I like and use Wikipedia for all kinds of things.  The more I know about the subject, however, the poorer the quality of the articles.  This morning I was going through some photos I took a few months ago, including some that I took of Har Nitai, across the Wadi Hammam from Arbel.  This picturesque mountain is not easily accessible as there are no roads and no good footpaths (that I could find).  The site has significant ruins on the surface, but as far as I could tell, no excavations have been carried out.

A quick search for the site on Google brought me to this Wikipedia entry, which is largely a page written by a single person (“Truthresearch”).  That should be the first clue; anybody with a username like that is immediately suspect. 

The entry gives a little information about the site, but quickly goes to a suggested identification of the site as Nazareth.  The basis for this identification appears to rest solely on the location of a steep cliff here (fitting the story in Luke 4 where Jesus is nearly thrown off a cliff).  If that’s the method for site identification, then we can rearrange the entire map of Galilee.  The writer acknowledges that the present-day Nazareth has the evidence of tradition, but it tries to make that a negative, explaining that it is only about 300 A.D. when Nazareth is mentioned in ancient sources.  He fails to note that most Christian traditions are not attested until that time because Christianity was persecuted until the end of the Roman empire (circa 300 A.D.).  Nazareth’s insignificant status and size explain its lack of mention in non-Christian sources.  None of this of course is any sort of an argument that Har Nitai is the real Nazareth.  But there is a cliff; what more do you need?

The link at the bottom of the article to a geocities site (“The Real Nazareth?”) suggests that the author of the two is identical.

All of this does of course give me the excuse to share a photo of the Arbel cliffs taken from Har Nitai.  No sign yet of the planned golf course on top of Arbel.

Here’s a rule of thumb: if a news article touches on the Temple Mount or the City of David, you can pretty much count on large parts of it being politically motivated and inaccurate.  A good example of that is yesterday’s Haaretz article by Meron Rapoport.  Non-Israeli readers may not know of Haaretz’s reputation as the left-wing newspaper of the country.  You can read the short article yourself; I’m going to limit myself to addressing the article’s failures.

1. The supervising archaeologists are Ronny Reich and Eli Shukrun.  There is no Gabi Reich.  That’s such a basic error that you know this reporter is completely unfamiliar with the subject.  Reich is a first-rate archaeologist who has been an excavation director in Jerusalem for more than a decade and in other capacities since the early 1970s.

2. “This is a very sensitive region for a dig. Should it approach the Temple Mount wall, it will certainly elicit angry reactions from the Muslim Waqf…”  The dig is in the City of David, many hundreds of meters from the Temple Mount.  Ronny Reich has led excavations immediately next to the Temple Mount and there were no protests.  For the record, Muslim protests are unrelated to reality.  If some Muslim leader wants a reason to get his people worked up, he will claim his mosque is being undermined, even if last year’s dig was closer than this year’s.  Given the context of the article, it appears that the author is trying to create a problem that does not exist.  [Note that this excavation is completely separate from the dismantling and construction of a bridge for tourists to the Temple Mount, which was the stated reason for Muslim violence today.]

3. “Moreover, most of the excavation site is inhabited by Palestinians, and thus far, no effort has been made to get their permission, as required by law, for digging on and under their property.”  There is no evidence that the author knows where the excavation really is.  This is just an attempt to get somebody excited to shut down this dig.  He certainly is unwilling to admit that the workers employed in these excavations are Palestinians who live in the area.

4. “But on top of all that” – is this really an appropriate phrase for a news article, or should this be on the editorial page?

5. The heart of the article concerns whether or not the excavators have a license to dig.  “The excavation of a tunnel under Jerusalem’s City of David has gone on for months without a license from the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), as required by law.”  This indeed is strange, given that the chief archaeologist on the ground (Shukrun) is an IAA employee.  That means he does what he is told.  If the IAA doesn’t grant him a license, then he’s not going to be digging there, assuming he wants to receive his salary.

6. The rat seems to be buried in the details.  Possibly the issue is not the IAA not issuing a permit (even the article says, “the IAA decided to extend Reich and Shukrun’s license to dig in Silwan”), but the Israel Nature and National Parks Protection Authority (INNPPA) not giving permission to the IAA.  Aha – this is a spat between governmental agencies.  One is trying to control the other and when he doesn’t get his way, he calls his local journalist.  I have no idea if the INNPPA really has authority over the IAA, but it really doesn’t matter to me.  The issue is this “news article” and the dirty work that this journalist is willing to do.

7. “But INNPPA spokesman Moshe Gabay said that there is currently “no operative plan” to develop the area for tourism…”  Well, this guy must live in Eilat.  In the last couple of years, they’ve done extraordinary things in the City of David, including the excavation of the Pool of Siloam and opening it to tourists; the opening of the Siloam Tunnel to tourists; the construction of a visitor’s center at the entrance; the construction of a viewing point of the City of David; the excavation of the “palace of David” with attendant provisions for tourists.  And just last week they drained Hezekiah’s Tunnel so that metal steps could be installed.

8. “nor did the organization [INPPA] approve an expanded dig. Instead, he said, it approved only an “exploratory dig” of 50 to 100 meters, after which a decision will be made.”  So, what do you know?  The INNPA actually did approve the dig. 

The problem with articles like these is that they lead everyone astray except those closest to it.  Thus, the esteemed Paleojudaica blog can conclude from the article, “there are irregularities with this dig which are a cause for concern.”

Back to the rule of thumb.

I’ve just received and posted an approved English translation of Amnon Ben-Tor’s letter to the editor. 

See the “Response to Rafi Greenberg” below.

I commented previously on a horribly one-sided Haaretz article (or here) on Israeli archaeology in the West Bank. Professor Amnon Ben-Tor, an esteemed archaeologist at Hebrew University, has written a letter in response. This was published in the Haaretz Hebrew edition, but there are no plans to publish it in the English edition. The letter is posted here, but letters to the editor are not archived and will be removed soon. Thanks to Joseph Lauer for passing this on.


Ha’aretz [Hebrew]

December 29, 2006

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Haaretz has a very one-sided article on Israeli archaeology in the West Bank.  Somebody should write an honest response to what’s essentially a mouthpiece for the opinions of one Rafi Greenberg.

Archaeology magazine lists the Top 10 Discoveries of 2006.  Nothing of biblical significance is included, but the #1 discovery is the tomb in Luxor’s Valley of the Kings.  KV63 is the first tomb excavated here since King Tut’s tomb in 1922.

Hardly a week goes by when some argue is promoted or dismissed on the basis of logic rather than evidence.  In this Haaretz article about the Qumran latrines, Yitzhak Magen responds to the recent proposal by Zias and Tabor that only Essenes would have ventured outside the camp.

“In addition,” Magen says, “the Qumran area and particularly the caves surrounding the site, are full of predatory animals and animals that consume carrion, like foxes, hyenas, and leopards. People who lived in this area for years were well aware of that. They feared these animals and certainly would not leave their camps to relieve themselves. Thus, it is unreasonable to assume that the camp’s latrine was located at such a distance.”
“It was not the Essenes who buried the scrolls in the caves near the Qumran ruins,” Magen adds. “The scrolls were buried by Jews who escaped from Jerusalem after the destruction of the Second Temple.” One of the main escape routes from Jerusalem passed through Qumran. Jews, who were somewhat unfamiliar with the area and had no knowledge of its predatory animals, did not fear entering the caves to bury the scrolls, he proposes.

So it’s unreasonable that Essenes walked a few dozen yards to bury scrolls, but it’s reasonable that people came dozens of miles and hid them there (but only because they didn’t know about the foxes!).

Magen does not respond to the ancient texts which specify the Essenes should travel 1,000 or 2,000 cubits (1,500-3,000 feet) outside of the settlement to relieve themselves.

Whenever you hear that something is “unreasonable,” that should alert you to the likelihood that there’s no good evidence to support the proposed conclusion.

In the typical Christmas pageant, one of the children will be cast as the heartless innkeeper who refuses lodging to Joseph and pregnant Mary.  Most know that there is no innkeeper mentioned in the Bible, but fewer are aware that there is not even an inn described.  The view that Joseph and Mary simply arrived late to Bethlehem and accommodations at the local hotel were full is incorrect.  The word translated as “inn” is the word kataluma, which is used elsewhere by Luke and translated as “guest chamber” or “upper room” (Luke 22:11; cf. Mark 14:14).  When Luke wants to speak of a paid establishment (i.e., an inn), he uses a different Greek word, pandocheion, as in the story of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:34).  Unfortunately, of the dozens of English translations that I’ve checked, all translate kataluma as “inn” in Luke 2:7 and not as “guest room” (that includes the recent ESV and NET; apparently they are unwilling to buck tradition in favor of accuracy).

The result of this mistranslation leads to a different understanding of the story.  It’s not that Joseph and Mary were late to town, but it’s that they were rejected by their family.  Clearly they had family members in town, as that was the reason they returned to Bethlehem for the census.  That there was no room in the guest chamber for a pregnant woman indicates that they chose not to make room for this unwedded mother.  The birth of Jesus in a room where animals lived suggests shame and
rejection. 

Most of what I have described above is the general view of scholars and I find it compelling.  But some scholars err in arguing that Bethlehem could not have had an inn.  This view has been repeated enough for me to address it.  Ben Witherington, for instance, says this:

It can be doubted whether there would have been an inn in Bethlehem in Jesus’ day since it was not on any major road, and inns normally were found only on major roads, especially the Roman ones (Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, p. 69).

Doug Greenwold, in the December 2006 Preserving Bible Times Reflection, writes:

These pandoxeion inns were typically located 16-18 miles apart on major trade routes, the average daily distance traveled by a caravan. Since Bethlehem was five miles south of Jerusalem, it was far too close to Jerusalem for the placement of such an inn. Furthermore, Bethlehem was not on a major trade route so there was little need for a pandoxeion.

I’m not sure what qualifies as a “major trade route,” but if there was any trade route in the hill country of Judea, Bethlehem was on it.  The only way you can say that there was no “major road” near Bethlehem is by saying that there were no major roads in the hill country.  But were there no travelers in this area, and were there no traders bringing supplies to Judea and Samaria?  Certainly there were. 

An understanding of the topography of the hill country will help here.  The Judean hills are very rugged as they are divided by deep wadis (canyons) on the eastern and western slopes.  Consequently, travelers have always preferred to stay on ridges, to avoid frequent ascents and descents.  For this reason, travelers have moved along the watershed ridge, from the time of Abraham until the present. 

About a decade ago, Israel decided that for political reasons they needed to build an alternate road to bypass the Arab population of Bethlehem.  They built a road less than 2 miles to the west of the watershed ridge.  Even such a small deviation required that they spend millions of dollars in the construction of tunnels and bridges.  Today we can do it; in ancient times, they did not.  In short, there can be no doubt that historically any north-south traffic in the hill country passed near to the town of Bethlehem (cf. Anchor Bible Dictionary 5:783).

Modern Israeli road that bypasses Bethlehem, with bridge and tunnel

Furthermore, the argument that Bethlehem is too close to Jerusalem to warrant an inn presupposes that all travelers left from the same point and had the same destination.  Jerusalem may have been a major destination of travelers in the hill country, but it was not the only destination.  Travelers could have been going to and from countless villages in the hill country.  Some known settlements in the 1st century B.C./A.D. include Hebron, Gabath Saul, Ephraim, Gophna, Sychar, Sebaste.  That travelers might stop at any point along the major north-south hill country route is illustrated well by the story of the Levite and his concubine in Judges 19.

In the end, the argument that there was no inn in Bethlehem in the time of Jesus falls short.  Luke, however, says nothing about an inn.