Strata

024

To B.C. or Not B.C.

BAR to N.Y. Times: We Told Ya …

Whether to use B.C./A.D. or B.C.E./C.E.—a subject that has engendered fierce battles in the pages of this magazine—has proved no less contentious for New York Times columnist and language expert William Safire, who recently discussed the issue in his Sunday feature “On Language.”

In an earlier column he had simply raised the question. The response was enormous. “What a mail pull,” he wrote. A veritable “Kulturkampf,” a culture war. So on August 17, 1997, he devoted an entire page of the New York Times Magazine to the matter.

A Yale professor wrote, “Every scholar I know uses B.C.E. and shuns A.D.”

Another correspondent wrote: “It is one thing to deny the divinity of Christ. It is quite another to deny His historical existence, which is what is implied by the superfluous switch from the traditional B.C. to the P.C. B.C.E.”

Finally, writes Safire, “I turned to Hershel Shanks [that in itself might be Mistake No. 1, as some of BAR’s critics would contend], editor of the Biblical Archeology [Mistake No. 2: we spell it with an “ae”] Review, who helped break the scholarly monopoly on the Dead Sea Scrolls. Two years ago, his journal put out a delightful paperback—‘Cancel My Subscription!’—with a section of letters on this controversy. As a result, the magazine let authors have their individual choice and published a careful note on style: ‘B.C.E. (Before the Common Era) and C.E. (Common Era), used by some of our authors, are the alternative designations for B.C. and A.D. often used in scholarly literature.’

“Shanks told me, ‘It doesn’t diminish the number of canceled subscriptions we get from people on both sides of the issue, but there are authors who will not allow their work to be printed unless they determine the time demarcation used.’ Evidently many think B.C.E./C.E. is religiously neutral; others hold that the change is silly because the count remains from the birth of Jesus Christ and confuses those who think the C stands for ‘Christ’ and not ‘Common.’”

Safire himself came out with a mixed decision. He would use B.C. because, he says, “Christ, in American usage, refers directly to Jesus of Nazareth as if it were his last name and not conferring Messiah-hood [Mistake No. 3: Christ means Messiah; and contrary to Safire, people don’t regard it as a last name like Smith or Cohen.].”

Safire would drop A.D., however, because “Dominus” means “Lord.” Does Safire think that more Americans know that “Dominus” means “Lord” than that “Christ” means “Messiah”?

Sorry to tell you, Bill, your compromise solution will satisfy no one. But, hey, welcome to the club.

Incidentally, if anyone out there would like a copy of the book Safire calls “delightful”—the collection of BAR letters entitled Cancel My Subscription!—we’ll send you a copy gratis if you order more than $40 in books and videos from us.

025

The Pride of Hazor

Lion Statue Regains Its Long-Lost Mate

Forty years after celebrated archaeologist Yigael Yadin unearthed a life-size statue of a lion at Hazor, Amnon Ben-Tor of Hebrew University has discovered what may be its mate at the same northern Galilee site. Carved of basalt and weighing more than one ton each, the two lions may originally have flanked the entrance to a Canaanite temple in Hazor’s lower city. The more recently discovered statue, which Ben-Tor dates to the 15th or 14th century B.C., is in near-perfect condition, with only a small portion of its face missing. The absence of carving on one side of each lion indicates that the sculptures served as doorjambs, with Yadin’s statue placed to the right of the entrance and Ben-Tor’s to the left.

Although Yadin uncovered his lion near the entrance to the Canaanite temple, Ben-Tor made his find about two-thirds of a mile away, among the foundations of a mid-eighth-century B.C. Israelite building, constructed about 600 years after the statue was sculpted. If the new discovery is indeed the former find’s partner, Israelite builders may have stumbled upon the lion at the Canaanite temple and incorporated it into their structure. Or, perhaps, the statue was part of a second set of lions that once guarded Canaanite Hazor’s royal palace, the ruins of which lie beneath the Israelite building. Only time—and further excavation—will tell.

Paired lion statues often flanked the entrances to temples and palaces throughout Syria, Assyria, Babylon, the Hittite kingdom and Greece. Only one other such lion statue has been discovered in Israel—also by Yadin at Hazor in the 1950s, but that diminutive lion, which protected the entrance to the site, is only 13 inches tall.

Qumran Pottery To Be Published in a Year

Light at the End of the Tunnel

The final report on the pottery from Qumran, the site in the Judean desert adjacent to the caves where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found, will be completed within a year, according to Jean-Baptiste Humbert of the École Biblique et Archéologique Française in Jerusalem. Humbert heads the team of scholars preparing the final report of the excavations conducted by Roland de Vaux on behalf of the the École Biblique between 1951 and 1956.

De Vaux died in 1971 without writing a final report. The École Biblique had retained Robert Donceel and Pauline Donceel-Voûte to write a final report, but that assignment has now been aborted and the responsibility for it transferred to Humbert.

Humbert says he has five competent people assisting him on the project and that they have been making significant progress. Recent criticisms by some scholars—that the artifacts uncovered by de Vaux should be made available and a report based on de Vaux’s notes published—are not justified, says Humbert.

And the Winner Is …

The Biblical Archaeology Society is pleased to name archaeologists Shmuel Givon, Ann Killebrew and Raz Kletter as recipients of this year’s BAS Travel Scholarships. The winners will present papers at the 1997 Annual Meeting of the American Schools of Oriental Research, in Napa, California (November 15–21, 1997). Each will receive $1,000 for travel and lodging.

Shmuel Givon, who is preparing the final draft of his dissertation at Bar-Ilan University, has directed excavations at Tel Harasim (east of Ashdod) for the past seven years. His paper, “The Smaller Stele of Sethos I from Beth Shan Reconsidered,” discusses a stone monument from 1293 B.C.E. that describes the pharaoh’s dealings with semi-nomads settling in the Jordan River Valley.

Ann Killebrew, a frequent contributor to BAR,^a is finishing her dissertation at Hebrew University while teaching at the University of Haifa. She will offer two papers: “Excavations in the Roman Temple at Qasion: An Early Synagogue or Pagan Temple?” is based on her surveys and excavations at this Upper Galilee site; “The Aegean and Egyptian Impact on Canaan During the 13th and 12th Centuries BCE: Emulation, Trade, Colonization or Migration?” asks why Aegean and Egyptian influence continued in Canaan in the early 12th century B.C.E., when trade between these regions had subsided.

Raz Kletter has been a participant, field director, and director of excavations and surveys at Tel Aphek, Lachish, Tel Rumeidah, Beth Shemesh and other sites. He serves as head of the Finds Department at the Israel Antiquities Authority and has lectured at Tel Aviv University, from which he received his Ph.D. In his paper “Iron Age Pillar Figurines of Judah and the Biblical Asherah” Kletter claims that, despite the conception that these late Iron Age figurines are cultic or magical artifacts, there is no direct evidence linking them with domestic cults, magic or popular religion.

026

Mass Grave May Date to Jewish Revolt

Josephus Gets a Boost

Bones from at least 30 people were discovered this past summer in a cistern in the Galilee, giving strong support to Josephus’s account of a bloody battle there between Jews and Romans in 67 A.D. The bones are thought to be the remains of residents of the nearby city of Yodfat, which was besieged by Roman troops en route to Jerusalem to suppress the First Jewish Revolt. The Roman forces captured Yodfat (also written Yodefat and Jotapata and even Iotape) after battling the city’s Jews for 47 days.

Josephus, the first-century Jewish historian and military commander, who participated in the battle, describes a fierce struggle, during which Yodfat’s Jews periodically penetrated and attacked the Roman encampment below the city. Josephus escaped death by surrendering to the Romans, but according to him about 40,000 Jews from the city were killed.

Experts are not so sure, however.

“This number seems to be exaggerated,” says Mordechai Aviam, the Israel Antiquities Authority archaeologist who is heading the excavation.

When the Romans managed to invade the Jewish city, Josephus and 40 other men took refuge in a cave. Rather than surrender, they decided to kill each other in turn. Josephus and one other fighter remained at the end, and Josephus convinced his companion to surrender with him.

Aviam says it is impossible to know if the bones are those of the men who took their lives. “Most of Yodfat’s people did not commit suicide,” he noted. “They died in the siege.”

The new discoveries are not complete skeletons but bones that were collected some years after the destruction of Yodfat and buried in the cistern.

Although the site of Yodfat has been long known, no excavations were conducted there until Aviam and the IAA teamed up with William Cook Green, of the University of Rochester, in 1992.

Aviam and his team also unearthed evidence of the battle itself, including arrowheads and evidence that the town’s population was Jewish: two mikva’ot (ritual baths), hundreds of Hasmonean coins, and pottery inscribed with Aramaic letters.

The excavators also discovered a rich private home decorated with frescoes of a style found in Herodian palaces and in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City. It is the first time archaeologists have discovered an in situ fresco from the first century A.D. in the Galilee.

027

Manfred Lehmann, 1922–1997

Telecommunications Entrepreneur Supported Scholarship

Manfred Lehmann, a successful businessman and self-taught Jewish scholar, died this past summer at age 74. Lehmann made his fortune in telecommunications, specializing in providing telephone systems to developing countries. His first love, however, was Jewish scholarship. He amassed a significant collection of Hebrew manuscripts and incunabula—books from the early years of printing.

Lehmann made an important contribution to Dead Sea Scroll studies when he identified terms in the Copper Scroll as the technical names of Temple offerings referred to in rabbinic literature, thus correcting mistranslations by previous editors. (See his article, “Where the Temple Tax Was Buried,” BAR 19:06) Lehmann also made an indirect contribution to scroll studies by underwriting, in part, our series of fascicles of computer-reconstructed scroll texts. Lehmann is survived by his wife, Anne, daughters Karen Eisner and Barbara Siegel, brothers Bert and Erik Lehmann and four grandchildren. Lehmann was buried in Jerusalem next to his son Jamie, who died in 1982 at age 32.

Ehud Netzer Fund Established

Michigan Couple Honors Israeli Excavator

Senior Israeli archaeologist Ehud Netzer, of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, has been honored with a research fund established in his name. The Lois and Willard Cohodas Archaeological Research Fund in Honor of Dr. Ehud Netzer was announced at a ceremony on Mount Scopus on June 4, 1997. The donors, a Michigan couple, have long supported the Hebrew University. At the ceremony, Willard Cohodas recalled a visit to Michigan in the early 1970s by an executive of the American Friends of Hebrew University. “Thus started our love affair with this great school,” Cohodas said.

The family, which had been in the wholesale food business for decades, has endowed chairs at the university’s school of agriculture and its medical school, Cohodas said. He added that there was one other discipline that the family was deeply interested in—Biblical archaeology. He concluded by naming numerous distinguished archaeologists who have been associated with the school. “There is one special archaeologist at Hebrew University whom I did not mention. Ehud Netzer has taught us the meaning and importance of digging into the past to be able to understand the future. This trust will be named the Ehud Netzer Trust.”

Speaking on behalf of the university’s school of archaeology, chairman Amihai Mazar called Netzer “one of our best archaeologists, who is following in the footsteps of King Herod wherever the latter built his palaces: Masada, Herodium, Jericho and Caesarea.”

Netzer told BAR that the announcement was a complete surprise to him and added that he and Cohodas are “big fans of each other.”

026

Mark Your Calendar

Exhibitions

Sepphoris in Galilee: Crosscurrents of Culture

Through December 14, 1997

Described by Josephus as “the ornament of all Galilee,” this regional capital sits on a hill overlooking fertile farmland. The exhibit, designed by the University of North Carolina in conjunction with the Israel Antiquities Authority, uses maps, videos, photo murals and building models to re-create an urban center where Jews, Christians and pagans lived together in relative harmony for centuries. Among the objects on display (in two venues) are architectural elements from the city’s synagogues and churches, religious designs from oil lamps and pottery, and eight bronze coins minted in Sepphoris.

From Temples and Tombs: Recent Archaeological Discoveries from Israel

Through January 4, 1998

Jewelry, glassware and carved ossuaries are among the more than 50 artifacts from the first-century A.D. tombs of Akeldama, located a half mile outside Old Jerusalem, now on display for the first time in the U.S. Ten Roman sculptures and various architectural ornaments—statues, capitals and reliefs, some depicting gods and goddesses—discovered at Beth-Shean will also be exhibited. This is the sole American venue for these objects on loan from the Israel Antiquities Authority and the Israel Museum.

Splendors of Ancient Egypt

Through January 4, 1998

Coffins; mummy masks; statues of goddesses, gods and pharaohs; limestone paintings; jewelry and funerary stela reliefs are among the over 200 objects used to re-create pyramid tombs and chambers and to tell the story of life, political power and religious belief in ancient Egypt.

027

Seminars

Searching for Connections: Do Archaeological Discoveries Corroborate the Bible?

November 3 through December 15, 1997 Mondays at 8:15 pm

The University of Judaism in Bel Air, California, hosts a lecture series featuring renowned scholars Oded Borowski, David Ussishkin, Lawrence Geraty, Carol Meyers, Jodi Magness, William Dever and Steven Fine. Lecture topics include the development of the synagogue and church in the Greco-Roman period, the archaeology of domestic life in ancient Israel, the relation between archaeology and the Bible, the evidence for women performers in ancient Egypt, the Biblical Ammonites, and the sites of Masada, Megiddo and Jezreel.

Call (310) 476-9777, ext. 246, for more information.

Zippori Live!

November 2 through December 7, 1997 Sundays from 2 to 5 pm

Third-century A.D. Sepphoris (Zippori in Hebrew) comes to life at the Kelsey and University of Michigan museums in Ann Arbor. Students slip into costumes and take part in the Sepphoris exhibits listed opposite, allowing you to spend a day in the ancient city. Witness a confrontation between a rabbi and a Roman actress, listen to the conversations of women and sages as they go about their regular routines. A peddler and a Roman couple will join you in the galleries.

Call (313) 763-3559 or (313) 764-0395 for more information.

The Roman World: Ancient and Modern

Sunday, November 16, 1997, from noon to 4 pm

Eat Roman food, listen to Roman myths of the gods, play Roman games and make Roman mosaics, masks and jewelry before you tour the Roman glass exhibition at the University of Pennsylvania Museum in Philadelphia, PA.

Call (215) 898-4000 for more information.

BAS San Francisco Study Seminar

November 20 to November 22, 1997

After you’ve seen the Golden Gate Bridge and the cable cars, come hear Bible scholars George Brooke and Michael Coogan and archaeologists Mordechai Aviam and Ronny Reich lecture on the hot subjects in their fields.

For more information call (800) 221-4644.

024

What Is It?

A. Jug

B: Monopoly piece (preceded racing car)

C. Piggy bank

D. Salt shaker

E: Hittite divan

026

What It Is, Is …

A. Jug.

Modeled on the humpbacked cattle that still roam northwestern Iran, this stylized, red terra-cotta jug is one of a number of “Amlash vessels” (named after their discovery site). In the 1960s farmers in Amlash, on the southern shore of the Caspian Sea, stumbled upon ninth- to eighth-century B.C. megalithic tombs containing many highly stylized human- and animal-shaped objects. The animal-shaped, or zoomorphic, figures were typically short-legged, humped beasts, most often in the form of a rhyton, or drinking vessel.

Similar vessels in both ceramic and bronze have been found in ancient cemeteries throughout the northwest region of modern Iran. This 9-inch-high by 14-inch-long example dates to the 13th to 12th centuries B.C. Its head served as the pouring spout.