Ancient Judah’s Grateful Dead

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I would like you to join me at an ancient funeral about 9 miles north of Jerusalem, at a site from the Iron Age (c. 1000–586 BCE) known today as Tell en-Nasbeh, likely biblical Mizpah in Benjamin (Judges 20:1; 1 Samuel 7:6).a1 The funerary procession takes us from the home of the deceased to the family’s tomb just outside of town. Reaching the burial place, we unblock the tomb, allowing for the movement of the deceased’s body into the tomb’s interior. Let us now explore what archaeology, the Hebrew Bible, and modern ethnographic examples tell us about the somber celebrations […]

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Footnotes

1. See Jeffrey R. Zorn, “Mizpah: Newly Discovered Stratum Reveals Judah’s Other Capital,” BAR, September/October 1997.

Endnotes

1. The site of Tell en-Nasbeh in the West Bank was excavated by the Pacific School of Religion from 1926 to 1935 under the direction of William F. Badè.