Queries & Comments

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BAR’s Petra Cover

To the Editor:

I was one of the lucky ones last fall—I took the BAS tour to Egypt, Jordan and Israel. One of the many highlights was our trip to Petra. What a thrill to see the Siq on the cover of BAR 07:02! And what a photograph! And what a photographer! Is there any possibility of obtaining a copy of it? Cost is no object (in a manner of speaking).

And speaking of last fall’s tour, Lorna Zimmerman is a real jewel. She went out of her way to see that we were all comfortable, well-fed and well-informed. She’s a perfect travelling companion. I’ve been to Israel several times, but never had so much attention and seen so many things tourists just don’t get to.

I read your magazine from cover to cover as soon as it arrives. My only complaint is that it’s not a weekly—or at least a monthly.

We would like to be able to send you a print of the Siq. Unfortunately, we have no prints and to make them would be very costly. Perhaps someday we will print some of our covers without type so that they may be framed.

Other letters on Dr. Hammond’s Petra article (“New Light on the Nabataeans,” BAR 07:02) will appear in our next issue.—Ed.

Should BAR Sell Coin Replicas?

To the Editor:

I enjoy BAR very much but I do not approve of the coin replicas which you sell. I collect ancient coins and would not be fooled by these replicas, but many young collectors could well be fooled and I do not think BAR should contribute to this.

We have received several letters on this subject and are frankly troubled. Although all our replicas are stamped with a small “R” to indicate they are replicas, it is still possible that an unsuspecting person might be misled. Yet not to make replicas available would deprive the public generally of the opportunity to feel, look at and handle a replica that very closely resembles the original. It is hard to replace this kind of learning experience. Moreover, ancient coin replicas are sold by many manufacturers. The question, whether BAR should continue to sell coin replicas, is a difficult one with which we are still wrestling.—Ed.

A Comment from Dr. Duell or Dowell or Duewell

To the Editor:

Since your journal is Bible-oriented and thus Hebrew-oriented, it seems to be that a special flavor could be added if transliterations of the Hebrew included the Hebrew word.

I have no dictionary that will guide me to the word hmt, chammath, kham-math’, käm-math, but I do have a dictionary that will tell me something about tm”j}, tm”h}. I have a dictionary that tells me about ha;nÒqI but none that help me with qine^eaµh, qin’aµh, kin-aw’, kin-o.

The point is that transliterations are not standardized, but Hebrew is. At least, use of the Hebrew would give us Yankees and Arkies a common handle for the word hmt gaµber, rb,g tm’j}.

The Difference Between a Lyre and a Harp

To the Editor:

The article “World’s Oldest Musical Notation Deciphered on Cuneiform Tablet,” BAR 06:05, was greatly appreciated.

You state: “This Hurrian music does not indicate rhythm, tempo, or musical ornamentation. But it does indicate both melody and harmony.” Your readers might be interested to know that although the Hebrew Bible contains many references to dance and percussion instruments, it contains no word for rhythm. The modern Hebrew word for rhythm, ketsev, when it appears in the Bible has the meaning “form.”

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In his book, Music in Ancient Israel, Alfred Sendrey (Philosophical Library, New York, 1969) suggests that the word sheminith which occurs in 1 Chronicles 15:21, and in the headings for several psalms including Psalm 6, refers to the octave. To justify his conclusion, he presents a rather involved, indirect argument based upon historical sources. The information made available in your article lends weight to his argument.

Finally, what exactly is the difference between a lyre and a harp? I thought lyres had the strings attached to one side of the sound box, not above it as in a harp. The reconstruction of the Megiddo lyre does not seem to conform to this.

Professor Anne D. Kilmer replies:

The lyre characteristically has two arms rising up from the sound box. The strings, all of the same length, are attached to the crossbar at the top of the instrument. A harp has only one arm rising up from the sound box and its strings are of differing lengths, from short to long regardless of their number.

BAR Produces Volunteers For Lachish Dig

To the Editor:

Announcements and ads in BAR about our work at Tel Lachish have brought more inquiries from prospective volunteers than any medium. Nearly everyone who writes to me for further information and applications for our Lachish dig refers to BAR as their initial source of information.

Keep up the good work! We appreciate it very much.

Comment and Response on “Animals in the Bible”

To the Editor:

In “Animals of the Bible,” BAR 07:01, particularly in the “What Is a Behemoth?” section, I was surprised that the dinosaur types (namely Brontosaurus) were not mentioned as possible candidates for the creature that is pictured in Job 40:15–24. Indeed, this view is not popular with today’s evolutionary interpretation of our origins because, according to this view, dinosaurs died out approximately 70 million years before the first man appeared on earth. Nevertheless, it is interesting to note that the tail of the behemoth, which according to Job is compared to a cedar tree, does not seem to qualify for that of an elephant, hippopotamus or a water buffalo. And since dinosaurs were lizards, and, therefore, cold blooded, one might expect to find them under the shady trees among water plants—“the reeds and fens”—because the water plants would help to support their colossal body weight.

At any rate, please respond since I too am curious as to “What Is a Behemoth?”

To the Editor:

Bill Clark’s article on “Animals of the Bible,” BAR 07:01, with its beautiful photographs was quite 015interesting. I would, however, like to draw your attention to one inaccuracy concerning the Sinai leopard. Clark states that the first sighting was in Fall, 1974. If you will consult the Illustrated London News of March 4, 1967, pp. 27–29, you will find in an article by Ian M. Blake, “Dead Sea Sites of the Utter Wilderness,” a picture of a Bedouin with a leopard shot in the area between Ein Gedi and Qumran in October 1964, some ten years before Ilani’s sighting. Was it perhaps that report, from the then-Jordanian territory, that provoked Giora Ilani’s “dream”?

To the Editor:

I have been pleasantly surprised by your magazine. I don’t know what your old format was like, but the BAR that sits before me—color photographs, “theologically-neutral” articles, “sectarian” advertising, and all—is the most pleasant and informative magazine on the Bible I’ve run across yet. I would even go so far as to say that its editorial policy is good for my soul, since I can read articles expressing the Protestant’s love of the Bible and the Jew’s love for Israel without running across anything to set my Catholic blood boiling.

I do have some thoughts about the “Animals of the Bible,” BAR 07:01: Could both the “behemoth” and the “leviathan” of chapters 40 and 41 of Job be the crocodile? I seem to remember that both my childhood impressions of that creature and 19th-century engravings seem to agree that the crocodile would fit the bill. Does he eat river-weed (“grass”)? The fact that he would be exotic in Israel (at least, I think he would be exotic) would only help to elevate him to the position of a symbol of the chaotic power of nature.

Likewise, the “wild ox” of Numbers 24:8 just might possibly be the “unicorn” of the King James and the “rhinoceros” of the Douay (“unicorn” comes from the Latin, while “rhinoceros” comes from the Greek).

Bill Clark replies:

I think it unlikely that the behemoth and the leviathan are both crocodiles, although there is strong evidence that leviathan might be.

According to Job, behemoth “eateth grass as an ox” which suggests not only vegetarian cuisine, but ruminant digestion too. Also, Job locates behemoth in the Jordan River, which was never inhabited by crocodiles.

Crocodiles did inhabit coastal rivers in Israel until the last century. Indeed, one such waterway, Nahal Tanninim, means “Crocodile River” and is located on the coast between Tel Aviv, and Haifa. Most zoologists presume that crocodiles reached Israel when they were swept out into the Mediterranean by Nile floods. This could explain their presence on the Levantine coast.

Behemoth, incidentally, derives from the Hebrew stem designating large, quadruped mammals. Some scholars believe this might also be a borrowing from the Egyptian P-ehe-mout, which was the name of the hippopotamus. For modern Israelis, behemoth is the common Hebrew word for hippopotamus. I am inclined, however, to believe Job was writing about an animal of closer kinship to the ox—a water buffalo perhaps.

The “wild ox” (Numbers 24:8) certainly seems to be the King James “unicorn” and the “rhinoceros” of the Douay—all of which I believe are a bit misleading. The original Hebrew is re’em, and is today identified by most scholars as the white oryx (Oryx leucoryx), a desert ruminant zoologically classified with the addax, roan and sable antelopes.

The oryx is in a different tribe (Hippotragini) than the wild ox (Bovini), although both are in the Family Bovidae and the Order Artiodactyla. The rhinoceros is in a completely different order, Perissodactyla.

There is room for much speculation in identifying the more obscure animals of the Bible. But one thing I do believe is sure, and that is that there are no mythical animals in the Bible. All of them actually existed, or existed at least during a period of antiquity.

Giora Ilani’s sighting of the Sinai leopard was the first confirmed sighting of this century. By confirmed I mean a sighting accepted by world authorities such as the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, which is headquartered in Switzerland.

Species cannot go extinct, and then reappear like the phoenix. There must be continuity to life, and so it is obvious that the leopard lived in the region continuously, even when it was presumed extinct by the world authorities.

Sporadic reports of the existence of the Sinai leopard have been made through this century, but there was no proper evidence until Ilani, a competent and professional zoologist, did enough field work to document the species’ existence.

I am not familiar with the 1967 British newspaper report, and I’d have a few reservations about accepting it at face value. For example, the report was made two and a half years after the reported date of the shooting. Why so late? Has anyone identified the remains as being the Biblical Sinai leopard (Panthera pardus jarvisi); earlier in this century a leopard was shot in the Galilee, but inspection of the remains indicated it was an Anatolian leopard (Panthera pardus tulliana) which had wandered south. Have Jordanian conservation authorities accepted the remains as those of the jarvisi sub-species (although I live in Eilat and can see Jordan from my from rooftop, I, understandably, have difficulty in communicating with authorities in that country).

Incidentally, during the past year, Jordan has initiated a ban on all hunting and trapping through the country, becoming the first Arab state in the region to initiate a legal effort to restore its natural treasures.

The British newspaper report did not provoke Ilani’s search for the leopard. Rather, his job provoked it. As chief zoologist for Israel’s Nature Reserves Authority, he is responsible for documenting the existence and probable population of all wildlife in Israel. In recent years, he has spent much time studying the predators. He had been studying the activities of Hyaena when other unconfirmed reports of the leopard came from Kibbutz Ein Gedi. He investigated these unconfirmed reports and made them confirmed reports.

I should also like to add that Giora Ilani made the leopard pictures, but received no credit. Incidentally, if you look closely into the left eye of the leopard in one picture, you’ll see a small spot at about 9 o’clock. This identifies the animal as Bavtah (named after the female leader of the Bar Kochbah revolt in the Ein Gedi area). Anyone who gets this close to photograph a leopard in the wild deserves plenty of credit and praise.

How to Adopt-an-Animal

To the Editor:

Holy Land Conservation Fund has had a greater response from your featured article “Animals of the Bible—Living Links to Antiquity,” BAR 07:01, than from any other single piece of public information in our past history.

Since we have received so many inquiries about how one can “Adopt-an-Animal” at the Hai Bar desert nature reserve, we would like the following information made available to your readers: Animals may be adopted by the year through the Holy Land Conservation Fund. The costs are: Addax antelope, $180; Arabian gazelle, $110; Arabian Oryx, $240; Dorcas gazelle, $60; Nubian ibex, $100; Ethiopian ostrich, $120; Persian onager, $200; Scimitar horned oryx, $180; Somali Wild-Ass, $200. Contributions (which are tax-deductible) may be made to the Holy 018Land Conservation Fund at 150 East 58th Street, New York, NY 10155. Additional information may be obtained from the Fund.

Ze’ev Herzog Replies to Beer-Sheba Letters

In our last issue (Queries & Comments, BAR 07:02), we printed several letters commenting on Ze’ev Herzog’s article, “Beer-sheba of the Patriarchs,” BAR 06:06. Dr. Herzog’s reply, which did not arrive in the United States until after we had gone to press, now appears here:

To the Editor:

I was very pleased to receive copies of readers’ letters regarding my article on “Beer-sheba of the Patriarchs,” BAR 06:06. It certainly provoked considerable interest and also some disagreements. I would like to comment on some of the questions and suggestions offered:

To Tim Hensgen: The builders of the city of Beer-sheba at the time of the United Monarchy did remove most of earlier remains on top of the hill but not on the eastern slope where we found the Iron I settlements. It is impossible to assume a Late Bronze Age occupation because not a single find in the whole dig may be dated to the period between the 16th and 14th centuries B.C. Moreover, this period (the Late Bronze Age) is also unrepresented in all other sites in the Arad-Beer-sheba valleys.

To Leslie Reggel: Tel Masos may be identified with Biblical Beer-sheba if one wants to ignore the traditional name of the site (Tell es-Seba). Moreover, Tel Beer-sheba is the only possible location of the monarchical royal city which served as an administrative center in the 10th–8th century B.C. Tel Masos has no remains from this later period. Tell es-Seba (Tel Beer-sheba) is also centrally located in the Biblical Negeb and is thus more suitable as the administrative center. In any event, the earliest occupation at Tel Masos dates very closely to the early strata of Beer-sheba, thereby posing the same difficulties regarding the patriarchs.

The objective of the archaeologist working in the land of the Bible is to uncover factual evidence for the material culture of ancient times. We do not intend to credit or discredit the Biblical story. However, the archaeological data should be compared with other sources of that period and a reasonable synthesis offered. As has happened many times in the past, documents and new finds from excavations permit better understanding on some points, but also raise new problems. This is the nature of scientific inquiry.

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BAR Scoops Time Magazine by Five Years

Time magazine’s issue of March 23, 1981 reported on the fabulous human-shaped coffins found by Hebrew University’s Trude Dothan in excavations at the Gaza Strip site of Deir el-Balah. A more complete report on this excavation, including full-color pictures, may be found in “Excavating Anthropoid Coffins in the Gaza Strip,” BAR 02:01.

According to the Time story, the inhabitants of ancient Deir el-Balah were Egyptians. “A large Egyptian community” flourished at Deir el-Balah says Time. In fact, as BAR’s article points out, the story is not so simple: The people who made the sarcophagi, who lived here and who were buried here may have been Egyptian, but some may also have been mercenaries employed by the Egyptians. The coffins reveal strong Egyptian influence, yet do not look purely Egyptian. In several cases, the artist misunderstood Egyptian symbols. The view that non-Egyptians may have been employed by Egyptians as mercenaries, is consistent with the view that the Philistines originally came to Palestine as Egyptian mercenaries.

Another possibility—although less likely—is that Deir el-Balah served as a central burial ground for Canaanite dignitaries and wealthy caravaneers.

For the complete story, read “Excavating Anthropoid Coffins in the Gaza Strip,” BAR 02:01. We are pleased to see such widespread interest in archaeological finds among the general public.

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Erratum in March/April BAR

In the March/April BAR, an editor’s nightmare became reality. In the last stages of production a column of type fell off and was placed back incorrectly. To correct your issue, put a bracket around the first 17 lines of column one on page 57 and then draw an arrow to the space above the sixth line from the bottom of the column. This will indicate that these 17 lines should have been inserted just before the last full paragraph of the column.

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Prominent New Testament Scholar Added to Lecturers at the BAS Chautauqua Vacation-Seminar

Professor Alice Mulhern, Professor of Archaeology at the Pontifical Institute of Regina Mundi in Rome will deliver two special lectures to the Biblical Archaeology Society Vacation-Seminar this summer at Chautauqua, New York. A specialist in early Christian archaeology, Dr. Mulhern enlivens her talks with first-hand accounts of antiquities in Italy, Spain, France and Greece and with her abundant collection of color slides. During recent years Dr. Mulhern has been a respected and popular member of the faculty in the summer program of the Chautauqua Institution.

BAR’s Petra Cover

To the Editor: