I’ve started to research in earnest for the paper I’m going to present at the Oxford Symposium this summer. The subject of the symposium is markets, and I will talk about the market in Nazareth as a site of pilgrimage, not just for Christians visiting the site(s) where the Annunciation is believed to have taken … Read More »
biblical food
Relating to Wheat
These spring days, the roaring of combines rumbles in the background – rending thick fields of wheat into neat rows of shorn stalks. In the pre-industrial order of local agriculture, not only would this method of harvesting be unfathomable to a farmer watching from the side, but also the timing. Why would anyone cut down their good wheat … Read More »
Spring Fodder
How to catch an acute dose of spring fever – open the bedroom window at 4 AM; when the chill, citrus blossom-drenched air surges into the room, inhale deeply until intoxicated. Winter is my favorite season here – the magical emergence of new seasonal growth that we experience from December, in other parts of the … Read More »
What You Can Count On and What You Can’t
Let’s start with what you can’t. Here in the Galilee, you can’t count on the rain. You know, or at least you hope, that after what feels like an interminable, hot dry summer, eventually, the seasonal rains will make their dramatic appearance. And usually, by mid-October or early November, they comply. This year, our faith … Read More »
No Rain, No Luf
It is dry here. So dry. By this time of year, we could have expected several serious bouts of rain, and at least a stirring of growth in the brown earth. Instead we get the vaguest of clouds and downpours of thirty seconds that barely darken the sidewalk. On a walk last weekend in the … Read More »