Queries & Comments

010

The Letter to Top All Letters

Is it really necessary to give all that space to narrow-minded, sexually uptight people who write to cancel their subscriptions (Queries & Comments, BAR 14:01)?

The letter from Frank and Jean Sandford of Wells, Maine, really tops the cake: After slapping your face and insulting your judgment, they have the nerve to ask for a free issue in the event you print their letter. I can’t believe their stupidity.

I love all your articles. And I look forward to going on one of your sponsored digs someday!

How anyone could cancel their subscription and ask for a free copy in the same letter has got to be the most incredibly funny letter to the editor of all time.

I have come to the conclusion that your editors have a highly developed sense of humor. Otherwise, how could they tolerate all the critical comments regarding the “morals” of an archaeological magazine.

Subscription Cancellation Spawns Renewal in Wells

I was going to let my subscription to BAR lapse until I read all the narrow-minded “cancel-my-subscription” letters because of your review of Greek Magical Papyrii (Books in Brief, BAR 13:03). You may have lost one subscription in Wells, Maine [Frank and Jean Sandford, Wells, Maine, Queries & Comments, BAR 14:01] but you regained mine!

The truth never hurt people of good will.

Are We a Bunch of Weirdos?

In regularly reading Queries & Comments, I’ve come to one clear conclusion: You have a really weird assortment of readers.

Every issue seems to bring scads of cancellation demands from all sorts of strange folk. Even when the feature articles hold no interest for me, I enjoy reading the letters just to see what dumb reasons people think of to get mad at you. If it’s not magic formulas, or cigar smokers, or some alleged deviation from The Truth, it’s something else equally childish.

The people in your subscription department must go crazy for a few days every other month. I hope you pay them well, they deserve it, what with trying to ensure that the ignorant who want to stay ignorant aren’t intruded upon by thought.

Bilbils and Bl-bls

“Why Is a Bilbil Called a Bilbil?” asks Victor Goodside in the January/February 1988 BAR (BAR 14:01).

I believe the name was given to the ewer by kitchen servants. The unique tilt of the neck of this ewer was so designed to make it possible to decant a large volume of liquid into drinking vessels without danger of spill or in the case of wine without disturbing the sediment. To make this possible, the ewer was filled up into the neck area, then two “bil bils” of liquid were decanted off. When this was done it was then possible to pour without disturbance.

The bilbil’s peculiar shape is functional. Since ice floats, chunks of it would be retained in the globular body when the pouring spout was tipped downward. Ice can be manufactured by radiation at night from water-filled depressions under cloudless skies. An ancient bilbil would conserve precious ice in a way clumsy modern icewater pitchers fail to do when they send cascades of it into a glass.

The hypothesis of the late Yigael Yadin that the name “bilbil” is onomatopoeic is reasonable. Bakbuk is Hebrew for “bottle” because that is the sound liquids make when poured from one.

If the bilbil shown in the January/February BAR were made of plastic and were of recent origin, it would immediately be identified as a “duck.” If you don’t know what a duck is, ask any nurse.

Q & C Provides a Good Laugh

I enjoy reading your fine magazine. Before I turn to the articles, however, I read the Queries & Comments section to have a good laugh at the letters from people who have canceled their subscriptions because you printed pagan spells, or because one of your advertisers sells idols, or because the archaeological findings described in an article do not agree with someone’s preconceived notions.

I have never read an article in your magazine that did not apply high standards of scholarship. I detect no tendency by the 012archaeologists who contribute articles to BAR to pander to the expectations of those readers who might cancel their subscriptions for whatever excuse. For this, I commend BAR and its archaeologist contributors.

A Construction Expert Assesses Volunteer’s Performance

The picture in the January/February issue (“1988 Excavation Opportunities: Sites,” BAR 14:01) of the girl carrying four buckets of earth should have been your centerfold picture.

I am in the construction business and we cannot get men to work that hard. She is doing it and paying to do so. Those buckets of dirt are close to five-gallon size. It is extremely difficult for me to pick up and carry one. Two are easier than one because of balance. But four are impossible for me.

I would guess your picture of her will get her a pick of positions if she stays in archaeology.

How’s That Again?

Regarding the article entitled “Archaeology and the Biblical Text,” BAR 14:01, by Fredric R. Brandfon, I read and reread it, and can only come up with this comment:

“How’s that again?”

Literature or Science?

As prose Aharon Kempinski’s article “Jacob in History,” BAR 14:01, is excellent. His facility in telling a tale is delightful, something which unfortunately many scientists do not possess. I’ll give the article good marks as literature. From a scientific viewpoint, however, what has he done? He has taken a couple of scarabs with the name “Jacob” and done a major job of rewriting Egyptian and Palestinian history. It does seem to me a pretty big rabbit from such a small hat.

Dolls? Are You Serious?

Re the ad for Franklin Heirloom Dolls in your September/October 1987 issue. Is this or is this not a serious and/or scholarly publication?

Toys? Dolls? Yes, for People magazine and Reader’s Digest. No, for BAR.

Should We Accept Scripture as Fact?

Aharon Kempinski’s article, “Jacob in History,” BAR 14:01, states, “In a brilliantly intuitive way, Weill reconstructed the Biblical literary process.” Weill is a scholar who regarded the Jacob stories as heroic legends built around Hyksos and Canaanite rulers named Jacob.

Why is it that whenever a person uses arabesqued reasoning in order to discredit the historical veracity of scripture, he is considered brilliant? C. S. Lewis said about such reconstructions that modern critics never got the source right for his writings, written during their lifetime; how much more then must he doubt the attempts of modern critics to explain sources for the ancient Biblical records. I join Lewis in believing it’s best to accept scripture as fact, especially since archaeological data constantly supports the sitz-im-leben of the Biblical stories.

Let’s face it. If heroic stories were going to be invented for the ancestor of a nation, they’d hardly talk about a man who liked 058to stay at home, make red pottage and dress up in goatskins in order to supplant a bigger, stronger, hairier brother.

Using the Bible to Explain Archaeological Data

I found the article by Aharon Kempinski, “Jacob in History,” BAR 14:01, extremely fascinating and filled with very valuable information and insights. I thoroughly enjoyed it and learned a great deal.

However, it has left me with some questions.

Kempinski ignores the Bible as a great source of archaeological data and seems to reduce it merely to a creation of someone who might have intended to deceive: “We have here an excellent illustration of the way the Biblical writer uses traditional materials.” He means that the Biblical writer inserted events and names in the wrong place just to make the account he was narrating more exciting or to give it more importance. I find this very biased, against the Bible. And I believe that he is wrong in making such a statement.

Here are some of my questions: Could the Jacob of the Shiqmona scarab (1730 B.C.) be referring to the Biblical Jacob, whose saga is told in Genesis 28–49? I believe Mr. Kempinski may be accepting this possibility when he agrees with Raymond Weill’s suggestions. He concludes “What does seem clear is that there was a West Semitic ruler named Jacob-HR who lived in Canaan about 1750 B.C.” (Could this be Biblical Jacob?) His people immigrated to the Eastern Delta. (Could this be the story of Joseph and his brothers?) Ultimately his people became the Hyksos rulers of Egypt, the XVth Dynasty. (Could this be the period narrated in Exodus 1:7?) One of these rulers reused Jacob’s name about 1650 B.C. Then, about 1570 B.C., this Semitic Dynasty was expelled from Egypt. (Could this be the Exodus story after many years of slavery in Egypt?)

A New Explanation of the Eshtemoa Hoard

Ze’ev Yeivin’s article, “The Mysterious Silver Hoard from Eshtemoa,” BAR 13:06, was most fascinating. Indeed, trying to assess what the hoard represents is most difficult.

However, I am wondering if Mr. Yeivin has not overlooked some other possibilities. One such is found in Leviticus 5:14–16 as regards the guilt offerings:

“The Lord said to Moses: ‘When a person commits a violation and sins unintentionally in regard to any of the Lord’s holy things, he is to bring to the Lord as a penalty a ram from the flock, one without defect and of the proper value in silver, according to the sanctuary shekel. It is a guilt offering. He must make restitution for what he has failed to do in regard to the holy things, add a fifth of the value to that and give it all to the priest, who will make atonement for him with the ram as a guilt offering, and he will be forgiven.” (NIV)

Another possibility is Leviticus 27:31—“If a man redeem any of his tithe, he must add a fifth of the value to it.” In fact, there are several “fifths” mentioned in the 27th chapter of Leviticus.

Ze’ev Yeivin replies:

The fifth, as well as the tenth, are values quite common as offerings in the Bible. The guilt offering (asûam), or its value in silver, was brought to the Temple in Jerusalem by the sinner himself, to be forgiven by the Lord, so I wouldn’t expect to find it in Eshtemoa, a site far from Jerusalem.

The word hmsû on the jugs of the hoard is definitely not the name of a person and couldn’t therefore describe ownership—it could only describe the contents.

As was mentioned in my article, the word hmsû could be either the definition of the contents or a number describing its quantity. I prefer the first possibility.

Names of offerings are very common in the Bible, and if there is an, connection between the hoard and one of these, I would expect to find the name clearly written on the jugs.

So I prefer to interpret the word hmsû as homesh, as a definition of a fee, as is so clearly mentioned in Hebrew (mh), in the Bible (Genesis 47:26).

No Moralistic Straitjacket for Him

You may consider this too combative or trifling to print, but I want to get it off my chest.

Do not, repeat, do not cancel my subscription because of the photograph of the scantily clad and very shapely young volunteer worker pictured in the January/February 1988 issue (“1988 Excavation Opportunities: Sites,” BAR 14:01), with a 059bare-chested man in the background, and another woman beyond him who doesn’t have on her chador. I am proud of my freedom from the moralistic straitjacket in which some of your readers are bound. They are extremely tiresome, and their letters canceling subscriptions are the only jarring notes in an otherwise excellent journal. Keep up the good work.

Books to Add to La Sor’s List

I was delighted to see William S. La Sor’s article “Learning Biblical Languages,” BAR 13:06, which included reviews of the best Hebrew and Greek grammars.

I was surprised, however, by the absence of books which are more in tune with modern linguistic research. May I suggest that the following works, which are simple enough for second-year language students to use, be added to La Sor’s list:

J. P. Louw, Semantics of New Testament Greek (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1982);

M. Silva, Biblical Words and Their Meaning: An Introduction to Lexical Semantics (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1983);

E. A. Nida et al., Style and Discourse, With Special Reference to the Text of the Greek New Testament (New York United Bible Societies, 1983);

J. P. Louw, ed., Lexicography and Translation (New York: United Bible Societies, 1985);

D. A. Black, Linguistics for Students of New Testament Greek: A Survey of Basic Concepts and Applications (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, in press).

The benefits to he reaped from the study of linguistics and semantics are too significant to be overlooked, and students neglect them at their peril!

The Letter to Top All Letters

Is it really necessary to give all that space to narrow-minded, sexually uptight people who write to cancel their subscriptions (Queries & Comments, BAR 14:01)?