Inside BAR

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Of all the people mentioned in the Bible—whether in major roles or in cameo appearances—only a handful other than rulers have been brought to historical light thanks to the archaeologist’s spade. Imagine, then, the excitement when workmen constructing a water park in Jerusalem’s Peace Forest stumbled across a burial cave containing 12 ossuaries, or bone boxes, including two bearing the name Caiaphas. One especially beautiful ossuary is twice inscribed “Joseph, son of Caiaphas” and holds, together with other remains, the bones of a 60-year-old male. This ossuary may well be the final resting place of the Caiaphas known from the New Testament as the high priest who conducted the initial interrogation of Jesus before handing him over to Pontius Pilate.

Because of the significance of this find and the great degree of interest in it, we are devoting two articles to the discovery. First Zvi Greenhut leads us into the “Burial Cave of the Caiaphas Family,” describing the cave and the dozen ossuaries contained within its four niches. Greenhut elaborates on the practice—widespread in the late Second Temple Period (first centuries B.C. and A.D.)—of placing the deceased within a burial chamber, allowing the flesh to decompose over time and then gathering the bones into an ossuary for final interment. Also of interest to readers will be Greenhut’s discussion of a coin found with one of the burials and its ramifications regarding pagan funeral practices in a Jewish tomb in Jerusalem.

Next, Ronny Reich, in “Caiaphas Name Inscribed on Bone Boxes,” catalogues the names scratched on the ossuaries—from those complete with first and family names to what appears to be a two-letter abbreviation. Reich then dons the hat of an etymological sleuth, explaining how the name Caiaphas may be related to two other family names known from the Second Temple Period and suggesting the trade of the common ancestor of all three families.

Greenhut serves as Jerusalem Regional Archaeologist for the Israel Antiquities Authority and is completing his master’s degree at the Institute of Archaeology at Tel Aviv University. Greenhut prepared for publication the late Pesach Bar-Adon’s Excavations in the Judean Desert (‘Atiqot 9 [Hebrew Series], 1989), a portion of which has been adapted as an article for a future issue of BAR.

Reich received his Ph.D. from Hebrew University, concentrating on mikva’ot (Jewish ritual baths) from the second century B.C. to the end of the Byzantine period. He was from 1969 to 1978 an assistant to the late Nahman Avigad on the Jewish Quarter excavations in Jerusalem, acting as area supervisor at several locations at the dig. Reich is now with the Israel Antiquities Authority and is compiling a computerized database on all the archaeological research conducted in the Holy Land since 1815; the computer files will soon be available to the public. Since 1989 Reich has also been conducting a rescue excavation of a late Iron Age cemetery in the Mamillah neighborhood, near the Jaffa Gate in Jerusalem.

To expect an ancient Jewish epitaph to be written in Hebrew or Aramaic is only natural—and wrong, at least for the period 300 B.C. to 500 A.D. Such is the startling conclusion of Pieter W. van der Horst’s “Jewish Funerary Inscriptions—Most Are in Greek.” Van der Horst’s study of 1,600 Jewish epitaphs in ancient Palestine and the Diaspora found that 70 percent of them are in Greek and 12 percent are in Latin. Even in Jerusalem alone, about 40 percent are in Greek. In the course of examining this phenomenon, van der Horst presents a sampling of these inscriptions, which are at times touching in their sentiments and revealing of the lives and beliefs of the entombed.

Van der Horst studied classical philology and theology at the University of Utrecht, Netherlands, where he is now professor of New Testament and of the Jewish and Hellenistic milieu of early Christianity. Of his 00380 articles and 10 books on the world of the New Testament, the most recent are Essays on the Jewish World of Early Christianity (Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1990) and Ancient Jewish Epitaphs (Kok-Pharos, 1991), upon which he based his BAR article. Van der Horst also contributed an article to the February 1992 issue of BAR’s sister magazine, Bible Review, “Did Sarah Have a Seminal Emission?” BR 08:01. When not working on his current project as part of an international team of scholars producing the Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible (forthcoming from Brill), van der Horst enjoys listening to modern jazz.

In the absence of a phonograph record, tape recording or even a definite written claim, it may seem futile to ask “Did Jesus Speak Greek?” But Joseph A. Fitzmyer shows that substantial resources exist by which to evaluate the question of whether Jesus spoke Greek in addition to Aramaic, the lingua franca of the day, which scholars agree was probably Jesus’ primary language. Fitzmyer looks at how Greek was used in Palestine and closely scrutinizes some hints in the Gospels to arrive at the conclusion that Jesus probably did speak Greek occasionally. This leads him to consider the more important question of whether any of the Gospels’ Greek texts preserve Jesus’ words in his original Voice.

A Jesuit priest, Fitzmyer is professor emeritus of Biblical studies at Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., and is a past president of the Society of Biblical Literature and of the Catholic Biblical Association. One of the world’s leading Dead Sea Scroll scholars, he has published three books on the relation of the New Testament to the scrolls, four handbooks on the study of Aramaic texts in the light of the scrolls, and the highly regarded bibliography The Dead Sea Scrolls: Major Publications and Tools for Study (Scholars Press, rev. ed., 1990). Among Fitzmyer’s many other books are the two-volume translation and commentary, The Gospel According to Luke, in the Anchor Bible series (Doubleday, 1981, 1985), and Luke the Theologian: Aspects of His Teaching (Paulist Press, 1989). He also served as co-editor of The New Jerome Biblical Commentary (Prentice-Hall 1990).

Telling one pottery type from another is the purview of seasoned archaeologists, not of lay people. The fact is, however, that lowly potsherds are crucial to dating the remains with which they are found, so a basic knowledge of pottery styles is important to understanding a site. Arcane as the subject may sound, John Laughlin, in this issue’s Glossary column, will teach you “How To Date a Cooking Pot.” With the help of simple drawings, Laughlin describes the dominant pottery styles during each of the ancient Near East’s archaeological periods. Before you know it, you’ll be using terms such as carination and loop handle at dinner parties.

Laughlin teaches religion at Averett College, in Danville, Virginia, and has excavated at Tel Dan, Capernaum and Banias (Caesarea Philippi). He is the author of “The Remarkable Discoveries at Tel Dan,” BAR 07:05.

In “Fragments,” our special section of news from the Dead Sea Scrolls Research Council, BAR editor Hershel Shanks explains “Why Professor Qimron’s Lawsuit Is a Threat to Intellectual Freedom.” Also featured is a review of Jesus and the Riddle of the Dead Sea Scrolls (“Did Jesus Really Die on the Cross?”), a book you will probably hear a lot about in the months to come because of its sensational claims. Why not read the review and save your money?

Of all the people mentioned in the Bible—whether in major roles or in cameo appearances—only a handful other than rulers have been brought to historical light thanks to the archaeologist’s spade. Imagine, then, the excitement when workmen constructing a water park in Jerusalem’s Peace Forest stumbled across a burial cave containing 12 ossuaries, or bone boxes, including two bearing the name Caiaphas. One especially beautiful ossuary is twice inscribed “Joseph, son of Caiaphas” and holds, together with other remains, the bones of a 60-year-old male. This ossuary may well be the final resting place of the Caiaphas known from […]