Queries & Comments

014

Pascal, Not G. B. Shaw, on Prolixity

Your insightful and informative review of The Anchor Bible Dictionary, (see Books in Brief, BAR 18:05), suggested George Bernard Shaw as the source of the quote: “I would have written you a shorter letter, but I didn’t have time.” Actually the statement should be credited to Blaise Pascal: In his Lettres Provinciales (1657), the French mathematician and theologian wrote, “I have made this letter longer than usual, only because I have not had the time to make it shorter.”

I mention this not to be pedantic, but to stress that I find the “Books in Brief” reviews—no matter what their length—to be a rewarding read. On the other hand, a little innocent prolixity is easily forgiven whether it comes from Pascal, or Shaw, or the Anchor Bible editors, or even from one of your deadline-stressed reviewers. My compliments on a quality journal.

Controversial Book Review

BAR Thrown into the Trash Where It Belongs

Your book review of Jesus & the Riddle of the Dead Sea Scrolls: Unlocking the Secrets of His Life Story, by Barbara Thiering (“Did Jesus Really Die on the Cross?” BAR 18:05) has so disgusted me that I no longer want any association with your magazine.

I understand your position on reporting the facts, but I do not have to read such drivel. The whole thing is so blatantly blasphemous I don’t want your magazine in my house. As soon as I finish this letter it’s going into the trash where it belongs.

Broke a Tooth Over Thiering Review

Your review of Barbara Thiering’s book, Jesus & the Riddle of the Dead Sea Scrolls is the most disturbing, and possibly the most blasphemous, article I have ever seen. My teeth were grinding (something that never happens) so much two nights later I even broke a tooth over it.

I can’t tell you how appalled and concerned I am over the fact that you would even allow such a sacrilegious piece of junk to be listened to, let alone printed.

Why Review Blasphemous Garbage?

I have never written a letter of complaint to BAR until now.

The subject of my complaint is the review of Jesus & the Riddle of the Dead Sea Scrolls, by Barbara Thiering.

The reviewer states, “The real mystery is how HarperSanFrancisco, a division of HarperCollins that is generally known for books of solid scholarship, decided to publish this volume.” In my opinion, the real mystery is why the BAR editorial staff ever decided to review such blasphemous garbage.

Do you want us to review only books of which we approve, without telling you of the books we find poor and why?—Ed.

Is BAR Anti-Christian?

What purpose was served by reviewing a scurrilous anti-Christian book that has absolutely no basis in fact? Your anti-Christian prejudices are showing.

Appreciates Incisive Review

Congratulations to editor Hershel Shanks, and a vote of sincere gratitude to him for such an incisive review of Barbara Thiering’s pop theology entitled Jesus & the Riddle of the Dead Sea Scrolls (“Did Jesus Really Die on the Cross?” BAR 18:05).

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Heresy!

Thank you for exposing Barbara Thiering’s seemingly erudite book Jesus & the Riddle of the Dead Sea Scrolls for what it really is: heresy.

Four Benefits from BAR’s Review

My husband noticed the ad for Jesus & the Riddle of the Dead Sea Scrolls in Bible Review (Aug. 1992). He saw the code words “Jesus” and “Dead Sea Scrolls” and, knowing that I am interested in both, he surprised me with a copy of the book. I saw the code words “unlocking secrets” and thought, “Oh dear.” I scanned the book and read Ms. Thiering’s theory that Jesus did not die on the cross, which only cognoscenti understand due to the Gospel writers’ code words.

The next day BAR 18:05 arrived with your review of the book (“Did Jesus Really Die on the Cross?” BAR 18:05). Thank you for that beautiful review; I had an expert in my corner! I grinned at my husband, “You get points for picking up on what interests me; unfortunately, in this case, you got took.”

The fallout of all this is:

1. I returned the book; HarperSanFrancisco didn’t get our money after all, and I did get two books I wanted. Cheers!

2. My husband has sworn off buying books for me. Sob!

3. We will not use ads in BAR or Bible Review as unexamined bases for spending our money. Too bad!

4. I will continue to applaud and pan, as warranted, both magazines’ articles. Whoopee!

Whets Curiosity

In your review of Barbara Thiering’s Jesus & the Riddle of the Dead Sea Scrolls (“Did Jesus Really Die on the Cross?” BAR 18:05), you quoted pieces of her work. Unsupported by her contexts, they sound silly. But ridicule is not refutation. You never showed how her arguments conflicted with the raw data. So your argument whets curiosity rather than dispels it.

Is the Sea of Galilee Really the Dead Sea?

I was especially struck by Barbara Thiering’s substitution of the Dead Sea for the Sea of Galilee. If the Gospel writers really meant the Dead Sea, as Thiering contends, I would like to ask her a question: Since when did the Dead Sea have fish? What a pointless analogy to tell the fisherman to go be “fishers of men” in a pond that sustains no life of any kind.

Fish in the Dead Sea?

I appreciated your review of Barbara Thiering’s book on the Dead Sea Scrolls (“Did Jesus Really Die on the Cross?” BAR 18:05). If Jesus and His disciples sailed on the Dead Sea, as she says, where in the world did they catch so many fish? There are no fish in the Dead Sea.

Miracles in the Dead Sea

Barbara Thiering’s book, Jesus & the Riddle of the Dead Sea Scrolls may have done more than anything in the last 200 years to prove the divinity of Jesus: Just think, fishing in the Dead Sea! A net-breaking draft of fish caught in the Sea of Galilee is not a very substantial thing, but in the Dead Sea—now there’s a real miracle!

And the pigs—what about the pigs? Dashing down the mountainside and holding themselves under water until they drowned (Matthew 8:32 and parallels). What a spectacular event that was if it occurred in the Dead Sea, where you can hardly push anything underwater! Thiering has turned those seemingly ordinary events in Jesus’ life into the really miraculous.

Of course, she has diminished somewhat the impact of his waterwalking, but we will forgive her for that.

Thanks for a truly great magazine. Partly because of BAR, I now have a daughter in her second year as an archaeology major at the University of Lethbridge, Canada.

BAR’s Double Standard

You may have sounded the trumpet about Barbara Thiering’s book Jesus & the Riddle of the Dead Sea Scrolls (“Did Jesus Really Die on the Cross?” BAR 18:05), but will anyone really listen to your double standard?

I was appalled that this woman would send so many to Hell with her lies; and more so that such a publisher as HarperCollins would print it “for what was on the tables that Jesus overturned.” But I was enraged when I saw that in the same issue of BAR you also allowed Jesus & the Riddle of the Dead Sea Scrolls to be advertised. The real mystery is how Hershel Shanks, editor, and Susan Laden, publisher of BAR, decided to let HarperSanFrancisco advertise Barbara Thiering’s book. To quote your review, “The answer doubtless has something to do 017with what was on the tables that Jesus overturned.”

BAR’s Review “Omitted Vital Information”—Thiering

Your review article on my book, Jesus & the Riddle of the Dead Sea Scrolls (“Did Jesus Really Die on the Cross?” BAR 18:05) contains a sufficient degree of error to require corrections. The attitude has not observed normal scholarly canons: accuracy of reporting, care not to omit vital information, care to supply the reader with enough evidence to make a fair judgment.

I am said to have “jumped to the conclusion” that the Teacher of Righteousness was John the Baptist, and the Wicked Priest, Jesus. This is simply slander. In my 1979 book, Redating the Teacher of Righteousness, I argued, in meticulous detail, the step-by-step process by which the evidence is better understood to lead to these identifications. The new book refers to this book, and contains enough of the argument to show that I am very far from jumping to conclusions.

You show that you are unaware of the argument, when you state that the paleographical dating of the scrolls puts these figures 100 years earlier. In chapter 4 of Redating, every detail of the paleographical question was examined, so as to show that while basic paleographical method is sound, it was misused at two vital points. Two texts only have been claimed to put the Teacher before 100 B.C.; all the others are Herodian and put him in the Christian period. Of these two texts, one is a semicursive, and no firm dating can be put on semicursives. Yet a firm date was given to it by Milik, and other scholars followed him blindly without checking for themselves. The other text contains Palmyrene letter forms which are found well into the Christian period. It is an idiosyncratic script, and is more accurately classed as Herodian-Palmyrene.

The novelty of my conclusions is capable of producing a derisive reaction, and you are not the only one to have reacted in this way. But it is a novelty only to those who have no knowledge of literature contemporary with the New Testament. Much of what is found in the pesher is found also in works like the Clementine literature and the Gnostic gospels. The conclusion that there was no resurrection and virgin birth, and that the early Church was a this-worldly religio-political movement, is not unfamiliar in these works.

You miss the point about my use of the term pesher: it is legitimately used in the same way as the DSS use it, in the sense that there is a concealed history in scripture, known only to insiders. The gospels of the New Testament, written as scripture, would have to construct their new scripture in the same way as they believed the Old Testament to be constructed.

Dr. Star’s words in the introduction are misquoted: She said that “what is being examined [i.e., Christian history, not my book] is a matter of faith as much as a scholarly hypothesis.”

The statement that I said that Jesus was born at Khirbet Mird is incorrect. See chapter 9 of the book.

I am sorry that you have published such a misleading account of the book. I trust that the readers of BAR will be sufficiently interested to judge for themselves, and especially to test the hypothesis from the detailed appendices, which you imply are for appearance only.

I trust also that the journal will be sufficiently fair to publish this letter.

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Hershel Shanks replies:

That Barbara Thiering’s letter twice tells us to look at her 1979 book itself suggests that her 1992 book, the one I reviewed, hardly explained her identification of the Teacher of Righteousness as John the Baptist. Moreover, her 1979 book dealt with the dating of the scrolls. At that time the dating by paleography had not been confirmed by carbon-14 tests. Now, in a general way, it has. But, equally important, even if John the Baptist and the Teacher of Righteousness lived contemporaneously, this hardly means that they were the same person. So there is a lot of explaining to do. Thiering did not do it in the book I reviewed, and she has not given us even an outline in her letter.

She says the quote from Dr. Star’s introduction refers to Christian history, not to Thiering’s book. Here is what Dr. Star wrote:

“The views of innovative thinkers (presumably, like Thiering) add value to every society. Only by questioning traditional belief can those beliefs be either reaffirmed or modified. That the connections between the Dead Sea Scrolls and the gospels have been either downplayed or totally rejected by other scholars does nothing to invalidate Thiering’s argument. There is no doubt that some find difficulty in accepting her reasoning, despite its meticulous documentation, because what is being examined is a matter of faith as much as a scholarly hypothesis.”

If I have misread this statement, I apologize.

As to the place of Jesus’ birth according to Thiering, here are her words:

“Jesus was born, not in Bethlehem, but in the building about a kilometer south of the Qumran plateau. He was born there because at the time of his birth he was officially classed as an illegitimate child.”

If this isn’t Khirbet Mird, which is the site mentioned in the next paragraph, it is surely not far away. And it most assuredly is not Bethlehem or even Nazareth.

As for the meaning of pesher, I stand by what I said in the review.

That early church literature can be read to deny Jesus’ resurrection and the virgin birth or to support the notion that the early Church was a this-worldly movement is all beside the point. Thiering contends that the canonical Gospels themselves contain a secret code that reveal some quite absurd facts. Take, for example (which I did not even mention in my review), her notion that Jesus, after surviving his crucifixion, went with his wife and daughter to a Mediterranean island where the couple had two more children before getting divorced, after which Jesus remarried and went to Rome. It is this kind of assertion that leaves Thiering open to such objection, especially because she supplies no discernible, or at least no easily discernible, supporting evidence or explanation for such a bizarre contention—to think that the Gospels themselves reveal this by an intentional authorial cipher is hardly 019self-evident! That is why, as Thiering recognizes in her letter, her book has produced a “derisive reaction.”

This is the heart of the matter. The supposed errors she identifies in my review are relatively minor. What makes her ridiculous is her absurd reconstruction of history with little, if any, supporting evidence or even easily discernible explanation.

Shanks’ Criticism of Publisher Reflects Myopia

In Hershel Shanks’ review of Barbara Thiering’s Jesus & the Riddle of the Dead Sea Scrolls (“Did Jesus Really Die on the Cross?” BAR 18:05), he questions why HarperSanFrancisco, with its reputation for quality academic publishing, would publish such a book. This headlined remark reflects a not uncommon—if surprising—myopia, especially in scholarly circles. Most publishers, especially major trade publishers, publish many different kinds of books for many different readerships. I’m always surprised when scholars expect that all of our books on Biblical topics, say, are directed primarily at an academic readership and to be assessed in the same way. It was from Biblical scholars that I learned to interpret a book according to its genre, its sitz im leben, its readership, etc. Surely it is poor scholarship to regard all of a publisher’s books as of the same kind and aimed at the same readership. Only about 20 percent of the HarperSanFrancisco list is academic books, and among those books we aim, with considerable success it’s widely acknowledged, to publish the most important books and authors that can profit from the editorial development, production values, marketing and publicity that allow them to reach the widest possible readership. Some are crossover books that are addressed both to other scholars and general readers; others come from scholars but are directed not primarily to those in the field but to a broader academic and popular readership.

We are fully aware that Dr. Thiering’s views are controversial and go well beyond the bounds of current Scrolls scholarship. But she is a scholar who has demonstrated her expertise in the Scrolls in monographs and in articles in the best scholarly journals. Our expectation, as well as Barbara Thiering’s, has been that her book, which we are publishing by arrangement with the original Australian and British publisher (is Doubleday to be tarred with the same brush?), will have difficulty getting a sympathetic reading from the dominant factions of Scrolls scholars, no matter how well researched and documented her conclusions. Thus it is addressed primarily to general readers and more adventurous scholars open to exploring a radically alternative understanding of the Scrolls and the New Testament. And we have therefore reached the sort of readers who have been fascinated by the award-winning Discovery Channel TV documentary on Thiering’s work, “The Riddle of the Dead Sea Scrolls,” which has aired twice in the past year and is now available on video. Clearly there are many such readers, since the book quickly has become #1 on Publishers Weekly’s Religious Bestsellers list.

Finally, the implication that publishers should not publish books that conventional scholarship is likely to dismiss seems fraught with danger. Many Scrolls scholars, for instance, question the solidity of Robert Eisenman’s scholarship, but certainly you are right to publish his work and let readers decide for themselves whether he’s right or not. Should Norton not have published A. N. Wilson’s Jesus or Knopf not have published Robin Lane Fox’s The Unauthorized Version or Weidenfeld not have published David Rosenberg and Harold Bloom’s The Book of J just because the authors operate outside the Biblical studies establishment? Should Random House not have published Understanding the Dead Sea Scrolls because its editor is not a Scrolls scholar (or not have distributed Hugh Schonfield’s The Passover Plot)? Should Harvard not have published Morton Smith’s The Secret Gospel? Should Doubleday have avoided the controversy of publishing Uta Ranke-Heinemann’s Eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven?

So let’s not begin advocating censoring unconventional views at the source. The free market in ideas will in due course sort out which are valuable and which are not. I appreciate that the book was reviewed and trust that the author, who should be the one to defend the case she makes in her book, will be allowed to respond in your pages.

Hershel Shanks replies:

I agree with much of what John Loudon says. But my criticism of the publisher had nothing to do with a failure to distinguish academic books from non-academic books. Clearly, Thiering’s book is a non-academic book, even though it masquerades as an academic book with over 250 pages of opaque appendices and notes. I quite understand that this book is not directed at an academic audience—publishers don’t spend $30,000 (some of it in BAR) to promote an academic book.

Neither was I drawing a distinction between controversial and non-controversial books. No one who knows me would ever think I would criticize a publisher for publishing a controversial book. I am all for them.

I was drawing a distinction between the responsible and non-responsible. We all get manuscripts that are so far out, we don’t want to be associated with their publication. This doesn’t mean we would censor them or prevent them from being published, but all publishers, including Mr. Loudon, reject submissions because they are simply beyond the pale. Publishers do exercise judgment, don’t they, Mr. Loudon?

Whether BAR should reject advertising for this book is another question. Several readers (see above) have accused us of applying a double standard criticizing the publisher for publishing the book and then accepting advertising for it. We exercise judgment too. We do accept advertising for books that many find offensive—in the interest of a free marketplace in ideas. True, that’s exactly the umbrella Mr. Loudon seeks to cover himself with. Where to draw the line is not easy. It does seem to me there is a difference, however, between opening a channel of communication by accepting advertising and identifying with a book by publishing it. In the same way, we accept advertising for materials that have themes we would not accept in articles. It does take judgement. That is part of what editors do—whether senior editors of major publishers, like Mr. Loudon, or magazine editors. I make no claim to infallibility here, however. I would agree with Mr. Loudon that it is better to err on the side of broader access than more restrictive access.

Qimron’s Lawsuit

No Threat to Intellectual Freedom

This is in reply to your editorial, “Why Professor Qimron’s Lawsuit Is a Threat to Intellectual Freedom,” BAR 18:05.

His lawsuit is not a threat to intellectual freedom, but, rather, a threat to sloppy publishing practices. Your accusations are an attempt to draw attention away from this fact.

In your own version of the story, you admit that you reprinted a photocopy of Mr. Qimron’s work. Had you taken the trouble of setting the fragment to type, and deleted Qimron’s additions, you would not be in your present position.

I have no doubt that your intentions were good. If so, it still does not entitle you to ignore the rights of others. After all, you do copyright your publication.

I doubt this lawsuit will set any sinister precedents, one way or the other. It is, unfortunately, all too common.

Venomous and Maniacal Fools

I have enjoyed BAR’s contents, but the endless squabbling, debating, and malicious, 068pernicious, vituperative exchanges your contributors engage in is not archaeology.

Lawsuits, monopolistic hoarding and coveting of ancient manuscripts, disputations of opinions and conclusions, and condescending criticisms are expounded in your pages in the most whining and juvenile tone, that I am tempted to hire babysitters and hall monitors to oversee and discipline the behavior of these academic social infants.

Heaven forbid they should abandon their egos and desire for power to the aim of working together in a spirit of cooperation and efficiency in the deciphering of historical riddles and enigmas discovered under the ground. Instead we have the incessant shrill cries of “spilled milk” and “somebody stole my toys.”

It is a shame and disgrace to entrust this aspect of history to so many venomous and egomaniacal fools.

God help us.

BAR’s Ads

Bringing Christianity to Former Soviet Republics with Islamic Roots

If God were able—or interested—in noting the advertisement of the International Bible Society (BAR 18:05), it would doubtless elicit benign amusement. In me, it elicited amazement and nausea. The International Bible Society is appealing for funds to enable it to proselytize in Uzbekistan and Kirgizia. According to the advertisement, the people of these republics have Islam as their historical religion. “Hanging in the balance,” states the advertisement, “is whether 23.1 million people will find the true freedom that is in Jesus or the bondage of life that is without him.”

Does the effrontery of these evangelists have no bounds? Do they not realize that the religious intolerance they foster is responsible for the sad tribalism that we yet see even as we enter the 21st century? Slaughter in former Yugoslavia, murders in Northern Ireland and bloodshed in Lebanon are all directly traceable to this sort of religious hatred.

Some of my co-religionists in Israel have perpetuated the difficulties there by their fanatical hard line, but at least they do not try to convert others to their own religious belief. I was happy to read in the same issue of BAR a letter quoting Abraham Joshua Heschel: “God’s spirit rests upon all, Jew or Gentile…. There is no monopoly on holiness.

I wish the evangelists joy in their own beliefs but I also wish that they would recognize that one consequence of the first commandment is that “all God’s chillun got wings.”

Jesus and Greek

Whose House in Capernaum?

Not to be nit-picky of an otherwise scholarly and informative article (Joseph A. Fitzmyer, “Did Jesus Speak Greek?” BAR 18:05), but isn’t Joseph Fitzmyer taking liberties when he suggests that Jesus owned a house in Capernaum? He cites Mark 2:15 as a proof-text. Several versions and commentaries agree, however, that “his house” in Mark 2:15 refers to Levi’s house; see Matthew 2:14.

Joseph A. Fitzmyer replies:

The incorrect reference to Mark 2:15 as an indication that Jesus had a house in Capernaum was the result of a typing mistake. It should have been Mark 2:1. There en oikoµ occurs, according to which people learned that Jesus was “at home” (as the RSV, NRSV, NAB and NEB translate it). Some commentators explain this as a reference to Mark 1:29, Simon’s house, but that is a farfetched reference. Others understand it as Jesus’ own dwelling, as the same expression, used of David in the Septuagint of 1 Samuel 19:9, suggests.

The Pun on Peter

Forgive my seeming hubris in indicating an embarrassing gap in Joseph A. Fitzmyer’s article “Did Jesus Speak Greek?” BAR 18:05.

Fitzmyer concludes, “Did Jesus teach and preach in Greek? That is unlikely.”

Matthew 16:18 says “You are Peter and on this rock I will build my community” (New Jerusalem Bible, Reader’s Edition, p. 1166). The Greek text reads “suv ei’ Pevtro~ kai; ejpi; tauvth th Ë pevtra oijkodomhvsw mou th;n ejkklhsivan.” Assuming this passage to be an accurately reported historical event, Fitzmyer’s conclusion is hardly incontrovertible. Either (1) Jesus not only spoke and taught in Greek, but commanded the language well enough to spontaneously coin a highly sophisticated literary pun in the language (based on Peter [Petros in Greek] and rock [petra in Greek]), or (2) the primacy of Rome itself and St. Peter’s dogmatic tradition must be reevaluated. The Petros/petra pun works only in Greek, not in Hebrew and not in Aramaic, the suggested linguistic Vorlage of the Gospel.

Even the German Protestant theologian, Franz Delitzsch, as thorough as he was in Semitics, Talmud and medieval Jewish literature, could not convey the pun in his own Hebrew translation of the New Testament. There he contents himself with the Hebrew lexical item sl‘ “rock,” conveying the idiomatic sense, but destroying the literary word-play of this most doctrinal passage of Western Christendom.

Did Jesus teach and preach in Greek? The inherited Greek tradition of the Gospels would have us think so.

Joseph A. Fitzmyer replies:

The text of Matthew 16:18, which Dr. Abraham mentions as a passage that implies that Jesus taught in Greek because of the play on Peters name (“You are Peter and upon this rock I will build my church”) might seem to be important and hence ought to have been included in my article about whether Jesus spoke Greek. However, there are several aspects of that verse that seem to have escaped Dr. Abraham s attention.

First, that a pun is involved in the use of Petros (in English, “Peter,” and French, “Pierre”) and petra (in English, “rock,” but in French, “pierre”) is admissible and correct, despite the difference in gender involved (masculine Petros and feminine petra).

Second, for Dr. Abraham to claim in 1992 that “the Petros/petra pun works only in Greek, not in Hebrew and not in Aramaic” is amazing. He cites “the German Protestant theologian, Franz Delitzsch,” who, in his translation of the New Testament into Hebrew published in 1877, could only use Hebrew sl‘, “rock,” to convey the sense of the Greek petra and thus destroy “the literary wordplay” involved. Dr. Abraham is, of course, correct: The play on words cannot be expressed in Hebrew. But many things have come to light since the time of Delitzsch; Dr. Abraham seems to be unaware of the Aramaic discoveries of this century that bear upon the interpretation of Matthew 16:18. For it is now apparent that the pun was perfectly possible in Aramaic.

Third, in the New Testament, Peter is sometimes called Keµphas, which is explicitly explained as Petros in John 1:42 (see also Galatians 1:18; 2:9; 1 Corinthians 1:12, etc.). Keµphas, is merely a grecized form of Aramaic Keµphaµ’. “Kepha” is now clearly attested. It appears as a patronymic in a list of witnesses to a document, sŒhd, ‘qb br kp’, “witness: ‘Aqab, son of Kepha’” (see E. G. 070Kraeling, The Brooklyn Museum Aramaic Papyri Elephantine [New Haven, CT: Yale Univ., 1950], p. 226) and noted in W. Baumgartner, Hebräisches und Aramäisches Lexikon zum Alten Testament (Leiden: Brill, 1974), p. 468. Moreover, the common noun keµphaµ, “rock, crag,” appears several times in Qumran Aramaic texts. I cite only one example from the Targum of Job of Qumran Cave 11: [b]kp’ yskwn wyqnn, “[on] the crag it (the black eagle, cf. Hebrew Job 39:28) dwells and makes its nest” (11 QtgJob 33:9). See further 11 QtgJob 32:1 (= Hebrew Job 39:1). It also occurs several times in the Cave 4 texts of Enoch: 4QEn^e4 iii 19 (= 1 Enoch 89:29); 4QEn^c 4:3 (= 1 Enoch 89:32); 4QEn^a 1 ii 8 (= 1 Enoch 4; see J. T. Milik, The Books of Enoch: Aramaic Fragments of Qumran Cave 4 [Oxford: Clarendon, 1976], pp. 243–244, 204–205, 146–147). In most of these instances keµphaµ has the meaning of “crag” a part of a mountain.

This evidence reveals that the Greek pun reflects a realistic Aramaic substratum. I retrovert Jesus’ saying into contemporary Aramaic: ‘attaµh Keµphaµ (huÆ) we‘al keµphaµ’ deµn, ’ebneÆh qehaµliÆ’, “You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church,” or in French, “Tu es Pierre, et sur cette pierre je bâtirai mon église.”

Fourth, though the Greek name Petros appears also in John 1:42 and often elsewhere in the New Testament, one wonders why the Matthean Jesus did not say, sy ei Petros kai epi toutoµ toµ petroµ oikodomeµsoµ mou teµn ekkleµsian, using the masculine form of the common noun petros, “rock, stone,” attested in the language since the time of Homer. Because of the change in gender to feminine petra, a German scholar (A. Dell) concluded in 1916 that the saying was “kein Jesuswort” [not Jesus’ words] but the creation of Greek-speaking Christians. No little part of the problem encountered here is the fact that the name Petros does not occur in the Greek language prior to the New Testament. After that it occurs abundantly, undoubtedly in imitation of the Apostle’s name, given by Jesus to Simon. (For further details on all these points, one may consult my article, “Aramaic Kepha’ and Peter’s Name in the New Testament,” Text and Interpretation: Studies in the New Testament Presented to Matthew Black, ed. E. Best and R. M. Wilson [Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ., 1979], pp. 121–132; reprinted in my book, To Advance the Gospel: New Testament Studies (New York: Crossroad, 19811, pp. 112–124))

Because the foregoing evidence reveals that the pun was possible in Aramaic as well as in Greek and because of the problem of the Greek name Petros, I considered that Matthew 16:18 was not really pertinent to the discussion of whether Jesus spoke Greek I still consider it irrelevant, despite the widespread belief reflected in Dr. Abraham’s letter. Will such Aramaic parlance continue to fall upon deaf ears?

Jewish Epitaphs

How Many Jews in Palestine Spoke Greek?

I agree with Pieter van der Horst (“Jewish Funerary Inscriptions—Most Are in Greek,” BAR 18:05) that funerary inscriptions deserve more attention from scholars than they have usually received. I question, however, whether these inscriptions support van der Horst’s claim that “for a great part of the Jewish population the daily language was Greek, even in Palestine” (emphasis mine).

His 1,600 Jewish epitaphs include samples from all over the Mediterranean world, over an 800-year period. The question for New Testament scholars, however, is not whether Jews in Rome spoke Greek (which would hardly be surprising!), nor even whether the rabbis, after the Roman destruction of Jerusalem, preferred Greek to Aramaic, but the extent to which Greek penetrated the (supposedly Aramaic-speaking) area of the Holy Land before 70 C.E. This reduces the body of data drastically.

One must also consider whether funerary inscriptions provide an effective population sample. They are certainly heavily skewed in the direction of wealth. The poorest 90 percent (which would include virtually the entire “Jesus movement”) were simply laid in the ground, with no (enduring) inscriptions whatsoever. I would anticipate a positive correlation between wealth, on the one hand, and the esteem in which the language of the (Roman) oppressor is held in an occupied country, on the other. Such a correlation would significantly weaken the impact of funerary inscriptions in drawing conclusions about “a majority of the Jews in Palestine” (p. 54).

Greek was introduced by foreign oppressors into a strongly xenophobic and rigid culture. This reality may be the reason Josephus writes that “our people do not welcome those who have mastered the speech of many nations… though many have laboriously undertaken this study [of Greek], scarcely two or three have succeeded…” (quoted by Fitzmyer, p. 59). Indeed, the Talmud states that the Gamaliel family had to get permission even to study Greek, their justification being that it was necessary in their work with the Roman government (Babylonian Talmud, Sota 49b). The Pharisees seemed loathe to acquire Greek, and I would be inclined to believe that the opposition was even fiercer among rural peasants. (Compare, for instance, the resistance to English among the French-speaking natives of Quebec, even though many of them do business frequently with English-speaking Canadians and residents of the U.S.)

Thus the use of Greek in epitaphs does not require that the majority of Jews in Palestine in the time of Jesus used Greek regularly, or even that they were familiar with it; and there are good reasons to believe otherwise.

What is missing from the discussion is a sociological model that would clarify two major issues: the nature, means and extent of penetration of a foreign language on a conquered peasant society, and the effect of the loss of the primal city (Jerusalem) on resistance to that penetration. Perhaps Hershel Shanks’ argument against “dividing disciplines” could be taken one step further, to “multiplying” them.

Pieter van der Horst replies:

Mr. Chapman has made some perceptive critical remarks on my article, for which I am grateful. I will comment briefly: He says that it is hardly surprising that Jews in Rome spoke Greek. Well, it is not so simple. Compare the Syrian epitaphs with the Jewish epitaphs from Rome. The vast majority of the numerous epitaphs of Syrians in Rome is in Latin, not Aramaic or Greek. This shows that the Jews, in their relative isolation, did not adopt the majority language but maintained their own language, which was Greek.

If we restrict ourselves to the data from the Holy Land in the period before 70 C.E., we find, for instance, that of the approximately 250 ossuaries and other inscriptions from Jerusalem some 40 percent are in Greek and that the epitaphs from the Goliath family in Jericho are for the most part in Greek.

Moreover, it is not only the wealthy who knew Greek; as Professor Fitzmyer convincingly demonstrated in the same issue (“Did Jesus Speak Greek?” BAR 18:05), Jesus, who certainly did not belong to the wealthy upper class, knew and occasionally used Greek. This language was no longer regarded as the language of the oppressor, since that was Latin. However, I never said that a majority of the Jews in Palestine spoke Greek (as Mr. Chapman quotes me); what I said was that “a majority of the Jews in Palestine and the western Diaspora spoke Greek,” by which I mean that a majority of all these Jews when taken together spoke Greek. When I said that “for a great part of the Jewish population the daily language was Greek, even in Palestine,” I did not mean a majority; a great part can also be a quarter or a third.

It is not correct that the Gamaliel family had to get permission to study Greek. The passage in the Babylonian Talmud says that they had to get permission to learn Greek wisdom (that is, literature and philosophy) and it 072is explicitly stated there that “the Greek language and Greek wisdom are distinct” (Sotah 49b)! So no objection is made against learning the Greek language.

Finally, I agree with Mr. Chapman that a sociological model would clarify the issues under consideration. I hope that someone knowledgeable in sociolinguistics will accept this challenge.

Masada

Explains Absence of Roman Projectile Points

In “Masada—Arms and the Man,” BAR 18:04, Jodi Magness says that the absence of iron projectile points at Masada is a mystery. It seems obvious that the defenders of Masada would collect such preprocessed iron as soon as it landed and immediately recycle it into smaller iron arrowheads that they could then return to the source of the iron—the Roman army. After the end, the few remaining projectile points that had not been recycled were probably picked up to be reused by the attackers themselves.

Roman Dumdums

I thoroughly enjoyed Jodi Magness’ stimulating article “Masada—Arms and the Man,” BAR 18:04, but I think she jumps to a hasty conclusion when she says that “the technical level of smithing in the Roman period was low and quench-hardening of arrowheads was not widely practiced.” Tools and swords of those days were hardened and tempered using the highest technical means.

I can suggest two good reasons why arrowheads were left soft on purpose. A soft, but pointed arrowhead relied on the velocity of the arrow to pierce its target, but on impact the arrowhead would squash down and become a deformed, rough-edged missile that could cause great damage or terrible wounds. In this way, it performed just like a modern-day soft-nosed bullet, sometimes called a “dumdum” bullet. Also, the pilum, the Roman javelin, was made with a very long iron tang. The point was hardened, but the middle of the tang was made soft so that the javelin bent, almost in half, when it struck and therefore could not be thrown back at the Romans. Similarly, arrowheads may have been made soft so that if they missed their targets the points would bend or become blunted on contact with the ground and then could not be fired back at the defenders on Masada.

The reason why no Roman iron projectile points are found at Masada is that as soon as they landed in the fortress they were melted down and forged into Judean arrowheads and shot back at the enemy.

Jodi Magness replies:

I thank Mr. Erickson and Mr. Tameanko for their observations. They both suggest that iron projectile points are absent from the corpus at Masada because they would have been melted down and reworked. In the technical version of the article, which is forthcoming, I raise this issue in relation to the entire corpus of weapons at Masada. However, as I noted, the complete absence of iron projectile points at Masada stands in contrast to the situation at Gamla, a contemporary site that suffered a similar fate. Why are there so many projectile points from Gamla, but none from Masada?

My statement that “the technical level of smithing in the Roman period was low and quench-hardening of arrowheads was not widely practiced” is based on J. Lang, “Study of the Metallography of Some Roman Swords,” Brittannia 19 (1988), pp. 199–216. In my forthcoming technical article, I suggest that the Romans may have decided to forego the process of quenching as unnecessary if some of their targets were not protected by metal armor. This decision may also have been dictated by considerations of water conservation, especially in the case of arrowheads manufactured at the foot of Masada during the siege.

Land of Geshur

An Alternative Interpretation of the Great Stone Circles

May I offer an alternative interpretation of the great stone circles and central cairn known as Rogem Hiri described by Yonathan Mizrachi in “Mystery Circles,” BAR 18:04). By way of introduction, I might say that I am the director of the Land of Geshur Project and that Rogem Hiri—as well as Tel Hadar, En-Gev, Leviah and Tel Soreg—were and still are under my direct responsibility, and all the facts concerning these sites are known to me from direct, daily acquaintance.

According to Mizrachi, the stone circles were built in the Early Bronze Age (third millennium B.C.E.) to protect a cultic installation in the center. Then, in the Late Bronze Age (1550–1200 B.C.E.), he says, the cairn or burial mound was built in the center over the cult-place.

I propose a different scenario. I believe the stone circles and the central cairn were built at the same time—in the Early Bronze Age—to serve as the burial monument of a great Early Bronze Age chieftain. The burial cairn was then reused in the Late Bronze Age. I don’t believe the stone circles ever enclosed a cult-place.

Let us look at the evidence:

1. The pottery from the site is minimal. There were no Chalcolithic sherds and very few from the Early Bronze Age. The largest group came from the Middle/Late Bronze Age and were found in and around the central cairn. Only a few sherds were found from the Iron Age or from the Hellenistic and Byzantine periods.

2. The tomb itself, inside the cairn, had been robbed in antiquity. The few sherds found inside date to the Late Bronze Age. In addition, there was one typical Early Bronze Age flint tool known as a “Canaanean blade.”

3. The site is in the middle of a very large dolmen field. But not a single dolmen approaches the perimeter of the stone circles, apparently keeping a respectful distance.

4. The major civilization in the Golan before the classical period was in the Early Bronze Age. This was the period of cities like Leviah with huge fortifications.

5. In the Late Bronze Age, there were small towns, like Tel Hadar. In this period, as in other periods, the dolmens were sometimes used—or rather reused—for burial purposes.

Given this evidence, both Mizrachi’s hypothesis and mine are plausible. I prefer mine, however, for the following reasons:

1. The notion that a cultic installation once existed in the center of the site lacks any concrete proof and rests solely on a great deal of supposedly circumstantial evidence.

2. Early Bronze Age temples were all built within city walls. Not a single example of an open-air cultic shrine has been uncovered from this period. To interpret Rogem Hiri as a cultic center is to explain a unique phenomenon by another, nonexisting phenomenon. The circumstantial evidence is in fact against Mizrachi’s interpretation.

3. That so few Early Bronze Age sherds were found indicates that the site was not frequently visited in this period. We would hardly expect so little Early Bronze Age pottery if this was a central cult-place of the Early Bronze Age cities on the Golan.

4. Dolmen burials are well attested in the Early Bronze Age. Indeed, the dolmen fields on the Golan may well have been the burial sites for the nearby Early Bronze Age cities (as suggested by Lipuz Vinitzky in Tel Aviv 19 [1992], pp. 100–112).

In short, Rogem Hiri was really just a mammoth Early Bronze Age dolmen. In this connection, it is worth noting that some ordinary dolmens are sometimes surrounded by stone circles. Rogem Hiri was such a burial site for the “Great Man.” This 074interpretation makes sense of the dolmens around the site and of the fact that none of them approaches the great stone circle. This interpretation also explains the almost complete absence of Early Bronze Age sherds at the site.

The site was probably used for another burial in the Late Bronze Age. This comes as no surprise. Ordinary dolmens were commonly reused in this way.

In conclusion, Rogem Hiri should be understood in the context of the great Early Bronze Age civilization on the Golan, the most vigorous civilization on both sides of the Jordan before the Roman Period.

As director of the Land of Geshur Project, I should also like to add a few remarks about the article of which I was a coauthor in the same issue, “Rediscovered—The Land of Geshur.”

The article was largely written during my sabbatical at New York University in 1990. It was updated after the 1990 and 1991 seasons, but obviously could not be updated after the 1992 season. I would like to do that partially and briefly now:

Tel Hadar: The 1992 season resulted in a major change in our understanding of the site. The inner city wall existed already in the Late Bronze Age I. Typical pythoi (large storage jars) of that period where found leaning against this wall. The riddle of the “unusual Iron Age city-wall” was solved: It was a usual Middle Bronze/Late Bronze city-wall and an interesting addition to the very few fortified cities known from the Late Bronze Age.

En-Gev: Three seasons of excavation at Tel ‘En-Gev by our Japanese colleagues have revealed a unique double tripartite pillared building of Iron Age II, built on the acropolis and artificially elevated by an earthen fill supported by a solid wall and surrounded by a moat. ‘En-Gev was the central site along the eastern coast of the Sea of Galilee in Iron Age II, after the demise of Iron Age I Tel Hadar. The identification of ‘En-Gev with Aphek (1 Kings 20:26–30; 2 Kings 13:14–17), an Aramean border stronghold, has now been further corroborated.

Leviah: Work continued in the area inside the inner wall. Three olive-oil manufacturing installations were exposed, and the nature of the area as the “industrial zone” of this Early Bronze Age City was made clear. The most complete, stamped cylinder seal was also found in this season. Leviah may now serve as a prototype of the Early Bronze Age cities of the Golan.

I would also like to make a few corrections to the article:

The aerial photograph of Tel Hadar is reversed (my mistake).

In describing the relationship of the Hellenistic buildings at ‘En-Gev to the underlying tripartite pillared building, it is stated that “the pillars of a Hellenistic structure were embedded directly in the floor of the ruined tripartite pillared building.” What was meant is that the upper part of one of the pillars of the Iron Age pillared building was used in the overlying Hellenistic house. The inhabitants of the Hellenistic house simply drilled a hole in the floor of their house.

Yonathan Mizrachi replies:

I would like to sincerely thank Professor Moshe Kochavi for the opportunity to work at the wonderful site that Rogem Hiri is. The open intellectual atmosphere that was inspired by him throughout our field work at the site is now reflected in our different interpretations of the complex and should be taken as a sign of his intellectual courage and openness. For further discussion, see my dissertation, Rujm el-Hiri: Toward an Understanding of a Bronze Age Megalithic Monument in the Levant (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University, 1992).

Potpourri

Defends Book Against BAR’s Review

Unhappily, Dr. Peter Jeffery’s review of The Music of the Bible Revealed by Suzanne Haïk-Vantoura (which I edited) in the BAR 18:04 is completely misleading (see Books in Brief, BAR 18:04).

Jeffery misrepresents Haïk-Vantoura’s credentials and views in several places (e.g., on the inventory of Gregorian chant by Pope Gregory I, the origin of the Gregorian chant and the “eternal principles of musical value” in ancient music, which is partly the fault of my own editor’s note). More critically, he fails to understand (or state correctly) Haïk-Vantoura’s historical logic (calling it “circular” and “mock-historical”), which is founded on the axiom of her musical decipherment. His conclusion that she simply read modern presuppositions into the music is based on the “modernity” of her results (and on unfounded speculations of his own). Finally, his claim that her conclusions are “utterly untrue” is essentially an argument from silence (certain features of her “key” allegedly being unknown before 1000 A.D.).

The Masoretes’ tentative interpretations of the te‘aµmim (derived long after the signs appear in MSS.) assume they are a primarily grammatical notation of “primative” synagogue chant. The interpretations leave most of the notation’s obvious features unexplained. Yet the Masoretes claimed the te‘aµmim were ancient, primarily musical, secondarily grammatical, each written sign representing a sung melody (ne‘imah) marked by a corresponding hand-gesture. They affirmed the te‘aµmim were “established” by the first-century priestly “Elders of Bathyra” (and transmitted to the Masoretes via the Karaites). They knew the significance of the notation; only its meaning remained unexplained.

Haïk-Vantoura, treating the notation as ancient and musical (according to musicological consensus), uses the Hebrew verbal syntax as the “Rosetta Stone” to decipher the te‘aµmim (which are not a set of “random symbols,” but have a definite syntax of their own). If the musical results have a number of of “modern” features (which in fact astonishes Haïk-Vantoura herself), these features are demanded by the relationship of the signs to the text. Jeffery’s only recourse would be to propose a convincing alternative explanation (which no one else has done since at least Masoretic times).

Inspired by BAR, She Went to Israel

Your cover depicting the Caiaphas ossuary (BAR 18:05) inspired me to take a trip to Israel. I have just returned. The ossuary in the Israel Museum was beautiful. It looked brand new.

Publication of the Dead Sea Scrolls was worth the fight you made. To see some of them housed in a beautiful building and setting was an unsurpassed surprise and well worth a trip to Israel.

Nitza Rosovsky’s Letter

We regret that in Queries & Comments, BAR 18:06, an important letter was published under the title “Author Reacts” without the signature of its author, Nitza Rosovsky, who took issue with the review of her book by Walter Zanger.

Pascal, Not G. B. Shaw, on Prolixity