Queries & Comments

006

Humanists Aren’t So Bad

BAR helps my Bible study and my comprehension of the ancient Jewish people and of the Holy Land. God bless you.

While your staff and many of your readers may be humanists (I realize that it’s often difficult for the secular, educated “modern” person to accept the miraculous events recorded in the Scriptures), I still find that your magazine more often than not helps, rather than hinders, my faith. After all, what we call science can only proceed so far.

Pointy Heads Are Smarter

In regard to the “What Is It?” pointy hat (Strata, BAR 25:05), many alchemists and magicians of old thought that a cone shape had the ability to focus energy, much like a pyramid. It is not by accident that Merlin is shown wearing a conical hat, as are the witches and sorcerers of old. Those who wore conical hats believed that the energy directed downward into the brain enhanced cogitation and stimulated wisdom and intelligence. The more modern use of the “dunce hat” worn by the least gifted student in class was designed to serve the same purpose.

I, Too, Was Sued—and Lost—Because of You

I believe the lawsuit on appeal in the Israeli Supreme Court, which you refer to as Qimron vs. Shanks (“First Person: When Scholars Call In the Lawyers,” BAR 25:05), is officially entitled Qimron vs. Shanks/Eisenman.

I know that Mr. Shanks does not like to give me any exposure (except to legal tort), but why mislead your readers as to its correct name? I am appealing, too (at no small cost to myself), a decision in which I was found jointly liable to Elisha Qimron. The basis of Qimron’s suit was the inclusion of the unpublished text of 4QMMT, which was appended to Shanks’s unprecedented Publisher’s Foreword, which was both ill-advised and done without my knowledge.

Shanks’s Publisher’s Foreword was itself appended to James Robinson’s and my work and was ten times longer than our introduction. The unpublished text of 4QMMT that was appended to Shanks’s Publisher’s Foreword (in contrast to the Foreword itself) was faxed to Professor Robinson, who does not read Hebrew readily; he did not know what it was and, in any event, did not share it with me.

Even I did not recognize it for what it was—so deftly was it included—until well after the volumes appeared, when I was astonished at being personally served with a lawsuit while conducting a survey and radar groundscan of the Dead Sea shores and when we had all been assured at the Society of Biblical Literature meeting of 1991 in San Francisco that legal threats by the Israeli authorities over publishing the scrolls were over.

I would appreciate it, therefore, if you would henceforth at least refer to this appeal by its correct name and inform your readers of this, as I have paid dearly both in reputation and in kind for it.

What’s Dever’s Problem?

BAR is to be thanked for deciding to balance the personal attack by William Dever 008with an appropriate review of my new book by Norman Gottwald (ReViews, BAR 25:05). The aim of The Mythic Past: Biblical Archaeology and the Myth of Israel (Basic Books, 1999) was to capture, if I could, what one might call the “Biblical view of the past,” a perspective that I believe is very different from our own. The understanding of the world implicit in the Bible is hardly fraudulent or a product of a “pious hoax,” as Dever claims I argue. It is rather a coherent, theological perspective. In its effort to use the Bible as a source for history, Biblical archaeology has rarely dealt with this very unhistorical quality of our text’s implied intention.

Dever has every right to disagree with my understanding of the Bible. But what does such scholarly disagreement have to do with my person? This is hardly the first time he has attacked me in this way, nor is it the first time in these pages. Few scholars in the field have not witnessed one or other of his attempts at character assassination. He not only declares me incompetent in history, archaeology and exegesis but frequently attacks my personal integrity. In the Chronicle of Higher Education, he objected to my height and called my life nasty and little. He employs a series of stock dismissals, which he uses against others as well. I am, according to Dever, a nihilist and a post-modern deconstructionist, a revisionist or a minimalist. He fluctuates from calling me an “outsider,” “disaffected” or an “emigré” when he addresses American audiences. He has argued both that I can be safely ignored and that I am a threat to Western civilization and has declared himself dedicated to opposing what I “stand for.” Now he adds the alliterative charge of “Bible-bashing.” This is excessive.

Why does he attack me personally? The academic side of his hatred goes back perhaps to the early 1970s, when I published a critique of his use of pottery forms as evidence for Amorite ethnic migrations during the Early Bronze IV–Middle Bronze I period and his description of Palestine of this time as nomadic (The Historicity of the Patriarchal Narratives [1974], pp. 156–171). A few years later I published a long article in the Journal for the Study of the Old Testament (1978) that argued against his identification of the Middle Bronze II period as the patriarchal period. There was, however, peace between us in the late ’70s. It was then, from 1978 to 1983, that Dever published his Early Bronze IV–Middle Bronze I work in the Negev, which generally complemented my understanding of that period in the Negev and, indeed, in Palestine generally (see, for example, my The Settlement of Sinai and the Negev in the Bronze Age [1975], pp. 13–24; Annual of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan [1974]; see also Kay Prag’s article in Levant [1974]). By 1980, however, Dever’s personally denigrating tones expanded in proportion to the obviousness of our common understanding of the Bronze Age (as noted by Niels Peter Lemche, Early Israel [1985], p. 150). In 1996 I found myself again at odds with Dever, this time over the extent to which the Bible had played a role in identifying the Solomonic gate at Gezer (“Historiography of Ancient Palestine,” in Volkmar Fritz, The Ancient Israelite States, pp. 26–43). The following year, I disagreed about his use of pottery as an ethnic marker in Iron Age Palestine (“Defining History and Ethnicity in the South Levant,” in Lester Grabbe, Can a History of Israel Be Written? [1997], pp. 166–187).

This pretty fairly captures the heart of the (truly) very few academic issues that have separated Dever and me in the past. In fact, through most of his scholarly career, Dever has not been very far from the kind of history I present in The Mythic Past. Our differences, moreover, have not been based on different methods, but on minor ones of specific interpretations. I hardly see them as so great as to justify the bad manners that he frequently displays.

If Dever does understand why he disagrees with me and with my most recent book so adamantly, and if he can structure such disagreement in a rational, historical and exegetical argument, I will be happy to respond with equal propriety.

Biran

No One More Deserving

I was so happy to ready your tribute to Avraham Biran (“Biran at Ninety,” BAR 25:05). In my 21 years of guiding pilgrims around the Holy Land, I’ve often seen Dr. Biran on site at 010Dan. Whenever I approach him with my questions on his latest discoveries and conclusions, his response is always gracious, patient and funny. In addition, he always spends a few moments talking with my group, and I introduce him to the tour leader. He is one charming character—and what a life! They don’t make archaeologists in his mold anymore.

I thank you, BAR, for honoring Avraham Biran in his lifetime. We all wish him at least another 30 years—to 120!

Down Memory Lane

Your remarkable report on the life and work of Avraham Biran has given this retired Biblical professor and long-ago archaeologist the kind of satisfaction that comes rarely in a lifetime.

He was a fine friend from our days together at the American School of Oriental Research in Jerusalem in 1935–36. But thanks to your interview, I now know much better how Biran came to his greatness. The story is thrilling and evokes in me increased admiration for Biran and a flood of wonderful memories.

Imagine my surprise to see the photo of the staff and students of the ASOR of 1935–36, with Biran (then “Bergman”), Dr. Albright, Clarence Fisher, C.C. McCown and others—including my wife and me. That year I (standing in the back row, fourth from the right) was the Two Brothers Fellow from Yale University and my wife, Vivian (front row, second from the left), was office manager for the school. With characteristic humility, Dr. Albright stands in the very back, partially hidden. The photo exhibits Biran’s good looks and winsome charm. He could have become a movie star!

Biran, who outclassed all the students and fellows in knowledge and language skills, was more than a brilliant young scholar. He was a lovable, outgoing person, as the following will illustrate.

On a trip to Egypt at Christmastime, both my wife and I developed severe cases of jaundice. On our return to Jerusalem, she was hospitalized, but I was bedded down in our room at the American School for a couple of weeks. Avraham paid particular attention to us, even visiting my wife in the hospital. I last saw this dear friend in 1980 in Jerusalem, when I was making an informal archaeological survey of the building enterprises of Herod the Great, as a follow-up to my work with James Pritchard in 1951 at Roman Jericho. Avraham knew me immediately and asked warmly, “And how’s Vivian?” He’s that kind of a man!

Just one comment of a scholarly nature. The 1936 search for the location of ancient Anathoth was actually two pronged. Under Dr. Albright’s supervision, I conducted soundings in the village of Anata and determined that the pottery showed no signs of occupation there before the Exile. At about the same time, Biran investigated Ras el-Kharrubeh. I delight to realize that we were involved together with this problem, however uncertain the results of this investigation may be.

Thanks for a great report on the work of a remarkable man!

Why Study Sanskrit?

No one should assume, from your wonderful article on Avraham Biran, that William F. Albright was subsidizing a personal WPA project at Johns Hopkins in the 1930s by exploiting his students. When we read of the seemingly incredible load of languages Biran and others 062were required to shoulder, it reflects an age of renaissance scholars committed to breadth! Of course, such study is today precluded by the impossible cost of graduate education, pitifully inadequate graduate fellowships and truly exploitive teaching loads, which in combination with tight job markets, create powerful incentives to finish as quickly, cheaply and with as little loan-indebtedness as possible. This, in turn, both necessitates and perpetuates all the narrow specialization and failure to address the truly big questions that the publish-or-perish and cover-your-salary-and-overhead-with-grants ethics have generated in the post-Second World War multiversity.

Biran may have misunderstood Albright when he says, “There was a professor of Sanskrit at Johns Hopkins, a Professor Dumont, and Dumont didn’t have any students, so Albright said to us, ‘You take Sanskrit.’” Albright had a much broader view than just of the ancient Near East, and the study of Sanskrit fit into it. In an intellectual milieu where scholars still took seriously the work of generalists—precisely because they had the courage to grapple with big questions—Albright practiced what he preached. It was in the comparative study of kingship that Albright collaborated with this same professor, Paul Emil Dumont, producing the kind of insights that contemporary “Johnny-One-Note” specialization eschews and sometimes even ridicules in blind terror. Their “A Parallel between Indic and Babylonian Sacrificial Ritual,”Journal of the American Oriental Society 54 (June 1934), pp. 107–128, is still a classic.

Were the Danites One of the Sea Peoples?

Professor Biran notes that metalworks were found in the Israelite layer at Dan and relates this to the Book of Chronicles. Yet the same information may have a wider import in pointing to the origins of the tribe of Dan.

The discovery of the Sea People called D-n-n, or Denyen, who settled not far from what the Bible (see Judges 1) presents as the original home of the tribe of Dan, raises the issue of the relationship between these two groups. Judges 15–18 can be read as the story of how the different Sea Peoples eventually fell out and how one of them migrated and adopted an Israelite identity. One of the markers of the Sea Peoples seems to have been their skill in metalwork (see 1 Samuel 13:19ff.), and it is thought that they introduced iron into the area. The fact that Danites, in their new location, have extensive metalworking facilities or that, to follow Professor Biran’s suggestion, identifying someone as having Danite connections is a way of saying that he is an expert metalworker would thus support the view that the Danites were originally of Sea People origin.

Since this is not, of course, the origin suggested by the Bible for the Danite tribe, it may serve as a good illustration of how archaeological information may contradict, as well as confirm, Biblical information or, more exactly, may support the Biblical text in one particular while seeming to refute it in another.

See Hershel Shanks, “Danaans and Danites—Were the Hebrews Greek?” BAR 02:02, a review of Allen H. Jones, Bronze Age Civilizations—The Philistines and the Danites.—Ed.

Haiku for Biran

I enjoyed and learned much from the article about Mr. Biran.

Here is a Haiku poem I wrote:

Abraham Biran
digs up dirt for history:
archaeologist.

Jesus’ Tomb

Did Christians Prefer Round Stones?

Amos Kloner writes that round stones were not commonly used to seal burial caves but appeared only in more elaborate tombs, presumably those of the very wealthy or influential (“Did a Rolling Stone Close Jesus’ Tomb?” BAR 25:05). He fails to mention that the Bible notes that Joseph of Arimathea was a wealthy man and had direct access to Pilate. Surely this would indicate that Joseph may well have had an elaborate tomb with a round stone.

Kloner notes that round blocking stones became more common in Jerusalem after 70 A.D. With the growing Christian-Jewish presence in Jerusalem, this might be evidence that many of these believers, in wanting to emulate the type of tomb that Jesus had been buried in, influenced the wider culture.

See Amos Kloner’s response at the end of this section.—Ed.

Rock and Roll

Amos Kloner should know that Greek kylio does—first, last and always—mean “to roll.” If he had used the common transliteration, with y rather than u for Greek upsilon, he would have noted the kinship with words like “cylinder,” which, from Mesopotamian cylinder seals to modern cars and roller bearings, all suggest something that can roll.

What his article does point up is that Jesus’ tomb was not his own. It was 063shaped for Joseph of Arimathea: a wealthy and influential Jewish convert who kept his newfound faith a secret (John 19:38) for fear of his Jewish brethren. Everything that we know of him suggests wealth and power: a member of the very class that might rival the royalty in tomb structure.

Short Stay

Kloner is definitely not mistaken when he suggests that “Jesus’ tomb was a ‘borrowed (or temporary) tomb.’” As Joseph of Arimathea responded to Pilate when asked why he would give his tomb for Jesus’ burial, “It’s no big deal, it’s only for the weekend.”

Amos Kloner responds:

Rabbinic literature substantiates the use of the square blocking stone thus: “It happened that in Bet Daggan in Judea someone died on the Eve of the Passover, and they went to bury him, and the woman entered [the tomb] and tied a rope to the blocking stone. The men pulled [the rope] from outside, and the woman entered and buried him, and the men went and [in the state of cleanliness] celebrated their Passover in the evening” (Tosephta Ohalot 3.9 [Zuckermandel Edition 16:600]). This story strongly indicates the use of square blocking stones (golalim in Hebrew). The burial took place on the eve of Passover, at which time the men had to avoid the impurity associated with the dead. The woman, who took care of the burial, tied the rope to the square stone so that the men could open the tomb without touching it. A round blocking stone can’t be pulled with a rope.

Please remember that the New Testament was written in Greek several decades later than the 30s of the first century; Jesus and his pupils spoke Hebrew and Aramaic, not Greek. In Biblical Hebrew and in Second Temple period Hebrew, the root of the verb used to describe the removal of the blocking stone clearly means “to dislodge,” “to move.” The golal of the burial place is moved from the opening like a stone from the mouth of a well (Genesis 29:3, 8, 10).

The very few burial caves blocked by round stones were all vast. Even the great majority of burial caves belonging to wealthy families were small and modest. The burial cave assumed to belong to the high priest Caiaphas, whose plan appears in my article, is a modest cave with four burial niches. The unused burial cave of Joseph of Arimathea was no doubt also a small chamber, not a big and splendid one and therefore almost certainly blocked by a square—not a round—stone.

Temple Mount

Skewed Geometry

David Jacobson’s two-part article was an interesting read, and I’m delighted to hear what he has to say, as well as to see the 19th-century photos showing a previously ignored monumental stairway (“Sacred Geometry—Unlocking the Secrets of the Temple Mount, Part 1,” BAR 25:04 and “Sacred Geometry—Unlocking the Secrets of the Temple Mount, Part 2,” BAR 25:05). But I must say I’m unconvinced.

Mathematical relationships are nice, but there’s no guarantee they were used unless there is physical evidence. The extension of the eastern wall in the north proves nothing in light of the more than 15-foot-high bedrock scarp in the northwest corner of the Temple Mount. This scarp is definitive proof that the northern wall did not go where Jacobson says it did. His explanation that the Antonia Fortress occupied the area weakens his mathematical theory and does nothing to explain the placement or the orientation of that scarp. He also makes no attempt to explain the northernmost stretch of the western wall that juts out slightly to the west, breaking the line of the wall, and further weakening his mathematical theory.

Regarding the center of the Temple compound, Jacobson’s arguments are equally weak. He places the monumental stairway just inside the soreg, but this requires the hel (the terrace) of the Temple, to which the stairs presumably led, to be much, much larger than is mentioned in the Mishnah, which says it was only 10 cubits wide. The other alternative would be to move the inner courts further south, but this would destroy his identification of al-Sakhra with the Holy Place (sanctuary).

Jacobson’s scheme just doesn’t work, which is probably why all the different elements of his theory were not included in the final illustration of the second article. The editor was forced into the weak explanation (in the caption) “that [perhaps] the monumental steps were not needed on all sides because of inconsistencies in the level of the bedrock.” A more accurate explanation for their omission is “because of inconsistencies in the author’s argument.”

Yes, the monumental stairway was probably part of a temple, but not the Temple of the God of Israel—rather the temple to Jupiter built by Hadrian in about 135 A.D.

David Jacobson responds:

“Mathematical relationships are nice, but there’s no guarantee they were used unless there is physical evidence.”

Why does Mr. Harrison totally ignore the presence of exactly the same geometrical proportions in the identically styled Herodian enclosure at Hebron, which remains intact? I regard this as good physical evidence from a “twin” site. Inside the Herodian Temple Mount, we also have the virtually identical straight passages behind the Double and Triple Gates, which indicate the care taken in the planning.

“The extension of the eastern wall in the north proves nothing in light of the more than 15-foot-high bedrock scarp in the northwest corner of the Temple Mount. This scarp is definitive proof that the northern wall did not go where Jacobson says it did.”

Does Harrison know how the rock scarp is incorporated in the northwest section of the enclosure wall, as brought to light by the recent excavation of the Western Wall tunnel? His comment suggests that he does not. It is very possible that at its western end the north wall terminated in the Antonia “rock.” All the same, I strongly disagree with his point.

“His explanation that the Antonia Fortress occupied the area weakens his mathematical theory and does nothing to explain the placement or the orientation of that scarp.”

I do explain that the Antonia Fortress preceded the construction of the Herodian Temple enclosure, and that Josephus tells us that it impinged on the northwest corner. His description, which I reproduce in my article, seems to imply that the Antonia jutted into that corner of the enclosure.

“He also makes no attempt to explain the northernmost stretch of the western wall that juts out slightly to the west, breaking the line of the wall, and further weakening his mathematical theory.”

I am actually not entirely sure about the line of the northern end of the western wall (hence it is shown with a broken line). We need to wait until an up-to-date map is published by Dr. Dan Bahat (this, I understand, is in preparation). In any case, it would not affect the position of my principal axes or my resolution of the plan. To call my hypothesis a “mathematical theory” is stretching things. All I am saying is that the architects used simple geometrical procedures 064in the planning of the Temple enclosure, just as Roman architects did in other large temple and bath complexes at that time.

“Regarding the center of the Temple compound, Jacobson’s arguments are equally weak. He places the monumental stairway just inside the soreg, but this requires the hel (the terrace) of the Temple, to which the stairs presumably led, to be much, much larger than is mentioned in the Mishnah, which says it was only 10 cubits wide. The other alternative would be to move the inner courts further south, but this would destroy his identification of al-Sakhra with the Holy Place (sanctuary).”

Judging from his comments, Harrison also misinterprets my scheme of the inner Temple. Perhaps the drawings on page 63 are not clear enough (in which case I accept the responsibility), but I do indicate the hel, which is shown as 10 cubits wide. The broad stairs viewed in the old photograph, according to my hypothesis, simply marked the sacred precinct inside the soreg. In the words of Josephus, the second (inner) court of the Temple was “accessible by a few steps and surrounded by a stone balustrade.” Note, there is nothing here about the hel.

“Jacobson’s scheme just doesn’t work, which is probably why all the different elements of his theory were not included in the final illustration of the second article.”

This comment is purely Harrison’s opinion, to which he is fully entitled. However, I must be the judge of what I wished to include in the plans. Those in the second installment were only intended to schematically show the inner portions of the Temple.

“Yes, the monumental stairway was probably part of a temple, but not the Temple of the God of Israel—rather the temple to Jupiter built by Hadrian in about 135 A.D.”

That is an interesting possibility that must be left open.

A Nor’easter

The sidebar “The Disputed North Wall: Can We Settle the Argument by Excavation?” BAR 25:05, states that the photograph at the bottom of the page is taken from the northwest. I am quite sure that it is taken from the northeast.

You’re quite right. We regret the error, which is ours and not David Jacobson’s.—Ed.

What Was Where on the Mount

I find David Jacobson’s observations on the Temple Mount very intriguing. I would like to know where the Talmud states that the altar is in the exact center of the Temple. Most Talmudic diagrams show the altar south of the axis line. There is even an argument for the altar being north of the center. If the altar is in the center, there would be very little room to the north for the slaughtering area. Also, where does it say that the soreg was a 500 cubit square? I understand the Temple Mount was a 500 cubit square. Is the Temple Mount equated with the soreg in the Talmud?

David Jacobson responds:

The broad scope of my article prevented me from delving into all the points that I touched on. Before I attempt to answer your question, let me emphasize that our knowledge of Herod’s Temple is imperfect. Apart from three of the outer walls of the enclosure, very little remains on the ground. We have three principal sources, The Jewish War and Jewish Antiquities of Josephus and the tractate Middot of the Mishnah, as well as fragments in Philo, Tacitus and other ancient texts. There are points of agreement between the sources but also disagreements and conflicting statements, even between the two works of Josephus. This issue has been expertly treated by Lee Levine (“Josephus’ Description of the Jerusalem Temple: War, Antiquities, and Other Sources,” in Josephus and the History of the Graeco-Roman Period: Essays in Memory of Morton Smith, ed. F. Parente and J. Sievers [Leiden: Brill, 1994], pp. 233–246).

However, this limitation should not deter scholars from attempting a reconstruction based on their best attempts at a synthesis. As I have endeavored to show in my articles, we can obtain strong clues from (1) the proportions of the surviving outer walls of the enclosure, (2) the natural topography, (3) comparisons with contemporaneous temples elsewhere and (4) the disposition of the existing—but nonetheless very old—Islamic structures of the Haram al-Sharif.

Now to answer your specific questions:

1. The alignment of the altar being on the axis of the sanctuary, rather than off center.

I must admit that none of our ancient sources explicitly states that the altar stood directly in front of the Temple sanctuary. My view on this issue is based on the fact that the overwhelming majority of temples in the ancient world, especially in the classical period, had their altars symmetrically placed in front of the main entrance to the sanctuary. Therefore, if the altar stood off axis, I believe that authors writing for Greek- and Latin-speaking readers would have commented on such an unusual arrangement. But they don’t. Thus, Josephus, in his account in The Jewish War, merely states that “in front of it [the sanctuary] stood the altar, fifteen cubits high” (Josephus, The Jewish War 5.225). The Mishnah does not say that the altar was off center either, only that the slaughtering area was to its north 065(Mishnah, Middot 3.5). On the contrary, if one considers the details given in that account, a symmetrical position for the altar provides a consistent fit. For example, when this source details the measurements along the length axis of the inner Temple court, the altar is included in the path of this axis:

“From east to west it was 187 cubits: the place which the Israelites trod was 11 cubits; the place where the priests trod was 11 cubits, the altar 32; between the porch and the altar was 22 cubits; the Sanctuary 100 cubits, and 11 cubits behind the place of the Mercy Seat” (Mishnah, Middot 5.1).

Assuming that the altar had a square plan measuring 32 × 32 cubits at its base, as stated in Middot 3.1, there would have been ample room for the slaughtering area to its north, even assuming that it stood in the center of the inner court. That space measured 51.5 cubits (the width of the court being 135 cubits). We are further told that the extent of the slaughtering area, including the rings, tables and pillars, measured 24+4+4 = 32 cubits. This area was 8 cubits distant from the altar, while the space between them and the wall of the Temple Court to the north measured a further 8 cubits, making a total of 48 cubits (Mishnah, Middot 5.2): Quite a snug fit, don’t you think?

We must further consider that there were installations to the south of the altar that “balanced” the slaughtering area to the north. We are told that the ramp leading up to the altar was situated on its south side and was 32 cubits long (Mishnah, Middot 3.3). The southern area in front of the sanctuary also accommodated the laver (Mishnah, Middot 3.6). Therefore, it is hardly surprising that such eminent modern scholars as Th. Busink and Louis-Hugues Vincent also concluded that the description in the Mishnah is consistent with a central position for the altar (see, in particular, Th. Busink, Der Tempel von Jerusalem von Salomo bis Herodes, vol. 2 [Leiden: Brill, 1980], pp. 1544–1559).

2. The soreg measuring 500 × 500 cubits, being coextensive with the perimeter of the Temple Mount.

The Mishnah refers to a soreg, or latticed railing (Middot 2.3), which is generally identified with the stone balustrade mentioned by Josephus in Jewish War 5.193–94, 6.124–26 and Jewish Antiquities 15.417.

We know from descriptions of Josephus, confirmed by the remarkable discovery in 1870 and 1936 of two blocks inscribed in Greek, which are shown in the illustrations on p. 60 of my second installment, that this balustrade marked the boundary beyond which gentiles could not venture. According to Josephus, this ban was on account of the fact that the area within was regarded as a “holy place.” Now, we know from the Mishnah that Jewish tradition defined ten degrees of holiness. The Temple Mount was more holy than the city of Jerusalem, the hel (or terrace) was more holy still, and the Holy of Holies was at the summit of this progression (Mishnah, Kelim 1.8). It seems clear from this evidence that the soreg, or balustrade, demarcated the sacred area of the Temple Mount. Therefore, it is logical to suppose that the soreg was coextensive with the boundary of the Temple Mount. So it is not surprising that the distinguished Israeli archaeologist and historian Michael Avi-Yonah reflects this very position in his learned article on the Second Temple (Encyclopaedia Judaica [Jerusalem: Keter, 1972], vol. 15, col. 965).

Finally, I should like to point out that there was nothing unusual about such restrictive fences in ancient temple enclosures, used to define sacred areas. The eastern Mediterranean has furnished many temple inscriptions in Greek and Latin denying access to unbelievers or the ritually unclean (Peter M. Fraser, Samothrace, vol. 2.1 [New York, 1960], pp. 117–119; Elias Bickerman, “The Warning Inscriptions of Herod’s Temple,” Jewish Quarterly Review 36 [1946/47], pp. 387–405). Low barriers are occasionally shown in front of temple sanctuaries on ancient coins (Martin J. Price and Bluma L. Trell, Coins and Their Cities: Architecture on Ancient Coins [London, 1977], p. 145). The sanctuary of Aphrodite at Paphos in Cyprus is shown on one coin preceded by a barrier in the form of a lattice-work fence with gates at intervals, similar to the soreg (Price and Trell, Coins, p. 147).

Name Game

In the fine series on the Temple Mount, I keep reading al-Haram al-Sharif.

In Arabic, why doesn’t that assimilate to al-Haram esh-Sharif?

David Jacobson responds:

Al-Haram al-Sharif is the Classical Arabic written form, while al-Haram esh-Sharif is the modern Arabic spoken form. Hence, the Encyclopedia of Islam, for example, uses the former rather than the latter.

Let me also take this opportunity to note two errata in my second article: In Authors, BAR 25:05, my book coauthored with Shimon Gibson, Under the Temple Mount, was published by Tempus Reparatum, in Oxford (now Archaeopress), and not the Palestine Exploration Fund. In my second endnote: “The foot length employed in Roman buildings across the empire has been shown to vary from 0.29 [not 0.24] meters to 0.33 meters.”

066

Qazone Tombs

Grave Doubts

I was excited to read “Who Lies Here?” BAR 25:05. I have been following Dr. Konstantinos Politis’s research for quite some time and with great enthusiasm. His work can only lead to the following conclusions regarding the interpretation of Khirbet Qumran:

1. The excavations at Khirbet Qazone clearly prove that the single shaft tombs of the “Qumran type” are neither typically Jewish nor typically “Essene.” Therefore, it is futile to search for a theological motivation for the various characteristics of the graves (such as the north-south orientation of the graves, the fact that only single persons are buried in the shafts, and the typical shape of the graves with their single arcosolia [burial shelves]) exclusively in Jewish texts, let alone in that isolated corpus of literature claimed to be “Essene.”

2. Politis’s discoveries clearly force us to interpret the graves of Khirbet Qumran in a wider geographical context, at least one that includes the eastern shores of the Dead Sea. But one cannot interpret this burial type as only a regional feature, as shown by similar tombs recently excavated in Beit Safafa in the Jerusalem area (see Boaz Zissu, “Odd Tomb Out: Has Jerusalem’s Essene Cemetery Been Found?” BAR 25:02) and those excavated at Tell es-Sultan in the 1950s. The fact that the Qumran graves are not unique gives rise to the hope that the shape of the ruins themselves might ultimately be better understood from a wider geographical perspective. Politis’s research speaks against any programmatic isolation of Qumran for whatever ideological reasons.

3. The finds of Khirbet Qazone raise once again the whole issue of what a normative Jewish burial was. Comparison shows that neither the chamber (kokhim) burials so often (but not exclusively!) found in the Jerusalem area nor the single shaft tombs of the “Qumran type” were typically or exclusively Jewish. Obviously, Jewish burial architecture in the Second Temple period shared numerous features with burial types of neighboring cultures. On the other hand, it is interesting to see that in both a Jewish and a Nabatean context people used different types of burial (single and multiple) at one and the same time. Instead of further developing an outdated “Qumran-Essene” theory with regard to the burials and defending their “Essene” character, much more research needs to be done to explain how this diversity of burials within a cultural environment is to be interpreted, and how the striking similarity between Jewish and Nabatean burial architecture might be explained.

4. Even the considerable size of the Qumran cemetery can no longer be regarded as unique. With more than 3,000 individual burials in Khirbet Qazone, the Qumran cemetery clearly slides to middle position. Together with the fact that there is nothing specifically “Essene” about the graves in Qumran, this middle position undermines the idea that just by its sheer size, Qumran could have served as the central site of a network of “Essene” settlements like En el-Ghuweir or Hiam es-Sagha. Or do we want to see Qumran as a satellite of Qazone?

5. One also has to abandon the idea (perpetuated by so many scholars over decades) that there is only one burial type present at Qumran. While the majority of graves share the features of the graves depicted in the plan on p. 51 of the Qazone article, not all do. Ironically, the first grave excavated at Qumran, and documented long before de Vaux, does not show these features; it does not have the side arcosolium referred to by so many scholars as uniquely Essene. The same variety appears among the shaft tombs at Beit Safafa, wrongly interpreted by many scholars as another Essene cemetery in the Jerusalem area.

6. In sum, the finds from Khirbet Qazone inflict a serious blow to the interpretation of Qumran as an Essene community center. As the burials no longer sustain (and in fact never really did) an exclusively religious character that could be connected with a single strand in Second Temple Judaism, this theory is even less probable now. Whoever wants to show that Qumran was an “Essene” community has to come up with other features of the site to prove his or her point. Much more research needs to be done, especially regarding the water supply and distribution system and the contents of the caves around Qumran. In any case, the graves can no longer serve as a cornerstone for the “Qumran-Essene” theory (as recently put forward by Emile Puech and others).

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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.

Humanists Aren’t So Bad

BAR helps my Bible study and my comprehension of the ancient Jewish people and of the Holy Land. God bless you.