Hello Samford, Beck Taylor here, and welcome to another exciting edition of
Beck's Bench. This episode takes us on a trip through time, where we'll talk about
archaeological research led by Samford at an ancient site in Israel called Shikhin.
Thousands of years ago, Shikhin was a Jewish village in Galilee, a region of northern Israel
where Jesus was born and raised. Today, Shikhin is an active archaeological excavation site that was
discovered in 1988. Dr. James Strange, a biblical and religious studies professor here at Samford,
has been visiting this site for more then a decade and serves now as director
of the Shikhin Excavation project. This June, he'll return to Israel once again,
this time with chemistry and biochemistry double major William Spanier, to continue the dig. We're
grateful to have both Dr. Strange and William here today—gentleman, welcome to Beck's Bench.
Thank you for joining us today.
Dr. Strange, first of all, tell us a little bit about the back
story of this amazing historical site and Samford's role in its excavation.
Well, Samford has been critical in its excavation. It was surveyed first in 1988 by
a team led by my father, published, identified, but never excavated. And when I began looking
for a site to take Samford students for excavation and training in archeology,
I decided that that would be a good site. So in 2011, we took our first Samford students
over there, five students from Samford and one from the University of South Florida.
We resurveyed the site finding much of what they found in 1988, but we were looking specifically
for where to sink our first archeological probes. We found a good candidate, and turned out we were
right over the village's synagogue. So that was just a wonderful experience.
And you've been going back every year since taking that first group?
Every year since, except for during COVID. We missed two of the COVID years.
Now, William, you're going to get to go on the trip this summer. This is
your first time to Israel, obviously, your first time to Shikhin. What do you think
about when you think that you're going to be unearthing artifacts from this amazing site?
It really is an amazing thing to get to see your faith play out in the real world.
Being able to actually live and not only just see see Israel,
but to actually be there, to actually touch it, to feel it,
to grasp it. It really puts into perspective my faith. It's really a wonderful opportunity.
I'm excited for you. That's amazing.
Dr. Strange, what are we finding at the site,
and what does it tell us about the region and the culture?
It's a great question, and I brought a little bit of show and tell to help with
this. This is one thing that we're finding. This is a mold for a lamp,
a ceramic oil lamp cut into; it's actually a reproduction; the original was carved
into soft chalk limestone. And we found out that they're producing these at the site.
Now, that was not known before we started digging there. We started finding right away evidence of
lamp production. This is a kind of lamp that the production began in Jerusalem after the fall of
Jerusalem in 70, began around Jerusalem. So that means that at some point, some family or a group
of families moved south from Judea up to Galilee and landed at Shikhin and began this industry.
So this tells us something about the identity of the people at the site as Jewish people,
and it tells us something about distribution because they start making a lot of them. So all
of a sudden we're getting now information about economics and trade in the region. So Shikhin
is important for a lot of reasons, but that's one of the chief reasons it's so important.
William, one of the great things I think about being a Samford student is that you get to go
on trips like this. You get to come alongside a professor to learn a craft and a skill and
to learn more about history and culture. How did you find yourself on this trip,
and what do you think about the Samford education that allows students to do something like this?
Absolutely. It definitely puts a huge emphasis on prioritizing a student's faith as well as
getting them the experiences they need to go out into the world to become better people.
I came across this project just it feels like by chance, just honestly. I am a biochemistry major,
so being able to have the opportunity to explore the religious aspects that you can
find here is something that you won't really find anywhere else but Samford;
Samford's just really been a great way for me to not only grow in my chemistry knowledge but
just a great way to also grow my faith and just may help make me the person that I want to be.
Tell us about what you're going to be doing with biochemistry that will
be particularly helpful in your work at Shikhin.
The first thing that I think that I can think about for that will be really helpful for me
is that I can just look at things through a scientific lens to be able to know how
to handle things carefully and to be able to kind of just look at things analytically and
to be able to make good judgment calls when it comes to pottery and help piece things together.
That's wonderful. Okay, Dr. Strange, I'm going to give you an opportunity
to really sell your discipline here. Why is archeology important? And what
are we learning through archeology that we might not learn through other methods?
Well, this site and this region are extremely important in this period
because this is the period after 70, the destruction of Jerusalem. So this is after
the lens of the New Testament has followed the gospel away from the region. So we were
there during the Gospels themselves. The ministry of Jesus. And except for some
resurrection appearances in the Galilee, we no longer hear anything about it.
Even in the Book of Acts. The Book of Acts takes the Gospel from Jerusalem into Samaria and other
places in Judea and then into the Roman world. But Jesus left behind people who believe that he was
the Messiah in Galilee. So through archeology, we're getting the material culture of people
that we call Jewish, and they are, but some of them are Jewish people who claim that they
have met the Messiah and that they follow him and their children follow him as well.
So we're getting archeologically, the material culture of people that
we no longer read about in texts not until Christianity shows up in the fourth century.
That's just amazing. I wish I could be in your bags this summer to travel with
you. I know you're going to have a great trip. Blessings on both of you as you travel and do
your research and scholarship. It's wonderful to have you on Beck's Bench. Thanks for being here.
Thank you very much. Well, that's really exciting
stuff. Dr. Strange and his team will begin working in early June and will spend about a month near
Nazareth and the dig site. Not only will they be working the site, they will also spend a good bit
of time visiting other historical places as well—truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
Well, that's it for this edition of Beck's Bench. We'll see you next month as we talk
to a couple of our Class of 2023 graduates. Until then, I'm Beck Taylor, and as always—Go Bulldogs!