The Trembling Leaf: A Breath Away from a Serengeti Predator

Dangerous Beauty

It took a moment to get the shot through the tree branches, but when I did, I saw this dangerous beauty in my viewfinder. Sleet, spotted, muscular, yet fully relaxed. The only movement was the rhythmic breathing. I couldn’t see the air of course, but I could feel it in the trembling of the leaf—a small shudder with every exhale. And who wouldn’t? On the Serengeti, feeling the hot breath of this apex predator usually means it’s your last.

The African leopard (Panthera pardus pardus) is the smallest member of the Panthera family. Still, a large male can weigh 200 pounds and measure up to 10 feet long, nose to tail.

Because leopards are masters of stealth and ambush—often living right on the edge of human settlements—Maasai warriors in Tanzania fear them more than lions. While the lion is respected as a noble adversary, the leopard is seen as unpredictable, calculating, and far more dangerous in close quarters.

I think I'll keep my distance and let him sleep.

Join us on Safari

We are heading back to Tanzania in June 2027. We’ll be traveling via private Land Cruisers deep into the bush. In addition to the Serengeti savanna, we’ll plunge into the Ngorongoro Crater, follow the “Great Migration” along the Grumeti River and “glamp” on the shores of Lake Victoria.

If spotting a wild leopard, lion, or cheetah is on your bucket list, shoot me an email at BibleLandExplorer@gmail.com.

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Want to get up close and personal with a cheetah? Check out our post, “Klaus vs. the Cheetah: The Surprising Engineering of a Big Cat’s Face.”

The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea: An Ancient Merchant’s Guide to the Indian Ocean

Sailing in the Indian Ocean, off the coast of Unguja Island, Zanzibar.

A maritime guidebook in koine Greek

Explore the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, the essential ancient maritime guidebook for merchants navigating the Red Sea and Indian Ocean during the 1st Century AD (New Testament Period). This anonymous manuscript provides invaluable historical navigation tips, trade routes, and detailed port descriptions for early traders. From coastal directions to “insider” merchant advice, it remains a primary source for understanding ancient global trade networks.

Watch the video:

To view, click the panel below: “The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea: An Ancient Merchant’s Guide to the Indian Ocean.”

Nervous Nellies: The Frozen Alert Stance of the Thomson Gazelle

Thomson gazelles adopt a frozen alert stance at the sight of a lioness.

From the look of things, this herd of Thomson’s gazelles (Eudorcas thomsonii) has every reason to be nervous. On the flip side, the lioness couldn’t care less—for now.

Understanding the Frozen Alert Stance

This moment captures a anti-predatory tool known as the frozen alert stance. While not common to all species of gazelle, “the stance” is a trademark pose for Tommies. When one of these savanna speedsters spots danger, his body locks into place. He lifts his head high and fixes his eyes on the threat.

Physiological Shifts: Adrenaline on the savanna

Internally, the gazelle's body prepares for the contest. The heart quickens and breathing becomes shallow and rapid to deliver more oxygen to the muscles. Adrenaline surges into the bloodstream; the liver releases glucose for an energy boost. At the same time, blood vessels in non-essential areas (like skin and stomach) constrict to prioritize flow to the limbs.

Externally, every sensory organ is brought online. Ears stand erect. Pupils dilate. The tail flicks vigorously, flashing a rhythmic warning of white and brown. The threat is assessed.

Communicating with the Herd and the Hunter

This display is a dual-purpose broadcast. It communicates an alert and a taunt.

• To the herd: The flicking tail and the gazelle’s rigid posture act as a living arrow, pointing exactly toward the danger: Everybody look this way!

• To the predator: “The stance” signals that the element of surprise is now gone, essentially telling the lioness, Your stalk is spoiled. Don’t waste your energy.

evasive maneuvers: From Stance to Speed

If the tension breaks and the danger escalates, the gazelle may stamp its feet, pronk,* or emit a sharp alarm honk before vanishing in a high-speed sprint. Finding her cover blown and unable to compete with this kind of foot speed, the lioness will simply settle back into the grass. She will wait for the herd’s memory to fade or for a less observant target to wander by.

It is another day of life on the Serengeti in Tanzania.

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*The “pronk” is a stiff-legged jump where all four legs come off the ground at the same time. The move is believed to be another signal of vitality.

For more on Thomson’s gazelle, see our post here: “New Life in the Serengeti: Witnessing a Thomson’s Gazelle’s First Steps.”

The Wood Sandpiper: From the Ngorongoro Crater to the Siberian Tundra

A Wood Sandpiper (Tringa glareola) feeding in the muddy marshes of the Ngorongoro Crater, Tanzania.

Cooling its heels

Meet the Wood Sandpiper (Tringa glareola), an elegant wader that proves you don’t need to be large to be a legendary traveler. Despite its name, you rarely find this bird in a forest; it is a freshwater specialist that thrives along the muddy margins of inland ponds, marshes, and flooded grasslands.

With its yellowish-green legs and brownish upperparts dusted in speckles, it’s a striking sight. Its most distinctive feature, however, is the bold white eyebrow stripe (supercilium) that extends well past the eye, giving the bird a perpetually alert, wide-eyed expression.

Life on the Move

I caught a glimpse of this particular traveler feeding in the Ngorongoro Crater, Tanzania, this past February. The timing is key: the Wood Sandpiper is only a seasonal resident in Africa, migrating here to winter in the sun. When the northern summer arrives, it will embark on a massive journey back to the subarctic wetlands of Eurasia—nesting everywhere from the Scottish Highlands to the Siberian tundra.

The Reedbuck: Africa’s Water-Dependent Specialists

A reedbuck doe stands alert in the tall grass. While there is no set breeding season for reedbucks, breeding peaks in the rainy season.

The three Reedbucks of Africa

Across South and East Africa, the genus Redunca is represented by three distinct species: the Common (Southern) Reedbuck, the Bohor Reedbuck, and the Mountain Reedbuck.

While they occupy different niches—the petite Mountain Reedbuck favors dry slopes, while the Common and Bohor species prefer the wetlands and reed beds that give them their name—they share a remarkably consistent biological blueprint. All three are nocturnal grazers and strictly water-dependent, rarely straying far from a water source.

Visually, two defining traits tie them together:

1. The Subauricular Gland: A dark, hairless scent patch located at the base of the ear.

2. The Horns: Found only on males, these transversely ridged horns curve backward and outward before hooking sharply forward at the tips.

These traits are useful diagnostics for field identificaion.

Reedbuck ram standing in the rain. Note the subauricular gland under the ear and the forward curling horn set.

A Closer Look: The Eastern Bohor Ram

Bohor Reedbucks are not easy to find even in reserves where they are numerous. This may be due to their nocturnal habits and preference for tall grasses where they conceal themselves. The Serengeti in Tanzania and Moremi Game Reserve in Botswana are probably the best places to see them. We came across this one—and several females—in the central Serengeti in Tanzania. It happened to be raining and he eyed us briefly before bounding off into the nearby wood.

In the wild, a mature male like this can be fiercely territorial. To defend his patch (can be as large as 150 acres) from a rival, a ram follows a specific escalation of force:

1. The Warning: It begins with a sharp whistle, loud enough to cause the animal's entire body to vibrate. He then jumps vigorously—a display called stotting (or pronking)—to signal his strength.

2. The Threat: If the intruder persists, the ram lowers his head to display the conspicuous white bases of his horns.

3. The Fight: Should these signals fail, the encounter moves to a physical clash. Opponents adopt a combat stance with heads close to the ground. Unlike the high-impact headbutting of bighorn sheep, reedbuck combat is a test of strength characterized by interlocking horns and intense pushing and shoving.

These battles are incredibly high-stakes; it is estimated that roughly one-third of all male reedbuck deaths are the result of territorial fighting.

See a Reedbuck for Yourself

We are heading back to the savanna from June 3–13, 2027. If you want to photograph amazing species like the Bohor Reedbuck in their natural habitat, email us at BibleLandExplorer@gmail.com for travel details and to join our next expedition.

A Garden with a Tomb (and a Gardener). Part 1: The Quarry Site

“The place of crucifixion was near a garden, where there was a new tomb, never used before.”

John 19:41 (NLT)

The portrayal of the risen Christ as a gardener has a deep history in religious art. This recent work is one of my favorites. It is “The Gardener (2021) by Joel Briggs. Image from here (accessed 3/5/2026).

Hat on, hat off

As a field instructor with the Jerusalem Center for Biblical Studies (JCBS), I have led hundreds of student and church groups through the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (CHS) in Jerusalem’s Old City. Throughout the experience, my schtick is to deliver part of the talk holding my hat over my heart, and the other part holding my hat over my head.

It is my way of navigating the tension that inevitably develops in places like this—the tension between what I hold to be true as a believer and what I hold to be true as an archaeologist and historian. No matter what you’ve heard, this is a very real struggle for those who take both the biblical text and the archaeological record seriously.

View to the twin (grey) domes of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.The structure today is surrounded by the Christian Quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City.

At the CHS, this tension becomes acute for many Western Protestant pilgrims. Unfamiliar with the accoutrements and traditions of the Old World (and Eastern) Christianity, they often balk at a presentation that appears gaudy to the eye, ritualistic to the ear, reeks of incense, and feels crowded or even unruly.

This discomfort often drives pilgrims toward the Garden Tomb (“Gordon’s Calvary”) on the other side of town. Despite having zero archaeological merit for the identification assigned to it, the Garden Tomb is tidy, Protestant, very British, and—as the name suggests—looks like a garden. It simply feels better. But as many Evangelicals are learning, feelings can be deceptive.

I am convinced that if Western Protestant pilgrims can look beyond first impressions and take the archaeological and historic facts of the CHS seriously, the tensions that arise between head and heart can be reconciled and an even more powerful Easter reading may be produced. To do this, we start deep in the ground.

The Greek Orthodox Golgotha site. This is the traditional site where Christ was crucified inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Note the yellowish stone framed on either side of the altar, near the floor. This stone under the glass is cracked and crumbly and ancient, left behind by the quarrymen.

A stone Quarry outside the city walls

Two key points launch our reading. First, before it was a church, the footprint of the CHS was a stone quarry. Second, that quarry was located immediately outside the city walls of Jerusalem at the time of Jesus’s crucifixion.

Building a strong city like Jerusalem requires stone—lots of it. Fortunately, the limestone beneath the city is excellent for construction. It is a mix of hard and chalky materials, but it’s the hard stuff (the iconic "Jerusalem stone") that builders crave. For centuries, it has been extracted from sites like Zedekiah’s Cave, Ramat Shlomo, and Har Hotzvim. The footprint of the CHS is no different.

The door on the right leads into the Chapel of Adam, immediately under the Greek Orthodox Golgothat site. Portions of the left-behind limestone are visible behind the altar. On the left, parts of this same limestone block are encased in glass.

In these sites, quarrymen pursued the higher-quality building stone, leaving the poor-quality, cracked material behind. You can see this "leftover" stone in several places—high and low—within the CHS today:

• The Greek Othodox Golgotha site: The traditional place of the Cross is essentially a nubbin of crumbly, cracked limestone the quarrymen deemed useless. Its height is actually artificial—the result of the better limestone around it being cut away. This is best appreciated at the base of the stairs or in the adjacent Chapel of Adam.

• The Chapel of the Finding of the True Cross: In the lowest portion of the building, the quarry work is unmistakable. You can still see pick marks on the walls and the precise, cubical gaps where blocks were hewn out in the walls and ceiling.

Quarry marks on the wall and ceiling inside the Chapel of the Finding of the True Cross. Long before it was used as a chapel, this space was a quarry site modified for use as a cistern.

The Threshold of the City

Recognizing the quarry is easy once you know what to look for. Proving it was outside the city walls in the first century is more challenging.

The need for the CHS to be "outside" is driven by the presence of first-century graves found in the lower portions of the quarry. Because Jewish custom considered tombs ritually unclean, it is inconceivable that executions would be conducted or the dead buried inside the city limits. This aligns with Hebrews 13:12, which states that Jesus “suffered outside the gate.”

The confusion for the modern visitor comes from the fact that the Old City walls we see today encompass the CHS. While this line corresponds in places to earlier boundaries, these walls were raised by the Ottomans, some 15 centuries after the biblical period. They are irrelevant to the discussion.

The Jewish historian Josephus describes three different first-century wall systems. For our purposes, his Second Wall is the key. Its exact path has been debated for a century or more. Josephus’s clues are few: it started at the Gennath (Garden) Gate, encompassed a part of the northern city, and terminated at the Antonia Fortress. While archaeological evidence for the Second Wall remains enigmatic, the best recent data comes from a 2020 radar survey near the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer. Faint readings suggest the crowning of a wall, supporting the consensus that the Second Wall "zig-zagged" leaving this quarry—a place of rejection and discarded stone—just outside the gate.

Consider this map of Jerusalem showing the three walls of Josephus. Note the dot labeled “Golgotha to the outside of the “Second Wall.” line. Be aware that the “Third Wall” shown here was a late addition to the city, built after the lifetime of Jesus. The faint dotted line suggests the path of the Ottoman-era wall.

Reimagining the easter setting

Forgive the audacity of the suggestion, but if we could somehow lift the CHS off the ground for a moment and peek beneath it, I think the visual would be clear.

Fortunately, through digital reconstruction, it is not an impossible ask. Consider the careful illustration below produced by the good folks at National Geographic.* Note the quarried pits, the presence of the city wall on the right of the image, the position of the crosses on a nubbin of elevated stone in the middle, and the tiny outline of a tomb dug into the quarry wall on the left.

This graphic provides a starting point for reimagining the Easter setting.

Digital reconstruction of the quarry site, ca AD 30. Image from here (accessed 4/5/2026).

I have long taught that the crucifixion took place in a sterile, discarded landscape of stone. An exhausted quarry has little value, except as an execution ground or graveyard. The CHS footprint fits the bill, being in a public location just outside the city wall.

But the interpretation also raises a nagging question: How do you explain the presence of a gardener in such a place? Put differently, how do we read John 20 and Mary Magdalene’s surprise encounter with the resurrected Christ?

Stay tuned for Part 2.

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Notes:

*Fernando G Baptista and Kennedy Elliot, “The Site that May be Jesus’ Tomb” (Nov 28, 2017). Nationalgeographic.com.