Books in Brief

006

The Archaeology of Society in the Holy Land

Thomas E. Levy, ed.

(New York: Facts on File, 1995) 624 pp., $80.00

BAR readers know that a revolution of sorts has occurred in Biblical archaeology over the past five to ten years.

This revolution is characterized by a paradigm shift away from a preoccupation with Biblical history per se, to a more complex methodology that includes multidisciplinary studies—enabling archaeologists to view ancient Palestine from a much broader perspective than the older paradigm allowed. This perspective, as described by Thomas Levy in his preface to the volume under review here, “centers on the human ecosystem which emphasizes the interdependence of cultural environmental variables.”

Contributors to The Archaeology of Society in the Holy Land were asked to discuss the general chronological periods assigned to them by using the methodology of the Annales school developed by French historians, most notably Fernand Braudel. The emphasis of this school is on the dynamic processes, particularly socioeconomic and environmental, that bring about change, both short- and long-term, in any given period. Levy’s goal in appropriating this method is to explain “culture change in the Holy Land over a period of some one and a half million years.”

This goal has been admirably achieved by the 30 scholars, including Levy, who contributed the book’s 32 chapters, many of which originated as papers presented at a symposium, The Archaeology of Society in the Holy Land—New Perspectives on the Past, held in 1993 at the University of California, San Diego.

The book is organized more or less chronologically, beginning with general methodological discussions concerning our understanding of the past, and then moving through Palestinian history from the Stone Age to the rise of Islam. Lavishly illustrated with hundreds of photographs, charts, maps and figures, the volume also contains an excellent bibliography of over 55 pages and a helpful index.

There is something here for everyone interested in this vast subject: from the caves of Lower Paleolithic hominids to the advent of modern technology in the present state of Israel. But the reader should be forewarned, however: This study is not light reading in most cases; but for those who are serious about the archaeology of the Near East, it is “must” reading. This is so not only because the volume includes an excellent sampling of new approaches to the archaeology of Israel, but also because of its breadth of coverage.

With the customary spatial limitations on reviews of this sort, it is impossible to do justice to this ground-breaking work. I will therefore limit my remarks to two periods: the prehistoric period and Iron Age I (1200–1000 B.C.E.).

Over 40 percent of the book is concerned with the Stone Age. One of the most debated questions among anthropologists concerns the origin of modern humans. From prehistoric caves in Israel, many of them located in Galilee, have come much data relevant to this issue. In some instances, the archaeological material stretches back over a million years. Ofer Bar-Yosef, a long-time student of the Stone Age, discusses many of the controversies surrounding the debates over the earliest humans. Among them are DNA studies indicating that modern humans came out of Africa perhaps as early as 400,000 years ago.

Other scholars in the field, however, have proposed what Bar-Yosef calls a “multiregional model” for human evolution. A large part of the problem involves disagreements over the dating of recovered human remains. A more precise chronological framework and more human data may one day settle the question of whether the people who inhabited the caves of the Levant originally came from Africa or from a local (“regional”) population.

Adding to the complexity is a unique discovery in Israel: For the first time, archaeologists have discovered, in the Middle Paleolithic horizon, “proto-Cro-Magnon” remains contemporaneous with those of Neanderthals. This raises the question of the relation between the two groups. Is it possible, for instance, that they interbred? After 008studying the skeletal remains from this period, Patricia Smith concludes that interbreeding is not likely. But since the evidence is not conclusive, the debate goes on.

Moving into territory familiar to BAR readers, the history of the Biblical era, we also encounter lively debates. Of particular interest are questions about the settlement of the Land of Israel. Israel Finkelstein, in “The Great Transformation: The ‘Conquest’ of the Highlands Frontiers and the Rise of the Territorial States,” makes a significant contribution to this debate. He successfully demonstrates that the older settlement paradigms of W.F. Albright (by military conquest, as described in the Book of Joshua), Albrecht Alt (by peaceful migration) and George Mendenhall (by peasant revolt) all fail to explain recent developments in Near Eastern archaeology. Not least among these developments are regional surveys of Israel that have produced data relevant to Israel’s origin—data unknown just a few years ago. This new information shows that the Iron Age I villages (presumably proto-Israelite) were concentrated between Jerusalem and the Jezreel Valley. In Biblical terms, this was the area allotted to the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh. Hundreds of sites have now been identified; and Finkelstein believes the settlement pattern points to an expansion from east to west. Others have argued that the evidence, particularly the ceramic remains, indicates an occupation of the highlands that moved from west to east.

In addition to the data produced by regional surveys, there is a growing amount of material from excavations of Iron I sites. Two of these, ‘Izbet Sartah and Shiloh, were excavated by Finkelstein himself. Other important sites from this period include ‘Ai, Khirbet Raddana and Giloh. These were small villages that were built either on previously uninhabited sites or, like ‘Ai, on sites that had once been inhabited but abandoned. This evidence sharply contradicts the conquest model.

While there is still no agreement among archaeologists concerning the origins of the people who built and lived in these villages (Finkelstein believes they were former pastoralists affected by the collapse of Middle Bronze Age culture), one conclusion seems warranted: the Iron I inhabitants of the central highlands of Israel did not originate in the desert.

Finkelstein also argues that the phenomenon of the Iron I settlement is part of a much longer cyclic pattern that began, perhaps, during the Early Bronze Age. This concern with long-range patterns must be considered along with the immediate circumstances surrounding the emergence of the Iron I culture if the demographics of the area are to be fully understood. This long-range approach includes environmental, social and political data—in addition to the archaeological data.

Finkelstein’s analysis of the data leads him, finally, to conclude that the Biblical story of Israel’s emergence turned up centuries after the Iron I. It was influenced by the history of the Judean Monarchy in the late Iron II, and was shaped in accordance with the ideology and interests of a fraction of the population of its capital city—Jerusalem.

It should not be assumed from my remarks that The Archaeology of Society in the Holy Land neglects periods other than the Stone Age and Iron I. Full treatment is given not only to the Biblical period but also, importantly, to later periods often given scant attention in general treatments of the archaeology of Israel: the Byzantine, Islamic, Crusader, Ayyubid, Mamluk and Ottoman periods. Overall, this is a book of great scope and complexity. Levy and his team of scholars are to be congratulated for producing a comprehensive, highly attractive work that should be a useful reference text for years to come.

Jesus and His World: An Archaeological and Cultural Dictionary

John J. Rousseau and Rami Arav

(Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995) 392 pp., $25.00 paper, $48.00 hardcover

This is a resource with an excitingly different format. Rami Arav is an Israeli archaeologist; John Rousseau is a Berkeley scholar and a fellow of the Jesus Seminar. They are, respectively, director and co-director of the current Bethsaida excavations on the north shore of the Sea of Galilee, and in this project they have collaborated to combine the most up-to-date archaeological information from the period and locale of Jesus’ life with the most recent insights from textual studies of the Gospels and other ancient documents.

The heart of their dictionary consists of 105 alphabetically arranged entries, most of them two to five pages in length, concentrated on topics relevant to the geographical arena of Jesus’ life and ministry (essentially Roman-controlled Palestine from about 4 B.C.E. to about 36 C.E., with some attention given to the periods immediately before and after Jesus’ life).

Two-thirds of the entries are focused directly on archaeological sites and the other third on facets of culture and technology. The archaeological entries range from Hebron and Bethlehem in the south to Tyre and Mount Hermon in the north, 067with sites in and around Jerusalem taking the lion’s share. Other topics range from agriculture and fishing to weapons and wood furniture; many of these entries are greatly illuminated by recent archaeological discoveries—such as synagogues and texts found at Qumran, Nag Hammadi and the Cave of Letters (near En-Gedi).

Each site or topic is introduced with a statement of its importance, a list of relevant Biblical passages and a helpful summary of the information available from Biblical and other ancient sources. Then the archaeological data are described, followed by a detailed discussion of the implications for Jesus research and a bibliography of recent scholarship.

In a forward, James M. Robinson, director of the Institute for Antiquity and Christianity in Claremont, Calif. sketches out the picture of Jesus and of the world mirrored in his teachings that is emerging from the most recent studies of the Gospels. No one is in a better position to give such a summary than Professor Robinson. He presents a model of “textual archaeology”—his forward digs beneath the surface of Matthew’s and Luke’s gospels, re-exposing the earlier literary “stratum” of the Q sayings source, from which, he contends, both gospel writers drew.^a Robinson then reconstructs the world in which Jesus moved as it is reflected in Q.

The entries are supplemented by a cluster of useful resources: maps, drawings, sketches and photographs; tables summarizing such things as the chronology of Biblical events from the Babylonian Exile to the Bar-Kokhba Revolt, Greco-Roman rulers, and the Hasmonean and Herodian dynasties; a historical synopsis of the years from 76 B.C.E. to 74 C.E.; a glossary; a bibliography; an index of passages from scripture and ancient texts cited in the entries; and a general index.

Everyone will find some things missing or slighted in a resource of such ambitious scope purposely held to a concise format to make it generally affordable. The authors faced some difficult decisions, and they obviously felt pressured to keep the entries from running too long. In general, they chose wisely; indeed, they have packed an impressive amount of information into the limited space allotted to the various topics.

There are places, however, where the authors sacrificed clarity in their attempts to be concise. In discussing the archaeological data for Jerusalem’s Antonia Pavement, for example, they mention in passing “the Hadrian Arch (Ecce Homo Arch),” without explaining either of those labels and without giving their reasons for re-identifying the supposed Ecce Homo Arch associated with John 19:5 as an arch built by Hadrian a century later. Although the authors describe the excavations under the Notre Dame de Sion Convent, which allow us to date the massive pavement to the rebuilding of the city by Hadrian in 135 C.E., they fail to associate the arch with the pavement. They also miss the opportunity to mention the architectural reasons for dating the Ecce Homo Arch—and the adjacent pavement—to Hadrian’s time. The arch fits the typical style of Hadrianic ceremonial archways—one large arch with flanking smaller arches, as at Hadrian’s main entrance to the city under Damascus Gate and as at Jerash (Gerasa). Royal archways of the first century, by contrast, tended to be double arches.

For the most part, the authors are evenhanded in describing conflicting views. There are a few places, however, where they give little or no space to interpretations with which they disagree. Their treatment of the building that houses the purported “Upper Room” in Jerusalem is a case in point. They mention that “J. Finegan and B. Pixner consider it a church-synagogue of a Jewish Christian community because the Torah niche was not exactly oriented toward the Temple Mount.” Then they dismiss the claim in a sentence, noting that “this reasoning … is not convincing and is not widely accepted.” Readers familiar with Bargil Pixner’s BAR article, “Church of Apostles Found on Mt. Zion,” BAR 16:03, will be aware that his identification of the building as a first-century C.E. church is based on several lines of evidence and reasoning, of which the orientation of the Torah niche is only one element. The authors list Pixner’s article in their bibliography for the entry, but their quick dismissal of his conclusions is not likely to encourage very many to investigate the question further.

The authors cannot be excused at such points on the ground of limited space. There are many places, on the other hand, where they demonstrate that they can summarize conflicting arguments fairly and concisely. To cite one example, the entry on Capernaum deals well with questions as to the date of the Capernaum synagogue:

Because of Luke 7:5, the synagogue deserves special attention: Was it really built by the centurion? In consideration of its type, ornaments, dedicatory inscriptions in Greek and Aramaic, and other stylistic features, some Jewish scholars—among whom N. Avigad and G. Foerster—have dated it to the second or third century C.E. In opposition to this view, the Franciscan excavators, V. Corbo and S. Loffreda, estimate that it cannot be older than the late fourth or fifth century. They base their opinion on the discovery of thousands of coins and potsherds unearthed during the 1968–1985 excavations. The controversy is not yet resolved, but one thing is certain: the present white synagogue, beautiful as it is, cannot be that of Jesus’ time. The ‘centurion’s synagogue’ of the first century was probably a more modest edifice made of local black basalt like the buildings around it or like the synagogue of Gamla … The basalt foundation of the present limestone synagogue may include some of the elements of the synagogue Jesus knew.

This clear, well-balanced statement is more typical of the volume, and it sits within seven pages of equally informative text—discussing not only Capernaum’s synagogue but also the first-century homes of the fishermen’s village around it and the sequence of early Christian shrines at the site believed to be the apostle Peter’s house. The entry is supplemented by four ground plans and drawings and two photographs, and it is followed by a bibliography of 25 scholarly reports and articles, including articles written for BAR by James Strange and Hershel Shanks, Herold Weiss and John Laughlin.

This volume is a valuable resource for anyone interested in the contributions archaeology has made toward our knowledge of Jesus’ world. For the foreseeable future, it will be a basic reference in church and college libraries and for anyone teaching New Testament textual studies or archaeology.

The Palestinian Dwelling in the Roman-Byzantine Period

Yizhar Hirschfeld

(Jerusalem: Franciscan Printing Press and Israel Exploration Society, 1995) 318 pp., 201 black and white figures, $40.00.

This book illustrates two important trends in modern archaeology. One is to look not only at kings and palaces (or, more broadly, at public places), but also at common people and their living conditions. The second is to utilize not only archaeological materials and the evidence of ancient literature, but also ethnographic materials and the anthropological insights they provide.

The author examines every aspect of the dwellings of ordinary people living, roughly, during the first seven centuries of the Common Era, as well as their sociological 068implications. To supplement his consideration of the excavated houses and the literature (primarily the rabbinic corpus), he spent two years surveying traditional houses in the Hebron hills, interviewing the people who lived in them and the elderly craftsmen who made a living constructing them. A sense of urgency characterized the survey: Old buildings were rapidly being replaced by modern construction. Then, too, the work was done amidst political tension and security threats. In the end, this study may be the final documentation of an aspect of material culture that has disappeared forever.

Numerous archaeologically attested characteristics persisted through the centuries—walls, entrances, windows, ceilings, a courtyard continuous with the dwelling unit. The inner division, however, underwent a significant change: The ancient buildings were divided into rooms; the more recent ones typically had a single room, where people lived, food and household supplies were stored and animals were stabled.

While more elaborate dwellings, especially in urban areas, were deeply influenced by Greek and Roman culture, in the villages an indigenous local style developed that persisted for two thousand years.

Methods of Investigation of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Khirbet Qumran Site: Present Realities and Future Prospects

Michael O. Wise, Norman Golb, John J. Collins and Dennis G. Pardee, eds.

(New York: New York Academy of Sciences, 1994) 514 pp., $125

This volume is the result of one of the most significant conferences in Qumran studies in recent years. Sponsored by the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago and the New York Academy of Sciences, the purpose of this tension-filled conference was to bring together in one forum scholars from all perspectives presently working in the field.^b

The essays included here on archaeology, the calendar, the Copper Scroll, the cemetery at Qumran and women are extremely important for their contribution to the discipline: the best up-to-date collection of evaluations of the various perspectives on the archaeology of Qumran. The paper by Robert Donceel, advancing the hypothesis that Qumran was a villa with a triclinium for symposia, is the best description of the Donceels’ work now available. Jodi Magness’s evaluation of the unique nature of Qumran’s pottery is an invaluable contribution. Joseph Patrich’s archaeological survey of the area argues, significantly, that there is no evidence that the inhabitants of Qumran lived in the caves or in tents and huts outside the encampment. Norman Golb makes the case that Qumran was a fortress. These essays provide a foundation for ongoing debates, with far-reaching implications for the future of the discipline.^c

Also found here, and not available in one volume elsewhere, is a good collection of articles on the Copper Scroll. Contributions by P. Kyle McCarter, Jr., Al Wolters and Piotr Muchowski evaluate the major proposals for understanding that enigmatic document. This volume, in addition, contains the first collection of articles that attempt to come to terms with the calendrical material from Qumran. James VanderKam, Michael Wise and Uwe Glessmer probe the nuances of the symbols in these texts. An article on women at Qumran by Eileen Schuller charts a new direction for the study of that subject. Previous attempts to evaluate the evidence concerning the role and presence of women at Qumran have been clearly inadequate. Future work on the role of women in the Bible and during the intertestimental period can profit from the directions that Schuller has here charted.

This is an important volume that needs to take its place on scholars’ shelves next to those from the conferences at Haifa, Paris and Madrid.

The Churches of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem: A Corpus, Vol. 1, A—K (excluding Acre and Jerusalem)

Denys Pringle

(New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993) 352 pp., $125.00

Most Christian travelers who visit Bethany, a few miles southeast of Jerusalem, leave knowing very little of the Crusader churches that sprang up around the tomb of Lazarus. Denys Pringle, with the help of architectural plans and illustrations drawn by Peter Leach, may change that. In this new catalogue of Crusader churches, Pringle transports the reader to places like Bethany and unveils the complexity and beauty of their ancient churches.

Pringle’s three-volume work lists churches in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, the boundaries of which stretched from just north of present-day Beirut and the Golan Heights to the Gulf of Aqaba and Sinai. This first volume looks at 131 churches, including the east and west churches at Bethany and the tomb of Lazarus. This holy place and its church were already present when the earliest records were written. But the site’s layout grew in complexity when, in 1137, it became a royal convent, and very few visitors can now make sense of it. In their article on Bethany, Pringle and Leach make it beautifully clear what was done. It is this sort of illuminating information that will delight the reader. In 1979, Pringle began his research by compiling a list of Crusader churches in the accessible parts of the Latin Kingdom. When he discovered a church, Peter Leach drew a plan; then Pringle read and compiled all available sources of information, both ancient and modern, relating to the site. Now the catalogue (entries A-K) has begun to see the light of day.

Since Pringle aims to provide comprehensive data on the structures themselves, he avoids diversions, thus keeping the book to a manageable length. But the resulting text is sometimes awkward to read. A good deal of Pringle’s valuable information should have 069been removed from the main text. Take, for example, the following sentence: “The mosaics, however, dated from before the twelfth century (cf. Daniel (1106–7), XLVIII (trans. Ryan, 143), though they were evidently restored or renewed during the Frankish occupation.” We can get the sense of it, but only with some effort. But that is a quibble. Readers of this first volume will wish the author every success in finishing his task, for this book is now the guide to the Crusader churches of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem.

The Archaeology of Society in the Holy Land

Thomas E. Levy, ed.

(New York: Facts on File, 1995) 624 pp., $80.00