Queries & Comments

006

Iron Sharpens Iron

Full disclosure: I am a conservative, fundamentalist Biblicist who loves your magazine. After 27 years of life as a committed Christian and 22 as an ordained Pentecostal minister, I am secure in my faith and feel no threat from individuals who express views antithetical to mine. In fact I enjoy the intellectual and spiritual challenges they present. Proverbs 27:17 says, “As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.” This is how I view your fantastic publication.

Yes, Some Articles Are Nuts, But …

Over the years I have subscribed to many different educational magazines, including BAR. Without a doubt, this is the best one that I have ever received. It is the most balanced and very often reports more than one side of an issue. Further, it is the only magazine I know of in the educational field that is not biased against religion or at least does not seem to “speak down” to religion. There are times that I think different articles are nuts, but this is a sign of a good magazine: It makes you think, go beyond what is comfortable and, at the same time, endeavors to be honest in its content. Well done.

Plausible Evidence of the Exodus

I would like to commend James K. Hoffmeier for a well-conceived article about the Exodus (“Out of Egypt,” BAR 33:01). His approach to the subject is an example of how historians should approach historical data. In order to be concerned scientists (I believe that historians are scientists), we have to take data and interpret it honestly and impartially.

Hoffmeier built a strong circumstantial case for the Exodus as a real event. He was able to pinpoint plausible evidence that suggests that the Bible recorded actual events, even something as simple as Egyptian writers confirming that forced laborers (slaves) made bricks out of straw during the period the Bible suggests. Could this be a coincidence? Possibly, but with all the other factors, I am led to believe that there is a strong hint of truth to the Exodus story.

I know that the Bible makes some extraordinary claims in the Exodus story. I remind doubters that Thucydides’ Peloponnesian War is filled with exaggerations. This did not bring doubters to scoff. People have accepted the frame of his story as real events. Hoffmeier, and those who approach history in this manner, should be given the same latitude.

Very well done, Professor Hoffmeier.

Love at First Sites

Romance Unearthed at the Temple Mount

“Love at First Site” (BAR 33:01) and the story of the 1975 meeting of the Ritmeyers prodded me to share the memory of meeting my own wife, Susan, on the Temple Mount Dig in 1970. We were there as part of 70 volunteers from the three Ambassador Colleges then located in Pasadena, California; Big Sandy, Texas; and Bricket Wood, England. The dig was under the direction of Dr. Benjamin Mazar. I not only met my spouse there (like Leen Ritmeyer, I have joked with audiences that my wife was “my greatest find”), but so did 11 or 12 other couples from that same group. I am sure I speak for most Ambassador diggers when I say that Jerusalem will always hold a cherished memory in our hearts.

Solid Marriage Started at Ramat Raḥel

I read with interest your article about “Love at First Site” (BAR 33:01). While working at Ramat Raḥel under Dr. Yohanan Aharoni, I met my wife in 1961. She then got a job as a nurse in New York City, and I worked in Yonkers the following summer courting her. We were married in 1963 and have been married now for 43 years.

008

Read the Refutation

Detailed responses by me and Dr. Charles Pellegrino to Manfred Bietak’s review (“The Volcano Explains Everything—Or Does It?” November/December 2006) of my television special “The Exodus Decoded” may be found on my Web site, www.theexodusdecoded.com. BAR readers are referred there for a complete refutation of Professor Bietak’s views.

Review Raises Academic Rancor

Dever’s Not a Fool

I didn’t call Professor William Dever a “fool” (see Dever’s letter in Queries and Comments, BAR 33:01). I don’t think he’s a fool. What I wrote in my review (“Did God Really Have a Wife?” BAR 32:05) is: “Dever is unfortunately unreliable concerning any textual material. He does not read Hebrew or any other ancient language. Moreover, he makes a fool of himself when he discusses the Bible.”

The BAR editor decided to publish only a few of the many examples I sent him in the original draft of my review. I will now add a few more to prove my statement. [A few are published below. Others are on the Web at www.biblicalarchaeology.org/letters.—Ed.]

Discussing the Priestly Blessing (Numbers 6:24–26) scratched on two silver amulets of the late seventh century B.C.E., Dever equates the amulets to “the mezuzah which is still used today, containing these very words” (p. 131 of his book). Not at all. A mezuzah, which is a piece of written parchment in a capsule and fixed to a doorpost, contains quite different texts: Deuteronomy 6:4–9; 11:13–21.

What Dever writes about Purim fits the upside-down merrymaking day of Purim, which, according to Dever, is celebrated “to commemorate the supposed victory of Esther and Haman over the Persian king Ahasuerus” (p. 109). Can you believe it? Every Jewish boy in kindergarten knows that Haman is the bad guy of the story and Ahasuerus is just a drunkard 010dupe. The victory celebrated is that of Esther and Mordechai over Haman.

How does Dever handle non-Biblical texts? Let’s take, for instance, the Egyptian New Kingdom plaque on p. 178 of his book. The caption to the figure says that it is “depicting the goddess riding a lion and giving all three of her names: (1) ‘Qudshu’ (‘Holy One,’ or Ashera-Hathor); (2) ‘Anat; (3) Astarte.” But the hieroglyphic text does not mention “Ashera-Hathor;” Qudshu is a separate deity, and she is not Ashera (not to be confused with ‘Ashtoret-Astarte). Ashera is not mentioned in Egyptian texts, Qudshu is not “the Egyptian version of Canaanite Ashera” (p. 220), and Ashera is certainly not Hathor.

Another example of the unreliability characteristic of Dever’s statements: “Lachish, just 80 miles southwest of Jerusalem” (p. 71). Lachish is only about 26 miles (40 km) southwest of Jerusalem as the crow flies and about 36 miles (50 km) on the road. He should have known.

Professor Dever accuses me of being a philologist. I am proud of being a philologist. As such, I stick to the facts. At the end of the day, it is these that matter.

I wonder why Professor Dever has not challenged any of my examples, Biblical or non-Biblical. But he has a theory. A theory cannot substitute for facts.

Elite vs. Popular Religion

I recently had an opportunity to read Shmuel Ahituv’s article reviewing William Dever’s book Did God Have a Wife? (“Did God Really Have a Wife?” BAR 32:05). I must say I share Ahituv’s mistrust of a clear distinction between elite and popular religion. The elite can’t ignore what is really popular, and the lower classes always imitate the elite. After all, as the Bible itself frequently observes, it was the royal court that controlled the presence or absence of Asherah in the state temple (see 1 Kings 15:13 [King Asa cuts down the image of Asherah]; 2 Kings 21:7 [King Manasseh places an image of Asherah in the Temple]; 2 Kings 23:4, 6 [King Josiah orders the high priest to take the Asherah out of the temple]).

But Ahituv’s article also includes some quite weak points. How can he sever, as he does, cult symbol from deity? The ark is certainly a cult symbol. Where the ark is present, however, Yahweh is also present. What does the cult symbol asherah represent if not the goddess Asherah?

It is similarly inappropriate to sever cult symbol and deity in the interpretation of pillar figurines. Surely to call these figurines “prayers in clay” does not mean they are not also deities. Prayers in clay are found in temples; pillar figurines are found in private houses and tombs. Prayers in clay are brought from private houses to the temple. Symbols of divine blessing are brought from temple to private houses. The pillar figurines are clearly brought from the temple to private houses. The pillar figurines thus represent a goddess, just as figures of nude women who are standing on a lion and presenting their breasts represent a goddess.¹ No worshiper is ever represented standing on a lion (pace, prayers in clay).

If the pillar figurines represent a goddess, the most likely candidate is Asherah. Yahweh, officially worshiped in the temple of Jerusalem, had a wife until the religious reform of King Josiah in 622 B.C.E. (2 Kings 23:1–27), although it appears she had a rather modest or minor position.

Shmuel Ahituv responds:

The connection between deity and cult symbol is a very complicated matter. I agree with Professor Keel that since the Ark of the Covenant was envisaged as Yahweh’s throne, people did believe that where the Ark is, Yahweh is also. But as the goddess Asherah is absent from Iron Age texts, I wonder if people remembered that there had earlier been a goddess by that name (as opposed to Astarte and other gods and goddesses who do appear in the Iron Age). I believe that asheroth (and asherim) were like mazzeboth (standing stones); that is, cultic symbols that in the distant past represented the presence of deities.

078

There is a fundamental difference between a figure of a nude woman standing on a lion representing a goddess, and, on the other hand, pillar figurines, which are “prayers in clay.” Not every statuette is of a god or goddess. Not every figurine represents a deity. Pillar figurines do not have any divine paraphernalia. “Prayers in clay” (they might also be made of precious materials) can be seen in modern times as in ancient times, for example, in the form of human eyes, limbs, etc.

Early Israelites Came from Transjordan

In view of William Dever’s response to my colleague Shmuel Ahituv (Queries and Comments, BAR 33:01), I feel compelled to add my own remarks to Shmuel’s reply. Did the ancient Israelites come from outside (east of the Jordan), as the Bible says, or did they come from Canaanite urban settlements on the Mediterranean Coast, as Dever contends?

Dever correctly notes a “continuity” in the ceramic repertoire of the Early Iron Age settlements (1200–1000 B.C.E.). He claims (following the late Joseph Callaway) that the pottery in these settlements proves that the people in these settlements (early Israelites) came from Canaanite areas such as the western coastal plains near the Mediterranean. But the same continuity can be found between the Late Bronze Age pottery from Jordan, east of the river.

The only argument Dever had was this pottery continuity between the coast and the highlands. Dever’s listing of agriculture, religion and language as “continuity” with the Canaanite culture of the western coastal plains is all a pipe dream. A detailed academic essay in an important refereed journal summarizing all my arguments for serious scholars is now in the hands of the editors.

A word about the Merneptah (“Israel”) stele: In the Merneptah stele, “Israel” is clearly a valid ethnicon. In Merneptah’s victory poem the pharaoh claims to have conquered Ashkelon, Gezer, Yano’am (all city-states) and a people called Israel (in that order). There is an obvious geographical progression in that hieroglyphic poem. Since Yano’am was in Transjordan, it would seem to follow that the Egyptian army encountered the people called Israel east of the Jordan River! That is certainly the most natural and obvious conclusion. If the argument from geographical order in the text does not register with some readers, it will be because they are not used to reading ancient inscriptions geographically. Ancient scribes did not toss out geographical details haphazardly. There is no reason to look for Israel in the western hill country at this point. Perhaps it is significant that in Biblical tradition, Jacob first received the name “Israel” in Transjordan, before he crossed over into Canaan (Genesis 32:28). Dever seems blissfully unaware of all this.

Correction

Israel’s sojourn in Egypt (“Out of Egypt,” BAR 33:01) lasted 400 years, not 40.—Ed.

Letters On the Web

For more letters, visit our Web site at www.biblicalarchaeology.org/letters.

Iron Sharpens Iron