Earliest form of Hebrew Writing Discovered

“A breakthrough in the research of the Hebrew scriptures has shed new light on the period in which the Bible was written, testifying to Hebrew writing abilities as early as the 10th century BCE, the University of Haifa announced on Thursday.

Prof. Gershon Galil of the Department of Biblical Studies at the University of Haifa recently deciphered an inscription dating from the 10th century BCE, and showed that it was a Hebrew inscription, making it the earliest known Hebrew writing.

The inscription itself, which was written in ink on a 15 cm X 16.5 cm trapezoid pottery shard, was discovered a year and a half ago at excavations that were carried out by Prof. Yosef Garfinkel at Khirbet Qeiyafa near the Elah valley.

The inscription was dated back to the 10th century BCE, which was the period of King David’s reign, but the question of the language used in this inscription remained unanswered, making it impossible to prove whether it was in fact Hebrew or another local language.

The significance of this breakthrough relates to the fact that at least some of the biblical scriptures were composed hundreds of years before the dates presented today in research and that the Kingdom of Israel already existed at that time.”

THE DECIPHERED TEXT

“1′ you shall not do [it], but worship the [Lord].

2′ Judge the sla[ve] and the wid[ow] / Judge the orph[an]

3′ [and] the stranger. [Pl]ead for the infant / plead for the po[or and]

4′ the widow. Rehabilitate [the poor] at the hands of the king.

5′ Protect the po[or and] the slave / [supp]ort the stranger.”

Read the rest here: Inscription indicates Kingdom of Israel existed in the 10th century BCE

UPDATE; Jordan Asks Canada to Seize Dead Sea Scrolls

UPDATE:

SEE JPOST ARTICLE: Palestinians claim Dead Sea Scrolls

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“Jordan has asked Canada to seize the 2,000-year-old Dead Sea scrolls, on display until Sunday at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, invoking international law in a bid to keep the artifacts out of the hands of Israel until their disputed ownership is settled.

Even if Canada ignores the request, it will make other countries think twice before accepting the controversial exhibit.

Summoning the Canadian chargé d’affaires in Amman two weeks ago, Jordan cited the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, to which both Jordan and Canada are signatories, in asking Canada to take custody of the scrolls.

Jordan claims Israel acted illegally in 1967 when it took the scrolls from a museum in east Jerusalem, which Israel seized from Jordan during the Six-Day War and subsequently occupied. The Hague Convention, which is concerned with safeguarding cultural property during wartime, requires each signatory “to take into its custody cultural property imported into its territory either directly or indirectly from any occupied territory. This shall either be effected automatically upon the importation of the property or, failing this, at the request of the authorities of that territory.”

This means Canada must act, says Jordan. “The Government of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan would be grateful if the Government of Canada would confirm … whether it is prepared to assume its international legal responsibility, and the means by which it intends to do so,” it wrote.

While confirming that Canada has received a message from Jordan, a spokesperson for the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade said yesterday that “differences regarding ownership of the Dead Sea scrolls should be addressed by Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority. It would not be appropriate for Canada to intervene as a third party.”

The ROM’s exhibition of the scrolls, mounted “in partnership with the Israel Antiquities Authority,” opened on June 27.

While Jordan has acted only recently in asking Canada to take custody of the scrolls, the Palestinian Authority has made its position known since April, when Salam Fayyad, Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority, wrote to Prime Minister Stephen Harper concerning what it argues is the illegal use of the scrolls.

Jordanian and Palestinian officials insist they do not want Canada to determine who owns the scrolls, but simply to place them under Canada’s safekeeping until their ownership is determined.”

Read the rest here

Thanks to J. Lauer!

UPDATE: Burial Shroud Found in Jerusalem

Anyone interested in the burial shroud found in Jerusalem that has found its way into the blogosphere as well as several news agencies should see Todd Bolen’s review of the situation:

Leper Wrapped in Cloth Buried in Jerusalem

The headlines on the web this morning are a little more sensational:

• Burial cloth found in Jerusalem cave casts doubt on authenticity of Turin Shroud (Daily Mail)
• Jerusalem tomb discovery casts further doubt on Turin Shroud (Telegraph)
• Jesus-era leper sheds light on Turin shroud mystery(Haaretz)
• Remains in tomb near Old City show first known case of leprosy (JPost)
• ‘Jesus-era’ burial shroud found (BBC)

The tomb was found nearly a decade ago, and all of the sensational results have been known for years.  Two of the excavators, Gibson and Tabor, have both written extensively on this discovery in books they have published.

What is new is the publication of an article in the US Public Library of Science Journal, with the finding that this was evidence of the first human known to have leprosy.  That’s good, but it’s not news.  Maybe the news is buried in the details, and the publication of this article provides an opportunity to review an important discovery.  That’s fine, but it should be noted that news outlets lead you to believe that there are more discoveries than they actually are because they report the same items time after time, particularly during the Christmas and Easter seasons.

If you read only one article, I’d suggest the one in the Jerusalem Post.  But the best photos are in the Daily Mail.  Here are the important facts:

• A man was buried in this tomb between AD 1 and 50.
• The rock-hewn tomb was located on the south side of the Hinnom Valley, in a cemetery used by the wealthy.
• The man was wrapped in a burial shroud with a different weave from that of the Shroud of Turin.
• The deceased suffered from tuberculosis and leprosy.  (Apparently even the rich got sick.)
• A significant portion of the dead man’s hair was recovered and analyzed (it was clean, short, and lice-free).
• The man did not receive a secondary burial in an ossuary, as was typical at the time….

Read the rest here: Bibleplaces.com

Burial Shroud Found in Jerusalem

Artistic Rendition of the Tomb. Copyright Shimon Gibson

Burial cloth found in Jerusalem cave casts doubt on authenticity of Turin Shroud by Matthew Kalman

Archaeologists have discovered the first known burial shroud in Jerusalem from the time of Christ’s crucifixion – and say it casts serious doubt on the claimed authenticity of the Turin Shroud.

Ancient shrouds from the period have been found before in the Holy Land, but never in Jerusalem.

Researchers say the weave and design of the shroud discovered in a burial cave near Jerusalem’s Old City are completely different to the Turin Shroud.

Radiocarbon tests and artefacts found in the cave prove almost beyond doubt that it was from the same time of Christ’s death.

It was made with a simple two-way weave – not the twill weave used on the Turin Shroud, which textile experts say was introduced more than 1,000 years after Christ lived.

And instead of being a single sheet like the famous item in Turin, the Jerusalem shroud is made up of several sections, with a separate piece for the head.

Professor Shimon Gibson, the archaeologist who discovered the tomb, said ancient writings and contemporary shrouds from other areas had suggested this design, and the Jerusalem shroud finally provided the physical evidence.

The debate over the Turin Shroud will not go away. Last month a Vatican researcher said she had found the words ‘Jesus Nazarene’ on the shroud, proving it was the linen cloth which was wrapped around Christ’s body.

Read more: Burial cloth found in Jerusalem cave casts doubt on authenticity of Turin Shroud

Thanks to J. Lauer!

Note: Anyone interested in what the so-called “rolling stone” of Jesus’ tomb would have looked like in the Second Temple period, you should notice the square plug in the bottom right hand corner of the picture above. This of course does not bode well for the Garden Tomb identification.

Chanukka in Antiquity: 2 Maccabees and the Heliodorus Stele

Last year we knew that the story of Heliodorus in the Second Book of Maccabees was built around a kernel of truth. The story goes that the Emperor Seleucus IV (187-175 BCE) sends his chief minister to the Temple in Jerusalem to rob its treasury. To the consternation of the priests and the people, Heliodorus marches into the Temple, but there he is confronted by a golden rider on a warlike horse and beaten to the ground by two golden boys (3:25). He is dragged out empty-handed and hardly conscious.

t’s a good story and has been illustrated by such great artists as Raphael in the 16th century and Gustav Doré in the 19th, but was it true? That sounds most unlikely, but the Heliodorus stele (inscribed tablet) that was lent to theIsrael Museum by the Steinhardt family and exhibited there last year tells a related story. It is written in pure Greek bureaucrat-speak and tells how the Emperor Seleucus instructs Heliodorus in 178 BCE to check the temples of the empire to see that they are suited to the needs of the population and their gods, and in particular to inspect the temples of Coele-Syria, the land later to be called Palestine and Israel.

Heliodorus sends the letter on to “his brother” Dorymenes, and he in turn writes to one Diophanes telling him, “You will do well to take care that everything is carried out according to the instructions.” In other words, the emperor’s orders are passed down the line, and probably it was Diophanes who tried to check the Temple and was prevented from raiding it, but the author of Second Maccabees just remembered the most important name, that of Heliodorus.

And from the stele – found with its base broken off – that was on display in the Israel Museum, we see that there is a contemporary record of the emperor’s orders and how Heliodorus passed them on to his subordinates. But is the stele genuine? Today, anything that is not found in a controlled archeological excavation is suspected of being a fake. The stele was acquired by Michael and Judy Steinhardt from a collector and is of unknown provenance, so it is under suspicion, and although the Israel Museumexhibited it, it would not be the first time that its experts might have been mistaken.

However, a most interesting publication was printed this February. In an instruction dig in Beit Guvrin, three pieces of stone, inscribed in Greek, were found by young volunteers in 2005 and 2006. The pieces were small and of little interest until they were shown in 2008 to Prof. Dov Gera of Ben-Gurion University, who saw that they were part of the missing base of the Heliodorus stele. It is therefore clear that the stele is genuine, seeing that fragments of it have been retrieved from a controlled excavation supervised by experts. That makes us confident that the story recorded in Second Maccabees is based on a historical event.

Read the rest here: Hanukka, Another Version by Stephen Gabriel Rosenberg (JPost)

See Raphael’s masterful rendition of Heliodorus’ Expulsion from the Temple

Thanks to J Lauer.

Call for Help: The Project of Sifting the Debris from the Temple Mount

J. Lauer forwarded this letter from the archaeologists at The Project of Sifting the Debris from the Temple Mount who are seeking financial assistance. The work here has been invaluable to what we know regarding both the First and Second Temple.

‏18/11/09

When we began the Temple Mount Sifting Project five years ago, we had no idea what was ahead of us. We did not understand the enormous amount of work that would be necessary to extract archaeological information from the tons of haphazardly dumped material, and we were also completely unaware of the great interest that the public would take in the project and the scores of people who would be willing to volunteer. We also did not even begin to comprehend the educational impact of our work, and that we had embarked on a lifetime project with great national significance. We initially thought that after a couple of months of sifting the project will be over.

After eight months of work the project nearly closed down, but the Ir David Foundation adopted the project with the intention of funding it until all the debris had been sifted. We have continued to operate under their auspices for nearly five years.

Unfortunately, because of the current economic situation, we are once again faced with the potential of having to end our important work. Though the Ir David Foundation found emergency funding which enabled us to keep the project going, we have been forced to reduce our staff to a minimum, and we have not been able to implement our plans for the analysis and publication of the finds. Our plans were to establish an archaeological lab with a permanent staff that will work for two to three years on this task, hire various experts for special types of finds, and sample various sites around the slopes of Jerusalem in order to create statistical control groups to compare to the prevalent finds from the Temple Mount.

It should be emphasized that the major contribution and effect of our research will come only after proper scientific analysis of the artifacts and publication of our findings. After this process our finds will enter academic discussions and will be accordingly referenced by other scholars. Eventually this effect will also permeate into the historical scientific study, popular archaeology and history books, and tourist guides.

In the case of this particular project, where the artifacts are out of stratified context, the main archaeological innovations and understanding of the phenomena of the prevalent finds will come only after an extensive quantitative study that includes the comparison of our finds with control group samples (see more details at http://templemount.wordpress.com/page/10).

The Temple Mount Sifting Project is not an operation for an elite group of archaeologists. It is now the property of the entire Jewish people, including the tens of thousands of volunteers from around the world, Jews and non-Jews alike, who have helped us sift through the rubble over the years. Many times throughout history, important projects are adopted by private donors who have the privilege of making a significant difference well before the State steps in to help. The Temple Mount Sifting Project is just such an opportunity. Please take part in this effort to save the Temple Mount antiquities and help us to continue the educational programming which is having an immeasurable impact on thousands of visitors from all walks of life.

Sincerely,

Gabriel Barkay, PhD

Zachi Zweig

For those interested in donating to the project you can find a from here: P.E.F. Israel Endowment Funds, INC

IAA Report: Hasmonean Rule into the Southern Negev

From the IAA Press Office:

An Analysis of an Archaeological Excavation has Proven for the First Time: Hasmonean Rule Extended South into the Negev Highlands

Courtesy of IAA: Coin of Alexander Yannai, the Hasmonean King

Dr. Tali Erickson-Gini of the Israel Antiquities Authority: “The Hasmonean king Alexander Jannaeus, great-grandson of Matityahu, conquered Gaza and the Negev and for decades prevented the Nabataeans from using the Incense Road”

An important archaeological and historical discovery: the Hasmoneans also controlled the Negev. Researchers at the Israel Antiquities Authority are currently processing finds from archaeological excavations at sites located along the “Incense Road” in the Negev that were previously excavated by Dr. Rudolph Cohen ז”ל of the Department of Antiquities.
One of the sites that were excavated was Horvat Ma’agurah, which is located on a ridge, c. 3.4 kilometers west of the Sede Boqer region. The site is situated at a strategic point that overlooks Nahal Besor where the famous “Incense Road” ran, which connected Petra with Gaza. It was along this road that the Nabataeans transported precious goods such as myrrh and frankincense to the Mediterranean Sea and Egypt.

An analysis of the finds has revealed that after Gaza was conquered in 99 BCE, King Alexander Jannaeus – the great-grandson of Matityahu the High Priest – built a fortress with four towers inside an earlier Nabataean caravanserai. With the aid of this fortress he was able to halt any Nabataean activity along the Incense Road and in effect force them out of the Negev.
It was because of the fortress’ shape that archaeologist, Dr. Rudolph Cohen ז”ל, assumed at the time it was a stronghold from the Roman period (end of the third century CE). But a new analysis of the artifacts which were discovered inside the fortress, and the architectural features of the fortress itself, has led to the unequivocal conclusion that the fortress is Hasmonean.

According to Dr. Tali Erickson-Gini of the Israel Antiquities Authority, who is the scientific editor of the excavation, “We are talking about a revolutionary discovery that will redraw the maps of the region which describe that era and greatly increase the territory governed by the Hasmoneans into the heart of the Negev Highlands as we know it. This is an important discovery from an archaeological and historical standpoint. Despite the evidence of the historian Josephus, according to which King Alexander Jannaeus conquered the southern coast of the Land of Israel and the harbor in Gaza (which was of paramount importance to the Nabataeans) and even further south, no clear archaeological proof of this has been found in the field. And it was because of this lack of proof that historians were inclined to dismiss the possibility that the Hasmoneans did indeed control the Negev”.

It is now clear that the Hasmoneans kept hold of the fortress located on the Nabataeans’ principal trade route until the year 66 BCE, and by means of it, prevented any movement by their Nabataean enemies along the road between Halutza and Northern Sinai. Such a move cut off the trade route between Petra and the ports and in fact commerce in the region received a fatal blow that halted trade through the Negev for several decades.

The discovery also reinforces the claim that another Nabataean site – Nessana, where a multitude of coins of Alexander Jannaeus were discovered, was ruled by him. “Another interesting fact”, says Dr. Tali Erickson-Gini of the Israel Antiquities Authority, “is that the army that Alexander Jannaeus engaged was for the most part a mercenary force that was composed of non-Jewish soldiers. We were able to confirm this based on the imported vessels that were found alongside the Jewish vessels there, and from the wine that was brought there from abroad. Apparently Alexander Jannaeus and his widow Queen Salome Alexandra could not depend on Jewish soldiers because of the sharp political divisions that existed among the people”.

English/Hebrew

Thanks to J. Lauer

Three New Wilderness Volumes by Hanan Eshel

I saw these volumes in SBL this year.  Carta has done a wonderful job with these introductory volumes. The following is an excerpt from a review on Haaretz:

Call of the Desert by Aya Horesh

Qumran: Scrolls, Caves, History (Qumran: Megilot, Me’arot, Historia), by Hanan Eshel

Masada: An Epic Story (Metzada: Alilot Gvura ), by Hanan Eshel

Ein Gedi: Oasis and Refuge (Ein Gedi: Neveh Midbar U’mistor ), by Hanan Eshel

Each of the three volumes is available from Carta Publishing in both Hebrew and English editions. Each has 144 pages and costs NIS 84 or $25

Many travelers find it hard to deal with tour guides, who tend to think their sense of humor and cloying affability will encourage people to give bigger tips at the end of the trip. Tour guides’ explanations, too, frequently leave something to be desired. At the same time, it is fairly difficult to find travel literature of a high caliber, because why should prominent academics waste their time on writing that does not promote their scientific renown?

The three field guides that Hanan Eshel has written on Qumran, Masada and Ein Gedi are therefore a welcome contribution. Eshel, of Bar-Ilan University’s Land of Israel studies and archaeology department, is one of the most important archeologists and scholars of the Qumran scrolls. He has spent years conducting research along the west coast of the Dead Sea and has earned a worldwide reputation. His familiarity with the area, particularly with the Dead Sea Scrolls, has led to numerous books and articles that have earned him a prestigious place among scholars of ancient Israel.

Each of these three books, which Carta has published in both Hebrew and English editions, follows an identical two-part format: The introduction provides an overview of the site, describes the archaeological findings discovered there and explains their significance; that is then followed by a field guide that travelers are meant to take with them as they tour the site. This division is especially helpful for those who wish to forgo a hike in the blazing Dead Sea heat and prefer to learn about these sites in the cool confines of their air-conditioned homes. The introductions are succinct and precise, provide a good sense of each place and its importance, and are accompanied by spectacular photographs and maps.

The first volume deals with the northernmost site among the three, the Qumran ruins and the adjacent caves. That is where the remains of more than 900 scrolls dating from the Second Temple period (most of them from between 150 B.C.E. and 70 C.E. ) were found (only 20 of them were complete ), a treasure trove that the late archaeologist and politician Yigael Yadin described as “the most important discovery found in Israel in the field of the Bible and history of Judaism and Christianity.” It is an enormous collection that has aroused curiosity not only in scholarly circles but also in the general public. For more than 60 years, thousands of researchers from around the world have been trying to ascertain the nature of this library, which is made up entirely of sacred texts. Who wrote these scrolls, and when? How did they wind up in caves along the desert cliffs, and what exactly was in the ancient remains of the structures excavated at the Qumran ruins? Bible scholars, theologians, linguists and, of course, scholars of Jewish history and archaeologists continue to devote their time to attempting to answer the questions that arise from the findings.

Thanks to J. Lauer

My First Publication!

John, Jesus, and History, volume 2 (Nov 2009)

I presented this paper in San Diego two years, and it has finally appeared in press. My article is entitled “See my Hands and My Feet: Fresh Light on a Johannine Midrash” in John, Jesus, and History Vol 2: Aspects of Historicity in the Fourth Gospel.

Roman-Era Cemetery Discovered in Hebron

“Hebron – Ma’an – Palestinian tourism and antiquities police uncovered Roman-era cemeteries in the town of Halhul, north of Hebron, on Thursday, according to the department’s media office.

‘As the municipality of Halhul was using heavy machinery to expand the main road, a number of Roman-era graves and skeletons were found, and workers immediately contacted antiquities police,’ the department said in a statement.

Ramadan Awad, the head of Hebron’s police department, asked residents to report any related discoveries to the antiquities police ‘in order to help preserve the civil and historic heritage of Palestine.’”

See article here.
Thanks to J. Lauer!