Comments on: The Philistine Marketplace at Ashkelon

By: Cahyana Purnama

Cahyana Purnama — Thu, 17 Jul 2014 03:24:52 +0000

I remember on my pastor exposition about the impact of Palestinian culture to the Israeli Kingdom for a long time … and has still brought down a big problem of today’s political setting

By: Mark

Mark — Sun, 22 Dec 2013 23:54:26 +0000

I find it interesting that a diverse marketplace such as this, would have only a single scale to purchase by. Could this single scale that used different weight units for different cultural monetary disbursements (e.g. Egytian dynre verses Mediterranean) been a type of monetary exchange to a weighted Ashkelon coinage; that was then used to purchase from various markets? This would make mandate tributes (sales taxes) easier to pay and also open up the marketplace to personal haggling on price with the shopkeeper. Furthermore, on a busy day transactions would get so backed up if you only had a single source (checkout) to purchase your items; it would be the same as going to a mega-mall here in the states and only have one checkout counter for the whole mall. Let me know what you think.

By: Scott I

Scott I — Sat, 21 Dec 2013 20:50:28 +0000

I care not, whether Academics want to insult Christians or not. But I do expect Academics to remain relatively free from prejudice. We are not bothered by the names of the week, whose names refer to Nordic gods, such as Wodin, Thor, Friga (is that right?), Saturn. We don’t flinch that the months of the year have pagan god origins, such as Janus, Augustus, etc. Many of our words refer to pagan origins such as dis-aster, etc. So why the objection to BC (before Chris), also a religious symbol, as so many human symbols have been. Religious hatred starts somewhere, and usually only ends with massive killing or a subjugated status of slavery or even worse. Where ever it is found, it should be eliminated if scholars want to remain scholars and not propagandists.

Further, I have sometimes come across Christians (some so called) who find to much fault with words that appear to have pagan origins. These also are wrong and they should appreciate that more than most, since they are often prejudged as well. Our collective (species) history is full of very varied legacies, most of which include the fact we were once all pagan except for nearly just one man, Abraham. We can not change the truth of history. We can only cover up and lie about it, but the truth remains. Mature credible scholars will do their best to purge themselves of prejudice and hatred and be constantly vigilant about it !!!

By: Gene Conradi

Gene Conradi — Tue, 17 Dec 2013 19:04:55 +0000

Sorry, BC/DC should be BC/AD as to the monk’s numbering system.

By: Gene Conradi

Gene Conradi — Tue, 17 Dec 2013 08:31:29 +0000

BCE has been defined as meaning “Before the Christian Era” or “Before the Common Era”. Actually that is a more meaningful term since the birth of Christ preceded the date presumed by a sixth century monk who set up the BC/DC numbering system. So BCE and CE(Christian or Common Era) has replaced the older BC/AD designations among academics, scientists, archaeologists and many publishers. Of course to each their own. As a Christian I do not find the term offensive.

By: Brother Rolf

Brother Rolf — Mon, 16 Dec 2013 18:43:03 +0000

The proper term is BC not BCE,
Unless you want to insult Christians.