Capernaum is done, with one day to spare! It's a ridiculous fifteen pages of notes and photos that will probably be reduced to just two pages when integrated into the story. I'm going to have to scale back the number of sites Connor visits, otherwise I'm going to need six more months to research the rest of them. Granted, Capernaum was Jesus's base and the site of most of his miracles, so 1.5 weeks spent on it is fine. Jerusalem is the real bear. I'll probably need up to a month to do it justice.

Got a cool new 8.5 x 11 printed book that follows in the footsteps of Jesus. Lots of charts, pictures, and additional information. The pilgrimage books and travel guides weren't enough, and the web and YouTube videos are full of iffy information. Here's hoping the author knows what he's writing about.

Also, I settled on the Israeli government website as a more reliable resource than the tour guide videos and Wikipedia, although Wikipedia is still one of my main resources.

Yes. That's what I meant, but you explained it with one word. Nicely done, Professor.

Anyone have any idea how a single row of columns can divide a room into three aisles along three walls?

The prayer hall was divided by a row of columns (16 in all), that created three narrow aisles along three of its walls.

I'm inclined to assume that "row" here doesn't necessarily mean a straight line. I'm guessing it's a continuous "row" of columns that runs along three of the walls.

1,804

(1,528 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)

Sounds German.

Note to self: reconcile official Israeli website about Capernaum with other sources.

It's also known as Lake Tiberias, among other names.

The folks on the Catholic forum, including two priests, were very helpful regarding the languages Jesus spoke. His native tongue was Aramaic, but he also spoke Hebrew and probably Greek. Hebrew was the language of the Scriptures, Temple, and prayer. Greek was the language of commerce and therefore the most common language of the Roman Empire, except in and around Rome, where Latin dominated.

It's amazing how much misinformation there is on what seem like credible websites. I read on one site that the Sea of Galilee was saltwater. In reality, it's freshwater, fed by natural springs. Stuff like this could lead to big errors in my book.

I'm wondering if folks can tell me what they do as far as acknowledgements of websites from which they uncovered useful information to include in their stories but didn't lift the text word for word from the source. I've been researching for a year for my new WIP and have visited hundreds of websites, most of which were useless. The number of useful sources is probably in the dozens, some of which provided as little as two or three sentences of new information. I had originally planned to acknowledge the ones.I use all the time, like Wikipedia and Catholic.com, but I haven't been tracking the others. I've also read about two dozens books and made detailed notes, and I watched many videos and photos on Googl,, resulting in more notes. Most of this stuff was educational to me but would be common knowledge to Catholics, so some of it appears on multiple Christian/Catholic websites.

Is there a best practice for how to acknowledge sources for a fictional tale?

More of a gherkin, actually.

In my space opera, I blew up a 400-pound male Mob boss named Mama of Mama's Little Shipping, which has a galaxy-wide monopoly on shipping. Mama was poisoned with Daemon-07, a substance that causes your intestines to expand at nearly the speed of sound. It happened at his Le Chick Restaurant, famous for its succulent baby chicken dishes. A favorite hangout of Mob bosses from around the galaxy, as each person in the restaurant inhaled the resulting fumes, they too exploded. Mama's head landed in the lap of the ever-elegant Lady Kay, named for our very own Kdot (see above). The quick-thinking Kay escaped out an air conditioning vent. On the news, she is quoted as saying: "Heads were popping like champagne corks in there. I thought I had cannon fire chasing my [censored]." I kept laughing while writing the full news report. He was one of my favorite characters, but the news report was too good to pass up once it was written.

Some day I'll tell you about a crazed 41st century taxi driver named Leonardo, his ex-wife Donna Pelosa (which Google Translate seems to think means "hairy woman"), and the cab's long-suffering artificial intelligence unit, Stronza, which is Italian for bitch (it was the ex-wife's rusty old cab). You should see what Stronza can do when Leonardo engages Suicidio Mode! He doesn't actually die (yet), but he leaves quite a body count behind as he flies his cab through rush hour traffic.

What do you do if the official Israeli government website disagrees repeatedly with multiple Capernaum tour guides/videos and Wikipedia? The Israeli site is incomplete, but it has painfully detailed (albeit useless) archaeological descriptions of the synagogue that I haven't found elsewhere, and it acknowledges the excavations led by specific Franciscan fathers. For example, two of my sources say that the large hall in the synagogue was for scriptural readings and that the smaller east room was for prayer. The Israeli site lists the large hall as the prayer hall. Damned if I do, damned if I don't.

Good grief. I just spent 10 minutes looking for a note I had made about the First Jewish Revolt. I have handwritten notes that I take while watching videos. I looked through them repeatedly but couldn't find the note. That's when I remembered I have virtually all of my notes in a Word document. I've only been using it non-stop for a year, including earlier today. I need a good daytime weed. Counting down to Oct. 17!

I agree. There will be a few occasions where Connor sees Christ in a location that's been reconstructed differently from its original design (e.g. no one knows where Jesus lived in Nazareth, but Connor will be able to see it without regard for modern homes that stand in the way). I'll add flora/fauna changes too. Connor can see it all in his mind's eye.

Thanks.
Dirk

I decided to research Capernaum (Jesus's base) yesterday rather than work on the outline. Allowing time for errands, it may take me until the end of the week to finish with the town (the remains of a synagogue, two churches (one "hovering" atop St. Peter's home), the remains of numerous stone-walled homes, what appear to be restored stone piers, and a modern building whose purpose I'll simply have to guess at). Thank God for tourists with cameras. I also found an online tour/guide for several of the key Christian sites. I hope to finish his video of Capernaum tonight.

Funny thing. Most of the pictures show the surrounding landscape almost completely devoid of green. I figured it was barren like many other desert areas of Israel and didn't consider seasonality. During growing season, the whole landscape is transformed into countless shades of green. I forgot that Galilee is incredibly fertile. Mostly grasses near the town from what I can tell. Virtually no trees until you get to the low hills in the distance. Everything around the town was probably cut down over the 1300 years that the town existed.

My thanks to everyone. Ponder, I will.

Here's an example from a capitalization article about geographic naming: Everyone should visit the Indiana Dunes. The dunes offer hiking, swimming, and picnicking. If I follow my Guard rule, then dunes should be Dunes.

I was going to go with lowercase sea, but I have a similar example that may complicate things. In my previous book, I had a large military force named the Praetorian Guard that protected the Imperial Family. Based on examples from other writers, when I shortened it, I kept caps: "The Guard stands with you, Imperator." as opposed to "The guard stands with you, Imperator."

Thoughts?

I just finished populating an events table with cross-references into my best pilgrimage book. Long sigh. There's some missing detail for locations the author didn't include, but I can get that from online resources and the other (alphabetized) travel guides later. I'm sick of research, so I guess this means I'm starting the outline. Woohoo!

My watcher refuses to shut up about things I did wrong as a little kid. It's really annoying.

Is it the multiplicity of selves that you wanted me to take note of (for Joseph and Apollo), the fact that you don't have perfect knowledge but need to make a decision (which route to take in Israel), or having a watcher/judge?

Thank you, Alan and Temple. Temple, the book is beyond my reading level.

I'm including the Holy Land's "Sea of Galilee" in my WIP. When I refer to it simply as sea (e.g., Low hills lay beyond the sea/Sea.), do I capitalize sea? It's a specific sea, so I'm inclined to capitalize it.

Thanks
Dirk

Hmm. Not all of Israel's major highways have street view. Highway 92 running down the eastern side of the Sea of Galilee is only available in 2D. The west side's view from highway 90 is terrific. I'll need to identify some of the flora around the sea. Besides palm trees, the rest are just bushes and trees to me.

Google maps rock! Street view allows me to see the landscape for major routes through Israel. Indispensable given that the travel guides don't cover most of this in a way I can follow on a map. I'm 60% of the way through rereading the best of the travel guides for the sites Connor may visit. The author jumps around, though, both in time and place. The only reason I can follow most of the book is that I have a table of the major events in Jesus's ministry. I'm still pondering whether to follow a chronological path through Israel or a circular one. Since virtually nothing is known about Jesus as a child and young adult in Nazareth, it seems like overkill to drive all the way north after Bethlehem, only to come south again for the baptisms, then north again to Galilee. Unfortunately, there are quite a few sites for which I still don't have enough description. What I'd give for the health to see it all in person with a good tour guide.