This Bible History Daily feature was originally published in 2012.—Ed.

Although he ruled as tetrarch over Galilee in Jesus’ time, we hear relatively little about Herod Antipas in the Bible and other ancient sources of the period. Was Herod Antipas (depicted in a painting above) an aggressive tyrant like his father, Herod the Great, or was he simply a perplexed ruler who didn’t know what to do about Jesus and his followers? Photo: SEF/Art Resource, NY.

Herod Antipas ruled Galilee in Jesus’ time. He succeeded his father, Herod the Great, and served as tetrarch (appointed by the emperor Augustus to rule over one quarter of his father’s kingdom) from 4 B.C. until 39 A.D., almost exactly the lifetime of Jesus. Yet there is relatively little about Antipas in the Bible.

According to Biblical scholar Morten Hørning Jensen in “Antipas—The Herod Jesus Knew” in the September/October 2012 issue of BAR, in the three synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke), Herod Antipas’s attitude toward Jesus is somewhat vague and indecisive:

In Matthew and Mark, Herod Antipas is ambivalent with regard to Jesus. Both gospels quote Herod Antipas as saying, after he has had John the Baptist executed, that Jesus is actually John resurrected (Matthew 14:1–2; Mark 6:14–16). Both gospels state that Antipas was actually saddened by Salome’s request to have John beheaded (Matthew 14:9; Mark 6:26), and they seem to blame Salome and her mother, Herodias, for John’s execution. Bound by his own oath, Antipas is nevertheless forced to fulfill his promise to Salome.

At the same time, however, we get the feeling in Matthew and Mark that Antipas is a shadow of death over Jesus. When Jesus hears that John has been killed, “he withdrew from there in a boat to a lonely place,” apparently fearful of Antipas (Matthew 14:13). In Mark 3:6, the Herodians counsel about how to kill Jesus, just as Jesus in Mark 8:15 warns against “the leaven of Herod.”

Luke’s account differs from Matthew’s and Mark’s by concentrating mostly on the trial of Jesus, for which Luke skillfully prepares his reader by references to Antipas along the way that build up an intense question in the reader’s mind: Is Antipas interested in Jesus or is he trying to kill him? (See Luke 3:19–20, 9:7–10, 13:31–33.)

Unlike his father, Antipas was not much of a builder. Although he founded cities and may have built theaters at Sepphoris and Tiberias, the building projects were relatively small compared to the later Roman-period structures that can be seen there today.

Although poverty was a fact of life for some in this period, Galilee in general was thriving economically. This can be seen especially at Yodfat, where elite houses featured high-quality frescoes. Photo: Shai Levi, Hecht Museum, University of Haifa.

And even while poverty was a fact of life for some in first-century Galilee, archaeological surveys and excavations show that the region in general was thriving economically under Antipas, even in the rural areas. As Jensen explains, this does not match earlier proposals of a devastating urban elite’s exploitation of a uniformly poor peasant population. Despite his enigmatic and sometimes inimical depiction in the New Testament, Antipas seems to have been a fairly passive but successful ruler of Galilee.

For more about what we know of Herod Antipas in the Bible and archaeological finds indicating how he ruled Galilee in Jesus’ time, see “Antipas—The Herod Jesus Knew” by Morten Hørning Jensen in the September/October 2012 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review.

BAS Library Members: Read the full article “Antipas—The Herod Jesus Knew” by Morten Hørning Jensen as it appears in the September/October 2012 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review.

Not a BAS Library member yet? Join the BAS Library today.
 

Related reading in Bible History Daily:

Machaerus: Beyond the Beheading of John the Baptist

King Herod’s Ritual Bath at Machaerus

Anastylosis at Machaerus, Where John the Baptist was Beheaded

Tour Showcases Remains of Herod’s Jerusalem Palace—Possible Site of the Trial of Jesus
 

The post Herod Antipas in the Bible and Beyond appeared first on Biblical Archaeology Society.

This Bible History Daily article was originally published in 2012.—Ed.

AN INCREDIBLE FIND. In December 1928, a work crew from kibbutz Beth Alpha was digging a drainage channel when mosaic pieces began to appear in their shovel loads.

A thousand years of neglect had resulted in a valley full of silted and blocked-up waterways creating a marshy and swampy landscape as the spring of Harod—and half a dozen other springs that empty into it—filled the land with water faster than the natural outlets—now blocked—could drain it.

That was the scene that greeted the first modern settlers of the valley of Jezreel. And it was obvious that their first task, if they hoped to farm this land, was to drain the swamps. Thus it happened that at the end of December 1928 a work crew from kibbutz Beth Alpha (founded 6 years earlier) was digging yet another drainage canal when someone’s shovel started picking up pieces of mosaic.

Work on the channel stopped at once. They called the Hebrew University (then all of 3 years old!) and within a fortnight Eliezer Lippa Sukenik¹ and Nahman Avigad had begun to excavate the site. Work began on January 9, 1929, and continued for 7 weeks, until February 26, despite heavy rains (610 mm instead of the usual 400 mm) that flooded the valley that year.

The mosaic they uncovered was almost complete, its astonishing preservation caused by a layer of plaster, thrown down from the ceiling by the earthquake that destroyed the building, that covered and protected the floor from the damage of falling stones. When it was completely exposed, the mosaic measured 28 meters long and 14 meters wide. It had an inscription at the doorway leading to three panels in the central apse: a rectangular panel, a square panel with a circle in the middle, and then another rectangle at the far end.
 

In the square panel of the Beth Alpha mosaic was a zodiac wheel with all 12 symbols and names of the zodiac, surrounded by four female figures at the corners, identifying the seasons of the year. Credit: Art Resource, NY

What had they found? Could this have been the temple of a Jewish community (it had to be Jewish; everything was written in Hebrew and Aramaic) turned pagan? Further digging dispelled that notion, for there, just above the central square of the mosaic, they found a mosaic panel of symbols instantly familiar to any Jew of that century (or this): the Ark of the Covenant (aron kodesh), eternal light (ner tamid), seven-branched candelabrum (menorah), palm frond (lulav), citron (etrog), and an incense shovel (mahta).²

Many of the symbols included in the uppermost mosaic panel reaffirmed the Jewish nature of the synagogue at Beth Alpha: the Ark of the Covenant at the center (aron kodesh), eternal light (ner tamid), two seven-branched candelabra (menorot; plural, menorah), palm frond (lulav), citron (etrog), and an incense shovel (mahta). From these items it takes the type name of a synagogue panel.

Then, in a third panel, closer to the front door, they uncovered a scene easily recognizable to anyone who knows the Bible. We are in Genesis 22, and Abraham is about to sacrifice Isaac. In case we might have forgotten our Bible class, the names of the principals—Abraham, Isaac and the ram—are spelled out in inscriptions above their heads, and the hand of God stopping the sacrifice is clearly marked with the words “do not put forth your hand [against the lad].”

In the lower rectangular panel, closer to the door, the familiar story of Genesis 22 is depicted on the mosaic. Abraham is preparing to sacrifice Isaac (at right) as the hand of God reaches from heaven to stop him. Nearby the ram is caught with its horns in a thicket, and a servant waits at far left with the donkey. This type of scene came to be known as a righteous ancestors panel and is found in several other synagogue mosaics.

Now, of course, we have problems. We know that Jewish life moved to the Galilee after the total destruction of Jewish Jerusalem that followed the Bar-Kokhba Revolt of the 130s C.E. We are, therefore, not surprised to have found—and to keep finding—synagogues from the following centuries all over the Galilee and Golan. It isn’t the synagogues themselves that are the problem; it is the decorations in them. What in heaven’s name were they doing? How could they be making pictures, especially in the synagogue? Didn’t they know the second commandment?

You shall not make for yourself a graven image or any likeness of what is in the heavens above or on the earth below or in the waters under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them” (Exodus 20:4–5)

That problem is not as formidable as it first appears. The second commandment can be read in several ways because the Hebrew original of this text is entirely without vowels and punctuation points. We, writing English, have put in a period after the word “earth.”⁶ But if the period weren’t there, the verse could be read as a long conditional clause: “make no graven images … which you worship.” In this case it’s not the making that is prohibited, but the worshiping. Historically, the Jewish community often understood that it was acceptable to make images as long as one doesn’t worship them. And there is, consequently, a long and varied history of Jewish art, beginning with the cherubim over the Ark in the desert (Exodus 25:18), recorded presumably not long after the giving of the Commandments, and without protest.

A second problem is less easily resolved. The zodiac is pagan religion. It is what we see in the horoscope in every weekend newspaper on earth, generally the stuff of amusement. We know this system; it is based on the (extraordinary) assumption that the stars control the earth and that what happens on earth is a result of influences from what happens in the sky. All we need in order to understand the earth (that is, about our destiny) is to understand the stars. If, according to this view, one knows the exact date and time of one’s birth, and can chart the exact position of the heavenly bodies at that moment, then forevermore one knows what is fortunate, unfortunate, worth doing, worth avoiding, wise, unwise, etc. Our universe, therefore, is fixed and determined. There are no values, no good, no evil and no repentance. We live in a great mechanical machine of a cosmos.

The conflict of interest is obvious, and we are not surprised to learn that Jews detested that idea. For if the cosmos is like that, why do we need God giving the Law to Moses on Mt. Sinai? The Christians also had their own very strong reservations. If the cosmos is like that, who needed God to sacrifice His son for the sins of the world? Who indeed? The early Church in fact absolutely prohibited the making of zodiacs, and there is not one zodiac mosaic in a church that dates before the Middle Ages, and very few even then. The zodiac/horoscope perception is the antithesis and enemy of monotheistic religion. An ancient and honorable enemy, to be sure, far older than Judaism and Christianity, but still the enemy.
 

But this is surely grasping at straws. The odd line here and there accounts for nothing in view of the overwhelming opposition in rabbinic literature to anything related to the making of pictures of any sort, and doubly so the fierce opposition to anything suggesting idolatry and pagan worship. Indeed, one of the ways to say “pagan” in rabbinical Hebrew is by the abbreviation עכומ[ (ovedei kokhavim u-mazalot,”worshipers of stars and constellations”). The rabbis of the Talmud recognized the popularity of astrology and were even prepared to admit that there might be truth in its predictions, but opposed the whole endeavor on principle. Ein mazal le-Yisrael (literally, “Israel has no constellation”) is perhaps the most commonly quoted opinion on the subject,¹⁰ but it is only one of many.

All the more are we astonished by the figure of Helios, Sol Invictus, pagan god of the sun, riding his quadriga right through the middle of the synagogue! This doesn’t look like it belongs here. And we need to ask again, what was this all about?

To set our minds at rest (for the time being), we can say what all this wasn’t. It could not have been astrology (predicting the future, etc.) and it could not have been scientific astronomy, because the seasons in the corners are in the wrong places. The upper right corner at Beth Alpha is marked טבת (Tevet), the winter month, and the upper left corner ניסן (Nissan) the month of Passover in spring. But between them you have the zodiac sign of Cancer, the Crab, which falls in mid-summer, not early spring. The same thing with the sign for Libra, the Scales. The mosaic has placed it between the spring and summer seasons, whereas it belongs in the fall. Clumsy astronomy.

The conclusion is inescapable: whoever did this mosaic hadn’t a clue about real astronomy or astrology, doubtless because he was a Jew and couldn’t care less.¹¹

For the same reason, this mosaic floor could not have been a calendar, an idea that has been suggested by several important scholars of the subject.¹² The incorrect placement of the seasons would have made that completely impossible.

Then perhaps it’s all just decoration, pretty pictures, the common designs of the era. That is the most common explanation, the one found in guide books. But it can’t be true. In the first place, the designs were by no means common in the Byzantine era. The Church, as stated, absolutely banned their use. More important, these signs are too loaded with meaning. We might argue “pretty pictures” if Beth Alpha were a solitary, unique find. We could then, at best, say that we had found here a group of Jews who had become so Hellenized that they had slipped over into paganism. But Beth Alpha is not unique; we will visit half a dozen other synagogues before we’re done. In addition, we have found hundreds of Jewish tombstones and catacombs from all over the Roman Empire. And despite the fact that there are countless millions of possible symbols, forms, designs, pictures, animals, etc. they could have used, the fact is that they all use the same 10-12 symbols.¹³ We are forced to conclude that these were more than pretty pictures.
 

Another stunning mosaic was unearthed at the Hammath Tiberias synagogue. It contains a beautifully executed zodiac wheel (interrupted by a later wall on top) and a synagogue panel, but no righteous ancestors theme. Credit: Garo Nalbandian

In the Hammath Tiberias square mosaic panel containing the zodiac wheel, the four corners are marked with depictions of the four seasons in the corner, as seen here.

Hammath Tiberias is the second most famous (and the most technically accomplished) mosaic synagogue floor.¹⁴ We have a zodiac wheel in the middle of the floor,¹⁵ a rendering of Helios riding his quadriga through the heavens in the central circle, the seasons in the corners, and the synagogue panel above, between the zodiac and the bema of the synagogue. There is no depiction of the righteous ancestors theme, as there was with Abraham at Beth Alpha.¹⁶

The synagogue at Ein Gedi contains a mosaic that is even more complete than those at Beth Alpha and Hammath Tiberias, although relatively simpler in decoration. All of the usual elements are present—as well as some new ones—but in written form rather than figural depictions.

Actually, the synagogue at Ein Gedi¹⁷ (recently opened as a National Park) is more complete than those of Beth Alpha and Hammath Tiberias. All the elements we usually look for—and some new ones—are here, in mosaic on the floor. Except that they are all in lists. There are no pictures here at all. We have a list of all of the signs of the zodiac. The ancestors (Adam, Seth, Enosh, Keinan, etc.) are listed,¹⁸ as are “Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, shalom” and three new righteous ones we haven’t seen before: Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah¹⁹ have been added for good measure. The other interesting new element in Ein Gedi is the identification of the zodiac signs with the months of the Hebrew calendar.² We didn’t see that at Beth Alpha or Hammath Tiberias.

Inscriptions, instead of pictures, cover the floor of the Ein Gedi synagogue mosaic. All the signs of the zodiac are listed (and for the first time associated with the corresponding months of the Hebrew calendar), as well as a long list of righteous ancestors, from Adam, Seth and Enosh, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah.

Inscriptions, instead of pictures, cover the floor of the Ein Gedi synagogue mosaic. All the signs of the zodiac are listed (and for the first time associated with the corresponding months of the Hebrew calendar), as well as a long list of righteous ancestors, from Adam, Seth and Enosh, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah.

That leads us to the newest of the synagogue zodiac discoveries, the synagogue at Zippori (Sepphoris) in the lower Galilee.²¹ Discovered only in 1993, this floor is the most elaborate of the seven floors we know and contains items not to be found in any of the others. Unhappily, it is in a very bad state of preservation and most scenes are only fragmentary.

The synagogue at Zippori (Sepphoris) provided the most recent of the zodiac mosaic discoveries, although unfortunately it is not very well preserved. In the center of the zodiac wheel, Helios once again drives his four-horse chariot, but rather than the figure of a man, the god is depicted as the sun itself.

The zodiac is elegant indeed. Each constellation has its own name and the name of its corresponding calendar month written right in the panel. So, for example, we find Scorpio (עקרב) together with its Hebrew month Heshvan (חשון), Sagittarius (קשת) together with Kislev (כסלו), and so forth.

As at Ein Gedi, each sign of the zodiac at Zippori is associated with the corresponding month of the Hebrew calendar, both written in Hebrew. In the close-ups at top, Scorpio shares a panel with the month Heshvan (above), while Sagittarius is together with the month Kislev. The close-ups at right show the seasons in the four corners, as we have seen elsewhere, but here they are labeled with both Greek and Hebrew inscriptions.

As at Ein Gedi, each sign of the zodiac at Zippori is associated with the corresponding month of the Hebrew calendar, both written in Hebrew. In the close-ups at top, Scorpio shares a panel with the month Heshvan (above), while Sagittarius is together with the month Kislev. The close-ups at right show the seasons in the four corners, as we have seen elsewhere, but here they are labeled with both Greek and Hebrew inscriptions.

There are seasons in each of the four corners, but a new element has been added here too: Greek inscriptions defining the seasons in addition to the Hebrew ones we have seen before. And, as in Beth Alpha and Ein Gedi, the righteous ancestor theme has been well and truly represented. Again we find Abraham binding Isaac. The scenes are very poorly preserved, but we have a fragment of the ram caught in the thicket and at least part of the picture of two servants holding the ass (Genesis 22:5) while Abraham and his son went off to Moriah. Helios rides his quadriga in the central circle but, extraordinarily, there is no male figure in the picture; just the sun itself driving the chariot.

Although poorly preserved, the Zippori synagogue mosaic clearly contained a panel of the binding of Isaac to complete the righteous ancestors theme. All that remains are fragments showing the servants holding the donkey (above) and the ram caught in the thicket.

The synagogue panel, divided here into three sections, is quite well preserved. The two candelabra flank the Ark of the Covenant with the ram’s horn, palm frond and citron, and incense shovel in place below. The Zippori synagogue floor, however, provides several other elements not found elsewhere: scenes of the ornaments, instruments and sacrifices of the Temple and an additional (very fragmentary) scene of the angels visiting Abraham and Sarah (Genesis 18). Pity it’s all in such bad condition. And how fortunate we have been to have found Beth Alpha so perfectly preserved!

Unlike much of the rest of the Zippori mosaic, the synagogue panel, divided here into three sections, is quite well preserved. The two candelabra flank the Ark of the Covenant with the ram’s horn, palm frond and citron, and incense shovel in place below. Credit: Gabi Laron/Courtesy Zeev Weiss

These are the “Big Four” sites we needed to visit. There are three others that are very fragmentary indeed-some destroyed or changed in antiquity, others looted and destroyed in modern times, some both.
 

Little remains of the synagogue at Na’aran, which was discovered when a Turkish artillery shell fell on the spot during World War I, revealing the mosaic. Much of the mosaic was badly defaced, but enough was found to suggest the presence of the zodiac wheel, including Helios in his chariot (only one wheel remains), the four seasons in the corners, and the Ark flanked by candelabra.

Very little is left of the synagogue at Na’aran, now in the Palestinian Authority area some 5 km northwest of Jericho.²² Hardly surprising, the mosaic floor was discovered when the British army was camped in Na’aran during the First World War and a Turkish artillery shell fell on the spot, uncovering the mosaic!²³ There was a zodiac wheel here once, and one sees the lines dividing the panels, but the panels themselves have been defaced. One may find remains of the claws of Cancer, the Crab, and at least one other sign, Aries, is identifiable because the caption is preserved even though the picture is gone.²⁴ Old Helios is gone too, but we find one wheel of his chariot (older pictures by archaeologists show two wheels) in the central circle. There were four seasons in the four corners, badly defaced, and two candelabra flanking the Ark were seen by Père Vincent, excavator of the site, who sketched them at the time.²⁵

The mosaic at Na’aran was badly damaged, but one can still make out the legs of Cancer on the zodiac wheel (left) and one of the four seasons in the corner of the square panel (right).

The mosaic at Na’aran was badly damaged, but one can still make out the legs of Cancer on the zodiac wheel (left) and one of the four seasons in the corner of the square panel (right).

Even less remains in Sussiya. This is a mysterious place, a large Jewish town high in the Judean hills south of Hebron on the way to Beersheba. It is a town without a name and without a history—we use the Arabic name for the place for lack of an alternative—but it was a big place and it lasted a long time. Very odd. The synagogue building, large and well built, also lasted a long time, and that longevity was the undoing of its mosaic floor. Fashions change, and when it was no longer acceptable to put pictures in synagogues,²⁶ the floor was ripped out and a new “carpet” of geometric patterns, itself changed and repaired over time, was laid in its place. But there was a zodiac wheel here; a piece of the outer arc of the wheel is still in place. And we know the building was a synagogue because at least two elements we recognize from other places, the candelabra and the Ark, are still quite recognizable. The survival of a fragment of the righteous ancestors panel is even more unexpected. But it is indeed there on the floor: the tail of an animal and two Hebrew letters “-el” (אל). Surely that is Daniel in the lions’ den.

The sussiya building was identified as a synagogue because the so-called synagogue panel of the mosaic was still quite visible, containing the Ark flanked by two candelabra.

The well-built synagogue at Sussiya lasted for a long time, which was ultimately the downfall of some of its mosaics. As tastes changed, new mosaic floors were paved over the old one. Still, there are glimpses of the traditional elements, such as the inner circle (now filled with a rosette, not Helios) and a portion of the outer arc of the zodiac wheel (visible a few feet below the inner circle).

Barely a hint of the righteous ancestors panel remains at Sussiya, but the tail of a lion and the end of a Hebrew inscription “-el” is enough to reconstruct the scene of Daniel in the lions’ den.

We have nearly reached the end of our survey. One more site is left, and it is so obscure that only the smallest fraction of the synagogue mosaic remains. The area was a construction site in the Druze village of Usifiyya, east of Haifa on Mt. Carmel.²⁷ A mosaic synagogue inscription, flanked by two candelabra,²⁸ was discovered during construction, together with one corner of a zodiac wheel. The smiling face of one of the seasons, not identified by an inscription, and a piece of two zodiac panels— one of them obviously Cancer, the other unidentifiable—are all that’s left of the zodiac.

The last example of a synagogue zodiac mosaic consists of only a few fragments. This corner from the square panel shows the smiling face of the one of the seasons in the corner, as well as the edges of two zodiac segments, one of which can be identified as Cancer (the other is unclear).

What have we found? We have found seven places in Israel where Jews put zodiac wheels, Helios, the four seasons, a panel of synagogue objects, and sometimes remembrance of righteous ancestors in mosaic on the floor of their synagogues. For the record, we have never found a zodiac in a Jewish context outside of Israel, and every zodiac found in Israel was in a synagogue.

That fact tells us what we already knew: that these zodiacs were certainly not just decorations or pretty pictures. Nor were they attempts at astrology (predicting the future) or astronomy. The Ark, candelabrum, shofar, etc. were put in synagogues (and on tombstones, lintels, doorposts and catacombs), the most serious of places for the Jewish community. And the inscriptions on the zodiacs themselves were invariably in Hebrew, even if the common languages of the day, Aramaic or Greek were added. That is, the zodiacs were important and meant something to the people who made them. The question is: What? It is time to suggest some conclusions.

The evidence indicates that we are in the presence of a mystical Hellenistic-Byzantine Jewish tradition, a tradition that Talmudic Judaism either ignored or suppressed,²⁹ a tradition we would not know anything about (for it left no literature) were it not for the discovery of this artwork, these symbols.³⁰ The mosaics are in fact the literature of the movement. We need to learn how to read them.

Historically, the mosaics were made at a time when what is sometimes called normative, or Talmudic, Judaism—the Judaism of the rabbis—was just developing. And it was going a different way.³¹ We might say that Talmudic Judaism was moving horizontally: A man walks a path, with God giving him the Law to tell him what to do and what not to do, how to stay straight on the path and not stray off. God is pleased when man obeys and angry when he disobeys. This is the religion of the Hebrew Bible, and it is what normative Judaism became in the Talmud, the Middle Ages and, for the most part, up to our own time.

But there was, and still is, a different kind of religion, much older than the Judaism we have just described. We can call it vertical. Men always knew that their life depended on higher powers. First and most obvious, life depended on nature—on seed and growth, rain, sun, moon, land, wind and fire. That was natural religion; it was what primitive man did. It was only a short step from there to making each of these elements into a god. Ancient man thus prayed to rain and sacrificed to earth, worshiped the moon and adored the sun.
 

On this issue there is bad news and good news. The bad news is that the regular cycle of nature was pretty grim, not to mention completely predestined. There was no good and no evil—no value—which is why the Jews never bought into it. The good news is that the cosmos was also consoling. Nature was no longer random or dependent on the whim of the gods. Indeed, the regularity of the cycle of growth and death and rebirth in nature did give hope for immortality.³² And when Greek philosophy, following Plato, organized the forms and powers into a proper hierarchy, with the Highest Form, the First Uncaused Cause, being God, then the spiritual ladder was firmly in place.

And that, we suggest, is what they were doing by walking into the synagogue. We see the worshipers climbing the mystical ladder from the mundane and transient things down here at the entrance—who made the floor, when, and how much it cost—to a union with God at His holy Ark up there at the far end.

The first step was through our righteous ancestors. Their good deeds atone for our sins.³⁴ Then, as we walk farther into the synagogue, we begin to climb the ladder, encountering the earth and its seasons. We are among friends; the seasons have friendly, sometimes smiling, women’s faces. We progress even higher, through the stars and constellations (the Hebrew word mazal, “constellation,” means luck). But the vertical path of Jewish mysticism is beyond luck, beyond the stars. It is beyond even the strongest and most fearful of all natural powers, the sun. Here is the sun, indeed at the center of the universe, in a chariot controlled by a charioteer,³⁵ in a vision recalling Ezekiel’s vision of the divine chariot (Ezekiel 1). The charioteer is God,³⁶ in control of the four horses, over and above the stars and the constellations, that is, over fate and destiny. This is the God who rules over the moon and the seasons, the rain, the land and the elements. Four elements like the four horses: earth, air, fire and water. This is the God who has graciously made a covenant and given Torah to His people Israel, whose sins are atoned for by the righteousness of their ancestors.

And that understanding brought the worshiper to the holy symbols of the synagogue, which is God’s house. That is why, in all of the synagogue mosaic panels³⁷ depicting the symbols of God’s house, the Ark of the Covenant is always in the center of its panel, and the panel is always located right at the foot of the Ark itself.

We have come through our stages of ascent. We are in front of the Ark, the dwelling place of God’s Torah. Yet the door is always closed. God, inside, is still a mystery. But our long mystical journey to salvation is almost over.


All uncredited photos courtesy of the author.
 

Notes:

1. E.L. Sukenik, The Ancient Synagogue of Beth-Alpha, (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1932)

2. The incense shovel was a universally recognized Jewish symbol in the Byzantine era. It disappeared from the Jewish iconographic lexicon because the Jews stopped using incense when the Christians started.

3. The Aramaic inscription at the front door was damaged. It says that the mosaic was made “during the … year of the reign of the emperor Justinus”. The exact year is missing. The reference is probably to the emperor Justin I (adopted uncle and immediate predecessor of Justinian the Great) who ruled from 518-527 C.E. and whose coins were found on the site. It is of course possible that the building was older than the mosaic floor.

4. The earliest possible “candidate” was a major quake that hit the country on July 9, 551. It was the earthquake that finally destroyed Petra. More likely was an earthquake of lesser magnitude but located closer to the site which did great damage to the Jordan Valley in 659/660.

5. We have not entered into a discussion of the artistic merits of this work of art. It is the writer’s opinion that this work, with its naive and primitive style, has a child-like immediacy and freshness that makes it one of the masterpieces of world art.

6. Thus the new JPS Tanakh. The King James translation puts a colon after the word “earth”, while the New American Bible (Catholic) and the Revised Standard Version (Protestant) translations both use a semi-colon instead of period at this point.

7. From a Geniza manuscript of JT Avoda Zarah

8. In the Pseudo-Jonathan Targum to Lev. 26:1

9. From a Geniza fragment of Midrash Deut. Rabba) These quotations are cited by Michael Klein, “Palestinian Targum and Synagogue Mosaics,” Jerusalem, Immanuel 11 (1980)

10. The matter is discussed in BT Shabbat, 156a

11. At Beth Alpha the signs and the seasons both progress counter-clockwise, although they are misaligned. The Hammat Tiberias zodiac shows both signs and seasons also rotating counter-clockwise, and in correct alignment with each other. At Na’aran the seasons run counter-clockwise, as above, but the signs go clockwise!

12. That position was argued by Prof. Avi-Yonah, among many others, and by the excavator of Hammat Tiberias. See Moshe Dothan, Hammath Tiberias, (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1983). Hammat Tiberias is the only mosaic we know where the signs and seasons are correctly aligned, which may have influenced the excavator’s judgment as to its purpose

13. The cataloging of all of these finds and the interpretation of what they might mean constitute the magnum opus of Erwin Goodenough (1893-1965), Professor of Religion at Yale and one of the greatest scholars of religion America ever produced. Goodenough’s 13 volume study, E.R. Goodenough, Jewish Symbols in the Greco-Roman Period, (New York: Pantheon, 1958), form the core text for the study of this subject, Everyone who has subsequently dealt with the subject is in his debt. The book has been re-issued in a 1-volume paperback, abridged and edited by Jacob Neusner (Princeton: Bollingen Series, 1988)

14. Dothan, op cit. See endnote 6, above.

15. We are amazed to discover that later generations built a wall right through the middle of the zodiac!

16. A complete description of the 4 mosaics known at the time of publication: Beth Alpha, Hammat Tiberias, Na’aran and Usifiyya, together with a comprehensive bibliography, may be found in Rachel Hachlili, “The Zodiac in Ancient Jewish Art,” Bulletin of the American Society for Biblical Research, 228, (1977) , pp. 61-77

17. Dan Barag, Yosef Porat and Ehud Netzer, “The Synagogue at ‘Ein Gedi”, Ancient Synagogues Revealed, (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1981), pp. 116-119.

18. The text is copied from I Chron. 1:1

19. They are the 3 “children in the fiery furnace”, Shadrach, Mishach and Abednego, in the book of Daniel.

20. There are, of course, many groups of 12 in the Bible and throughout ancient literature: 12 sons of Jacob, 12 tribes of Israel, 12 disciples of Jesus, 12 signs of the zodiac, 12 months of the year, etc.

21. The synagogue floor is thoroughly discussed in Ze’ev Weiss and others, The Sepphoris Synagogue, (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 2005), In this writer’s opinion, however, the authors have completely missed the point by beginning at the top, the Ark and the holy synagogue objects, and working their way back out the front door. The spiritual progression which we discuss requires exactly the opposite course.

22. The Bible called the place both Na’arah (Joshua 16:7) and Na’aran (I Chronicles 7:28). Josephus knew it as Nearah (Antiquities. book 17, ch. 13, para. 1) and the Talmud called it Na’arah (Lamentations R.1:17 No 52)

23. The site was examined in 1919 by the British staff archaeologist, studied again by Père Vincent & M.J. Lagrange in 1921, and published by Prof. Sukenik in his book on Beth Alpha (see endnote 1, above)

24.The Hebrew word is טלה (taleh), which in modern Hebrew means lamb. But it was always used for the Ram in the zodiac.

25. This writer has seen the remains of a figure of a man, 2 arms raised to heaven , with the inscription “Dani[el] shalom”. But that fragment is not to be found on the site any more. The menorot are said to be at the École Biblique in Jerusalem

26. The iconoclastic movement in Judaism and Christianity was certainly in influenced by the uncompromising iconoclasm of militant Islam. But the trend in Judaism may have been a parallel rather than a dependent development.

27. The remains of site, identified as ancient Huseifa, were excavated in 1933 and published the following year by Prof. Michael Avi-Yonah and M. Makhouly in The Quarterly of the Department of Antiquities in Palestine, 3, 1934.

28. The inscription, which is incomplete, reads שלום על ישראל (shalom al yisrael), and is on display in the Rockefeller Museum in Jerusalem. The zodiac fragment is in the collection of the Hebrew University, Jerusalem.

29. Only the works of Philo and Josephus, together with some mystical apocalypses, survive as the literature from the Hellenistic Jewish world. They survive because of the Christians, who preserved them, not the Jews, who ignored them. There is no other mystical literature from the period of the mosaic making which might help us understand what the mosaic makers meant to say.

30. It would be a safe bet to say that 9 out of 10 Jews living today (especially orthodox Jews) don’t know, and never knew, that such a Judaism ever existed.

31. This formulation, from Goodenough (q.v.), ch. 1, has been extraordinarily useful to this writer.

32. The Jews were not much interested in immortality, but everybody else was!

33. We are not surprised to discover that the oldest known manifestation of what we might call “religion” is the decorated skull of an ancestor found under the floor of a house in pre-pottery Neolithic Jericho.

34. There are any number of examples of pious Jews venerating the tombs of saints and forefathers. A visit to any tomb of a holy man in the Galilee, to Elijah’s cave on Mt. Carmel, or indeed to a cemetery where someone of special interest to one or another Hassidic group is buried provides a fascinating glimpse into a Judaism which we of the liberated western world did not know still existed.

35. The origin and symbolism of the Divine quadriga and its connection to merkava mysticism are discussed in a monograph by James Russell in the Jewish Studies Quarterly, vol. 4, no. 4, (Tubingen 1997).

36. We recall that in the Zippori zodiac the quadriga is driven by the sun itself, without the figure of a man. Compare Is.60:19ff.

37. Some ancient synagogues, as in Beth-Shean, show only the synagogue panel without any of the other elements.
 

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This Bible History Daily article was originally published in 2013.—Ed.

In addition to its symbolism for the Holy Spirit, the dove was a popular Christian symbol before the cross rose to prominence in the fourth century. The dove continued to be used for various church implements throughout the Byzantine and medieval period, including the form of oil lamps and this 13th-century altar piece for holding the Eucharistic bread. Credit: Walters Art Museum, Baltimore.

In the Ancient Near East and Mediterranean world, the dove became an iconic symbol of the mother goddess. Small clay shrines from the Iron Age Levant depict doves perched atop the doorways of these mini-temples. On one example from Cyprus, the entire exterior of the goddess’s shrine is covered with dovecotes. The doves represented feminine fertility and procreation, and came to be well-recognized symbols of the Canaanite goddess Asherah and her counterpart Astarte, as well as her Phoenician and later Punic embodiment, Tanit. First-century B.C. coins from Ashkelon bore a dove, which represented both the goddess Tyche-Astarte and the city mint. In Rome and throughout the Empire, goddesses such as Venus and Fortunata could be seen depicted in statues with a dove resting in their hand or on their head.

There is strong evidence in the Hebrew Bible, as well as the archaeological record, that many ancient Israelites believed the goddess Asherah was the consort of their god Yahweh. Perhaps it is not so surprising, then, that the heirs of this Israelite religion incorporated the “feminine” symbol of the dove to represent the spirit of God (the word for “spirit,” ruach, is a feminine word in Hebrew). The Babylonian Talmud likens the hovering of God’s spirit in Genesis 1:2 to the hovering of a dove. Indeed, this same “hovering” language is used to describe God’s spirit in the Dead Sea Scrolls as well as the New Testament.

A dove and two bird-like female figures perch atop this Iron Age house shrine to symbolize Asherah and her counterparts Astarte and Tanit. Credit: Ardon Bar Hama.

Dovecotes, or niches for doves, dot the exterior of this small clay house shrine from Cyprus, while the goddess beckons to devotees from within. Credit: Erich Lessing.

A white dove represents the spirit of God in Genesis 1:2 in the Cathedral of Santa Maria Nuovo in Monreale, Italy. Credit: Casa Editrice Mistretta, Palermo, Italy.

Dove imagery is also utilized in several of the prophetic books of the Hebrew Bible. The low, cooing sound of a dove served as mournful imagery to evoke the suffering of the people of Judah (see Isaiah 38:14, 59:11; Ezekiel 7:16 and others).

A dove returns to Noah’s ark with an olive branch in its beak, a sign that life had returned to the earth after the great flood. Sailors throughout history have used birds to guide them to dry land. Pictured is a detail of a woodcut from the Nuremberg Bible. Credit: Victoria & Albert Picture Library.

The Epic of Gilgamesh, a Babylonian narrative that has several parallels in the early chapters of Genesis, tells the story of Utnapishtim, who (much like Noah) survived a flood that destroyed the earth and sent out a dove to try and find dry land. Credit: The British Museum.

But doves were more than just a soundtrack for a people who had fallen away from God; they were also an instrument of atonement. Several passages of the Torah (especially Leviticus) specify occasions that require the sacrifice of two doves (or young pigeons)—either as a guilt offering or to purify oneself after a period of ritual impurity (including the birth of a child). Several columbaria, or dovecotes, have been excavated in the City of David and the Jerusalem environs (by crawford). These towers were undoubtedly used to raise doves for sacrificial offerings, as well as for the meat and fertilizer they provided—a popular practice in the Hellenistic and Roman periods that continued into the modern period.

Columbaria, or dovecotes, have been discovered in archaeological excavations in Jerusalem and throughout the Holy Land. The scarce remains of the tower on the left show a few rows of niches still standing in the City of David, whereas the underground dovecotes such as the one on the right, from Luzit, have been remarkably well preserved. Doves and pigeons were raised for their meat, and their droppings were collected for fertilizer, but they also played an important role in Temple sacrifice. Credit: Boaz Zissu.

The atoning quality of doves led to comparisons in the Talmud and the Targums with Isaac and Israel. According to these extra-Biblical sources, just as a dove stretches out its neck, so too did Isaac prepare to be sacrificed to God, and later Israel took on this stance to atone for the sins of other nations.

Thus, by the time of Jesus, the dove was already rich with symbolism and many interpretations—as a representation of Israel, atoning sacrifice, suffering, a sign from God, fertility and the spirit of God. All these meanings and more were incorporated into the Christian use of dove iconography.

Doves appear in the New Testament at scenes associated with Jesus’ birth, baptism and just before his death. The Gospel of Luke says that Mary and Joseph sacrificed two doves at the Temple following the birth of Jesus, as was prescribed in the law mentioned above (Luke 2:24). Yet in the Gospel of John, Jesus angrily drives out all of the merchants from the Temple, including “those who sold doves” to worshipers there (John 2:16).

During Benjamin Mazar’s excavations at the southwest corner of Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, he recovered a stone bowl that bore the inscription korban (“sacrifice”), as well as finely scratched drawings of two upside-down (dead) birds. The bowl was probably intended for devout Jews to bring their offering of two doves or pigeons to the Temple for sacrifice, as commanded in the Books of Leviticus and Numbers. Credit: Erich Lessing.

The Holy Spirit descends on Jesus in the form of a dove, as shown in a 14th-century Byzantine mosaic from the Baptistery in the Church of San Marco in Venice. Credit: Alinari/Art Resource, NY.

But perhaps the most familiar dove imagery from the New Testament is recounted in all four of the Gospels (though in varying forms) at the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist in the Jordan River. After Jesus came up out of the water, the [Holy] Spirit [of God] came from heaven and descended on him “like a dove” (see Matthew 3:16; Mark 1:10; Luke 3:22; John 1:32). The baptism story built on the pre-existing symbol of the dove as God’s spirit (and its many other meanings) and firmly entrenched it as the preferred representation of the Holy Spirit—especially in later artistic depictions of the Trinity.
 

“The Word” enters Mary via rays of light emanating from a dove (representing the Holy Spirit) in Fra Filippo Lippi’s Annunciation scene. Credit: National Gallery, London.

This strange juxtaposition of modern brand labels and a classic Last Supper scene in Andy Warhol’s The Last Supper (Dove) nonetheless has hidden religious meaning. The dove hovers over Jesus’ head, representing the Holy Spirit, while the GE logo represents God the Father by recalling their famous slogan, “We bring good things to light.” Credit: © 1996 The Andy Warhol Foundation, Inc./Artists Rights Society, NY.

Another source associates a dove with the beginning of Jesus’ life. According to the second-century Protoevangelium of James, when the Temple priests were trying to choose a husband for Mary, a dove flew out of Joseph’s rod and landed on his head, marking him as the one selected by God. In fairytales throughout the world, birds have often been used to signify the “chosen one,” the true king or even the divine.

Before the cross gained prominence in the fourth century, the second-century church father Clement of Alexandria urged early Christians to use the dove or a fish as a symbol to identify themselves and each other as followers of Jesus. Archaeologists have recovered oil lamps and Eucharistic vessels in the shape of doves from Christian churches throughout the Holy Land.

Since ancient times the dove was used to identify and represent the divine. It then helped countless peoples to envision and understand the many aspects of a God who could not be embodied by an idol or statue. It continues to be a favorite way to show the hand and presence of God in the world and remains one of our most enduring symbols.
 

Related reading in Bible History Daily:

Bible Animals: From Hyenas to Hippos

The Animals Went in Two by Two, According to Babylonian Ark Tablet

Camel Domestication History Challenges Biblical Narrative

No, No, Bad Dog: Dogs in the Bible

Cats in Ancient Egypt

Between Heaven and Earth: Birds in Ancient Egypt
 

The post The Enduring Symbolism of Doves appeared first on Biblical Archaeology Society.

Where is Biblical Bethsaida? One contender is the site of et-Tell, a mile and a half north of the Sea of Galilee. Photo: Duby Tal and Moni Haramati, Albatross/Courtesy of Bethsaida Excavations.

Along with Jerusalem and Capernaum, Bethsaida is frequently mentioned in the Gospels. When Jesus was first calling his disciples, he traveled to Galilee and found there Philip, who is described as being of Bethsaida along with Peter and Andrew (John 1:43-44). The town—including its nearby shore—is identified as the location where Jesus performed some of his most indelible miracles. Here he led a blind man away from the village, restored his sight, and instructed the man not to reenter the town nor to tell anyone of the miracle he had performed (Mark 8:22–26). Bethsaida is also said to be the fishing village where Jesus fed the masses with just five loaves and two fish (Luke 9:10–17; Mark 6:30–44).

A consortium of schools headed by the University of Nebraska, Omaha, claim to be excavating Biblical Bethsaida at the site of et-Tell on the east bank of the Jordan River and have published their findings as the Bethsaida Excavations Project since 1991. For years, director Rami Arav has asserted that et-Tell’s archaeological remains sync up with historical accounts of the ancient village, including ancient Jewish historian Josephus’s report that under Philip the Tetrarch (one of Herod the Great’s sons), the town was improved, “… both by the number of inhabitants it contained, and its other grandeur” (Antiquities 18:2). In 30 C.E., Philip had renamed the city Julias after Livia-Julia, Roman emperor Augustus’s wife and mother of Tiberius, the reigning emperor at the time. Arav cites occupation and substantial growth of the town throughout the Roman period as evidence corroborating Josephus’s account.¹
 

Since 2014, a team led by Mordechai Aviam, Dina Shalem, and Notley under the auspices of the Center for Holy Land Studies (CHLS) and Kinneret College has conducted survey and excavation at el-Araj, another proposed site for the location of Bethsaida. As reported in Haaretz, the 2016 excavations revealed evidence of early Roman occupation from the first through third centuries C.E., including a Roman-style bathhouse, mosaic fragments and a silver coin from 65–66 C.E. portraying Roman emperor Nero. The new evidence shows that, despite assertions by Arav and others,³ there is significant Roman-era material culture at el-Araj.

Aerial view of the 2017 excavations at el-Araj, another candidate for Biblical Bethsaida. Photo: Zachary Wong.

These new discoveries led the archaeologists at el-Araj to declare the site as Bethsaida, challenging the claim held for decades by et-Tell. The team suggests that the sea levels in antiquity would place el-Araj directly on the coast of the Sea of Galilee, an appropriate position for a fishing village compared to et-Tell. Arav disputes the interpretation of the new discoveries, suggesting the conclusions are “extremely premature.”

Pieces of the Roman tile mosaic found at el-Araj. Photo: Dr. Mordechai Aviam.

As it stands, archaeologists from two separate sites now claim to be excavating Biblical Bethsaida, and both boast historical and archaeological evidence to support their case. Only further survey and excavation of the northern shores of the Galilee and discourse among the scholarly community can begin to elucidate this predicament of identity.
 

Notes:

1. Rami Arav, “Bethsaida—A Response to Steven Notley,” Near Eastern Archaeology 74, no. 2 (June 2011), pp. 92–100.

2. Steven Notley, “Et-Tell Is Not Bethsaida,” Near Eastern Archaeology 70, no. 4 (December 2007), pp. 220–230; Steven Notley, “Reply to Arav,” Near Eastern Archaeology 74, no. 2 (June 2011), pp. 101–103.

3. Rami Arav, “A Response to Notley’s Reply,” Near Eastern Archaeology 74, no. 2 (June 2011), pp. 103–104.
 

Read more about Bethsaida in the BAS Library:

Rami Arav, Richard A. Freund and John F. Shroder Jr., “Bethsaida Rediscovered,” Biblical Archaeology Review, January/February 2000.

Steven Feldman, Sidebar: “The Case for el-Araj,” Biblical Archaeology Review, January/February 2000.

Not a BAS Library member yet? Join the BAS Library today.
 

The post Where Is Biblical Bethsaida? appeared first on Biblical Archaeology Society.

These Phoenicians who came with Cadmus…brought with them to Greece, among many other kinds of learning, the alphabet, which had been unknown before this, I think, to the Greeks.—Herodotus 5.58

Found near the ancient Phoenician settlement of Nora, modern Pula in Sardinia, this eighth-century B.C.E. slab—the so-called Nora Stone—bears a Phoenician inscription. Photo: Dan Diffendale/CC BY-SA 2.0.

Our first examples of the Phoenician alphabet—technically an abjad, containing only consonants—appear around the 11th century B.C.E. It was not the first writing system of this kind: 200 years earlier, the people of Ugarit a little further up the Syrian coast used a cuneiform alphabet (including some indication of vowels) to write their local language, and the Phoenician script itself seems to derive from an abjad in use in the Sinai peninsula in the early second millennium B.C.E., which adapted Egyptian hieroglyphic signs.

These new scripts were a real improvement on contemporary syllabic writing systems. The major benefit of alphabets, where letters represent individual sounds rather than syllables, is that they need far fewer signs to reproduce the same words. There are 22 letters in Phoenician, and 24 in ancient Greek, but the Akkadian syllabic script has close to 1,000 signs. This makes it much easier for people to learn alphabetic scripts: they bring reading and writing from the province of specialist scribes into the grasp of anyone lucky enough to get a good basic education.

What did Phoenicians use this new technology to record? The truth is that we don’t really know. We have more that 10,000 inscriptions in Phoenician, from all over the Mediterranean, but almost all are short and formulaic, recording dedications to the gods, the deaths of friends and family members, or occasional brief magical texts. There are exceptions: the cities of Byblos and Sidon, for instance, have yielded some longer royal funerary inscriptions, with occasional details of mighty conquests and magnificent building programs, but mostly given over to curses heaped upon anyone daring to disturb the tomb.

This is a very different picture from that we find in ancient Ugarit, where large archives preserve a much larger set of genres in the local script: accounts, legal documents, letters, epic literature, ritual and religious texts, astrology, divination, magic, and a small number of works on horse medicine. The problem is in part the Phoenician alphabet itself: unlike the cuneiform script of Ugarit, made up of wedges pressed into clay tablets, its linear nature was best suited to writing in ink on papyrus or parchment. Such materials only survive in extremely dry environments, such as the Egyptian desert, and so many Phoenician documents are now lost.

Ancient writers give us tantalizing glimpses of a wider world of Phoenician documentation: the first-century C.E. Jewish historian Josephus tells us, for instance, that Tyre kept archives going back to the time of King Hiram, who helped King Solomon build the temple in Jerusalem, and claimed that they even held letters sent between the kings, as well as records of the city’s history. Josephus had not, however, consulted these archives directly, and until very recently there were no known texts from Phoenician-language archives in the eastern Mediterranean. At Carthage, excavations carried by the University of Hamburg from 1989–1993 uncovered a building full of document seals, ironically preserved by the fire that destroyed the city, but none of the 5,000 or so papyrus documents to which they must once have been attached had survived.

Now, however, excavations at the inland city of Idalion on Cyprus by Dr. Maria Hadjicosti of the Department of Antiquities have finally brought to light a large archive of Phoenician texts, preserved because they were written not on perishable materials but on fragments of marble, stone, and pottery. These texts are now being studied in Nicosia by Professor Maria Giulia Amadasi Guzzo of the Sapienza University of Rome and Dr. José Ángel Zamora López of the Spanish National Research Agency, who have published their preliminary findings in Italian in the latest issue of the journal Semitica et Classica.
 

Unlike the historical archives Josephus reports at Tyre, the material preserved at Idalion is almost all administrative, sets of accounts relating to palace bureaucracy and the organization of agriculture. It sheds dramatic new light on the life, culture, economy, and political relations of Phoenician-speakers on the island of Cyprus. More broadly, these lists of figures, products, and their recipients are slowly building up, for the first time, a picture of the day to day workings of a Phoenician palace economy. There are also intriguing glimpses of personal life: a fragment of a letter, and some texts about religious and social rituals that situate the small world of Idalion in a wider Levantine context, and demonstrate the vitality of cultural links between different areas in the eastern Mediterranean.

One thing missing at Idalion is literary texts. This may seem surprising, given the rich trove of mythical texts found at Ugarit, as well as the contemporary example of the Hebrew Bible and the development in Greece in the same period of the great Homeric epics. Perhaps Phoenician literature will emerge in future excavations and new archives—or, perhaps, as is often assumed, it was all written on perishable materials, and has simply been destroyed by time. But there is no evidence from other sources either that the Phoenicians wrote down their myths and stories. There are plenty of references to technical and scientific works composed in Phoenician—arithmetic, astronomy, and philosophy—but none to literature as we would recognize it until well into the Roman period.

Perhaps Phoenicians never wrote the kind of stories that their neighbors made famous. One striking characteristic of the literature produced by Israelites and Greeks is that it often celebrates their identity as a group larger than a city-state, participating in joint expeditions and events over long distances—from the Israelite exodus from Egypt, to the Greek army attacking Troy, to the verses that celebrate victories at pan-Hellenic competitions. The Phoenicians, living in separate city-states with no common political or cultural identity, may simply have had no need for such tales.
 

Related reading in Bible History Daily:

Did the Carthaginians Really Practice Infant Sacrifice?

Who Really Invented the Alphabet—Illiterate Miners or Educated Sophisticates?

The Oldest Hebrew Script and Language

Tarshish: Hacksilber Hoards Pinpoint Solomon’s Silver Source

Phoenician Shipwreck Located off Coast of Malta

The Samaria Ivories—Phoenician or Israelite?
 

The post The Phoenician Alphabet in Archaeology appeared first on Biblical Archaeology Society.

“After this David inquired of the Lord, ‘Shall I go up into any of the cities of Judah?’ The Lord said to him, ‘Go up.’ David said, ‘To which shall I go up?’ He said, ‘To Hebron.’”
—2 Samuel 2:1

This large structure was originally built by Herod the Great and later in history alternately served as a church, mosque, church and mosque—and now remains a mosque. The building sits over the Cave of the Patriarchs, the traditional burial ground of the patriarchs and matriarchs at Biblical Hebron: Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, and Jacob and Leah. Photo: Djampa/CC BY-SA 4.0.

Referenced about 100 times in the Hebrew Bible, Biblical Hebron held the Cave of the Patriarchs—the burial ground of the Biblical patriarchs and matriarchs (Genesis 23:1–20; Genesis 25:9–10; Genesis 35:27–29; Genesis 49:29–33), was a fortified city when Moses sent spies to Canaan (Numbers 13:22) and served as David’s first capital in the Kingdom of Judah (2 Samuel 2:11).

The site of Tel Hebron resides 3,000 feet above sea level in the Judean hill country, about 20 miles south of Jerusalem. Excavations conducted in 2014 by David Ben-Shlomo and Emanuel Eisenberg revealed four occupational phases at Hebron during the Second Temple period, from the time of the late Hasmoneans (c. 100–37 B.C.E.) to the Bar-Kokhba Revolt (132–135 C.E.). Residential houses, pottery workshops and wine and oil presses were uncovered. Who lived at Biblical Hebron during the Second Temple period? Jewish, Edomite or pagan residents?
 

The western mikveh, one of the two mikva’ot found at Biblical Hebron. Two separation walls divided this mikveh into three lanes. A wall can be seen in the middle of this mikveh: the wall was added in the Late Roman period, when the mikveh was converted into a roofed water reservoir. Photo: Assaf Peretz.

If it was Jewish, we would expect to find a small mikveh, a Jewish ritual bathing place usually consisting of a small stepped pool. Jews immersed in such pools—often daily or when needed—to be cleansed of impurities. These were common in nearly all Second Temple period Jewish settlements in Judea.

Without a mikveh (plural, mikva’ot), we hesitated to label the site Jewish.

As often happens, near the last days of the excavation, the most surprising, interesting and important discovery of the season—and the answer to our dilemma—surfaced. We had excavated two large pools with the remnants of an arched ceiling and stairs leading to them. The bottom of the pools had not yet been reached, and the stairs were blocked by a transverse wall, which was puzzling. Suddenly we realized that the arched ceiling and transverse wall were actually later additions (from the late Roman period), and underneath these were two large stepped pools, which we were able to identify as mikva’ot.

Read more about discoveries at Biblical Hebron from the Second Temple period that shed light on the town’s residents in “Hebron Still Jewish in Second Temple Times” by David Ben-Shlomo in the September/October 2017 issue of BAR.

BAS Library Members: Read the full article “Hebron Still Jewish in Second Temple Times” by David Ben-Shlomo as it appears in the September/October 2017 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review.

Not a BAS Library member yet? Join the BAS Library today.
 

More on mikva’ot in Bible History Daily:

King Herod’s Ritual Bath at Machaerus

Magdala 2016: Excavating the Hometown of Mary Magdalene

Bet Shemesh Dig Uncovers 2,000-Year-Old Jewish Settlement

Secret Mikveh Discovered Under a Living Room Floor
 

The post Second Temple Period Discoveries at Biblical Hebron appeared first on Biblical Archaeology Society.

This Bible History Daily feature was originally published in 2011.—Ed.

The Fihrist (meaning “the catalogue”) is a compendium of all of the significant written works on religion, the humanities and science available at the end of the first millennium A.D. The Fihrist, and the scholarship it represents, is one of the shining positives that emerged from a Crusades history that was otherwise brutal and bloody.

At a time when western Christian society could be accurately characterized as superstitious, brutal, dogmatic and repressive, the Arab world during the Christian Crusades period was reaching a zenith of learning and enlightenment. Once such example of this is the watershed work called the Fihrist (meaning “the catalogue”), a compendium of all of the significant written works on religion, the humanities and science available at the end of the first millennium A.D. The Fihrist, and the scholarship it represents, is one of the shining positives that emerged from a Crusades history that was otherwise brutal and bloody.

As explained by J. Harold Ellens below, from the Fihrist western scholars gained from the Christian Crusades the wealth of human knowledge that spanned the preceding several millennia—even Aristotle’s will was included in the masterwork compendium. It could be—and has been—argued that in Crusades history the best and unanticipated consequence of the Christian Crusades is that the western world now had the opportunity to regain ancient knowledge—through works like the Fihrist—that centuries of political instability and religious superstition had lost.

It took time. The western Renaissance several hundred years later is largely attributed to this reacquisition of ancient learning from works like the Fihrist. But gradually this consequence of the Christian Crusades trickled down to men (and some women) of learning in later generations, who were able to incorporate this aspect of Crusades history into a revival of knowledge in the humanities and sciences.

What the Christian Crusades gave to the Muslim world in terms of destruction, death and conflict was nowhere near the unexpected and unanticipated gift that the western world obtained from Crusades history in the form of works like the Fihrist. The Christians set out to conquer the “infidel,” but the “infidel” ended up educating the Christians.
 

The Fihrist

by J. Harold Ellens

Since Muslims face the holy city of Mecca when they pray, Arab astronomers sought to build precise scientific instruments to determine direction and time of day (or night). With the bronze astrolabe shown above, cast in 927 C.E., one could reckon time and place by fixing the apparent positions of celestial bodies against the local horizon. The tenth-century Arab scholar and bookseller Abu ’l-Faraj Muhammad ibn Ishaq al-Nadim, better known simply as al-Nadim, gives a prominent place to astronomical learning in his great encyclopedia of knowledge, the Fihrist—which not only provides an account of the accomplishments of medieval Arab civilization but also shows how Arab scholars preserved and improved upon their predecessors. For example, al-Nadim tells us that the first person to make astrolabes was the Greek astronomer Ptolemy (90–168 C.E.), who lived in Roman-period Alexandria. So useful was Ptolemy’s invention that by al-Nadim’s day most educated Muslims owned one. Photo: The al-Sabah Collection, Kuwait National Museum.

In return, the West received one of the greatest gifts ever presented by one civilization to another. The Crusades opened up a rich mine of Eastern scholarship. The West would be civilized by the “Infidel,” informed by refined Persian and Arab scientists, historians, physicians, poets and philosophers.

An important instrument in this cultural exchange was a remarkable book, the Fihrist (Catalogue). This tenth-century C.E. book is a catalogue of all the significant written works on religion, science and the humanities that were available at the end of the first millennium C.E. It includes a digest of ancient Greek and Roman literature, much of which was lost to the West after the fall of the Roman Empire and the destruction of the Alexandria Library.^a The Fihrist also lists classical texts that were preserved by Eastern scholars in the great imperial libraries of Baghdad, Aleppo, Damascus and Khurasan.

The breadth of learning revealed by the Fihrist is astonishing. It treats language, calligraphy and holy scriptures such as the Torah, the Gospels and the Koran. It contains chapters on Arab grammarians, history and politics, pre-Islamic poetry, the literature of the Umayyad (661–750) and Abbasid (750–1258) caliphates, as well as chapters on prominent jurists and legal authorities. It provides a summary of philosophy from the Hellenic thinker, Thales of Miletus (c. 620–555 B.C.E.), to the end of the first millennium C.E.—devoting considerable ink to Plato and Aristotle, even recording the entire text of Aristotle’s will. The Fihrist discusses mathematics, astronomy, medicine, fables and legends, Christian and Islamic sects, alchemy and bookmaking, and it tells what was known of such faraway places as India, Indochina and China.

The author of this signal work, Abu ’l-Faraj Muhammad ibn Ishaq al-Nadim (c. 935–990 C.E.), was probably born in Baghdad, where his father ran a bookstore. The name “al-Nadim” (literally, “courtier”) means that he was a court official of some sort. His father was a warrag, or entrepreneur. Al-Nadim probably received a normal education: beginning instruction at the mosque at age six, memorizing much of the Koran by early adolescence, and then entering one of the mosque’s study circles. During the course of his life, he also had the opportunity to study under some of the luminaries of his day, such as the famous jurist Abu Sa’id al-Sirafi, the mathematician Yunus al-Qass and the historian Abu ‘Abd Allah al-Marzubani.
 

One of al-Nadim’s biographers refers to him as a Mu’tazili—that is, a member of a heretical Islamic sect that embraced the rationalistic and humanistic aspects of Islamic thought. The Mu’tazili, for instance, rejected traditional Islamic determinism, according to which everything happens because of the will of God. They believed, instead, that God’s justice could only exist if human beings were the authors of their own actions—and thus were punished or rewarded according to what they, not only God, willed and did. Even though al-Nadim was a Shi’ite who considered the rival Sunni Muslims crude and ignorant, he must have been seriously interested in the Mu’tazili, since he devotes a large part of chapter five to the sect.³ Mu’tazilism also seems like the sort of philosophy that would appeal to a man of al-Nadim’s learning.

Al-Nadim added to, arranged and rearranged his encyclopedia until his untimely death at the age of 55. On the title page of the Fihrist manuscript in Dublin’s Chester Beatty Library (see the second sidebar to this article) is a note, almost certainly penned by the great historian al-Maqrizi (1365–1441), indicating that al-Nadim died on the tenth day before the end of the month of Sha’ban in 990/1. Manuscripts of the Fihrist in al-Nadim’s own handwriting were probably placed in the royal library at Baghdad. In 1229 an Arab scholar claimed that he had worked from a manuscript of the Fihrist in its author’s hand; in 1252 the lexicographer al-Saghani made a similar claim.

One of al-Nadim’s persistent interests was the Arabic language. He cites scholarly debates about the origins of Arabic script—whether it was developed in a small Midianite Bedouin encampment in modern northwest Saudi Arabia or was borrowed from foreigners. Some sources say that Adam passed the script down, al-Nadim tells us; others claim that Ishmael gave it to his descendants. Al-Nadim is not much concerned with these folk traditions, but he is very interested in transcriptions of the Koran in the various dialects, scripts, hands and illuminations available in his day.

Al-Nadim not only sold and catalogued books, he was passionate about them. In the Fihrist, he comments on books and scripts of the Persians, Greeks, Hebrews (archaic and current), Syrians, Saxons, Chinese, Turks, Indians, Nubians, Russians, Bulgarians, Franks and Armenians. He loved all aspects of bookmaking, from orthography and calligraphy to methods of sharpening pens and making paper. Books, for al-Nadim, were almost alive; they were friends and teachers. “[B]ooks are the shells of wisdom, which are split open for the pearls of character,” he records one source as saying. From another source he quotes: “If books had not bound together the experiences of former generations, the shackles of later generations in their forgetfulness would not have been loosed.” Books represented an ideal existence without the failings to which men and women are prone. As one source says,

We have companions of whose conversation we never weary;
Confiding and trustworthy whether absent or present,
They give us the benefit of their knowledge … of what has passed,
With wise opinion, discipline, and instruction well-guided,
Without cause to be dreaded or fear of suspicion.

It is not surprising that al-Nadim devotes an extensive section of his volume to how the Koran was supposed to have been assembled from the revelations of the prophet Mohammed. He discusses the various sources, editions and interpretations of the Koran, along with the Islamic sages who commented on the holy book and the people and places mentioned in it. Al-Nadim also includes careful notes on discrepancies in the Koran— inconsistencies, special characteristics of language or ideas, as well as other notable peculiarities in the sacred texts.

“One of the best of the astronomers,” Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi (903–986 C.E.) depicted the constellation of Virgo as a beautiful maiden in this illustration from The Book of Fixed Stars. Unlike their European counterparts, al-Sufi and his fellow Arab stargazers were familiar with the astronomical work of their Greek predecessors. They were thus able to give the burgeoning field of astronomy a strong mathematical foundation. Al-Sufi’s reworking of Ptolemy’s Almagest, for example, accurately plots the coordinates and magnitudes of the stars in Virgo and other constellations. Photo: The Bodleian Library, University of Oxford.

Hand-copied books were valuable objects—prized particularly by the feudal chiefs who ruled Aleppo from 944 to 967 C.E. and who were commandeering books to build their own library. Al-Husayn was “tight” because he was worried that the Aleppo sheiks would learn of his beloved volumes and then confiscate them. Among his precious antique manuscripts, al-Nadim reports, were “trusts and contracts in the handwriting of the Commander of the Faithful, Ali,” the son-in-law of the Prophet Mohammed, along with documents in the hand of Mohammed’s scribes.

While making his way from library to library and from city to city, al-Nadim was always on the watch for especially rare books. He knew of two eighth-century C.E. Arabic grammar books that had apparently been lost, since he could find no one who had ever seen a copy or knew of anyone who had. One can sense the palpable grief of a true bibliophile in al-Nadim’s account of his futile search for these tomes.

Generally speaking, al-Nadim comments favorably upon the authors he mentions, but he is not above straight talk. Here he records the remarks of one author about another:

He was first a teacher in a common school, but later did private work, being established at the Paper Workers’ Bazaar … on the East Side [of Baghdad]. I have never seen anyone who became known so quickly as he became known for compiling books and reciting poetry, most of which he corrupted. In fact there never was anyone more stupid intellectually or more erroneous in pronunciation than he was … but at the same time he had a praiseworthy character, with a pleasant social manner, mellowed by maturity.

Ancient medics extract healing balm from a shrub, in this illumination from an Arab translation of a treatise by the first-century C.E. Greek physician Dioscorides. Referred to by al-Nadim as the “Traveler through the Lands,” Dioscorides described the medical uses of over 500 plants and mineral substances. Although his text was originally written in Greek, it is more commonly known by its Latin title, De Materia Medica. By al-Nadim’s day, Arabic translations of the book (the translation with the illumination at left was published in Samarkand in 987 C.E.) were widely available; the treatise was used as a common reference book by Islamic physicians. Photo: Werner Forman/Art resource, NY.

Then they went … inside the city of Jayy, to make it the depository for their sciences. This [depository] was called Sarwayh [Saruyah] and it has lasted until our own time. In regard to this building … many years before our time a side [of the building] became ruined. Then they found a vault in the cleft-off side … in which they discovered many books of the ancients, written on white poplar bark … and containing all of the sciences of the forefathers written in the old Persian form of writing.

Al-Nadim reports further that he had it on “reliable authority” that in 961 or 962 “another vaulted building cracked open … Many books were discovered in this place, but nobody found out how to read them.” The author then informs us that a decade before he had seen for himself books in Greek that had been found in a wall of the city (presumably Jayy). Al-Nadim closes this account by observing that in ancient times learning was forbidden except for those who were scholars or known to be able to receive learning by natural genius. Although the Greeks and Romans promoted learning, the Byzantine Christians forbade literacy except for the study of theology. In contrast, al-Nadim believed that Islam encourages the pursuit of literacy and knowledge.

Although the Fihrist is probably most valuable as a compendium of knowledge, it also preserves the spirit of its times through informative and entertaining narratives. One such story tells of a cotton worker named Mohammed ibn Kullab, who had a running theological debate with an acquaintance. Ibn Kullab contended that the Word of Allah, notably the Koran, is also Allah. His interlocutor then accused ibn Kullab of being a Christian, since Christians believed, on the basis of the Gospel of John, that the Word is God, and asked, “What do you have to say about the Christ (al-Masih)?” He would say the same thing about Christ that the Sunni Muslims say about the Koran, ibn Kullab responded: He is the Word of God.

This story nicely illustrates al-Nadim’s tone of mind: tolerant, curious, often bemused. Not only does the Fihrist show the breadth of al-Nadim’s knowledge, it is also a testament to his compassion. This devout Muslim, extremely proud of his culture and heritage, honored the beliefs of other peoples and gave them residence in his life’s work. He knew much about Judaism and Christianity, for example; he knew their histories, their scriptures, their religious beliefs. He knew the works of ancient Greek, Hindu and Chinese scholars. He was fascinated by the world beyond his own, so he built a monument to it, the Fihrist, which shines brightly with his humane spirit.
 

Notes

a. See J. Harold Ellens, “The Ancient Library of Alexandria: The West’s Most Important Repository of Learning,” Bible Review, February 1997.

1. Al-Nadim provides numerous accounts of book collections in remote places. For example, he tells of one sage, Khalid ibn Yzid ibn Mu’awiyah, who ordered a group of Greek philosophers from a city in Egypt, presumably Alexandria, to translate Greek and Coptic scientific books into Arabic (p. 581). Al-Nadim gives one unusually interesting account: “I heard Abu Ishaq ibn Shahram tell in a general gathering that there is in the Byzantine country a temple of ancient construction. It has a portal larger than any other ever seen with both gates made of iron. In ancient times, when they worshipped heavenly bodies and idols, the Greeks exalted this [temple], praying and sacrificing in it. He [Ibn Shahram] said, ‘I asked the emperor of the Byzantines to open it for me, but this was impossible, as it had been locked since the time that the Byzantines had become Christians. I continued, however, to be courteous to him, to correspond with him, and also to entreat him in conversation during my stay at his court. … He agreed to open it and, behold, this building was made of marble and great colored stones, upon which there were many beautiful inscriptions and sculptures. I have never seen or heard of anything equaling its vastness and beauty. In this temple there were numerous camel loads of ancient books … Some of these [books] were worn and some in normal condition. Others were eaten by insects.’ Then he said, ‘I saw there gold offering utensils and other rare things.’ He went on to say, ‘After my exit the door was locked …’ He believed that the building was a three-day journey from Constantinople” (pp. 585–586). It is likely that this was the famous Celsus Library at Ephesus, built in the second century C.E.

2. Callimachus (c. 305–235 B.C.E.) served under four successive chief librarians as the collector and collator of the Alexandria Library. He produced a 120-volume catalogue, called the Pinakes, of the library’s 500,000 books (that number would reach 1,000,000 by the time of Jesus). The Pinakes contained information on each book’s contents, provenance and author. After the library was destroyed in the seventh century C.E., many of its surviving books were apparently carried off to the imperial libraries of the caliphates, where they were translated into Persian and Arabic. For more information, see J. Harold Ellens, “You Can Look It Up!” Archaeology Odyssey, May/June 1999; “The Ancient Library of Alexandria: The West’s Most Important Repository of Learning,” Bible Review, February 1997; The Ancient Library of Alexandria and Early Christian Theological Development, Occasional Papers no. 27 (Claremont, CA: Institute for Antiquity and Christianity, Claremont Graduate University, 1993).

3. In the Fihrist, al-Nadim provides a summary of what others think of the Mu’tazilah (meaning “Those Who Separate Themselves”): “The Zaydiyah and Ibadiyah said that they did not believe in [God’s] grace, and were neither polytheists nor Muslims, but sinners. The companions of al-Hasan said that they were hypocrites and also sinners. All of the Mu’tazilah separated themselves from the things about which these [groups] differed. They said, ‘We agree about what they join in calling sin, but we avoid matters about which they disagree concerning unbelief, belief, hypocrisy, and polytheism’” (pp. 380–381).
 

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Amrit’s Phoenician temple in modern Syria dates to the sixth–fourth centuries B.C.E.—when the Persians controlled the region. The temple’s elevated cella in the middle of its court and surrounding colonnade are still standing. Photo: Jerzy Strzelecki/CC-by-SA-3.0.

Where did they come from? Where did they live? With whom did they trade?

Ephraim Stern addresses these questions—and much more—in his article “Phoenicia and Its Special Relationship with Israel,” published in the November/December 2017 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review. He explores the rise and fall of the Phoenician empire and highlights the special relationship that the Phoenicians had with their neighbors, the Israelites.

The Bible records that the Phoenicians had a close relationship with the Israelites: Their royalty married each other; they traded with each other; and, significantly, they never went to war with each other. Stern writes, “The Phoenicians were the nearest people to the ancient Israelites in every respect.”

Who were the Phoenicians? Stern identifies the Phoenicians as Canaanites who survived into the first millennium B.C.E.:

The Phoenicians were the late Canaanites of the first millennium B.C.E. (Iron Age through Roman period), descendants of the Canaanites of the second millennium B.C.E. (Middle Bronze Age through Late Bronze Age). “Phoenicians” was the name given to this people by the Greeks, but the Phoenicians continued to refer to themselves as Canaanites or by the names of their principal cities. During the second millennium B.C.E., the Canaanites controlled Palestine, Transjordan and Syria—from Ugarit down to the Egyptian border—and they developed a rich culture. Around 1200 B.C.E., they were forced out of these countries by the Arameans and the Neo-Hittites in the north, the Israelites and the Sea Peoples (Philistines, Sikils and Sherden, etc.) in the south, and by the Ammonites, Moabites and Edomites in the east. Between about 1200 and 1050 B.C.E., they retained control of a greatly reduced area—the narrow coastal strip of Lebanon between Arwad, Tyre and Akko. Most of the population lived in five main cities: Arwad, Byblos, Berytus, Sidon and Tyre.

Arwad, Byblos, Berytus, Sidon and Tyre became the heartland of Phoenicia, but the Phoenicians didn’t stop there. Toward the end of the 11th century B.C.E., they began establishing colonies in the west—in Cyprus, Sicily, Sardinia, Malta, southern Spain and northern Africa. They soon had created an empire for themselves. But unlike other empires forged by war, this was an empire built on trade. Their commercial empire would last for nearly a millennium.

Phoenician Empire. The Phoenicians’ commercial empire stretched across the Mediterranean world. Map: Biblical Archaeology Society.

The Phoenicians successfully created a vast trading network, but even this could not last forever. Sharing the fate of many others, the Phoenician empire ultimately fell to Rome. Stern explains:

The heartland of Phoenicia was subjugated in turn by the Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian and Hellenistic empires, but their western colonies continued to enjoy autonomy until the second century B.C.E. The Phoenicians’ commercial empire was brought to an end by the Romans who came into conflict with the Phoenicians—whom they described as “Punics”—in a series of wars that became known as the Punic Wars. The Carthaginians had no standing army (they employed mercenaries) and relied on their fleet for defense. The Punic Wars culminated in the Roman destruction of the Punic capital, Carthage, in 146 B.C.E., thereby ending a millennium of Phoenician influence, success and power.

To learn more about the Phoenician empire, read Ephraim Stern’s article “Phoenicia and Its Special Relationship with Israel” in the November/December 2017 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review.

BAS Library Members: Read the full article “Phoenicia and Its Special Relationship with Israel” by Ephraim Stern in the November/December 2017 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review.

Not a BAS Library member yet? Join the BAS Library today.
 

Learn more about the Phoenicians in Bible History Daily:

The Phoenician Alphabet in Archaeology by Josephine Quinn

Biblical Sidon—Jezebel’s Hometown

What Happened to the Canaanites?

Tarshish: Hacksilber Hoards Pinpoint Solomon’s Silver Source

Did the Carthaginians Really Practice Infant Sacrifice?

Phoenician Shipwreck Located off Coast of Malta

The Samaria Ivories—Phoenician or Israelite?
 

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Monastery of the Flagellation. The Terra Sancta Museum is situated within the Monastery of the Flagellation on the Via Dolorosa. Photo: Courtesy of Tamschick Media.

Now the Terra Sancta Museum offers a new stop on this old way. The museum is situated inside the Monastery of the Flagellation, which is associated with the Antonia Fortress (a military tower) and Pontius Pilate’s residence (the Praetorium),¹ where Jesus was tried, flogged and sentenced to death. Some quarters of the Monastery are being renovated and unveiled to the public for the first time—as part of three new wings in the museum.

The first wing to open is a multimedia experience that invites visitors to explore the history of Jerusalem. Lights, images and a series of narrators guide visitors through the exhibit—highlighting the various artifacts and architectural remains on display. The narrative focuses on Jerusalem during the Roman period and on the roots of Christianity, but it addresses earlier and later times in Jerusalem’s history as well. Currently, this multimedia experience is available in eight languages—Arabic, Hebrew, French, English, Italian, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish—and the curators hope to add more languages to the list soon.

A Virtual Tour of Jerusalem. Inside the Terra Sancta Museum’s new multimedia experience, viewers see a reconstruction of the Temple. Photo: Courtesy of Tamschick Media.

Two additional new wings—an archaeological wing and historical wing—will open at the Terra Sancta Museum in the near future. The archaeological wing will feature artifacts from Jerusalem and from all over the ancient Near East, and the historical wing will tell the story of the Franciscans’ involvement in the Holy Land.
 

The upcoming archaeological wing of the Terra Sancta Museum will be a museum of archaeological collections in order to show the findings of the excavations in the sanctuaries of the Holy Land. It will serve as an educational tool in teaching Biblical science; therefore, it is connected to our faculty, the Studium Biblicum Franciscanum. By separating the different collections (the archaeological one and the historical), this wing will be more specific and more useful for our future visitors.

Father Alliata hopes that every visitor to the new archaeology wing will leave with a new appreciation of the archaeology of the Holy Land:

The visitor will be able to better understand the archaeological-Biblical context thanks to the ability to see the precious items found during the excavations or collected by the Fathers in the past years. Compared to the old museum of the Studium Biblicum Franciscanum, the new presentation is in a line of continuity, but it is more modern and incisive. The choice of the items are more coherent than in the past and it will better describe the whole history of the Holy Land, from the Israelite to the Crusader period, passing through the time of Jesus and the first centuries of Christianity.

Jerusalem’s Christian History. The Terra Sancta Museum’s new multimedia experience takes visitors on a tour of ancient Jerusalem—through millennia of history, including the birth of Christianity. A Christian mosaic is projected on the exhibit’s screen, nestled among artifacts and architectural elements from Jerusalem. Photo: Courtesy of Tamschick Media.

The three new wings aim to foster intercultural and interreligious dialogue and will be accessible to all. They commemorate the 800th anniversary of the Franciscan presence in Jerusalem—a worthy cause of celebration.
 

Notes:

1. The location of the Praetorium is debated. Recent excavations have exposed part of King Herod’s palace in northern Jerusalem, which many scholars consider as a strong candidate for the Praetorium. It seems likely that Pilate would have preferred this large compound for his residence rather than the smaller Antonia Fortress. See Robin Ngo, “Tour Showcases Remains of Herod’s Jerusalem Palace—Possible Site of the Trial of Jesus,” Bible History Daily (blog), originally published on January 8, 2015.
 

Related reading in Bible History Daily:

Tour Showcases Remains of Herod’s Jerusalem Palace—Possible Site of the Trial of Jesus

Where Is Golgotha, Where Jesus Was Crucified?

Archaeological Remains in Holy Sepulchre’s Shadow

Pilgrims’ Progress to Byzantine Jerusalem

The Museum of the Bible in the Spotlight
 

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Tel Akko Total Archaeology Project. Photo: Ann E. Killebrew.

Every year the Biblical Archaeology Society (BAS) provides scholarships to individuals who would not otherwise be able to participate in an archaeological excavation. This year BAS awarded 20 qualified individuals scholarships of $1,500 each. This diverse group chose to excavate throughout the Biblical world at sites in Israel and Jordan.

On behalf of the scholarship winners, BAR offers our sincere thanks to the generous donors who made this year’s scholarship program possible:

Kenneth and Ann Bialkin
George Blumenthal
Edward and Raynette Boshell
Eugene and Emily Grant
Darlene Jamison
David and Jemima Jeselsohn
Victor R. Kieser
Leon Levy Foundation, Shelby White, Trustee
John and Carol Merrill
Jonathan P. and Jeannette Rosen
Harry and Gertrude Schwartz Foundation, Jeffery Yablon, Trustee
Michael and Judy Steinhardt
Samuel D. Turner and Elizabeth Goss

The Biblical Archaeology Society, publisher of BAR, annually offers dig scholarships of $1,500 each to help deserving individuals participate in excavations, primarily in the Middle East. To apply, send a résumé, cover letter, and full contact information for two references (professional or academic) in one email to bas@bib-arch.org or by mail to BAS Dig Scholarships, 4710 41st St., NW, Washington, DC 20016, USA. In your letter, explain where and why you want to excavate, and why you should be selected for a scholarship. Priority will be given to first-time dig participants and those demonstrating financial need. Applications must be received by March 14, 2018.
 

Dawn Acevedo

Khirbat al-Balu’a

Photo: Kristy Swartz.

The best word to describe this experience—and there are many!—must be ‘educational.’ As a Near Eastern archaeology student, all of our time in the classroom cannot prepare us for the processes, challenges, intrigue, understanding, and thrill that comes from being in the field among the ruins. Balu’a, a largely Iron Age site with a variety of occupations on either side of the 10th century B.C.E., presents a tantalizing challenge for archaeologists amid its basalt-and-limestone-debris-laden surface. Between the Qasr, fortifications, houses, and more, there is so much to explore and so many questions that need to be answered! Being able to participate in this process was an incredible experience that both affected me personally and has truly rounded out my education.

Onsite, we learned the process of setting up the squares for excavation, how to dig and sift and the various components of excavation method, and, in the end, how to close up the seasonal excavations. For the first week, I had the opportunity to shadow my fellow square supervisor before his departure back to the States for his teaching job. At that time, I took over as square supervisor at the Qasr square and was able to learn even more about the intricacies of data recording, interpretation, and supervising my great team.

On the weekends, I was able to participate in study tours that additionally widened my understanding of the Iron Age presence throughout southern Jordan as well as some of the Roman occupations at sites like Amman and Jerash. As for finds, my favorites have to be the game board we discovered carved into the top of one of the walls we uncovered in my square and the beautiful, complete basalt quern that was uncovered during square preparation! All of these things give you a real sense of the life that took place at Balu’a so many years ago.

Thank you all again for helping me make it to the field and be a part of discovering history—words are insufficient to express the depth of my gratitude!
 

Jessie Blackwell

Tell es-Safi/Gath

Because of the generous scholarship awarded to me by the Biblical Archaeology Society, I was able to spend a couple of weeks at Tell es-Safi/Gath this summer excavating in Area F near the top of the tell. As a middle school education major, with a focus in ancient world history, this was a very exciting opportunity. Being able to see how history is found and interpreted was something I never thought I would witness, much less take part in.

My group from the University of Kentucky, led by Dr. Daniel Frese, spent most of our time revealing a glacis from the middle bronze age. I learned how to use a latta to take the height of our square each day and so many other things, though I know I only scraped the surface of archaeology in my time at Gath. Everyone in Area F was kind and patient with my lack of formal training; they made it fun to work every day. I was able to attend nightly lectures as well as take trips to other tells in the area to learn about what they are working on and discovering.

My main takeaway from my weeks at Gath was how hard archaeologists work. It is a profession that I have the utmost respect for after getting a taste of the heat and labor they endure every day. I am grateful for my time at Gath and all of the knowledge and experience I gained and will be able to take back to my classroom in the future. It is my goal to make my students passionate for learning ancient history by showing them how fun it can be, through careers like archaeology.
 

Jonathan Bluck

Tell es-Safi/Gath

This past summer I excavated for four weeks at the archaeological project at Tell es-Safi/Gath in Israel. I am extremely thankful for the Biblical Archaeological Society, the Biblical Archaeological Review, and the donors for the scholarship that enabled my participation. As part of the Study Abroad program from Grand Valley State University, I primarily worked in Area E, which was focused on the Early Bronze Age period of the site prior to the famous occupation of the site by the Philistines. This was my first archaeological field experience, and as such, I did not know what to expect, but I did not lose my enthusiasm throughout the entire experience. As a schedule-orientated person, I enjoyed that the schedule was the same every day while onsite, so that I could build up a routine that became muscle memory by the end of the excavation. In addition, I enjoyed working with the Study Abroad group from Grand Valley, the other members of the site, and the senior staff members of Area E. We came from different walks of life but all had a common interest in archaeology, and with this common interest, we made life-long friendships that can continue while we are off the site by keeping in contact via social media.

As for my time at the site, I worked in Area E and we had an incredible season. There were many finds, such as polished phalange bones, charred olive pits, Canaanite blades, and old donkey teeth. Another student and I uncovered a large stone feature that potentially was a floor with a polished stone hearth on top of it. The hearth and stone feature was an exciting find for me because a main goal for myself was to find a floor. I was overwhelmed with joy that I met my main goal. Additionally, another volunteer and I found four stone tools in close proximity of one another within the last 10 minutes of the last day of major excavations, which was adrenaline-pumping. Needless to say, all of these finds for me were exciting because this was my first archaeological excavation. Also, it gave me another perspective on the field of archaeology other than just learning about it in a classroom setting.

As our time came to a close on the site, everyone, including myself, could feel the emotional attachment we developed toward Area E, because for a majority of the students, it was their first time on an archaeological excavation. The staff at our area was always there to help offer advice on how to perfect our excavating skills and become better field archaeologists. Additionally, other staff members were always there to help with documentation and recording of cultural material when we were not in the field. I will never forget the archaeological techniques I learned, such as keeping a clean square. Also, I will never forget the information that I learned about these early inhabitants, such as how charcoal and charred olive pits have helped archaeologists to move back the time of the Early Bronze to be contemporary with the Old Kingdom of Egypt. This for me was a trip of a lifetime, and I will reiterate that I cannot sufficiently express my gratitude toward BAS, BAR, and the donors for the scholarship and for their passion for Biblical archaeology. I hope that their charitable donations continue to maintain the interest in Biblical archaeology, because I know for a fact that Biblical archaeology will be an increasing interest of mine as I pursue my career in archaeology.
 

John Bolar

Shikhin

This summer I had the honor to join the Shikhin Excavation Project in Nazareth, Israel. Joining the team at the archaeological site of Shikhin was an amazing experience for me educationally, experientially, and personally. I would not have been able to have participated in this excavation had it not been for the scholarship that I received from the Biblical Archaeology Society. The month that I spent in Nazareth digging at Shikhin has confirmed that archaeology is a field of study that I will continue to pursue.

This season the team consisted of staff, volunteers, and students (working on either undergraduate, graduate, or doctoral degrees). There was a total of forty-five people, which made this the largest team yet to excavate at Shikhin. Wake-up call was at 4:00 in the morning, and by 5:00 we would arrive at the site. We would dig until noon and return to the hotel, where we would have a lecture in the evening. We dug five days a week, and on Saturday we would take tours of other Roman sites in the Galilee, one of which was Sepphoris.

Shikhin was once a Jewish village within a day’s journey from the Roman city of Sepphoris. In my square, we found a large portion of an incense shovel, Hellenistic black-slipped ware, two coins (one Tyrian and one Roman), dozens of lamp fragments, and two lamp molds. After 22 days of work in the field, the major finds of the season were: a small kiln, an ionic capital, the base of a column, a cooking pot with a dozen coins in it (most of which were Roman), four lamp molds, and two whole lamps.

This summer in Israel, I learned a wealth of information about the history, geography, society, politics, etc. concerning the Galilee during the Roman period through the lectures presented and archaeological sites we visited. Because of this trip, I have gained a greater appreciation of the physical labor, knowledge, and passion that is required in an archaeological excavation. My experience at Shikhin enriched my love for ancient history and archaeology. Additionally, this experience allowed me to develop a rapport with university faculty and fellow students of ancient history and archeology. I fully intend to return with the Shikhin Excavation Project next summer.
 

Nicole Callaway

Tel Hazor

Photo: Daniel Hippern.

It sounds presumptuous, I know. However, after six weeks of sweating, digging, discovering, and connecting with people from all around the world, that phrase became more than just a slogan to me.

Before I arrived, I was unsure what to expect. What I was not prepared for was the unique mix of expertise and kindness demonstrated by the crew from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. During my six weeks at Tel Hazor, I was challenged both physically and mentally, but in a way that only encouraged me to want more. I was able to learn the basics of field archaeology and acquired skills that will continue to benefit me for more than just one amazing summer.

Hazor will always hold a special place in my heart. I am beyond grateful for the opportunity this summer awarded me and look forward to many more in the future. Thanks to the generosity of the Biblical Archaeology Society and its donors, I was able to see with my own eyes why the Bible described Hazor as “the head of all those kingdoms” and am more confident than ever in my pursuit of a career in Biblical archaeology.
 

Lucia Di Bartolo

Tel Akko

With the support of the Biblical Archaeology Society, I was fortunate enough to explore the vibrant late Persian and early Hellenistic site of Tel Akko. With a team of about 50 participants, I spent four weeks learning about what the total archaeology experience means. As I worked side by side with other students pursuing degrees like my own and professionals from all over the field, I learned that archaeology is truly an interdisciplinary field with so many moving parts. Under the guidance of our wonderfully diverse team of experts, ranging from ceramicists to archaeozoologists to metal specialists, I created a more wholesome image of ancient life and have without a doubt enriched my experience as a classics major.

Upon returning home I have found myself flooded with questions guided by the Hollywood adventures of Indiana Jones and Lara Croft, such as “Did you find treasure?” and “Were there tomb robbers?” While I think it would make a good story to say “Yes,” my answers are far less exciting. My experience at Tel Akko has taught me that archaeology, however mundane and back-breaking it may be, is so much more than the headline finds we read about. It’s about the collection of finds as a whole that help us connect to the past. Thank you, BAS, for making such an incredible opportunity possible!
 

Brian Donnelly-Lewis

Tel Shimron

As a kid, I’d play in the dirt for hours. Never did I dream I would have the opportunity to do it for college credit! Thanks to the generous support of the Biblical Archaeology Society, this summer, that is exactly what I did. The expedition to Tel Shimron was my first dig experience and it won’t be my last. Though my body ached and my taste buds languished—longing for a bacon cheeseburger—my mind was fully engaged each day. Tel Shimron is a brand-new expedition by Wheaton College and Tel Aviv University aimed to better understand ancient history in all periods, including the world of the Bible.

Opening a new excavation is an exciting endeavor, shrouded in uncertainty and full of hope. Any strike of the pick could reveal something long-lost and forgotten by history. The first few days, new volunteers and first-timers rejoice at the sight of a potsherd and question the distinction between pottery and rock. By the final week, these distinctions have become clear and excitement is tempered. You come to understand the art of archaeology. You’ve realized that “this” dirt is different from “that” dirt. You’ve developed more nuanced understandings of soil, if not referred to in any more nuanced terminology than “orange stuff” and “black stuff,” or “soft stuff” and “hard stuff.” You’ve learned that some people read pottery better, perhaps, than you read anything! But, most importantly of all, you’ve learned that there is more to discover.

Through my work in grid 92, square 87, I learned exponentially more than I could have imagined. My square supervisor, Samantha Lindgren, and grid supervisor, Dr. Adam Aja, showed me how to excavate carefully and navigate difficult stratigraphic problems in order to understand the sequence of deposition. Speaking with the different members of staff and watching them ply their craft in tricky situations gave me hands-on experience with the world of material culture. An experience like this grows your knowledge and understanding of the ancient world and the Biblical text in new and transformative ways. I’d again like to thank the Biblical Archaeology Society for its commitment to archaeological research and for providing scholarships for volunteers to play in the dirt for a summer.
 

Keenan Field

Tel Lachish

This summer, under the supervision of Professor Jon Waybright of Virginia Commonwealth University, I was able to return a third time as a part of the fourth expedition to Tel Lachish, directed by Dr. Yosef Garfinkel, Dr. Michael Hasel and Dr. Martin Klingbeil. I spent my time in Unit BC under the direction of Drs. Choy and Kang of Seoul Jangsin University.

While in Unit BC, our goal was to try and understand and date a series of houses that abutted an exterior fortification wall that we had spent the two previous seasons excavating and uncovering. In digging in this area, we reached the foundation of at least one of the houses and perhaps a second. On these foundations we found numerous pottery sherds that helped indicate the dating of these houses to the Iron Age IIA period (roughly 1000–925 B.C.E.) This pottery helped further corroborate evidence found in Area C last season and suggests that during this period, Lachish was larger than originally believed. We also located a street abutting these houses on the opposite side with pottery sherds that further indicate these buildings date to Iron IIA.

Although I have no formal anthropological training, these past three summers at Lachish have allowed me to really hone in on my background in history and religious studies and provided me with a better understanding of the culture and politics of the region. This experience has also awakened a passion for archaeology in me, which I never really knew I had and has made me hopeful that I can return again next summer so that I can learn more from an anthropological perspective while also expanding my knowledge linguistically and culturally.
 

Katelyn Hageman

Tel Gezer

In the 10th and final season of Tel Gezer under the direction of Steve Ortiz and Sam Wolff of the Tandy Institute of Archaeology, I excavated in Field West. It finally hit at the end of the first week that I’m really here digging in the proverbial deep preserving sands. Gazing over the Judean Hills one morning and glancing west at fellow excavators, I smiled to think we are digging up history to impart to the masses.

On day three of digging, I discovered the bottom of a Late Bronze Age storage vessel, which began the excavation of an entire cache of pottery. The longer one works at a site, the more one can read the site. By attending pottery workshops and pottery reading, I am more capable of cracking the pottery code of Iron I Age to the Late Bronze Age. Though only with the dig for a season, I feel connected to the soul of the site and am excited to make a small impact on this Biblical site. Thank you to all the BAS supporters of the excavation scholarship that made this experience possible.

Archaeology is a giant sandbox, and people become friends in sandboxes. They share tools of the trade, learn to be open to other’s opinions, and share expertise and wisdom. Tel Gezer’s teaching dig atmosphere allowed me to ask questions and learn Levantine archaeological methodology, and now I can take my skillset and experiences and help other learn. I am also imparting the significance of archaeology to the public, who can use it as a faith builder or to enrich history, but either way archaeology is humanity’s story. Our identity, our story is arts, culture, relationships, and environmental impact.

As Gezer is a tell and has been excavated by R.A.S. Macalister and William G. Dever and the Water System under the direction of Dan Warner and Eli Yannai, there were several dump sites to excavate as well as the layers of destruction by various invaders. Therefore the Late Bronze Age is more and less elevated across the tell. The area (Z8) where I excavated was in the middle and proved integral in seeing the Iron Age I to Late Bronze Age transition. Through involvement and observation, I was soon tracking with my square supervisor and learning spatial reasoning of ancient architecture and planning.

We excavated not one but seven whole vessels, including Iron Age I storage vessels, Late Bronze Age cooking pots and vessels, and Philistine Bichrome Pottery. Even on the final excavation day, we were loading our pottery buckets. Pottery washing is doing 3,000–4,000-year-old dishes, only much more fun since the dishes do not even need to go back in the cabinets. It is rewarding when the sun’s rays dry the pottery and reveal inscriptions and patina and potters’ marks. These items are truly yearning to tell their story, and I am all about finding the connecting story interwoven in various cultures and walks of faith.

Ancients do not live in boxes, and it is amazing to see how all the squares connect, especially after breaking down baulks (archaeologists are rather destructive)! The baulk is always where the best finds are located. Suddenly, there is a road map of structures and features—it is a big puzzle with some pieces present. Many pieces are missing or blank, and experienced and younger archaeological minds together put pieces into place according to what the evidence is saying. It truly is a scientific art. This year, several foundational deposits were excavated, including lamps, bones, and grains inside bowls. In my area, we discovered a foundational deposit with the first complete Gezer Bowl (at Tel Gezer) with bone inside, a bowl on top, and three small bowls adorning the top. In Field West, we found an Egyptian figurine and two Egyptian amulets that bear names such as Thutmoses III and Ramses II. These and other finds help verify the chronology of the site.

Touring on the weekends (the entire country in seven days) was surreal. I literally felt like I was still staring at textbook pictures or postcards, but then the wind would hit from the Mount of Olives, or I’d listen to the recording of us singing in St. Anne’s Church, or I’d feel the trickle of sweat down my back from running around En Gedi, or I’d pray for my international friends and campus ministry at Tabgha and the Mount of Beatitudes, or I’d pick up snippets of Arabic, or laugh about being entertainers in the Sea of Galilee, the Mediterranean Sea, and at Nof Ginosar; or smiling about the Tel Gezer talent show; and then I would thank God for the opportunity to whet my passion for archaeology and create new beginnings from the exploration of the past.
 

Philip Huber

Hippos-Sussita

This September, thanks to the generous BAS Scholarship, I was able to spend two weeks digging at Hippos-Sussita, one of the Decapolis cities situated on the east side of the Sea of Galilee. I was assigned to a team in the southern bathhouse where I was put to work excavating a narrow room with an arched entryway. We began the dig season with the keystone and a couple other upper blocks of the arch exposed. We worked our way deeper and deeper into the room until we reached bedrock twelve feet below. I expected that this would be hard, dusty work. I didn’t anticipate how much this room would reveal. The process was like putting a puzzle together, with each day revealing new pieces of the puzzle to be assembled. Questions were raised and answers were discovered as the season progressed. Most surprising, at the end of the two weeks, we discovered an opening to what appears to be a Hellenistic cistern at the bottom of this room. The room itself, we suspect, was a service area for the nearby furnace. My personal highlight was discovering a tiny coin at the floor level of this room.

I was amateur muscle labor, content to fill buckets and move dirt. But our area director invited each of us into the process of making sense of what we were finding. That process made every day feel like an adventure, and the two-week season provided some of the most enriching experiences of my life. I have a new appreciation for the meticulous work of excavating a site—from measuring levels, to mapping out areas, to cataloging finds, to taking soil samples, to interpreting architectural features—all blended together to make sense of a site. It was a privilege to be involved firsthand in this process.

It has been a dream of mine to participate in a dig since visiting Israel as a college student 20 years ago. Now that I have accomplished that dream, I cannot imagine not doing it again. The experience was too rewarding to only do once. I’m not sure when I will return, but hopefully soon.

I cannot express enough my gratitude for the scholarship. It is the only way that I could have justified going. You opened a door of opportunity for me that I am so grateful to have experienced. Thank you to the generous donors who made this possible.
 

Pamela Leslie Idriss

Tel Shimron

I dug this summer at Tel Shimon, Israel, thanks to generous gifts from the Biblical Archaeology Society (BAS) and the Museum of the Bible Scholars Initiative (MOTBSI). The experience was exhausting and amazing. After I returned home, friends and regular acquaintances wondered where I had been. When I explained that I was on an archaeological dig, most responded with awe. The favorite question was: “What did you find?” Initially, I hesitated. It seemed anticlimactic to answer, “Oh, thousands of pottery sherds, rocks, and some walls.” Perhaps they anticipated an Indiana Jones account filled with adventure, romance, and very little dirt.

Tel Shimron rests on the northwestern edge of the Jezreel Valley, about halfway between Bet Shearim (west) and Nazareth (east). The tell has been surveyed but never excavated. Shimron has a profound history and is mentioned three times in the book of Joshua (11.1; 19:15; 12:20). Dr. Daniel M. Master of Wheaton University and Dr. Mario A. S. Martin of Tel Aviv University co-directed the excavation and joined us regularly in the grids. Last summer, I excavated with Dr. Master at Ashkelon.

My weekday mornings were strict: wake up at 2:15 AM to pray, read my Bible, walk/run under the moon and street lamps, shower, and then meet the bus by 5:00 AM. After a brief ride to the tell, the bus dropped us by the cemetery for a downhill walk to our command center—the Compound. I was assigned to Grid #23 located halfway up the tell and north of the cemetery. Dr. Tracy Hoffman (another Ashkelon veteran) supervised Grids #23 and #24. My work routine entailed treks uphill with tools (buckets, gufahs, turiyas, axes, wheel barrels) at 5:20 AM and downhill by 12:50 PM for lunch. The sun rose around 5:30, and the heat typically met our faces between 6:15–6:30 AM. We worked hard. By 9:00, Tracy’s announcement for breakfast was a welcome highlight.

After lunch, around 1:40 PM, we took care of our daily treasures. Initially, everybody washed pottery sherds. Later, we were divided into specific assignments. Some continued to wash pottery; others sorted and labeled the sherds, assisted in the filtration system, or worked with bone fragments.

One thing is clear: You do not have to be an archaeologist to volunteer on a dig. I just finished my Masters in Biblical literature (Judaic-Christian studies) at Oral Roberts University. Tracy often reminded us of the staff’s intentions: to offer us valuable archaeological experience and to provide us prime “digging” enjoyment. If you want to contribute physically to Biblical research and are willing to rise before dawn and work intensely and optimistically in 100˚ F weather (despite the tedium), then find a dig!

I extend a hearty thanks to BAS for their exceptional generosity. Thank you Margaret Warker for being an attentive BAS contact. Surprisingly, three prior recipients of the dig scholarship were at Shimron: David Clint Burnett, Kazuyuki Hayashiu, and Samantha Lindgren. (Clint was the Square Supervisor in Grid #24.) Thank you doubly to the Leon Levy Foundation for their contributions to BAS and to the Tel Shimron excavation. I met Shelby White, trustee of the Levy Foundation. She toured all of the grids for several days, and I sat next to her during our lectures. I am extremely grateful to the MOTBSI. The MOTBSI sponsored the Tel Shimron Excavation and sponsored me as one of their scholars. This summer I met incredible students, ministers, husbands, wives, mothers, professors, and budding archaeologists, and I renewed connections with folks from Ashkelon. My initiation at Ashkelon blossomed at Shimron. I scarcely used the pickaxe in 2016. This year I swung it with authority. Praise God for this inaugural excavation and a project that is destined for significant finds in the future. May the LORD bless all who made Tel Shimron 2017 a reality for me.
 

Aleksander Krogevoll

Kiriath-Jearim

Thanks to the generosity of the Biblical Archaeology Society I was able to turn one of my long-time dreams of participating in an archaeological excavation in Israel into reality this summer. I participated in the excavation at Kiriath-Jearim led by Tel Aviv University and College de France.

According to the Ark Narrative (1 Samuel 4–6), the Ark made its way from Shiloh to Kiriath-Jearim. Knowing this made the excavation feel like I was a part of a scavenger hunt searching for clues about the historicity of the Ark or deeper insights into the cult of the God of the Israelites. Therefore, I began the excavation by carefully looking through every inch of loose dirt eager to find every piece of pottery that had been hidden under the topsoil for centuries. Every piece of pottery I found made me feel closer to unlocking the truth of the Ark Narrative. I later learned to look for diagnostic pieces of pottery and that the remnants of a wall might shed more light on the significance of the site than the tiny pieces of pottery that I had so eagerly picked up.

Yet the excavation was so much more than a hunt for pottery and walls. The excavation was led by the outstanding scholars Dr. Israel Finkelstein, Dr. Tomas Römer, and Dr. Christophe Nicole, who provided wise leadership to the group. They, among others, also gave lectures in the evenings about the history and archaeology of Judah, Jerusalem, and Kiriath-Jearim. This provided a rich combination of field experience and placing the significance of the excavation in historical context.

I will forever be grateful to Biblical Archaeology Society for granting me the scholarship that allowed me to take part in this transformative and insightful excavation.
 

Paul David Larson

Abel Beth Maacah

I am grateful for the opportunity to dig at Abel Beth Maacah this summer. Although I had enjoyed studying archaeology, I had never had first-hand field experience. Thus, I was very excited about the opportunity to dig; yet, I was not entirely sure what to expect.

Through digging at Abel Beth Maacah, I hoped to gain a better understanding of the archaeological process in order to better appreciate and make use of archaeological data in my future studies. Abel Beth Maacah proved to be an excellent first digging and learning experience. The directors, Dr. Bob Mullins, Dr. Nava Panitz-Cohen, and Dr. Naama Yahalom-Mack, were excellent at explaining dig strategy and what was being unearthed and answering questions.

One of my favorite activities of the day was pottery reading. Everyone worked together to wash each of the buckets of pottery brought back from the field. After the pottery had dried, we would sit with our area group to sort the pottery. With the instruction received from the area supervisors and directors, I was able to begin to learn how to recognize different types and periods of pottery. I felt like I could imagine what the vessels looked like thousands of years ago.

Archaeological work is exhausting, but it is also extremely rewarding. Early mornings, digging into hard dirt with a pickaxe, and hauling buckets of dirt while working under the hot sun can quickly wear one out. However, the moment an ancient artifact begins to be uncovered, the weariness is forgotten in the excitement of discovery.

After having the opportunity to dig this summer, I have a new and greater understanding of archaeology and will never look at an archaeological artifact or report the same way again. I consider myself both honored and blessed to have been a recipient of a BAS scholarship. Receiving this scholarship made the dream of participating in a dig a reality.
 

David Malamud

Kenchreai

This summer, thanks to the generous support of the Biblical Archaeological Society, I had an amazing time working at the Kenchreai Archaeological Field School, exploring one of Corinth’s ancient harbors of Biblical (New Testament) fame at the northern mouth of the Peloponnesian peninsula in Greece. The field school was based in the Isthmia Museum, a nearby town that housed artifacts from past digs in the area. From 8 AM to 1 PM, we worked almost exclusively for the field school. For our first two weeks, we worked at the Isthmia Museum, processing artifacts that were excavated from the Threpsiades property. While we scrubbed pottery in the hot sun, the senior staff would circle through and teach us about the pottery that we were cleaning, everything from its use to origins and significance. However, I also had the privilege of reassembling an ancient Roman grill, using the cracks and burn marks to fit together the dozen of pieces that had been uncovered.

After that, we spent roughly a week performing site maintenance at the Cummer tomb, a monumental Roman chamber tomb named after one of the original excavators. The Cummer tomb had not been properly maintained, so our work included everything from sawing down trees to removing wild onions and grasses. Finally, in our last week we performed site maintenance at the south mole of the ancient harbor of Kenchreai, clearing a late antique Christian basilica. In the basilica, we pulled long grasses and removed dirt, exposing long-lost mosaics and late Roman floor tiles. Removing fallen rocks, a friend of mine even found a modern dog skeleton buried among the ancient remains of the site!

At 1 PM, we would return to our amazing Kalamaki Beach hotel and eat communal lunches on the pool deck looking onto the Saronic gulf. In the afternoon and on the weekends, we went on trips to nearby archaeological and modern sites, including ancient and modern Corinth, Acrocorinth, Loutraki, Epidauros, Nemea, Mycenae, and Nafplio. On our trips, we learned about the history of Corinth and the Corinthia, from the Neolithic to the modern periods. Both senior and junior staff members gave wonderfully insightful and funny presentations. I presented on Apuleius’s novel The Golden Ass and the controversial so-called Temple of Isis on the south mole of the harbor of Kenchreai (where we spent many mornings in the hot sun). Each senior staff member also gave an extended presentation on their specializations, so we heard fascinating talks about archaeological illustrations, nautical archaeology, numismatics, mortuary archaeology, curse tablets, and more.

Besides the powerful learning experiences and valuable exposure to archaeology in practice, the people at Kenchreai made this trip so powerful and memorable for me. From my fellow undergraduates, whom I swam with, stayed up late with debating classics, archaeology, and religion with, and joined on unforgettable impulse trips around the Mediterranean, to the senior staff and professors, who were not only brilliant archaeologists and role models, but down-to-earth friends, to the incredibly generous and kind locals, who were hilarious and talented basketball players, the people I met made the archaeology all the more meaningful. Ever since I was a child, I have always dreamed of joining an archaeological excavation for a summer. Thanks to the generous support of the Biblical Archaeology Society, my summer at Kenchreai was a dream come true.
 

Ludwig Beethoven Jones Noya

Kiriath-Jearim

In Abu Ghosh, I plugged in my earphones and played “The Raiders March”—the Indiana Jones theme song—on my phone as I hiked up to the city’s monastery located at the top of the hill. Every time my friends asked me what I would do on my first-ever archaeological excavation, my answer was: “I’m going to be like Indiana Jones!”

Abu Ghosh is the modern city of the Biblical site of Kiriath-Jearim. According to the Biblical tradition, the Ark of the Covenant resided in it for 20 years before David brought it to Jerusalem. Even though hoping to be like Indiana Jones is just a joke, finding the “lost Ark” would be a significant contribution to archaeology and Biblical studies.

However, in its first season, the goal of the Kiriath-Jearim expedition is much more, but at the same time much less, than just finding the Ark. As one of the directors, Prof. Israel Finkelstein, said in the introductory meeting, in this first season we are open for any possibilities. We have certain goals, but we are also ready for any surprises that the site might want to show us.

Working in Area B, just a few terraces down from the top, we were divided into some squares. In my square, we found a wall that is consistent to the wall in another square. It even met nicely with the wall from another area. The locus I worked in yielded eighth-century B.C.E. materials. We found many interesting materials, including the pottery, grinding and pounding stones, coins, flint, and many more.

In my first archaeological experience, I learned a lot of archaeological lessons, from the methodology to field techniques to the current debates between some archaeologists. As a Biblical scholar in the making, knowing more about this discipline has broadened my horizon. It invites me to see the text in a totally different perspective. It was an amazing experience for me, and it couldn’t have happened without the generosity of the Biblical Archaeology Society.

Thank you, Kiriath-Jearim! Thank you, Israel! Thank you, Biblical Archaeology Society! Blessings!
 

Kerri Palm

Khirbet-el-Eika

Khirbet-el-Eika is a small village that was occupied during the Hellenistic period, around 200–100 B.C.E. The site is located on a hill just below a volcano, which looks out at the Sea of Galilee and peaks out between the Two Horns of Arbel. This place is remarkable. The view every morning is breathtaking. You’re looking out at over 2,000 years of history.

This summer was the third season of digging at Khirbet-el-Eika. The main things we were looking for are: Who were the occupants, how long were they here, and why did they leave?

The first season, the excavators uncovered two storage rooms full of Greek amphorae and other jars. In the Greek amphorae, there are stamps on the handles that say where they came from and when they were made. Using this kind of evidence, the archaeologists can date when the people lived at Khirbet-el-Eika and for how long. So far they believe these people were there for only 50 years.

After three seasons of digging, many fascinating things have been found. The highlights are a key, several coins, and an amazing amount of pottery sherds.

The area I worked in began with the idea of seeing if a wall found the year before continued. There were many rocks and an amazing amount of soil, but all the work uncovered more and more questions. Part of the wall began to arise from the ground, and you could see it clearly. Then, in the last few days, an oven—called a tabun—that was partially made using a large jar called a pithoi was found. Within that area we found many small bones. These finds may show how the residents of Khirbet-el-Eika cooked and ate in that area.

Along with the incredible finds, the experience of excavating was amazing. I went with no expectations but to learn. It is a whole different world that is absolutely beautiful. It’s hot and it’s hard work, but working and learning with the people from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem was priceless. They were the kindest people. Everywhere you looked, you were seeing over 2,000 years of history and drama.

Thank you so much for giving me the chance to experience Israel. I had little idea of what I was walking into, and it was scary, but I enjoyed and absorbed every moment. I made some life-long friends whom I will treasure. The experience was completely unique.
 

John Pierceson

Mount Zion

If you visit Jerusalem during the months of June and July, you’ll find a bustling archaeological dig just outside of the bullet-riddled Zion Gate. It’s an exciting place on several different levels. Along with the horns and revving engines on the busy Jerusalem street beside the site, you’ll hear the sound of dirt and stones being moved and the conversation and laughter of around fifty global volunteers and staff drawn to Israel by a common interest. You’ll also find the site itself exciting. Levels from the Ottoman, Crusader, Islamic, Byzantine, and Roman periods are all present on this site that was located in the center of the city during the time of Jesus’ ministry on earth.

Thanks to BAS, I had the tremendous privilege of experiencing this excitement first-hand during the summer of 2017. The experience was the realization of two dreams: going to Israel and being involved in an archaeological dig. Not only was I able to walk on ancient streets and enter timeworn ruins, but I was able to handle coins and pottery that have not been touched for over 1,700 years.

Beyond the benefits of digging for two weeks, the Mt. Zion Excavation allowed me to live in one of the most interesting places in the world for three weeks. My knowledge and understanding of this all-important city changed in multifaceted ways. Additionally, the staff of the dig led a one-week excursion in which we visited multiple archaeologically rich sites, from Masada to Magdala. I was able to learn from renowned scholars like Shimon Gibson, Raffi Lewis, James Tabor, and Robert McEachnie at the actual dig site and at significant sites all over Israel. During my days off, I had the opportunity to further my understanding of ancient and modern history by visiting other places in Jerusalem, like the Israel Museum and Yad Vashem.

The experience had a profound effect on me intellectually and spiritually, the results of which have already been felt in my preaching. As I begin teaching in the fall again, I have no doubt that my experience at the dig at Mt. Zion will reverberate in my classroom as well. I sincerely thank you, BAS, for investing in me and in my students by providing the means to go on this trip. I continue to be very thankful to BAS for this opportunity of a lifetime.
 

Anna Marie Vagnozzi

Mount Zion

To say that archaeology wasn’t a way that I planned to spend my summer would be a massive understatement. In fact, archaeology was never even on my radar. So when I found out through happenstance about a study abroad program at the Mount Zion Archaeological Dig offered through UNC Charlotte, where I was taking a post-baccalaureate calculus class at the time, I was intrigued. As a mathematician, religious studies and history were never primary areas of focus for me, but the opportunity to travel to Israel, a place I’d wanted to visit since I was 10, was too tempting to ignore. I wanted to challenge myself to try something new and figured there’d be no better way to step out of my comfort zone than by joining an archaeological dig halfway across the world. In the end, I had to ask myself…why not?

The Mount Zion excavation, located just outside the Old City of Jerusalem, is one of a kind, as it is the only dig in Jerusalem conducted by an American university. Our project is focused on learning more about Jerusalem’s long and complex history by continuing the excavations that Israeli archaeologist Magen Broshi conducted in the 1970s, and our team of volunteers comprises a mix of students and amateur to professional archaeologists working under the guidance of co-directors Dr. Shimon Gibson and Dr. James Tabor. However, the uniqueness of the site is not limited only to the presence that the U.S. has in Israel through this excavation; from an archaeological standpoint, the location of the dig could not be more ideal. Though outside the current city walls, the Mount Zion area would have been located directly within the walls of first-century Jerusalem and contains well-preserved remains of a Jewish home, thus providing an inside look at the then-thriving Jewish city. A century later, the site would be situated at the end of the Roman cardo that ran through Jerusalem, and various artifacts that were a part of the ancient marketplace provide information about what daily life might have looked like for those who lived there. But the history contained in the layers of the excavation cover far more than the first and second centuries; finds have been unearthed spanning over 2,000 years, from ancient Israelite periods all the way up to the last 100 years. I was amazed by the richness of our site, and I particularly loved the fact that on the Mount Zion dig, we treated every single artifact—from the tiniest potsherd to the most intricate piece of glasswork—as precious and something that could teach us about the ancient past of this remarkable city.

Though a complete “newbie” to the world of archaeology, I was eager to jump right into the field school at the Mount Zion excavation and learn as much as I possibly could, and I am incredibly grateful for this season’s dig team for making the project such an enjoyable experience. I loved it. Archaeology isn’t exactly a glamorous hobby—you spend the majority of the day covered in dust, hauling buckets of dirt and rocks back and forth in the heat or bent over in odd positions as you pick at the ground or poke away with your trowel. But every single moment is so worth it. Nothing beats the excitement of finding something special lying beneath the dirt, or the weird attachment you start to feel toward your personal trowel, or the sound of the shouts and cheers that erupt across the dig site when someone announces that it’s time for our daily popsicle break. It’s also a bit surreal when tourists walk past the excavation each day, admiring the work at the site, and one day you hear a dad explaining to his curious child, “See those people down there? They’re archaeologists. They’re digging up history.” And you suddenly realize, “Oh, wow. They’re talking about me!”

I must admit, though the archaeological experience itself was incredible, my favorite aspect of being a part of this excavation was without a doubt the people. Archaeology brings people together in such a unique way, and you develop this camaraderie with the people on your dig team that makes it feel like you’ve been digging in the dirt together for ages. There was such a beautiful diversity of individuals working together at our site, from teachers to students, young teens to seasoned archaeologists, authors to physicists…and yes, historians to mathematicians. I’ve never felt so at home with a bunch of complete strangers as I did in Jerusalem with this group of people that was linked together by, if nothing else, the common bond of love and appreciation for history, learning, and adventure.

I would like to extend a sincere thank you to the Biblical Archaeology Society for awarding me with one of the annual summer dig scholarships, because without it, this experience would never have been possible. My involvement on the Mount Zion Archaeological Dig not only challenged me to step out of my comfort zone and learn something new, but it also made history come alive in a way that I could never have seen elsewhere. I could not have asked for a better experience at my first archaeological dig…and I certainly hope this will not be my last!
 

Yaminah Yisrael

Khirbet el-Mastarah

My journey to the dig at Khirbet el-Mastarah began by traveling to Danville, Virginia the day before our flight to the home of my childhood friend, Dr. Corliss Jones-Williams, with whom I went to high school. The following morning, Corliss and I drove to dig director Ralph K. Hawkins’s home, and we caravanned along with his daughter Mary and Averett student Rosie to Raleigh-Durham airport in North Carolina.

We arrived in Tel Aviv and took a shuttle to our hotel right outside the gates of the Old City in Jerusalem. Our accommodations were comfortable, the staff was pleasant, and our meals were enjoyable.

On Monday morning, the real adventure began. We met in the dining area at 4:00 AM for coffee and cake and then boarded our van at 4:30 AM while it was still dark outside for a 45-minute ride to the dig site. The sun was rising by the time we arrived at our destination. A path had been cleared for the van to get us within walking proximity of the dig site. Carrying our water supply for the day, our tools and food for our breakfast, we walked over rocks and stones of all sizes and shapes in the valley to the mountain where I was to spend the next 10 days physically laboring harder than I have ever worked in my life. Before we even go to the site, we had to climb up the mountain over more stones and rocks and boulders than I had ever seen in my life. We had to work to get to the work!

The top of the mountain was a landscape of yet more stones, rocks, and boulders as far as the eye could see, with which I soon found out I would be having a very intimate relationship over these next 10 work days.

Clearly, you can see that I had absolutely no idea of what to expect. What I am sure of is that I had a purely idealized vision of what an archaeological dig was all about based on movies I had watched a long time ago with Meryl Streep in remote jungles doing experiments, interacting with the native population, and generally having a grand old time discovering new things as an archaeologist.

The shade covers were set up and we formed teams and got to work moving and hauling rocks, stones, and boulders before we could even begin any digging. After we cleared our marked-off work spaces, with pick axes and shovels in hand we got busy digging into the mountain, sweeping dirt, hauling dirt, sifting dirt, and digging into the dirt with our hands hoping to find pottery, bones, and any evidence of an early Israelite settlement many, many years ago.

We had a coffee and tea break, conversation, and camaraderie after a few hours, then back to work. I had never seen so much dirt and dust in all my life.

We did not find much the first day, just one or two small pieces of pottery that were probably surface finds. We dug up what we thought were some walls and living spaces.

At the end of our work day, we gathered all of our tools, put them in the center of our dig space, and dismantled the shade covers.

Then it was back down the mountain, along the dried river valley, to the van waiting to take us dusty, dirty, and tired back to the hotel.

It was awesome!

There were 12 volunteers and two archaeologists. We had students, preachers, a realtor, a harpist, a doctor, a boiler maker, a retiree, and a software developer. The youngest person was 13 years old, and the oldest ones were in their 60s. It was a very diversified group, and everyone was hardworking, fun to be around, well-versed in many subjects, and great people to spend time with and get to know.

The second day of the dig was monumental for me. I dug up the first major find of the excavation. I found a sizable and perfectly shaped mortar and grinding stone! They were perfect. I asked to have them named after me: Yaminah’s mortar and grinding stone. During my two weeks on the dig, we found some pieces of pottery, some pieces of rims, some pieces of handles, a couple of beads, a few bones. I found one of the bones.

During our time at the site, Bedouin shepherds on their donkeys stopped by to watch us work. They wanted to know if we were looking for gold. It was amazing to see the flocks and herds of sheep and goats scaling the mountains grazing on the sparse vegetation there in the desert. The shepherds showed off their shepherding skills, having the sheep and goats walk right next to and around us as we looked at and after them. I was thoroughly impressed.

The site we were at was on top of a mountain that was surrounded by the dried river bed that separated it from the mountains on the other side. It had to have been strategically selected for its location. There would be no surprise attacks from that vantage point.

When I saw where we were out in the middle of nowhere, all I could think was: How in the world was this place discovered? The answer I got was: “We had surveys done.” My mind still wants to know who just happened to wander out in the middle of the desert at the top of a mountain surrounded by mountains to “discover” this place? This to me is a mind-boggling puzzle.

Being in the land of Israel was a walk through Biblical history. The people, places, and situations came alive in a very real, hands-on, touchy-feely kind of way. I spent time inside the Old City, in the various quarters. I prayed at the Western Wall. I visited David’s tomb and the City of David. I put my feet in the Sea of Galilee and in the Jordan River. I climbed up the mountain in Qumran to the first cave where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found. I truly did “walk in the footsteps” of the Children of Israel and actually did unearth some “hidden” gems.

Just as I knew in my heart, not only were there physical discoveries, but also profoundly personal spiritual experiences for me. I feel very blessed that I had the opportunity to be a part of the groundbreaking exploration of this pioneering project.

Like the Children of Israel, I walked forward in faith, and every resource required to make my journey to the Holy Land was provided.

I am grateful for being awarded the Biblical Archaeology Society’s dig scholarship. It is very much appreciated. Thank you again for selecting me as a scholarship recipient.
 

The post 2017 BAS Scholarship Winners appeared first on Biblical Archaeology Society.

This Roman theater played an important role in the riot at Ephesus against Paul and the early Christians, according to Luke’s account in Acts 19. Photo: Jordan Pickett.

About that time no little disturbance broke out concerning the Way. A man named Demetrius, a silversmith who made silver shrines of Artemis, brought no little business to the artisans. These he gathered together, with the workers of the same trade, and said, “Men, you know that we get our wealth from this business. You also see and hear that not only in Ephesus but in almost the whole of Asia this Paul has persuaded and drawn away a considerable number of people by saying that gods made with hands are not gods. And there is danger not only that this trade of ours may come into disrepute but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis will be scorned, and she will be deprived of her majesty that brought all Asia and the world to worship her.”

When they heard this, they were enraged and shouted, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!” The city was filled with the confusion; and people rushed together to the theater, dragging with them Gaius and Aristarchus, Macedonians who were Paul’s travel companions. Paul wished to go into the crowd, but the disciples would not let him; even some officials of the province of Asia, who were friendly to him, sent him a message urging him not to venture into the theater. (Acts 19:23–31)

The so-called Beautiful Artemis statue was one of four statues of Artemis excavated at Ephesus in 1956. Measuring 5.7 feet tall, the statue dates to the Hadrianic–early Antonine periods (c. 117–150 C.E.). On either side of Artemis are female deer, and the zodiac signs appear on her upper chest. Rows of oval pendants—possibly representing bulls’ scrota—hang from her chest. These attributes, according to BAR author James R. Edwards, may represent “Artemis’s ultimate trophies in taming and subjugating the quintessential symbols of virility.” According to the silversmith Demetrius in Acts 19, the mission of Paul at Ephesus threatened the reputation of Artemis’s cult. Photo: Jordan Pickett.

In the Roman period, Ephesus was an important commercial center. Excavations conducted by the Austrian Archaeological Institute since 1895 have shown that the ancient city—which rivaled Antioch as the third-largest city of the Roman world—boasted a harbor, various civic structures, bath complexes, a theater and the Temple of Artemis, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

Four times the size of the Athenian Parthenon, the famous Temple of Artemis had 127 gleaming marble columns that stood 60 feet tall and were topped with Ionic capitals. It was the Temple of Artemis, the silversmith Demetrius argued in Acts 19, that was being threatened by “the Way” (the early Christian movement) and Paul’s missionary effort. In saying that “gods made with hands are not gods” (Acts 19:27), Demetrius alleged, Paul was harming the silversmith industry that made little shrines used as dedicatory offerings to Artemis and tarnishing the reputation of the Artemis cult at Ephesus. However, a 16-line Greek inscription discovered during excavations showed that a century after the mission of Paul at Ephesus, in the late second or early third century, the silversmith trade and the cult of Artemis were still thriving.

When the anger that Demetrius incited reached a fever pitch, the rioters were said to have rushed into the city’s theater, dragging in Paul’s travel companions Gaius and Aristarchus. Excavations have uncovered the theater, which is set into a steep hillside at Ephesus. Massive in scale, the semicircular Roman theater held 25,000 seats and was one of the largest in the ancient world.
 

To the right, one can see the single column that remains from the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus. Considered one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, the massive temple was the largest building in the Hellenistic world. Photo: Jordan Pickett.

Explore more of the archaeology that shines new light on Luke’s account—from statues of the goddess Artemis to inscriptions and monumental building remains—by reading the full article “Archaeology Gives New Reality to Paul’s Ephesus Riot” by James R. Edwards in the July/August 2016 issue of BAR.

BAS Library Members: Read the full article “Archaeology Gives New Reality to Paul’s Ephesus Riot” by James R. Edwards in the July/August 2016 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review.

Not a BAS Library member yet? Join the BAS Library today.
 

Related reading in Bible History Daily:

Destroying a Temple: The burning of the Ephesian Temple of Artemis by Herostratus by Mark Wilson

Paul’s First Missionary Journey through Perga and Pisidian Antioch

Galatians 3:28—Neither Jew nor Greek, Slave nor Free, Male and Female by Karin Neutel

The Quest for the Historical Paul by James Tabor

Barnabas: An Encouraging Early Church Leader by Robin Gallaher Branch

Visiting Turkey: Museums of Archaeology Dazzle by Mark Wilson
 

The post Biblical Riot at Ephesus: The Archaeological Context appeared first on Biblical Archaeology Society.

On the cover of BAR: Cade Kamaleson from Wheaton College helps uncover a cooking pot dated to the Late Hellenistic/Early Roman period (first century B.C.E.–first century C.E.) at Tel Shimron. Photo: © Tel Shimron Excavations/Photo by Kate Birney.

The land that came to be known as Israel and Judah in antiquity is known by many names today: Israel, Palestine, the West Bank, Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Sinai, the Holy Land, and the Levant, for starters. But the names listed in the above paragraph—the names taken straight from the Bible describing the land before there was an ancient Israel—all have one thing in common: they describe a land of migration and immigration.

According to the Bible, “ancient Israel” was first a concept of a new world—a new beginning for God’s chosen people. It was a land into which the Israelites first had to immigrate. Only then, after the immigration of the people, did the land become the allotment of the 12 tribes, the land of Israel. Until that point, the children of God were migrants seeking a new home.

That Israel is a land of immigration is not only a claim made by the Bible; it is also a claim supported by archaeology. To be sure, there are discrepancies between the Biblical account and the archaeological evidence regarding the timing of this immigration and the manner in which it occurred, but the archaeological data definitively tell us that people immigrated and emigrated into and out of Israel. They came, and they went.

The Middle Bronze Age site of Tel Kabri in northern Israel boasts the oldest and largest wine cellar found in the ancient Near East as well as a Canaanite palace decorated with Minoan-style floor and wall paintings. Here, volunteers Matthew Kerwin and Sydney Thatcher from The George Washington University scrape loose soil into buckets with square-bladed hoes called turias. Photo: Eric H. Cline.

This has been true throughout history, both before and after ancient Israel. Kingdoms were built up and were conquered. Empires were overthrown by successive empires. The Egyptians, Hittites, Phoenicians, Canaanites, Amorites, Israelites, Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Ptolemies, Seleucids, Hasmoneans, Nabataeans, Romans, Byzantines, Sasanians, Umayyads, Abbasids, Tulunids, Ikhshidids, Fatimids, Ayyubids, Mamluks, Ottomans, British, Jordanians, and Israelis all at one time in history have migrated into modern Israel and Palestine.
 

Across the Jezreel Valley on the foothills of the Gilboa Mountains, the Jezreel Expedition is excavating a large rock-cut winery that might have belonged to the period of Naboth (1 Kings 21). Here, area supervisor Inbal Samet takes notes while team members excavate a wall. Photo: Courtesy of the Jezreel Expedition.

At the Roman-period site of ‘Einot Amitai in Galilee where chalkstone vessels were produced, a dig participant cheerfully wheelbarrows dirt away from the excavation area. Photo: Courtesy of the ‘Einot Amitai Excavation.

This also explains why Jesus constantly sought to minister to the “other” and to make “foreigners” the heroes of his parables, as he does with the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:30–37) and the Sheep and the Goats (Matthew 25:31–46), where Jesus specifically welcomes into his kingdom those who welcomed a stranger (Greek: xenos).

With eagle eyes, Kabri volunteers George Arbanas, Martha Soltani, and Nissim Sasson carefully sift buckets of excavated dirt in search of small artifacts. Photo: Eric H. Cline.

The issue of migration and immigration has become a popular research question for many excavations, especially those sitting on the ancient (perpetually shifting) borders between Israel, Judah, and neighboring peoples. The Elah Valley, about 30 minutes west of Jerusalem in the Shephelah (the fertile foothills in south-central Israel between the Judean Mountains and the Coastal Plain), serves as an ancient border between Judah and Philistia. The Shephelah itself has witnessed a number of exciting new excavations spring up over the past decade following the stunning discoveries at Khirbet Qeiyafa, a fortified settlement that excavation directors Yosef Garfinkel (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem) and Saar Ganor (Israel Antiquities Authority) claim to be from the time of King David.

In the Elah Valley, Aren Maeir (Bar-Ilan University) directs the excavation at Tell es-Safi, which most scholars identify as the ancient Philistine city of Gath, one of the five cities of the Philistine Pentapolis and the home of the giant Goliath mentioned in 1 Samuel 17. The Late Bronze Age residents of this site, the Canaanites, were displaced by the Philistines, who immigrated to the region toward the end of the Late Bronze Age (c. 1200 B.C.E.). Maeir’s latest research from Safi has suggested that the Philistines weren’t simply Aegean peoples arriving and conquering the Late Bronze Age residents of the eastern Mediterranean coast, but were the result of an “entangled” culture, slowly mingling “Western” peoples (e.g., Mycenaean, Minoan, Cypriote, Anatolian, etc.) with Canaanite coastal peoples over a lengthy period of time.

At Tell es-Safi/Gath, hometown of the giant Goliath (1 Samuel 17:4), archaeologists have unearthed significant evidence of Philistine occupation in addition to remains from prehistoric to modern times. Here, Tina Greenfield and Liz Arnold excavate a donkey skeleton that was placed as a ritual deposit below the floor of an Early Bronze Age III house. Photo: Aren Maeir.

BAS dig scholarship winner Jessie Blackwell of the University of Kentucky holds pieces of a Middle Bronze II platter she found while excavating part of the glacis of the city wall in Canaanite Gath’s upper city. Photo: Daniel Frese.

Across the verdant Elah Valley from Tell es-Safi is the Judahite border city of Tel Azekah, where Oded Lipschits and Yuval Gadot (Tel Aviv University) and Manfred Oeming (University of Heidelberg) have completed five seasons of excavation. Azekah served as a strategic stronghold on the border with the Iron Age Philistines. This massive excavation, now the largest in Israel in terms of annual participants, is exploring what life was like for residents living on the border between ancient Judah and Philistia.

Excavation director Oded Lipschits, registrar Liora Freud, area supervisor Efrat Bocher, and volunteer Ashley Byrd analyze potsherds excavated at the Judahite stronghold of Azekah. Photo: Oded Lipschits.

Volunteer Ella Gadot practices safety first by wearing a hard hat to protect her head from debris at Azekah. Photo: Oded Lipschits.

South of these two digs, the Tel Burna excavation, directed by Itzhaq Shai (Ariel University), explores the site that is the leading candidate for Biblical Libnah. The excavation is also exploring the border between Judah and Philistia, specifically asking how border communities functioned.

Conservator specialist Yeshu Dray meticulously exposes a Roman mosaic at the Galilean site of el-Araj, a candidate for the fishing village of Bethsaida mentioned in the Gospels. Photo: Zachary Wong.

The Shephelah is not the only liminal region in Israel exhibiting evidence of migration. The Jezreel Valley served as the major east–west passage across Israel for those traveling from Syria and the Anatolian steppe to Egypt. The veteran archaeological excavation that is the Megiddo Expedition—Biblical Armageddon—led by Israel Finkelstein (Tel Aviv University), is gearing up for its 2018 season, as are the various research projects that are part of the Jezreel Valley Regional Project headed by Matthew Adams (W.F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research). Across the Jezreel to the north, a few miles west of Nazareth, the upstart Tel Shimron excavation directed by Daniel Master (Wheaton College) and Mario Martin (Tel Aviv University) broke ground in the 2017 season, and its future seasons promise to further our understanding of the east–west trade that passed through the Jezreel Valley in various periods.

Perched high above the Jezreel Valley on the Nazareth Ridge, Tel Shimron witnessed the rise of ancient Israel, Jewish Galilee, rabbinic Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. University of Reading Ph.D. candidate Jessie Feito operates a total station to measure spatial coordinates in a residential area occupied during the Roman and later Byzantine/Umayyad periods. Photo: © Tel Shimron Excavations/Photo by Tal Gluck.

Noemi Palomares from Boston College carefully defines with her trowel a Late Hellenistic/Early Roman lamp at Tel Shimron. Photo: © Tel Shimron Excavations/Photo by Melissa Aja.

In the north of Israel, a number of digs are examining the influence that northern peoples, such as the Phoenicians, Hittites, and Sea Peoples, had on ancient Israel.
 

Check out the 2018 excavation opportunities >>
 

Spencer Silver of the University of Iowa and Cas Popp of Pennsylvania State University use patiches to uncover a street leading to a Late Iron Age Phoenician public structure on Akko’s acropolis. Photo: Jane Skinner, Courtesy of the Tel Akko Total Archaeology Project.

Beards remain in style at Abel Beth Maacah even after 3,000 years. Bearded volunteer Mario Tobia found a bearded faience head in an Iron Age II casemate structure. Photo: Robert Mullins.

These are only a small sample of the ongoing excavations in the Biblical world, many of which will be digging this summer. Here at BAR, we want to promote the study of—and your participation in—these archaeological excavations. To further this goal, generous donors have funded Biblical Archaeology Society scholarships, which are available to individuals who might not otherwise be able to participate in an excavation. In 2017, BAS scholarship recipients participated in excavations at Abel Beth Maacah, Tel Akko, Tel Burna, Khirbet el-Eika, Tell es-Safi, Tel Gezer, Tel Hazor, Hippos-Sussita, Khirbet el-Mastarah, Kiriath-Jearim, Lachish, Mt. Zion, Shikhin, Tel Shimron, and Khirbat al-Balu’a, Jordan.

At Abel Beth Maacah, Wake Forest University professor Leann Pace (second from left) helps Wake Forest and Princeton Theological Seminary students Lisa Li, Jianing Li, and Melissa Fradkin excavate jars from an Iron Age II domestic area. Photo: Nava Panitz-Cohen.

It is my hope that you will consider signing up for one of the excavations taking place this summer. A list of 2018 excavations in the Holy Land can be found on our website at www.biblicalarchaeology.org/digs. Here, you will find dig descriptions, locations, dates, costs, websites, and contact information needed to sign up and migrate to the Holy Land—even if only for the summer. Safe travels!
 

The post Digs 2018: Migration and Immigration in Ancient Israel appeared first on Biblical Archaeology Society.

It’s made such an enormous impact on Western civilization that it’s hard to fathom how small its population really was—small compared even to the centers of contemporaneous empires to the east and to the west. Of course, I’m talking about Jerusalem.

Today many of us live in cities of millions. Very few of us live in towns of only thousands, but hardly any of us live in a village as small as King David’s capital.

Hillel Geva

The first period that Geva considers in his study is from the 18th–11th centuries B.C.E. (Middle Bronze Age II to Iron Age I, in archaeological terms), the period before the arrival of the Israelites. Jerusalem was then confined to the small spur south of the Temple Mount known today as the City of David. As Geva reminds us, even then Jerusalem “was the center of an important territorial entity.” From this period, the area includes a massive fortification system that has recently been excavated. Overall, however, the area comprises only about 11–12 acres. Geva estimates the population of the city during this period at between 500 and 700 “at most.” (Previously other prominent scholars had estimated Jerusalem’s population in this period as 880–1,100, 1,000, 2,500, 3,000; still this is hardly what we would consider a metropolis.)

The shaded area reflects the current walled Old City of Jerusalem.

In the mid-eighth century B.C.E., the area usually referred to as the Western Hill was added to the city of Jerusalem. This area is well documented archaeologically. With this addition, more than a hundred acres were added to the city, and the population of the city increased proportionately. According to some scholars, this increase may have been at least in part due to the influx of refugees from the north after the Assyrian conquest of the northern kingdom of Israel in 721 B.C.E.

By the end of the First Temple period (the First Temple was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 B.C.E.), the walled city of Jerusalem covered 160 acres. By that time, settlement also extended northward outside the city walls, all of which expanded the city further. At its height, the population of Jerusalem at the end of the eighth century B.C.E., according to Geva, was 8,000.

As a result of the siege of Jerusalem by the Assyrian monarch Sennacherib in 701 B.C.E., Jerusalem’s population declined to about 6,000, and so it remained until the Babylonians destroyed the city in 586 B.C.E. and forced much of its population into exile in Babylon.

Other population estimates of Jerusalem during the nearly 200 years before the Babylonian destruction vary widely—partially because they focus on different time periods. Geva’s estimate is carefully grounded in archaeological data.

After the Babylonian destruction, the few inhabitants who remained in the city (or who returned) lived primarily in the old area of the City of David. After the Persians wrested control of Jerusalem from the Babylonians and even after Jerusalem became the capital of the Persian province of Yehud, Jerusalem continued to be confined to the spur known as the City of David with an estimated population of about a thousand people on 40 acres. (Geva calls it “minute.” Israel Finkelstein of Tel Aviv University puts the number even lower: 400 to 500.)

It was not until the late Hellenistic (Hasmonean) period (150–50 B.C.E.) that Jerusalem flourished again, just as it had at the time before the Babylonian destruction. Geva’s population estimate: 8,000.

The next period—the Herodian (or Early Roman) period—extending from about 50 B.C.E. to the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in 70 C.E., includes the time when Jesus is associated with the city. Again, this period is very well documented archaeologically, but estimates of the city’s population at the time of the Roman destruction vary widely. One scholar estimated the number at nearly a quarter million, another at more than a 100,000. Several put the number around 75,000. A number of others estimated between 25,000 and 75,000. Geva, always the population minimalist, estimates the number at 20,000.

In the Byzantine period (fourth–seventh centuries C.E.), Jerusalem was a Christian city.^a Estimates of the city’s population are as high as 100,000 and then go down gradually to 70,000 to 60,000 to 50,000 to 25,000. Geva’s estimate: 15,000.

In 637 C.E. the Muslims besieged Jerusalem; the period of Islamic Jerusalem commenced. The change in the population’s religious commitment was gradual but constant. And since the city of Jerusalem was not as central to Islam as to Christianity, the number of people living there gradually declined. By the 10th–11th centuries C.E., the city was confined to the area of the present Old City. Geva estimates the population at only 7,000.

However you cut it, Jerusalem was a tiny place in ancient times. Yet it played a major role in the march of history.

Sidebar: Jerusalem over the Ages

Jerusalem from the Middle Bronze Age through to the Early Islamic Period (Images by Ravit Nenner-Soriano; timeline by Noa Evron).²

Notes:

a. See Hershel Shanks, “After Hadrian’s Banishment: Jews in Christian Jerusalem,” BAR, September/October 2014; Eilat Mazar, “Temple Mount Excavations Unearth the Monastery of the Virgins,” BAR, May/June 2004; Jodi Magness, “Illuminating Byzantine Jerusalem,” BAR, March/April 1998.

1. Hillel Geva, “Jerusalem’s Population in Antiquity: A Minimalist View,” Tel Aviv 41 (2014), pp. 131–160.

2. We thank Hillel Geva and Tel Aviv (Journal of the Institute of Archaeology of Tel Aviv University) for the images.
 

Related reading in Bible History Daily:

Canaanite Fortress Discovered in the City of David

Did I Find King David’s Palace? by Eilat Mazar
As published in BAR, January/February 2006

What Did Herod’s Temple in Jerusalem Look Like?

Pilgrims’ Progress to Byzantine Jerusalem

What Were the Crusades and How Did They Impact Jerusalem?
 

The post Ancient Jerusalem: The Village, the Town, the City appeared first on Biblical Archaeology Society.

Jerusalem’s Ancient Landfill. Archaeologists have uncovered a landfill from the Early Roman period (first century B.C.E.–first century C.E.) on the eastern slopes of Jerusalem’s Southeastern Hill (the “City of David”)—outside the walls of ancient Jerusalem. Photo: Courtesy Yuval Gadot/Photo by Assaf Peretz.

One of the world’s oldest landfills was recently uncovered in Jerusalem. Situated on the eastern slopes of Jerusalem’s Southeastern Hill (the “City of David” or present day “Silwan”), the landfill dates to the Early Roman period (first century B.C.E.–first century C.E.). Through a systematic excavation of this landfill, Tel Aviv University archaeologist Yuval Gadot and his team have been able to shed light on Jerusalem during a particularly tumultuous chapter of its history—when Rome ruled, the Temple stood, and Jesus preached.

Explore Jerusalem’s ancient landfill with Yuval Gadot in his article “Jerusalem and the Holy Land(fill),” published in the January/February 2018 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review. Gadot details some of the interesting discoveries from the landfill and how he and his team excavated this difficult terrain.

Gadot briefly describes what Jerusalem was like during the Early Roman period, and he explains what kind of information he hoped to gather by studying this ancient garbage:

Jerusalem during the first century C.E. was a place of political turbulence and social unrest that eventually culminated in its destruction in the year 70 C.E. This was also a time of growth when Jerusalem swelled to an unprecedented size, expanding to include three sectors—the Upper city, Bezetha, and the Lower city. Economically and politically, the city revolved around the Temple as local and international pilgrimage—unique to the Temple in Jerusalem—continued to grow, reaching its zenith during the first century C.E. The garbage layers on Jerusalem’s eastern slopes, in some places more than 36 feet thick, are a silent witness to those glorious but troubled times. If excavated correctly, we hypothesized that the garbage layers could potentially shed light on the dietary habits, trading practices, and vocational diversity of the ancient residents of Jerusalem.

Gadot’s team has been able to gather such information—and much more. Further, digging through these ancient trash layers revealed information about how garbage was processed in the ancient world. The scale of garbage found at the site suggests that this enterprise was a public work. Gadot explains:

The nature of the massive amount of garbage concentrated at this site suggests the presence of an established, citywide garbage disposal operation that included the development of a specialized mode of collection and transportation to the top of the slope (a convoy of donkeys hauled the waste), the deliberate disposal of the garbage down the slope, setting the garbage on fire, and burying the remains beneath a layer of soil. The scale of work dictates that this waste management operation was a public enterprise. And while this may seem natural and vital for those of us living in the 21st century, this was not necessarily the case in antiquity.

The Archaeology of Garbage. Jerusalem’s ancient landfill is made up of distinct layers, some of which can be seen in this cross-section. Photo: Courtesy Yuval Gadot.

To learn more about the Jerusalem’s ancient landfill, including why Jerusalem had a landfill and other contemporary cities did not, read Yuval Gadot’s article “Jerusalem and the Holy Land(fill)” in the January/February 2018 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review.

BAS Library Members: Read the full article “Jerusalem and the Holy Land(fill)” by Yuval Gadot in the January/February 2018 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review.

Not a BAS Library member yet? Join the BAS Library today.
 

Related reading in Bible History Daily:

Ancient Jerusalem: The Village, the Town, the City

What Did Herod’s Temple in Jerusalem Look Like?

Who Built the Cardo in Jerusalem?

Ancient Roman Theater Exposed Under Jerusalem’s Western Wall
 

The post Taking Out the Trash in Ancient Jerusalem appeared first on Biblical Archaeology Society.

A colorful Roman mosaic from the second or third century C.E. was unearthed at Caesarea National Park in Israel. The mosaic was excavated by the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) and the Caesarea Development Corporation in partnership with the Israel Nature and Parks Authority.

The Roman-era mosaic discovered at Caesarea National Park depicts three male figures wearing togas. Photo: Assaf Peretz, Israel Antiquities Authority.

The coastal site of Caesarea Maritima lies 30 miles north of Tel Aviv. The city was built as a major port of trade by King Herod the Great, who named it after the Roman emperor Caesar Augustus. Constructed between 22 and 10/9 B.C.E., parts of this magnificent Roman city still stand today—attracting over 700,000 tourists a year.

The archaeologists found the mosaic while excavating a sixth-century C.E. Byzantine building that may have been part of the city’s agora, which is like an ancient shopping center. Dating to the second or third century C.E., the mosaic actually belonged to an earlier Roman-period building that was underneath the Byzantine structure.

An archaeologist sweeping dirt off of the mosaic. Photo: Assaf Peretz, Israel Antiquities Authority.

“Who are they? That depends on what the building was used for, which is not yet clear,” said Dr. Peter Gendelman and Dr. Uzi ‘Ad, the IAA excavation directors, in an IAA press release. “If the mosaic was part of a mansion, the figures may have been the owners. If this was a public building, they might have represented the donors of the mosaic or members of the city council.”

The Roman moaic and Byzantine building were discovered during the reconstruction of a Crusaders-era entrance bridge to the site. The effort is part of a larger project to create a promenade to connect the town of Jisr a-Zarqa to Caesarea National Park. The IAA Conservation Administration plans to ensure that the mosaic is preserved. Additionally, the entrance bridge will be reconfigured to allow the public to view the mosaic.

Guy Swersky, deputy and acting chairman of the Edmond de Rothschild Foundation, which has invested around $27.5 million USD to the project, commented on the significance of these recent finds:

“Old Caesarea never stops surprising, fascinating and thrilling us, time after time revealing slices of history of worldwide significance. This amazing mosaic is a unique find in Israel. This is especially true considering where it was found—in the northern part of the park, in an area that has hardly been excavated.”
 

More on Caesarea Maritima in Bible History Daily:

New Discoveries Unveiled at Caesarea Maritima

Divers Discover Sunken Cargo at Herod’s Port City

Hoard of Gold Coins Found in Caesarea Harbor

Robert Jehu Bull (1920–2013)
Former excavation director of Caesarea Maritima
 

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Are these curved stone steps at Beit Horon, about 10 miles northwest of Jerusalem, part of an ancient Jerusalem pilgrimage road? Photo: Courtesy of Yotam Tepper and Yigal Tepper.

In their Archaeological Views column “Walking Roads” in the January/February 2016 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review, archaeologists Yotam Tepper and Yigal Tepper describe what they believe to be a stone road on which ancient Jews would make their Jerusalem pilgrimage.

Many different types of roads crossed through Judea-Palestine in the Roman period. The methodically planned imperial “highways” were standardized across the Roman Empire, with milestones placed at fixed intervals listing the names of the builders as well as the distance and destination of the roads. These highways linked major urban areas and military bases, supporting commercial activities, communication and the transportation of supplies. There were also “agricultural roads” that connected settlements with their fields and “rural roads” that connected villages with nearby sites, such as springs.

There is another type of ancient road: the road on which Jews would travel during their Jerusalem pilgrimage. One such pilgrim road can be found at an upward pass at Beit Horon, about 10 miles northwest of Jerusalem, according to BAR columnists Yotam Tepper and Yigal Tepper (who are son and father, respectively). This road is comprised of curved rock-cut steps measuring 5.5 feet wide. Alongside the modest road is a Roman imperial road more than double the width of the pilgrim road; both led to Jerusalem.

“We assume that the curved steps were constructed first for walking, and only later a paved road was constructed beside them,” explain Tepper and Tepper, who published an analysis of Jerusalem pilgrimage roads in their book The Road That Bears the People—Pilgrimage Roads to Jerusalem in Second Temple Times (Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad Publishing House Ltd., 2013) [Hebrew]. “The paved road had a low incline and a serpentine design, suitable for animal-drawn wagons.”

Carved stone steps are found throughout what was Roman Judea-Palestine. While Tepper and Tepper do not argue that all of these represent Jerusalem pilgrimage roads, they do contend that the steps at the Beit Horon ascent were used by ancient Jews making their way to the Temple in Jerusalem—and that the road was not made by the Romans.

To learn what textual and archaeological evidence Tepper and Tepper use to identify a Jerusalem pilgrimage road at Beit Horon, read the full Archaeological Column “Walking Roads” in the January/February 2016 issue of BAR.
 

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Related reading in Bible History Daily:

Was Jesus’ Last Supper a Seder?

A Road Well Traveled: Roman Road Discovered in Jerusalem

What Did Herod’s Temple in Jerusalem Look Like?

Jewish Captives in the Imperial City

Pilgrims’ Progress to Byzantine Jerusalem
 

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In addition to its symbolism for the Holy Spirit, the dove was a popular Christian symbol before the cross rose to prominence in the fourth century. The dove continued to be used for various church implements throughout the Byzantine and medieval period, including the form of oil lamps and this 13th-century altar piece for holding the Eucharistic bread. Credit: Walters Art Museum, Baltimore.

In the Ancient Near East and Mediterranean world, the dove became an iconic symbol of the mother goddess. Small clay shrines from the Iron Age Levant depict doves perched atop the doorways of these mini-temples. On one example from Cyprus, the entire exterior of the goddess’s shrine is covered with dovecotes. The doves represented feminine fertility and procreation, and came to be well-recognized symbols of the Canaanite goddess Asherah and her counterpart Astarte, as well as her Phoenician and later Punic embodiment, Tanit. First-century B.C. coins from Ashkelon bore a dove, which represented both the goddess Tyche-Astarte and the city mint. In Rome and throughout the Empire, goddesses such as Venus and Fortunata could be seen depicted in statues with a dove resting in their hand or on their head.

There is strong evidence in the Hebrew Bible, as well as the archaeological record, that many ancient Israelites believed the goddess Asherah was the consort of their god Yahweh. Perhaps it is not so surprising, then, that the heirs of this Israelite religion incorporated the “feminine” symbol of the dove to represent the spirit of God (the word for “spirit,” ruach, is a feminine word in Hebrew). The Babylonian Talmud likens the hovering of God’s spirit in Genesis 1:2 to the hovering of a dove. Indeed, this same “hovering” language is used to describe God’s spirit in the Dead Sea Scrolls as well as the New Testament.

A dove and two bird-like female figures perch atop this Iron Age house shrine to symbolize Asherah and her counterparts Astarte and Tanit. Credit: Ardon Bar Hama.

Dovecotes, or niches for doves, dot the exterior of this small clay house shrine from Cyprus, while the goddess beckons to devotees from within. Credit: Erich Lessing.

A white dove represents the spirit of God in Genesis 1:2 in the Cathedral of Santa Maria Nuovo in Monreale, Italy. Credit: Casa Editrice Mistretta, Palermo, Italy.

Dove imagery is also utilized in several of the prophetic books of the Hebrew Bible. The low, cooing sound of a dove served as mournful imagery to evoke the suffering of the people of Judah (see Isaiah 38:14, 59:11; Ezekiel 7:16 and others).

A dove returns to Noah’s ark with an olive branch in its beak, a sign that life had returned to the earth after the great flood. Sailors throughout history have used birds to guide them to dry land. Pictured is a detail of a woodcut from the Nuremberg Bible. Credit: Victoria & Albert Picture Library.

The Epic of Gilgamesh, a Babylonian narrative that has several parallels in the early chapters of Genesis, tells the story of Utnapishtim, who (much like Noah) survived a flood that destroyed the earth and sent out a dove to try and find dry land. Credit: The British Museum.

 
But doves were more than just a soundtrack for a people who had fallen away from God; they were also an instrument of atonement. Several passages of the Torah (especially Leviticus) specify occasions that require the sacrifice of two doves (or young pigeons)—either as a guilt offering or to purify oneself after a period of ritual impurity (including the birth of a child). Several columbaria, or dovecotes, have been excavated in the City of David and the Jerusalem environs (by crawford). These towers were undoubtedly used to raise doves for sacrificial offerings, as well as for the meat and fertilizer they provided—a popular practice in the Hellenistic and Roman periods that continued into the modern period.

Columbaria, or dovecotes, have been discovered in archaeological excavations in Jerusalem and throughout the Holy Land. The scarce remains of the tower on the left show a few rows of niches still standing in the City of David, whereas the underground dovecotes such as the one on the right, from Luzit, have been remarkably well preserved. Doves and pigeons were raised for their meat, and their droppings were collected for fertilizer, but they also played an important role in Temple sacrifice. Credit: Boaz Zissu.

The atoning quality of doves led to comparisons in the Talmud and the Targums with Isaac and Israel. According to these extra-Biblical sources, just as a dove stretches out its neck, so too did Isaac prepare to be sacrificed to God, and later Israel took on this stance to atone for the sins of other nations.

Thus, by the time of Jesus, the dove was already rich with symbolism and many interpretations—as a representation of Israel, atoning sacrifice, suffering, a sign from God, fertility and the spirit of God. All these meanings and more were incorporated into the Christian use of dove iconography.

Doves appear in the New Testament at scenes associated with Jesus’ birth, baptism and just before his death. The Gospel of Luke says that Mary and Joseph sacrificed two doves at the Temple following the birth of Jesus, as was prescribed in the law mentioned above (Luke 2:24). Yet in the Gospel of John, Jesus angrily drives out all of the merchants from the Temple, including “those who sold doves” to worshipers there (John 2:16).

During Benjamin Mazar’s excavations at the southwest corner of Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, he recovered a stone bowl that bore the inscription korban (“sacrifice”), as well as finely scratched drawings of two upside-down (dead) birds. The bowl was probably intended for devout Jews to bring their offering of two doves or pigeons to the Temple for sacrifice, as commanded in the Books of Leviticus and Numbers. Credit: Erich Lessing.

The Holy Spirit descends on Jesus in the form of a dove, as shown in a 14th-century Byzantine mosaic from the Baptistery in the Church of San Marco in Venice. Credit: Alinari/Art Resource, NY.

 
But perhaps the most familiar dove imagery from the New Testament is recounted in all four of the Gospels (though in varying forms) at the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist in the Jordan River. After Jesus came up out of the water, the [Holy] Spirit [of God] came from heaven and descended on him “like a dove” (see Matthew 3:16; Mark 1:10; Luke 3:22; John 1:32). The baptism story built on the pre-existing symbol of the dove as God’s spirit (and its many other meanings) and firmly entrenched it as the preferred representation of the Holy Spirit—especially in later artistic depictions of the Trinity.
 

“The Word” enters Mary via rays of light emanating from a dove (representing the Holy Spirit) in Fra Filippo Lippi’s Annunciation scene. Credit: National Gallery, London.

This strange juxtaposition of modern brand labels and a classic Last Supper scene in Andy Warhol’s The Last Supper (Dove) nonetheless has hidden religious meaning. The dove hovers over Jesus’ head, representing the Holy Spirit, while the GE logo represents God the Father by recalling their famous slogan, “We bring good things to light.” Credit: © 1996 The Andy Warhol Foundation, Inc./Artists Rights Society, NY.

 
Another source associates a dove with the beginning of Jesus’ life. According to the second-century Protoevangelium of James, when the Temple priests were trying to choose a husband for Mary, a dove flew out of Joseph’s rod and landed on his head, marking him as the one selected by God. In fairytales throughout the world, birds have often been used to signify the “chosen one,” the true king or even the divine.

Before the cross gained prominence in the fourth century, the second-century church father Clement of Alexandria urged early Christians to use the dove or a fish as a symbol to identify themselves and each other as followers of Jesus. Archaeologists have recovered oil lamps and Eucharistic vessels in the shape of doves from Christian churches throughout the Holy Land.

Since ancient times the dove was used to identify and represent the divine. It then helped countless peoples to envision and understand the many aspects of a God who could not be embodied by an idol or statue. It continues to be a favorite way to show the hand and presence of God in the world and remains one of our most enduring symbols.
 

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Camel Domestication History Challenges Biblical Narrative

No, No, Bad Dog: Dogs in the Bible

Cats in Ancient Egypt

Between Heaven and Earth: Birds in Ancient Egypt
 

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Beneath the foundations of this octagonal Byzantine martyrium church at Capernaum, archaeologists made one of the most exciting Biblical archaeology discoveries: a simple first-century A.D. home that may have been the house of Peter, the home of Jesus in Capernaum. Photo: Garo Nalbandian.

Early travelers to the site had long recognized the beautifully preserved remains of the ancient synagogue that many believe marked the site, if not the actual building, of Jesus’ earliest teaching. But an important detail of how Christianity began still remained: Where in the town had Jesus actually lived? Where was the house of Peter, which the Bible suggests was the home of Jesus in Capernaum (Matthew 8:14–16)?

Italian excavators working in Capernaum may have actually uncovered the remnants of the humble house of Peter that Jesus called home while in Capernaum. (This house of Peter was one of the first Biblical archaeology discoveries reported in BAR more than 25 years ago.)

Buried beneath the remains of an octagonal Byzantine martyrium church, excavators found the ruins of a rather mundane dwelling dating to the first century B.C.

Although slightly larger than most, the house was simple, with coarse walls and a roof of earth and straw. Like most early Roman-period houses, it consisted of a few small rooms clustered around two open courtyards. Despite later proving to be one of the most exciting Biblical archaeology discoveries, the house appeared quite ordinary. According to the excavators, however, it is what happened to the house after the middle of the first century A.D. that marked it as exceptional and most likely the house of Peter, the home of Jesus in Capernaum.
 

For instance, the excavators found that during the ensuing centuries, the plastered room from the original house had been renovated and converted into the central hall of a rudimentary church. The room’s old stone walls were buttressed by a newly built two-story arch that, in turn, supported a new stone roof. The room was even replastered and painted over with floral and geometric designs of various colors.

The building’s key role in understanding how Christianity began was confirmed by more than a hundred graffiti scratched into the church’s walls. Most of the inscriptions say things like “Lord Jesus Christ help thy servant” or “Christ have mercy.” They are written in Greek, Syriac or Hebrew and are sometimes accompanied by etchings of small crosses or, in one case, a boat. The excavators claim that the name of Peter is mentioned in several graffiti, although many scholars now dispute these readings.

This simple church building, helpful in determining how Christianity began, survived for more than 300 years before it was finally replaced in the fifth century by a well-built octagonal martyrium church. Octagonal martyria were built to commemorate an important site, such as the original house of Peter that once stood here. The inner sanctum of the octagonal building was built directly above the remains of the very room of the first-century house that had formed the central hall of the earlier church.

Biblical archaeology discoveries are not cut-and-dry cases. Though there is no definitive proof in this instance that the house ruin uncovered by the excavators actually is the ancient house of Peter, there is layer upon layer of circumstantial evidence to support its importance in early Christianity and its association with Jesus in Capernaum and his foremost disciple, Peter. Were it not for its association with Jesus and Peter, why else would a run-of-the-mill first-century house in Capernaum have become a focal point of Christian worship and identity for centuries to come?

Based on “Issue 200: Ten Top Discoveries.” Biblical Archaeology Review, Jul/Aug Sep/Oct 2009, 74-96.
 

Related reading in Bible History Daily:

The Apostle Peter in Rome by Nicola Denzey Lewis

Has the Childhood Home of Jesus Been Found?

Early Christian Art Symbols Endure after Iconoclast Attack
 

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On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.”
—John 2:1-4

Where did Jesus turn water into wine? Excavations at Khirbet Cana in lower Galilee provide compelling evidence that the town where Jesus’ first miracle was performed has been found. The discovery of a large Christian underground veneration complex suggests that the site may have been worshiped as Cana of Galilee by early Christians since the fifth century C.E. Photo: Courtesy Khirbet Qana Project.

Where did Jesus turn water into wine? Where is Cana of Galilee? There are at least five candidates for Cana in the Bible, but, according to archaeologist Tom McCollough in “Searching for Cana: Where Jesus Turned Water into Wine” in the November/December 2015 issue of BAR, only one site offers the most compelling evidence.

Nine miles from Nazareth lies the site of Khirbet Cana (or Khirbet Qana—“the ruins of Cana”) in lower Galilee. Excavations at Khirbet Cana began in 1998 under the direction of the late Douglas Edwards. BAR author Tom McCollough joined the project as field director in 2000 and became codirector in 2008. Several factors have led McCollough to believe that the Bible’s Cana of Galilee, where Jesus’ first miracle was performed, has been found.

Archaeological work has revealed that Khirbet Cana was a modest, well-connected Jewish village in the Hellenistic and Roman periods (323 B.C.E.–324 C.E.). Khirbet Cana’s Jewish identity has been confirmed by the discovery of a Roman-period synagogue, several miqva’ot (Jewish ritual baths), six Maccabean coins and an ostracon incised with Hebrew letters.
 

An extensive underground exploration revealed that at least four caves comprise the cave complex. The first cave, which has been excavated, was lined with plaster dating from the Byzantine through the Crusader periods (415–1217 C.E.). Greek graffiti scrawled on the walls of the caves record the presence of Christian pilgrims: some read “Kyrie Iesou” (“Lord Jesus”), some depict crosses and some seem to record pilgrims’ names.

Even more fascinating, the archaeologists found in this first cave what may be an altar: A sarcophagus lid (see image above) inscribed with Maltese-style crosses had been turned on its side to serve as a kind of altar, its top edge worn smooth, perhaps by pilgrims who placed their hands on it during prayer. Above the “altar,” a shelf with two stone vessels had been found.

“There was space for another four,” writes BAR author Tom McCollough. “Six stone jars would have held the water that Jesus turned into wine (John 2:6). All this suggests that Khirbet Cana was regarded as New Testament Cana from a very early time.”

As mentioned earlier, there are at least four other candidates for the Bible’s Cana of Galilee. Khirbet Cana, in fact, is not even the site most visited by tourists today. So why does McCollough believe Khirbet Cana is the best candidate for New Testament Cana? Learn more about the evidence supporting Khirbet Cana’s identification with the site of Jesus’ first miracle and the reasons why the other candidates’ identifications don’t hold water by reading the full article “Searching for Cana: Where Jesus Turned Water into Wine” by Tom McCollough in the November/December 2015 issue of BAR.

Subscribers: Read the full article “Searching for Cana: Where Jesus Turned Water into Wine” by Tom McCollough in the November/December 2015 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review.

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Related reading in Bible History Daily:

Mark and John: A Wedding at Cana—Whose and Where? by James Tabor

The Bethesda Pool, Site of One of Jesus’ Miracles

The Siloam Pool: Where Jesus Healed the Blind Man

Where Is the Original Siloam Pool from the Bible?

Mikveh Discovery Highlights Ritual Bathing in Second Temple Period Jerusalem

Pilgrims’ Progress to Byzantine Jerusalem
 

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A version of this article originally appeared on Dr. James Tabor’s popular Taborblog, a site that discusses and reports on “‘All things biblical’ from the Hebrew Bible to Early Christianity in the Roman World and Beyond.” Bible History Daily republished this article with permission from the author.

The story is part of an earlier written narrative that scholars call the “Signs Source,” now embedded in the Gospel of John much like the Q source is embedded in Matthew and Luke. Many scholars consider the Signs Source to be our most primitive gospel narrative, earlier than, and independent from, the Gospel of Mark. Most readers of John’s gospel concentrate on the long “red letter” speeches and dialogues of Jesus with the lofty language about him as the “Son” sent from heaven, in cosmic struggle with “the Jews” who are cast in a pejorative light. Such elements are apparently a much later theological overlay, as they are absent from this primitive narrative source. The work, at least according to this “Signs Source,” was originally written to promote the simple affirmation that Jesus was the Messiah, the anointed King of the line of David, and to explain how his death was part of the plan of God. This narrative source is written in a completely different style from the later material now in John’s gospel. It moves along from scene to scene with vivid details and in gripping narrative flow.

The elements of the Cana story are fascinating. Jesus and his disciples, who have been down in the Jordan valley with John the Baptist, return to the area to join the wedding celebration. Jesus’ mother Mary (though unnamed in John) and his brothers are already there (2:12), so it seems to be some kind of “family affair.” Indeed, Mary seems to be at some level officially involved in the celebration as a kind of co-hostess since she takes charge of things when the wine planned for the occasion, unexpectedly runs out, indicating either that the crowd was larger than expected or that things became quite festive, or both. Mary turns to Jesus and the rest of the story is well known to everyone—he miraculously turns six stone vessels, filled initially with water, into the finest wine. But beyond the “miracle” or the “sign,” a number of other quite interesting questions arise.

First, one has to ask: Why would the lack of wine be a concern of Mary, Jesus’ mother? And what do we know about Cana? And most importantly, whose wedding was this and why were Jesus and his family present in the first place?
 

Khirbet Qana

Right after the wedding, according to John 2:12, Jesus goes to Capernaum and with him are his disciples, but also his mother and his brothers. I think that implies the whole family, including the brothers (and thus the sisters) were not only at the wedding but are now traveling with him. They go to Capernaum, where he sets up a kind “residence” or operational HQ, according to the tradition that Mark has received (see Mark 2:1; 3:19; 9:33 and the references to the house and being “at home”). Mark knows nothing of Cana but John mentions it again when Jesus returns from a trip to Judea, where he stirred up a considerable amount of trouble and needs some place to “lay low.” He and his disciples go back to Cana (John 4:46). Why go back there if the first visit was just for a wedding and had no connection to him? I think this is important in that it seems to become for Jesus a kind of “safe house” or place of operations when he needs to retreat to Galilee, much like Capernaum.

There is definitely a “Jesus connection” to Cana, parallel to the one that Mark reports regarding Capernaum. Peter Richardson of the University of Toronto has written a significant academic article on this point titled “What Has Cana to Do with Capernaum?” (New Testament Studies 48 (2002), pp. 314–331) that I highly recommend. He argues that the significant differences on geographical matters between the Synoptics with their sources and John with its sources—especially the question of Jesus’ “place”—should not be resolved simply in favor of Mark. Cana as a place in John is as significant as Capernaum in Mark. In fact, Richardson argues that Cana served as an operational base for Jesus according to the tradition that John reflects. It is interesting to note that during the Jewish Revolt, Josephus, commander of the Jewish forces in Galilee, made Cana his strategic headquarters for a time (Life 86). Its prime location, overlooking Sepphoris and the cities of the Bet Netofa Valley, made it an ideal location. Also, Jewish tradition locates the priestly family of Eliashib, mentioned in 1 Chronicles 24:19 as one of the 24 orders of Cohanim or priest, as from Cana.

John indicates the connection in the last chapter of his gospel, where he says that the disciple Nathanael, mentioned only in the Gospel of John is from Cana in Galilee (21:2). Nathanael is mentioned earlier in the Gospel of John as an early follower or disciple, associated with Andrew of Bethsaida (1:45). He is most often identified as one of the Twelve, under his father’s name, Bar-Tholomew or “Bar Tolmai” in Aramaic, in Mark’s list of the disciples (Mark 3:18). I find this identification likely.

Given this background all we can do is speculate. I think we can assume that Mary, the mother of Jesus, is somehow involved in the wedding, and since we know Jesus and his disciples—as well as his brothers—are there, it is not a passing event but some kind of family affair. And since he returns to the place when things get heated for him and his disciples in Judea, it is a safe place for him, and one to which he is connected. So whose was the wedding? Or can we even make a wild guess?

Many have suggested that the wedding at Cana was that of Jesus. I find this unlikely. Even though the account is very “allegorical” as it comes to us in John, and it is accordingly hard to derive historical material therefrom, the way in which Jesus shows up with his disciples, when his mother and brothers are already there, indicates to me that the wedding is of someone else. My own guess would be that it is the wedding of either one of his brothers or sisters, since Mary is involved—not, as I read it, as the hostess, but as one concerned with the provisions for the wedding. Since the wedding is held in Cana, my guess is that it could very well be the wedding of one of Jesus’ brothers, perhaps James, to a sister or daughter of Nathanael, thus accounting for it being held in that village. Cana then becomes a place to which Jesus can return, and as with Capernaum, it served as a kind of “home” for him. Regardless, I do think, as Richardson has argued, that we should take John’s references to geographical locations as rooted in some of the earliest traditions we have related to the life of Jesus–even predating Mark.

I have of late become persuaded that Jesus well might have been married, and this represents a change of mind for me that I have detailed in our book The Jesus Discovery. If such be the case, it seems impossible to tell whether he would have been married long before this point in his life, perhaps in his 20s, or whether he chose not to be married into his adult life, and only subsequently did so closer to the end.
 

Related reading in Bible History Daily:

Where Did Jesus Turn Water into Wine?

Was Mary Magdalene Wife of Jesus? Was Mary Magdalene a Prostitute?

Is the Gospel of Jesus’ Wife a Fake?

The Bethesda Pool, Site of One of Jesus’ Miracles

The Siloam Pool: Where Jesus Healed the Blind Man
 

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