Queries & Comments
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Thank you for sharing your thoughts and comments about our Spring 2022 issue. We appreciate your feedback. Here are a few of the letters we received. Find more online at biblicalarchaeology.org/letters.
Expanding My Mind
As a Judaic artist, I am grateful to BAR for expanding my knowledge of Judaic art and interest in Jewish studies. When I attend Shabbat services, I often have BAR right next to my Torah because it provides a broader perspective on the biblical text and rabbinical commentaries. I now include paleo-Hebrew letters in my visual creations. As I stare at this ancient writing, I think, “Was this how King Solomon wrote the Song of Songs?” Thank you for expanding my experience of the Bible and enriching my creative world.
ROCKVILLE, MARYLAND
Piece by Piece
I wonder if the references to Caphtor in Amos and Jeremiah (Daniel Master, “Piece by Piece: Exploring the Origins of the Philistines,” Spring 2022), and the fact that they would survive after five centuries, is related to the Israelites’ fear of the sea. Could the Israelites have feared the Philistines more than others because, having come from across the sea, they were considered to be a mightier people than, say, the Egyptians, who often came by land?
NORTH MANCHESTER, INDIANA
DANIEL M. MASTER RESPONDS:
I don’t see any evidence that the Israelites feared the Philistines more than they did the Egyptians. And although I do agree that the Iron Age highland kingdoms of Israel and Judah lacked expertise in seafaring, I believe that if anyone remembered Caphtor, it would have been the Philistines, not the Israelites. Finally, when Amos and Jeremiah use the geographical term, they are hardly remembering the 12th century B.C.E. directly. Rather, I think they are telling us what they know about Philistine memories as told by the Philistines of the eighth and seventh centuries.
Proof Positive
I was fascinated to read Frankie Snyder and Rachel Bar-Nathan’s article (“Proof Positive: How We Used Math to Find Herod’s Palace at Banias,” Spring 2022) about there being a Herodian banquet hall (triclinium) at this beautiful and mystical site. Their reconstruction of the hall’s elegant floor and its possible connections to Herod’s triclinium at Jericho, all based on tiles collected 35 years ago, conjures images of Indiana Jones commiserating with Sherlock Holmes. All this brought a question to my mind: Are there similarities between those two triclinia and the lavish, Herodian double triclinium and fountain just outside the Western Wall in Jerusalem?
PEORIA, ARIZONA
SNYDER AND BAR-NATHAN RESPOND:
Triclinia at all three locations share the same basic architectural design and purpose (audiences, meetings, and festive meals). The monumental building by the Western Wall of the Temple Mount had two (possibly three) triclinia that offered impressive views and a fountain, but it did not have opus sectile floors.
Silent Labor
I want to thank BAR for including the article “Silent Labor: Dig Workers in the Middle East” and the notice of the “Unsilencing the Archives” online exhibit sponsored by the Badè Museum (both Strata, Spring 2022). Both help redress the lack of public acknowledgement and awareness of the important roles played by local Middle Easterners on excavations going back over a century.
ADJUNCT ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY
CORNELL UNIVERSITY
ITHACA, NEW YORK
Biblical Judge
I was surprised by Yosef Garfinkel’s assertion (“Name of Biblical Judge Surfaces,” Spring 2022) that “taken together with the biblical evidence” the discovery of the names Jerubba‘al and Eshba‘al “contribute to our understanding of the naming practices in Judah during the time of the judges.” To me, this is quite a leap. Finding the names on pottery only indicates that the names are old and from the era to which the pottery is dated. It does not say anything about either the time of King David or the time of the judges, as 008if those two eras are established historical fact. The existence of King David is by no means certain, and the so-called time of the judges is a narrative that was likely written in the late seventh century B.C.E., which mitigates against its historical accuracy. I believe that we should resist perpetuating assumptions that give the biblical record more credence than it warrants.
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA
YOSEF GARFINKEL RESPONDS:
While we apparently disagree on some historical interpretations and terminology, it is remarkable that the name Jerubba‘al was found in an early 11th-century context and the name Eshba‘al appears on a tenth-century jar and that these attestations correspond chronologically with the historical periods as portrayed in the Bible.
Mt. Sinai and the Red Sea
Thank you for the interesting article by Barry J. Beitzel (“A Sea Change? Finding the Biblical Red Sea,” Spring 2022). I wonder about the location of Mt. Sinai given on the article’s map, which places the mountain in the south of the Sinai Peninsula. To my knowledge, the location of Mt. Sinai is disputed and some consider a location in the Arabian Peninsula to be a better candidate. Since northwest Arabia is even farther east than the Sinai, an Arabian location for Mt. Sinai would not contradict Beitzel’s position of where the Exodus happened and could, indeed, be the correct one.
THE HAGUE, THE NETHERLANDS
BARRY J. BEITZEL RESPONDS:
The Arabian theory, with which I disagree, is precisely why I wrote Where Was the Biblical Red Sea? (Lexham Press, 2020). Scholars, including reviewers of the book, agree that the location of the Exodus was in close proximity to the Nile Delta and that Mt. Sinai was located on the Sinai Peninsula.
For more on competing ideas on the location of Mt. Sinai, see p. 37.—ED.
Cairo Geniza
The Cairo Geniza article (“Text Treasures: Cairo Geniza”) contains a mistake. You seem to equate Judeo-German with Yiddish. This is not so. Yiddish is a combination of old German and Hebrew and was a language that was not understood by 19th-century German Jews. By contrast, Judeo-German was German written in Hebrew letters. I have over 3,000 pages of journals written between 1817 and 1871 that were in Judeo-German. As I translated the journals, I was able to use a German dictionary to find words I did not know. Each letter in German had a specific Hebrew equivalent. The practice of writing in Judeo-German probably died out in the late 1800s.
SPRINGFIELD, VIRGINIA
There is ambiguity in linguistic vocabulary related to Yiddish and Judeo-German. While “Judeo-German” often refers to texts in the German language written in Hebrew script, it can also mean a specific language (or dialect), Yiddish. In our context of listing different 010languages attested in the geniza, the equation between Yiddish and Judeo-German is not incorrect, though perhaps clarification was needed.—ED.
David and Goliath
As I was poring over “Plate with the Battle of David and Goliath” (Spring 2022), a couple of questions arose. First, in the top panel, why is the person seated interpreted as “a personification of the river that provides David stones for his sling,” and not as King Saul? It seems to me that if this were a personification, there would be stones represented, as there are in the bottom panel. Could the figure seated between David and Goliath be King Saul, stylized by the Byzantine motif of a scepter—held in the right hand—topped by a proto-fleur de lis, a symbol of royalty? Secondly, what is the purpose of the snake figure in the bottom panel?
MORRISON, COLORADO
In line with classical iconography, the sitting figure is surely a personification of the river: a half-naked person pouring water from a jug. Interestingly enough, the set of silver plates, to which this one belongs, includes one with a depiction of David appearing before enthroned King Saul and another one showing Saul arming David. In both scenes, King Saul appears as a bearded man dressed in elegant garments.—ED.
I am a weaver, so I always scrutinize photos of statues, carvings, and paintings to see what ancient fabrics may have looked like, since fabrics rarely survive the centuries. I was thrilled to see the David Plate—not for the clothing but for David’s sling. In the bottom panel, what looks like a snake slithering away is exactly what slings in Peru and the Andes look like today. There is a loop at one end to help you hang onto the sling when you let the projectile fly. The other end is tapered to make it easier to let go. And the middle is wider and flatter, often with a tiny slit, to hold the projectile. It’s amazing how the sling has changed so little over the centuries.
ORLANDO, FLORIDA
What looks like a snake in the bottom panel is indeed a depiction of an ancient sling. For an overview of slinging in the ancient world, see the article by Seevers and Parrott in this issue.—ED.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts and comments about our Spring 2022 issue. We appreciate your feedback. Here are a few of the letters we received. Find more online at biblicalarchaeology.org/letters.
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