Queries & Comments

008

The Best Guides Around

I have been an ardent supporter and subscriber of your magazine for many years. My wife and I plan to be in Israel in November for several weeks. I am enclosing our itinerary. Could someone on your staff compile a list of BAR articles on the places we plan to visit?

To me, this is the most intelligent way to get the most out of our time in Israel.

Our staff has already done the work! Our new three-year index (1995–1997) supplements our 20-year index (1975–1994). The set costs $22.95 (plus shipping) and may be ordered by calling toll free 1–800-221–4644.—Ed.

Recycling Suggestion

I must agree with Rex Dalton’s letter concerning the large number of inserts in your magazine (Queries & Comments, BAR 24:03), although I do not have a bedroom problem like he does [Dalton complained that tearing out the inserts while reading in bed upset his wife.—Ed.]. When your magazine arrives it goes in the magazine rack in the “reading room” (some members of the family refer to it as the bathroom). My solution to the insert problem is to print them on lighter weight, softer paper. I could then recycle them.

The BAR Workout

I must respectfully disagree with Rex Dalton. If paper tab inserts were eliminated from BAR, how else would the lounge lizards, couch potatoes and sofa loafers get their bimonthly exercise?

Samaritan and Jewish Synagogues

Malamat as Samaritan

I know BAR is a magazine of archaeology, not theology, but after reading the letter by H.L. Maxwell (Queries & Comments, BAR 24:03) calling author Abraham Malamat a “full-fledged heretic,” I can’t resist making a theological comment related to an article in the same issue, Reinhard Pummer’s “How to Tell a Samaritan Synagogue from a Jewish Synagogue.”

Pummer points out that although for most Christians the term “Samaritan” evokes a compassionate people, in Jesus’ time the Samaritans were disdained by the Judeans. The Samaritans used the wrong version of scripture and worshiped at the wrong temple; they were heretics.

But in Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan, it is the heretical Samaritan who helps the wounded man and by his actions fulfills the commandment in Leviticus to love one’s neighbor. The Samaritan’s religious practice is irrelevant.

Mr. Maxwell condemns Abraham Malamat as a heretic for not following scripture in his evaluation of evidence about the Exodus. His letter makes me think of the humanist parable of the Good Samaritan, and it also serves as a 010reminder that in archaeology, as in other disciplines of science, there is only one heresy: the failure to be objective.

Tied Up in Knots

The May/June 1998 issue is excellent. I am especially pleased that the cover story (Reinhard Pummer, “How to Tell a Samaritan Synagogue from a Jewish Synagogue,” BAR 24:03) focuses on synagogue mosaic art, since I have just finished a series of lectures on the topic.

I do have a question, however. The large reproduction of the Torah Ark or Tabernacle mosaic from Khirbet Samara is unusual in that the curtain is tied on the viewer’s left. Other curtains are either untied (Beth-Shean), tied in the middle (Hammath Tiberias) or tied on the right (El-Khirbe). I am not aware of another instance of a curtain tied on the left. In fact, other representations of the Samara mosaic show the curtain tied to the first right column, and not the left one as in your article (see Steven Fine, Sacred Realm [Oxford Univ. Press, 1996], p. 19).

Was your photograph of the mosaic reproduced backwards?

Is there any explanation for the significance of the tied or untied curtain? Mosaics depicting curtains tied in the middle, like those at Hammath Tiberias, may also be seen on the north wall of the church of S. Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna (c. 500 C.E.).

012

Steven Fine, associate professor of rabbinic literature and history at Baltimore Hebrew University, responds:

After reading this letter, I went to the Israel Museum to check the mosaic. The photo of the Khirbet Samara mosaic was published backwards in Sacred Realm; it appears the right way in BAR. I am pleased that Mr. Weiss was such a careful reader of Sacred Realm, and I refer him to the articles on this site by the excavator, Yitzhak Magen (listed in the bibliography of Sacred Realm).

There is, however, no significance to the curtains being tied or untied. Both appear in Roman (and thus Jewish) art.

Did Samaritan Synagogues Have Ritual Baths?

In “How to Tell a Samaritan Synagogue from a Jewish Synagogue,” Reinhard Pummer states that “later Jewish synagogues [dating after 70 C.E.] … do not have mikva’ot connected with them.” Incorrect! Though most Jewish synagogues in the late Roman-Byzantine period did not have mikva’ot (ritual baths), that is not the case at Meroth, Khirbet Sema’, Ma’on (Nirim), Maon (in the Hebron Hills) and Chorazim. Furthermore, Lee I. Levine, of Hebrew University in Jerusalem, has argued that at sites such as Gaza, Caesarea Maritima, Delos and Ostia, natural water sources may have functioned as mikva’ot. (See Lee I. Levine, “From Community Center to ‘Lesser Sanctuary’: The Furnishing and Interior of the Ancient Synagogue” [in Hebrew], Cathedra 60:41 [1991]).

Royal Seal

Which Is Correct—the Seal or the Bible?

In “First Impression: What We Learn from King Ahaz’s Seal,” BAR 24:03, Robert Deutsch identifies the father of King Ahaz as Yehotam. In the Bible this name is spelled Yo-tam on 19 separate occasions. Mr. Deutsch concludes that the Bible is wrong and the seal is correct.

Not two paragraphs later he points out that the word “Judah” is spelled “defectively” on the seal. He explains that such a defective spelling became rather commonplace after the destruction of the Temple some 200 years later.

Granted, I am not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but there seems to be a flaw in Mr. Deutsch’s logic. He seems, on the one hand, willing to toss the Bible’s account out without a second thought and, on the other hand, willing to pass by discrepancies in the seal!

Are we to assume an admittedly flawed seal with one reference to King Ahaz’s father is more accurate than 19 notations in scripture?

Robert Deutsch responds:

It is logical to assume that an eighth-century B.C.E. royal seal correctly spells the name Yehotam, a spelling that is to be preferred over that found in the Bible, which is a source dating 200 years later. Similarly, the name “Thompson” as you write it today is preferable to how it might be written by your biographer 200 years from now, even if it appears 19 times in your biography.

The editor also responds:

To answer the query relating to the “defective” spelling of Judah: “Defective” spelling as used by scholars does not mean that the word is spelled incorrectly; it simpy means that it omits rudimentary vowels. Defective spelling is contrasted with “plene” or full spelling, which contains such vowels.

Seal vs. Bible, Round Two

Robert Deutsch’s description of King Ahaz’s seal in the latest issue of BAR was unclear. The absence of the word ben (son of) in the seal is glossed over as a minor issue, as it “was probably omitted simply for lack of space.” It seems implausible that an imperfect seal would be accepted by a king out of sheer convenience. Perhaps the seal was actually discarded as imperfect, only to be discovered many centuries later and proclaimed infallible.

Strata

Was Qumran the Site Pliny Referred to as an Essene Settlement?

What should be the focus of interest, Yizhar Hirschfeld’s excavation above Ein Gedi, has become lost in the discussion of what the Roman historian Pliny meant by the term infra hos when he wrote that “the town of Ein Gedi … lies infra hos the Essenes” (see “Cell-Itary Confinement,” BAR 24:03, p. 16). Hirschfeld, along with Alan Crown and Lena Cansdale (see “Qumran—Was It an Essene Settlement?” BAR 20:05), rejects the “traditional interpretation of the term” as “south of,” suggesting instead that it means “below,” that is, “at a lower altitude.” That term “traditional” is intriguing, as it means nothing more than that Roland de Vaux, the excavator of Qumran, translated infra hos so in the early 1950s. The careful examination by Crown and Cansdale of Pliny’s language makes this “traditional” 014understanding more than doubtful.

James VanderKam, in The Dead Sea Scrolls Today (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1994), devoted about five convoluted pages to the defense of the “traditional” interpretation, calling it “one of the two pillars on which the widely accepted theory of Essene authorship of the scrolls is based.” Essential to his argument was the fact that the “hills [above Ein Gedi] have no traces of communal occupation.” Hirschfeld’s excavation destroys that argument and thus has knocked down one of the “two pillars.” No wonder Hirschfeld has been rejected with such a carefully worded scholarly statement as that of the curator emeritus of the Shrine of the Book, Magen Broshi, quoted in the Christian Science Monitor of February 25, 1998: “This is pure baloney … produced by a sensation seeker.” It is interesting to note that Hirschfeld’s ruins match quite closely what de Vaux suggested was the nature of level Ia at Qumran.

Incidental to his discussion, Vander-Kam wrote: “[Hebrew University professor Eliezer] Sukenik indirectly drew Pliny’s account into the debate about the scrolls”; earlier, VanderKam had stated that “Sukenik suspected a connection between Qumran and the Essenes when he read the Manual of Disciple.” Did he?

In Megillot Genuzot I, p. 16, Sukenik wrote, “I was inclined to think that the genizah [storeroom for old and damaged manuscripts] was established by the sect of the Essenes who, as is known from various ancient literary sources, had their dwelling on the west side of the Dead Sea in the neighborhood of Ein Gedi.” The term Sukenik used for “neighborhood” was bsevivot, which can hardly refer to the Qumran settlement approximately 20 miles to the north.

There is clear evidence as to what he meant. The first mention of the Dead Sea Scrolls in the New York Times occurred on Sunday, April 25, 1948 (the Times had either missed or ignored the announcement Yale University made on behalf of the American Schools of Oriental Research on April 12). What was the source for this article by Julian Louis Meltzer, dated Jerusalem, April 24, 1948? It could not have been anyone other than Sukenik, who is mentioned in the article as having acquired three scrolls. Sukenik was, at that time, the only one in Jerusalem who had seen all the scrolls and knew the contents of six of them. Professor Millar Burrows, who had seen the St. Mark scrolls, had left the country and so, I believe, had John Trever and William Brownlee, who had seen them as well. Meltzer was careful not to attribute any comment to Sukenik, for he was, apparently, anticipating a press release by him on April 26 correcting some errors in the Yale announcement of April 12. Thus Meltzer wrote: “It is understood that the scholars believe these scrolls were among the articles of worship of a Jewish sect inhabiting this area for centuries preceding the Christian era. They lived a hermitlike existence around the hot springs descending from the Rocks of the Wild Goat” (italics mine). It is evident from this that Sukenik made no connection between Khirbet Qumran and the Essenes. He understood his ancient source to mean what Hirschfeld, Crown and Cansdale understand—that the Essenes lived above Ein Gedi and its spring, and not at Qumran.

The writer is also the Hillel Professor Emeritus of Jewish Literature and Thought at Vanderbilt University.—Ed.

Essenes Against Their Will

Reading Yizhar Hirschfeld’s description of 6- by 9-foot rough stone structures at Ein Gedi: Our ad hoc BAR study group mused over the early-first-century A.D. occupancy dates. Twenty centuries later, we find ourselves occupying similar 6- by 9-foot stone structures, with the modification of concrete floors and two male occupants. To our group, single occupancy seems obvious. Like the Essenes, we incarcerated BAR subscribers have as well become “remarkable beyond all the other tribes in the whole world, as [we have] no women, and [have] renounced all sexual desire, [and have] no money.”

Influence Is a Two-Way Street

The article “Jerusalem, D.C.,” states that Leen Ritmeyer’s model of Herod’s Temple allows visitors to view “inside the Holy of Holies … a priest offer[ing] incense on the altar while another trims the wicks on the lamps of the menorah” (BAR 24:03). In actuality, the Golden Altar and the Golden Lampstand were located in the Holy Place (see Exodus 30:6, 40:5, 26), not the Holy of Holies. Only the high priest entered the Holy of Holies, on one day each year (Exodus 30:10; Hebrews 9:7) and for different purposes. Could you clarify whether it is the model that is inaccurate or the article?

Also, the sidebar “How Egyptian Is the Book of Proverbs?” BAR 24:03, implies that the “Instructions of Amenemope” predates the Book of Proverbs and influenced it directly. The piece states that the Egyptian document “probably date[s] to between the seventh and sixth centuries B.C.E.” Three proverbs (1:1, 10:1, 25:1) name Solomon as their source. Since Solomon reigned in the tenth century B.C.E., it would be more likely that Solomon’s writings influenced the Egyptian writings, which are 300 to 400 years later.

On the model, the mistake was ours.—Ed.

Where Credit Is Due

I was pleased to see a note in the Strata section of the May/June 1998 issue describing the guides to excavations published by the Israel Information Center (“Guides for the Perplexed,” Strata, BAR 24:03). To my disappointment, my name as the 016author of this series, titled Archaeological Sites in Israel, did not appear in your article.

Our apologies to Hillel Geva, who last appeared in these pages with “Searching for Roman Jerusalem,” BAR 23:06. Dr. Geva is also the distinguished archaeologist who is completing the final report of the excavations, directed by the late Nahman Avigad, in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City.—Ed.

Geography Lesson

“What’s in a Name?” BAR 24:03, perpetuates a linguistic error. The northern Israelite divine component in personal names that was written YW was not pronounced yo; it was pronounced yaw. The W was not used to write final O before the post-Exilic period.

In the same issue, the map accompanying Zvi Gal’s nice article on the destruction in Galilee by Tiglath-pileser III (“Israel in Exile”) requires some corrections. Gal cites 2 Kings 15:29 on page 52. But the map fails to indicate Yanoah, which is a village/town in south Lebanon on the hills looking down on Tyre. One may consult Map 146 in the revised Macmillan Bible Atlas [of which the letter writer is co-author—Ed.] for the route of Tiglath-pileser’s march according to that verse. The Assyrian monarch took the route leading from Abel-beth-maacha towards Tyre so as to hook up with his local official there and thus assure logistic support for his siege of Hazor. He then swept across Upper Galilee to prevent any guerrilla activities that might interfere with his siege of Hazor.

Gal lists a town called Madon, which he evidently places beside Qarnei-Hittin (because of a ruin called Khirbet Maddin in Arabic). Now, it is well recognized by textual critics of the Book of Joshua that Madon (like Shimron) is a ghost word. The Greek translation (the Septuagint) has Maron for Madon. There is Egyptian evidence for a town called Maron in south Lebanon or Upper Galilee; the only logical location is near the mountain called Jebel Marun re-Ras. That also conforms to the retreat of the vanquished Canaanite forces routed in the Biblical “Battle of Merom.” Merom in Hebrew is also called Maron in Greek.

The Marum mentioned as a conquered town in the inscriptions of Tiglath-pileser III is most likely this same place in Upper Galilee. Gal has mercifully not expounded his theory that the Battle of Merom took place beside Qarnei-Hittin.

Incidentally, the route from Abel-beth-maacha to Tyre was well used until 1922, when the area was split between the mandates of Britain and France. It is the famous road from Paneas (Caesarea Philippi = Banias) to Tyre, marked by the milestones found in Lebanon and the north Hula Valley. It is undoubtedly the Way of the Sea mentioned in Isaiah 9:1 (English) and the Gospel of Matthew. Jesus used that road when he visited the “region of Tyre and Sidon”(Mark 3:8; Matthew 15:21) and probably when he came to the “region of Caesarea Philippi” (Mark 8:27; Matthew 16:13). There is no other Way of the Sea (or Via Maris) in the Holy Land, contrary to modern tour-guide mythology.

Lastly, the el-Amarna tablet telling about the Babylonian caravan that was robbed is EA 8, not EA 148.

Potpourri

Illuminating Query

Every time I read BAR I learn something new. Today I learned that the depiction of a menorah on a Byzantine Christian oil lamp is not surprising because “the appropriation of Jewish themes and symbols is characteristic of early Christianity” (Jodi Magness, “Illuminating Byzantine Jerusalem,” BAR 24:02. I also learned that the depiction of a menorah on a Byzantine floor mosaic “eliminates the possibility that it came from a church” (Reinhard Pummer, “How to Tell a Samaritan Synagogue from a Jewish Synagogue,” BAR 24:03).

More seriously, I am puzzled by the assumption that liturgy currently practiced with candles employed oil lamps in Byzantine times. I was under the impression that while the oil lamp was the customary utilitarian source of light, candles were also common in Byzantine times. It seems that using oil lamps instead of candles in large crowds would be awkward. Is there any literary evidence on this issue?

Jodi Magness, associate professor of archaeology, Tufts University, responds:

The Encyclopaedia Judaica reports that according to the Bible and the Mishnah only oil lamps and torches were used for lighting. During the Middle Ages, candles gradually replaced oil lamps, especially in Europe. Thus, while it is possible that candles were already used in the Holy Land during the Byzantine period (fourth to seventh centuries), oil lamps would still have been much more common.

There is no scholarly consensus about the identification of the motif represented on the nozzle of the slipper lamps. For the reasons I cited in the article, I prefer to identify it as a menorah, but this is far from certain. Other scholars have suggested that it is a palm branch, or a tree of life. The appropriation of Jewish themes and symbols was indeed common in early Christianity; aside from the examples I cited in a footnote, there is the well-known appropriation of such Old Testament themes as the offering (or sacrifice) of Isaac (which was understood by Christians as prefiguring the crucifixion of Jesus). On the other hand, although Jewish motifs and themes were often appropriated by early Christians, we have no examples of mosaic floors in Byzantine churches in Palestine that are decorated with a menorah.

BAR-Speak Is Easy

Douglas Windle requests that you make BAR simpler for nonarchaeologists to understand (Queries & Comments, BAR 24:02). I protest! I have a bachelor’s degree in speech/theater/English (no resemblance to archaeology), which I got 22 years ago! Does this mean that I am too dense to understand your magazine? Baloney! I have yet to come across an article that is over my head. Your magazine delights me because it is so easy to read and is not dry at all, but lively and enjoyable.

Name that Script

Thank you for the fine article “The Missing Link,” BAR 24:02 by Frank Moore Cross and Esther Eshel. Concerning the Hebrew characters on page 50, is this the script called paleo-Hebrew? Would it be possible to show this ancient script and its equivalent in modern Hebrew side by side?

The script of the Qumran ostracon is not paleo-Hebrew, but late Herodian. Full treatment of this subject, including comparative charts, can be found in The Book of Hebrew Script, by Ada Yardeni (reviewed in ReViews, in this issue).—Ed.

010

IAA Director Drori: Order and Efficiency Do Not Detract from Academic Freedom

In a First Person editorial, BAR editor Hershel Shanks criticized Amir Drori, head of the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), for insisting that IAA excavators publish the results of their work only in IAA publications and for requiring that the excavators receive permission from an IAA committee before they publish (“General Drori in Command,” BAR 24:03).—Ed.

By granting an excavation permit to archaeologists employed on its behalf, the IAA commits itself to the full publication of the excavation’s results. Once an excavation has taken place and ancient strata are removed from their original position, the absence of an adequate report becomes tantamount to the destruction of original evidence. It is therefore a major concern of the IAA to facilitate the obligatory preparation of reports by its excavators.

In the past, many excavations did not achieve scientific publication. In order to rectify the situation, the IAA has, in recent years, provided its excavators with extensive technical and organizational support throughout every phase of processing excavation materials. Viewing the processing and publishing as a single organic process serves to maintain high standards and to give unbiased treatment to all excavations and finds.

Our publications include the Hebrew biannual Hadashot Arkheologiyot, which contains short reports that are translated into English in Excavations and Surveys in Israel; more extensive reports are published in ‘Atiqot, a journal that appears several times a year in English and Hebrew (with English summaries). In recent years, a monograph series called IAA Reports has commenced publication. And in addition to all this, The Survey of Israel provides the results of systematic surveys of the country in 100-square-kilometer “maps.” All in all, our output has increased about tenfold. The variety of the publications is adapted to serve the needs of our archaeologists without infringing on their academic freedom.

A high standard of publication is maintained throughout, and the excavator is academically responsible for his or her report. Ultimately, however, the administrative responsibility for producing a complete, unbiased text remains with the Antiquities Authority.

We are proud of the number of scientific reports that we have published this year; it exceeds the number of permits issued by nearly a hundred. Moreover, we also see this trend in the publications of other academic institutions.

Once IAA archaeologists have published their excavation reports, they are free to publish further studies wherever they choose. Needless to say, finds of exceptional interest find their way into a wide range of academic publications. We will be happy to see these articles in BAR as well.

Order and efficiency do not detract from academic freedom.

Hershel Shanks Responds:

We are delighted that the usually taciturn director of the Israel Antiquities Authority is willing to engage us in discussion of this important subject, and we are pleased to provide him with the opportunity to share his views with a mass American audience.

We agree with much of his letter and applaud the fine IAA publications he refers to. A balance must indeed be struck between the obligation to publish a scientific report and the obligation to inform a wider public of the the results of an excavation.

Where we disagree is with regard to who is to make these fine-tuned decisions. Mr. Drori would—and does—require that they be made by the IAA bureaucracy. We would have them made by the professional archaeologists who direct the individual digs. To say that the excavators must get permission from an IAA committee before publishing an article in BAR is demeaning to their professional status. Moreover, the archaeologists responsible for the excavations are generally in a better position to balance these interests than an IAA committee.

Until they publish in an IAA publication, IAA archaeologists must also obtain permission before publishing an article in a scholarly journal. This smacks not of “order and efficiency” but of enforced monopoly.

More importantly, Mr. Drori does not address the second point in our editorial to which he is supposedly responding, namely his refusal to release to BAR a list of excavations for which final reports are long overdue. What is he hiding? As we said in the editorial to which he responds: “Apparently it’s a state secret—or is it a military secret?” His official response denying our request was short and to the point, but contained no explanation for the decision.

Israel recently enacted a Freedom of Information Act, similar to that in effect in the United States and many other democratic countries. The Jerusalem Post called the act “long overdue.” Mr. Drori now seems to be ignoring this act. We once again call on him to release this list to us. We look forward to his reply.

004

A 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.

The Best Guides Around