Queries & Comments

006

Dayan No Archaeological Hero

To the Editor:

If Moshe Dayan lives on heroically in history (see “The Dayan Saga—A Man and His Archaeological Collection,” BAR 08:05, by Leroy Aarons), let it be as a modern-Judas Maccabaeus. An archaeological hero he was not. Mr. Aarons does not distinguish between an archaeologist and a plunderer of archaeological sites. He labels Dayan “controversial” only in regard to the legality of his acquisitions. Nowhere does he indicate that Dayan (or the thieves who procured artifacts for his collection) exercised professional archaeological discipline in their excavations.

An undisturbed site is a unique book of history, one that may contain information about old civilizations, information that exists nowhere else in the world. The pot-hunter destroys the book unread after tearing out the pictures. There is not enough money in the world to compensate for this irretrievable loss of human knowledge.

It is possible for a man (e.g. Yigael Yadin) to have talent for both archaeology and statesmanship. Why lend glamour and dignity to Dayan’s million-dollar accomplishment? How many greedy idiots have you sent out shopping for shovels to start on their own millions?

More on Greece or He Quits

To the Editor:

The renewal notice for my subscription to BAR has just arrived. I have subscribed to BAR almost since the first year and have enjoyed and profited from the articles. I have been happy to see your magazine increase in size and improve in quality. However there is one very big defect and unless this is remedied, I shall reluctantly be obliged to let my subscription lapse.

Why have you published no articles on Biblical archaeology in countries other than Israel such as Anatolia, Greece, Italy etc. I can recall one such article only, that on a catacomb in Rome. Unless I can have an assurance from you that there will be such articles on a regular basis, I shall have to look around for an archaeological journal with wider interests than yours.

We share Reader Benjamin’s desire to see more articles in BAR from countries throughout the Mediterranean basin, although in past BARs articles involving archaeology outside of Israel have appeared. For example: “Hittites in the Bible—What Does Archaeology Say?” BAR 05:05 (Turkey); “New Light on the Nabataeans,” BAR 07:02 (Jordan); “Have Sodom and Gomorrah Been Found?” BAR 06:05 (Jordan); “First ‘Dead Sea Scroll’ Found in Egypt,” BAR 08:05 (Egypt); “An Ancient Coin Depicts Noah’ Ark,” BAR 07:05 (Turkey); Books in Brief review of The Bones of St. Peter, in this issue (Italy); and “‘Sounding Brass’ and Hellenistic Technology,” BAR 08:01 (Greece). Given the centrality of Israel in Biblical history and the prolific archaeological activity there in recent decades, Israel is naturally a central focus. But Reader Benjamin does have point. We hope to do better in the future.—Ed.

Bibles BAR Failed to List

To the Editor:

I was surprised to notice that while the New English Bible appeared twice on your “Bibles At a Glance” chart (“What Does the Bible Say?” BAR 08:06), and the Revised Standard Version three times, and the King James Version five, neither the Douay-Rheims Version nor the New American Bible appeared at all. That Msgr. Knox’s translation did appear on this chart only confuses me more it seems that your chart assembler isn’t even aware of the existence of the two major Catholic translations.

The Douay-Rheims (D-R) appeared about the same time as the King James, and the two 008translations seem to have influenced each other’s various revisions. The D-R became “the” Catholic Bible, as the King James became “the” Protestant Bible. (Compare Luke 1:28: “Hail, thou who art highly favored” [KJV] with “Hail, full of grace” [D-R].) The D-R influenced the English language as the King James did. (Compare Gerard Manley Hopkins’s “Thou art indeed Just, Lord” [No. 732 in The New Oxford Book of English Verse] with Jeremiah 12:1 in the D-R: “Thou indeed, O Lord, art just, if I plead with thee, but yet I will speak what is just to thee: Why doth the way of the wicked prosper: why is it well with all them that transgress, and do wickedly?”)

The New American Bible (1971) is the translation used for most modern Catholic Missals, and so I would guess that about ten percent of the population of the United States listens to readings from it every Sunday, with maybe even 20% to 25% listening to it on Christmas or Easter.

To the Editor:

In checking through the November/December issue of BAR I was distressed to see in your comparison of Bibles that the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures—published by The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society—wasn’t included. It is, if not the best available translation, one of the best. Possibly you didn’t have room to include it or maybe you didn’t know of it because of its not being available in stores.

BAR listed only a small sampling of the many excellent Bible translations available today.

Two errors inadvertently appeared in the chart. Our readers should note that Moody Press does not publish the Revised Standard Version, but Moody does publish the King James Version and the New American Standard. Holman Bible Publishers—one of the largest Bible publishers in the United States—should have been shown as the publisher of the Revised Standard Version and the New American Standard.—Ed.

Why Section Drawings? Lance vs. Callaway

To the Editor:

In his review of my book, The Old Testament and the Archaeologist (Fortress Press, 1981), Professor Joseph Callaway has made the charge that it “unfortunately … perpetuates some conceptual and methodological errors” (“Books in Brief,” BAR 08:05). Since the volume was written in part to describe the best methods now in use, his charges, if true, are serious indeed. I would like to debate each point with Professor Callaway, but I shall confine myself to one.

Callaway objects to a statement I made about the use and recording of sections. “Lance suggests that the primary purpose of the ‘section’ drawing is simply to record ‘the relationship of loci as they originated in the process of the mound’s formation.’” On the contrary, concludes Callaway, the drawing of sections has the primary purpose of assisting the “dirt archaeologist in the field.” Apart from the important word “simply” which has been inserted by Callaway, he has quoted me correctly but badly out of context. The context (p. 28) was a discussion of a particular example of a drawn section in a part of the book labeled “The Recording System.” The concern here was with recording, not with digging technique. A few pages further on in a more general discussion of the necessity of properly drawing and recording sections, I stated (p. 31), “Perhaps the major argument for recording and publishing measured sections … is that they prove that the excavator has in fact examined, analyzed, and made stratigraphic sense of the work in the field” (italics in the original). Except that it was written from the viewpoint of recording rather than digging, I fail to see how this statement differs much from Callaway’s own position.

The concepts and procedures which are described in my book are basically those rooted in the excavations at Shechem under G. Ernest Wright and others, and greatly expanded and refined for use in the ten-year excavation of the site of Gezer under William Dever and J. D. Seger. Subsequently, partly through staff trained at Gezer, partly through the medium of A Manual of Field Excavation (Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, 1978), edited by Dever and myself, they have been adopted or adapted by many other digs. If these methods and concepts are as erroneous as Professor Callaway says, then the discipline of Palestinian archaeology is indeed in a sorry state. Whether this is in tact the case I am content to let the readers of my 010book decide for themselves.

Joseph Callaway replies:

I believe there is still some distance between my concept of the primary purpose of a “section” drawing, or vertical profile, and that of Professor Lance. True, his discussion does occur in a part of the book labeled “The Recording System.” That is where it seems to belong in the methods he describes in the book.

On the other hand, I believe as I said in the review, that the “primary purpose is to help the archaeologist define the layers (of earth recorded in a section) and to control their removal.” The key words are “define” and “control’” because the interpretation of a section takes place before and during the process of digging, and not after the excavation is completed. In my opinion it is primarily an instrument of digging technique, and secondarily a record of “the relationship of loci” or layers.

The Essene Calendar—Old and Solar

To the Editor:

I must commend you on your September/October 1982 issue. It is one of the most satisfying and stimulating of many satisfying and stimulating issues.

Second, I have a question that perhaps you can answer. In the most excellent article by Raphael Levy about the discovery by Solomon Schechter of the first “Dead Sea Scroll” (“First ‘Dead Sea Scroll’ Found in Egypt Fifty Years Before Qumran Discoveries,” BAR 08:05), he states: “The sect also followed a heterodox calendar of 12 months of 30 days each, plus four intercalary days.”

In the other fine article, “Essene Origins—Palestine or Babylonia?” the following is stated: “The faithful retreated to the desert to live a life of ritual purity, observing the ancient law, following the old calendar that marked the holy times … ” Both quotations referred to the Essene sect. The first quotation seems to tell us that the sect followed a solar month calendar. The second quotation points to the “old calendar” which is one of lunar months.

Please resolve this problem for me.

Raphael Levy replies:

Strange as it may seem, both statements are correct.

You are right in realizing that the “heterodox” calendar of the covenanters was a solar one, and that the orthodox Jewish calendar would have been a lunar calendar.

But the term “old calendar” in the article “Essene Origins—Palestine or Babylonia?” (written by Hershel Shanks, editor of BAR) does not refer to the orthodox lunar calendar.

The Essenes apparently believed that not only was theirs the ancient and true faith, faithful to the Zadokite tradition, but that it was regulated by the ancient and true calendar.

The distinguished scholar Geza Vermes has written “To the Community this [the lunar calendar] was an abomination of the Gentiles and directly counter to the ‘certain law from the mouth of God.’ It had itself inherited, probably from priestly circles, a solar calendar based on ‘the laws of the Great Light in heaven’ in which the year was divided into pity-two weeks exactly; into, that is to say’ four seasons of thirteen weeks.” (G. Vermes, The Dead Sea Scrolls in English, Penguin Books: Harmondsworth, England, with revisions, 1968, p. 43.)

The issue of what calendar the Jews of the Biblical period actually observed is very complex, and here I refer you to the Encyclopedia Britannica and the Encyclopedia Judaica. But for the Essenes, their calendar was truly the “old” calendar.

How BAR’s Israel Seminar Helped

To the Editor:

As an instructor of Biblical studies in a local church, I found the BAR Israel Seminar to be exceedingly valuable.

Many of us in the field of teaching literally scrounge for graphic visual aids to enhance a Biblical story or idea. Just visiting the tels from scorching Timnah to the lush forests of Dan offered invaluable illustrations to the ancient events. The land itself is one of the best commentaries on Scripture that I have found.

Complementing the land was the able instruction of Dr. James Fleming who tied together geography with event. Through well-illustrated lectures and field trips, the participants were helped to understand how that geography might fill in some of the gaps 011of the Biblical narrative.

The final two weeks at the City of David dig provided a new experience for most of us. Compensating for the exhausting work was a most helpful staff who answered questions and kept all the volunteers abreast of the significant finds in all the sections of the dig.

At the conclusion of the Seminar, I strongly felt that six weeks was just long enough to whet my appetite for a longer study in Israel.

For those interested in BAR’s 1983 Israel Seminar, see the announcement on p. 68.—Ed.

More on the Caesarea Aqueduct Tunnel

To the Editor:

Your November/December 1982 issue contains a letter inquiring about the knowledge and instruments used to construct the tunnel for the aqueduct at Caesarea Maritima (Queries & Comments, BAR 08:06).

A device that enables a tunnel to be dug from both ends is described in the “Dioptra” by Heron of Alexandra (60 A.D.). A picture of this device and how it is used is found on pages 102–104 of Science Awakening by Bartel L. Van Der Waerden (Oxford University Press, 1961). While it is not known that such a device was used, the knowledge certainly existed.

Incidentally this is not the first tunnel dug from both ends. About 530 B.C. Eupalinus of Megara constructed a tunnel approximately one kilometer long as part of an aqueduct on the island of Samos. This is also described in Van Der Waerden’s book.

Dayan No Archaeological Hero

To the Editor: