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Manners & Customs

Kinds of Bread

Kinds of bread used. Two kinds of bread were in use in the days when Bible events were being enacted: wheat bread, and barley bread. Both of these are in use in Israel today. There is this distinction between them: barley bread is used by the poorer classes, whereas if a family is able to have wheat bread, it is considered to have arrived at a plac...

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Lamps

Character of the lamp. When the Children of Israel entered the Promised Land they adopted the lamp used by the Canaanites, which was an earthenware saucer to hold the olive oil, and a pinched lip to hold the wick. A thousand years later a Mesopotamian lamp was imported and used in some sections. This lamp had a closed tube for the wick, and thus co...

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Mangers

BETHLEHEM HOUSE AND MANGER The humble scene of the birthplace of the Baby JESUS is so often interpreted with Occidental instead of Oriental flavor that it would be well for Westerners to have the description of the kind of a Bethlehem house in which the Saviour was doubtless born, as given by John D. Whiting.40 Entering the door of this one-room ...

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Upper Rooms

THE UPPER ROOM The upper room or chamber is a well-known part of many Oriental houses today, and is frequently referred to in the Bible (cf. II Kings 1:2; 23:12; Acts 9:37; 20:8, etc.). Those who cannot afford such a room are content with booths or arbors on the roof of their houses. But when it is possible to do so they construct a room. It provi...

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Multiple Room Houses

Houses of More Than One Room AMONG THE ARABS of Israel villages and towns, houses of more than one room are owned by those who are more or less prosperous. The Arabic word meaning "house" also means "a room," The same thing was true of the houses belonging to the ancient Hebrews. As a rule the houses of one room were in the villages, and those of ...

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Loaves of Bread

Form of loaves. In the Holy Land where the old customs prevail, bread takes three forms: First, there are the small loaves which somewhat resemble the light bread biscuits of this country. It was this kind the lad had and gave to Jesus. Second, there are the larger loaves, nearly as heavy as the modern loaves of the West, but round instead of rec...

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Lampstand

The lampstand. In early Bible times, lampstands were not in common use, and the lamps would be put on a place such as a stone projecting from the wall. In the days of CHRIST lampstands were in quite general use. They were tall and were usually placed on the ground. Archaeologists have unearthed some bronze lampstands fourteen inches high that had b...

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Roof Materials

LETTING THE SICK MAN THROUGH THE ROOF TO JESUS A knowledge of the Oriental house is necessary in order to understand the story of the palsied man, who was let down through a hole in the roof, in order to get him to JESUS to be healed. Mark and Luke both give this aspect of the story. Mark says: "They uncovered the roof where he was: and when they ...

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Baking Bread and Ovens

Baking of bread. The most primitive method of baking bread was the laying of cakes of dough on heated stones.11 A Scriptural example of this is from the experience of Elijah. (I Kings 19:6): "And he looked, and, behold, there was a cake baken on the coals, and a cruse of water at his head." Another simple method of baking is the digging in the gr...

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Smoking Flax

The prophet's reference to smoking flax. Isaiah's prophecy concerning the Messiah was that "the smoking flax shall he not quench" (Isaiah 42:3). Dr. Thomson tells of seeing ancient clay lamps in use illustrating this text. The wick was often made of a twisted strand of flax, and this was put into the olive oil in the shallow cup of the lamp. When t...

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