Bible Review

The pressure of the Jordan flowing at 5.5 feet per second is about equal to the pressure of a hurricane blowing at 100 miles per hour. I am indebted to Martin Zlotnick, professional engineer, for suggesting this comparison.

A river’s meandering is measured by its sinuosity ratio, the ratio of distance flowed to straight-line distance. The lower Jordan averages about 2.1 (135 miles divided by 65 miles). But along some stretches of the lower Jordan, sinuosities exceed 2.3. A sinuosity of only 1.5 is sufficient to classify a river as meandering. Neither the Nile nor the Euphrates are classified as meandering rivers.

Badlands are areas of barren land characterized by an intricate system of sharply eroded features.

Tectonic plates are theorized as gigantic, irregularly shaped, relatively rigid blocks of the earth’s outer shell, perhaps 30 to 200 miles thick, which float on a more plastic mantle. Some geologic sources Identify seven major and twelve minor plates. When two plates slide against each other, surface deformation and earthquakes can occur.

Brimstone is sulfur. It can be found in deposits along the valley floor and as fumes.

See Raphael Levy, “First ‘Dead Sea Scroll’ Found in Egypt Fifty Years Before Qumran Discoveries,” BAR 08:05.

Halakhah (plural: halakhot) is the obligatory, legal side of Judaism, including Jewish practices and observances, covering daily life, festivals, dietary laws, purity rituals and civil and criminal law.

C.E. (Common Era) and B.C.E. (Before the Common Era), used by this author, are the alternate designations corresponding to A.D. and B.C. often used in scholarly literature.

Lawrence H. Schiffman, “The Significance of the Scrolls,” BR 06:05; see also my “Confessionalism and the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls,” Jewish Studies 31 (1991), pp. 3–14.

Including Adriaan van der Burg, Simone Cantarini, Lodovico Carracci, Annibale Carracci, Domenichinio, Guercino, Fa Presto, Rembrandt, Sebastiano Ricci, Peter Paul Rubens, Tintoretto, Vacarro and Paolo Veronese.