While conducting research for my dissertation (The Arsenal of the Hebrew Kings and Their Neighbors), I was able to follow up on a question that my advisor had once asked me: How were slings used in antiquity? In other words, what technique was used to generate the centrifugal force needed to propel the stone across the battlefield?

In general, the modern assumption is that the sling was twirled in a horizontal circle over the archer’s head. For example, Rivka Gonen in her 1975 book Weapons of the Ancient World states, “A stone was placed in the pocket [of the sling] and then swung round and round above the head; when sufficient centrifugal force had been generated, one of the thongs was released, discharging the stone at a high speed towards its distant target” (p. 42).

This technique was apparently used by the Egyptians in the 12th century B.C. There is a famous relief at Medinet Habu that depicts a battle between the Egyptians and the Sea Peoples during the reign of Rameses III. Within this relief, there are a handful of slingers. Positioned high in the “crow’s nest” of the Egyptian ships, these slingers are depicted in the act of twirling their slings over thier heads, as shown below. (Image taken from Nelson, “The Epigraphic Survey of the Great Temple of Medinet Habu,” in Medinet Habu–1924-28, p. 27). This also seems to be the technique used by a slinger depicted in a relief from Tell Halaf in northwestern Mesopotamia that dates to the 10th or 9th century B.C.

Egyptian Slinger from the Medinet Habu Relief

However, the slings in the reliefs of the Assyrian kings Sennacherib (705-681 B.C.) and Ashurbanipal (669-629 B.C.) are not depicted horizontally. In general, they are depicted as hovering vertically (or almost vertically) over the head of the slinger. An example of such an Assyrian slinger on the Lachish Relief can be seen here (see Fig. 30a). Elsewhere on that relief, a Judean slinger is also depicted with his sling in this position. When slingers use the twirling method described above, the sling is never in such a position, so another method must be proposed.

It would appear that during the late Iron Age the slings of Assyrians and Judeans were used by swinging the whole arm in a wide, vertical circle. Based on the consistent angle of the slings in various Assyrian reliefs, it appears that the slinger’s arm was swinging forward at the top of the circle. The slinger’s arm is always depicted as vertical or almost vertical, and the sling (when it is not depicted as directly in line with the arm) is almost always depicted as trailing slightly behind the arm, away from the slinger’s front side. So it seems that after the slinger loaded his weapon, he would move his arm down and backwards in a sweeping motion and would swing the sling vertically over his head. (Imagine a professional baseball pitcher using a sling to pitch a ball and you have the general idea.) This motion may have occurred only once or may have been repeated several times to build up momentum. At the crucial moment, one of the thongs was released and the projectile was launched toward its target.

So the archaeological evidence indicates that there were at least two slinging techniques used in the ancient Near East: a horizontal rotation over the slinger’s head, and a vertical rotation similar to an overhand pitch. If we stop to think about it, it should not surprise us that different slinging techniques developed at different times and in different places. For a tool as simple as a sling and stone, some diversity in its use was bound to occur.

One of the most exciting action stories in Scripture is the narrative of Paul’s voyage to Rome, interrupted by the shipwreck on the island of Malta (Acts 27).  The vivid detail of these events is best explained by Luke’s presence on the journey and his writing of Acts shortly thereafter.

One of the details that Luke includes is the sailors’ fear that they would wreck on the “sandbars of Syrtis.”

When the men had hoisted [the lifeboat] aboard, they passed ropes under the ship itself to hold it together. Fearing that they would run aground on the sandbars of Syrtis, they lowered the sea anchor and let the ship be driven along (Acts 27:17).

What are the “sandbars of Syrtis”?  Gordon Franz has delved into the ancient sources to learn that these were dangerous bodies of water off the coast of North Africa.  He quotes Strabo:

The difficulty with both [the Greater] Syrtis and the Little Syrtis is that in many places their deep waters contain shallows, and the result is, at the ebb and the flow of the tides, that sailors sometimes fall into the shallows and stick there, and that the safe escape of a boat is rare. On this account sailors keep at a distance when voyaging along the coast, taking precautions not to be caught off their guard and driven by winds into these gulfs” (Geography 17:3:20; LCL 8: 197).

Franz concludes:

Why were the sailors afraid of the Syrtis Sands? The Syrtis is two bodies of water in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of North Africa. Even with “good luck” (Procopius’ words), the sailors on the Alexandrian grain ship carrying the Apostle Paul and Dr. Luke were terrified because they knew they were doomed if they hit the Syrtis Sands. The grain ships were the largest ships plying the Mediterranean Sea at that time, with a deep draft, and they would easily have gotten grounded on a sandbar in the middle of no-where and many miles from any shoreline! The old sailor’s axiom would hold true: “Water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink!” They would have had plenty of grain to eat on the ship, but not a drop of water to go with it. They were afraid of a slow and painful death by dehydration.

Read the whole article for all the fascinating details.

Benj Foreman, professor at the Israel Bible Extension of The Master’s College, has responded to my post about Rachel’s Tomb with observations worthy of more attention than they’ll get in a comment. 

He writes:

Thanks for your synthesis. I’ve heard you teach this before, but here are a few points to consider:

1) 1 Sam 10:2 does not need to be translated “in the territory of Benjamin at Zelzah,” as you do in your post. The Hebrew “gevul” can mean border, and often does. Though it can mean “territory,” it often emphasizes the limit of a territory. It’s possible, therefore, that Samuel is saying something like this: you will meet two men on the border of Benjamin at Zelzah, near Rachel’s tomb (I rearranged the word order, i.e. “Rachels’ tomb” for clarity).

2) Rachel clearly dies “on the way” to Ephrathah in Gen 35:19–20. This means that she wasn’t buried in Bethlehem, but on the way there. So the fact that Bethlehem is 5 miles from the border need not be troublesome.

3) It’s not “certain” that there was a Bethlehem in Benjamin. I’m not convinced that the Bethlehem in Neh 7:26 is a different from Bethlehem in Judah. You’re right that it seems to be listed in an odd place (amidst Benjamite cities), but considering the fact that Bethlehem of Judah––the city of King David––is not listed anywhere else in the list, makes it unlikely to me that “Bethlehem” here refers to a city previously unknown to us. Wouldn’t we expect there to be at least a few returnees from David’s hometown?

4) It seems unlikely to me that the Ephrathah and Bethlehem which are linked in Gen 35:19 are different from the Ephrathah and Bethlehem which are linked in Micah 5:2.

5) What about Jer 31:15? The fact that Rachel is associated with Ramah is initially striking. However, perhaps we should note first of all that the text makes no connection to Rachel’s death. Rather, she is weeping for her children. Why? Because they are no more. But why single out Rachel? The answer may be because Jeremiah is using “Ephraim” as an object lesson for Judah (cf. v. 18, 20). She, one of the matriarch’s of Israel, was the “mother” of Ephraim: she bore Joseph, to whom were born Manasseh and Ephraim.

6) Migdal Ha Eder in Gen 35:21 and Micah 4:8 is not problematic. It’s near Jerusalem: between Jerusalem and Bethlehem. Why does it have to be NORTH of Jerusalem? (I just read your response to Leen and there you say that it could be in any direction from Jerusalem….)

7) Summary: if we translate “gevul” in 1 Sam 10:2 as border, then having Rachel’s tomb somewhere south of Jerusalem ceases to be problematic. Rachel died “on the way” to Bethlehem (i.e. Ephrathah) and was buried somewhere on the border between Judah and Benjamin near an unknown site called Zelzah. The traditional location is probably unlikely since this is nearly 5 miles from the border of Judah/Benjamin.

8) Maybe I left out one vital piece of evidence and all of this will crumble. 🙂

UNESCO’s designation last week of “Rachel’s Tomb” as a mosque was received with great criticism, including a pointed response by Israel’s prime minister. My interest is not in the identification of the domed structure in recent centuries. I’m willing to grant that “Rachel’s Tomb” is as Jewish as the Tomb of David on Mount Zion or the Western Wall of the Temple Mount. For many Jewish worshippers, that is enough. The site has been sanctified by the prayers of the faithful for centuries. I have no interest in addressing the issue of the late tradition, and thus this post is not really relevant to the UNESCO debate. The evidence for the site being a Muslim holy place in the last thousand years will not be evaluated here.

My interest is in whether Rachel, the beloved wife of Jacob, was buried anywhere near the location of the contested dome. The best evidence for answering this question is the oldest evidence, and the biblical data answers with a decisive “no.” Rachel was buried somewhere else.

The story of Rachel’s burial is related in Genesis 35:19-20, “So Rachel died, and she was buried on the way to Ephrath (that is, Bethlehem), and Jacob set up a pillar over her tomb. It is the pillar of Rachel’s tomb, which is there to this day” (cf. Gen 48:7). This verse seems to establish the matter, and if the investigation is halted at this point, the traditional location appears to face no objection.

The situation is more complicated than that, however. Shortly before the time of King David, the prophet Samuel anointed Saul and instructed him to “meet two men by Rachel’s tomb in the territory of Benjamin at Zelzah” (1 Sam 10:2). This verse appears to locate the matriarch’s burial place in the land allotted to the tribe of Benjamin. The detailed boundary descriptions given in Joshua 18 place Jerusalem on the southern boundary of Benjamin (18:16). Bethlehem of Judah, however, is about five miles (8 km) south of Jerusalem. If this was all the evidence we had, we might conclude that there is an obvious contradiction and one statement is right and the other is wrong. We might surmise that this is the result of competing ancient traditions. If that is the case, then the traditional site has no more than a 50% chance of being the actual location.

Closer examination, however, reveals that there is no contradiction but that both references are to the same place. The first piece of evidence is the existence of another Israelite town called Bethlehem.

Most people are aware of the Bethlehem of Galilee mentioned in Joshua 19:15. But there is yet another town with the same name in a city list in Nehemiah 7:26. In the midst of a series of sites clearly within the tribal territory of Benjamin, there is a place called Bethlehem. The existence of a Bethlehem in Galilee and a Bethlehem in Benjamin makes more understandable the frequent reference to “Bethlehem in Judah.” David was not from “Bethlehem,” but from “Bethlehem in Judah” (1 Sam 17:12; cf. Judg 17:7-9; 19:1-2, 18; Micah 5:2). It is noteworthy that Rachel’s tomb is never identified as being in “Bethlehem of Judah.”

In fact, Jeremiah corroborates the Benjamite location when he writes, “A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping. Rachel is weeping for her children” (Jer 31:15). Ramah is a well-known city in Benjamin, and it was apparently within earshot of Rachel’s tomb. Some might object that the Gospel writer Matthew seems to locate Rachel’s tomb near Bethlehem of Judah when he quotes this verse from Jeremiah (Matt 2:16-18). But Matthew makes no such identification, and the fulfillment that he sees lies not in geography but in history. The exile begun in Jeremiah’s day continues in the days of Jesus as foreign rulers continue to slaughter the Jewish children.

There is yet one more potential objection that remains before the Bethlehem of Judah can be completely dismissed from consideration as Rachel’s burial place. The Genesis account says that Rachel was buried “on the way to Ephrath (that is, Bethlehem).” It is well known that the prophet Micah predicts that the Messiah would come from “Bethlehem Ephrathah,” a place in Judah (Mic 5:2; cf. Ruth 1:2). If this is the same place as where Rachel was buried, then there is simply no way to resolve the conflicting evidence. But the “Ephrath” of Genesis could well be a reference to the Benjamite site of “Parah” in Joshua 18:23 (though these words look significantly different in English, they are very similar in Hebrew). The prophet Jeremiah describes going to “Parat” to hide a belt, and it is reasonable that this is the site in Benjamin not far from Jeremiah’s hometown of Anathoth (Jer 13:4-7). (Some versions translate this as the “Euphrates” River, but it seems unlikely that Jeremiah would travel not once but twice on this extremely long journey for a very simple object lesson.) Until today a spring known as Parat exists in the territory of Benjamin not far from Jerusalem.

Additional support for a location in Benjamin is found in Genesis 35:21, which says that after Rachel was buried, Jacob traveled on to “Migdal Eder.” This location is identified in Micah 4:8 and m. Seqal. 7:4 as a place near Jerusalem. This further supports the location of Rachel’s tomb as north of Jerusalem and within the territory of Benjamin.

The evidence can be summed as follows: all the biblical evidence conforms with a Benjamite location for Rachel’s tomb. That there was a Bethlehem in Benjamin as well as a Parat/Ephrath in Benjamin is certain. This location was well known in Saul’s time, and it was the basis for a prophecy by Jeremiah.

The mother of Benjamin was buried in the same territory that would later be deeded to the descendants of the son to whom she died giving birth.

There is yet another piece of extrabiblical evidence that cannot be said to prove the point, but it
certainly is a curious “coincidence.” Very close to the Parat spring there are a series of large stone monuments. These monuments are located directly on a north-south road that served the ancients traveling through Benjamin on their way to the lush watering hole of Parat. The site is east of Ramah by a few miles, and an Israeli military official has told me of acoustical experiments that he performed with his soldiers that demonstrated that it was within hearing distance of Ramah. A local Arab tradition, first recorded by Western explorers in the 19th century, identified these monumental structures as Kubr Benei Israel, the “tombs of the sons of Israel.” Whether these structures date to the time of Rachel has not yet been determined by archaeological means, but the biblical evidence suggests that her tomb is likely in this same area.

How did the traditional location near Bethlehem of Judah arise?  This is very easy to understand. 

Early pilgrims knew of only this Bethlehem and they were unaware of the other biblical evidence. 

They established the site at a location convenient for visiting tourists.  Not far from here they built a
church where they said Elijah rested on his flight from Jezebel and another church where they claimed that Mary fed Jesus and a drop of milk fell to the ground.  The same sort of logic was used for locating the tomb of David on what they thought was “Mount Zion.”  Byzantine and post-Byzantine traditions sometimes accord with the biblical evidence, but they fall short in the case of Rachel’s tomb.

It is unlikely that any of the ideas presented here are original to me. You can pursue the subject further in the following resources (asterisks indicate most helpful works).

Beck, Astrid Billes. “Rachel (Person).” In Anchor Bible Dictionary. Volume 5, 605-7. D. N. Freedman, ed. New York: Doubleday, 1992.

*Clermont-Ganneau, Charles. Archaeological Researches in Palestine during the Years 1873-74, vol. II. London: Palestine Exploration Fund, 1896. Reprint, Jerusalem: Raritas, 1971, p. 278-79.

*Hareuveni, Nogah. Desert and Shepherd in Our Biblical Heritage. Trans. H. Frenkley. Tel Aviv: Neot Kedumim, 1991, pp. 64-71.

Jung, K. G. “Rachel’s Tomb.” International Standard Bible Encyclopedia. Volume 4, 32. Geoffrey W. Bromiley et al, eds. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1988.

*Luker, Lamontte M. “Rachel’s Tomb (Place).” In Anchor Bible Dictionary. Volume 5, 608-9. D. N. Freedman, ed. New York: Doubleday, 1992.

Rainey, Anson F. and R. Steven Notley. The Sacred Bridge. Jerusalem: Carta, 2006, p. 145.

Thompson, Henry O. “Ephraim (Place).” In Anchor Bible Dictionary. Volume 2, 555-56. D. N. Freedman, ed. New York: Doubleday, 1992.

For another perspective, see Leen Ritmeyer’s post and my comments there.