Queries & Comments

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Ode to an Editor

Just to give thanks

To Hershel Shanks.

I love reading BAR,

Because it’s wunderbar!

Lot’s Wife

Lot’s Two Wives

Amos Frumkin has vividly and conclusively shown how the very conspicuous (20 m high) pillar near the southwestern shore of the Dead Sea may have been related to the Biblical tradition of Lot’s wife in people’s imagination (“How Lot’s Wife Became a Pillar of Salt,” BAR 35:03).

However, on the eastern (Jordanian) side of the Dead Sea there is also a natural formation known as “Lot’s Wife” (see photos). This pillar is easily seen when traveling on the modern road, a short distance south of the Wadi Mujib bridge. In contrast to the giant dimension of the Mt. Sedom pillar, its Jordanian “sister” is at a much more human scale (about 2 m high). And it features a human, female silhouette very neatly—much better, in my opinion, than the one at Mt. Sedom. It consists of sedimentary minerals, like the upper part of “Lot’s Wife” in Israel, but is not actually of salt.

Josephus, the first-century Jewish historian, knew of it: “I have seen this pillar, which remains to this day,” he writes in Antiquities of the Jews (I.203, Loeb ed.).

Could it be that it was the Jordanian pillar Josephus was writing about?

Cover Nudity

Cancel my subscription! Lot’s wife is clearly naked on the front cover of your May/June issue! (It made me want to take up petrology!)

Just kidding. I wouldn’t miss the acrimony, derision, revisionism, scholarly contradiction and academic crucifixion that takes place in every chuckle-inducing issue!

Was Isaac Fooled?

Raymond Westbrook’s analysis (“Good as His Word,” BAR 35:03) is correct but incomplete.

When Jacob (pretending to be Esau) brings venison to his purblind father, Isaac asks him how he was able to find it so quickly, Jacob (as Esau) replies, “Because the Lord thy God granted me good speed” (Genesis 27:20). Now Isaac would surely know this was not the sort of language Esau would ever use. Indeed, in verse 22, Isaac states, “The voice is the voice of Jacob, but the hands are the hands 012of Esau.” Further, if Isaac were disturbed or upset by subsequent knowledge of this major ruse, would he have bestowed the great blessings of Genesis 28:1–4? Isaac may not have been duped after all.

As for Leah’s substitution for Rachel on Jacob’s wedding night, the Midrash teaches that Rachel was part of the plot and gave Leah certain words and phrases to use on her wedding night to further the deception.

None of this alters Westbrook’s conclusions but it does add some interesting aspects to the Biblical tales.

We are saddened to note the illness and recent death of author Raymond Westbrook.—Ed.

Lifelong BAR Connection

I am a 90-year-old woman who would like to explain “How I Was Featured in BAR.” I first subscribed with the September/October 1979 issue. I have kept every issue since then.

In 1982, I joined the six-week Summer Israel Seminar that included a visit to the City of David excavation directed by Professor Yigal Shiloh. We also took classes with Dr. James Fleming at the Jerusalem Center for Biblical Studies, which were held at the Spafford Children’s Hospital in the Old City. There were 16 students, and we roomed at the Sisters of Zion Convent (Ecce Homo Arch) at 41 Via Dolorosa.

The January/February 1983 BAR included a story with photos by one of my classmates, Marian Harders (“Album from My Summer Seminar in Israel”). It was about our BAR Summer Seminar and included a photo of a Mesolithic cave swelling at Wadi Ammud with me in it . I am the lady on the left with my hands on my hips.

I appeared again in one of the postcards urging BAR subscribers to “Explore your Biblical past.” I’m climbing the stairs to the goddess Hathor Temple at Timna.

Then one of your fliers advertising BAS Tours showed me in the Wadi Ammud Cave. I was just short of 60 years old then (the oldest in our group) and could walk for hours over archaeological sites. I wish I could do that now. (Now I have to use a cane and walker to get around.)

I have just read all my 147 pages of notes from that trip and relived my life-enriching trip to Israel in 1982.

Thank you, Hershel Shanks, for being there with me for 30 years in BAR. Greetings to my classmates who may still remember me.

Rocky Definitions

In attacking Yuval Goren, the BAR editor says that Goren “is not a stone petrologist. He is a clay petrologist” (Strata, “Accused BAR Editor Replies,” BAR 35:03). As a geologist as well as an archaeologist, I find it incredible that an editor of an archaeological journal would make such a statement. Petrology is the study of rocks. By definition, classification of a rock is made by a determination of the proportion of minerals that comprise that rock. Petrography is used to determine the rock fragments that are used as temper in ceramics as well as the distinctive patterns made by the clay matrices. There is no such specialty as a “stone petrologist” or a “clay petrologist.” Petrology is petrology.

While at Arizona State University (ASU) in the mid-1990s, I did a petrographic analysis of the ceramics excavated by ASU at a Middle Bronze Age site in the North Jordan Valley. The petrography combined with a geological survey of the region enabled me to source the origins of those ceramics. Yuval Goren graciously helped me with that research. I found him to be very knowledgeable about all phases of geology and petrography as well as archaeology. He knows what he is talking about. Unfortunately, the BAR editor does not.

Era Names

English Before, Latin Later

I have not heard “A.D” described as meaning “After Death” since growing up in West Virginia in the 1950s (see Q&C, BAR 35:03). I shared this BAR letter with my Sunday school class, and they raised an interesting question: Since A.D. (Anno Domini, “In the Year of Our Lord”) is in Latin, why is B.C. (“Before Christ”) in English? Maybe a BAR reader can explain this.

“Christian” or “Common”

One of the letter writers in the May/June 2009 issue threatened to cancel a subscription because of the use of B.C.E. and C.E., rather than B.C. and A.D.

I, too, deplore the use of these forms, which seem like political correctness run rampant.

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I’d like to offer my solution to the problem. The abbreviations B.C.E. and C.E. can just as well be taken to mean “Before the Christian Era” and “Christian Era.” In fact, when I first ran across these abbreviations, I thought they meant just that. Now that I know the true meaning of the abbreviations, I merely continue to read them as meaning “Christian” eras rather than “common” eras—a bit of a lie perhaps, but it keeps me happy.

Please do not cancel my subscription.

For the Birds

Niches for Ashes

In “This Place Is for the Birds,” (BAR 35:03), Boaz Zissu identifies the remains of the circular stone tower in the City of David as a “columbarium tower—that is, a dovecote for raising pigeons.” I believe he is somewhat confused.

A columbarium is a place with niches into which are placed the ashes of cremated people. In modern times a place where pigeons are raised is usually identified as a dovecote, and sometimes a “columbary,” but not a columbarium.

Our unabridged dictionary gives three definitions for columbarium: (1) a sepulchral vault with recesses for ashes; (2) any one of these recesses; (3) a columbary.

The definition of columbary is “a dovecote or pigeon house.”—Ed.

Not a Bowl

In the article on ancient dovecotes, an object inscribed “sacrifice” (קרבנ, korban) is said to be engraved on a “bowl,” which was “doubtless intended for pilgrims to hold their sacrificial offering on their way to the Temple.” In fact, the inscribed object is a cylinder-shaped object whose exact function is not clear. It is not a bowl.

Eilat Mazar of the Hebrew University’s Institute of Archaeology responds:

Danny Herman is right. The object is shaped like a truncated cone core of a lathe-turned chalk cup typical of the Second Temple period. The fact that it is a stone object, which according to ancient Jewish law does not acquire impurity, together with the inscription korban (offering)—and the two birds—led Professor Benjamin Mazar to suggest that it is related to the Temple and connected with sacrificial offering of a person having discharge or a women after giving birth. Dr. Yitzhak Magen suggested that it was used somehow in the lottery of those turtledoves (The Stone Vessel Industry in the Second Temple Period [Jerusalem: IAA, 2002]).

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Josephus on Jesus

In “Do Josephus’s Writings Support the ‘Essene Hypothesis’?” (BAR 35:02), Josephus is quoted as writing that when he was 16 years old, the three “philosophical schools” in Judea were the Pharisees, the Sadducees and the Essenes. At that time, I believe Christians were still considered a Jewish group. Why didn’t Josephus mention them?

When Josephus was 16 (in the early 50s), Christianity was not yet a major movement. But Josephus may well have referred to Jesus and the Jesus movement. See John P. Meier, “The Testimonium: Evidence for Jesus Outside the Bible,” Bible Review 07:03.—Ed.

The Exact Date

The Elephantine papyrus pictured on page 48 of the May/June 2009 issue (Robert Deutsch, “Tracking Down Shebnayahu, Servant of the King”) is not, as described, a “fifth–fourth-century B.C.E. document” but a precisely dated contract to November 25, 404 B.C.E., probably in the evening.

Robert Deutsch responds:

Professor Porten knows his documents.

Professor Porten is the world’s foremost expert on the Elephantine papyri. See Bezalel Porten, “Did the Ark Stop at Elephantine?” BAR 21:03.—Ed.

Correction

Barry J. Beitzel is the editor, not the author, of Biblica: The Bible Atlas (ReViews, BAR 35:03).

Ode to an Editor

Just to give thanks

To Hershel Shanks.

I love reading BAR,

Because it’s wunderbar!