Queries & Comments

008

ON THE SAME PAGE

We’re All Political

I appreciate your editorial (First Person: “Political v. Partisan,” BAR, November/December 2018). If those of us who claim a commitment to truth and justice rooted in an identity with God can’t relate to one another without force and rancor, who can?

We’re all political, if we have even a cursory involvement in the welfare of our nations and communities. It’s when we “get political” and endeavor to force our political positions on others that we create problems. Perhaps we would be better to take Jesus’s example to heart. As you know, when the people of a village chose not to be hospitable to him, he simply elected to go to another village (Luke 9:53-56).

I have always thoroughly enjoyed the “cancel my subscription” letters. Disagree as I might with some of the things said and claimed in the pages of BAR, I have continued to renew my subscription. I have a complete collection of BAR: every issue from #1 to now.

Walking the Line

As a former newsletter editor I can understand your unenviable position expressed in your editorial. There is a fine line between opinions and facts. You walk that line quite well.

First discovering an abandoned issue of BAR on a bookshelf about two years ago, I knew immediately I had to subscribe. As a fledgling ordained Christian minister, I have learned more from your magazine than I did from any other non-Biblical source.

As an incarcerated federal inmate, I appreciate BAR’s help with explaining to non-believers what really happened in Biblical times.

I want you to know that your efforts are cherished and greatly appreciated!

Ye Truth-Diggers

The reader who “unsubscribed” via comments in the November/December 2018 issue caused me to give even more credence to your reporting. You are true to digging up the facts (literally) to take us where evidence goes. Helping us know Biblical facts is a step beyond believing. Borrowing the reader’s phrase, “If what you say is true,” I differ with him to conclude that “there is a big need for you to exist.” Truth is the most important thing in human life, and you take us there.

Joe, thank you. At BAR, we report the facts and the evidence. We leave it up to you, our readers, to decide what to do with that evidence and what to believe.—B.C.

Still Laughing

I had to laugh. Quoting Mark Bushell’s letter in the November/December 2018 BAR … am I the only one who thought that was funny? Well, maybe I find humor in odd places, but to me, it was funny: adding “God bless” at the end of an irate tirade. Still laughing.

PS: Your First Person column is right on and excellently expressed. People ARE political beings, and no matter what group you are discussing, out of necessity, there WILL BE political terms involved. Inevitably!

Best Ever

This is the best mag for me, ever. Also like your replies to letters to the editor.

Gary, we read all of the letters sent to us and can only print a few of them. I think it is important to respond to some in an effort to offer additional explanation or thanks. To you I say thank you.—B.C.

THE WORDS OF JESUS

Aramaic with Italian Accent

The article on Aramaic by Yona Sabar was a wonderful read (“Saving the Aramaic of Jesus and the Jews,” BAR, November/December 2018), and I was intrigued by the part where Sabar says he has contributed to various TV/movie projects where there has been a need to have something said in Aramaic. Of course, the big project that immediately comes to my mind is The Passion of the Christ, which, supposedly, is all in Aramaic.

So, I ask the good professor, was that really Aramaic spoken010 in the movie, and how was it he was not consulted for the project?

Yona Sabar Responds: Naturally, there are other qualified scholars of Aramaic, thank God. The more the better! And yes, the individual words in the movie are Aramaic, but it is difficult to understand them due to the actors’ various accents and often bad audibility. Yet, I am very happy that Aramaic was chosen for the entire movie.

WATER OF PURIFICATION

Drawing from the Gospels

Eyal Regev (“The Hasmonean Kings: Jewish or Hellenistic?” BAR, November/December 2018) writes, “Netzer also excavated 12 ritual baths (mikva’ot) as well as four ‘treasuries’ (stepless small pools, connected by a channel or a pipe used to ‘purify’ the water of the adjacent bath since drawing water would invalidate it for ritual immersion) within the same palatial complex.”

John 2:6 says, “Now standing there were six stone water jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons.”

The bath waters are not “drawn.” The jar water is drawn. What is the difference in ritual use?

Eyal Regev Responds: The Law (explicitly attested only in later rabbinic literature) demands that the water used in ritual baths be either rainwater or groundwater, and that it not be drawn. The stone jars were used to prevent water from becoming defiled.

WORLDLY CONCERNS

Is Money to Blame?

I have a question concerning the scroll v. codex column (Archaeological Views: “Early Christian Dilemma: Codex or Scroll?” BAR, November/December 2018). The author explores the question of why the early Christians preferred the codex to the scroll. But he didn’t seem to realize the most obvious reason: the cost of paper! With a book you can write on both sides of a leaf; with a scroll you can only write on one side. So, did economics play a part?

Larry W. Hurtado Responds: The space taken up by margins in codices means that the amount of writing material saved in using a codex over a roll is only about 25 percent. Even more significant, the generous margins of Christian codices, the typically generous line-spacing, and size of writing all show a lack of concern to economize writing space or material. Also, a codex required extra work, planning, and skills involved in decisions about the size of sheets, how many to cut, how to join them together, etc.

So, no, the choice of a codex over the bookroll wasn’t an obvious one and can’t be accounted for as an economic move.

Sweets Not Sweet Enough

Megan Sauter claims a “sweet tooth” in offering up a recipe for mersu (“Ancient Syrian Date Pastries,” BAR, September/October 2018), but it is not quite sweet enough, methinks. There’s no way this little date, pistachio, and flour delicacy would have been served in a king’s court or a peasant’s hut without lashings of honey: in a dipping bowl or mixed with the date filling or blended into the pastry casing or all of the above, with a honey-comb side salad.

Kudos to BAR (and especially Megan) for giving a high profile to articles that make archaeology so much more human when looking at what ancient sources reveal, but never ever forget the honey.

Dear Robert, I am glad that you enjoyed our take on ancient mersu. Although dates and date honey were common sweeteners in the ancient world, I agree this recipe would benefit from a bit more sugar—and spice!—M.S.

ON THE SAME PAGE We’re All Political I appreciate your editorial (First Person: “Political v. Partisan,” BAR, November/December 2018). If those of us who claim a commitment to truth and justice rooted in an identity with God can’t relate to one another without force and rancor, who can? We’re all political, if we have even a cursory involvement in the welfare of our nations and communities. It’s when we “get political” and endeavor to force our political positions on others that we create problems. Perhaps we would be better to take Jesus’s example to heart. As you know, when […]