Queries & Comments

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A Word from the Tunnel-Rats

To the Editor:

Dan Cole’s article, “How Water Tunnels Worked,” BAR 06:02, brought back some marvelous memories of the 1978 BAR Tour. We walked through many of the tunnels he discusses in the article as well as other tunnels with different purposes. We adopted the name “tunnel-rats” because of our visits to so many. The article is extremely well done and lives up to what we take for granted from BAR. I must again tell you what a marvelous experience the BAR Tours are. Lorna Zimmerman is a superb director and a gracious lady. Congratulations for publishing a great periodical and for providing opportunities for unforgettable and truly educational tours!

Both Sides of the Velikovsky Controversy

To the Editor:

After reading the letters to the editor column in the May/June BAR (Queries & Comments, BAR 06:02), I felt the need to write.

It seems to me that many of your readers expect you to print only that which agrees with their biased viewpoint.

Well, Sirs, I do not! I feel that the opportunity for my growth and education is greatly enhanced by being able to read articles like Dr. Sagan’s and the follow-up letter by Messrs. Ellenberger, Greenberg and Mage. Now having read the pros and cons concerning Velikovsky, I can decide whether his books would be worth my reading.

It is too bad that some people are so afraid of controversy within the world of science and Biblical studies, that they would cancel their subscription to such a highly educational publication as yours.

I also learned from and greatly enjoyed the spoof on the “Hebrew Origins of Superman,” BAR 05:03.

Please do not become afraid to publish scholarly humor or controversy.

To the Editor:

It amused me that after Carl Sagan had taken the trouble to examine Velikovsky’s theories quantitatively, and had explicitly declared his disapproval of scientists who had sought to suppress publication of Velikovsky’s books, a reader could write (in Queries & Comments, BAR 06:03) asking for an “honest evaluation and critique” of Velikovsky.

Fantasists are constantly pleading with scientists for an “honest evaluation” of their improbable theories. “Honest evaluation” in pseudo-scientific language means arriving at conclusions in support of pseudo-science.

These people—the pseudo-scientific fantasizers—haven’t the foggiest idea of what legitimate science is all about.

Clarifying a Hebrew Inscription

To the Editor:

I found your article on the “Royal Rescript” (“Letter from a Hebrew King?” BAR 06:01) very interesting.

I have a question about the inscription on this ostracon. Yohanan Aharoni translates it:

I reigned in k …
Be strengthened v …
King of Egypt l …

This corresponds to the Hebrew:

Ani malakti bek …
Ametz we …
Melek mitzraim le …

But the second line contains another word between the verb “ametz” and the waw. It appears to be spelled tsade resh ayin, and I can make no sense of it in this context.

Can someone lend a hand on this? When you are interpreting a text this short, every letter counts.

Yaakov Meshorer replies:

You have identified the letters in the second word correctly. The phrase “Be strengthened” is a translation of two Hebrew words Ametz-Zeroa. Both are in the inscription. The verb Ametz is in the piel stem. Zeroa is the direct object. The two words could also be translated “strengthen (the) arm,” “amass force” or the like.

(Yaakov Meshorer is Chief Curator of Archaeology at the Israel Museum. On sabbatical this year at Duke University, Dr. Meshorer is a Senior Lecturer in Numismatics at Hebrew University at Jerusalem.—Ed.)

Niches in Crusader Church Remain Puzzling

To the Editor:

I note in the March/April BAR (“A Smithy in a Crusader Church,” BAR 06:02), niches were mentioned as being in the center apse of the Crusader church, but the author added, “we have no idea what they were used for.”

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If the Crusader churches, which were Catholic, are like the older Roman Catholic churches of today, the niches were built to house statues or statuettes. The niche on the right would probably hold a statue either of our Lord or of St. Joseph, and the one on the left a statue of the Blessed Virgin often with an infant Jesus in her arms.

These are not objects of adoration but are reminders of our friends in heaven. In a church they serve much the same purpose as photographs of loved ones in a home.

To the Editor:

I wonder whether the building described as a crusader church by Bahat in “A Smithy in a Crusader Church,” BAR 06:02, might not have been a hospice of the crusader period, or possibly even earlier. It is known that there were hospices in Palestine for the many pilgrims to the Holy Land during that period, and it is further known that these were commonly built in the same style as churches, since a hospice was considered to be a domus dei, i.e., a house of God. Indeed, many hospices were so constructed that upon sight, we would judge them to have been churches. Thus, it might be worthwhile to search not only for records of churches of the crusader era, but also of hospices of that or a slightly earlier era.

Furthermore, niches in the walls of a sanctuary near the altar are very common in Catholic churches. Such niches serve to store the paraphernalia for the Mass. Should the building have been a hospice, the altar which such hospices always had may have had a slightly atypical position, and so might therefore have had the niches near the altar.

If the building was a hospice, it is furthermore possible that there were additional niches along the nave walls for the profane (rather than sacred) purposes of storing items for the guests or the sick, since it was then assumed that travelers would commonly be sick.

Dan Bahat replies:

I do not believe the niches were for statues. The niches are almost at floor level and they are very deep (about two feet). Even Father Louis Hughes Vincent, himself a Dominican father, did not know how to explain similar niches (see, Jerusalem nouvelle, p. 560). I would be interested in seeing photographs of the kind of niches Dr. Jenkins refers to.

In answer to Dr. Wolfensberger, this building can only be a church. It is clearly built on a plan very commonly used for churches of the period. Moreover, no historical source mentions a hospice with which this building might be identified. All of the Jerusalem hospices of the Crusader period mentioned in historical documents have already been identified. While it is true that there are churches in hospices, such as the Church of St. Mary of the Germans, we found only the church here and not the hospice which would have a different plan.

How to Identify a Coin from Capernaum

To the Editor:

Some years ago on a trip in the Middle East I found a coin at Capernaum in Israel. I’m wondering how or where I could have it appraised as to significance and value? I’m a subscriber to your wonderful magazine and look forward to the arrival of each issue.

Yaakov Meshorer replies:

For identification of the coin, it is best to send an impression, photograph, pencil rubbing or cast to the American Numismatic Society; Broadway at 156th Street; New York, New York 10032. As an academic institution they will give only the identification and not the commercial value of the coin for which one should apply to a reputable dealer. A list of dealers may be obtained from the American Numismatic Association.

Cryptomania

To the Editor:

Virtually three millennia of human history have been staked out and reinterpreted by Dr. Ole Landsverk in support of his totally fanciful construct, runic dated cryptography (see Queries & Comments, BAR 06:02). We are not here dealing with natural objects such as meteorites, light rays or volcanic ash. No matter how much Landsverk manipulates and arithmeticizes his runic documents, he cannot escape the granite-like fact that, as attempts at communication between individuals, they are man-made and thus subject to what is known or can be established regarding human culture patterns.

Competent experts in cryptography like Hans Karlgren in Sweden and David Kahn in the United States have stated in print that Landsverk’s cryptographic solutions are meaningless.

Norway’s great runologist, the late Magnus Olsen, so often cited with approval by Landsverk for his interest in cryptograms, wrote most specifically that the Kensington inscription was a modern carving. The endless secret Church calendars carved into the rocks of medieval Scandinavia and throughout the early American wilderness are strictly Landsverkian postulates, existing by his own uncorroborated authority and unknown to historians and archaeologists. His theories relate to the history of Scandinavian epigraphy in the same way that astrology relates to astronomy. The joker is that rival fancifiers 007deploring what Professor Barry Fell calls “unfortunate Norsemania”, now claim some of Landsverk’s runestones as Phoenician, etc. They may as well. From the point of view of reputable scholarship, the one is no sillier than the other.

Father Dahood as Ebla Scholar

To the Editor:

In “Ebla Update,” BAR 06:03, I am surprised that you did not include an interview with Fr. Mitchell Dahood, S.J.

As he has for years championed Ugaritic studies in connection with the Bible, so now Dahood has consistently the past four years defended the Ebla findings as pertinent to questions as to Israel’s patriarchs, language, and religion. Dahood is uniquely qualified as both a Biblical scholar and specialist in Northwest Semitic languages, so that his judgments should probably be considered more authoritative on this subject than those of either Pettinato or Freedman.

Contrary to Freedman, my impression is that Dahood has worked personally with Pettinato in Rome on some of the Ebla tablets, either directly or through photographs. And, although not a Sumerologist, Dahood can handle the cuneiform signs and constantly refers to them in his yearly reports to the Catholic Biblical Society.

Your journal is to be commended for helping to keep the concern for the Ebla tablets alive, but the impression given by these recent articles on the value of these tablets for Biblical studies is probably faulty without both the personal testimony and references to the several articles by Dahood on this matter.

Father Dahood addressed the Biblical Archaeology Society (BAS is the publisher of BAR) in Washington, D.C. on May 5, 1980. A report on this lecture appears in the June 1980 BAS Newsletter. Father Dahood is preparing an article for BAR based on his lecture.—Ed.

Complains BAR Arrives Only Every Other Month

To the Editor:

You’ve been turning out such an excellent series of issues that after finishing the current March/April issue I feel impelled to comment on it specifically.

You reproduce photos, especially in color, so clearly that you seem to be limited only by the resolution of the cameras that took the pix. The shot of the Temple Mount, inside the front cover of the July/August 1979 issue is especially vivid. I occasionally look at it to be reminded of the holy city.

I prefer reading about comments on discoveries more than about the discoveries themselves. So when you print an article such as Dan Cole’s on the water systems (“How Water Tunnels Worked,” BAR 06:02), comparing and contrasting five of them, the interest is 5 × 5 and then some.

Having a copy of Yadin’s Hazor I made a quick comparison, and found some of your photos were new and complemented those in Yadin. Also, I didn’t know that Megiddo was the model for James Michener’s Source water system, though I know he has a habit of moving things around to suit his story.

Therefore, I appreciate the theory behind the Yoqne’am regional project and am looking forward to future reports on the subject. I have been in the area but since few of the tells on your map appear on mine, I am not sure of how they fit the modern scene. And finally, Dan Bahat’s article is interesting when read together with “A Smithy in a Crusader Church,” BAR 06:02. Still only one trouble—it’s almost two whole months before my next copy of BAR arrives!

A Word from the Tunnel-Rats

To the Editor: