40 years in Biblical Archaeology with Eric and Carol Meyers

The latest Biblical Archaeology Review has a lengthy retrospective on the careers of my Duke colleagues Eric Meyers and Carol Meyers:

Biblical Archaeology: Whither and Whence

Looking Back with Eric and Carol Meyers

Hershel Shanks  (02/09/2015)

It's a great read, especially the discussion of the discovery of the Torah ark from the ancient synagogue at Nabratein in 1981, which Dukies will recognize from the replica that is sitting in the passageway the the entrance of Gray Building.

The article also features the legendary picture of the Meyers dressed in Raiders of the Lost Ark garb for People Magazine in 1981 (left).

Holy Land Archaeology at Duke

My colleagues Eric Meyers and Carol Meyers are once again leading a group of a students in an intensive study of Holy Land Archaeology.

They flew out at the end of December and are currently busy touring Israel, seeing sites, listening to one another's insights on the key archaeological, historical and political issues:

Holy Land Archaeology at Duke

The photograph here is nicked from Ben Gordon, who is TAing on the tour, and it depicts the group gathered for the discussion by Iron Age storehouses at Hazor.

As you'd expect from Duke students (I know, I would say this, but it's true), the writing on the blog is clear and full of great insights.  The whole blog is superbly illustrated with lots of great pics, including this one of "verifiable archaeological rock stars" Eric Meyers and Carol Meyers:

The Talpiyot Tomb and the Bloggers

Several other bloggers (including Joel Watts and Jim West) have mentioned this fine new volume from Eisenbrauns, Archaeology, Bible, Politics, and the Media (great Oxford comma there). It is edited by my esteemed colleagues here in the Duke Religion Department, Eric and Carol Meyers.

The volume is the result of the Duke Conference on this subject held in April 2009.  At the time, I blogged about the conference, and you can listen in to an archive of the talks on our iTunes U.  It is all worth reading, of course, but I am happy to provide access here to my essay in the volume (as well as to the table of contents):

The Talpiyot Tomb and the Bloggers
Mark Goodacre

The essay has a response by AKMA, though I can't reproduce that here.

Duke Holy Land Archaeology

Thanks to Eric Meyers for this great picture of our students spelling out the name of our favourite university in the Caesarea theater, taken last week during the Holy Land Archaeology at Duke course run by Eric Meyers and Carol Meyers on behalf of the Religion department.

You can read all about the trip over on the Holy Land Archaeology blog, with lots of detailed reflections from the students involved and some great pictures too.

Eric Meyers and Carol Meyers, Online Office Hours

My colleagues here in the Religion Department yesterday appeared on Duke's Online Office Hours, discussing Archaeology, Bible, Politics and Media. You can watch the video here:


 

I have also added it to our departmental Audio and Video page.

Sepphoris 2011 Excavations

My colleagues Eric Meyers and Carol Meyers, and graduate student Alan Todd are pictured here excavating in Sepphoris.  There is a new blog dedicated to the dig:

David Hendin's Sepphoris 2011 Excavation Blog

It's a really thorough, day by day, detailed account and there are tons of pictures.  Really makes you wish that you were there!

Discovering iTunes U and Duke's iTunes U

The birth of the NT Pod has necessitated my finally coming to terms with the world of iTunes, something I have flirted with in the past but had never really embraced, preferring to access podcasts through Google Reader and so on. Well, it seems that one of the amazing developments on iTunes, about which I was only dimly aware, is a special section for higher education authors and users called iTunes U. It's a remarkable phenomenon, a kind of new Open University, where anyone can go and download lectures, podcasts, conference talks and so on. The idea in part is to provide multi-media materials for students on courses, and so some parts of iTunes U will be institution and course specific. But massive swathes of material are available free to all members of the public. It's a revolution in what British universities used to call "extra-mural learning", education beyond the walls of the university.

Many universities and colleges have their own iTunes U sites, including my own, Duke University, which has an impressive iTunes U site with lots of materials of interest. A lot of it consists of audio materials from conferences or public lectures, but some is created specially for the web. Here's the link to Duke's iTunes U site:

Duke on iTunes U

The links on that page will encourage an iTunes application to launch, so you will need to have iTunes installed if you don't have it already.

So what's available in our area over at Duke's iTunes U site? If you look to the left on the main menu, you will see Religion listed as one of the topics. Included under this topic is one thing that I have mentioned previously, the link to Dale Allison's 2008 Kenneth Clark Lectures. See also Carol Meyers on Women in Scripture; Beyond the Da Vinci Code with Bart Ehrman and Richard Hays; and Two Views of the Resurrection with Gary Habermas and Joel Marcus. And now also the NT Pod, with me!

Many thanks to Stephen Toback and Tom Freeland for their help in introducing me to the world of iTunes U and adding the NT Pod to its service.