Queries & Comments

014

Seeks the Original Bible

I am interested only in the life and teachings of Jesus. I am not interested in the ways of the people of that time or their artifacts. I will subscribe to six more issues of BAR in the hope that by that time you will be able to tell me whether I can now purchase the original books of the Bible as they were written before men got into the act and distorted them, and also whether you will have the best interpretations of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

I have been involved in what is called “A Course in Miracles” for the past 15 years and that is why I would be interested in the original Bible and the scrolls. “A Course in Miracles” is about the search for truth in each of us and that is my quest.

Annual Meeting

Kansas City vs. Washington, DC

Your article, “Not So Up-to-Date in Kansas City,” BAR 18:02, greatly offends me and many others, I’m sure. While I am not a resident of Kansas City, I do work in the city and live in a neighboring suburb.

The entire first column of your article was spent running down Kansas City, speaking of “mediocre restaurants,” accommodations you were displeased with and stating that your annual meeting was just “too big for Kansas City.”

Kansas City is big enough for the National FFA [Future Farmers of America] (23,000 attendance), Missouri State Teachers Association (10,000 attendance), Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society (8,600 attendance), American Farm Bureau Federation (6,000 attendance) and so on. I know your meeting did not bring in as many people as did the annual National FFA, but they return each year.

Knowing Kansas City weather, I could not imagine a hotel with the reputation of the Radisson not having individual room thermostats, so I called them. Speaking with Bill Jones, Director of Sales for the Radisson Suites Hotel in Kansas City, I found out individual rooms do have thermostats.

Your article is one of the primary reasons so many people who have never been to this area view Kansas City as a backwoods cattle town, which it is not.

Kansas City may not be the most-livable city in America, as certain reports suggest, but I’d much rather live here than in your city of Washington, DC. I’ve been there several times and know what Washington is like. I’d also match any aspect of Kansas City against Washington, DC, or any other town you’ve held annual meetings in, and I dare to say this city is at least as good as any other metropolitan city in America.

I will still read BAR because it does contain valuable information, but also because it is the only magazine of its kind. If there were others, I would have to take a serious look to see if your damage to Kansas City was worth remaining a loyal reader.

We experienced several rooms without thermostats and the front desk told us there were none.—Ed.

If You Can’t Say Something Nice, Stay Home

Your article “Not So Up-to-Date in Kansas City,” BAR 18:02, was both unnecessary and unfair. The complaint about the deplorable conditions in Kansas City should not have been made for the whole world to read, but could have been addressed to the hotel or the weather department, or perhaps the particular restaurants that you were not thrilled with. We regret your experience; it was most unfortunate.

Kansas City has long been accepted as particularly beautiful and friendly by all of the visitors I have ever spoken to.

I couldn’t enjoy the rest of the article with its facts and interesting points because of the prejudice I found in the headline and first few paragraphs.

Wherever you convene next year, I hope everything is lovely—but pity the poor city if you run into any problem whatsoever. In San Francisco, beware of earthquakes! Maybe you should just stay home.

A Vast Untapped Market

I read with interest your “review” of the 1991 Annual Meeting, especially the section 016concerning ASOR and its difficulties. I recently joined that organization and I cannot help but agree with you. I believe there is a vast untapped market for organizations such as ASOR, as well as the SBL/AAR.

I am the chairperson of a high school theology department. Like many of my colleagues, I hold an advanced degree. While in the university, I joined both ASOR and SBL. After I began my career as a teacher, I found that I did not fit into either organization, largely because of the different schedules professors and teachers keep. I wrote many letters and talked to many people, but was unable to find any collegial support anywhere. Suffice it to say that there are vastly more high schools in this country than colleges, and, thus, vastly more teachers than professors. Many of these teachers are deeply interested in the Bible and the societies that study it. But if we join these organizations, we are relegated to being magazine subscribers, not members. If such societies are in financial trouble, as ASOR is, to leave untapped such a huge market is foolhardy at best.

Mr. Shanks, keep being the gadfly buzzing around these ivory towers; only with effective, constructive criticism such as yours can we shake scholarship out of its lethargy and make it available to our citizens, which after all is the goal of democracy.

Good Riddance to ASOR?

Your incisive comments on the decay of ASOR remind us all that institutions and organizations can be no more useful to the world than their officers make them that day. I think it is clear that ASOR’s president wants to run everything but ends up accomplishing nothing.

In 30 years on campus I have known effective university presidents and pretentious thugs, deans who made a difference and nullities, department chairmen who built programs and persons and destructive, unhappy failures who demolished everything they touched. And so have we all.

So there is no mystery about why ASOR fades from the scene; good riddance (for now). Under better leadership, it will renew itself. There is no reason to despair. If an ASOR is needed, there will be an ASOR; if not this one, then some other. Indeed, as you yourself point out, there already is another: SBL/AAR itself. Nature abhors a vacuum, and so does the academy.

Temple Mount

A Collector’s Item

The Temple Mount article (Leen Ritmeyer, “Locating the Original Temple Mount,” BAR 18:02) is a marvelous piece. I’m willing to bet this issue will be regarded as both unique and collectible.

A Late-at-Night Letter

It is late at night and I just completed reading your BAR 18:02 issue. I would like to commend you on what I consider one of the most insightful and enjoyable issues I have ever received.

Leen Ritmeyer has my gratitude for his very educational article. His systematic approach and especially his drawings assisted me in grasping the issue and coming to a better understanding of the problem.

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A Thrill for Jerusalem Lovers

I am an avid BAR reader and find the magazine a great asset in my work as a history teacher (at the Hebrew University’s Rothberg School for Overseas Students) and tour guide.

Leen Ritmeyer’s article “Locating the Original Temple Mount,” BAR 18:02, is breathtaking indeed; it is one of those special articles that gives us Jerusalem lovers the thrill of finding a possible long lost clue to one of the city’s evasive mysteries.

Two Questions

Many thanks for the superb article, photographs, drawings and text by Leen Ritmeyer (“Locating the Original Temple Mount,” BAR 18:02). This is surely a fine continuation of his article on Herod’s Temple (“Reconstructing Herod’s Temple Mount in Jerusalem,” BAR 15:06).

His new article prompts two questions:

1. Is there any evidence of “corner construction” at the bend in the eastern wall like the corner construction at the “straight seam”?

2. Is there any evidence in the northern part of (so-called) Solomon’s Stables of the Hasmonean southern wall?

Again, congratulations on yet another fine Ritmeyer article.

Leen Ritmeyer replies:

1. Only Turkish masonry can be seen above-ground at the bend. The earlier masonry, which I suspect exists there, is not visible and therefore cannot be inspected. The prospect of an excavation below the Muslim cemetery is virtually nonexistent. However, I do believe that the southeast corner of the square Temple Mount exists there, which would, of course, have been constructed with headers and stretchers like the Hasmonean and Herodian southeast corners.

2. The northernmost part of Solomon’s Stables is located approximately 40 feet south of the projected southern wall of the Hasmonean extension and therefore, unfortunately, no evidence of Hasmonean masonry can be detected there.

An Iowa Farmer Could Tell at a Glance

Leen Ritmeyer made an obvious error in regard to the size of the Temple Mount (“Locating the Original Temple Mount,” BAR 18:02). He claims that the current Temple Mount covers “nearly 145 acres,” and is “the size of 24 football fields.”

The football field analogy is about right (if you count two 30-foot end zones), but the acreage is way off.

If, as Mr. Ritmeyer asserts, the “original” (pre-Herodian) Temple Mount was a perfect square 661 feet (500 royal cubits) on a side, then it would have covered an area just over 17 acres. An acre is equal to exactly 43,560 square feet.

If Herod doubled the size of the Temple Mount by extending it on three sides, then the current area would be about 34 acres, not 145.

Anyway, the picture of the Temple Mount just doesn’t look like 145 acres: Any Iowa farmer could tell you at a glance that the area inside those walls isn’t any quarter-section.

Leen Ritmeyer replies:

Mr. Holzhauer is right. In Israel the metric system is used and the size of large surfaces such as those of fields is expressed in dunams. Each dunam has an area of 1,000 square meters The size of the Temple Mount is about 145 dunams. For the benefit of the readers of BAR, all measurements are converted to feet and acres (and football fields!). Somewhere 018along the line this mistake remained undetected. The circumference of the present-day Temple Mount is 5,120–5,150 feet and its surface area about 35 acres, approximately twice the size of the 500-cubit square Temple Mount.

Two More Questions

I have two questions concerning the article “Locating the Original Temple Mount,” BAR 18:02, by Leen Ritmeyer:

1. When was the fosse, or excavated ditch, constructed? Who first dug it?

2. Could the fosse be the “trench” or “moat” referred to in Daniel 9:25?

Leen Ritmeyer replies:

I, too, would love to know when the “excavated ditch” was first dug. This, however, can only be established by an archaeological excavation, which is, at present, out of the question.

Historically, it can be identified with the valley that was filled up by the soldiers of Pompey in 63 B.C. (Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 14.4.2) and therefore must have existed before that date. Its location suggests that it is closely related to the date of the construction of the square Temple Mount, which was, I believe, sometime during the First Temple period.

This fosse, or moat, completes the natural boundary of the pre-Herodian Temple Mount, linking the Tyropoeon Valley with the Bezetha Valley. It could, theoretically, have been dug when the Temple was first built by Solomon, but we cannot prove this.

How Bibles Differ

KJV with Apocrypha

Harvey Minkoff’s “How Bible Translations Differ,” BAR 18:02 (also appearing in the April issue of your sister publication Bible Review under the title “How to Buy a Bible,” BR 08:02) will be of great help to Bible readers who want some guidance in choosing among the numerous Bible translations and editions now available. The article contains a small mistake, however, that should be corrected. The King James Version of 1611 did include the deuterocanonical (or apocryphal) books of the Old Testament, as did all other major translations in English. Subsequently, however, due in part to protests from the Puritans, the British and Foreign Bible Society excluded those books from their editions of the KJV. In time the American Bible Society did also.

Many thanks for your fine publication.

Harvey Minkoff replies to this and the following letters at the end of this section.—Ed.

KJV with Notes

May I make a minor correction on your good article on Bible translations (Harvey Minkoff, “How Bible Translations Differ,” BAR 18:02)? It is stated that the KJV was mandated to have no notes. I have the page by page reprint of the KJV published in 1911 by the British and Foreign Bible Society and there are translation notes on nearly every page. I believe the mandate was that there should be no theological notes.

Apocrypha Not Omitted

Harvey Minkoff’s “How Bible Translations Differ,” BAR 18:02, is helpful, but contains an error that should be corrected. In his first column he says, “Protestant attitudes vary toward the remainder of the Septuagint’s books [i.e., the Apocrypha]. The King James Version (KJV), produced in 1611 during an anti-Catholic period in England, omits them.” This is wrong. From Coverdale’s Bible of 1535 through the Great Bible of 1539 to the Geneva Bible of 1560, the Apocrypha are included as a separate section, between the Old Testament and the New, and the same was done with the King James Version in 1611. It was not until 1644 that the Apocrypha were omitted, under the influence of the Puritans. The first English Bible printed in America, in 1782–1783, also omits the Apocrypha. It is noteworthy that these books were kept in the Geneva Bible, which was produced by the extreme Protestants who added marginal notes identifying the Bishop of Rome with the Scarlet Woman in Revelation. King James I disliked such remarks, and that was one reason why he commissioned the new translation. Protestant churchmen then and since have held that the books of the Apocrypha are useful for “example of life and instruction in manners” but are not a source of doctrine (Article VI of the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England).

An Economy Measure

Harvey Minkoff makes two errors in his brief article “How Bible Translations Differ,” BAR 18:02). First he states that 1–4 Maccabees were included in the Septuagint when, strictly speaking, only 1–2 Maccabees were. Third and Fourth Maccabees were frequently bound with early Greek Bibles, which probably explains why they are used to varying degrees in the Eastern churches but not in the West.

He also states that the King James Version (KJV) omits the Septuagint books (those not in the Hebrew canon) because it was “produced in 1611 during an anti-Catholic period in England.” In fact, the KJV included the books of the Apocrypha but, as an economy measure, was frequently printed and bound without them. The more Puritan elements of English Protestantism preferred the Apocrypha-less editions to the point that it is virtually impossible to obtain a KJV Bible today that is bound with the Apocrypha. A separately bound KJV Apocrypha is available from Cambridge University Press.

What Original Language?

The article “How Bible Translations Differ,” BAR 18:02, by Harvey Minkoff contains the often-used statement “The New Testament was originally written in Greek.” I do not completely agree with George Lamsa, who says that the New Testament was originally written in Aramaic, but most scholars agree that Aramaic was the common language during the first century A.D., although both Hebrew and Greek were also used. Jesus probably taught primarily in Aramaic. Josephus notes that he, Josephus, could not properly pronounce the Greek language, indicating that Greek was not commonly spoken in Israel during the time when the New Testament books were written.

Undoubtedly Luke (a physician) and Paul wrote in Greek. But Papias states that Matthew was written in “the Hebrew language,” and Irenaeus states that Matthew was written to “the Hebrews in their own dialect.” This indicates that Matthew was written in either Hebrew or Aramaic, but not Greek. Commentators state that the Greek in 1 Peter and 2 Peter are different. Peter was a fisherman. He wrote Greek? I doubt it. My explanation for the difference in style is that he wrote 1 Peter and 2 Peter in Aramaic, but that the letters were translated into Greek by two different people.

What Catholic Bibles Include

May I point out an inaccuracy in “How Bible Translations Differ,” BAR 18:02, by Harvey Minkoff?

He states, “The Catholic OT, as in the 020revered Douay Bible or the modern Jerusalem Bible, includes all the books of the Septuagint.” They do not include 1-2 Esdras or the Prayer of Manasseh.

He further states, “The Protestant OT is limited to the 24 books of the Hebrew Scriptures. … Protestant attitudes vary toward the remainder of the Septuagint’s books. The King James Version (KJV), produced in 1611 during an anti-Catholic period in England, omits them.” As a matter of fact, the KJV includes all of the books of the Apocrypha, including 1-2 Esdras and the Prayer of Manasseh. The Rest of Esther is included as one book, but the rest of Daniel is included as three books: The Song of the Three Holy Children, The History of Susanna and The History of the Destruction of Bel and the Dragon. Probably many, perhaps most, of the KJV translators would have regarded the Apocrypha as Biblical although not scriptural.

How Many Books?

Mr. Minkoff’s reference to “the 24 books of the Hebrew Scriptures” is mystifying! My Hebrew Bible has five in the Law, 21 in the Prophets, and 12 in the Writings. Did he neglect to include the Writings and not count both the Samuels and the Kings, or what?

Harvey Minkoff replies:

I am grateful to the readers who clarified lapses in my article, and for their general spirit of goodwill. In a brief overview of a topic that rightfully fills many books, I summarized some major influences on translation and gave a few examples of each, omitting many versions and editions. My intention was not to push a party line, but to focus on those versions that I thought readers of BAR would be most likely to encounter in a bookstore, library or house of worship.

Because of the brevity, I also, unfortunately, oversimplified or slighted important details. My reference to the original language of the New Testament text meant, of course, the canonical text underlying our translations. There can be little doubt that some or all of the authors’ sources were in Aramaic; whether the Greek text is an original composition based on these sources or a translation of an earlier work is hotly debated.

Aside from their relation to each other, the Septuagint and the Apocrypha have separate—and not fully documented—histories of their own. For example, 2 Esdras (4 Esdras to those who label Ezra and Nehemiah as 1 and 2 Esdras) and the Prayer of Manasseh do not appear in the Greek Septuagint; 1 Esdras (= 3 Esdras) apparently appears in some, but not all, of the ancient manuscripts. These books are generally counted in the Apocrypha because they were included in the Latin Vulgate.

The impetus for the KJV was a 1604 resolution of the Hampton Court Conference “That a translation be made of the whole Bible … to be set out and printed, without marginal notes … ” King James approved; he accused the Geneva Bible of containing notes that were “untrue, seditious, and savouring too much of dangerous and traitorous conceits.” Textual notes were eventually allowed, but not theological or doctrinal ones. In the context of a comparison between translations that stand on their own and those that contain “study aids,” the KJV is clearly in the former group.

Religion and politics were a volatile combination throughout this period, and the suspicion lingered that English Catholics were sympathetic to Catholic Spain, which had sent the Armada against England. The contemporaneous Rheims-Douay Version was published on the continent by Catholic exiles from England. However, I indeed made an inexcusable error by connecting this history to the omission of the Apocrypha from the KJV: Only later editions omitted these books.

The traditional tally of books in the Hebrew Bible is five in the Torah, eight in the Prophets (Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, The Twelve Minor Prophets) and eleven in the Writings (Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, Chronicles)—for a total of 24.

Masada

Did the Defenders of Masada Commit Suicide? An Attorney Assesses the Evidence

In Queries & Comments, BAR 18:02, there is a challenge to the Masada article that was published in a previous issue (Ehud Netzer, “The Last Days and Hours at Masada,” BAR 17:06). It is rare indeed to publish an article on Masada without a reader’s response insisting that the Jewish garrison at Masada did not commit suicide and that Josephus, untrustworthy at best, was lying through his teeth when he reported such in his Jewish War.

Archaeologically, I am not equipped to enter such an affray. I will fare much better viewing the evidence as an attorney with 44 years experience.

Whether an individual will tell the truth if the truth is damaging to his own self-interest varies with the circumstances—and the man. There are men who will openly and freely tell the truth to their own detriment. There are men who will tell the truth after a certain amount of gentle coaxing. There are men who will tell the truth only after a long and hard cross-examination, when it finally appears that there can be no other answer. Finally, there are men who will never admit the truth if it is against their self-interest.

But—a “lie” against self-interest follows a hard-and-fast rule that is as certain as a law of physics. No man with his faculties intact lies to the detriment of his own self-interest. Indeed, if an incident occurs when a man lies against his own self-interest, this is considered evidence of a mental aberration—for example, the individual who steps forward to confess to a crime that he did not commit.

If ever there was a historical figure who was committed to his own self-interest, it was Yosef ben Mattityahu, better known as Flavius Josephus. Here was a man who in the name of his own self-interest committed treachery, treason, became anathema to his own people and openly reported his failings. This is a man above all men who would never lie to the detriment of his own self-interest.

Now the key question. If Josephus did lie as to the mass suicide of the Masada defenders, would this be damaging to his own self-interest?

To answer this question, we must replay two different scenarios of the last day of Masada.

According to Josephus’ version, after the Romans breached the wall they hesitated to make a night attack, retreated back down the ramp and made their final assault the next morning. As they poured through the breach in the early morning light, they were met with a strange and eerie silence, for the Jewish garrison of Masada had committed suicide.

If Josephus is lying, another scenario must have occurred: After breaching the wall, members of the Tenth Legion charged through the breach that night. They would be met with a hail of spears, javelins, arrows and rocks. The legionaries would answer by throwing their spears; within minutes, their swords and daggers would have cleared their sheaths and they would be locked in close quarter, hand-to-hand, one-on-one combat, with their Jewish adversaries. By sheer numbers, the Tenth Legion would slowly prevail until all resistance failed.

As to the Jewish defenders, it is immaterial whether one accepts Josephus’ scenario or the challenging scenario, for at the end of that fateful day in 73 A.D. all of the defenders are dead. But, it makes a tremendous difference to the Tenth Legion. In Josephus’ 022scenario, the Tenth Legion loses nothing but excessive adrenaline as they come through the breach to be met with silence. In the challenging scenario, the Tenth Legion will be victorious but they will suffer fearful losses. Many legionaries will have seen their last dawn. Others will have suffered broken bones and terrible sword and dagger wounds.

Josephus, a man who betrayed his own people, served the Roman conquerors. In Rome he was protected for his service to the empire and there he proceeded to write the history of the Jewish War, much of it from his own eyewitness accounts.

If Josephus’ version of the suicide at Masada is a lie, he has placed himself in grave jeopardy—or, at the least, in a position of being completely discredited. The legionaries who fought at Masada are contemporaries of Josephus and are very much alive. Here is a foreigner who states that there was no battle at Masada. How would this be received by officers of the Tenth Legion, who performed heroically? How would this fare with men who lost beloved comrades in arms in that last assault? What would be the reaction of men whose military careers ended at Masada and whose wounds still wake them up in the middle of the night and cause them to limp painfully during the day? What a howl of protest would have gone out against this foreigner who dared to write such lies and discredit their acts of heroism, their sacrifices and their dead.

Josephus, the cautious opportunist who always landed catlike on his feet, would never have placed himself in such a position. You may not like Josephus, but you may well believe that he is a man, like other men but more so, who will never lie when it is detrimental to his own self-interest. There is no doubt in my mind that Josephus rendered a faithful and true account of the fate of the Jewish garrison at Masada.

Buying Artifacts

Bible Lands Museum Collection Tainted?

I am perplexed and somewhat chagrined by your fascination with megalomaniac antiquities dealer Elie Borowski and his tainted but mediocre collection (Hershel Shanks, “Elie Borowski Seeks a Home for His Collection,” BAR 11:02, and Suzanne F. Singer, “Against All Odds,” BAR 18:02). Borowski’s lifelong pursuit and obsession—antiquities collecting and dealing—is the bane of true archaeology, the kind of archaeology that really enables us to reconstruct our ancient heritage. Let me explain why.

Borowski’s collection is comprised completely of artifacts plundered from their original context and sold by plunderer to middleman and by middleman to dealer. To call a spade a spade, this is stolen property: anthropoid coffin lid stolen from Egypt, zoomorphic pottery vessel stolen from Turkey, ivory horse blinder stolen from Syria, bronze figurine stolen from Iran and stone ossuary stolen from the Holy Land. All these countries have laws against illicit excavation and export of their antiquities. No serious dealer or collector has any illusions or pangs of conscience on this account. It’s a business and an investment that made Borowski “big, big, big, big money.” And then there is the factor of selective cognizance; the perpetrator “sees no evil.”^a

The dealers and collectors create the demand for antiquities that poor village plunderers supply for badly needed cash. You can’t really blame the villagers; you can blame the dealers and the collectors. Evidently, however, Borowski is proud of his accomplishment.

Of course several pieces in the collection could be fakes; some materials can’t be authenticated chemically or physically and counterfeiters can be as expert as the “expert” dealers or scholars, or even more so.^b Today scholars with intellectual integrity try to avoid dealing with artifacts judged genuine solely on the basis of stylistic criteria.

Beyond the ethical questions of dealing in stolen goods and the potential for fraud, another important philosophical aspect is also at stake. Any individual object is part of a larger context: a culture. To eviscerate an artifact from its archaeological context is to orphan it and to reduce its meaning to our own subjective, limited perception. Conversely, the context from which the artifact was amputated is impoverished, wounded and usually annihilated by the plunderers. Would it not have been infinitely more interesting to study the silver incense altar in its sanctuary with its frescoes and idols? Or to gaze upon and within the sculpted Second Temple-period tomb in which the ossuary was found?

In some quarters antiquities-collecting still retains the veneer of culture that obscures its more unsavory implications. This will change, but it may be too late. In a museum, whose aims should now be considered primarily education,^c the exhibition of unprovenanced (i.e. looted) antiquities should be anathema; it is rapidly becoming so throughout the world. The Bible Lands Museum broadcasts the message that buying antiquities known to be plundered is an honorable pursuit. This is a woefully outdated attitude for a museum in the 1990s. How Philistine can you get?

Borowski loves his collection, there is no doubt of that. He has immersed himself in ancient art and created his own world of the Bible over which he presides like Sennacherib. The metaphor is not chosen lightly, for the Bible Lands Museum is a subtle form of cultural imperialism that forces the artifacts into a cultural mold that is foreign to them and bastardizes the greatest story ever told. Many of the exhibits have very little to do with the Bible—one has the feeling that the Biblical motif was conjured up as a second thought or as a rationalization for Borowski’s compulsive acquisition. And I doubt the visitor will really learn much about the Bible from this hodgepodge linkage of time and space; so much of its content comes from outside the Bible’s real heartland, Israel.

To be sure, the museum is aesthetically pleasing and its contents do exhibit some anecdotal interest. Experts in specific fields such as glyptics (stone carved seals and stamps) or figurative art will have fun trying to identify possible fakes. But dating and stylistic analysis will probably be pretty accurate since they rely on comparable material from scientifically excavated contexts—the museum’s curators are good solid scholars. Only watch out for those so-called unique objects; they might come from anywhere.

I am not really advocating a boycott here; and I personally will visit the museum (if they’ll let me in after this critique). I would never publish anything in it. I do suggest that the visitor make a point of seeing a good “context” museum; the Skirball Museum of the Hebrew Union College in Jerusalem (no entry fee), the talmudic-period house at Katzrin^d or the visitor center at Arad. Comparing these with the Bible Lands Museum will demonstrate my point.

Some of the wrong might be atoned for 085if the Bible Lands Museum seriously pursues the research and education programs its publicity articulates. But I have this uneasy feeling that funding will prove to be a major problem, particularly with a worldwide recession just hitting its stride and considering the roller coaster nature of tourism in the volatile Middle East. Will Borowski and his progeny bail the museum out in its hour of need? Nobody else will.

Robert Hughes, art critic of Time magazine, recently wrote a scathing review of the new Armand Hammer Museum of Art in Los Angeles, built at a cost of millions of dollars to house the second-rate art collection of the deceased millionaire. The administrators of the Hammer Foundation are now peeved at having to spend unanticipatedly large sums for maintenance. Hughes’ conclusion is similar to the one that should be drawn in the case of Borowski; wealthy men with inflated egos build selfish monuments to themselves, depleting treasure chests that would have been more wisely spent promoting research, education and preservation or even supporting already existing institutions.

Anti-Semitism

What Passion Plays Teach

Loyd R. Brents’ spirited defense of Passion Plays (Queries & Comments, BAR 18:02) inadvertently surfaces the central issue when he asserts (rightly) that we Christians today should not “ascribe that deed [the Crucifixion] to present-day Jews.” The problem is precisely the tendency of such dramatizations to impute collective guilt to the Jewish people for Jesus’ death.

Even the earliest Passion Plays, such as those recorded in the 13th-century Benediktbeuren manuscripts from Germany, inserted into the New Testament text extraneous compositions such as the lyrical planctus (lament) of Mary which accused the Jews of being a “hateful race” and a “damnable people” for laying on Jesus their “animal-like hands.” Increasingly in Passion Plays Jews were depicted as bloodthirsty demons consumed with hatred for all Christians. It is no wonder that in succeeding centuries the civil authorities of European cities, including Rome, ordered special measures such as sealing off the ghettos to protect Jews from Christian mobs following performances.

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Many of these plays also conflated the four Gospel narratives into one in a way that unfairly ascribed collective guilt to all Jews of all times. Notorious among these illegitimate uses of the New Testament text over the ages has been the tendency to use the collective term “the Jews” from the Gospel of John in combination with passages from other texts, such as Matthew 27:25 (“His blood be on us and on our children”) so that what is for Matthew a “crowd” (27:15) becomes, in the minds of the Passion Play’s audience, all Jews of all times.

No one contests that some Jews (albeit a tiny minority, at most) were involved in Jesus’ death, any more than one can contest that some Romans were involved. But for centuries now Passion Plays have been teaching Christians that their Jewish neighbors were guilty. That is why so many responsible Passion Plays today have been making long-needed corrections in their scripts. Those interested might want to obtain a copy of Criteria for the Evaluation of Dramatizations of the Passion put out by the U.S. Catholic Conference in Washington, D.C. (800–235-8722), $1.95.

A Jewish Perspective on Supersessionism

I usually try to avoid theological disputations, but I feel an obligation to comment on the ongoing debate in BAR as to whether supersessionism and anti-Semitism are related and how.

While it is tempting to class supersessionism with the right of any believer to see his/her religion as correct and others as incorrect, readers have to be aware of an essential difference between Jewish views about Christianity and supersessionist Christian views about Judaism.

Jews believe that all of humanity has the opportunity to earn reward in the world to come, what the Christians call “salvation,” through a life of belief in God and observance of God’s covenant with the entire world. This covenant is expressed through what the rabbis of the Talmud called the Noahide laws. These include what to us are essentially the natural laws and avoidance of idolatry. In other words, Judaism recognizes that all peoples of the earth have a covenant with God.

Supersessionist Christianity, however, denies the Jews (and other non-Christians) their covenant with God. Thus, supersessionism denies totally the notion that the Jews have a covenant with God and cuts them off from any relationship with the creator in this world, let alone from salvation in the next world.

It is this essential difference that renders supersessionism so problematic to Jews and to so many Christians. For this reason, Catholicism and many Protestant groups have increasingly turned to a dual-covenant theory, which maintains that God’s covenant with the Jews is eternally valid and that Christians have a different covenant. Such a view accepts the legitimacy of Judaism, the faith which we all acknowledge is the basis of Christianity.

In our generation, after the unspeakable horrors of the Holocaust, it is important to emphasize that supersessionism, denying as it does the Jew’s links to God, has always been a necessary step in paving the way for violent outbreaks of Christian anti-Semitism, whether in Byzantine times, the Crusades, the period of the Inquisition or in modern times. Opponents of supersessionism, like Eugene Fisher (“The Church’s Teaching on Supersessionism,” BAR 17:02) and Jim Charlesworth (Queries & Comments, BAR 18:01), open gates to interreligious understanding and cooperation. Supersessionists, even if unintentionally, open the gates to Auschwitz.

Editor’s Illness

Thanks to the Team

I feel that since you have come into our home in print so frequently, I have a personal acquaintance with you! It was, therefore, with the concern of a friend that I read of your serious illness at last Thanksgiving time. Thank you for that personal letter (“A Personal Letter from the Editor,” Inside BAR, BAR 18:02). You are loved and respected by many, and we are all very glad that your recovery is going so well. Know this—that the prayers of many are with you to support and sustain you!

My admiration also goes out to the team of workers who assist you in the production of such an outstanding periodical. So often I have visited the sites that are written about or depicted; your magazine evokes many good memories. Thank you.

Good Wishes

Returning from an extended trip, I learned from the latest BAR of your recent brush with death. Congratulations on your speedy recovery.

I sincerely hope that the good Lord will grant you many more years of life and health, not only for your family and friends but for all of us who are deeply interested in Biblical archaeology. Since my friend and teacher W. F. Albright’s passing, I have known of no one who has done more in the field of Biblical archaeology than you have done. Your passing would have been the greatest loss our science had suffered since the sudden death of Yigael Yadin, who, like you, was greatly interested in popularizing Biblical archaeology. Therefore, I, together with innumerable other admirers, thank God for your recovery.

To my friend Siegfried, the distinguished dean emeritus of Andrews University, my gratitude for his flattering remarks and for his good wishes. And to all those who have written me, I have read and appreciated each of your letters and notes; many, many thanks. Lest I get gushy (see the following letter), I will stop here.—Ed.

There Will Always Be an England

I have just read your “personal letter” in the BAR 18:02 issue (“A Personal Letter from the Editor,” Inside BAR, BAR 18:02). As someone brought up and educated in England, it made me cringe! From that opening icky Americanism, “I feel I would like to share with you,” to the final, horrendous insincerity of “I look forward to my future relationship with each of 087you” and “It has been a comfort to think about you,” the shmaltz was far too rich for my taste.

But what the hell! Fact is, Hershey, old BAR, that for the past few years you have kept me regularly and unfailingly informed, educated and entertained. You have helped me deepen my knowledge of and love for Israel—and to extend these to others. I owe you a helluva lot.

So let me call across the cultural divide: I’m sorry to read about that rather frightening medical crisis you had; I am very pleased that it has left you quite unscarred; and I wish you a speedy and full recovery to continue with your marvelous work.

Seeks the Original Bible