Domitian and Geza. “Dear Hershel, ... Margaret and I spent two glorious weeks in Provence at Vaison la Romaine. I hope you are flourishing.”
– Geza. October 22, 2012.

Even before they were fully released, Vermes was an authority on the scrolls that had already been published (mostly by Israeli scholars). His initial translation of the then-available scrolls was a 270-page volume. Edition after edition followed. Now in its seventh edition, the 720-page tome The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English is by far the best-selling of the several English translations available, having sold in excess of a million copies.

He was also an influential authority on so-called “historical Jesus” studies. In his view, now widely accepted, Jesus was not simply a Jew, as everybody knew, but the movement he led during his life was a thoroughly Jewish movement with little intent of becoming a separate religion. Vermes’s views heavily relied on his analysis of contemporaneous Judaism as revealed in the Dead Sea Scrolls.

His personal biography in its own way matched the drama of the Dead Sea Scrolls. He was born to a secular Jewish family in Hungary in 1924. In 1931 (Geza, then six years old), with Nazism on the horizon, his family converted to Catholicism. In 1942, at age 18, he enrolled in a Catholic seminary to become a priest. In a 1994 interview, Vermes told me that, without that, he knew that his “chances of a higher education would have been next to nothing.”* This decision also undoubtedly saved him from the holocaust, but his parents, although nominally Catholic, were not spared. They were taken to a Nazi concentration camp and were never heard from again. (The anti-Jewish legislation in Hungary counted as Catholics only Jews who had converted prior to 1919.)

Vermes later applied to become a Jesuit, but he did not know, as he tells us in his autobiography, that “the Society of Jesus refused in principle to tolerate Jewish converts among its ranks.”** He subsequently sought (twice) to join the order of Dominicans but was twice turned down. “The Dominicans were traditionally as unwilling to admit Jewish convert candidates as the Jesuits.” (This is no longer the case.) So he eventually turned to the Fathers of Notre-Dame de Sion, an order that had been founded by Jewish converts and consisted largely of former Jews.

At that time his interest turned to the scrolls, but his efforts to obtain access were rebuffed by Father Roland de Vaux, who had assembled what Vermes describes as the “notorious … Jew-free editorial team.” Vermes found de Vaux and several members of the elite editorial team not only anti-Israel but also anti-Jewish.

The next chapter in his life is more personal. In 1954 he went to England, where he fell in love with a married woman, lived with her, then married her (Pamela died in 1993 at age 74; he subsequently married his current wife, Margaret, who survives him.) By this time, he had left the priesthood and accepted a teaching position at the University of Newcastle in England. There he was drawn into the Jewish community. As part of his teaching duties, he took his students to the synagogue, his first time there in 40 years. There he met a Hasid who told him a story of a pearl that was lost in the mud yet remained precious. Vermes decided to return to Judaism. Then, eight years after teaching at Newcastle, he was called to Oxford, where he remained to the end of his life.

Geza Vermes died on May 8, 2013, at age 88. The cause was cancer.

Intermittently, beginning in 1992, Vermes agreed to write for BAR, and we became friends. Most recently, he wrote the opening chapter of our book Partings—How Judaism and Christianity Became Two, which will be published this fall.—H.S.

Notes

* “Escape and Rescue—An Interview with Geza Vermes, An oxford Don’s Peregrinations,” Bible Review, June 1994.

** For a review, see Hershel Shanks, “Geza the Jew,” Bible Review, June 1999.

Recent research exposed hints of red and purple dye on this ivory tablet from Arslan Tash, stored in the Louvre in Paris.

Read more in Chemical and Engineering News or click here to read the original study in Analytical Chemistry.
 

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The famous Lebanese cedar tree was widely used in the construction of ancient temples, palaces and seagoing vessels, including Solomon’s Temple and the so-called “Jesus Boat.” But what exactly made its timbers so important for ancient woodworking?

In the Biblical world, Lebanese cedar (Cedrus libani) trees were highly sought after as an excellent source of timber for ancient woodworking. The wood’s high quality, pleasant scent and resistance to both rot and insects made it a popular building material for temples, palaces and seagoing vessels, from Solomon’s famed Temple to the so-called “Jesus Boat” of the first century C.E. Today, Lebanese cedar trees grow mostly in Lebanon and southern Turkey, with a few found in Cyprus and Syria. As the Bible makes clear, the valuable wood had to be imported into ancient Israel.

The Phoenician king Hiram of Tyre sent Lebanese cedar, carpenters and masons to Jerusalem to build a palace for King David (2 Samuel 5:11). Likewise, Hiram provided cedars and artisans to King Solomon for the construction of his own palace as well as the Temple in Jerusalem (2 Chronicles 2:3,7; 1 Kings 5:20). The Bible also informs us that Lebanese cedar timbers were commonly transported by sea. The Book of Ezra reports that timbers were hauled to the Phoenician coast and then sailed to Jaffa for transport to Jerusalem (Ezra 3:7).

Though not used by Jesus himself, the so-called “Jesus Boat,” dating to the first century C.E., is very similar to the boats Jesus and his disciples would have used to cross and fish the Sea of Galilee. Analysis showed that at least some of the boat’s reused timbers were made from Lebanese cedar.

Lebanese cedar wood was also popular for ancient woodworking and ship construction because it is easily worked and shaped, it seasons with minimal shrinkage or distortion and it resists decay in salt water better than most types of wood. In the ancient shipwreck off the Uluburun promontory of Turkey, nearly all of the boards of the hull were made of Lebanese cedar. This famous late-14th-century B.C.E. wreck contained a cargo of precious metals, jewelry, ivory, ebony and other valuable materials, suggesting that it was probably a royal shipment.

One of Israel’s best-known shipwrecks also bears evidence of ancient woodworking with cedar timbers. The so-called “Jesus Boat,” dated to the first century and recovered from the Sea of Galilee, was built mostly of reused timbers, some of which were made from Lebanese cedar. While the “Jesus Boat” cannot be linked to the life of Jesus, scholars believe it was the type of boat that was used by Jesus and his disciples in their many travels upon the Sea of Galilee.
 

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When Al-Aqsa Mosque was reconstructed in the 1930s and 1940s, massive Cedar of Lebanon and cypress beams were reused or removed. Some are much older than the mosque itself. Were they once part of Herod’s Temple Mount architecture? Learn more in Bible History Daily.

BAS Library Members: read the full article “Wooden Beams from Herod’s Temple Mount: Do They Still Exist?” by Peretz Reuven as it appears in the May/June 2013 issue of BAR.

The restoration of Al-Aqsa Mosque in the 1930s and 1940s included the removal of dozens of wooden beams that predate the mosque’s construction. These beams may have come from buildings on Herod’s Temple Mount. Photo: Israel Antiquities Authority Scientific Archives.

Did the wooden beams from Herod’s Temple Mount survive? In the May/June 2013 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review, Peretz Reuven studies beams removed from the Al-Aqsa Mosque to reveal the storied history of Jerusalem’s Temple Mount.

How did wooden beams from the era of Herod’s Temple Mount end up being used as tie beams and bond timbers in the Al-Aqsa Mosque?
 

High-quality Cedar of Lebanon and cypress beams from Herod’s Temple Mount would have been used and reused in a phenomenon known to archaeologists as “secondary use.” R.W. Hamilton’s 1949 publication on the dismantling of the Al-Aqsa Mosque already noted that many beams showed signs of secondary use. These signs include functional depressions or protrusions intended from their original use as well as decorative woodcarving styles from earlier periods.
 

ON THE COVER: A beam from the Al-Aqsa Mosque with Roman-style carvings may have come from the Royal Stoa on Herod’s Temple Mount. Photo: Peretz Reuven

Despite conservation issues, Peretz Reuven was able to make detailed analyses of the beams. For example, indentations on the underside of a beam with Herodian/Roman-period decorations suggest that it rested on column capitals in an earlier structure. The indentations are spaced at a similar interval to columns at Herod’s Royal Stoa. Did this beam, featured on the cover of the May/June 2013 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review, come from one of Herod’s Temple Mount structures?
 

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Related Content in Bible History Daily

Lebanese Cedar—The Prized Tree of Ancient Woodworking

Layers of Jerusalem Archaeology

The Stones of Herod’s Temple Reveal Temple Mount History
 

Related Products in the BAS Store

Jerusalem’s Temple Mount by Hershel Shanks.

The Archaeology of Jerusalem DVD documentary.

The Walls of the Temple Mount by Eilat Mazar.

Who were the Minoans? The Minoan civilization is remembered for its ornate frescoes, including this Prince of the Lillies from the palace at Knossos.

Who were the Minoans? Despite their celebrated legacy, the Minoan civilization remains shrouded in mystery. We do not know what language was spoken on Crete, and the scripts of the early Minoan civilization—Cretan Hieroglyphics and Linear A—have eluded translation attempts for over a century. Despite extensive archaeological research exploring the history of Crete, the Minoan civilization has always kept close ties to the world of mythology. Sir Arthur Evans, the first man to carry out extensive excavations in Crete, named the society after the mythological king Minos. Crete’s Minoan landscape serves as the setting for countless legends, including the birthplace of Zeus, the labyrinth where Theseus killed the Minotaur and the prison that Deadalus and Icarus fled with their ill-fated wings.

But who were the Minoans? Who were the people that left us with such grand mysteries and ornate palaces?

Sir Arthur Evans claimed that the ancestors of the Minoan civilization came from North Africa, but more recent scholars have suggested dozens of additional forefathers for the Minoan population. On May 14, 2013, Nature Communications published the study “A European population in Minoan Bronze Age Crete,” analyzing mitochondrial DNA from Minoan osseous tissue found in caves at the Cretan Lassithi plateau. It suggests that the Minoan civilization was comprised of local Europeans rather than outsiders. The Greek and American research team writes that “Our data are compatible with the hypothesis of an autochthonous development of the Minoan civilization by the descendants of the Neolithic settlers of the island” and that “shared haplotypes, principal component and pairwise distance analyses refute the Evans North African hypothesis.”
 

Who were the Minoans? Knossos's Ladies in Blue are genetically related to modern Europeans, according to a recent DNA study. Archaeological Museum of Iraklion.

While mysteries about the seafaring Minoan civilization remain, we are one step closer to answering the question: Who were the Minoans? As University of Washington geneticist George Stamatoyannopoulos says, “We now know that the founders of the first advanced European civilization were European.”

Read “A European population in Minoan Bronze Age Crete” in Nature Communications.
 

Read more about Minoan civilization in the BAS Library

Muhly, James D. “The Minoans of Crete: Europe’s Oldest Civilization: Excavating Minoan Sites.” Archaeology Odyssey, Mar/Apr 2004, 26-31, 34-37.

“Past Perfect: In Pursuit of Minoan Crete.” Archaeology Odyssey, Jan/Feb 2005, 28-31.

Unsworth, Barry. “The Minoans of Crete: Europe’s Oldest Civilization: Imagining the Minoans.” Archaeology Odyssey, Mar/Apr 2004, 18-25.

“Ancient Life: Bull Jumping.” Archaeology Odyssey, Jan/Feb 2000, 64.

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Photo: Yael Yolovitch / Israeli Antiquities Authority / EPA

BAS Library Members, read “Samson in the Synagogue” by Jodi Magness as it appeared in the January/February 2013 issue of BAR.

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Photo: Yael Yolovitch / Israeli Antiquities Authority / EPA

This article, discussing the inscription “Gabriel’s Revelation,” was originally published on Dr. James Tabor’s popular Taborblog, a site that discusses and reports on “‘All things biblical’ from the Hebrew Bible to Early Christianity in the Roman World and Beyond.” Bible History Daily republished the article with consent of the author. Visit Taborblog today, or scroll down to read a brief bio of James Tabor below.

The stone itself is currently on display in Jerusalem at the Israel Museum:

JERUSALEM (AP) — An ancient limestone tablet covered with a mysterious Hebrew text that features the archangel Gabriel is at the center of a new exhibit in Jerusalem, even as scholars continue to argue about what it means.

The so-called Gabriel Stone, a meter (three-foot)-tall tablet said to have been found 13 years ago on the banks of the Dead Sea, features 87 lines of an unknown prophetic text dated as early as the first century BC, at the time of the Second Jewish Temple.

Scholars see it as a portal into the religious ideas circulating in the Holy Land in the era when was Jesus was born. Its form is also unique — it is ink written on stone, not carved — and no other such religious text has been found in the region.

Curators at the Israel Museum, where the first exhibit dedicated to the stone is opening Wednesday, say it is the most important document found in the area since the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

You can read the rest of the AP story here.
 

By three days–live, I Gabriel command you, prince of princes, the dung of rocky crevices.”

In a paper given at a 2009 conference at Rice University on the Gabriel Stone, now published in the conference volume as, “The Apocalyptic Dimensions of the Gabriel Revelation in Their Historical Context,” Knohl says he was mistaken in his original reading.[1] Knohl still maintains that the text was “composed shortly after 4 B.C.E.” by “followers of the messianic leader Simon, who was killed in Transjordan in 4 B.C.E.,” which is where the stone was probably found. He continues to see it as an example of what he calls “catastrophic messianism” where a slain Messiah gives a new/holy covenant to Israel. What he now doubts is that the text speaks of “making the dead live after three days.” Following the readings of Yardeni and Elizur he accepts as the translation for line 80:

In three days the sign will be (given). I am Gabriel

The critical word that Knohl once read as a verb, “to make live” (חאיה) now is read as the noun “sign” (האות). On the whole, however, his overall interpretation is the same and if he is correct the text continues to have great significance for our understanding of “messianism” among late 2nd Temple Jewish groups.

Though I greatly respect Knohl’s integrity in so freely changing his mind I am not convinced that this alternative reading is necessarily correct. Unfortunately the text is faded at this point, and even after subjecting it to a battery of scientific tests designed to enhance its clarity, it may be that we will never know with certainty how it should be read.
 

Notes

1. In Hazon Gabriel: New Readings of the Gabriel Revelation, edited by Matthias Henze (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2011): 36-60. See the SBL review of the volume here.

Dr. James Tabor is Chair of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte where he is professor of Christian origins and ancient Judaism. Since earning his Ph.D. at the University of Chicago in 1981, Tabor has combined his work on ancient texts with extensive field work in archaeology in Israel and Jordan, including work at Qumran, Sepphoris, Masada, Wadi el-Yabis in Jordan. Over the past decade he has teamed up with with Shimon Gibson to excavate the “John the Baptist” cave at Suba, the “Tomb of the Shroud” discovered in 2000, Mt Zion and, along with Rami Arav, he has been involved in the re-exploration of two tombs in East Talpiot including the controversial “Jesus tomb.” Tabor is the author of the popular Taborblog, and several of his recent posts have been featured in Bible History Daily as well as the Huffington Post. His latest book, Paul and Jesus: How the Apostle Transformed Christianity has become a immediately popular with specialists and non-specialists alike. You can find links to all of Dr. Tabor’s web pages, books, and projects at jamestabor.com.

“During these times there was a pestilence, by which the whole human race came near to being annihilated.”
–Procopius, 542 C.E. (scroll down for his full description).

The Justinian Plague decimated the Byzantine population during the reign of the Christian emperor Justinian I. Portrait in the Basilica of San Vitale, Ravenna.

New bacterial research has linked the Justinian plague to world’s most infamous affliction, the Black Death, which claimed the lives of up to 200 million people in the 14th century, as well as the third pandemic in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Scientists investigating DNA from the teeth of nineteen skeletons from the sixth-century German cemetery Aschheim confirmed the presence of Yersinia pestis, the bacteria associated with the bubonic and other plagues.  

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Read the full study “Yersinia pestis DNA from Skeletal Remains from the 6th Century AD Reveals Insights into Justinianic Plague” as it appears in the open access, peer reviewed journal PLOS Pathogens.

Procopius on the Justinian Plague

** This text by the sixth-century historian Procopius is republished from Fordham University’s Internet Medieval Sourcebook. In “History of the Wars, II.xxii-xxxiii,” Procopius describes the events of 542 C.E. This translation is from Procopius, History of the Wars, 7 Vols., trans. H. B. Dewing, Loeb Library of the Greek and Roman Classics, (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1914), Vol. I, pp. 451-473., available online here. **

DURING these times there was a pestilence, by which the whole human race came near to being annihilated. Now in the case of all other scourges sent from heaven some explanation of a cause might be given by daring men, such as the many theories propounded by those who are clever in these matters; for they love to conjure up causes which are absolutely incomprehensible to man, and to fabricate outlandish theories of natural philosophy knowing well that they are saying nothing sound but considering it sufficient for them, if they completely deceive by their argument some of those whom they meet and persuade them to their view. But for this calamity it is quite impossible either to express in words or to conceive in thought any explanation, except indeed to refer it to God. For it did not come in a part of the world nor upon certain men, nor did it confine itself to any season of the year, so that from such circumstances it might be possible to find subtle explanations of a cause, but it embraced the entire world, and blighted the lives of all men, though differing from one another in the most marked degree, respecting neither sex nor age.

For much as men differ with regard to places in which they live, or in the law of their daily life, or in natural bent, or in active pursuits, or in whatever else man differs from man, in the case of this disease alone the difference availed naught. And it attacked some in the summer season, others in the winter, and still others at the other times of the year. Now let each one express his own judgment concerning the matter, both sophist and astrologer, but as for me, I shall proceed to tell where this disease originated and the manner in which it destroyed men.

It started from the Egyptians who dwell in Pelusium. Then it divided and moved in one direction towards Alexandria and the rest of Egypt, and in the other direction it came to Palestine on the borders of Egypt; and from there it spread over the whole world, always moving forward and travelling at times favorable to it. For it seemed to move by fixed arrangement, and to tarry for a specified time in each country, casting its blight slightingly upon none, but spreading in either direction right out to the ends of the world, as if fearing lest some corner of the earth might escape it. For it left neither island nor cave nor mountain ridge which had human inhabitants; and if it had passed by any land, either not affecting the men there or touching them in indifferent fashion, still at a later time it came back; then those who dwelt round about this land, whom formerly it had afflicted most sorely, it did not touch at all, but it did not remove from the place in question until it had given up its just and proper tale of dead, so as to correspond exactly to the number destroyed at the earlier time among those who dwelt round about. And this disease always took its start from the coast, and from there went up to the interior.
 

Up to this point, then, everything went in about the same way with all who had taken the disease. But from then on very marked differences developed; and I am unable to say whether the cause of this diversity of symptoms was to be found in the difference in bodies, or in the fact that it followed the wish of Him who brought the disease into the world. For there ensued with some a deep coma, with others a violent delirium, and in either case they suffered the characteristic symptoms of the disease. For those who were under the spell of the coma forgot all those who were familiar to them and seemed to lie sleeping constantly. And if anyone cared for them, they would eat without waking, but some also were neglected, and these would die directly through lack of sustenance. But those who were seized with delirium suffered from insomnia and were victims of a distorted imagination; for they suspected that men were coming upon them to destroy them, and they would become excited and rush off in flight, crying out at the top of their voices. And those who were attending them were in a state of constant exhaustion and had a most difficult time of it throughout. For this reason everybody pitied them no less than the sufferers, not because they were threatened by the pestilence in going near it (for neither physicians nor other persons were found to contract this malady through contact with the sick or with the dead, for many who were constantly engaged either in burying or in attending those in no way connected with them held out in the performance of this service beyond all expectation, while with many others the disease came on without warning and they died straightway); but they pitied them because of the great hardships which they were undergoing. For when the patients fell from their beds and lay rolling upon the floor, they kept putting them back in place, and when they were struggling to rush headlong out of their houses, they would force them back by shoving and pulling against them. And when water chanced to be near, they wished to fall into it, not so much because of a desire for drink (for the most of them rushed into the sea), but the cause was to be found chiefly in the diseased state of their minds. They had also great difficulty in the matter of eating, for they could not easily take food. And many perished through lack of any man to care for them, for they were either overcome by hunger, or threw themselves down from a height. And in those cases where neither coma nor delirium came on, the bubonic swelling became mortified and the sufferer, no longer able to endure the pain, died. And one would suppose that in all cases the same thing would have been true, but since they were not at all in their senses, some were quite unable to feel the pain; for owing to the troubled condition of their minds they lost all sense of feeling.

Now some of the physicians who were at a loss because the symptoms were not understood, supposing that the disease centred in the bubonic swellings, decided to investigate the bodies of the dead. And upon opening some of the swellings, they found a strange sort of carbuncle that had grown inside them. Death came in some cases immediately, in others after many days; and with some the body broke out with black pustules about as large as a lentil and these did not survive even one day, but all succumbed immediately. With many also a vomiting of blood ensued without visible cause and straightway brought death. Moreover I am able to declare this, that the most illustrious physicians predicted that many would die, who unexpectedly escaped entirely from suffering shortly afterwards, and that they declared that many would be saved, who were destined to be carried off almost immediately. So it was that in this disease there was no cause which came within the province of human reasoning; for in all cases the issue tended to be something unaccountable. For example, while some were helped by batlling, others were harmed in no less degree. And of those who received no care many died, but others, contrary to reason, were saved. And again, methods of treatment showed different results with different patients. Indeed the whole matter may be stated thus, that no device was discovered by man to save himself, so that either by taking precautions he should not suffer, or that when the malady had assailed him he should get the better of it; but suffering came without warning and recovery was due to no external cause. And in the case of women who were pregnant death could be certainly foreseen if they were taken with the disease. For some died through miscarriage, but others perished immediately at the time of birth with the infants they bore. However, they say that three women in confinement survived though their children perished, and that one woman died at the very time of childbirth but that the child was born and survived.

Now in those cases where the swelling rose to an unusual size and a discharge of pus had set in, it came about that they escaped from the disease and survived, for clearly the acute condition of the carbuncle had found relief in this direction, and this proved to be in general an indication of returning health; but in cases where the swelling preserved its former appearance there ensued those troubles which I have just mentioned. And with some of them it came about that the thigh was withered, in which case, though the swelling was there, it did not develop the least suppuration. With others who survived the tongue did not remain unaffected, and they lived on either lisping or speaking incoherently and with difficulty.

Now the disease in Byzantium ran a course of four months, and its greatest virulence lasted about three. And at first the deaths were a little more than the normal, then the mortality rose still higher, and afterwards the tale of dead reached five thousand each day, and again it even came to ten thousand and still more than that. Now in the beginning each man attended to the burial of the dead of his own house, and these they threw even into the tombs of others, either escaping detection or using violence; but afterwards confusion and disorder everywhere became complete. For slaves remained destitute of masters, and men who in former times were very prosperous were deprived of the service of their domestics who were either sick or dead, and many houses became completely destitute of human inhabitants. For this reason it came about that some of the notable men of the city because of the universal destitution remained unburied for many days.

And it fell to the lot of the emperor, as was natural, to make provision for the trouble. He therefore detailed soldiers from the palace and distributed money, commanding Theodorus to take charge of this work; this man held the position of announcer of imperial messages, always announcing to the emperor the petitions of his clients, and declaring to them in turn whatever his wish was. In the Latin tongue the Romans designate this office by the term Referendarius. So those who had not as yet fallen into complete destitution in their domestic affairs attended individually to the burial of those connected with them. But Theodorus, by giving out the emperor=s money and by making further expenditures from his own purse, kept burying the bodies which were not cared for. And when it came about that all the tombs which had existed previously were filled with the dead, then they dug up all the places about the city one after the other, laid the dead there, each one as he could, and departed; but later on those who were making these trenches, no longer able to keep up with the number of the dying, mounted the towers of the fortifications in Sycae [Galata], and tearing off the roofs threw the bodies there in complete disorder; and they piled them up just as each one happened to fall, and filled practically all the towers with corpses, and then covered them again with their roofs. As a result of this an evil stench pervaded the city and distressed the inhabitants still more, and especially whenever the wind blew fresh from that quarter.

At that time all the customary rites of burial were overlooked. For the dead were not carried out escorted by a procession in the customary manner, nor were the usual chants sung overthem, but it was sufficient if one carried on his shoulders the body of one of the dead to the parts of the city which bordered on the sea and flung him down; and there the corpses would be thrown upon skiffs in a heap, to be conveyed wherever it might chance. At that time, too, those of the population who had formerly been members of the factions laid aside their mutual enmity and in common they attended to the burial rites of the dead, and they carried with their own hands the bodies of those who were no connections of theirs and buried them. Nay, more, those who in times past used to take delight in devoting themselves to pursuits both shameful and base, shook off the unrighteousness of their daily lives and practiced the duties of religion with diligence, not so much because they had learned wisdom at last nor because they had become all of a sudden lovers of virtue, as it were—for when qualities have become fixed in men by nature or by the training of a long period of time, it is impossible for them to lay them aside thus lightly, except, indeed, some divine influence for good has breathed upon them—but then all, so to speak, being thoroughly terrified by the things which were happening, and supposing that they would die immediately, did, as was natural, learn respectability for a season by sheer necessity. Therefore as soon as they were rid of the disease and were saved, and already supposed that they were in security, since the curse had moved on to other peoples, then they turned sharply about and reverted once more to their baseness of hearts and now, more than before, they make a display of the inconsistency of their conduct, altogether surpassing themselves in villainy and in lawlessness of every sort. For one could insist emphatically without falsehood that this disease, whether by chance or by some providence, chose out with exactitude the worst men and let them go free. But these things were displayed to the world in later times.

During that time it seemed no easy thing to see any man in the streets of Byzantium, but all who had the good fortune to he in health were sitting in their houses, either attending the sick or mourning the dead. And if one did succeed in meeting a man going out, he was carrying one of the dead. And work of every description ceased, and all the trades were abandoned by the artisans, and all other work as well, such as each had in hand. Indeed in a city which was simply abounding in all good things starvation almost absolute was running riot. Certainly it seemed a difficult and very notable thing to have a sufficiency of bread or of anything else; so that with some of the sick it appeared that the end of life came about sooner than it should have come by reason of the lack of the necessities of life.

And, to put all in a word, it was not possible to see a single man in Byzantium clad in the chlamys, and especially when the emperor became ill (for he too had a swelling of the groin), but in a city which held dominion over the whole Roman empire every man was wearing clothes befitting private station and remaining quietly at home. Such was the course of the pestilence in the Roman empire at large as well as in Byzantium. And it fell also upon the land of the Persians and visited all the other barbarians besides.

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Archaeology is quickly moving into a new era. While archaeologists aren’t ready to forgo their trowels just yet, the introduction of a new 21st-century toolkit has already transformed the field. Every excavation uses archaeological technology differently. Some select dig sites based on satellite imagery, while others save technology for post-excavation visualizations. As burgeoning digitization technologies enter the day-to-day of archaeological fieldwork, the Biblical Archaeology Society Archaeological Technology Scholar’s Study will be your one-stop guide into the future of the past.  

Resources on technology in archaeology

Read more about each of these articles below.

• Cyber-Archaeology in the Holy Land — The Future of the Past (full free eBook).

• Practical Uses for Photogrammetry on Archaeological Excavations

• GIS in Archaeology

• Archaeological Views: New Eyeballs on Ancient Texts

• Try the Latest Technology for Yourself

• Video: 3-D Digging at Çatalhöyük
 

Cyber-Archaeology has led to the development of new recording techniques, analytical methods, visualization tools and data-sharing structures. The FREE Biblical Archaeology Society eBook Cyber-Archaeology in the Holy Land — The Future of the Past is the authoritative guide for archaeologists wanting to learn more about a diverse and integrated toolkit—including GPS, Light Detection and Ranging Laser Scanning, unmanned aerial drones, 3D artifact scans, CAVE visualization environments and collaborative online databases. Written by pioneering researchers from the University of California, San Diego’s Center of Interdisciplinary Science for Art, Architecture and Archaeology, the FREE eBook Cyber-Archaeology in the Holy Land — The Future of the Past is a must-read guide.

While new digital technologies are produced every day, archaeological photography is still the cornerstone of site visualization and analysis. How do archaeologists make accurate measurements, create site plans, compare stratigraphy and digitize image data out of straightforward digital photographs? In the article “Practical Uses for Photogrammetry on Archaeological Excavations,” Adam Prins and Matthew J. Adams of the Jezreel Valley Regional Project provide an intelligible and illustrated step-by-step guide to a process known as photogrammetry. Learn how excavators combine total station survey data, traditional archaeological photography and geospatial rectification to create comprehensible images of sites and stratigraphy.
 

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Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are quickly changing the way archaeologists record where excavated artifacts are found on their digs. These spatial databases combine information collected from maps, GPS (Global Positioning Systems), site plans, photos and notes into a single geographic search engine that can easily retrieve anything that has been recorded about a particular artifact or feature from a site. Learn about this common archaeological mapping technology in Glenn J. Corbett’s Bible History Daily exclusive “GIS in Archaeology.”

The study of ancient texts—especially those that tell us most about the cultures from which the Bible emerged—is on the edge of a revolution. Dramatic new imaging technologies are just now becoming available that allow us to see and reclaim the readings of ancient documents in a manner never before possible. In an archaeological views column, University of Southern California Hebrew Bible Professor Bruce Zuckerman describes how Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI) allows for unprecedented control of how an image is displayed, especially in terms of the play of light so crucial to bringing out hidden details that are often the key to proper interpretation. In a Bible History Daily web-exclusive feature, readers can see the power of RTI imaging for themselves. Enjoy videos that show RT images in action. Learn more about how and why RTI works. Plus, download a free RTI viewer and some sample RTI images so you can—quite literally—get the picture.

Stay tuned for forthcoming publications in the BAS technology section. We’ll be updating the page with presentations on new technologies, slideshows and much more!

Archaeological technology in the news

3-D Printing the Ancient World

Digitizing Israel’s Scientific Archive

Update: BAR editor Hershel Shanks wrote an obituary for his friend Geza Vermes, and published it online in Bible History Daily. Click here to read his remembrance.

It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of Geza Vermes, a giant in the fields of Dead Sea Scrolls and Christian Origins scholarship and a friend of BAS. An Oxford don, professor of Jewish Studies and director of the Forum for Qumran Research at the Oxford Centre for Postgraduate Hebrew Studies, Vermes was a specialist on the historical Jesus and the world that he inhabited. Vermes published the first English translation of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1962, and today, more readers encounter the scrolls through his The Dead Sea Scrolls in English than through any other work.

We will issue a more complete remembrance of this scholar and friend in the coming days.
Update: BAR editor Hershel Shanks wrote an obituary for his friend Geza Vermes, and published it online in Bible History Daily. Click here to read his remembrance.
 

Click here to read a personal remembrance for Vermes on Duke University Professor Mark Goodacre’s NT Blog.
 

Recent Publications by Vermes in the BAS Library

From Jewish to Gentile
BAR Nov/Dec 2012
By Geza Vermes

The Dead Sea Scrolls: How They Changed My Life
BAR, Jul/Aug 2007
By Lawrence H. Schiffman and Geza Vermes