Readers Reply

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13 Years and Going Strong

It was in 1991, through a slightly earlier subscription to Biblical Archaeology Review, that I became aware of BR, and I immediately subscribed. I have retained and indexed every copy since.

I find BR’s wide range of presentations stimulating and broadening of my own understanding. After all, you don’t have to believe everything you read. The pictures alone are worth the subscription price.

I am continually amazed by the letters from disgruntled subscribers who quarrel with articles that vary from their own opinions. If we want only confirmation of what we already believe, there is no point in subscribing in the first place.

Thank you for a great magazine. I eagerly look forward to more fascinating reading in future issues.

A Roaring Fireplace of Ideas

As a “lapsed” theologian I don’t follow theology anymore, but BR is most welcome. You keep my ember glowing with erudition, dedication, excitement and love for the subject. Thank you!

Samson et Dalila

In Defense of Delilah

Thanks for Dan W. Clanton, Jr.’s “Samson et Dalila” (June 2004). Our image of the two lovers has certainly been much influenced by Camille Saint-Saëns’ wonderful opera, as Clanton says. Yet many other modern authors have fashioned a rather kinder and gentler Delilah for our enjoyment. Decades ago, I did some research on the subject and came up with a whole clutch of them.

Most remarkable was a 1931 novel by Felix Salten, Samson and Dalilah, in which we learn that Delilah was innocent but framed by her sister. In 1962, Eric Linklater wrote Husband of Delilah, in which Delilah is said to be guilty but repentant. An 18th-century author portrayed her as guilty but with a minor mitigating circumstance: Samson had murdered her husband in a fit of jealousy. In yet another novel, Delilah worms Samson’s secret out of him in all playful innocence, but eavesdropping “friends” then betray them both. In two more cases, Delilah is shown as committing suicide out of remorse.

As the great early-20th-century anthropologist Sir James G. Frazer remarked, Delilah would obviously be a heroine in any version of the story told by the Philistines. Woe unto a people whose history is written only by their enemies! Even so, as the examples given above attest, there’s just something about the girl that has prompted many commentators (all males, I believe) to spring to her defense. And they say chivalry is dead.

The Many Facets of Samson

I would like to commend Dan W. Clanton for his interesting article on Samson. Although he might overstate his case a 004bit by referring to Samson as an “oaf,” he brings to light a larger issue that has been connected with the Samson narratives from the beginning of their composition: how various generations of readers look at Samson.

It seems clear that there was indeed a historical Samson. However, just as clearly, this immensely powerful hero was sometimes savage in his actions. Accounts of this local hero-warrior formed the core of the narratives. These accounts were first interpreted in a charismatic light. Then they were given a Naziritic context. Even the Letter to the Hebrews interprets Samson as a “Hero of Faith.” It seems as though with each succeeding generation Samson gets further removed from his original form.

Mr. Clanton did a fine job in focusing on how a cultural medium added to the reinterpretations of Samson. Moreover, he pointed out how this benchmark masterpiece went far in shaping the popular image of the powerful Danite Judge. Well done.

Pilate in the Dock

A Question of Emphasis

Professor Paul L. Maier (“For the Defense,” June 2004) spends so much time and effort defending the historicity of the gospels that, for me, he misses the point. The gospels obviously do contain history, but they were written 2,000 years ago. They are not modern history. To portray them as such is a disservice to the contemporary reader.

That Caiaphas and Pilate for their own reasons wanted Jesus’ death is reasonably historically clear. Why the gospel authors chose to emphasize Jewish culpability and deemphasize Pilate’s role is a matter of conjecture, as most modern historians will surely admit, although the intent was most likely theological.

Department of Corrections

The exchange between Paul L. Maier and Stephen J. Patterson on Pilate contains two factual errors.

1. Maier attributes the negative portrayal of Pilate to Philo’s motivation. In fact the critical picture of Pilate in the Embassy to Gaius does not come from Philo himself, but from a letter of King Agrippa I, addressed to the emperor, which Philo quotes. So the motivation is that of the otherwise pro-Roman Agrippa.

2. According to Patterson, it was the procurator Albinus who deprived Ananus, the killer of James, the brother of the Lord, of the office of high priest. In fact, Ananus was deposed in 62 C.E. not by Albinus, but by King Agrippa II, who from 50 C.E. onwards was in charge of Temple matters, including the appointment and dismissal of high priests.

Paul L. Maier responds:

Philo does indeed claim to report the negative comments on Pontius Pilate from Herod Agrippa I’s letter, but they were unquestionably identical to Philo’s own views regarding the desirability of a Jewish, rather than Gentile, ruler in Palestine. Quite likely, Philo 005further editorialized Agrippa’s words to this end, so the argument remains intact, especially since Agrippa himself subsequently replaced the Roman rulers. That this may be the only flaw so great a scholar as Geza Vermes found in my material is itself a consolation!

Stephen Patterson responds:

Thanks to Prof. Vermes for these helpful corrections.

Acting Like Apes

Giving Abishag Her Due

William H.C. Propp (“Acting Like Apes: The Bible’s Alpha Males,” June 2004) refers to Abishag the Shunammite as the elderly David’s “most beautiful concubine” (p. 40). He notes that after King David’s death, David’s eldest living son Adonijah “foolishly asked Solomon (via Bathsheba) for Abishag, David’s former concubine.”

Again, on page 46, Propp refers to Abishag: “Eventually, David decays into sexual impotency: Although his concubine Abishag is the fairest in the land, ‘the king did not know her’ (1 Kings 1:4) in the biblical sense.” Near the end of the article he tells us that “Adonijah asks Solomon for David’s concubine Abishag,” which results in Solomon’s ordering the execution of his eldest half-brother.

Abishag was not King David’s “concubine!”

King David was old and advanced in years; and although they covered him with clothes, he could not get warm. So his servant said to him, “Let a young virgin [my italics] be sought for my lord the king, and let her wait on the king, and be his attendant; let her lie in your bosom, so that my lord the king may be warm.” So they searched for a beautiful girl throughout all the territory of Israel [my italics] and found Abishag the Shunammite and brought her to the king. The girl was very beautiful. She became the king’s attendant and served him, but the king did not know her sexually.

(1 Kings 1:1–4)

Abishag was no “concubine” of David, or of anyone else. Calling her that is a form of “textual abuse.” It is evident that King David had not met or seen Abishag before she was brought into his presence by his servants, so she was in no sense his “concubine” by previous contact, and due to David’s decay “into sexual impotency,” as Propp puts it, she never could become David’s “concubine.” She may indeed have been regarded as “one of David’s women,” decreed to be a perpetual “virgin” in honor of the dying king. But Adonijah’s affront was not that he wanted to marry the late king’s “concubine.” Rather, he wanted to marry the king’s virgin attendant.

Dealing with the Devil

Our Charles’ Worth

I just read David Cartlidge’s fine article, “Dealing with the Devil: How Adam and Eve Fared After the Fall” (June 2004). The work referred to in his second endnote is 006given as authored by R. H. Charlesworth, instead of R. H. Charles. It is quite a coincidence that J. H. Charlesworth edited a two-volume work with a partially similar title, which might account for the typographical error.

Thank you for pointing out this mistake, which was an editorial error and not that of the author.—Ed

Ten Commandments

Why Roy Had to Go

I was content to let Ronald S. Hendel’s column, “The Ten Commandments and the Courthouse” go unchallenged (February 2004).

However, the June 2004 issue arrived just today and it seems apparent from the Readers Reply section that, besides Ronald S. Hendel, other BR readers also misunderstand why Judge Roy was removed from the bench. He was removed by the Court of Judiciary, not because of what he refused to do, but that he refused to do it.

The ethics panel said Moore “put himself above the law by ‘willfully and publicly’ flouting the order to remove the 2.6-ton monument from the state judicial building’s rotunda in August.”

The issue started as a challenge to the separation of church and state. However, once the Federal court ruled, misinterpreting the constitution or not, Judge Roy was compelled to obey. Having refused to do so, Judge Roy was duly chastised. Refusing to obey the Federal court order changed the issue from one of separation of church and state to one of judicial ethics.

What the Court Ruled

In response to Stanton O. Berg’s letter (“No No-Brainer,” June 2004) that the First Amendment bars only an “establishment of religion,” in 1947 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled:

The “establishment of religion” clause of the First Amendment means at least this: Neither a state nor the Federal government … can … aid one religion, aid all religions, or prefer one religion over another … In the words of Jefferson, the clause against establishment of religion was intended to erect “a wall of separation between church and state.”

In 1980, in explaining why posting the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms violated the Establishment Clause, the Supreme Court said:

The pre-eminent purpose for posting the Ten Commandments on schoolroom walls is plainly religious in nature. The Ten Commandments are undeniably a sacred text in the Jewish and Christian faiths, and no legislative recitation of a supposed secular purpose can blind us to that fact. The Commandments do not confine themselves to arguably secular matters, such as honoring one’s parents, killing or murder, adultery, stealing, false witness, and covetousness. [See Exodus 20:12–17; Deuteronomy 5:16–21.] Rather, the first part of the Commandments concerns the religious duties of believers: worshipping the Lord God alone, avoiding idolatry, not using the Lord’s name in vain, and observing the Sabbath Day. [See Exodus 20: 1–11; Deuteronomy 5:6–15.]

Bogus Madison Quote

The letter from Stanton O. Berg contains an alleged quotation from James Madison in which Madison is made to say, “We have staked the whole future of American civilization … upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves … according to the Ten Commandments.”

As is well known to students of church-state issues, there is no evidence that Madison said any such thing. In fact, it is contrary to his quite well-known and clearly expressed views.

BR should notify its readers of this fact and not unwittingly spread the disease of misattribution further. I find it ironic that your excellent publication, which often deals with issues of textual tampering and its effect on how we perceive ancient texts, has an instance of the same phenomenon occurring in its own pages.

The following link provides a short and authoritative debunking of this bogus quote: www.sunnetworks.net/~ggarman/JoplinGlobe-82203.html.

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Eve and the Apple

Apples to Apples

Regarding Ronald Hendel’s fine presentation on the fruit of the tree of the Garden of Eden (“Eve Ate the Apple,” June 2004), he should have gotten a second opinion—from a botanist.

Hendel offers that “rabbinic writings” and “early Christian interpretation” offer “fig, grape, wheat, carob, etrog and nut” as possibilities for the fruit. According to the scholarly giants in botanical application of scripture, the fruit is likely apricot.

The Hebrew is tappuah, which means “apple,” but nature prohibits taking it literally. What apples need is 900 to 1,200 hours of temperatures at or below 45°F. In other words, apples do best with a cool dormant season.

Eve Ate the Malum

I hesitate to correct someone as erudite (and as felicitous in expression) as Ron Hendel, but he doesn’t quite know his Latin. The Latin words for “apple” and “evil,” he tells us, are the same—malus. Not quite. They are the same, but it should be malum. Malus is an apple tree.

Ronald S. Hendel responds:

Mea culpa.

It’s a Symbol, Ron

Why does Ronald Hendel spend so much time speculating whether Eve really ate an apple, or a fig, or a carob, or what? Though an untrained layman, I assume that it is generally accepted that the Adam/Eve/apple story symbolizes the first beings to have a self-awareness trying to press that newly discovered power to the limits, and God saying, “Okay, you’ve got an understanding of right and wrong, but that’s as far as it goes. No immortality.” Adam and Eve’s sudden awareness of being naked is simply their waking up to the fact of their exposure, their vulnerability in this life. The apple, or carob, or whatever, is the symbol of human limitations. Isn’t that the generally accepted scholarship?

Potpourri

Jesus Was Indifferent to Rome

Stephen Patterson was right on target describing Mel Gibson’s Passion of the Christ as a traditional Passion Play, one which uses the film medium to emphasize a mystic blood motif in ways a staged Passion Play could not (“A Passion Play on Film,” June 2004).

I have a couple of reservations about Patterson’s article, however. Satan is not “absent in the Gospel’s portrayals.” The intervention of Satan in the Passion is recorded in both Luke and John. Satan works on Judas: “Then Satan entered into Judas” (Luke 23:3); and “The devil had already put it into the heart of Judas to betray … him” (John 13:2).

Patterson also claims Gibson muffled “Jesus’ challenges to the Roman Empire—the historical reason for his execution.” The only people who put Jesus in opposition to the Romans were the judges at his trial, and on no evidence whatever. As far as we know, the historical Jesus was completely indifferent to the Roman Empire, and there seems to be no challenge to the Romans at any point in Jesus’ ministry. What Jesus challenged was the ecclesiastical clique that ran the Temple, and beyond that, the futility of blindly following Jewish law at a time of eschatological crisis. The Romans were basically irrelevant to him.

Ascribing Responsibility for Jesus’ Death

You report (“What America Believes,” Jots & Tittles, June 2004) that a recent Pew Research Center survey found that currently 34 percent of those under 30 say Jews—or, even more disturbing, “the Jews”—were responsible for the death of Jesus, up from only 10 percent in 1997, and that 42 percent of African Americans now hold that belief, up from 21 percent.

However, in the summary of the survey, we also find the statement that “only a tiny minority [8 percent] believes that Jews today should bear responsibility for what happened to Christ 2,000 years ago.” This is important because it implies that even those Americans who today believe that (some) Jews were responsible for Jesus’ death do not share the mythical anti-Semitic thinking that attributes collective responsibility to the whole Jewish people down through the centuries, on and on.

The probable reason is that, while few of them are historians, ordinary Americans recognize that the responsibility for particular deaths lies with the particular individuals or sets of individuals actually involved. Given that he was cut off almost as soon as his public activity began, the 047vast majority of Jews alive the day Jesus died had probably not even heard of him.

A Critique of the Church

In Gallery (“The Beast from the Sea,” June 2004), the late 14th-century picture of the seven-headed beast has an interesting feature not mentioned in the text. On each horn the “diadems” are bishop’s miters, not secular crowns. Apparently the artist felt this beast represented the church. This was not a new concept. In canto 32 of Dante’s Purgatorio, almost a century earlier, Dante represents the church as a cart that grows seven heads with ten crowns. Perched on this cart is a prostitute, representing the See of Peter, with a gigantic paramour (France). The giant drags the prostitute off into the woods, representing the move of the See of Peter from Rome to Avignon in 1304.

There was a strong sentiment through the medieval period for church reform, and those who were reform-minded did not shrink from using graphic apocalyptic imagery to make their point. And, it seems, some inside the church shared the sentiment. This is why the fresco is found in a church baptistry, and Dante’s massive poem has become a devotional classic.

3 Years and Going Strong
It was in 1991, through a slightly earlier subscription to Biblical Archaeology Review, that I became aware of BR, and I immediately subscribed. I have retained and indexed every copy since.