Queries & Comments

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BARboy

The July/August 1998 letters section begins with a suggestion that BAR be more like Playboy and ends with a letter objecting to an article titled “Teat for Tut.” Who says archaeology has to be dull?

I’ll pass on the latter missive, but must comment on the former. Your correspondent commends Playboy because it single-mindedly presents a fantasy world where all women are beautiful and available. He’d like to see a journal that similarly airbrushes scholarship to titillate his intellectual side. Such a journal might, like Playboy, be a delightful escape, but it would do little to reflect our complex world of fragmentary evidence, open-minded conjecture and hard-core insistence on proof.

I certainly don’t agree with everything I read in BAR, but I do enjoy reading it. You cover a wide spectrum of beliefs and lay out the supporting data. Some of the resulting arguments are spirited, as well they should be.

Now, if you only had included a centerfold of Tut’s wet nurse …

Render Unto Hefner …

To explain why people get upset at BAR, letter-writer Philip Cook offers an analogy based on his hypothetical reaction to Playboy: “If I buy a copy of Playboy, I expect to find pictures of beautiful young women and articles on the theme of the title of the magazine. I would not expect to find, among the beautiful pictures, articles that tell me that these females do not actually exist.”

BAR is not in the fantasy business: Mr. Cook calls your attention to the first word of BAR’s name, the adjective, and then changes the second, the subject, [from Archaeology to Animosity] to make his point. But the subject is archaeology: The adjective “Biblical” points to the general geographic area and time span of the archaeological investigation, which investigation can have nothing to do with the supernatural elements of that time and place, but only with the physical artifacts that show us how life was lived and what beliefs were practiced there and then.

Playboy does its job, BAR its. Should you ever carry articles authored by Indiana Jones, then I’ll be upset.

Proper Discourse

As an English teacher, I haven’t felt qualified to weigh in during the various disputes that animate BAR, but I can comment on Juanita Calvin’s objection to your use of the word “teat” to refer to the breast of King Tut’s wet nurse (Queries & Comments, BAR 24:04). Contrary to Ms. Calvin’s assertion that “cows have teats, women have breasts,” that distinction is relatively recent, according to my Oxford English Dictionary, and at that only in more formal usage. For example, the OED cites the English poet Matthew Prior in 1709 using the word in the most elevated diction: “Kind Amalthea reached her teat, distent with milk” (from a translation of Callimachus).

A few hundred years of desuetude in polite discourse is hardly to be noticed in the time scale within which BAR works, and in fact the antiquarian usage is quite appropriate to a magazine which treats of the ancients.

Continue my subscription.

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David’s Jerusalem

The Lessons of Historical Geography

Thank you for your recent articles by Margreet Steiner, Jane Cahill and Nadav Na’aman on the archaeology of tenth-century B.C.E. Jerusalem (“David’s Jerusalem: Fiction or Reality?” BAR 24:04). They were especially informative.

I have heard such claims as Steiner’s before. I should like to add one point that wasn’t made in Cahill’s or Na’aman’s convincing rebuttals.

The desire to find a gap in Jerusalem’s settlement, particularly in the Late Bronze Age and the Early Iron Age, takes no account of the historical geography of Jerusalem. Jerusalem must always have been settled, from the standpoint of historical geography. After all, it has the Gihon Spring (as well as the nearby spring of En-rogel, which was apparently stopped by an eighth-century earthquake). It has one of the best naturally defensible positions in all the hill country. It has excellent agricultural lands nearby, as well as pastoral area. If anyone at all lived in the central hill country, then they lived in Jerusalem. Since people were living in all sorts of less geographically desirable sites in the tenth century, how can one imagine that Jerusalem was abandoned? Were all the tenth-century Canaanites-Israelites fools? People were living at waterless, difficult to defend, agriculturally less appealing places like Giloh, but not Jerusalem? We have evidence suggesting continuous occupation of Jerusalem for at least 5,000 years (even during the so-called Babylonian Exile, as scholars are so quick to point out now), but not in the tenth century?

Has common sense been outlawed from Biblical studies, or is there just a lamentable lack of knowledge about historical geography?

Perfectly Bad Example

Congratulations to Margreet Steiner for providing something needed by students in beginning archaeology classes. When told it is a basic principle that “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence,” students ask for a clarifying example. Steiner has amply demonstrated the misuse of negative data, which cannot be used the same way as positive data, to try to prove a positive. She also demonstrates the selective use of only favorable evidence to support a prior conclusion. Professors, rejoice! What a wonderful example of how not to do archaeology.

Bumper-to-Bumper Traffic?

Margreet Steiner maintains that tenth-century Jerusalem was an administrative center with no one living nearby. Perhaps we have the first historic example of commuting to work from the suburbs!

Deja Vu All Over Again

One would think that archaeologists would learn from the past! Margreet Steiner wrote confidently that there was no town of Jerusalem in the time of David. How did she come to this conclusion? First, she discarded the most direct historical/archaeological evidence, the Bible, assuming it is unreliable. Then she determined that there was no evidence from the site itself that Jerusalem existed as a town during that period. (To understand her principle, we will ignore the dubious nature of her denial of evidence from the site.) Finally, she concluded that this shows that the Biblical record is mistaken.

Deja vu, anybody? A century ago, archaeologists who sought to discredit the Bible insisted that the Bible was mistaken to talk about Hittites. After all, archaeologists at that time had no evidence but the Bible for their existence. Therefore the Bible must be wrong … except we know that those archaeologists were very wrong. Why don’t archaeologists pay attention to the past?

These people hold that the Bible must be wrong unless it can be shown from other sources that it is right. They have chosen not to accept the Bible’s teaching except when forced to. That’s a faith claim, not one of reason and investigation. The Bible is discounted before they even look at any evidence. Other evidence may force them to admit that the Bible is right here or there, but their commitment is to disbelieve God’s word. At that point we’re not dealing with science, but blind faith—anti-Biblical religion.

Mis-Chronicled

In “David’s Jerusalem,” BAR 24:04, the author gives Judges 9 as the reference for Hezekiah repairing the Millo in anticipation of an Assyrian attack. The correct reference is 2 Chronicles 32:5.

Qumran Sundial

It’s a Compass

Abraham Levy’s article “Bad Timing,” BAR 24:04, suggests that a small stone disk from Qumran with concentric circular bands is a game board instead of a sundial. More than likely, though, the enigmatic device is a portable solar compass.

It has a hole in the center to accommodate a vertical gnomon stick that probably had a pointed tip. In the morning, the tip of the shadow would fall on a particular segment of one of the circular bands, and its position would be marked. The tip of the shadow would then work its way across the disk and again fall on another segment of the same circular band sometime in the afternoon, where it would also be marked. Laying a straightedge through both marks would give a east-west axis; counting the segments between the two marks, finding the midpoint and laying a straightedge from the gnomon to the midpoint would give a north-south axis.

It’s a Counter

Highly ritualized communities need practical ways to assure their rituals get done. The Catholic rosary, monastic church bells and the Muslim muezzin’s call to 014prayer are some ways people do this today. The irregular spacing of the lines on the disk from Qumran speaks more of its use as a counter than a chronometer. Of course, it could have been used to determine something prosaic, like whose turn it was to take out the trash.

Academy Award

Please note a small error in the caption to the picture of a Pompeiian mosaic in your July/August 1998 issue.

Plato’s school was the Academy; the Lyceum was Aristotle’s. The issue, by the way, is superb.

Too Much Latitude

Abraham Levy’s statement that “the latitudinal and longitudinal provenance can be calculated based on the sundial’s divisions” is true as regards latitude, but erroneous as regards longitude.

It’s a Grinder

Perhaps the stone disk from Qumran is a grinding device. Its radial markings are similar to those on a mill wheel and its size seems to fit the needs of a community kitchen or apothecary.

It’s Not a Game Board

How could the wheel-like object from Qumran be a game board? Each of the three game boards shown in Abraham Levy’s article is clearly a spiral with a snake’s head at the beginning.

Broken Clock

Regarding the miniature sundial from Benjamin Mazar’s excavations that is mentioned in Abraham Levy’s “Bad Timing”: Despite BAR’s claim, photos of the sundial have been published more than once. In addition to Mazar’s cited article, please consult the bilingual catalogue of the exhibition mounted in the Jerusalem Museum in the Citadel, titled Finds from the Archaeological Excavations Near the Temple Mount (in Hebrew) (Rivka Gonen, curator), p. 26.

Mazar’s “single” sentence (as BAR described it) reads (in my translation), “Among the stone vessels is a miniature sundial [Mazar uses the Mishnaic term “hours’ stone”] decorated in the style of the Herodian period. This object was found in locus 12030, which contained finds only from Herod’s dynasty. Upon the cavity in the stone the hours are marked with 12 radial grooves that originate from the gnomon’s hole. On the reverse side of this sundial, which could be placed stable facing the sun, is carved in an upside-down position a schematic depiction of a menorah. On both sides of the menorah are cavities that were probably inlayed.”

But is the object the only relic from Herod’s Temple? Levy says “that it was connected with the Temple is obvious from its findspot.” But its findspot was not within the ruined Temple! It was found by Mazar in a Herodian context south of the southern Temple Mount wall (according to the locus number), probably even south of the monumental staircase leading to the Hulda Gate.

But even if it had been found on the streets along the Temple Mount, this still 016would not make it the only relic from Herod’s Temple. From 1994 to 1996 we excavated a 70-meter stretch of street along the western wall of the Temple Mount [see “Archaeological Hot Spots,” BAR 22:06—Ed.], finding upon the pavement a huge number of artifacts (including a sundial, alas broken); yet we do not claim sanctity for any of these finds, although some of them may have been thrown down from the holy precinct (not the Temple proper). Mazar himself did not connect the sundial with the Temple (one has to distinguish between the Temple and the Temple Mount enclosure). He suggested (see the above-cited catalogue, pp. 8 [in Hebrew], 56 [in English]) that the sundial may have been used within the Royal Stoa, the Temple Mount walls or gates.

The menorah on the sundial does not help in linking it to the Temple. All you can say is that it may have belonged to a priest. What would you do with the inscribed menorah on a plaster fragment found by Nahman Avigad in the Jewish Quarter (see Nitza Rosovsky, “A Thousand Years of History in Jerusalem’s Jewish Quarter,” BAR 18:03)? Only connect it with a priest, not necessarily with the Temple. Two balustrade (soreg) inscriptions are the objects with the closest connection to the Temple now known.

I also doubt Levy’s observation that “the hour and seasonal lines on the dial are carefully computed for use in Jerusalem.” This is a small object. One can see on the photo that the radial hour lines are clumsily executed, done in freehand (compare with the one from the Jewish Quarter [“Bad Timing,” BAR 24:04], which is a medium-size dial). Even the single quasi-seasonal line is done clumsily, a little bit higher on the right-hand side. On a spherical dial, which this one attempts to be, the seasonal line should be parallel to the outer frontal edge of the dial (compare with both dials in “Bad Timing,” BAR 24:04), whereas on this one, the line seems to go from the left corner (on the photo) to the right broken corner. This is a poor, inaccurate and certainly not carefully computed line.

Lastly, in our recent excavations in the City of David, in the thick dumps of the Second Temple period, Eli Shukron and I found another miniature sundial. No menorah is incised on it, but it has the three required parallel seasonal lines.

When we connected the sundial to Herod’s Temple, we included in that designation the Temple precinct as well. We did not mean to imply that the sundial had necessarily been used inside the Temple building itself. Perhaps we should have been more precise.—Ed.

Cultural Conundrum

Astride Two Civilizations

Regarding Hershel Shanks’s call for comments on the conundrum of the Temple edifice having been based on Syrian models, whereas the iconography of seals of the time had been borrowed wholly from Egyptian sources (Strata, BAR 24:04):

Israelite theology evolved with one foot in Mesopotamia and the other in the Nile Valley. In the former, there was a migration from the Persian Gulf that, over time, populated the eastern Mediterranean. In 018addition to the Biblical story of Abraham, Herodotus (book seven), when giving the composition of Xerxes’s fleet, mentions that 300 triremes were supplied by “the Phoenicians, with the Syrians of Palestine,” who “have a tradition that in ancient times they lived in the Persian Gulf area.”

These migrations took place along the river valleys of the Fertile Crescent and ended on the Orontes and the Jordan, and brought with them the theology and culture of that area, including the god El and the architecture of their temples, which, together with the construction crew supplied by Tyre, influenced the shape of Solomon’s Temple.

The second component of the Israelite religion, Yahweh, is, in my opinion, an offshoot of Akhenaten’s religious reforms, which crossed the Sinai to what became Judea. Judah, being the dominant tribe in Israel, ultimately dominated the land and imposed its Yahwist theology, with all of its Egyptian paraphernalia, on the population. Hence the seals. The creed of El was assimilated by the Yahwist one, and El became another name for Yahweh. The tendency of the northern areas to “backslide” into the worship of other Semitic gods is amply illustrated in the Bible.

Egypt’s Pervasive Influence

Ten years ago, David Ussishkin, in “Lachish—Key to the Israelite Conquest of Canaan?” BAR 13:01, discussed Egyptian influence on the design of the Canaanite temples at Lachish and Beth-Shean. He also mentioned that the same design was used for the Temple in Jerusalem. Maybe there is more Egyptian influence on Israelite (Judahite) culture than you think.

Lost in the Mail

In response to “Cultural Conundrum—Can Someone Out There Resolve a Paradox?” the following is a letter from Solomon to his father-in-law, Pharaoh:

Dear Dad,

I was sorry to hear that your temple builders are all tied up finishing yours in Egypt and weren’t available to build mine here in Jerusalem. So I took your suggestion and contacted Hiram; fortunately his boys are between jobs, so he’s sending them down. Should be starting construction pretty soon.

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I do have a request, though. Remember how much I admired your seals? Well, I’m in dire need of some really neat ones, so if I may, I would like to borrow your seal maker for a while to work some up.

Thanks in advance for your help, dad, and by the way, your daughter sends her love.

Sincerely,

Solomon

Cultural Melting Pot

In response to your “Cultural Conundrum,” it seems to this highly unscholarly reader that there was no Ministry of Culture in Israel-Judah-Palestine. Thus, no arbiter of what was intrinsically “Israelite,” “Judahite” or “Hebraic” existed. The ruler of any kingdom, Solomon included, was at the mercy of the artisans in his kingdom for the look and style of the buildings and artifacts erected and manufactured in that kingdom.

We know that crafts and trades were handed down from generation to generation. Men who practiced the craft of fashioning seals and jar handles probably had no skill in architecture. Architects, who learned their craft from familial predecessors, had no skill in seal making. The architects and builders of the Temple perhaps could trace their technique to Syrian influences from earlier generations. Likewise, seal makers could trace their style back to Egyptian sources who first taught their forefathers the tricks of the trade. Potters might learn new styles from other potters of a different culture. They would not learn a new style from architects.

Indeed, every issue of your publication is full of articles showing the influence of pre-Canaanite, Canaanite, Assyrian, Babylonian, Egyptian, Philistine, Phoenician, Greek and Roman cultures on the indigenous peoples of this region. The geography of the area makes it a natural crossroads of trade and cultural exchange. As such, the artifacts of the people who lived there would, by necessity, reflect the influences of the peripheral peoples who traveled and traded throughout the Holy Land. If there were extensive textile artifacts existing today, perhaps they might show yet another cultural influence, for weaving was a guild-like craft where techniques and styles were handed down from generation to generation. So why is it surprising that Syrian architecture and Egyptian seals would exist side by side in such a place?

Potpourri

More on Roberts

The article on David Roberts (Backward Glance, BAR 24:04) is fascinating but failed to include some interesting details. The three volumes of 123 lithographs published in 1842 were followed by three more volumes with 124 lithographs in 1847–1849. The complete six-volume set, with a total of 247 lithographs by Louis Haghe and text by Rev. Geo. Croly, was published by F.B. Moon, London, as The Holy Land, Syria, Idumea, Arabia, Egypt and Nubia. Roberts received £3000 for the publication rights to all six volumes.

The 610 subscribers who helped to underwrite costs, including his arduous 11-month journey, from which he returned with 272 sketches (later converted into the 247 lithographs), received the deluxe first edition. This subscribers’ edition was hand colored under Roberts’ direction and presented unbound in leather folios or bound into handsome volumes.

James VonRuster, with the Old Print Gallery in Washington, D.C., adds:

Both the original six volumes of Roberts’ lithographs and separate prints come up on the market from time to time, though they are scarce. The three volumes on Egypt are the most popular. In good condition, these volumes can go for up to $40,000 to $50,000 at auction. Some with particularly fancy bindings can go for even higher prices. The three-volume set of Holy Land pictures is less popular; it sells for about $30,000.

Unimpeachable Source

Why do I continue to subscribe to BAR? Well, I know that if I ever find something I can use to support Biblical claims, I can never be accused of having gotten it from a publication that is prejudiced in favor of the Bible.

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Our Error

A letter from the Reverend Kevin L. Benbow (Queries & Comments, BAR 24:04) took issue with an interpretation of Acts 5:1–11 proposed by Frank Moore Cross and Esther Eshel (in “The Missing Link,” BAR 24:02). Several readers have taken issue with the substance of the response that followed by Cross (one such letter appears below); others have criticized Cross’s tone. The fault is ours, however, not Professor Cross’s. We mistook for a response his explanation as to why he would not respond. As Professor Cross has written us, “My comments were not meant for Rev. Benbow, much less for publication. They were intended only to tell you why I could not respond. After a four-month illness and desk full of work, I concluded that other claims on my time were more urgent.”—Ed.

Way off the Mark

I would like to comment on Frank Moore Cross’s response to Kevin Benbow’s letter concerning the point of Acts 5:1–11. Cross started his response by saying that his reply to Benbow would have to be “long and technical” and that it wouldn’t do any good because Benbow obviously read the text “literally and fundamentalistically.” I find that just a little bit arrogant.

Cross is right that there is a philosophical difference between his approach to the text and Benbow’s. But I would suggest that Cross’s approach allows him to read into the text just about anything he wants to find. No early Christian would have understood Acts 5:1–11 to be an account of how Peter exercised such power as to invoke capital punishment. There is precious little (I think there is none) evidence that Peter had the authority to exercise capital punishment (which even the Jewish leadership did not have) with impunity. I also find precious little in the early account of the church in Acts (or other literature) that suggests they compelled people to sell their possessions. I find it more than a little fortuitous that Cross chooses the Greek variant of Acts 5:4 that goes the way he would like to think it goes.

I also question his belief that Peter had authority to kill. The sin in Acts 5:1–11 is, as Reverend Benbow said, lying.

Glossolalia

I have noted in several issues of BAR and Bible Review that readers have indicated a need for a glossary of terms that do not appear in standard dictionaries. Faced with the same problem, I discovered the Concise Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (Oxford University Press). Another book, Faith and Practice in the Christian Church, by Carl A. Volz (Augsburg, I believe now out of print), proved to be extremely useful. Although it does not contain a glossary, I created one for myself from the author’s almost encyclopedic descriptions of people, events and doctrines.

I added to my store of information from time to time by adding words found in glossaries provided by sources such as Paula Fredriksen’s From Jesus to Christ (Yale University Press).

Once I got onto the Internet, a world of glossaries unfolded before my eyes:

1. Rich Tatum’s Church Rodent at http:/members.dialnet.net/rtatum/glossary/

2. the glossary in G.C.C. Nullens, www.isabel-uk.com/chh/glossary.html

3. three glossaries in www.clas.ufl.edu/users/gthursby/0000/

4. Notre Dame’s ongoing work at www.nd.edu/~theo/glossary.html

The Internet holds a lifetime supply of theological resources.

Who’s on Second?

I do not understand why the Second Temple is called Herod’s Temple. Rebuilt by the returnees from Babylon, it was Israel’s Temple until Rome destroyed it.

Herod reconstructed the Temple that the returnees from Babylon had rebuilt, and he greatly expanded the Temple Mount, the platform on which the Temple stood. Some scholars refer to Herod’s as the Third Temple. Traditionally, however, Herod’s Temple is still referred to as the Second Temple, and the Second Temple period includes the period when Herod’s Temple stood on the expanded Temple Mount.—Ed.

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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.

BARboy