Bunny's Burrow: Hopping into Life

  The Last Morning of Ugarit Before the Ruins: Echoes of Dust A quick note before we wander off together... Everything you'll read in Before the Ruins: Echoes of Dust is built on real archaeology, history, ancient texts, and the best evidence we currently have. The people you meet may be fictional, but the world they inhabit is not. Their homes, tools, food, music, beliefs, and daily lives are reconstructed from excavations, inscriptions, and centuries of scholarship. When imagination fills the gaps, it does so with respect for the evidence not in spite of it. No disrespectis meant. I am attempting to honor them. Think of these stories as invitations to stand quietly beside ordinary people history forgot, because sometimes the surest way to understand the past is to share breakfast with it. Come here for a minute. No, really. Close the other tab.  Bro... I need you to actually pay attemtion. Your emails will survive another ten minutes. The laundry can wait. If your kettle is...

  People ask me one question more than any other because I travel A LOT. "What's your favourite country?" I never know how to answer that. I mean, not because it's a bad question. It's actually a perfectly fair one I think. It just assumes countries are something you can rank, like favourite songs or biscuits. They aren't. It's hard... Countries are conversations. They're smells that sneak up on you years later when you walk past a bakery. I love bread especially a nice warm pretzel. They're the sound of dishes clattering in a little café where you don't understand a single word, yet somehow your tea arrives exactly how you hoped it would. Explain that one. Hypothetically... They're grandmothers who've known you for precisely seven minutes and have already concluded you're dangerously underfed and must fatten you like a cow. Different countries, different languages, same grandmother. We all know her... I've honestly started wond...

The Raven That Stole My Screw I've reached a point in life where I've accepted two things for certain. First, tea tastes better after you've accidentally let it go cold chasing a Bunny Hole. Not because cold tea is somehow superior, No... don't be ridiculous 😂 but because if my tea's gone cold it usually means I found something I find worth learning. Second... Birds cannot be trusted. Obviously... Now before the ornithologists sharpen their pencils and draft strongly worded emails or @ me on Twitter, let me explain real quick. You see...I don't hate birds. Actually, I love birds. They're brilliant little feathered dinosaurs that somehow survived an extinction event just to spend the next sixty-six million years making my life unnecessarily interesting. I admire them. I respect them. I simply don't trust the bastards and, sweeties, I don't think they trust me either. For reasons I still can't explain, birds have developed what feels like a deeply...

  Can We Still Hear Music From Before King David? Last time we took a rabit hole 🕳 we discovered David probably wasn't carrying around a giant concert harp. That got me thinking... Thinking A LOT... If David inherited an ancient musical tradition... How old is that tradition? I assumed and expected a few hundred years or maybe a thousand. Guess what?... I wasn't even close. The answer takes us to a city most people have never heard of. Welcome to Ugarit Let's climb into our online time machine again. We need to change oue lens to get a better POV. This time we're traveling to the northern coast of modern-day Syria. Around 1400 BC. A bustling port city called Ugarit sits on the Mediterranean. So looking back at  1400 BC , the cosmopolitan port of Ugarit entered its golden age as a flourishing city and a major trade center connecting Egypt with Mesopotamia and Asia Minor. Five harbors facilitated international commerce in goods like olive oil , metals , and Tyrian...

  Rabbit Hole: Was David Really Playing a Harp? Close your eyes for a second and imagine... Someone says, "King David played the harp."  What did you picture? If you're anything like me, you probably imagined one of those beautiful golden concert harps sitting on a stage with an orchestra. I did too at first... There's just one problem. That's almost certainly not what David was playing. The Danger of Familiar Pictures One thing bible investigation keeps teaching me is that assumptions are sneaky. Most of the time they don't tell us lies rather they simply tell us stories that feel familiar. You see, the Bible doesn't change rather pur mental pictures do. And sometimes those pictures quietly become part of the story. This happens to be one of those moments. The Bible Doesn't Actually Say "Harp" In many English translations, David is described as playing a harp . But the Hebrew word is: כִּנּוֹר Transliteration Kinnôr Most modern biblical sch...

Who Is the Most High? A Title Before an Identity Hey sweeties, pull up a chair. I've have a harsh confession to make. This chapter almost didn't exist. I decided it was time to evolve this blog as back when these notes were written my POV was differn't. The best way to see my logic is to show how I got to where I am. So... When I first started this investigation, I thought I already knew the answer. I heard it ALL my life... I had my theory, a stack of books, and what I was sure was a pretty solid trail of evidence. Then Genesis 14 quietly walked into the room and politely wrecked my entire timeline. Isn't that great? It's becoming a pattern. I love patterns... Every time I think I've figured something out, the Bible smiles, hands me another clue, and reminds me that history is rarely tidy and always complex. It is NEVER one sided... So, if you've joined me hoping I'm about to prove my theory beyond all doubt, I should disappoint you right now. That'...