Queries & Comments

006

All About BAR

BAR Stimulates Thinking

I have been with you since your first issue. Although I do not always agree with every aspect of your editorial policies, every issue challenges me to think about Biblical history. I ask for nothing more.

Page Turner

I have been reading BAR off and on (more on) for more than 20 years. It is the single most informative resource for information on a plethora of issues relating to Bible research and archaeology. I sometimes ask myself, Who cares about this or that particular article?—and then I turn the page and am totally involved.

Grudges and Gallons

Stop the Madness

Regarding “The Noose Tightens” (Strata, BAR 34:06): Has Shuka Dorfman gone insane? He’s threatening people’s jobs and careers because he hates a magazine editor? What madness! It’s time the archaeological community in Israel staged a revolt and got this nutcase fired.

End the Battle

I will be grateful when you get off your feud with the Israel Antiquities Authority. Try to make amends, and allow BAR to return to its full potential.

Jar Heavyweight

When I read that the estimated volume of the Iron Age I collared-rim jar was “approximately 40 gallons” (How Many? BAR 34:06), I did a quick calculation to confirm how much a filled jar would weigh. Since a gallon of water (and probably wine and other liquids that are largely water) weighs 8.33 pounds per gallon, the liquid in a filled jar would weigh 333 pounds, to say nothing of the weight of the jar itself. If filled with oil, it would be about 18 percent lighter, or 272 pounds. I wonder how such a jar would be moved after it was filled. With that much weight, it would take the proverbial “three men and a boy” to get the job done, but with little to hang on to. Second, would the construction of the jar be strong enough to allow it to be picked up and moved?

Avraham Faust, director of the Institute of Archaeology at Bar Ilan University in Ramat Gan, Israel, responds:

As the text suggests, these jars were essentially used as water tanks. When they needed filling, villagers used donkeys to convey smaller, lighter jugs of water from the nearest spring back to the village. The collared-rim jars were not transported when they were full. Once in the house, they were probably used as immobile containers.

Inside Outside

Letters responding to “Inside Outside: Where Did the Early Israelites Come From?” and “Shasu or Habiru: Who Were the Early Israelites?” both by Professor Anson Rainey in the November/December 2008 issue, appear on our Web site. While important, these letters were too lengthy for publication in the magazine.

In one letter Professor William Dever responds to Rainey’s charge that one of Dever’s arguments “simply ignored the Transjordanian evidence that thoroughly undermined his contention”; thus Dever’s argument, said Rainey, can be “easily discredited.” Dever’s letter in response to this charge says, “Rainey’s idiosyncratic attempt to defend the derivation of the earliest Israelites from Transjordan requires little refutation” and proceeds to do so. Dever calls Rainey a “secular fundamentalist.” Rainey responds to Dever’s letter: “Dever’s message is typical of his usual apples and oranges arguments, rarely meticulous about details.” Rainey then accuses Dever of “play[ing] a Mickey Mouse game with pottery,” Dever’s admitted specialty.

Two giants grappling!

Other readers’ letters and Rainey’s responses provide additional insight and observation.—Ed.

008

Mixing Meat & Milk

Kosher Conundrum

Gloria London doubts that the meat-milk laws have ritual origins (“Why Milk and Meat Don’t Mix,” BAR 34:06). But perhaps they do:

When the eminent archaeologist Nelson Glueck was president of Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, he made it a practice to have “the boys” over to his house from time to time. He was justly proud of his collections of artifacts, and he told us about his wanderings in both the Negev and other deserts.

During World War II, he was employed as a clandestine agent of the American government, and as a respected archaeologist he was able to travel freely—even in sensitive areas—without arousing suspicion.^a The desert tribes honored him greatly, looking on him as a link with their own past. Thus he was able to hear about everything going on in the desert, which was of use to the U.S. war effort.

On one occasion he told us about being the guest of honor at a tribal gathering and being offered the great courtesy of a most rare and special dish: a kid cooked in its own mother’s milk—the very thing condemned in the Bible. He presumed that this custom was left over perhaps from ancient pagan offerings to the gods.

We asked him if he ate the thing.

He smiled, and remained silent.

Glazed or Plain?

Bravo for Gloria London’s article on why milk and meat have separate dishes! A porous, unglazed milk jar should not have meat put in it. Residue from the meat or broth will cause the growth of “rot” bacteria such as coliforms. This would spoil milk that is put in the jar afterward. If the jar is used only for milk, lactobacilli will populate the pores and turn milk into pleasant clabber or yogurt. Raw meat put in a milk jar would be especially dangerous.

We modern people are unfamiliar with food preparation with unglazed, porous dishes. Thanks for teaching us food safety from a distant time. A question for archeologists: Is pottery from ancient Israel all unglazed?

Gloria London responds:

Thank you for mentioning coliforms, the bacteria that ferment dairy products. Commercially made yogurt today is tested to assure low levels of coliforms. E. coli is a subgroup of fecal coliform present in the intestines. A traditional fermented Ethiopian milk, ergo, is made in wood-smoked fermenting containers to minimize bacterial growth.

Glazed pottery arose in the seventh century C.E. for bowls and later for cooking pots. Earlier pottery was unglazed.

070

It Is a Toilet

Steve Mason’s well-written article (“Did the Essenes Write the Dead Sea Scrolls?” BAR 34:06) mentions the famous toilet at Qumran. A recent detailed analysis identified intestinal parasites and toilet lime (used to disinfect the feces) in the area.¹ My colleagues and I did a recent soil reanalysis of Locus 51 [the locus of the Qumran toilet] using modern technology (unpublished). We found microscopic human intestinal parasites and foraminifera (from lime fossils) attesting to the authenticity of the toilet.

For another response to Steve Mason’s article, see Another View—Ed.

Perfect for Pilgrims

Thanks so much for the wonderful comments from those dear pilgrims like Mark Twain (Past Perfect: “Lo! The Holy City!” BAR 34:06). As a licensed Israeli tour guide, I appreciated every word. I’m going to cut those comments out and make a handout for my modern pilgrims. So much has changed, but Jerusalem continues to capture the soul and fire the imagination.

Rethinking Knohl’s Restoration

I may have spoken (or written) too quickly in my letter printed in the January/February issue of BAR (Q&C: “Yardeni Supports Knohl Reading”) when I advised you that “I came to the conclusion that the reading suggested by Professor [Israel] Knohl for the third word of line 80—haye, “live”—seems to be the only plausible reading of that word” in the new text known as “Gabriel’s Relevation.”^b

Initially, I could not think of a Hebrew word that begins with het and aleph that would fit the context. When Israel suggested his reading, I thought that it seemed the only plausible reading. I am now aware of the linguistic difficulty with this reading (het, aleph, yod, heh), which yields a form that is not really evidenced in the manuscripts from this period.

In fact, the reading of the last two letters as yod and heh is very doubtful, whereas the reading of the first two letters as het and aleph seems certain.

The suggested reading ha’ot (from Ronald Hendel, Q&C: “Simply ‘Sign,’” BAR 35:01) seems difficult because of the initial het. However, I admit that the first letter in the word that I read as ha’ot in line 17 does seem quite similar to the het at the beginning of the critical word in line 80. This could be explained either as a graphic confusion between heh and het or as a phonetic weakening of these gutturals that is reflected in the spelling.

Thus, Israel’s reading of the critical word in line 80 is not the only plausible reading, and the two last letters may be read either as yod and heh or as vav and tav.

I hope it will be possible in the near future to take even better photos of this badly worn inscription that will reveal the correct reading of this crucial word (and of other words). In the meantime, I would refrain from jumping to historical or religious conclusions on the basis of a doubtful reading.

I usually try to be careful in the restoration of uncertain words, and I try to correct errors in my own readings. I hope that my colleagues will be as careful, especially when it is as crucial a matter as this one.

Corrections

In our November/December 2008 issue, (“Inscription Reveals Roots of Maccabean Revolt”), endnote 2, the reference should be Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik.

In the November/December Biblical Views column (endnote 2), the second Biblical citation should be Isaiah 57:10.

There are only six letters from Jerusalem, through Abdi-Heba, in the Amarna letters (not seven, as stated in “Shasu or Habiru,” BAR 34:06). Abdi-Heba is, however, mentioned in a seventh letter (EA 280) from his arch-enemy Shuwardata. BAR regrets the error.

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