The Actions of Abraham: A Life of Ethical Contradictions

ABSTRACT

Taking my point of departure in questions of ethnogenesis within the regions of Yehud and Idumea in the pre-Hasmonean period, I analyze the interrelationship of the themes of conflict and reconciliation in the composition of Genesis. I pay particular attention to perceptions of Idumea in narrative reiterations which tie the Cain story to the narratives about the destruction of Sodom and the Jacob-Esau conflict story in order to raise the question of whether the narrative strategy reflected in these stories might justify a further analysis of the Jacob and Joseph stories as contributions to a larger mnemonic discourse, bearing a utopian trajectory aimed at a realization of Ezekiel 16's reconciliation between Idumea, Yehud and Samaria.     

The Denbigh Project: excavation of a Civil War blockade-runner, J. Barto Arnold III

The blockade-runner Denbigh , one of the most successful and famous of the American Civil War, was located and recorded near Galveston in December, 1997. The site, 41GV143, was identified during a reconnaissance by the Institute of Nautical Archaeology, Texas A&M University. The 182-ft (55.5 m)-long, iron hulled, 258-ton displacement side-wheeler was built in 1860 by Laird, Sons & Co. of Birkenhead as a coastal paddle steamer and, when new, was considered a crack ship with all the latest features of design and technology.
This paper covers the 2000 excavation phase of an underwater archaeology project to investigate the Denbigh . It is the third in a series of preliminary progress reports. The report also provides updated findings on the ship's history.