Queries & Comments

016

BAR Resurrects Slain Philistine Warrior

To the Editor:

The readers of BAR may be interested to learn that the cover design for the July/August 1982 issue of BAR has “resurrected” a slain Philistine warrior by rotating the image 90 degrees from horizontal to vertical and reversing it so that he faces toward the right. The figure appears on the exterior north wall of the mortuary temple of Ramesses III as part of a large scene carved in relief to commemorate the victory of the Egyptians over the fleet of the Sea Peoples in the eighth year of the reign of Ramesses III (c. March 1175 B.C.–February 1174 B.C., according to the Wente/Van Siclen chronology of the New Kingdom). The body of the slain Philistine is represented on the wall as falling overboard from his ship; he is facing downward with his head oriented toward the viewer’s left.

Siebenbergs’ Jerusalem House a Minor Site

To the Editor:

With reference to the article about the Siebenbergs in the March/April 1982 issue of BAR (“Jerusalem Couple Excavates Under Their Newly Built Home in Search of Their Roots,” BAR 08:02, by Leroy Aarons and Goldie Feinsilver) and Professor David Owen’s letter in the July/August issue (“Moral Outrage at Siebenbergs’ ‘Looting’; BAR Excoriated,” Queries & Comments, BAR 08:04), we would like to remark briefly on the following:

The Department of Antiquities did not issue any permit for archaeological excavation to Mr. Siebenberg, as wrongly stated in the article. The removal of the debris from underneath the house for the purpose of constructing an underground hall was carried out by the building contractor under the archaeological supervision of the Jewish Quarter Archaeological Expedition (excavating on behalf of the Institute of Archaeology at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the Israel Exploration Society and the Israel Department of Antiquities and Museums), which has conducted some of the most important archaeological undertakings of the century in Israel.

The remains uncovered underneath the house were examined and recorded by the Expedition and the objects that were found in the debris were all examined by Department of Antiquities personnel. The few objects of any archaeological value were documented and registered in the State Collections. I permit myself with complete confidence to point out that the impression given in the article regarding the significance of this minor site is out of all proportion to the actual remains and finds.

A major part of Professor Owen’s letter relates to the possible uses of the $2,000,000. Undoubtedly, Professor Owen is right, except that he is referring to private money, and as such the choice regarding its use lies naturally with its owner.

Bible’s Basic Facts Are Undisputed; Author’s Opinions Are Not

To the Editor:

The article entitled “John Bright’s New Revision of A History of Israel,” BAR 08:04, by Norman Gottwald, is an example of a common mistake made by so many experts in the field of Biblical archaeology. A find is made, an opinion arrived at, and using this new piece of knowledge, an attempt is made to recreate the entire origin of Israel. This accounts for the “maelstrom of conflicting interpretations of Biblical Israel’s origins,” as noted by Gottwald.

Gottwald goes so far as to excuse an alleged error by Bright by explaining that Bright didn’t have a copy of his, Gottwald’s, book available to him at the time he made the alleged error. How dogmatic and parochial can one expert be when reviewing the writings of another?

In general, the review seemed to be more aimed at promoting Gottwald’s book and positions than a serious review of a new book. Maybe you should have a contest among your readers to guess the number of times Gottwald mentioned his own book.

I am by no means a disciple of Bright’s. He is also guilty of taking a single cell amoeba and, in one gigantic evolutionary leap, producing a camel.

I believe most people would agree that 018there are mistakes, exaggerations, flights of fancy, and other distortions in the Bible. These aberrations deal with the details of events rather than the events themselves. For example: God did make a covenant with His chosen people. Nothing has been produced to refute that fact. Part of this covenant was the promised land. There is nothing in the Bible telling how every city in Canaan is to be delivered to His people nor the amount of time involved.

One city could have been taken by force of arms, another by the Israelites’ first living in the hills and slowly moving into the valley and absorbing that city’s culture, another the product of social revolution, and yet others by means not yet discovered. None of these scenarios contradicts the basic promise of God to His people, i.e. that the land of Canaan would be delivered to them.

Another example is the Exodus. God told Moses to lead His people out of Egypt. Moses did. I don’t believe any of your writers have or can dispute this fact. Did other tribes already in Canaan join them? How the event happened from a historic and archaeological viewpoint is interesting but has no bearing on the undisputed fact that the chosen people left Egypt and eventually settled in Canaan.

I have tried to keep track of the various means, dates, and routes taken by the chosen people during the Exodus, as expressed by your writers, and I believe the number is five. None of the theories contradicts the historicity of the event. The very fact that your writers dispute the how of the Exodus confirms that they all accept the fact that it occurred.

If your readers will view the opinions of your writers as just that, opinions, and that none of these opinions have, so far, violated the basic truths in the Bible, then they can enjoy the magazine as I do.

I am also very interested in our own Civil War period, which was just over a hundred years ago, and there is a very close corollary to keep in mind. The fact is that the North won the war, but how it was accomplished depends upon whether you read a northern writer or a southern writer. They are usually about as far apart as Gottwald and Bright.

Irrigating Ancient Israel

To the Editor:

“Ancient Jerusalem’s Rural Food Basket,” BAR 08:04, was a fascinating study. What impressed me most on our trip to Israel was the thousands of man-years of labor represented in the terraced hills. I was reared in western Colorado where the terrain and the annual rainfall are not too different from those of Judea. Every crop is totally dependent upon an irrigation supply of some sort.

Irrigating on land with differential slopes requires a master hydrologist. If the “set” of the water is too light, the upper rows get soaked but the bottom of the field remains dry. If the “set” is too heavy, you will erode your precious field and still not get the required soaking. Western Colorado farmers are masters at this sort of thing. The farmer on the down-hill side always wants the advantage of any “waste water.” I suppose these early Israelites took this into consideration.

Your publication gets better all the time. The thoughts of some of your contributors are sometimes revolutionary, but you have always been fair and present two sides of an argument.

Caesarea Tunnel Vision

To the Editor:

An avid BAR reader, I much enjoyed Robert J. Bull’s “Caesarea Maritima, the Search for Herod’s City,” BAR 08:03. 020Alas, I can not understand how two teams of “Herodian masons, working from opposite ends [to] cut a 6-mile-long tunnel through the bedrock,” found each other under Mt. Carmel.

I would be very thankful to know what instruments and knowledge, besides Divine Guidance, steered the masons for about 3 miles in stone obscurity to meet their target with an accuracy of about 4 feet. Also, did I comprehend correctly that the poor masons had to bend themselves down all the length of the four-foot-high tunnel and that each three-mile-long, 3½ × 4 foot, dead-end tunnel supplied enough air to keep them alive and active?

Robert Bull replies:

Only a small part of the six-mile-long Herodian tunnel could be examined. Four shafts similar to the one shown in BAR were found. At the bottom of each shaft, the tunnel branched east and west. We were able to crawl into the tunnel about 164 feet; we found oxygen supply greatly diminished and our way blocked by rubble. We assumed that the rubble had entered the tunnel from a yet-unexcavated shaft. Our conclusion was that the six-mile tunnel was cut by crews working toward one another at two cutting faces begun at the bottom of pairs of shafts approximately 230 feet apart. Since the shafts were 230 feet apart, the cutting faces were never more than 115 feet from a shaft. Presumably this distance assured an adequate air supply for the masons and for their oil-burning lamps. The complete excavation of the shafts and the tunnel has yet to be accomplished; we would of course welcome help.

The instruments used by the ancient masons at Caesarea to “guide” them in the survey and planning of each of the 230-foot sections of the tunnel, as well as the whole aqueduct, were probably similar to those used to build the aqueduct and tunnels that supplied water to Rome and to many other Roman cities of that period. The water table (chorobate) used for leveling and the measuring stick (groma) used for determining right angles, among other instruments, allowed Roman engineers to plan and build with accuracy over even greater distances than those evidenced at Caesarea.

I believe the masons had to remain bent over in the 4-foot-high tunnel. Whether they were citizens, slaves, soldiers or criminals, I do not know.

Patriarchal References to Philistines Not Anachronistic

To the Editor:

In “What We Know About The Philistines,” BAR 08:04, Professor Stieglitz mentions the “special problem” of 021” Philistines” being referred to during the Patriarchal era. These early references to Philistines need not necessarily be “anachronistic,” Stieglitz to the contrary notwithstanding. Abimelech’s “kingdom” at Gerar might actually have been a large Levantine trading colony set up by the powerful Middle Minoan empire sometime during the Patriarchal period, which could have been subsequently destroyed or abandoned as Minoan influence declined in later times. The fact that the Patriarchs’ contacts with Abimelech’s people mainly involved economic disputes (over water rights) that were eventually settled peacefully lends some support to this idea. If, in fact, Gerar had been a Minoan trading settlement in earlier times, it would have been only natural for a later Biblical writer to use a more “up-to-date” term such as “Philistine” to emphasize the connection between the Gerarites and the writer’s own contemporaries. Indeed, considering the many centuries of almost unrelieved hostility and outright warfare that characterized Israelite-Philistine relations throughout the Bible, it is hardly likely that a “later writer or editor” would have referred to the relatively friendly Gerarites as “Philistines” unless there had been some ancestral connecting link between them and the later Philistines.

Cain Built First City

To the Editor:

I should like to take this opportunity to thank you for your excellent magazine. It’s exactly the type of informative publication I have been seeking for a long time.

However, I would like to point out what appears to me to be an error. In Scholars’ Corner, “The Eridu Genesis,” BAR 08:05, you state that the first city was created by Cain’s son Enoch as stated in Genesis 4:15. I believe you will find the scripture should read Genesis 4:17, and according to my King James version it was Cain and not Enoch who built the city and named it in honor of his son.

This is my second issue of your magazine, and I pray you will keep them coming.

Reader Hayman is correct.—Ed.

Goedicke Quotes Ptahhotep on Michanowsky

To the Editor:

My secretary sent me a copy of Mr. George Michanowsky’s letter to BAR (Queries & Comments, BAR 08:05). In his Instructions the ancient Egyptian sage Ptahhotep says:

“If you meet a disputant in action

Who is your equal, on your level,

You will make your worth exceed his by silence,

While he is speaking evilly,

There will be much talk by the hearers,

Your name will be good in the mind of the magistrates.

“If you meet a disputant in action,

A poor man, not your equal,

Do not attack him because he is weak,

Let him alone, he will confute himself.

Do not answer him to relieve your heart,

Do not vent yourself against your opponent,

Wretched is he who injures a poor man,

One will wish to do what you desire,

You will beat him through the magistrates’ reproof.”

(Translation: Miriam Lichtheim)

There is nothing to add to this advice.

BAR Resurrects Slain Philistine Warrior

To the Editor: