Queries & Comments
014
Are There Any God-Fearers Today?
Thank you for the interesting articles on “The God-Fearers—Did They Exist?” BAR 12:05. I commend you on your practice of presenting both sides of an issue in this and in previous issues. This is one of the things that makes BAR such a well-balanced magazine.
Many times, history serves as a mirror and even gives us insights into our present-day lives. As I read the articles about the God-Fearers, I wondered whether in 2,000 years, if the “great and terrible Day of the Lord” has not yet arrived, archaeologists will sift through the evidence of our present-day civilization and debate whether or not there were any “God-fearers”?
Randy C. Ivey
Florence, South Carolina
Breathing Life into the Biblical Work
BAR is great! I’ve subscribed to it from its inception and look forward to reading each issue because it breathes life into the Biblical world for me through words and pictures. I don’t agree with everything I read in BAR, but you don’t really expect me to. As I see it, you’re helping me be aware of the steps being taken toward discovering the world of my spiritual roots. Some of these “steps” are tentative, some may be wrong, some are controversial, some are unorthodox (in approach as well as theology), but all are open to reevaluation; and I like that, because you do it with style and iconoclastic frankness.
Your choice of advertisers is courageously rich and, if nothing else, confirms in my mind that your editorial commitment is to a risky integrity in all of BAR’s content. Good for you! Besides, without those ads the letters to the editor wouldn’t be half so interesting.
Here’s one evangelical Christian who thinks you’re doing a great job. Keep it up!
Gary A. Dusek, Pastor
The First Baptist Church of Sunnyvale
Sunnyvale, California
Just the Facts, Please. No Arguments
I am writing to cancel my subscription. I am interested in Biblical archaeology, but I want the facts. It seems to me your magazine is just one big argument. One archaeologist will say an excavation is one thing, and another will say something else. If archaeologists can’t agree, then there aren’t any sure facts. So I am not interested in reading your magazine.
Tirzah Cockrum
DeWitt, Arkansas
Pro God-Fearers
I have just finished reading the excellent series of articles in the September/October issue of BAR on the “God-fearers” (“The God-Fearers: Did They Exist?” BAR 12:05). I thoroughly enjoyed all three articles.
Would you permit me, as a geologist, to make a few remarks about the possible or probable existence of “God-fearers” based entirely upon a few basic facts and pure logic?
The only basic facts I need are:
1. Judaism, as the main monotheistic religion of ancient times, was indeed actively 015proselyting during the times discussed in these three articles.
2. Many non-Jews were intimately acquainted with Jewish beliefs and customs because of close social contacts, and were being actively taught Judaism.
It must follow logically that converts to Judaism went through a stage where they would satisfy many if not all of the requirements to be “God-fearers,” as discussed in the articles. Few people, like Paul, are converted instantaneously through angelic vision—most go through a process of conversion through the persuasiveness or example of those proselyting. Unquestionably any convert to Judaism must have first accepted Jewish monotheism before accepting any of the “accoutrements” imposed by Jewish belief. Hence, any convert might at some time during his conversion think and act Judaically, e.g., attend meetings, associate with Jews, etc., without bringing himself to the supreme sacrifice of losing a most delicate part of his body! At this stage, he would satisfy all the requirements of being a God-fearer—he believes, but he just hasn’t brought himself to circumcision, and possibly he never would.
As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormon), I might draw a parallel in many of our converts. All must believe in Jesus Christ, all must accept the Book of Mormon as scripture, all must believe in the prophetic calling of Joseph Smith. All bonafide LDS members satisfy these requirements, but many do not make the supreme sacrifices which might be analogous to circumcision, e.g., paying an honest tithe, obeying the Word of Wisdom, preparing themselves for marriage for eternity in the temple, working for the dead, and so on. They attend church regularly, they contribute to church projects, they live good lives and associate with other LDS people, etc. Are not these people analogous to God-fearers? Moreover, are there not other people in all other faiths who are similar?
Based upon the above, I conclude that the God-fearers did exist, and still do exist, even in Judaism.
Dr. C. L. Sainsbury
Indian Hills, Colorado
Whenever the term “scholar” is used to lend credence to a statement, we usually take notice and are inclined to accept the point of view, unless the proposition is contrived to begin with or otherwise tainted. In the case of Robert S. MacLennan and A. Thomas Kraabel’s “God-Fearers—A Literary and Theological Invention,” BAR 12:05, a great disservice is done to 016scholarship through this article’s disregard for the bounds of common sense and logical evidence.
Their article displays an overall hostile view of Scripture. It deliberately derides the writings of Luke in an attempt to undermine and avoid the authority of Scripture. In the authors’ eyes, “Luke’s dramatic ability” and “literary creativity” have done no more than give us a “literary composition,” and he should not be “taken as a historian,” because he used “the God-fearers as a device” in “the story he wishes to tell.” Paul appears to be no better. He, too, “had a story to tell” and was not “concerned with recounting history,” providing only “an interpretive portrait” in “a collection of … sermons and letters.” It appears MacLennan and Kraabel have subscribed to nothing less than form-criticism, which John W. Montgomery, author of History and Christianity, describes as “an approach regarded as misleading and outmoded by much of recent biblical scholarship.” Sir William M. Ramsay, the noted British archaeologist, in rejecting the negative critical attitude taken by the 19th-century Tubingen school wrote, “Luke’s history is unsurpassed in respect to its trustworthiness.” The authors of “God-Fearers” have abandoned true scholarship for their own brand of modern scholarship.
The archaeological evidence, too, is weak and contains supposition. The authors seem to think the lack of definitive inscriptions from excavated synagogues would indicate God-fearers did not exist. The fault in this logic should be obvious. Also, with regard to the inscriptions themselves, why do MacLennan and Kraabel seem to expect sympathetic outsiders (God-fearers) to be listed over and above true believers and synagogue members: This article’s archaeological and literary “evidence” has been fabricated only for the purpose of eliminating God-fearers. Compare the article’s statement, “We can base no sound historical conclusions on the New Testament references” to the statement of Rabbi Nelson Glueck, the archaeologist who is the subject of BAR’s cover story: “It may be stated categorically that no archaeological discovery has ever controverted a biblical reference.”
It seems then there is a large void in MacLennan and Kraabel’s presentation, mainly the lack of authentic and trustworthy scholarship. This type of writing neither serves the needs of archaeology, nor supports the reliability of Scripture, and clearly reflects an attitude of “alteration and amplification,” indicating “both authors had a story to tell.”
Philip B. Jackson
Santa Ana, California
017
What a marvelous journal! The three articles on the God-fearers are a delight. Feldman settled the issue magisterially.
Tomm Simms
Houlton, Maine
Doctors MacLennan and Kraabel suggest that Luke uses God-fearers as a literary device because the synagogue and God-fearers disappear after Acts 19:8. Sure they do! The pioneer missionary effort was over for the Roman provinces of Asia, Macedonia and Achaia. Paul’s presence there was to strengthen the churches. Before he can go on to new fields (cf. Romans 15:23–29), he is arrested and Acts concludes with Paul still under house arrest and still reaching out to the Jews—Acts 28:16–31.
MacLennan and Kraabel’s arguments just don’t hold water.
Richard D. Concklin, Pastor
Faith Baptist Church
Madison, Wisconsin
P.S. As a Christian I prefer the term, “Tanakh-Hebrew Scriptures” or simply “Hebrew Scriptures” for the Old Testament. I would defer to my Jewish friends since, were I they, the term “Old Testament” would be offensive to me (Matthew 7:12).
BAR Insensitive to Spy Paranoia
As a member of the community doing archaeological research in the Middle East, I question your decision to publish your cover story, “The Rabbi Was a Spy,” BAR 12:05.
In an area of high political and security sensitivities, it would seem that the last thing we would want is anyone casting aspersions that members of the archaeological community are spies.
I realize that Nelson Glueck is a highly important figure in Middle Eastern archaeology and as such his life is subject to review. Nor do I wish to belittle or lessen the fact that he was an unheralded American soldier in the war against Nazi Germany. However, the title of the magazine is Biblical Archaeology Review not Biographical Archaeology Review.
I don’t have any problems with the article itself, but would prefer that you omit any exposé that might induce spy paranoia in our often politically sensitive profession.
Peter Warnock
Texas A & M University
College Station, Texas
Anson Rainey on the Eitan Interview
In response to the interview with Avi Eitan, Director of the Israel Department of Antiquities (
(1) The site that he is excavating at Vered Jericho is simply a fortified complex, as Avi implied in one of his replies to you. It can be called a fort (Hebrew, metzad), but hardly a fortress (metzudah). There is nothing cultic about any of its features. Those stairs are the lower steps of staircases that led to the upper story, or to the roof. I have excavated several such staircases at Tel Beer-sheba (see photograph). Behind the stairs in the picture was a room in which remains of the charred wood of the upper steps had fallen. This was a private house of the tenth century B.C.
Any suggestion that the structure at Vered Jericho is a shrine of any kind is pure nonsense. Avi’s hint that it might be a beth bamoth is typical of his generation of archaeologists, trained in the skills of excavation but without the proper training in biblical semantics of historical/cultural logic. It is no particular reflection on Avi personally when I say that we have a generation of technicians who presume, through ignorance, that they have the authority to pontificate on all matters Biblical and historical. We even have a few junior historians who are so in awe of the archaeologists that they produce historical interpretations on demand.
(2) As for the problem of the Dead Sea Scrolls, it is truly a shame that so much material from Cave 4 is unpublished. Apparently, some of the scholars to whom 064that material was assigned lack the courage of imperfection (a term coined by the psychologist Rollo May). That Avi was not aware that a concordance existed is also indicative of a generation of technicians who are unversed in a field such as the Dead Sea Scrolls. But Avi cannot be blamed for commitments made by those who were in positions of authority in 1968. Besides, at that time, it was certainly not the right occasion to “get rough” with Roland de Vaux and the other Dead Sea Scroll scholars, many of whom were in shock at finding themselves responsible for the first time to Israeli authorities. At that time the arrangement made was fair and magnanimous.
Anson F. Rainey
Tel Aviv University
Tel Aviv, Israel
Releasing the Unpublished Dead Sea Scrolls
I read with great interest your interview with Avi Eitan, particularly the section dealing with the Dead Sea Scrolls.
The line of questioning you followed concerning the scrolls suggests that you have every intention of pursuing the inquiry until all the manuscripts are released. Exposing the deliberate, selective withholding of scroll fragments may be the only means available to gain full publication. Investigative journalism is critical in the process.
Your skillful interview with Mr. Eitan serves to alert even the casual observer to the abuses foisted upon both scholarly and lay communities world-wide when authoritarian interests predominate over the individual’s right to know.
Lowell Sinclair Robertson
Kansas City, Missouri
BAR’s Diversity in Articles and Ads
It never ceases to amaze me how many people continue to complain about your advertising policies. Their constant harping about your ads and sometimes articles reveals how truly narrow-minded they are; and to make matters worse, they have the audacity to try to force their narrowness on everyone else. The idea that BAR should only print articles or publish advertisements that reflect their own view of the world or their own narrow theology is utterly astounding. The only things that are offensive to me in any BAR issue I have received (I have been a subscriber for many years) are the incredibly limited and closed minds of the complainers.
Your magazine has brought new insights into my Bible study and that of my church school class (which I often teach). As my wife is the pastor of our church (Presbyterian), I am often asked about a topic or an issue relating to Biblical history during class, whether or not I am teaching. BAR has helped me to keep on top of the current discoveries and issues relating to the Bible.
As a scholar and an education professional, I believe it is extremely important that we constantly challenge our minds. This sometimes means that we must also look at our beliefs and our personal faith in a critical manner. If we are not willing to do this (or can’t handle it emotionally), then we limit ourselves in our understanding of our world and what is happening in it today. If our faith is so weak and fragile that it cannot withstand an honest, critical evaluation, or tolerate any new ideas, then we as persons are basically dead. We will never go beyond where we now are; we stagnate and, for me at least, that would be death.
Please continue to publish your marvelous articles. They are extremely well done. Your ads don’t insult me or offend me, and neither do articles that present a differing point of view than I have been used to. I 066hope I never become that constricted and narrow-minded.
Alan J. Snyder, M.S.
Shawnee, Kansas
Is Faith Based on Historical Fact?
I must reply to Mr. Smith (Queries & Comments, BAR 12:05) who wrote “Theology is based on history. The power of the resurrection is not available apart from the historical fact of the resurrection,” and later “Our God does not do shoddy work.”
Indeed, God does not do “shoddy” work, Mr. Smith, but his writers were human and therefore fallible. You yourself must know how difficult it is to hear the Lord’s voice and how easy it must have been to possibly misinterpret it. If history is the basis of faith and history is somehow disproved, is our faith then disproved? I think not. You, however, seem willing to throw your belief out the window if there is a mix-up in historical facts. For your sake, I hope no one ever tells you about evolution.
Denise Spivey
Delray Beach, Florida
Conrad Schick Was German, After All
According to a letter from Mordechai Nay of Ramat Gan, Israel, Conrad Schick was not of German but of Swiss origin (Queries & Comments, BAR 12:04). Even so competent writers as Neil Asher Silberman (Digging for God and Country [New York, 1982] p. 151) and Yehoshua Ben-Arieh (The Rediscovery of the Holy Land in the Nineteenth Century [Jerusalem, 1983] p. 213) make him “Swiss-born” or a “Swiss architect.”
In fact, Schick was born January 27, 1822 in the little village of Bitz, where his father was mayor. Bitz, in the mountains of the Schwäbische Alb, is situated in Württemberg, then and now a part of Germany.
He was educated in Korntal near Stuttgart (also in Germany) and later at the seminary for mission in St. Chrischona/Switzerland. This seminary accepted, as it does until this day, teachers and pupils from Germany.
In 1846 Schick was sent to Jerusalem by the seminary, but beginning in 1850, he worked for the “London Jews Society.” Then he became for decades the district architect of Jerusalem on behalf of the Turkish Government. In this position he was one of the pioneers of modern archaeology in the holy city. His drawings and plans are of priceless value. In 1897 Schick received the honorary degree of a Doctor of Theology from the Protestant faculty of my university (Tübingen).
Schick died December 23, 1901 in Jerusalem. Sir Charles W. Wilson wrote in his obituary: “The influence which he exercised 068over the mixed population of Jerusalem may be gathered from the crowd of sorrowing friends—Christians, Moslems, and Jews—who followed him to his last resting place … ” (Palestine Exploration Fund Quarterly Statement [London, 1902] p. 141).
Schick was from the beginning a strong opponent of the fantastic claims of the so-called Garden Tomb. After years of doubt, he believed in the authenticity of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
The biography of this humble Christian and great scholar has yet to be written.
Dr. Rainer Riesner
Universität Tübingen
Tübingen, West Germany
In the September/October 1986 issue of your outstanding journal (Queries & Comments, BAR 12:05), your reader Mordechai Nay maintains that Conrad Schick was Swiss, though not giving the grounds for his assertion. In your short statement, the editor agrees with him and concedes an error in relying on the Encyclopaedia Judaica to the effect that Schick was German.
In fact, Schick was of German origin. The Encyclopaedia Hebraica as well (Vol. 31, 1979, col. 828) is wrong presenting him as “Schweizer Tischler” (joiner) and giving 1902 as the date of his death. You are wrong, however, in stating “Schick came to Jerusalem from Germany,” in “The Garden Tomb: Was Jesus Buried Here?” BAR 12:02.
Claus-Dieter Stoll
Tübingen, Germany
More on The Shroud of Turin
The Kohlbeck and Nitowski paper (“New Evidence May Explain Image on Shroud of Turin,” BAR 12:04) demands comment. The matters they addressed may have already produced a correspondence flood from other distressed physicians; and perhaps an objection or two from a physicist or physiologist.
You have a fine, well edited journal which I enjoy along with Bible Review. Please accept objections to authors who get carried away and, I believe, need to be drawn up short. The message is, “Don’t write unless you know the subject intimately and have something original to contribute.”
Richard S. Malone, M.D.
San Antonio, Texas
The Kohlbeck-Nitowski theory on the Shroud of Turin requires an incredibly dusty body or shroud. Random smears of limestone resulting from maneuvering in a confined space would not account for an image of most parts of the body.
A more important aspect, it seems to me, is briefly mentioned in the boxed editorial comments—that is, the question of distortion, or lack of it, of the image.
Let us assume that a lasting image can, somehow, be transferred by a body to cloth.
What sort of image would one expect from a three-dimensional body when the shroud is pulled out flat, as it is, for inspection and photography?
Surely not a “visage arrestingly lifelike and undistorted” as noted in the sidebar
The artist’s picture in the sidebar shows how such a shroud would surely be handled.
Over 30 or more hours, limp cloth would sag from the bridge of the nose, down the sides of the nostrils, across the front of the cheeks and down the sides of the face.
When the cloth was pulled out flat again, any image would show considerable side-to-side distortion.
A cloth draped over my very ordinary face measures, when spread flat, over 13 inches (34 cm) from ear-tip to ear-tip. My nose, an undistinguished feature, becomes over three inches (8 cm) wide.
The limper the cloth the more the lateral distortion of the frontal image. A less flexible cloth would show marks of high points, such as the bridge of the nose and cheek bones, with vague marks or blank spaces where the cloth hung suspended.
The back of the body resting on the half-shroud spread out on a fairly flat surface would make a quite different impression. There would be roughly oval shapes where the back of the head, the shoulder blades, the buttocks, thighs, calves and heels had touched. They would be separated by more-or-less blank areas depending on how much the neck and the small of the back were arched.
The production of ‘authentic’ relics is an ancient trade with skills, probably basically simple, still sufficient to bamboozle the technologists.
John Carder
Western Australia
Concerning the “New Evidence” about the Turin shroud, if the authors are writing about red particles which are organic, then they appear to be referring to red blood corpuscles (RBC).
Thus if they continue their argument that they “now appeared to have nuclei,” let me point out that RBC do not have nuclei!
Neil Rosenstein, M.D.
Elizabeth, New Jersey
Are There Any God-Fearers Today?
Thank you for the interesting articles on “The God-Fearers—Did They Exist?” BAR 12:05. I commend you on your practice of presenting both sides of an issue in this and in previous issues. This is one of the things that makes BAR such a well-balanced magazine.
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