Louis C. Tiffany and the Art of Devotion

Edited by Patricia C. Pongracz
(London: D Giles Ltd. and New York: Museum of Biblical Art, 2012)
216 pp., $55 (hardcover)

Reviewed by Dorothy D. Resig

When you hear the name Tiffany, the first image that jumps to mind might be a colorful leaded-glass lamp or perhaps that iconic little blue box with a white ribbon. Yet, between 1878 and 1933, the majority of Tiffany Studios’ commissions were religious works.

Under the guidance of Louis Comfort Tiffany (son of Tiffany & Co. founder Charles Lewis Tiffany), Tiffany Studios became the arbiter of taste and religious identity with their elegant stained-glass windows, luxurious liturgical implements, mosaics and furniture to decorate the houses of worship that sprang up during the religious building boom of the Gilded Age. This is the subject of Louis C. Tiffany and the Art of Devotion, a richly illustrated catalog published to accompany a recent exhibit of the same name at the Museum of Biblical Art (MOBIA) in New York City. In the director’s Foreword, MOBIA executive director Ena G. Heller includes an interesting tidbit about Tiffany’s place in American society: “While a majority of [Tiffany Studios’] clients were Protestant, varied other religious groups went to Tiffany for their commissions precisely because Tiffany works conferred a certain status—in the case of Catholic and Jewish communities, for example, reinforcing their status as acculturated Americans.”

Tiffany Studios’ masterful glassmaking skills shone in the countless stained-glass windows they produced for houses of worship. The catalog describes nearly a dozen different techniques for producing various effects in the glass—from drapery glass for depicting garments to streaky glass for water and foliage glass for leaves. The results were stunningly lifelike illustrations of religious scenes that glowed in church windows.

As noted above, however, Tiffany Studios were by no means limited to windows. As an interior designer, Tiffany envisioned every detail that would adorn a church (or synagogue). He and his team designed altarpieces, baptismal fonts, hanging lamps and candlesticks, chairs and even priestly vestments. One 1892 piece, Fathers of the Church, incorporates Tiffany’s garment designs in a beautiful glass mosaic. Color photos and watercolor sketches appear on almost every page of this superb volume, along with informative descriptions and the history of Louis C. Tiffany and Tiffany Studios.

Dorothy D. Resig is the Managing Editor of Biblical Archaeology Review.

The Walls of the Temple Mount (2 vols.)

Eilat Mazar (with Y. Shalev, P. Reuven, J. Steinberg and B. Balogh)
(Jerusalem: Shoham Academic Research and Publication, 2011), 320 pp. + 6 fold-out maps
$270 [regular price]; $249.95 from BAS

Reviewed by Shimon Gibson

Eilat Mazar’s new book on the Temple Mount walls follows in the footsteps of Charles Wilson and Charles Warren, two of the greatest explorers of Jerusalem. She accomplishes this with great success and confidence.

Charles Wilson was the first to pay proper scholarly attention to the stonework of the Haram el-Sharif (Temple Mount) walls when arriving in Jerusalem in the winter of 1864–1865 to conduct the first comprehensive mapping of the Old City (the Ordnance Survey of Jerusalem). Many travelers and explorers before him, such as Edward Robinson, George Williams, Ermete Pierotti and James Fergusson, had noted the antiquity of these walls and the enormous size of some of its visible dressed stones. The remarkable Western Wall, or the Kotel, where Jews prayed—which led it to be described at that time as the “Wailing Wall”—was also frequently commented upon by travelers and pilgrims. Wilson had the unique opportunity to make a close-up study of impressive sections of ancient masonry visible along the lower and external parts of the Haram walls, especially on the southern and eastern sides. Wilson also had an excellent photographer with him, a Scotsman named James MacDonald, who took important pictures showing the lower ancient portions of the Temple Mount walls.

Charles Warren was eventually sent by the Palestine Exploration Fund (PEF) to undertake excavations in Jerusalem and to focus, as far as this was possible, on excavations at the Temple Mount. Warren arrived in 1867 with a letter from the Ottoman vizier in hand that said he could excavate wherever he wanted in Jerusalem, so long as it was not within the Haram al-Sharif grounds. Hence, he concentrated on excavating shafts down beneath the ground to the level of the lower parts of the external Temple Mount walls, recording the different types of stonework he encountered at different levels and other features, such as Robinson’s Arch on the western side and the Herodian street below it. Warren continued digging in Jerusalem until 1870. His sketches of the masonry were sent back to the PEF’s offices in London. These drawings of the Temple Mount walls were not promptly published, and tension developed between Warren and Wilson as a result of Wilson’s publication (in an article in the Palestine Exploration Fund Quarterly Statement for 1880) of modifications of Warren’s drawings without his permission. Eventually, partly to placate Warren’s wounded feelings, in 1884 the PEF published a large portfolio of 50 of Warren’s maps, plans and drawings titled Plans, Elevations, Sections, etc., Shewing the Results of the Excavations at Jerusalem, 1867–70 (now known as the “Warren Atlas”).

Following the 1967 Six-Day War, Jerusalem opened up to major Israeli archaeological work. Large-scale excavations were conducted at the southwest and southern Temple Mount walls by Professor Benjamin Mazar, Eilat Mazar’s grandfather. The considerable quantities of soil and rubble fills against the Temple Mount walls were removed by excavation, which meant that Warren’s earlier drawings of these Temple Mount walls could now be examined by comparison to the actual walls and corrected. A new set of elevation drawings was made during the course of these excavations by Irish architect Brian Lalor and later by the archaeological surveyor Leen Ritmeyer (whose name is unfortunately spelled incorrectly throughout Eilat Mazar’s book). Eilat Mazar, who is working on the final publication of her grandfather’s work, was clearly inspired by this work from the 1970s and decided to take it even further with the documentation of the visible construction in all four walls of the Temple Mount.

Hitherto, scholars wishing to inquire about the construction phases of the Temple Mount Walls had to make do with Warren’s 1884 drawings. Now we have Eilat Mazar’s study. Mazar’s book comes in a box with an additional folder containing detailed fold-out elevation drawings of the four Temple Mount walls. She does not include the underground segments of walls previously seen by Warren, which I think was a wise decision. This way she presents to the reader only what may be seen of the ancient masonry today. The book is lavishly illustrated with drawings and photographs. And she includes earlier drawings by Warren and others in the context of her own work.

One of a number of introductory chapters deals with the history of research. To my mind this is somewhat lacking, uneven and not very thorough. Some of the biographical information given there is incorrect, and certain investigators who dealt with the Haram walls (such as Ernest-Marie Laperrousaz) are ignored.

The book also has a chapter on the methodology used by the team during the documentation procedures: Numerous measurements were made and thousands of photographs were taken. The team eventually put together digitized elevations of the Temple Mount walls on the basis of the photographic data, using the process of orthophotography to create “photographic maps” of the walls by excluding distortion and by clarifying exact proportions. The four walls were divided up into a total of 156 segments, each measuring ten meters in length, and studied accordingly. The results of these documentation procedures are impressive, even though there were definite time limits on the project. Mazar writes about her concern regarding the speed of the work: “We were accompanied by the uneasy feeling that we were not spending enough time simply observing—that we had not seen enough, or that we had not understood enough, and that the unseen secrets of the walls were too great” (p. 14).

The main part of the book consists of bulky chapters dedicated to each of the four walls. The author swamps us with an incredible amount of new information; surprisingly there were many wall segments that had never been recorded before, even though they were accessible. The elevation drawings show the position of the visible segments of masonry and the suggested dating (illustrated with color coding) of each segment.

One does not have to accept all of Mazar’s suggestions and proposals, especially the dating of specific segments of masonry, but the importance of this work is that it provides scholars for the first time with all the visual source materials on the walls of the Temple Mount. She also attempts to provide a typology of stonework and dressing techniques. She attributes no wall segment to the First Temple period (contrary to Laperrousaz; one of his studies was published in BAR*), but this is in accord with the consensus of scholarly opinion. Mazar’s Construction Phases II and III (seen particularly in the eastern Temple Mount wall) seem to me to be actually one and the same, both dating to Hellenistic/Hasmonean times at the earliest. The main wall segments are rightly assigned to the Herodian period, with substantial rebuilds in Roman, Early Islamic, Medieval and Ottoman periods. Altogether, Mazar identifies 23 phases of dated construction works in the walls of the Temple Mount.

Eilat Mazar’s book is an amazing sourcebook of visual and written data, and its contents will undoubtedly serve as the basis for much scholarly discussion in the future. She is to be congratulated for her endeavors; the book is a superb piece of scholarship and a major contribution to the archaeology of Jerusalem. One must not forget, however, that she had a team of investigators working with her on this documentation project, namely Yiftah Shalev, Peretz Reuven, Jonathan Steinberg and Balage Balogh, each of whom contributed substantially to the overall success of the project.

Shimon Gibson is the head of the archaeology department at the University of the Holy Land and a senior associate fellow of the Albright Institute of Archaeology in Jerusalem. He coauthored (with David Jacobson) Below the Temple Mount in Jerusalem: A Sourcebook on the Cisterns, Subterranean Chambers and Conduits of the Haram al-Sharif (Oxford: BAR International Series 637, 1996).

Notes

* Ernest-Marie Laperrousaz, “Solomon’s Wall Still Supports the Temple Mount,” BAR, May/June 1987.

Doyen of the Dead Sea Scrolls: An In-Depth Biography of Józef Tadeusz Milik (1922–2006) Qumranica Mogilansia 17

By Zdzislaw J. Kapera and Robert Feather
(Kraków-Mogilany: Enigma Press, 2011) xii +239 pp., $90

Reviewed by Weston W. Fields

Click here to contact The Enigma Press to purchase a copy of Doyen of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Among Dead Sea Scroll scholars, Józef Tadeusz Milik is considered one of the greatest of the greats. A member of the eight-man team originally assigned to publish the more than 15,000 manuscript fragments from Qumran Cave 4, he was clearly a genius. His abilities and accomplishments were, in a word, simply stunning.

For those of us who were privileged to know him personally, he was, even more importantly, a spectacular human being, a gentle soul whose fame and memory are based and will always be based on solid accomplishment, not selfaggrandizement.

The closest I ever heard him come to admitting some kind of self-awareness of his genius was his answer to a question I posed in 2004 shortly before his death: “Who, next to you, was the best scholar on the Cave 4 Team?” His answer was only one word: “Skehan” (Monsignor Patrick S. Skehan). Milik obviously accepted the premise of my question, but he would never have proposed the premise himself.

When assigned to the Cave 4 Team, Milik was a Polish priest. He later left the priesthood, married and moved to Paris but continued his broad scholarship, which encompassed far more than just the Judaean Desert texts. Zdzislaw Kapera, Polish publisher, editor, bibliographer and founder of The Qumran Chronicle and The Polish Journal of Biblical Research, is the principal author of the book under review. He provides us with a biography of Milik based on information never before available, or available only in scattered publications, much of it in Polish, and thus not easily accessible to most of the world. His personal friendship with Milik and his wife, Yolanta (Zaluska), as well as Milik’s brother and other relatives, gave Kapera access to valuable sources of oral history and family photographs. Especially important are details about Milik’s childhood, early education, religious connections, parents’ background and his father’s professional standing.

Unfortunately, Kapera does not sufficiently distinguish between the various levels of trustworthiness of information through which one must sift in the course of writing a history or a biography. What is the difference in trustworthiness among a written document from the time of an event, a much-later-written document and later oral tradition, even from the person under consideration himself? Somewhat problematically, Milik left behind relatively little in writing from or about his life, such as personal letters about events written the same day or shortly after they occurred, one of the best historical sources for a biography. Thus, much of what we know about Milik’s early life has had to be reconstructed from oral history, with all its attendant possibilities for inaccuracy.

Milik steadfastly refused to allow his rare interviews to be recorded electronically— at least during the dozen or so times I interviewed him over the course of about 15 years (1991–2005). This made it much more difficult to write accurately about what he said (though my wife’s shorthand skills did help a great deal in my own case). If Kapera was also limited in this way, yet another possibility for inaccuracy may have been introduced. How many times was I sorely tempted to hide a recorder in my briefcase during an interview! But I never did. Perhaps Kapera was able to record accurately verbatim, and if so, what he reports in biographical details has more force.

Nevertheless, despite these reservations, everyone interested in the history of the Dead Sea Scrolls is indebted to Kapera for gathering in one place so many new details about Milik’s life and work most of us would never have learned otherwise.

Kapera’s personal contact with Milik spanned some 35 years. This long acquaintance and their shared linguistic, cultural and religious heritage gave Kapera an advantage few others have had.

From the standpoint of reconstruction and understanding of Dead Sea Scroll texts, Milik was the most important member of the Cave 4 Team. But before Cave 4 was even discovered, Milik and Father Dominque Barthélemy were already the first Dead Sea Scrolls “team.” They published the Cave 1 fragments in Discoveries in the Judaean Desert (DJD) volume 1 and set the format, procedure and standards for scroll publication.

Focusing primarily on the life and work of one person, as a biography almost necessarily does, however, may skew the larger story. Others who were also part of the story may be neglected or given insufficient attention. From a broad perspective, this seems to be the case with Kapera’s description of the work of the Cave 4 team. Kapera did not know or chose not to tell much about the significant contributions of the other seven Cave 4 team members.

When Kapera ventures beyond the facts of Milik’s life into the wider subject of the publication of the scrolls, especially the various controversies concerning publication, his information is sometimes questionable and sometimes simply wrong. However, in a number of cases, these mistakes are not entirely his fault; more complete information has only recently become available, and some of it is yet to be made available.

Milik was also important in ways quite apart from his Cave 4 work. For example, he played a critical role in the secret identification and preliminary transcription of the approximately 100–175 fragments (depending on how one counts) that were not part of the assignment of the Cave 4 team, but have been sold or offered for sale by the Kando family since 1998 and are identified by the Kando family as coming from Cave 4. Milik was not the only member of the Cave 4 team to have participated in this recent (and ongoing) effort to obtain additional texts from the family of the antiquities dealer through whom most of the Dead Sea Scrolls came to light.

Kapera’s work also demonstrates vividly the dangers of a self-published work. The guiding hand of an outside editor might have corrected some of the factual misstatements in the book and almost certainly would have standardized and improved the presentation.

The results of this lack of professional oversight might lead native English speakers to find much to criticize in the carelessly edited text. I suggest readers should give Kapera a pass on that, however, and focus on all the valuable information regarding Milik’s personal and professional history. The book is an important contribution, and we should be grateful to Kapera for producing it.

Doyen of the Dead Sea Scrolls is really two separate books bound together. The second one, fewer than a hundred pages, was written by Robert Feather, a British metallurgist and engineer, as well as a journalist, broadcaster and amateur Dead Sea Scrolls author. This section of the book contains glaring factual errors and has only a forced tangential relationship to Milik and his work on the Scrolls. It is a pity that Feather’s work was included in this volume.

Weston W. Fields is executive director of the Dead Sea Scrolls Foundation and author of The Dead Sea Scrolls, A Short History (Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2006) and The Dead Sea Scrolls, A Full History vol. 1 (Brill, 2009; vols. 2 and 3 forthcoming).

Ashkelon 3 The Seventh Century B.C.

By Lawrence E. Stager, Daniel M. Master and J. David Schloen, eds.
Harvard Semitic Museum Publications (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2011) 817 pp; $99.50 (hardcover)

Hazor: The 1990–2009 Excavations: The Iron Age

By Amnon Ben-Tor, Doron Ben-Ami and Debora Sandhaus
(Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 2012)
672 pp., $120 (hardcover)

Reviewed by William G. Dever

These two massive, enormously expensive volumes to produce represent the epitome of archaeological field reports today, far beyond the scope (or for that matter the means) of projects a generation ago. They set an enviably high standard. Yet they also raise some disturbing questions.

The Ashkelon volume—consisting of 28 chapters by 26 contributors, extending over 817 quarto pages—covers only the seventh-century B.C.E. remains excavated in Grids 38 and 50 between 1982 and 1997. There the late Philistine marketplace, winery and quarry were violently destroyed by the Babylonian campaigns in 604 B.C.E., producing a mass of material for the archaeologists.

The report covers in detail the stratigraphy, architecture, quantitative and spatial analyses, pottery (211 pages on the Greek imports alone), seals, amulets, bronzes, iron items, faience and alabaster, beads and jewelry terra cotta figurines, loom weights, chipped and ground stone objects, incense altars, and floral and faunal remains. Many items are published in color as well as in black-and-white photographs and linedrawings. There are numerous detailed architectural plans but only a few rather schematic section drawings.

The Hazor volume is the sixth final report of the site’s excavation. It covers excavations of the Iron Age levels, Strata XII-VI, in Area A on the acropolis between 1990 and 2009. The excavated area was more than 4,000 square meters (or more than 40,000 sq. ft.). The 672- page volume consists of 17 chapters by 17 different authors. It covers stratigraphy, architecture, pottery, figurines, tools and weapons, ground stone implements, spindle whorls, bone, ivory and shell objects, seals, glass, and floral and faunal remains. There are numerous detailed plans and photographs of the architecture, but no section drawings.

These massive, complex volumes are not meant to be read by nonspecialists, or even read through consecutively at all. They are tools for research, a database for professional archaeologists, historians of ancient Near East, and perhaps for the few Biblical scholars who may attempt to wade through them.

Readers of BAR would be advised to consult these volumes in libraries and look over the brief summaries contained in the introduction and here and there. The Iron Age or Israelite remains at Hazor, along with the late Philistine culture revealed at Ashkelon, will be of major interest to these who try to follow “Biblical archaeology.” For the rest of us, who are astonished at how far our branch of archaeology has come in our lifetimes (mine extends over 55 years in the field), we can only marvel at how the editors and numerous authors have collaborated to produce—and fund—such ambitious volumes. Sadly, without the subsidies like those provided by the Levy Foundation for the Ashkelon project, such lavish publications have become almost out of reach for American excavators working in Israel and Jordan. Perhaps BAR readers could help?

William G. Dever is professor emeritus of the Near Eastern studies department at the University of Arizona, Tucson, and Distinguished Visiting Professor of Archaeology and Culture of the Ancient Near East at Lycoming College in Williamsport, Pennsylvania.
 

More on Hazor and Ashkelon in Bible History Daily

Scorched Wheat May Provide Answers on the Destruction of Canaanite Tel Hazor

Ashkelon Excavations Find New Evidence of Philistine Religion

More on Hazor and Ashkelon in the BAS Library

Where Is the Hazor Archive Buried?
BAR 32:02, Mar/Apr 2006
By Sharon Zuckerman

Excavating Hazor, Part One: Solomon’s City Rises from the Ashes
BAR 25:02, Mar/Apr 1999
By Amnon Ben-Tor

Excavating Hazor, Part Two: Did the Israelites Destroy the Canaanite City?
BAR 25:03, May/Jun 1999
By Amnon Ben-Tor and Maria Teresa Rubiato

The Fury of Babylon: Ashkelon and the Archaeology of Destruction
BAR 22:01, Jan/Feb 1996
By Lawrence E. Stager

When Canaanites and Philistines Ruled Ashkelon
BAR 17:02, Mar/Apr 1991
By Lawrence E. Stager

Nominations are invited for the 2013 Biblical Archaeology Society Publication Awards, for books published in 2011 and 2012. The biennial BAS Publication Awards for books about archaeology and the Bible have been presented since 1985. These prestigious awards have now been made possible by a grant from Frederick L. Simmons, Esq. of Glendale, California.

Best Scholarly Book on Archaeology

Judges

MICHAEL COOGAN
Harvard Divinity School
Send books to:
15 Whittemore Street
Concord, MA 01742

ANN KILLEBREW
The Pennsylvania State University
CAMS
Weaver 108
University Park, PA 16802

THOMAS E. LEVY
University of California,
San Diego
Send books to:
3298 Governor Drive #22293
San Diego, CA 92192

Best Popular Book on Archaeology

Judges

MICHAEL COOGAN
Harvard Divinity School
Send books to:
15 Whittemore Street
Concord, MA 01742

ANN KILLEBREW
The Pennsylvania State University
CAMS
Weaver 108
University Park, PA 16802

THOMAS E. LEVY
University of California,
San Diego
Send books to:
3298 Governor Drive #22293
San Diego, CA 92192

Best Book Relating to the Hebrew Bible

Judges

KENT RICHARDS
Emeritus Executive Director of
the Society of Biblical Literature
Send books to:
3 Sandpiper Lane
Mystic, CT 06355

CHOON LEONG SEOW
Princeton Theological Seminary
Department of Biblical Studies
321 Lenox House
Princeton, NJ 08542-0803

GARY A. RENDSBURG
Rutgers University
Department of Jewish Studies
12 College Avenue
New Brunswick, NJ 08901

Best Book Relating to the New Testament

Judges

ADELA YARBRO COLLINS
Yale Divinity School
Send books to:
102 Leete’s Island Road
Guilford, CT 06437-3002

JAMES SANDERS
Emeritus Professor,
Claremont School of Theology
Send books to:
337 West 7th Street
Claremont, CA 91711

VICTOR PAUL FURNISH
Emeritus Professor,
Southern Methodist University
Send books to:
6806 Robin Road
Dallas, TX 75209

Qualifications & Rules

(1) Nominations: Publishers or authors (or others) should send one copy of every nominated book to each of the judges in the relevant category. Please mark “BAS Publication Awards.” One copy should also be sent to BAS Publication Awards, 4710 41st Street NW, Washington DC 20016; please specify the category in which your book is nominated.

(2) Judges are entitled to nominate books.

(3) All nominated books must have been published in English in 2011 or 2012. (Books translated into English from other languages are eligible to be considered for BAS Publication Awards.)

(4) Nominated books must be received by May 8, 2013. At least 3 books in a category must be nominated for a prize to be awarded.

(5) The judges’ decisions are final.

(6) The winning authors will receive an honorary citation certificate and a prize of $500.

Paul and Jesus: How the Apostle Transformed Christianity

By James D. Tabor
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 2012), xxi + 291 pp. $26 (hardcover)

Reviewed by James D.G. Dunn

This is the latest version of an old story—that Paul is the real founder of Christianity—by the author of The Jesus Dynasty. Like his predecessors, Tabor maintains that “the fundamental doctrinal tenets of Christianity,” namely that Christ is God “born in the flesh,” that his sacrificial death atones for the sins of humankind, and that his resurrection from the dead guarantees eternal life to all who believe, can be traced back to Paul, not Jesus (pp. xv–xvi). “Christianity before Paul” was a Jewish version, neither worshiping Jesus nor practicing baptism into Christ (p. 25). We are told that James, its leading figure, has been systematically and deliberately suppressed from the record, though “the lost Christianity of Jesus” is still evident in Q [the supposed text behind Matthew and Luke] and still reflected in the Letter of James and the early Christian treatise called the Didache, the Teachings of the Twelve Apostles.

It was Paul’s conversion experience, his vision(s) of Christ, that was the gamechanger. Our book explains that this puts Paul alongside Moses and Elijah—hence Paul’s own journey to the Sinai desert, following their footsteps (p. 96). This gave him his gospel: “The revelation of the hidden mystery that God is creating a family of glorified Spirit-beings” (p. 97). Paul believed he had been given a special role like that of Christ (“a second ‘Christ’”— p. 100), and that the infusion of the Christ-Spirit into the elect group made them also “Christs” (p. 117). Paul invented Christian baptism “into Christ” and the Lord’s Supper as an act of eating the body and blood of Christ (ch. 6). Paul made a complete break with Judaism and replaced the Torah of Moses with the Torah of Christ (ch. 8). And his relationship with the other great apostle of Christianity, Peter, ended in bitter rivalry (ch. 9).

The thesis has the character of a historical novel—drawing on good knowledge of historical conditions and sources, but tweaking the latter to make the specific case. The problems arise with the tweaks. For example, Tabor allows only one conception of Jesus’ resurrection (that of Paul in 1 Corinthians 15) but ignores the physical character of resurrection assumed in 2 Maccabees 7:10–11 and implied in the Herodian practice of collecting the bones of the deceased in an ossuary. Tabor’s argument that Peter would have realized why the tomb of Jesus was empty (p. 80)—the initial tomb was temporary and Joseph of Arimathea had returned when the Sabbath was over to remove Jesus’ body and transfer it to a permanent tomb (pp. 76–77)— hardly explains how Peter and the first disciples came to the conclusion that God had raised Jesus from the dead. Again, Tabor makes much of the tension between Paul’s insistence that he had received his gospel directly from Christ (Galatians 1:12), and his assertion that the gospel he preached to the Corinthians (1 Corinthians 15:3) was one he had received (from Christians before him). But he ignores the likelihood that the distinctive feature that Paul attributes specifically to Christ and that caused problems with the Jerusalem believers (Galatians 2:2) was the commission to take the gospel also to gentiles. He is deaf to Paul’s affirmation that he shared his gospel with the other apostles (1 Corinthians 15:11). And his overblown assessment of Paul’s evaluation of his commission (“surpassing anything any human being had ever received”—p. 95) likewise ignores the fact that Galatians 1:15–16 is framed precisely in the language of the prophetic call of Jeremiah 1:5. Likewise Tabor’s confidence that following his conversion Paul went to Sinai ignores the more likely scenario implied in Galatians 1:17 that “Arabia” refers to Nabatea (south of Damascus). Tabor’s further argument that Paul invented the ritual act of baptism “into Christ” ignores the evidence that Paul could assume that all believers had been baptized in the name of Christ (1 Corinthians 1:13). And his claim that Paul believed the Torah to be obsolete ignores passages like Romans 8:4 and 1 Corinthians 7:19.

So a lively and thoughtprovoking attempt to resolve some of the historical problems that Paul poses—yes. But, sadly, tendentiousness and text-selectivity renders most of the thesis increasingly implausible.

James D.G. Dunn is Emeritus Lightfoot Professor of Divinity in the department of theology and religion at Durham University in England.

Le Projet Béthesda (1994–2010): La Piscine Probatique de Jésus à Saladin Proche-Orient Chrétien, Numéro Spécial 2011

200 pp., $20 (softcover)
By Claudine Dauphin and Shimon Gibson

Reviewed by Urban C. von Wahlde

This is a preliminary report on “Le Projet Béthesda,” which for the past 18 years has been studying the Pools of Bethesda in Jerusalem, where the Gospel of John recounts Jesus’ healing a crippled man.* During these 18 years the site (and associated museum) has been closed to other researchers. In this respect, the project is somewhat like that of the Dead Sea Scrolls, in which other scholars were excluded from studying a large portion of the scrolls while the scholars assigned to publish them procrastinated.

I wish I could state that this report on the Pools of Bethesda was worth the 18-year wait and the exclusion of other scholars (like me) from studying the site. On the contrary, this preliminary report is disappointing in almost every respect.

The project is directed by Professor Claudine Dauphin, the French representative for archaeological affairs in Jerusalem. Archaeologist Shimon Gibson is responsible for the archaeological part of the report. Dauphin’s discussion of a late mosaic (from the time of the Persian invasion in 638 A.D. to the ascendancy of Saladin in 1187) comprises 124 pages. The archaeological report and discussion by Gibson on the archaeology of the site, which is so important from the viewpoint of Biblical archaeology, is a mere 28 pages. This is only one example of the many ways in which this report is unbalanced.

Although the archaeological section is short, it is not short on new unsupported proposals. For example, Gibson proposes that both pools at Bethesda were built simultaneously in the early Roman period and were intended from their origin as ritual purification pools. I disagree. Given the need for reservoirs in rain-starved Jerusalem every year from March to October and given the steep incline of the Bethesda Valley, it is almost impossible to think that there would not have been an earlier reservoir in such an obvious place.

Another example: Gibson proposes—without argument or discussion—that an inscription found by J. Jeremias in the 1940s is not Hebrew but Greek.

Other examples are too complex for a brief review, but there are a number of them. In short, there is much that is new in Gibson’s report, but, unfortunately, there is no evidence or argument given for much of it. He makes reference in the text to numerous drawings, plans and measurements, but the drawings they refer to are not given. After 18 years, I think we could expect more than this brief survey.

Professor Dauphin indicates that there is yet a second phase of the project to come. So it is not over. Will the site be opened to other researchers now that this preliminary report is out?

I have been told that the project was to have culminated in a two-volume study. For the past year, however, it has been rumored that the archaeological study will not be continued, or at least that it will not be continued by Gibson. This is unfortunate. The Pools of Bethesda are an important Biblical site. These pools together with the pools at Siloam share parallel histories and have much to contribute to our understanding of the Gospel of John, to the development of attitudes toward ritual purity and to the

Notes

* See Urban C. von Wahlde, “The Puzzling Pool of Bethesda,” BAR, September/October 2011. history of water installations before and during the time of Jesus. As a contribution to our knowledge in these respects, the present volume is disappointing. We can only hope that we will not have to wait another 18 years to find out more.

Urban C. von Wahlde is professor of New Testament and former chair of the theology department at Loyola University, Chicago. He is author of a three-volume commentary on the Gospel and Letters of John (Eerdmans, 2010).

Alexander to Constantine Archaeology of the Land of the Bible (Vol. 3)

By Eric M. Meyers and Mark A. Chancey
(New Haven and London: Yale Univ. Press, 2012), xv + 392 pp., $40 (hardcover)

Reviewed by Morten Hørning Jensen

This book bears a heavy weight. Not only is it the third volume in the highly regarded Yale University series Archaeology of the Land of the Bible, it also covers an unusual amount of material—from the advent of Hellenism to the Byzantine period—and all this in 300 pages. To lift such a boulder out of the trench, two distinguished scholars have joined forces. Eric Meyers is a seasoned archaeologist and a leader in the field; Mark Chancey is a historian and theologian with a number of acclaimed publications behind him.

In the introduction, the authors make two important points clear. First, they aim at a “broad audience” including scholars, students and the general public. Second, they have chosen to present the material chronologically rather than by category. That is, instead of outlining developments within architecture, pottery and so on, they advance mainly through historical periods beginning with the Persian period and covering the Greek kingdoms, the Hasmonean period, Herodian rule, the revolts and onward to the emergence of Christianity.

How well do the authors complete the daunting task they have set before them? On a whole, very well, indeed. You feel safe in their hands due to a mix of balanced discussions and an intimate knowledge of the most recent and often unpublished excavations. Especially, I value the places where controversial topics are treated from more than one side, providing the reader with a first hand feeling of research in action.

In addition to the chronological chapters, a number of chapters are devoted to special topics. In my judgment, these are actually the best, having a more defined focus. One chapter deals with history and archaeology in connection with the Dead Sea Scrolls. With zest and enthusiasm, the authors not only tell the tale of the archaeological and textual finds, but they also go through the scholarly debate on the connection between Qumran, the scrolls and the Essenes. In an informative way, they equip the reader to appreciate more than one side of the discussion, while not holding back from arguing their own case. I also found the chapter on early Judaism and the rise of the synagogue as an institution to be exemplary. The authors provide a highly valuable and readable overview of the evolution of the synagogue, informed by the latest findings (such as Magdala*) as well as by the dating difficulties of several of the early synagogues. They likewise deal with the purity question, bringing the reader up to speed by outlining the most recent discussions concerning the termination date of Jewish ritual baths (mikva’ot).

On the flip-side of the coin, the editorial decision to proceed chronologically leaves the overall presentation with two weak sides. The authors seem to have felt compelled to narrate the political history in too great detail as if they were presenting a regular historical analysis illustrated by archaeology, rather than the other way round. Another weakness is the editorial decision to omit comparisons within different categories across periods. To my mind, this omission is a costly one. After all, the very backbone of archaeology is a comparison over the long view. It would have been helpful if at least a small number of excurses provided overviews of developments of different kinds of architectural styles, building types, pottery styles and burial customs, to name but a few. At the very least, one would expect internal crossreferences when the same issue is treated in several chapters.

This will not, though, shake my overall judgment. Meyers and Chancey have accomplished an impressive piece of work, negotiating and balancing many interests into a readable and informative overview of a field that has generated an enormous amount of new material just in the past 30 years. At one and the same time, they provide an introduction for the student and a fresh update for those who are already acquainted with the field. For this we should be very grateful!

Notes

* See Joey Corbett, “New Synagogue Excavations in Israel and Beyond,” BAR, July/August 2011; Hershel Shanks, “Major New Excavation Planned for Mary Magdalene’s Hometown,” BAR, September/October 2007.

Morten Hørning Jensen is associate professor at the Lutheran School of Theology in Aarhus, Denmark, and author of Herod Antipas in Galilee (Mohr Siebeck, 2010).

Jesus and His World: The Archaeological Evidence

By Craig A. Evans
(Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2012), 208 pp., $25 (hardcover)

Reviewed by George Giacumakis

Written for the nonexpert and student, this book examines the archaeological discoveries of the last century and a half that are important to understanding the life and world of Jesus. The information comes not only from archaeological finds in published excavation reports, but also from the author’s visits to the various sites and museums and from interviews with archaeologists.

Jesus and His World centers around five areas of investigation. The first is a discussion of the archaeological finds from Sepphoris, a city neighboring the village of Nazareth. How does this relate to the first-century world of Jesus? The author distinguishes between archaeological finds that were dated to the earlier part of the first century C.E. and finds dated to the latter part of that century. The finds from the pre-70 C.E. period indicate a Jewish community, while the finds from the post-70 C.E. period (after the Roman destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple) point to a more Greek and Roman way of life in Sepphoris.

The second area of focus is the archaeological evidence relating to the first-century synagogue. The author explains that the synagogue of that time was both a congregation or assembly and the actual physical structure. The famous Theodotus Inscription, found in Jerusalem and dating to the first half of the first century, evidences the existence of the synagogue during Jesus’ lifetime, as do pre-70 C.E. excavated synagogues.

One of the strongest chapters of the book focuses on literacy at the time of Jesus. Evans discusses a number of prefirst- century C.E. inscriptions as well as the Dead Sea Scrolls, especially the Biblical scrolls. Numerous Jewish scribes worked in the first century world and produced scrolls not only at Qumran but also in most synagogues. Several references in the Gospels to Jesus reading from a Biblical scroll strongly indicate that Jesus could read, even though he was not formally educated as a scribe.

The fourth chapter deals with the issue of purity in relation to the religious establishment. Jesus and his disciples had confrontations with the ruling priests in Jerusalem. Because of their unwashed hands and feet, the priests declared that Jesus and his followers were unclean. The famous “Temple Warning” inscription is an example of priestly threats of death to all Gentiles or foreigners who came too close to the Temple because they were unclean.

The book’s last chapter deals with archaeological evidence of Jewish burial customs. Evans looks at this evidence (and Jewish customs regarding a dead body) and concludes that the burial of Jesus as portrayed in the Gospels is accurate.

Two appendices—“Have we found the family tomb of Jesus?” and “What did Jesus look like?”—conclude the book. The student is given various possibilities to consider.

Evans has provided a very clear presentation of the first-century world for the nonspecialist, based on the material evidence archaeology provides. This book is strongly recommended for the student of Biblical and historical studies at the time of Jesus.

George Giacumakis is professor of history at California State University, Fullerton, and director emeritus of the university’s Irvine Campus. He is also director of the Museum of Biblical and Sacred Writings in Irvine, California.

Parables of the Sages: Jewish Wisdom from Jesus to Rav Ashi

By R. Steven Notley and Ze’ev Safrai
(Jerusalem: Carta, 2011), xii + 388 pp., $84 (hardcover)

Reviewed by Étienne Nodet

Click here to purchase this book.

The parables of Jesus are well known, but they are not isolated or unrelated to other literature. They indeed belong to a Jewish genre, of which we find many examples in rabbinic literature. As the authors state, “The background for the parables of the New Testament is to be found in the world of Israel’s sages.”

This book provides an annotated collection of 417 parables from the earliest stratum of these rabbinic traditions, known as the period of the Tannaim. Notley and Saffrai give the original Hebrew, an English translation and notes that consider the historical, social and religious aspects of the individual entries, and their contribution to our understanding of the parables of Jesus.

Although written for the general reader, the work also includes all of the scholarly context—a detailed 70-page introduction, a discussion of the sources, short biographies of the sages, a bibliography and indexes.

These Jewish parables are not well known for two main reasons: First, they were published in rabbinic circles well after the New Testament. Second, they are not always easy to understand.

Our authors begin with a definition: A parable is a narrative taken from reality, albeit with some distortions, but without visions or miracles; it has a moral, normally overt; it is introduced by a statement that identifies it as a parable.

Parables do exist in the Old Testament but without that name. For instance, the prophet Nathan tells David a simple story about a rich man and a poor man that seems unconnected to David, but in fact it makes him realize his sin (2 Samuel 12:1–19).

The Tannaitic literature itself (Mishnah, Tosefta, Halakhic Midrashim) contains but a few parables; most are preserved in good, traditional Hebrew in the later collections of rabbinic literature—the Talmud and Midrash Aggadah (Rav Ashi was the editor of the Babylonian Talmud).

The question naturally arises whether the parables in this book have anything to do with the late Second Temple period, the period when Jesus walked this earth. The answer is definitely yes. But there are clearly methodological issues. First, the Tannaitic parables often deal with legal issues that are specifically Jewish; the New Testament parables, on the other hand, shift focus mainly to a kind of general wisdom literature.

Second, a large chunk of the Jewish parables is related to a Second Temple category of Jews called Hasidim present in Galilee. They had religious laws of their own, but they were very pious and sinfearers. They preferred poverty, healed the sick, brought rain and rescued people from trouble. With this we get closer to Jesus. However, while the rabbis admired the Hasidim, they also suspected them of superficial learning, which explains why their parables are not numerous in the official Mishnah; they were recovered later in less authoritative collections.

The Jewish parables often unfold in riddles, as Ezekiel tells us (17:2). Similarly, Jesus teaches the crowds in parables that they do not understand. He urges, “He who has ears, let him hear” (Matthew 13:9). The parables are simple but they must be understood on a deeper level.

A major difference between Jesus and the rabbis is that Jesus taught orally for all, while the rabbis produced learned compositions with parables embedded in them in a very concentrated style, as handy notes for future teaching, prompting the student to learn them as seriously as legal texts. This is the rabbinic style with which we are familiar.

Let me conclude with a saying from Pirkei Avot (Sayings of the Fathers 2:15) with which the authors conclude their “Introduction”: “The day is short, the work is plentiful, the workers are lazy, the wage is abundant and the master of the house hastens!”

Étienne Nodet is professor of intertestamental literature at the École Biblique et ArchÉologique Française in Jerusalem.