Oh, ha! yes...I just posted about the miracle mud over in the Dinah thread. Could TOTALLY happen (no, seriously. maybe).
Jehoshaphat--his name means "God judges." There's a valley in Jerusalem called "Valley of Jehosaphat." It's mentioned in the Bible, and it's where God is supposed to gather all the nations of the world to judge them. In modern day Jerusalem, there really is a Valley of Jehosaphat, and it's a Jewish burial ground, from the 2nd Temple period. (It's actually called Kidron Valley, and it's on the eastern side of the Old City of Jerusalem, and it separates the Temple Mount from the Mount of Olives--the Mt. of Olives being a sacred place for Christians, because it's where Jesus supposedly ascended into Heaven.)
Jehoshaphat was a King of Judah (at one point, Israel was split into two kingdoms--Judah to the south/Israel to the north). He defeated the nations of Moab, Ammon, and Edom.
In addition to all of that, I just had a really interesting comment in my last blog entry today from my sweet friend Anonymous, who also told me the Valley of Jehoshaphat is located right outside Temple Mount (and is where the Last Judgment will take place). The other thing Anonymous said was that, in the Bible, when Jehoshaphat was King, the Moabites & Edomites sent a coalition to attack him. He let them fight and kill each other, then collected all the spoils. Maybe DIG's "Jehoshaphat" is manipulating the Rabbi & the Essenes into fighting one another...so he can collect all the spoils.
I love it when people collaborate with me on my geeky research projects--I say two ( or more) brains are always superior to my one tired brain.
Just some stuff for you all to chew on leading up to Thursday. (Seriously though, Gideon Raff or Tim Kring are going to need to send me a Sympathy card if they kill off any more of favorite people.)
PS~I don't know who here visits the DIG stuff on my blog, but I'm pretty much going to just copy/paste everything I just wrote here into my Jehoshaphat research entry...I was going to research the Temple Mount for this week, but this feels juicier. Also, I think I keep putting off the Temple Mount stuff because it seems so volatile--a lot of high emotions/politics tied to that place. Jason clearly did his own in-depth research on it when he noted it's the most hotly contested piece of land in the world. It is.