How many chapters of the Biblical Archaeology Society were formed around the United States?

Answer: At least 14 chapters

In 1981, the Biblical Archaeology Society (BAS) launched its chapter program with the goal of connecting like-minded individuals who shared a passion for biblical archaeology. BAR founder Hershel Shanks gathered a group of friends and acquaintances from around the country who shared his vision and brought them all to Washington, D.C., for a planning meeting. It was decided that BAS’s home office in Washington would serve as the national headquarters, supporting the chapters by advertising their groups and programming in BAR and by providing one speaker a year. From this initial meeting, the chapters grew to at least 14 groups from Los Angeles to New York and everywhere in between.

In addition to hosting regular meetings in which top scholars and well-known BAR authors were invited to give lectures on their work, chapters also organized short courses on biblical archaeology, toured local museums, and represented BAS at conventions.

Although most of the local chapters eventually closed or disbanded, a few continue to exist in various forms, either as email or social media groups or as wholly independent organizations with their own lectures and events, most notably the Biblical Archaeology Society of Northern Virginia.

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Hebel = “morning vapor” or “vanity” or “enigma”

The etymology of some personal names in the Hebrew Bible points to a person’s nature or emphasizes themes connected with the narratives in which the person appears. The Semitic root hbl means literally “vapor that disappears quickly under the first rays of morning sun” or simply “air” or “breath.” Transcribed to English as Abel, it is the name of Adam’s second son, Hebel, in the Book of Genesis, chapter 4. His life is accordingly described as transient, with no lasting significance for future generations (because he died without heirs).

The noun hebel appears 38 times in the Book of Ecclesiastes (Hebrew: Qoheleth), where it describes the earthly life and human toils as “vanity,” “futility,” or “fleeting.” Some recent translations of Ecclesiastes render hebel as “enigma,” thus allowing a hopeful view of the Qoheleth’s notorious pessimism and nihilism: Even though our mental capacities cannot grasp the nature of this transient life, one can find meaning and happiness through God.

Interestingly, the word hebel occurs nowhere else in the ancient world as a personal name. A rival etymology, however, points to the Akkadian word for “son,” aplu, which Abel could reflect in his name, him being one of the two first sons born to humanity, and given that scholars see a strong Mesopotamian background in the early chapters of the Book of Genesis. However, one would need to account for the shift from a b sound to a p sound. In the Assyrian realm, the word aplu features in names like Tiglath-Pileser (i.e., Tukultī-apil-Ešarra), which translates “my trust is (in) the son of Esharra.”

THE PICTURE ART COLLECTION / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

Since the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947, the figure known as the Teacher of Righteousness has captivated both scholarly and popular imagination. On the basis of the limited evidence available, early scroll scholars created a portrait of the teacher as a religious and political figure who established the scroll community in the face of fierce opposition. Some even identified this individual with the high priest and Hasmonean leader John Hyrcanus or a historical figure known as Judah the Essene referenced by Josephus.^a

But how does the early assessment of the Teacher of Righteousness hold up after decades of additional discovery and study? How might we reimagine this figure, given what we now know about both the scrolls and the site of Qumran?

Among the more than 950 scrolls that have been discovered, the Teacher of Righteousness is explicitly mentioned in just two: the Damascus Document and the Commentary on Habakkuk. In addition, the Thanksgiving Hymns have long served as the third leg for historical understandings of the teacher.

The Damascus Document offers a chronology that, at least to early scholars, appeared to situate the Teacher of Righteousness in the mid-second century BCE. The Commentary on Habakkuk played a similar role in the historical identification of the teacher and his contemporaries. The latter’s references to the “Teacher of Righteousness,” the “Sons of Zadok,” and the “Man of the Lie” linked it early on to the Damascus Document. The Commentary is still considered to be the most important text for understanding the teacher, whom it presents in a dramatic rivalry with other figures who contended with him for authority. Some argued that it was necessary to identify these figures with known historical individuals, and proceeded to do so, generally in ways that accorded with a second-century chronology.

Scholarly assessments of the historical value of the Commentary have undergone significant change, however, moving from strong optimism to dark pessimism. For instance, the second-century dating derived from the Damascus Document and affirmed by once-established interpretations of the Commentary has been vigorously challenged by new understandings of Qumran. Jodi Magness’s examination of the site’s archaeology has posed a serious challenge to the long-standing view that Qumran was established in the second century, arguing instead for a first-century date.¹ Her compelling reexamination of the site, independent of the textual evidence, has forced scholars to reevaluate the second-century theories about the identification of the teacher and other “historical” figures.

In addition to the Damascus Document and the Commentary, early scholars turned to a third source for their understanding of the teacher: the Thanksgiving Hymns (Hodayot). Early on, Eliezar Sukenik proposed that certain hymns from this scroll were the autobiographical meditations of the teacher himself. Sukenik based this theory on his own readings of the vivid imagery and emotional character of these first-person hymns, specifically those found in columns 9–17 of the scroll, a subgroup that quickly became known as the Teacher Hymns. Similarly, in 1956, Frederick F. Bruce wrote that “many of [the hymns] strike a personal note which strongly suggests that they were first composed to express the experience and devotion of one man, and that one man could hardly have been anybody other than the Teacher of Righteousness.”² Such a view was largely driven by the strong voice of the speaker in these hymns and their supposed allusions to events detailed in other texts, such as the Commentary, especially passages that speak of the teacher’s rivals.

While some scroll scholars were persuaded by the truth-telling quality of these supposedly autobiographical writings, I have argued that such works follow the predictable contours of fiction, with only the illusory effects of historical writing.³ So the assumption that historical facts can be recovered from first-person prayers is methodologically problematic. Based on studies of the abundant prayers from the scrolls, we know that the compositional techniques for such texts relied heavily on stereotypical phrases and biblical language, thus making it very difficult to extract reliable historical information.

Moreover, the unique characteristics and striking imagery of the hymns led to the problematic reasoning that there could have been only one such remarkable individual in the community. Such a claim clearly presumes a scrolls community that emerged at a single decisive moment, a view that was resoundingly refuted in recent decades with the work on the Community Rule.⁴

Now that all of the Dead Sea Scrolls have been published, scholars are acutely aware that no new textual evidence has emerged about the Teacher of Righteousness. As a result, new perspectives on the teacher require a revised assessment of the evidence we already have. In one such approach, Charlotte Hempel has described the primary driving force behind Qumran scholarship as one of historical reconstruction.⁵ Hempel illustrates a visible shift away from historical origins with two brilliant (albeit quite modern) analogies to represent the changing understandings of the Teacher of Righteousness: (1) John Wayne as he gallops onto the scene to rescue a community in distress and (2) the veiled and more obscure Wizard of Oz whose persona looms larger than his actual reality. As she and others have shown, one of the major areas of development in understanding the scrolls is the recognition that the texts do not reflect the unmediated concerns of one group, but instead should be appreciated as offering highly mediated understandings of multiple communities and experiences over time.

Meanwhile, scholars of religion have moved away from attempting to reconstruct historical origins and are now more interested in recovering how these texts reflect the lived experience of religion. They no longer read the texts about the teacher at face value, instead highlighting the possibility that the teacher was a conceptual or even mythical figure emerging from the exegesis of biblical prophetic texts.

Additionally, the key text associated with the teacher—the Commentary on Habakkuk—is highly dramatic and vivid, presenting the teacher within a supercharged conflict with his rivals. Such scenes prime readers’ sympathies, urging them to reexperience these foundational events (whether historical or mythical) and to respond emotionally to the conflict and the tragic experiences of betrayal and outrage over the behavior of wicked enemies. Such emotional responses can contribute in significant ways to the formation of group identity.⁶

Although early understandings of the Teacher of Righteousness were marked by an optimism concerning what can be reconstructed from this time period, scholars today are no longer convinced that it is possible to recover such a historical figure with certainty. Instead, their attention is redirected to questions about the religious beliefs, practices, and traditions of the Qumran community, insofar as they can be reconstructed from the writings that have survived.

HIP / ART RESOURCE, NY

These gilded and enameled copper plates, called armillae (sing. armilla), were affixed with cords or ribbons to the shoulders of ceremonial or liturgical vestments. Originating in Roman times, when they were given to soldiers as emblems of valor, armillae remained popular signs of status and prestige in Europe up through the Middle Ages. Vanishingly few medieval examples have survived, however, making this remarkably well-preserved set exceptionally significant.

This pair of armillae was likely given by Frederick Barbarossa, Holy Roman Emperor in the 12th century, as a gift to the Russian prince Andrey Bogolyubsky in c. 1170. The beautifully enameled scenes on each are highly detailed. One armilla shows the Crucifixion, complete with two angels, Mary, John, the spear-wielding Longinus, Stephaton offering the sponge soaked with vinegar, and Roman soldiers casting lots for Jesus’s garments. The other armilla shows the Resurrection, with two angels welcoming Jesus from his tomb and the sleeping Roman soldiers below.

© RMN-GRAND PALAIS / ART RESOURCE, NY

Over the centuries, this pair of armillae was split up; the one showing the Crucifixion found its way into the German National Museum, while its counterpart with the Resurrection ended up in the Louvre in Paris. Nevertheless, longstanding tradition holds that both pieces belonged to Bogolyubsky, although some recent scholarship has called into question the connection between the two.

THE JEWISH MUSEUM, NEW YORK / ART RESOURCE, NY

Within the Hebrew bible, there is a stark difference between Israelite religion in the ancestral period of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs, described in Genesis, and that of the Mosaic period across the rest of the Pentateuch. In the ancestral period, God was generally referred to by epithets that begin with El, which was the general Hebrew word for “god.” These epithets included El-Shaddai, El-Elyon, El-Roi, El-Olam, El-Elohe Israel, and sometimes simply El. The ancestors were very free in their worship, which could be carried out at a variety of sacred sites without the assistance of priests, and which might include: building altars (Genesis 12:7, 8); setting up stones and pouring libations over them (Genesis 28:18); and planting trees (Genesis 21:33). There does not seem to have been an emphasis on holiness and its maintenance.

Mosaic religion was very different and included: the revelation and broader usage of the divine name Yahweh (Exodus 3:13–15); the restriction of worship to selected sites (Deuteronomy 12); the facilitation of sacrifice by priests (Exodus 29; Leviticus 1–7); the prohibition of standing stones and trees (Leviticus 26:1; Deuteronomy 7:5; 12:2); and an emphasis on holiness (Leviticus 11:44). Clearly, the system of worship established as part of the covenant and enshrined in the Torah of Moses was something new.

But what about the period between the ancestral and Mosaic periods? Genesis ends by recounting that the Israelites migrated to Egypt during a time of famine (Genesis 42:1–47:12). And Exodus begins by recalling that, while there, the original 70 migrants were “fruitful and prolific” and “multiplied and grew exceedingly strong, so that the land was filled with them” (Exodus 1:7). The Bible indicates that the Israelites lived in Egypt for 430 years (Exodus 12:40–41).¹

According to the biblical tradition, therefore, there was a period of centuries between the conclusion of the ancestral period and the start of the Mosaic period. What were the religious beliefs and practices of the Israelites during this time? Did they continue to observe ancestral practices, or did they succumb to the influence of Egyptian religion? Let’s consider the evidence from the Book of Exodus that suggests the Israelites maintained various aspects of their ancestral religion.

The first piece of evidence may be the Hebrew midwives’ fear of God. When the Hebrews grew numerous, Pharaoh worried that they might “increase and, in the event of war, join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land” (Exodus 1:10–11). He enslaved them, “but the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread, so that the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites” (1:12). He increased their workload and treated them ruthlessly (1:13–14). Finally, he commanded the Hebrew midwives Shiphrah and Puah to allow female Hebrews to be born, but to kill any baby boys (1:15–16). These midwives, however, “feared God” and “did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but let the boys live” (1:17). As a result, the Hebrews continued to multiply (1:20). Pharaoh summoned the midwives and demanded to know why they had allowed baby boys to be born (1:18). They claimed that the Hebrew women were more vigorous than Egyptian women and that they would simply give birth before a midwife could arrive (1:19). As a result, the text says that God “dealt well with the midwives; and the people multiplied and became very strong. And because [they] feared God, he gave them families” (1:20–21).

In this episode, the text twice refers to the deity using the common noun elohim without a definite article (Exodus 1:20, 21). In these cases, the text is probably referring to a “deity” in a general way. In one instance, however, it is used with a definite article, meaning “the deity.” Although this could be an editor’s observation that they had a general fear of the numinous, it is probably meant to identify the deity as that of the Hebrews.

The second piece of evidence is found in the story of the burning bush, when God calls to Moses, saying, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob” (Exodus 3:6). In a classic study, Albrecht Alt observed that the phrase “the God of your fathers” is a formula that refers to the ancestral God.² Since the formula connects the deity with the ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the word “fathers” is always in the plural. In God’s call to Moses from the burning bush, however, it is in the singular: “I am the God of your father” (Exodus 3:6). Could this be a clue that Moses’s immediate family had maintained faithfulness to Yahweh?

A third piece of evidence may be that the divine name YHWH, often rendered in English as “the Lord,” had already been known since ancestral times. When God spoke to Moses from the burning bush, Moses asked God how he should answer the Israelites if they were to ask the name of the deity who sent him (Exodus 3:13). God answered Moses, “the Lord, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob” (3:15). Several chapters later, according to a typical translation, God said, “I am the Lord. I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as God Almighty but by my name ‘The Lord’ I did not make myself known to them” (6:2–3). This pronouncement has led to the view that God speaking his name to Moses was a new revelation.

In 1973, however, G.R. Driver argued that this conventional translation of Exodus 6:3 fails to recognize a common Hebrew colloquialism called the “emphatic interrogative,” in which a negative particle is used to express affirmation.³ There are numerous examples of this in the Hebrew Bible (e.g., 1 Samuel 14:30; 2 Samuel 5:23; 2 Kings 5:26). The translators of the King James Version understood the idiom and rendered it accordingly: “And God spake unto Moses, and said unto him, I am the LORD: And I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name of God Almighty, but by my name Jehovah was I not known to them” (Exodus 6:2–3). If Driver is correct, the translation of Exodus 6:3 as an emphatic interrogative could mean that the ancestors knew the name Yahweh.⁴

A fourth piece of evidence may be the appearance in Exodus of theophoric names that include a form of the name Yahweh. Jochebed (Yokebed), the name of Moses’s mother, is a compound of Yah (here shortened to Yo) and “glory” (kabod) meaning “Yah[weh] is glory.” The etymology of the name Joshua (Yehoshua) is less clear, but it probably means either “Yahweh is victory” or “Yahweh is salvation.”

This is not a tremendous amount of data, but it may be enough to suggest that the ancestral religion persisted among the Israelites who lived in Egypt during the long sojourn between the ancestral and Mosaic periods.

In a future article, Ralph Hawkins will consider additional evidence from Exodus and later biblical and postbiblical traditions that suggests the Israelites at least partially abandoned their ancestral religion during their sojourn in Egypt.—ED.

The phrase “under the sun” describes something that exists in this world, on the face of the earth. As such, when people respond to something by saying there is “nothing new” under the sun, they mean that the thing is hardly unique or unexpected. This saying is usually used for phenomena and social circumstances rather than material things or inventions: “Teachers being underpaid? Nothing new under the sun!” In its original, biblical context, however, the phrase has a more complex meaning.

The expression famously appears in the biblical Book of Ecclesiastes (Hebrew: Qoheleth), where the author uses it in his pessimistic description of this world and the pointlessness of human toil. In his view, people mostly fail to understand their own condition and the meaning of life. What is happening, even if it may seem new to them, happened before and will happen again: “What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; there is nothing new under the sun” (1:9). This verse and the entire opening of Ecclesiastes describes the futility and senselessness of human effort. No matter what we do, nothing ever changes. That means that there is no escape from our present condition, because no human labors and exertions can bring about an improvement.

The one light of hope in this pessimistic view may be in the earth’s permanence: While human life is not stable or permanent, insinuates Ecclesiastes, the natural world is. Even here, however, the biblical writers likely could not foresee the many natural and manmade threats that imperil our planet’s survival today.

ACTIVE MUSEUM / ACTIVE ART / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

Apocryphal stories about the childhood of Jesus made headlines this year. Although unfamiliar to most readers of the New Testament, such childhood stories can be found in an early Christian text known as the Infancy Gospel of Thomas. This past spring, two scholars, Lajos Berkes and Gabriel Nocchi Macedo, published an ancient manuscript of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas (see “Early Infancy Gospel Discovered”). This fragmentary manuscript contains several lines of text that align closely with other, much later manuscripts of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas (henceforth, Infancy Gospel). Lamentably, the provenance of the manuscript remains a mystery, but Berkes and Macedo believe it is an authentic artifact. They date the fragment to the late fourth or early fifth century.

The publication of the manuscript is important for at least two reasons. First, the language is Greek, and second, the date of the fragment makes it the earliest copy of the Infancy Gospel in any language. The language of the manuscript corroborates the scholarly consensus that the Infancy Gospel was written originally in Greek, while its date lends support to the view that the Infancy Gospel was in circulation prior to the fourth century. It seems likely, in fact, that the Infancy Gospel was written as early as the second century, when allusions to a childhood story about Jesus and a teacher crop up in the work of Irenaeus as well as in the anonymous Epistle of the Apostles. This evidence puts the Infancy Gospel within shouting distance, chronologically speaking, of the New Testament Gospels.

A first encounter with the stories in the Infancy Gospel can be unsettling. In one episode, a five-year-old Jesus curses another child, who promptly falls over dead. Understandably, more than one religious commentator went online to respond to the news about the ancient manuscript of the Infancy Gospel, denouncing it as unbiblical and heretical.

Authoritative statements about the Christian Bible and Christian theology, however, do not emerge until long after the year 150, the likely date of the gospel’s composition. From that vantage point, no ancient Christian could have foreseen a canon of the “New Testament” like the one found in most Christian Bibles today. I do not make this point to argue for the historical reliability of the Infancy Gospel. I do not know of any scholar who believes that its childhood stories about Jesus are historically reliable. Nor do I mean to suggest that all early Christians welcomed childhood stories about Jesus; clearly some authorities rejected such stories. No, the point is that the Infancy Gospel, like every other ancient Christian source—whether it is ultimately included in the biblical canon or not—is precious evidence of what mattered to at least some early Christians.

If some early Christians told childhood stories about Jesus, they must have had reasons to do so. Why? One reason has to do with demonstrations of power. The newly published fragment contains a section of the first episode in the Infancy Gospel. In it, a five-year-old Jesus plays by a stream and shapes figures from the mud. The clay toys are sparrows, which Jesus suddenly brings to life, clapping his hands and shouting “Fly away!” Dirt models one moment, living creatures the next—if readers see shades of the creation of Adam in Genesis, it’s not a fluke.

Now, not all of Jesus’s wonders cast a good light on his childhood. On the same day of Jesus’s miracle of the birds, he curses and harms another boy for draining a nearby pool of water. And in a later episode, Jesus causes members of his village to go blind, only later showing mercy and restoring their sight.

This is generally the way things go in the Infancy Gospel. The child Jesus blesses and curses. And this brings us to a second reason for why childhood stories about Jesus mattered to early Christians. It is because they place this strange child at the center of family life.¹ Readers of the New Testament may recall that there is only one childhood story about Jesus in the entire Christian Bible, and it too is a story of household tension. In it, Mary and Joseph lose track of their 12-year-old son. They eventually find him in the Temple, amazing the teachers there with his understanding (Luke 2:41–52). Note Mary’s reproachful words to the youth: “Child, why have you treated us like this?” (2:48). Jesus’s reply about being “in my Father’s house” leaves the parents perplexed: “But they did not understand what he said to them” (2:49–50). Is this the episode that inspired early Christians to spin more childhood tales?

Interestingly, this same episode is retold with minor differences as the conclusion to the Infancy Gospel. Between the opening avian miracle and the conclusion in the Temple, the gospel’s stories time and again focus on the relationships between Jesus and members of his household. When a poisonous snake bites his brother, James, Jesus heals him. When Mary sends Jesus to the well, the water jar breaks, but Jesus spreads out his cloak and miraculously collects the water. He returns to Mary with the water and she is amazed by what Jesus has done.

Perhaps most striking is how the Infancy Gospel raises the profile of Joseph. In a poignant moment, Jesus helps Joseph with his work as a carpenter, miraculously lengthening a wooden board. But Jesus and Joseph also fall into conflict. Much of the tension comes from Joseph’s persistence in seeking out an education for his son. The “schoolhouse” stories depict the child Jesus as an obstreperous pupil. Jesus, like a juvenile Mr. Spock, overwhelms one teacher with his superior intellect. In a different episode, Jesus curses another teacher after suffering corporal punishment. Joseph must deal with the fallout. He instructs Mary not to let Jesus leave the house because of his temper. Joseph even pinches Jesus’s ear in frustration and receives in return a stern warning from Jesus. Joseph finally finds a teacher who seems to have picked up on how to “teach” the extraordinary child—he doesn’t. The teacher instead yields the floor and praises the wisdom of the boy, emerging unscathed.

All these stories showcase the life of Christianity’s “first family.” The early Christians who told and listened to such stories wondered what it was like for Mary and Joseph to parent an extraordinary child. In imagining these scenes, I wonder whether early Christians may have seen a dim reflection of their own experience. Family members and friends do not have to wield supernatural power to leave us at a loss. Why is it that the people to whom we are closest, the ones we think we know best, can nevertheless say or do things that utterly confound us? How often do our most intimate relationships leave us perplexed? If these questions animate the stories of the Infancy Gospel, then the text is not only about the household of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. It is also about the restless hearts and minds of early Christians.

DAN PORGES / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

Among the Hebrew Bible’s most obscure, perhaps even alien concepts is the notion of impurity. Modern readers may wonder what is to be gained from the detailed instructions pertaining to the pollution (ṭum’ah) caused by genital emissions, disease, corpses, and creepy-crawly creatures (Leviticus 11–15; Numbers 19). Why are we so reluctant to think about—let alone discuss—these aspects of our embodied experience? And why does the Bible cast a spotlight on these topics that are so often conveniently hidden from public view?

The British anthropologist Mary Douglas took an important step in confronting biblical purity laws in her classic treatise Purity and Danger (Routledge, 1966). In this work, Douglas famously equated pollution with “dirt,” which she then defined abstractly as “matter out of place.” From this premise, she sought to decode the symbolic systems manifested in purity laws. Although this approach has been remarkably influential on biblical studies, scholars in recent years have begun to question its tendency to recast the gory details of purity laws as representing abstract social or intellectual categories rather than addressing actual pollution.

An important step forward in understanding pollution came with the upsurge of interest in evolutionary psychological approaches to disgust over the past 30 years. These studies argued that the items that arouse our disgust (which are often the same ones associated with impurity) often pose dangers when ingested or touched. Along similar lines, recent psychological studies have focused on the perception that certain items cause “contagion,” the transfer of an unwanted invisible influence. This contagion can take multiple forms. Just as study respondents were reluctant to wear a sweater previously worn by a hepatitis patient, so too they were less than enthusiastic if the previous owner was a serial killer. These psychological studies can go a long way toward illuminating why the same sources arouse a fear of dangerous contagion (impurity) in cultures around the world. Moreover, they suggest that this seemingly “religious” concept may actually be rooted in our biological nature.

The ancient Near Eastern evidence fills a crucial gap in our understanding of the historical process by which our ideas about purity developed. As it turns out, for human societies that had yet to discover microscopic germs, notions of pollution played a vital function in pathogen avoidance. Letters from the Syrian city of Mari in the early 18th century BCE provide us with the earliest unambiguous evidence of how they understood and responded to infectious disease. For example, one letter that I have translated reads:

The god is striking in the upper district, so I without delay took a bypass. Furthermore, my lord should give orders that the residents of the cities that have been touched [laptūtu] not enter cities that are not touched, lest they touch [ulappatū] the whole land. And if there will be a campaign of my lord to the upper district, my lord must stop in Terqa. He must not move on to Saggaratum. The land is “touched” (i.e., infected).¹

Even as the people of Mari interpreted the epidemics that devastated the region as expressions of divine anger, their public policy was much more down to earth, focusing on the quarantining of infected people and cities. These measures may seem all too familiar to us in the wake of the recent COVID-19 pandemic. Even the peculiar idiom “touched” (Akkadian lapātu) used in regard to the infected cities is in fact an exact semantic parallel of the word “contagion,” from Latin com-tangere (“touched with”). Semantic parallels can also be found in biblical Hebrew ng‘ and ancient Greek epaphe, both with the concrete meaning “touch” used to describe the spread of disease. These parallels reveal the commonality in the way pre-modern cultures understood the experience of infectious disease.

Additional letters from Mari show how an awareness of contagion influenced domestic life. One letter from Queen Shibtum to King Zimri-Lim relates that her infected servant was placed in an isolated dwelling where she would eat her meals separately from the rest of the palace servants: “No one will approach her bed or chair.” In a letter from Zimri-Lim to Shibtum, the king expresses concern regarding another infected servant who had been freely interacting with the personnel: “Now command that no one will drink from a cup that she drinks from, nor sit in a chair in which she sits, nor sleep on a bed in which she sleeps!” This awareness also finds expression in rituals from the early first millennium BCE. For example, the Mesopotamian Shurpu (“burning”) incantation refers to contracting a “curse” by means of touching furniture or consuming food or drink touched by a “cursed” (tamû) person.

These sources provide crucial background for understanding the biblical laws of impurity. Two of the most severe sources of ṭum’ah, requiring banishment and elaborate sacrificial rituals, pertain to skin disease (Leviticus 13) and uncontrollable genital flows (Leviticus 15). Each type of pollution bears unique characteristics that determine how it is transmitted and how it is to be purified. For example, the impurity of genital flows is spread by means of furniture upon which the infected person has sat or lain, creating an invisible stain on these objects. On the other hand, corpse impurity spreads like a gas within a closed space (literally a “tent”), an understanding modeled after the spread of a decomposing corpse’s odor, which was associated with the release of the dead person’s soul (nefesh) from the corpse.

Yet, alongside these physiological sources, the Hebrew Bible also refers to pollution caused by certain types of transgression. Scholars have labeled these instances “moral impurity,” though it is important to recognize that nearly all of the relevant examples pertain to the domain of illicit sexual relations. Although it seems reasonable to view these examples, which appear primarily in the Holiness Code (Leviticus 17–26), as metaphorical, one should recognize that the association of impurity with sexuality is not arbitrary. As with genital emissions more generally, sexual violations are depicted as leaving a metaphysical stain that threatens the perpetrator—and even the community at large—with divine retribution. This metaphorical extension of purity language also finds analogies cross-culturally, not only among traditional cultures but even in modern Western society, where the topic of “moral disgust” has garnered considerable attention in recent years.

Taken together, these examples demonstrate how a supposedly religious idea such as impurity is deeply rooted in embodied experience. This recognition allows us to appreciate that the notion of pollution is based on psychological intuitions that have facilitated human survival from prehistoric times until the present day. Moreover, this embodied discourse provided a repertoire of images that could be used to express attitudes toward certain types of moral violations. In these ways, the repertoire of bodily experience provides the imagery for discussing the hidden causal forces that shape our physical and social realities.

© THE TRUSTEES OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM / ART RESOURCE, NY

Do you recognize this portion of an illustration of a famous biblical scene?

1. Ascension of Elijah
by Juan de Valdés Leal

2. The Last Judgment
by Hans Memling

3. Ascension of Christ
by Gregorio Lopez

4. Transfiguration of Christ
by Raphael

5. Jacob’s Ladder
by William Blake

© THE TRUSTEES OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM / ART RESOURCE, NY

Answer: (5) Jacob’s Ladder

Using pen and gray ink and watercolor, William Blake (1757–1827) prepared this illustration, known as Jacob’s Ladder or Jacob’s Dream, for Thomas Butts, a senior official in Britain’s civil service. In the foreground, the biblical patriarch Jacob lies dreaming (Genesis 28). Behind him rises the vision from his dream, here imagined as a spiral staircase ascending through the starry night sky to the golden rays above. At the foot of the staircase stand three women carrying trays and urns, and other figures are moving up and down the stairs.

This painting is one of about 80 biblical works commissioned by Butts, which Blake produced over the course of almost a decade at the start of the 19th century. The Bible was an important influence on Blake’s artistic career, and this collection represents the bulk of his watercolor illustrations. His depictions of scenes from the Hebrew Bible explore the interaction between the human and the divine. His New Testament scenes mostly revolve around the life of Jesus, with a handful of scenes from outside the Gospels. Revelation emerges as a key theme, with scenes like Jacob’s Ladder and the New Testament Conversion of Saul holding prominent place in the collection. A number of illustrations from the Book of Revelation further extend this theme into the “apocalyptic sublime.”

THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART, BEQUEST OF LILLIE P. BLISS, 1931; PUBLIC DOMAIN

For millennia, the camel has been an indispensable companion for various peoples throughout the lands of the Bible. Historically, the region has been home to the one-humped Arabian camel, or dromedary (Camelus dromedarius), although the two-humped Bactrian camel (Camelus bactrianus), native to central Asia, also occasionally appears in ancient art and literature.

The lucrative trade in precious commodities from Arabia, including frankincense, myrrh, saffron, and cinnamon, fully depended on these sturdy beasts so perfectly adapted to the rough and arid conditions of the desert environment. These ships of the desert can walk up to 25 miles a day and can go weeks without drinking and months without eating. Their thick-lined mouths allow them to eat even thorny bushes, and their eyes are lidded with a nearly transparent membrane that protects against blowing dust and sand. Camels can carry up to 500 pounds on their backs and are a valued source of milk, wool, and leather. Their dried dung is used as fuel. However, the story of their domestication in the ancient Near East is complicated.

In the Hebrew Bible, camels first appear in the stories of Abraham (Genesis 12 and 24), who allegedly owned and rode camels. But because the patriarchal episodes are generally dated to around 2000 BCE, and the camel (gamal, in Hebrew) was not domesticated in the Levant until about 1000 BCE, some scholars believe these references are anachronistic. However, if we consider Abraham’s Mesopotamian or Syrian origins, where archaeological and textual sources indicate much earlier domestication, it is not inconceivable that the biblical Abraham did, indeed, own camels.^a

Camels then appear in biblical traditions about the United Monarchy: King David appoints an overseer of camels (1 Chronicles 27:30); and the Queen of Sheba uses camels as long-distance mounts to visit Jerusalem (1 Kings 10:2). Writing in the fifth century BCE, the Greek historian Herodotus reminds us that camels were also important beasts of war: The Persian victory over the Lydians of Anatolia, in 546, was due to the Persians’ use of camels in confronting the Lydian cavalry, because “no horse can endure the sight or smell of a camel” (Histories 2.80).

By the turn of the Common Era, the camel was so common in the eastern Mediterranean that Jesus used its bulky body to illustrate the difficulty a rich man has in entering heaven, saying, “it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God” (Matthew 19:24).

Postbiblical Christian tradition then inserted the camel in the Nativity scene as mounts for the “three kings of Orient,” who followed yonder star to bring the gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh to the newborn Jesus.