows up to curse the couple.

Looking with an open mind and trusting in science — two admittedly rare qualities when dealing with religion — we learn “that David and Solomon were, in political terms, little more than hill country chieftains, who in administrative reach remained on a fairly local level, restricted to the hill country,” write Finkelstein and Silberman. 

The supposedly sinful Jezebel is thrown from the palace to her death.

For those with whom the evidence doesn’t sit well, take heart in the prophecy of Elijah, described in the Old Testament book of 1 Kings, which supposedly came to pass: Jezebel was thrown from an upper window of the palace, with only her skull, feet and palms remaining. The rest had been eaten by stray dogs. –Wally

As prophesied by Elijah, dogs tore apart and ate most of the corpse of Queen Jezebel. Queen Jezabel Being Punished by Jehu by Andrea Celesti, from the second half of the 17th century

Did King David and King Solomon Really Exist?

Shocking evidence answers this question as well as whether David was a successful warrior king and Solomon built his legendary temple and palace. 

Historical evidence reveals that the legendary kings of Israel, David and Solomon, actually existed.

They’re the first two legendary kings of Israel: David, who as a youth defeated the Philistine giant Goliath with a single stone from his slingshot, and Solomon, gifted with otherworldly wisdom and wealth. (Okay, so there was one king before them, Saul — but God was already planning his replacement when Saul committed suicide after the Philistines killed his sons.)

The City of David, thought to be the original site of Jerusalem, is now Wadi Hilweh, a predominantly Palestinian neighborhood.

“The actual extent of the Davidic ‘empire’ is hotly debated,” write Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman in The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology’s New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts. “Digging in Jerusalem has failed to produce evidence that it was a great city in David or Solomon’s time. And the monuments ascribed to Solomon are now most plausibly connected with other kings. Thus a reconsideration of evidence has enormous implications.”

“A shard of a monument sent shockwaves throughout the world of biblical scholarship — and provided the oldest proof of a biblical patriarch: namely, the legendary King David.”

We’ve seen that the first books of the Old Testament, the Jewish Torah, fudged the facts: There wasn’t a mass Exodus out of Egypt. There wasn’t a conquest of Canaan by God’s Chosen People. So how about David and Solomon — are they a myth as well?

Michelangelo’s iconic statue of David

King David: What’s the Proof He Existed?

“David and Solomon are such central religious icons to both Judaism and Christianity that the recent assertions of radical biblical critics that King David is ‘no more a historical figure than King Arthur,’ have been greeted in many religious and scholarly circles with outrage and disdain,” Finkelstein and Silberman write.

At first, things didn’t look good: “for all their reported wealth and power, neither David nor Solomon is mentioned in a single known Egyptian or Mesopotamian text,” the authors continue. 

Was King David, who, as a mere boy, killed the giant Goliath with a single blow, just a myth? David und Goliath by Osmar Schindler, 1888

But often it only takes one single archeological artifact to revolutionize our version of history. We see this constantly in Egypt, where a scrap of papyrus or engraving on a statue completely alters our understanding of a pharaoh’s reign. 

And it was a shard of a monument that sent shockwaves throughout the world of biblical scholarship — and provided the oldest proof of a biblical patriarch: namely, the legendary King David.

David holds up the head of the giant Goliath.

In 1993 at the site of Tel Dan in northern Israel, archeologists discovered a fragment of a black basalt monument that dates to around 835 BCE. While it spoke of a horrific defeat of Israel and Judah (which were separate kingdoms at the time) by Hazael, the king of Damascus, amidst his boasting he mentions the House of David. 

The Tel Dan Stele, dating from 835 BCE, mentions defeating the House of David — making it the oldest proof of a biblical patriarch.

This means that David’s dynasty “was known throughout the region; this clearly validates the biblical description of Judahite kings in Jerusalem,” Finkelstein and Silberman write.

David wasn’t actually the best guy. As described in the Bible, he fell in love with another man’s wife and sent him off to the front line of a battle to be killed.

But Was David a Warrior King?

While biblical literalists can be pleased to find evidence that King David did once live and rule in the Levant, they’re sure to be bummed that there’s no way he could have embarked on a military campaign of any sort. 

“There is absolutely no archaeological indication of the wealth, manpower and level of organization that would be required to support large armies — even for brief periods — in the field,” according to Finkelstein and Silberman.

Next thing you know, they’ll be saying David didn’t actually slay the gigantic hero of the Philistine army with a single shot from a slingshot.

A color sketch by Edward Poynter for his 1890 painting The Visit of the Queen of Sheba to King Solomon

King Solomon: Was He Really a Master Builder?

David’s son Solomon, to whom God gave “wisdom and understanding beyond measure,” is said to have commissioned numerous building projects, including a magnificent temple to YHWH and a nearby palace. The Old Testament, as well as the Nevi’im section of the Hebrew Bible, describes him as fortifying Jerusalem, along with the important provincial cities of Hazor, Megiddo and Gezer. 

Ancient Jerusalem, with Solomon’s Temple at its center (note: probably not drawn to scale)

So some archaeologists and biblical scholars were downright giddy at the discovery of somewhat similar six-chambered gates at Hazor, Megiddo and Gezer. Surely this was a sign of Solomon’s famous public works projects! 

If that is indeed the case, though, I wonder why there isn’t a gate like that at Jerusalem, Solomon’s capital city? 

The six-chambered gate at Gezer was once thought to have been built by Solomon — but it was actually constructed decades after his reign.

It turns out that renewed analysis of the archaeological styles and pottery showed that they dated to the early 9th century BCE. The trouble with that? It happens to be decades after Solomon had died. 

Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem — though it probably wasn’t anything as grand as it’s depicted.

Petitioners came to Solomon for his judgements. He was basically the Judge Judy of his time.

Solomon was said to possess a magic ring that allowed him to control demons and jinn.

Mythic Kings as Propaganda

“The material culture of the highlands in the time of David remained simple,” Finkelstein and Silberman write. “The land was overwhelmingly rural — with no trace of widespread literacy that would be necessary for the functioning of a proper monarchy.” Jerusalem was no more than a typical highland village. Only about 5,000 people lived in the vicinity.

Archeological remains of King David’s palace show that at the time, Jerusalem was a relatively small town.

And even though King David’s deeds have been aggrandized, he must have been a talented ruler who joined his region together. “Such a small and isolated society like this would have been likely to cherish the memory of an extraordinary leader like David as his descendants continued to rule in Jerusalem over the next four hundred years,” the authors say. 

At the time these stories in the Old Testament were written, in the 7th century BCE, Jerusalem had grown into a relatively large city, dominated by the Temple to the God of Israel, with an impressive army and administrative bureaucracy. 

The stories of the powerful King David made for good propaganda at the time of Josiah. David and Goliath by Titian, circa 1544

God gives Solomon his famous wisdom.

Building up the reputation of legendary kings of the past served the current ruler, Josiah. This useful bit of propaganda connected Josiah as an heir of David, the man who was said to have conquered the Promised Land and established an empire. It helped bolster support for Josiah’s “vision of a national renaissance that sought to bring scattered, war-weary people together, to prove to them that they had experienced a stirring history under the direct intervention of God,” according to Finkelstein and Silberman. “The glorious epic of the united monarchy was — like the stories of the patriarchs and the sagas of the Exodus and conquest — a brilliant composition that wove together ancient heroic tales and legends into a coherent and persuasive prophecy for the people of Israel in the seventh century BCE.” 

If they had to fudge the truth to accomplish that, so be it. –Wally

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OTHER RELIGION POSTS

Did the Old Testament Conquest of Canaan Really Happen?

Archeological evidence shows that the Israelites’ destruction of Jericho and the other cities of the Promised Land was nothing more than propaganda. 

And the walls came tumbling down? Did the city of Jericho fall as it’s depicted in the Bible? The Taking of Jericho by James Tissot, circa 1902

I always felt bad for Moses. He suffered as his people were enslaved by the Egyptians and was instrumental in leading their escape — only to have them wander dejectedly through the desert for 40 years. And then, right as the Israelites were in sight of Canaan, at long last, poor old Moses keels over and dies. He never even got to set foot in the Promised Land. 

It seems like a cruel trick: After leading his people out of slavery and then for 40 years in the desert, Moses gets a glimpse of the Promised Land — but dies before entering it.

Turns out the Israelites most likely didn’t go on to engage in a conquest of Canaan as the Bible says, according to Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman in their book The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology’s New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts. 

“Despite the string of fantastical victories described in the Bible, there’s no archeological evidence that the Israelites conquered the cities of Canaan. ”

At the time of the supposed conquest of cities like Canaan, the area was actually sparsely populated with no evidence of warfare.

Despite the string of fantastical victories described in the Old Testament of the Christians (the first five books of which make up the Jewish Torah), there’s simply no archeological evidence that the Israelites conquered the cities of Canaan. 

In fact, at the time the conquest is said to have happened, in the Late Bronze Age, the cities of the region were sparsely populated.

And despite the description of the walls of Jericho miraculously tumbling down at the blowing of some trumpets, the towns of Canaan weren’t fortified. There would be ruins of stone walls from the time — but there simply aren’t any. Makes for a dramatic story, though. 

A map of the Twelve Tribes of Israel from 1320

The First Israelites: A Peaceful, Gradual Expansion

Instead of a lengthy battle campaign in which the Israelites conquered the major cities of Canaan, archeological evidence points to a much more mellow birth of the Israelite people. 

A dense network of about 250 highland villages in central Canaan developed in the span of a few generations around 1200 BCE. Most were no more than an acre in size, home to an average of 100 inhabitants, half of which were adults and half children. 

There certainly wasn’t a strong cultural identity that united these people.

The Ancient Israelites didn’t go on a killing spree throughout Canaan; they arrived peaceably over the course of a few generations.

“In contrast to the culture of the Canaanite cities and villages in the lowlands, the highland villages contained no public buildings, palaces, storehouses or temples,” write Finkelstein and Silberman. “Signs of any sophisticated kind of recordkeeping, such as writing, seals and seal impressions, are almost completely absent. There are almost no luxury items: no imported pottery and almost no jewelry. Indeed, the village houses were all quite similar in size, suggesting that wealth was distributed quite evenly among the families.”

Also conspicuously absent for God’s supposed Chosen People: shrines or any other evidence of their religious beliefs.

The early Israelites seem to have eked out an agricultural existence. Stone-lined pits dug between houses stored grain, and fenced courtyards secured animal herds at night. 

The Fall of Jericho by Tamás Galambos shows the city as a small metropolis. But the reality is that these were small unfortified villages.

Despite the biblical stories of conquest after conquest, the evidence shows that these people were actually peaceful. The villages weren’t fortified and showed no signs of burning or other sudden destructions that would indicate an attack. Nor were any weapons discovered during excavations.

The Ancient Israelites surely had a lot that differentiated them from other people in the area, like unique religious practices, right? Nope. Only one thing: an aversion to pork.

The One Defining Characteristic of the Early Israelites 

As mentioned, the remains of these villages offer scant clues as to what set apart the Ancient Israelites. There simply isn't any evidence of religion or culture. But there is one item that’s conspicuously missing from their diet: pig bones. While these were found in neighboring lands, the lack of remains reveals that no pigs were raised in the highlands during the Iron Age, the era of the Israelite monarchies. 

So what made the early Israelites unique? They didn’t eat pork. Th-th-th-that’s all, folks. 

“Half a millennium before the composition of the biblical text, with its detailed laws and dietary regulations, the Israelites chose — for reasons that are not entirely clear — not to eat pork,” Finkelstein and Silberman write. “When modern Jews do the same, they are continuing the oldest archaeologically attested cultural practice of the people of Israel.”

This site, known as the Tower of Jericho, reveals that the conquest of Canaan didn’t happen like the Bible says.

Contrary to the Bible

The archeological evidence just doesn’t support the tales of the Old Testament, the authors argue. In fact, it’s the exact opposite: “the emergence of early Israel was an outcome of the collapse of the Canaanite culture, not its cause,” they write. “And most of the Israelites did not come from outside Canaan — they emerged from within it. There was no mass Exodus from Egypt. There was no violent conquest of Canaan. Most of the people who formed early Israel were local people — the same people whom we see in the highlands throughout the Bronze and Iron Ages. The early Israelites were — irony of ironies — themselves originally Canaanites!” –Wally

Did the Exodus Really Happen?

Evidence reveals that the Hyksos were Canaanites — and their story later morphed into the Exodus to serve as a rallying cry against Egypt. 

Could over 600,000 Hebrew slaves revolt and escape their captors in Egypt? Spoiler alert: The Exodus is more folk tale than actual history.

Egyptian pharaohs steadily ruled their empire for thousands of years — except during a foreign occupation that lasted over a century.

An Egyptian historian named Mantheno, who wrote in the 3rd century BCE, “described a massive, brutal invasion of Egypt by foreigners from the east, whom he called Hyksos, an enigmatic Greek form of an Egyptian word that he translated as ‘shepherd kings’ but that actually means ‘rulers of foreign lands,’” write Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman in The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology’s New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts. Inscriptions and seals from the time of the invasion have names that are West Semitic, or Canaanite.

“If a great mass of fleeing Israelites had passed through the border fortifications of the pharaonic regime, a record should exist.”

— Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman, “The Bible Unearthed”

The Hyksos in this Egyptian painting are depicted as wearing brightly patterned clothes, which Wally much prefers to plain old white skirts.

Were the Hyksos Actually the Hebrews?!

Archaeological excavations in the eastern Nile delta “indicate that the Hyksos ‘invasion’ was a gradual process of immigration from Canaan to Egypt, rather than a lightning military campaign,” the authors write. “The fact that Manetho, writing almost fifteen hundred years later, describes a brutal invasion rather than a gradual, peaceful immigration should probably be understood on the background of his own times, when memories of the invasions of Egypt by the Assyrians, Babylonians and Persians in the seventh and sixth centuries BCE were still painfully fresh in the Egyptian consciousness.”

The biggest clue that the Hyksos were none other than the Hebrews is something else Manetho wrote: He suggests that after the usurpers were driven from Egypt, they founded the city of Jerusalem and built — you guessed it — an important temple there.

Israel gets a brief mention on the Merneptah Stele in a long list of conquered kingdoms.

When Did the Exodus Happen? The Merneptah Stele

If we take the story of the Exodus at face value for now, what evidence is there to provide a date for it? The Ancient Egyptians kept quite a written record, and, when paired with archaeological digs, the expulsion of the Hyksos is typically placed around 1570 BCE. If we go by the Old Testament account that this occurred 480 years after the construction of the Temple, that means the Exodus happened in 1440 BCE. 

But the Bible mentions the Hebrew slaves helping to construct the city of Raames (Exodus 1:11) — a name that’s inconceivable at that time, according to Finkelstein and Silberman. “The first pharaoh named Ramesses came to the throne only in 1320 BCE — more than a century after the traditional biblical date,” they write. “As a result, many scholars have tended to dismiss the literal value of the biblical dating, suggesting that the figure 480 was little more than a symbolic length of time, representing the life spans of twelve generations, each lasting the traditional 40 years.”

The Battle of Kadesh, in which Ramesses II battled the Hittites, as shown on a wall of the Ramesseum, the pharaoh’s mortuary temple

A city named Pi-Ramesses, or the House of Ramesses, was built with the help of Semites in the delta during the reign of Pharaoh Ramesses II, who ruled from 1279-1213 BCE. 

What’s more, though, is the famous stele of Merneptah, Ramesses’ son. The inscription is the sole mention of Israel in all of the artifacts from Ancient Egypt. The tribe is part of a list of people who were decimated during a Canaan campaign. Merneptah went so far to exclaim that Israel’s “seed is not!” 

This would mean that if a historical Exodus did indeed take place, it would have occurred in the late 13th century. The evidence doesn’t match up, though.

The Israelites Leaving Egypt by David Roberts, 1828

The Exodus: A Lack of Evidence

It’s highly unlikely that a large group of slaves could have made it out of Egypt at the time, given the guard posts all along its borders, argue Finkelstein and Silberman. “If a great mass of fleeing Israelites had passed through the border fortifications of the pharaonic regime, a record should exist,” they insist.

And if the slaves did somehow get out, there would be archaeological records of the Hebrews as they wandered in the desert. “However, except for the Egyptian forts along the northern coast, not a single campsite or sign of occupation from the time of Ramesses II and his immediate predecessors and successors has ever been identified in Sinai,” write Finkelstein and Silberman. “And it has not been for a lack of trying.”

Numerous excavations haven’t turned up anything: “not even a single sherd, no structure, not a single house, no trace of an ancient encampment,” they continue. “One may argue that a relatively small band of wandering Israelites cannot be expected to leave material remains behind. But modern archaeological techniques are quite capable of tracing even the very meager remains of hunter-gatherers and pastoral nomads all over the world.”

Whether it actually happened or not, the Exodus makes for a great story — especially the dramatic parting of the Red Sea and the drowning of the pursuing Egyptians.

Dating Exodus — a Great Piece of Propaganda?

All of the archeological evidence, including a reference to the kingdom of Edom, which refuses to help Moses, indicates that the Exodus narrative was completed during Ancient Egypt’s Twenty-sixth Dynasty — that is, during the 7th and 6th centuries BCE (shortly after, one would imagine, the stories of Abraham and the other patriarchs told of in Genesis). That’s 600 years after the events were supposed to have taken place!

What was the purpose of the Exodus story, if we put it in context of that time in history? “The great saga of a new beginning and second chance must have resonated in the consciousness of the seventh century’s readers, reminding them of their own difficulties and giving them hope for the future,” Finkelstein and Silberman write. 

Was Exodus written to bolster the agenda of King Josiah of Judah?

Josiah, the young ruler of Judah, sought to escape from the yoke of the newly crowned Pharaoh Necho II, who reigned Ancient Egypt from 610-595 BCE. 

Connecting Josiah’s confrontation with the Egyptian empire to that of Moses and the pharaoh of Exodus, complete with miracle after miracle to demonstrate the Hebrews as Yahweh’s Chosen People, would have been a powerful piece of propaganda. 

“[A]ncient traditions from many different sources were crafted into a single sweeping epic that bolstered Josiah’s political aims,” the authors conclude.

There simply is no evidence that a mass Exodus as described in the Old Testament ever happened. –Wally 

The Story of Moses, the 10 Plagues of Egypt and the Exodus

A concise summary of the Old Testament book of Exodus, from the burning bush to the parting of the Red Sea. 

Don’t upset a friend of Yahweh or you might end up with a dead son, as the pharaoh of Egypt did in the Old Testament tale of the Exodus. Death of the Firstborn by Lawrence Alma-Tadema, 1872

The poor Hebrews of the Old Testament. For years, they just couldn’t catch a break. 

This ethnic group, which traces its roots to the 12 tribes formed by the sons and grandsons of Jacob, grew in power over 430 years. But the pharaoh of Egypt, fearing he would be betrayed to one of his many enemies, enslaved the Hebrews and forced them into construction gangs. 

“To save their firstborns, Yahweh gave his Chosen People a secret code: Sacrifice a lamb and smear its blood on the doorposts.

That way Yahweh knew to spare that child by passing over the home — the origin of the Jewish festival of Passover (get it?). ”

Things got even worse after that. In a despicable form of population control, the pharaoh ordered that all male Hebrew children be drowned in the Nile. One child, though, from the tribe of Levi, was set adrift in a basket woven from bulrushes. It floated along until rescued by one of the pharaoh’s daughters. The child was given the name Moses, from the Hebrew root “to draw out,” and was raised in the royal court.

Pharaoh’s daughter rescued baby Moses in his basket adrift upon the Nile, as shown in another painting by Alma-Tadema, The Finding of Moses, from 1904.

When he grew into adulthood, Moses saw an Egyptian taskmaster flaying a Hebrew slave with a whip. Moses flew into a rage and killed the taskmaster, hiding the body in the sand. He still worried he’d be caught, though, and fled into the wilderness. This is where he heard the voice of the God of Israel, who revealed his mystical name, YHWH (throw in some vowels and you get Yahweh). The voice came from the depths of a burning bush that didn’t get consumed by the flames. It told Moses that he’d be the savior of his people and would lead them out of Egypt. 

Moses and the Burning Bush, Edward Knippers, 2008

But did the event predicted by the talking bush, the Exodus, really happen? What does archeological and historical evidence reveal?

The plague of locusts devoured every last plant living in Egypt.

Out of Egypt: Escape of the Hebrew Slaves

Back to the beleaguered Hebrews. Pharaoh, taking out his wrath toward Moses, intensified the suffering of the slaves. Yahweh told Moses to give the pharaoh a warning that he’d better let the Hebrews go — or else. That “or else” turned out to be the 10 plagues, starting off with the Nile turning to blood, working through frogs, gnats, flies, a livestock disease, boils, hail, locusts and darkness, and ending with the slaughter of every firstborn in Egypt. 

In one of the plagues, Yahweh caused the livestock of Egypt to contract a fatal disease.

To save their firstborns, Yahweh gave his Chosen People a gruesome secret code: Each Hebrew family sacrificed a lamb and smeared its blood on their doorposts. That way Yahweh knew to spare that child by passing over the home — the origin of the Jewish festival of Passover (get it?). 

Yahweh swept through Egypt, laying waste to all the firstborns as depicted in this creepy painting And There Was a Cry in Egypt by Arthur Hacker from 1897.

Pharaoh didn’t learn his lesson. When the 600,000 or so slaves fled on foot into Canaan, the Egyptian ruler decided to pursue them. Yahweh parted the Red Sea, allowing the Hebrews to pass through, and then brought the waters crashing down upon the Egyptians. 

The Red Sea parted for the Hebrew slaves seeking freedom in the Exodus — but came crashing back down to drown the pursing Egyptians.

Moses and the Ten Commandments by Barbara Goshu

The Ten Commandments: Thou Shalt Not Piss Off the Lord God

The Hebrews were hardly models of propriety. Moses was up on Mount Sinai getting the Ten Commandments written upon stone tablets from Yahweh, and by the time he returned, his people had started worshipping a golden calf. 

Those fickle Hebrews. Moses wasn’t gone too long before they started worshipping a false idol, as seen in Nicolas Poussin’s The Adoration of the Golden Calf from 1634.

Moses was so upset he threw the stone tablets onto the ground, shattering them, and had to have God write up a new set. 

Later, when spies reported that the cities of Canaan were well fortified and populous, the Hebrews had the gall to rebel against Moses, insisting they’d rather go back to being Egyptian slaves! At least their physical safety would be assured, they reasoned. 

Well, this understandably pissed off Yahweh, who questioned his decision to name the Hebrews his Chosen People. They didn’t deserve no Promised Land; instead he decided to force them to wander the wilderness for 40 years to think about what they had done wrong. –Wally

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Did the Exodus really happen? See what the evidence says!

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When Was the Bible Written? Dating Genesis

The stories of Abraham, Jacob and Isaac in the Old Testament provide clues that, when paired with archaeological evidence, determine a date for when they would have happened.

Looking at the text of Genesis alongside archeological clues, scholars can make an informed guess as to when the events concerning Abraham and the other Old Testament patriarchs would have occurred.

In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth…which in turn led to a debate about when the events of Genesis, the first book of the Bible, took place. There’s also a controversy about if the events took place as well, but Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman, in their book The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts, wisely avoid that. The authors skip right over Adam, Eve, Cain, Abel, Noah, et al., jumping to the patriarch Abraham.

“What are the clues that the old way of dating Genesis was off by about 1,500 years?”

Until somewhat recently, biblical scholars landed on a date of about 2100 BCE for Abraham’s departure for Canaan. But Finkelstein and Silberman argue that archaeological evidence actually points to the events in Genesis matching up to the history of the 7th to 6th centuries BCE. What are these clues that the old way of dating Genesis was off by about 1,500 years?

Camel caravans, mentioned in Genesis, didn’t happen before the 8th century BCE.

Camels

As odd as it might seem, the camels mentioned throughout these stories reveal a major clue. Camels weren’t domesticated as beasts of burden in the ancient Near East until well after 1000 BCE. And caravans described as carrying gum, balm and myrrh in the Joseph story wouldn’t have been familiar until the Arabian trade flourished under the Assyrian Empire in the 8th and 7th centuries BCE.

The Philistine king of Gerar returns Sarah to Abraham.

The Philistines

These much-mentioned people of the Old Testament didn’t migrate from the Aegean or eastern Mediterranean until sometime after 1200 BCE. And it wasn’t until the late 8th and 7th centuries BCE that Gerar, identified today as Tel Haror, became a heavily fortified Assyrian administrative stronghold.

Jacob, described as an Aramean in Genesis, doles out his blessings to his male offspring, dividing up the land into the 12 tribes of Israel.

The Arameans

Arameans, who dominate the stories of Jacob and his two wives, Leah and Rachel, and his Uncle Laban, weren’t mentioned as a distinct ethnic group in ancient Near East texts until 1100 BCE or so. They became a dominant factor in the region in the early 9th century BCE. The history of early Israel and Aram are bound up together. In fact, “much of the population of the northern territories of the kingdom of Israel seems to have been Aramean in origin,” Finkelstein and Silberman write. Indeed, Jacob is even described at one point as “a wandering Aramean.” It wasn’t until the 9th to 8th centuries BCE that the two kingdoms created an official border. 

Fatherly deathbed blessings must have been common at the time. Here’s Isaac with his firstborn, Esau, who should have gotten his father’s birthright.

Jacob and Esau

In Genesis, Esau was the eldest son of Isaac, and by rights should have been given his father’s birthright. But his mother, Rebecca, preferred her younger son, Jacob, and tricked her husband into bestowing his blessing on Jacob instead. Even though that was a shady move, it explains how Israel and its people are God’s chosen people. Esau, a hunter and outdoorsman, represents the more primitive land of Edom, while Jacob, sensitive and cultured, represents Israel. The kingdom of Edom, in what’s now southern Jordan, didn’t exist until the late 8th century BCE, reaching a peak in the 7th and early 6th centuries BCE.

Judah, seen here tempted into sex with his disguised daughter-in-law Tamar (that’s a whole other story), got the best kingdom of the bunch from Jacob: the region that was home to what was then the small town of Jerusalem.

Judah

On his deathbed, Jacob doled out a bunch of blessings to his male offspring, who would disperse into the 12 tribes of Israel. But Judah was the one who received the royal birthright, described in Genesis 49:8-10. The eponymously named kingdom of Judah remained isolated and sparsely populated until the 8th century BCE. Its capital was then a small, remote hill town with a name you might have heard before: Jerusalem. 

“Yet after the northern kingdom of Israel was liquidated by the Assyrian empire in 720 BCE, Judah grew enormously in population, developed complex state institutions, and emerged as a meaningful power in the region,” Finkelstein and Silberman write. “It was ruled by an ancient dynasty and possessed the most important surviving Temple to the God of Israel.” 

All of this evidence points to the fact that the rise of the people of Israel, including the famous patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Judah, would have lived around the 7th and 6th centuries BCE — and not 2100 BCE as previously theorized. –Wally

The Shocking Secrets of the Gospel of Judas

One of the Gnostic gospels, this “heretical” text paints a controversial picture of Christianity and the apostle who is said to have betrayed Jesus.

The Betrayal of Jesus by Giotto di Bondone, 1304. But what if Judas turning Jesus over to the authorities was all part of the plan?

Most people believe that Christianity has always been fully formed, as if the New Testament was handed down from God Himself.

But that’s not the case. We can be forgiven for falling under the impression “that Christianity actually was a single, static, universal system of beliefs,” write Elaine Pagels and Karen L. King in Reading Judas: The Gospel of Judas and the Shaping of Christianity. “Creating this impression was itself a remarkable achievement — one to which certain ‘fathers of the church’ were dedicated. But they did so precisely because they realized how diverse Christian groups were, and they feared that controversies over basic issues—like those revealed in the Gospel of Judas — might undermine the ‘universal church’ they were trying to build, along with the authority they were claiming for their church alone.”

But the discovery of additional texts like the Gnostic Gospels shows there were dissenting views and that early Christianity was anything but uniform. Church founders very carefully debated which gospels to keep — and which to discard.

The sorry state of the first page of the Gospel of Judas. That’s what a humid safety box and a stint in a freezer will do to ancient papyrus!

Unearthing the Gospel of Judas

The Gospel of Judas was written by an unknown author in Greek around 150 CE. Deemed heretical, the only known surviving copy is one that was translated into Coptic in the 4th century and discovered in the 1970s in Middle Egypt. It was part of what’s called the Tchacos Codex, which had a rough go of it, from its burial cave to a humid safety deposit box — even being frozen at one point!

A church father named Irenaeus rails against this particular group of Christians in work, Against Heresies, written around 180 CE:

They declare that Judas the traitor … alone, knowing the truth as no others did, accomplished the mystery of the betrayal; by him all things, both earthly and heavenly, were thus thrown into confusion. They produced a fictitious history of this kind, which they style the Gospel of Judas.

An early Christian leader, Irenaeus, railed against what he deemed heresies, including the Gospel of Judas.

This was at a time when Christianity had developed into numerous offshoots, with quite different beliefs. The Roman Emperor Constantine, a surprising but passionate convert to Christianity, attempted to resolve the differences by supporting the bishops he gathered together in 325 CE at the Council of Nicaea in present-day Turkey. These early church fathers went through the existing literature and chose what was canon and what was heresy. 

“The traditional history of Christianity is written almost solely from the viewpoint of the side that won, which was remarkably successful in silencing or distorting other voices, destroying their writings, and suppressing any who disagreed with them as dangerous and obstinate ‘heretics,’” Pagels and King write.

Those who dared to continue practicing beliefs the bishops had forbidden found their buildings confiscated or burned to the ground over the following centuries.

the shocking claims of the Gospel of Judas

The Gospel of Judas is a quick but confounding read. (At one point, for example, the writer offers this aside, which suggests that the son of God had the power to shapeshift: “Frequently, however, he would not reveal himself to his disciples, but you would find him in their midst as a child.” Judas 1:8).

Marvin Meyer and F. Gaudard translated the text into English for the National Geographic Society in 2006, and it wasn’t an easy task. As stated, the poor manuscript had been through the ringer. Improper handling and storage — including that stint in a freezer — had reduced the papyrus to fragments.

Here are four shocking claims made in the Gospel of Judas that completely disrupt what we know of Christianity.

The Taking of Christ by Caravaggio, circa 1602. The Christianity we know today was shaped by Church leaders 300 years after Jesus’ death — and early followers didn’t agree on doctrines.

1. Judas wasn’t a villain — he was actually Jesus’ favorite disciple and was asked by Christ to betray him.

This is the statement that’s the most shocking, even to this day, entirely turning the Gospels of the New Testament on their head.

“For thousands of years, Christians have pictured Judas as the incarnation of evil. Motivated by greed and inspired by Satan, he is the betrayer whom Dante placed in the third lowest circle of hell,” Pagels and King write. “But the Gospel of Judas shows Judas instead as Jesus’s closest and most trusted confidant — the one to whom Jesus reveals his deepest mysteries and whom he trusts to initiate the passion.”

On some level, this shouldn’t be such a big surprise. In all of the New Testament gospels, Jesus anticipated and even embraced his own death. So it’s not too far a stretch to imagine he worked with Judas to put his plan in motion.

2. The other apostles actually worship a false God and are mistaken in their beliefs about the Eucharist and martyrdom. 

The Gospel of Judas begins with Jesus laughing at the apostles (he laughs mockingly throughout the work) as they celebrate the Eucharist, believing that they were eating the body of Christ and drinking his blood — a practice that always struck me as eerily cannibalistic.

Matthew 26:26-28 reads, “As they were eating, Jesus took some bread and blessed it. Then he broke it in pieces and gave it to the disciples, saying, ‘Take this and eat it, for this is my body.’

The Gospel of Judas declares that the apostles got the Eucharist all wrong.

“Jesus’s laughter is a kind of ridicule or mockery intended to shock the disciples out of their complacency and false pride,” Pagels and King write. “Their deepest problem is that they don’t know they have a problem; they wrongly think they are already righteous, with their prayers and practices of piety.” 

Despite the hopeful message of salvation in the gospel, there’s a cryptic declaration near the beginning: Jesus said to them, “Do you (really think you) know me — how? Truly I say to you, no race from the people among you will ever know me.” Judas 2:10-11.

The apostles then have a dream that horrifies them: Priests sacrificed their children and wives. Some had sex with other men, while some engaged in slaughter, amongst an array of other “sins and injustices.”

Jesus once again laughs (I told you) and informs them that they are the ones doing those deeds and that they worship a false God.

This is, in part, supposed to be a commentary on the craze of martyrdom. Not surprisingly, many followers of Jesus at the time weren’t happy with the trend that persecuted Christians should eagerly embrace torture and violent death.

“Their anger was directed less against the Romans than at their own leaders for encouraging Christians to accept martyrdom as God’s will, as though God desired these tortured bodies for his own glory,” Pagels and King write.

The apostles just didn’t understand Jesus’ teachings, according to the Gospel of Judas — even the “God” they worshipped was false!

The author of the Gospel of Judas points out what he feels is a stunning contradiction: “while Christians refuse to practice sacrifice, many of them bring sacrifice right back into the center of Christian worship — by claiming that Jesus’s death is a sacrifice for human sin, and then by insisting that Christians who die as martyrs are sacrifices pleasing to God,” the authors point out.

 Jesus tells the disciples that the supposed “God” they worship is actually a lower angel who’s leading them astray. (This is where the gospel starts going a bit off the rails and gets all metaphysical.)

St. Stephen, said to be the first Christian martyr, as painted by Rembrandt.

3. Judas didn’t commit suicide — he was, in fact, the first Christian martyr.

The Gospel of Matthew states that Judas, ashamed at his betrayal, returned the 30 pieces of silver that had been his bribe, and hanged himself.

The Suicide of Judas by John Canavesio, circa 1492 — but did Judas really hang himself? The Gospel of Judas has him meeting a different gruesome end.

But the Gospel of Judas tells a different tale: The other disciples, horrified by what Judas has done, and not grasping the truth of Jesus’ plan, stone the supposed traitor to death. Even though the gospel decries martyrdom, it paradoxically also states that its subject was the first Christian martyr. 

Resurrection of the Flesh by Luca Signorelli, circa 1500. According to 1 Corinthians 15: 52, “the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.”

4. Despite what mainstream Christian teachings preach, during the end times, resurrection of the faithful will not be physical but spiritual.

Only Judas is ready to hear the truth, so Jesus takes him aside and teaches him how the visible world we know is actually one of primeval darkness and disorder. But despair not: There’s a heavenly realm where the invisible Spirit of God dwells in an infinite cloud of light.

At a time when Christians believed that the apocalypse was going to happen in the near future and that the bodies of the faithful would be reanimated, the Gospel of Judas taught a controversial doctrine: The body is temporary, but the spirit is eternal.

Jesus said, “The souls of every human race will die. But when those (who belong to the holy race) have completed the time of the kingdom and the spirit separates from them, their bodies will die but their souls will be alive and they will be lifted up.

Gospel of Judas 8:1-4

That sounds suspiciously like the state of enlightenment at the heart of Buddhism, which was gaining favor around this time.

By the end of the gospel, Judas reaches enlightenment, er, comprehends Jesus’ teachings. No longer turning his eyes away from Jesus, he looks up and enters nirvana, er, that infinite cloud of light. 

The torture and execution of Jesus, whom many believed would be another warrior king, dealt a severe blow to the faith of many early Christians. The Gospel of Judas attempts to show that the crucifiction (and murder of Judas) shouldn’t be disheartening: “This gospel suggests that our lives consist of more than what biology or psychology can explore — that our real life begins when the spirit of God tranforms the soul,” Pagels and King write.

A depiction of Lucifer devouring poor Judas

Was Judas a Demon?

Another scholar, April D. DeConick, offers a contradictory view. She questions the mainstream interpretation of the Gospel of Judas, arguing that instead of being the favored apostle, Judas was actually a demon. 

That’s a misinterpretation of the Greek, according to Pagels and King. Jesus calls Judas the “thirteenth god,” using the word “daimon.” Of course this later developed a negative connotation, worming its way into our language as “demon.” But in Greek thought, the term indicated a lesser god or even an individual’s lot in life. 

“Indeed,” the authors state, “Plato wrote that everyone possesses a daimon” — an idea picked up by Philip Pullman in the His Dark Materials series. –Wally

The Appeal of Buddhism

What to expect and how to behave in a Thai temple — and why we prefer them to Christian churches.

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Thai temples, like Wat Ket Karam in Chiang Mai, have worship halls (viharns), towers containing relics (chedis) and a mix of other buildings

The first time you step into a Thai Buddhist temple as a Westerner, you might get overwhelmed. Temples in Thailand are called wats — but they’re not a single building, as you might imagine.

They’re actually entire complexes with multiple buildings, each a mélange of various styles. Faded carved teak, lichen-covered stone, glittering gold and green and red, gaudy ceramics, serene Buddhas, Chinese zodiac iconography, Hindu deities and bizarre hybrid creatures from mythology — they’re all jumbled about. 

“Women aren’t allowed to touch monks, and there are parts of certain wats where females are forbidden to enter. ”

And while I do love to visit a Zen garden or a sleek, austere sacred space, I’m truly a maximalist by nature. There’s something cozy and comforting about the mishmash found in wats. They’re fun to explore — you never know what lies around the next corner. You might even be startled by a wax figure of a famous monk that’s creepily lifelike.

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No, this isn’t a real monk — it’s a wax replica at Wat Phra Sing that could fit right in at Madame Tussauds. Wax monks are all the rage in Northern Thailand, and they’re sure to startle the unwary traveler

We recommend adopting this open-minded attitude if you’re visiting Chiang Mai. It’s a city filled with quirky and often beautiful wats, and wandering through them should be a part of every tourist’s agenda.

Duke and I probably enjoy wats more than your average travelers — we visited at least 12 in our week in Northern Thailand. More than churches, they’re all unique in their own way.

Follow the Rules

If you’re worried about how to behave in a wat, don’t be. I remember the first time I went to Thailand I was scared I’d do something wrong. I closely watched native worshippers, hoping to mimic their actions.

The good news is that, aside from some universal rules, there is no wrong way to pay your respects to the Buddha.

Follow these three simple rules when you’re in a wat:

1. Take off your shoes.

It’s good to have shoes or sandals you can easily slip on and off — you’ll be doing it multiple times in a wat complex.

2. Cover your shoulders and knees.

Some temples are more strict than others, though most in Chiang Mai are quite lax. If they’re strict about dress code, it often only pertains to women and they’ll have wraps you can borrow. (There’s a strain of sexism that runs through the country, where every man goes off to become a monk for a period of time, and many women enter the sex industry. Women aren’t allowed to touch monks, and there are parts of certain wats where females are forbidden to enter. With the exception of the amazing Wat Sri Suphan, the Silver Temple, most of the time these spots aren’t too remarkable, so you’re not really missing out on too much, ladies.)

3. Don’t point your feet at the Buddha.

The easiest way to avoid this is to never sit with your feet in front of you. Instead, play it safe and kneel, or sit cross-legged.

Otherwise you’re free to wander around at will and worship as you see fit.

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Sorry, ladies. Only men can feast their eyes on the interior of Wat Sri Suphan, the amazing Silver Temple in Chiang Mai

What Should Tourists Do in a Wat?

The main temple, known as a viharn, has an open hall that faces at least one — but usually many — often giant, depiction of the Buddha. They’re places for quiet prayers and contemplation. I could certainly benefit from more meditation. Or, heck, let’s face it: any mediation. These are the most like churches. You probably want to speak in quiet, reverent tones so as not to disturb worshippers.

As I mentioned, there’s no wrong way to pray in a wat. I like to kneel down, maybe extending my arms out in a bow. Then I do a wai, the Thai sign of respect, with your palms pressed together in front of your face. I bow three times and then sit there, still waiing, and have a little chat with the Buddha, like you might with God or Allah. If there’s something you’d like, ask for it. Give thanks for something. Or just sit still and try to clear your mind.

By the way, I don’t do this in every viharn I go in — only those that have a special feel that calls to me. Otherwise, I just walk around and take pictures.

Another appeal of Thai Buddhism is that outside of these solemn structures, wats are a thriving part of the community. Some have massage schools and offer rub-downs for an affordable price. Some have open-air food courts; with others, handicraft markets spill onto their grounds. The line between sacred and social blurs.  

As religion in the U.S. fades, with atheism on the rise, it’s interesting to experience a culture where it seems almost everyone is religious. Perhaps it’s because Buddhist worship seems pretty chill. You go to the temple whenever, you spend as much or as little time as you want, maybe you make a small donation to light a candle or ring a bell. There might be times when monks chant, but it’s not like a church service that’s so regimented.  

Honestly, wouldn’t you rather pray to this peaceful man than to one who’s being tortured to death?

If we lived in a place where Buddhist temples were as common as churches, I would pop into them every so often, spend 10 to 30 minutes praying, meditating or walking around the chedi.

I suppose it’s not that different than the people who go into a church to pray.

I guess I just prefer looking at a serenely smiling man to one nailed to a cross in agony.  

Can you tell? I’ve fallen for Buddhism. –Wally

Santa Semana Bar Crawl

Holy Week is a big deal in Málaga, Spain. Learn all about the bizarre celebrations featuring humpbacked and hooded figures in secret brotherhoods.

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La Dolorosa (Our Lady of the Sorrows). Resin teardrops, glass eyes and actual clothes add to the realism of the pained expression of the Virgin Mary, featured at Puerta Oscura in Málaga

Tucked away in the narrow Calle Mosquera and situated near the historic Málaga Centro, Taberna Cofrade las Merchanas is a local bar with an unassuming exterior that belies what awaits you inside.

Here, the interior is a quirky tribute to the Santa Semana celebration (Holy Week, which starts on Palm Sunday and concludes on Easter). The bar is filled with holy relics, photos and memorabilia associated with the traditions of Santa Semana. The establishment belongs to the cofradia (brotherhood) and although it was opened in 2011, it has the feel of having existed for decades.

“Local belief holds that the bigger the hump, the more pious the man.”

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Relics pertaining to Santa Semana fill the walls at a bar in Málaga, Spain, owned by one of the Holy Week brotherhoods

Semana Santa traditions in Spain are a serious affair — and Málaga is no exception. They include processions in which an elaborate ceremonial trono paso, literally a throne step or float, is carried by costaleros, or “sack men,” so named for the padded headdresses they wear to support the float. Because they’re hidden beneath a cloth, the trono paso looks like it’s floating through the air.

The platform of the trono paso holds life-size effigies made of wood, wax and wire depicting scenes from the gospels related to the Passion of Christ. There are up to 40 costaleros underneath each trono paso. These men bear the weight of the float on their necks and shoulders. Many are left with a humpback for several days after. Local belief holds that the bigger the hump, the more pious the man, our friend Jo informed us.

The pasos are followed by nazarenos, or penitents, dressed in colorful tunics and conical hoods and masks called capriotes to render the individual unidentifiable — they’re all equal in the eyes of God. Americans might be alarmed at first, confusing the hoods for those of the Ku Klux Klan, or KKK, who also adopted the medieval attire, though in white.

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A shelf filled with nazareno figurines at Taberna Cofrade las Merchanas in Málaga. The different colored robes indicate which hermandad (brotherhood) the individual belongs to.

The sound of slow, rhythmic drum beats traditionally heard during the procession provide the soundtrack in the bar, which is a stop on the pilgrimage circuit during Holy Week — and serves up good tapas year-round.

RELATED: In Seville, the jubilant Feria de Abril begins two weeks after Semana Santa, while in Málaga, it’s typically held in August.

Taberna Cofrade las Merchanas

Calle Mosquera, 5

The Devil’s in the Details

After visiting the Soho district, a street art mecca, our friends Jo and José led us to the café/bar Puerta Oscura, or the Dark Door.

Upon entering, the dimly lit interior resembles a Baroque-period salon: pale powder blue walls, ornamental plaster embellishments and cut crystal chandeliers accompanied by furnishings upholstered in a burgundy and gold stripe.

The main room of the café serves as an exhibition space for museum-quality polychromed devotional sculptures, and at the time of our visit last spring was featuring the work of Ramón Cuenca Santos.

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The intricate process to create the sculptures includes clay and polychromed cedar.

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Jesús Cautivo (Bound Jesus), a life-size (and amazingly lifelike) seated Christ with wrists wrapped in real gold-colored rope.

It was fascinating to see the prototype sculpture first conceived in clay and subsequently polychromed cedar. These expertly handcarved and painted sculptures appear as if they might just move when you’re not looking.  

We ordered coffee and perched on stools while classical music played, and Wally and I took photos of the sculptures.

The process of creating these lifelike sculptures is truly amazing:

Puerta Oscura

Calle Molina Lario, 5