Biblical Archaeology session 7
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Biblical Archaeology session 7
- 1. THE BIBLE AND ARCHAEOLOGY Session 7 Welcome
- 3. ABRAHAM ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE BIBLICAL RECORD PART 2
- 4. EXPLORING ABRAHAM’S LIFE • Abraham- ignorant Arab sheik • Abraham the merchant prince • Abraham the warrior • Abraham the trader VIEWS OF ABRAHAM
- 5. CYRUS GORDON American Near Eastern Scholar 1908-2001
- 6. ABRAHAM THE MERCHANT PRINCE • Finds in Ras Shamra in Syria • Mentions merchants from Ura • The City of Ugarit in the Hittite Kingdom • King of Ugarit complained about the merchants from Ura • He restricted the trade of the merchants • Based on Genesis 42:34; 34:10, and 23:16
- 7. Where is Ras Shamra? Ugarit
- 8. BIBLICAL VIEW OF ABRAHAM • He was rich in flocks and herds • He was influential • He bought land for his burial • He traveled extensively • He was regarded as important by the princes of Pharaoh and Pharaoh's house • He equipped an army to save Lot
- 9. ABRAHAM RESCUES LOT • Genesis 14 and the coalition of Mesopotamian Kings • Lot and his family became a captive as a result of this war • Abraham arms and trains some men to rescue them • They are successful
- 10. HISTORICITY OF GENESIS 14 1. Amraphel King of Shinar 2. Arioch (Arriyuk or Arriwuk) 3. Ellasar (Asshur or Larsa) 4. Chedorlaomer (Kudur-Lagamar) 5. Tidal (Tudkhalia)
- 11. MARI • Mari (Tell Hariri) was discovered in 1933 • Found a large palace which included a library and ziggurat • Akkadian Cuneiform is the language • Dates between 2700 B.C. and 1700 B.C. • Mentions about 500 place names including Hazor (Josh 11:10) and Laish (Judges 18)
- 12. MARI TABLET
- 13. WHERE IS MARI (Tell Hariri)?
- 14. KING YAHDUN-LIM OF MARI • Reigned around 1820 B.C. • In a letter left an account of a series of raids into Syria/Palestine • Needed to enforce submission of local kings • Fits well into the Genesis 14 narrative
- 15. CAVE OF MACHPELAH • Genesis 23:19 • Same as modern day Hebron • Burial place and first plot of land that Abraham bought in Israel • Bought originally for Sarah but was used for Abraham, Isaac, Rebekah, Leah,Jacob and Joseph. • Herod the Great built a monument in Hebron
- 16. GENESIS 23:19 And after this, Abraham buried Sarah his wife in the cave of the field of Machpelah before Mamre: the same is Hebron in the land of Canaan.
- 18. CAVE OF THE PATRIARCHS
- 19. THE CAVE WHERE IT ALL BEGAN
- 20. ABRAHAM’S EFFECT TODAY • Israel’s independence --1967 • Moshe Dayan, Minister of Defense • Exploring the mysterious cave • 700 years since last exploration • Young 12 year old Michal • Secrets revealed • Disappointment…
- 21. QUESTIONS? Does anyone have any questions about last weeks lesson?
- 22. OT AND NT ARCHAEOLOGY • Focus • Setting • People • Scope • Science DIFFERENCES
- 23. NT AND OT ARCHAEOLOGY • We are dealing with “old” things • Digs and tells are still important • Purpose SIMILARITIES
- 24. NEW TESTAMENT AND ARCHAEOLOGY OVERVIEW 1.The Archaeology before Jesus' Birth 2.The Archaeology at Jesus’ Birth 3.The Archaeology during Jesus’ Life 4.The Archaeology after Jesus death and Resurrection
- 25. HISTORY AND ARCHAEOLOGY • Herod the Great (Herodian Dynasty) • Rome, Parthia, Seleucids, Hasmoneans • Antiochus Epiphanes • Hanukkah or Feast of Dedication • Palaestina, Judeaus, and Ioudas
- 26. HEROD (THE GREAT) 73 BC- 4 BC
- 27. WHO WAS HEROD (THE GREAT)? • His father (Antipater) and mother (Cyprus) were Idumeans (Edomites) • He was from Jericho • He was a nominal Jew • He married into the Hasmonean dynasty • He is mentioned twice in the New Testament (Matt 2:1-19; Luke 1:5) • He had ten wives
- 28. HEROD’S KINGDOM
- 29. MACCABEAN LINEAGE Fight for Power
- 30. HERODIAN DYNASTY
- 33. ROMAN I (HERODIAN) • 37 B.C. – 70 A.D • Roman domination • Herod (the Great) and his sons rule Israel • The line of David as a political force has been marginalized • The priestly class has been politicized and corrupted • Vying political parties vied for control of the Temple
- 34. ARCHAEOLOGY AND HEROD • Temples to Roma, Augustus and Baal Shamim, the Pythian temple at Rhodes and Jerusalem Temple • Palaces at Masada, Jericho, Ascalon and others • Gymnasia, baths, fountains, colonnades, markets and other public buildings throughout the eastern Roman empire • The cities Sebaste and Caesarea Maritima
- 35. MASADA
- 36. HERODIUM
- 37. CAESAREA MARITIMA (BY THE SEA)
- 38. PUBLIC FORUM
- 39. HEROD’S DEATH
- 40. “In the days of Herod the king…” • Luke 1:5 There was in the days of Herod, the king of Judaea, a certain priest named Zacharias, of the course of Abia: and his wife was of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elisabeth. • Matthew 2:1 Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem, Jesus was born into this world
Editor's Notes
- Welcome Prayer requests Prayer review
- Abraham is mentioned over 300 times in the Bible
- Old Testament critics of the latter nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were very skeptical of the greatness of Abraham, his possessions, and his faith. Many liked to describe him as an ignorant Arab sheik living in a nomadic state. For such a one it meant nothing to move from Ur to Haran and then on to Palestine. It involved no sacrifice. He merely pulled up stakes and moved on to better grazing lands.
- The reason I mention Cyrus Gordon is that this on step away from the higher critical view that he was a migrant Arab sheik and he based his view at least partially on Archaeological finds.
- Ura was in the Hittite empire. It seems that the King of Ugarit (ancient name of Ras Shamra) complained to the Hittite king at Boghaz-koi (near modern Ankara, Turkey) about the activities at Ugarit of Hittite merchants from Ura (somewhere in Hittite territory) whence came many of the Hittite merchants. The Hittite king replied by ordering Ura merchants to carry on trade at Ugarit only in the summer, to leave Ugarit in the winter, and forbidding them to own real estate at Ugarit. Gordon feels that the Hebrew patriarchs fit into the general context of merchant activity indicated by the Ugarit literature, and he calls to our attention several Biblical references which indicate that the patriarchs were merchants. Joseph told his brethren that if they could prove their honest intentions, they would be permitted to trade in the land (Gen. 42:34). The Shechemites gave permission to Jacob's household to "dwell and trade" and "acquire real estate" in their territory (Gen. 34:10). So the Shechemites gave the Hebrew merchants rights denied by the Hittite king. In Genesis 23 Abraham was permitted to buy land from Ephron the Hittite for 400 shekels of silver-called 'current money with the merchant" (v. 16).
- So Gordon concludes that "the patriarchal narratives, far from reflecting Bedouin life, are highly international in their milieu, in a setting where a world order enabled men to travel far and wide for business enterprise. . . . Abraham comes from beyond the Euphrates, plies his trade in Canaan, visits Egypt, deals with Hittites, makes treaties with Philistines, forms military alliances with Amorites, fights kinglets from as far off as Elam, marries the Egyptian Hagar, etc."2 Another problem with this view is that the Ras Shamra date to between 1450-1200 BC which is a lot later than Abraham.
- GENESIS 14 None of the invading kings or events mentioned in Genesis 14 have been identified or confirmed from archaeological evidence, but circumstantial evidence in extra- biblical sources does shed light on this text and supports its historicity. There is no reason to treat it as fiction, as many scholars do.1 'Amraphel king of Shinar" (i.e., southern Mesopotamia) is no longer identified, as he once m with Hammurabi of Babylon, but the area from which Amraphel is said to have come, Shinar, is Babylonia.2 The name Arioch is rendered as Arriyuk or Arriwuk in eighteenth- through fifteenth- century texts discovered at Mari3 and Nuzi4 in Mesopotamia. Both of these place-names are listed on "Mapl* Ellasar may represent either Asshur or larsa, a city in southern Mesopotamia. Chedorlaomer, the Hebrew version of Kudur-Lagamar, is comprised of known Elamite elements. Kudur means "servant of and is included in the names of five other Elamite kings, and Lagamar was an Elamite goddess. Thus Chedorlaomer may be interpreted as servant of Lagamar." Tidal is a form of Tudkhalia, the name of five Hittite kings who perhaps all lived later than this king. His title, "king of nations," essentially means that he was the principal chief of a loose confederation of tribes, reflecting the decentralized nature of Antatolian politics in the nineteenth through eighteenth centuries b.c Contemporary records trace similar Mesopotamian confederations that formed after the fall of the Ur III Dynasty (c. 2000 B.c.) and before King Hammurabi rose to power (c. 1750 B.C.) Immediately thereafter Assyria and Babylon controlled the region. Curiously, King Yahdun-Lim of Mari (c. 1820 b.c.) left behind an account of a series of raids he made into Syria-Palestine in order to enforce the submission of local kings to himself, and this record is quite similar to what we see in Genesis 14. This does not mean that the Biblical episode and the raids conducted by Yahdun-Lim are one and the same, but it does make the point that the Biblical narrative fits in well with what we see in the history of the time.
- The Mari Tablets belong to a large group of tablets that were discovered by French archaeologists in the 1930s. More than 25,000 tablets in Akkadian were found in the Mari archives, which give information about the kingdom of Mari, its customs, and the names of people who lived during that time. More than 8,000 are letters; the remainder includes administrative, economic, and judicial texts. The tablets, according to Andre Parrot, "brought about a complete revision of the historical dating of the ancient Near East and provided more than 500 new place names, enough to redraw or even draw up the geographical map of the ancient world
- Curiously, King Yahdun-Lim of Mari (c. 1820 b.c.) left behind an account of a series of raids he made into Syria-Palestine in order to enforce the submission of local kings to himself, and this record is quite similar to what we see in Genesis 14. This does not mean that the Biblical episode and the raids conducted by Yahdun-Lim are one and the same, but it does make the point that the Biblical narrative fits in well with what we see in the history of the time.
- GENESIS 23 Until his wife's death Abraham wandered through Canaan as a nomadic herdsman.' Needing a burial plot for Sarah, he purchased his first small slice of the vast territory God had promised his descendants (Ge 15:18). The purchase included the burial cave and the field in which it was located, both known as Mach- pelah and located in Hebron2 (see "Map 1" in the back of this Bible). The writer of Gen- esis carefully noted that Sarah, Abraham (25:9-10) and Isaac (35:27-29) were all buried in this cave. Later, upon his death- bed in Egypt, Jacob/Israel instructed that his bones were to be brouaht to Cana, and buried at this location along with those of his grandfather (Abraham), grandmother (Sarah), father (Isaac), mother (Rebekah) and wife (Leah). See 49:29 32; 50:13. Not surprisingly, the Israelites remem- bered this cave throughout the ages. A monumental enclosure was built over the site during the days of Herod the Great/ This beautiful 200 by 110 foot (61 x 33i m) struc- ture, bearing a remarkable architectural simi- larity to Herod's temple mount in J6niS3 km: is still intact today. Inside it, above ground, six large, medieval cenotaphs (empty tombs serving as monuments) commemorate the patriarchs and matriarchs buried there. A Byzantine church later construe^ inside this enclosure has been converted back and forth from church to mosque following successive chang Jle (and thereby of religion) in the area. During the fourteenth century a.d. Muslims sealed the subterranean structures beneath the compound but clandestine investigations have since been carried out. One twentieth century examination, under the direction of Israels Moshe Dayan, involved the nighttime lower «f a twelve-year-old girl, equipped with a«mera, into the tomb area! Investigators the existence of a staircase, a long hallway and a simple room.
- This fairly summarizes our knowledge of the underground cave system until Israel captured the site in 1967. In that year the late Moshe Dayan, then Israel’s Minister of Defense, and an amateur archaeologist and antiquarian,i exercised his authority to explore the sacred cave of Machpelah. None could enter at “B” on the plan where the Frankish monks had lowered Arnoul, and where Benjamin of Tudela and others had entered by means of steps, because four iron pegs now held in place the stone (or stones) wedged over the opening. Accordingly, the cave was entered by the shaft under the stone cupola that sits on the opposite side of the mosque (“A” on the plan). In his popular work Living with the Bible, Dayan says that he attached a rope to a young girl named Michal who then slid through the narrow shaft opening at point “A.”j The upper part of the circular opening is cut through a marble slab only about 11 inches in diameter. The lower part of the shaft is cut through the rock and is considerably wider—24 inches. This rock shaft is about three feet deep. The bottom of the rock shaft creates a hole in the ceiling of the carve below. The floor of the cave is 12 or 13 feet below. Michal found the room to be nearly square, however, measuring 9.65 feet by 9.26 feet. This is the large room at the end of the long corridor that Arnoul had entered 850 years earlier from the other end. Arnoul had said this room was large enough to hold 30 people and described it as round like a basilica. Apparently Arnoul was referring to the ceiling rather than the walls of the room. The ceiling, which is octagonal, easily looks round.25 The walls of the room go straight up for about four and a half feet; then they begin to arch. A vault is built on top of the two longer walls. The floor is paved with stone tiles. On the southeastern wall of this room a sunken step leads down to a doorway—the doorway to the long corridor that leads to the stepped entrance to the cave system. This corridor is indeed narrow—less than two feet wide—but that is wider than Arnoul described it. He said it was only one cubit wide, about 18 inches. The corridor is also twice as long as Arnoul described it; Michal measured it at 57 feet. The corridor is less than 3.5 feet high. The walls are lined with large, well-cut and well-fitted ashlars. The ceiling of the corridor is constructed of stone slabs. Arnoul did not describe the steps leading up from the corridor because they were probably installed after his initial exploration. They are there now, however. According to Dayan’s report, there are only 16 steps, not 70. At the top of the stairs, the iron pegs that secure the stone covering the opening (marked “B” on the plan) can be seen in the cavern’s ceiling. A shaft four feet high separates the top of the stairs from the floor of the mosque above. The upper level of this cave (at the top of the stairs) is blocked off by a stone wall. But what about the rooms that Arnoul describes beyond the room big enough to hold 30 people—the room into which Michal first descended On the northwestern side of this room, Michal found three stone slabs, each about two feet wide, that may be tombstones. The middle one was six feet high and bore an Arabic inscription that Dayan says is a quotation from the Koran. It is only partially preserved. The words in brackets are not actually there: “[There is no God but Allah, He is the Living, Eternal One.] Sleep seizes him not, nor slumber; all that [is on heaven and earth is his!] (Koran, Sura 2: verse 255). The other two slabs, or tombstones, were smooth. From Michal’s report, Dayan could not tell whether these stone slabs were attached to the wall of the cave or whether they block the entrance to the grottoes described by Arnoul. In any event, that is all Michal saw. No artifacts, other than the inscribed slab, were found. The masonry that lines the corridor and the cave at the end of the corridor appear to be Herodian, so this masonry was probably installed by Herod as part of the same project as the building of the enclosure wall.
- Focus is on Jesus Christ Setting is predominantly Israel People are Jewish and expand to the Gentile Because the focus and setting is more narrow than the scope is different The science is more highly developed
- Key terms
- Politics in the Holy land leading up the the Time of Jesus MARK 4 The Holy Land just prior to and during the time of Jesus was formally under the supervision of the Roman governor of Syria.The Roman period began in 63 e.c.and culminated with the destruction of the tempie in A.d. 70 and the establishment of Jerusalem as a pagan city in a.o. 135. As a critical epoch in the history of Israel, ancient contemporaries and modern interpreters view these years as a period of tremendous change, expectation and consequence. Arrival of Rome and the End of the Hasmoneans Arrival of Rome and the End of the I Hasmoneans Roman control debuted in Israel in the wake of a conflict for succession between two sons of the Hasmonean queen Salome Alexandra: Hyrcanus II, who had served as high priest,and Aristobulus II,who had been the chief military commander. Although Hyr-1 canus initially yielded to his brother, he was pressed by the Idumean leader Antipater to fight for the throne. Both sides sent delega- tions before the Roman general Pompey in Damascus, who eventually sided with Hyr- canus. In the meantime, the supporters of Aristobulus had barricaded themselves in the temple of Jerusalem. Pompey's forces be- sieged the temple mount for three months, eventually taking the area. Josephus recorded that Pompey desecrated the temple by enter- ing into the Most Holy Place (Wars, 1.7.1 -6). J Hyrcanus was confirmed in ponw^atthougfc r denied the title of king and stripped of ail »f coastal and Transjordanian r reek dfes. , d After another rebellion in 57s.cby Aristcfc. l- lus's son Alexander, Hyrcanus retained mtf j- the high priesthood and the temple, white al the province of Judea was div:r: i- administrative districts, w During the course of a Roman dvi mar e, between Pompey and Julius Caesar,the ton mean Antipater encouraged Hyrcanus to sup- port Caesar and to send a l /troops to his aid in Egypt (47 B.C.). As a gesture of thanks, Julius Caesar conferred upon Hyrcanus Ike ie title Ethnarch of the Jews (an Etnnarchwasa ?n man appointed by Rome to be ru f- ie pie) and named Antipater as the ?. -r. : *¦;«:. k rator of Judea.1 Antipater named his two n sons, Phasael and Herod, as prefe r- dea and Galilee, respectiveK He ;: ;. ;< is distinguished himself and named pi*- o feet of Syria by the Roman governor.* Herod the Great Caesar's assassination in 44 B.C. was a blow to Jewish communities throughout he empire and produced a period of instability in Rome. During this interval the east- ern empire was attacked by Parthians from Mesopotamia. They named Antigonus, the son of Aristobulus, as high priest and king in Jerusalem. Phasael was captured and slain, while Herod fled to Rome. After the defeat of the Parthians, Mark Antony and Octefea' 0, Caesar's heir) ¦ conferred the j»bK * Jews upon Herod in 37 b.c 9 0A'i 5 Herod ruled from Jerusaleni G ^ support of Rome from 3 7 to 341,7 ,h* „tiv 6« tioned as a client-king (a king'(w ;S. under the authority of an outside pow> q,venas was considered a "friend and ally 0f th * of Antip man people" (a title conferred by the s territory upon non-Romans whose support thevf i,al'CaC ued). He was dependent upon Rome i hj 34 his kingship and was compelled to swear an oath of allegiance to Caesar (Josephs/to J uities, 17.2.4). In return he promised stability, (als0 order and tax revenue. Herod earned an in; 141. rational reputation as a great benefactors pho.!'s builder of cities and temples, but his legacy within Judaism is almost entirely negative ^jj Josephus recorded the contemporary evalua- H tion that Jews suffered more during the reign ^ (utjo of Herod than during the entire period prior ^ to Herod since the Babylonian exile (Josephus, Wa Roman were the
- The world of Roman dominated Judea
- The'birth of Jesus Christ, took place at ?i; close of Herod's life, after he had re- tvedtis rivals from other families by vio- E deaths, and when his domestic tooubtes were at their height. He had slam his sons Alexander and Aristobulus, and more re- cently Antipater, for plotting against his life ; and now he was told that a child ol David s line had just been born to be king ol the Jews. The slaughter of the infants who came into the world about the same time and place was such a method of meeting the difficulty as would suggest itself to one with Herod's propensity to bloodshed (Mat. ii. 1- 19). It was one of the last acts of his life. Seized at length with loathsome and mortal disease, he repaired to Callirhoe, the hot sulphur springs of the Zerka, the water r?mA ahlch runs into the eastern part of the JJeaa bea. They came to be called, in con- ttiev^' I ?an7' the baths of Herod ; but E tt?- *****tha^ -he was and away. He S be ?lc™g when he passed husbandeI?!ore told his sister Salome and and Alexas to shut up the principal jews in the circus at Jericho, and put thft death whenever he expired, that there nZu be mourning at, though, of course, not for his death. Then, about 4 b. a, he passed away, in the seventieth year of his age and the thirty-fourth of his reign, counting from the time when he actually obtained the king, doin. When news of his demise arrived, the circus prisoners were set free, and the death of the tyrant was welcomed as a relief in- stead of being attended by mourning, tame* tation, and woe (Antiq. xvii. (>, 5; 8, 2).