The View from Jerusalem

There are certain inherent advantages to researching Biblical history in the land where it took place!

Research, Internship, Volunteer Opportunities

www.uhl.ac/projects.html

a. Pots with Bones! “Don’t cast what is holy to the dogs.” UHL’s Dept. of Forensic Archaeology explores the macro and microscopic world of archaeological remains from Qumran and other sites, including remains of the communal meals, buried in pots in the plateau at Qumran. www.uhl.ac/publications.html

b. Dead Sea Scrolls Research. UHL has been at the forefront in scrolls’ research and the publication of reference works on the scrolls since 1992. President Stephen Pfann is a member of the International Team of Dead Sea Scroll Editors and Director of the Multimedia Educational Suite on Qumran and Second Temple Period Judaism. UHL students have unparalleled opportunity to view the scrolls firsthand. www.uhl.ac/dss.html

c. A home with the dead! Epigraphy and palaeography, together with archaeology and the study of historic texts, provide a multi-dimensional exploration of the burial customs of Second Temple Period Judaism. UHL’s expertise has recently been brought to bear in connection with the attention-grabbing collection of ossuaries from the tomb of Jesus of Talpiot and the ossuary of James the son of Joseph the brother of Jesus. www.uhl.ac/Lost_Tomb

* Internship and Research Opportunities include work at Nazareth Village, a unique, first-century farm excavated and restored under UHL’s academic guidance. First-century daily life, farming, and shepherding—based on UHL research into archaeological, textual and ethnographic sources—come alive at Nazareth Village.
www.uhl.ac/NazarethVillage/nazareth.html

University of the Holy Land
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Jerusalem 91240 Israel

Website: www.uhl.ac
E-mail: info@uhl.ac

In the last several weeks, we have been evaluating “The Lost Tomb of Jesus” from a writer’s and journalist’s standpoint. When can fiction techniques be used? How can they be used honestly? We’ve also taken a look at fiction genres, seeking standards for their use of fact.

Now it’s your turn. In honor of Christmas Eve, we are presenting a fictionalized account of the Nativity story, based on the research of Claire and Stephen Pfann. While you read it, refer to “New Light on an Old, Old Story,” compare it to your own knowledge of first century Jewish culture, and let us know: is this honest historical fiction?

“Accuracy is essential,” writes Joyce Saricks of Booklist. “Many readers, myself included, derive a great deal of our knowledge of history from historical fiction because we don’t respond to the often-dry style of history textbooks or biographies.” She adds, “even though we know we’re not consulting primary sources – and suspect that the authors have, by necessity, taken some liberties in telling their tales – we trust these novelists to do so responsibly, that is, without falsifying facts as they are generally known.”

A Novelist Looks at the Nativity Story

Read, evaluate, and enjoy.

In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be enrolled. This was the first enrollment, when Quirinius was governor of Syria. And all went to be enrolled, each to his own city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the city of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be enrolled with Mary, his betrothed who was with child. And while they were there, the time came for her to be delivered. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn. (Luke 2:1-7)

For many of us, these words evoke the isolation, harshness, and difficulty which Mary and Joseph must have faced at Jesus’ birth. Images of cold, windswept winter hills in Bethlehem, overcrowded inns, and a futile attempt to find housing in a strange city paint a bleak picture of the first Christmas, one that fills our Western hearts with sympathy for the new mother and her babe.

And yet, the circumstances of the first Christmas may not have been as bleak as we sometimes think. Understanding that Jewish society at the time of Jesus’ birth was traditional and eastern, several questions arise when we read this passage, questions that receive a fresh answer in this context.

The Judean Connection
When Joseph and his pregnant wife Mary made the journey to Bethlehem, they were returning to his ancestral home, the place where his family originated and in which, undoubtedly, some relatives still lived. From the gospels and early church historians we see glimpses of the network of relatives that Joseph and Mary had living in Judea: Zachariah and Elizabeth lived near Jerusalem; John the Baptist ministered in the Judean wilderness; and Jesus’ brother James later became the head of the Jerusalem church and was well respected by all the Jews living in Jerusalem.

The Family Home
The family in traditional societies is made up of an extended group of people, with a patriarch at the head. Married children and their children usually lived with or near the father and mother. The authority and protection of the father extended to them and their respect and obedience was expected in return (cf. Luke 15). Relatives from other towns were welcomed by the patriarch and brought under his protection during their stay in his village.

The House
The architecture of the family home both today and in antiquity made provision for the occasional guest. The most common dwelling was the courtyard home which was multi-leveled. A lower room or cellar was used as a storeroom. In the hilly areas like Bethlehem, a cave adjacent to the courtyard might often be adapted for this purpose. Here the family’s prized or more vulnerable animals could be fed and sheltered at night, protected from the cold, thieves and predators.

The main living area, partitioned into several sections, was on an upper level. It had a work and kitchen area, where the children often slept, and a separate bedroom for the parents. In a wealthier home, a third room would be added for guests and for entertaining. In Luke 2:7 the Greek kataluma can be translated either ‘inn’ or ‘guest room’ and may have referred to this room in the family home. The latter translation is to be preferred in light of the cultural and societal backdrop of Jewish family life. (It is worthwhile to note that later in Luke, the word kataluma is translated ‘upper room’ or ‘guest room’ [Luke 22:11-12] whereas Luke uses the word pundakeion to mean ‘inn’ in the story of the Good Samaritan [Luke 10:34].)

Patriarchal “Landowner’s House” at Nazareth Village

Photo: The Nazareth Jesus Knew; Labels: Dr. Stephen Pfann

The Christmas Story
These facts may shed new light on the circumstances surrounding Jesus’ birth. The evangelist presents the picture of a census in Luke 2:1-7, in which all heads of household had to return to their cities of origin. For Joseph, it was Bethlehem. When they arrived, Joseph most likelywent straight to his paternal home, seeking the help and protection of his relatives currently living there, and received it, for Mary was pregnant and Jewish custom would demand such a response. Some time passed, and ‘the time came for her to be delivered’.

Bethlehem—and this family’s guest room—were full of relatives and no private place existed for her to deliver her baby. No private place, that is, until someone had the bright and compassionate idea to suggest that she could have the baby down below, away from the crowded kataluma, in the warmth of the storeroom and animal’s cellar, and yet still be within the security of the family home. Jesus was safely born ‘in the city of David’ as the angels told the shepherds (2:11), and laid in a manger or feeding trough. That a child should be found lying in a manger was unique, and yet it may have reflected, not a situation of abandonment and isolation, but one of compassion and protection and of the order of family life in traditional Jewish society of the first century AD. It is interesting to note that the traditional site of Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem is in the middle of the city, where the family homes would have stood in antiquity, and not in the surrounding countryside.

The Weather
Just a closing word on the weather! It must not have been too cold that night, since the shepherds and their flocks were out in the fields, as we read in Luke 2:8. In really cold weather, the sheep are kept indoors at night and graze outside during the day. So Jesus was probably born in mild weather.

These facts combine to create a warmer picture of the circumstances of Jesus’ birth. Mary and Joseph were not necessarily abandoned and alone in a strange city, but were likely incorporated into the larger, extended family of Joseph’s relatives where they found shelter, compassion, and protection on that special night when their precious baby was born.

Exterior of Patriarchal “Landowner’s House” at Nazareth Village

(note the movable stone manger/feeding trough sitting outside the front door)

About Nazareth Village click here

Text © Stephen and Claire Pfann, University of the Holy Land

After the Editio Princeps of the Dead Sea Scrolls

By Stephen J. Pfann, Ph.D.

The University of the Holy Land, Jerusalem

The publication of the Dead Sea Scrolls in just one generation following their discovery is a wonderful achievement. From the major scrolls found in Caves 1 and 11 – including those published in the Dead Sea Scrolls from St. Mark’s Monastery and The Dead Sea Scrolls of the Hebrew University, as well as 11QpaleoLeviticus, 11QTargum of Job, and 11QTemple Scroll – to the other, often more fragmentary scrolls found in Caves 2-10 (published in DJD), the first editions (editio princeps) are now available for all to read, student and scholar alike, in both photo reproductions and transcriptions.

While transcribing damaged letters, the first editions of the Dead Sea Scrolls generally used two different diacritical marks to indicate degrees of certainty as to the reading. In all of these first editions, a dot above the letter represented a more certain reading than a circlet, if these diacritic marks were applied at all. However, many of the original editors, while brilliant scholars, were often more textual commentators than trained epigraphers or palaeographers. Thus, over the past 55 years of the production of these editions, these diacritics—the dot and the circlet—were understood differently by the more than sixty individual first editors of the scrolls.

For example, to some editors, a broken or malformed letter that was certain or nearly certain deserved a dot, while for others it remained unmarked. For still other editors, the dot was placed only above letters in which there was some uncertainty as to the reading, but less uncertainty than one over which a circlet would be placed (which could almost be any letter). This inconsistent use of the diacritical marks has left the readers unsure of just how certain the transcriptions in these editions really are.

In this new treatment of the Dead Sea Scrolls each of the Biblical and non-Biblical manuscripts has been reread by the editor and his staff with a view toward the consistent application of an expanded set of diacritical marks. Rather than two marks, there are now three, designed to convey a more graduated scale of certainty as to the reading of the letters than has been afforded until now. The following definition of the diacritics has been applied:

Dot = this letter is damaged or malformed, but is certain or nearly certain.
Dash = this letter is damaged or malformed, but may be one of two or three letters.
Circlet = this letter is damaged or malformed, but may be one of four or more letters.

As new sources of information and new methodologies develop, both the original editors and a new generation of editors continue to improve on the certainty of readings and the rearrangement of scroll fragments. Although the transcription of a text may remain substantially the same, it’s an important process that will remain on the agenda of Dead Sea Scroll study into the distant future.

This new resource will be made available in the near future in a number of scholarly and user-friendly formats. The Biblical scrolls of this new edition is projected to first appear in Spring 2008 as part of the Logos Bible Software package.

We have all had a month to contemplate the last posting and its predecessors.

How shall we now define the form of storytelling that is represented in the Jacobovici and Cameron film and the Jacobovici and Pellegrino book released last March?

The makers of “The Lost Tomb of Jesus” presented a story

Story 1: The New Gospel: a newly created fictitious story which mixed first century Biblical sources with known fictitious Gnostic apocryphal gospel sources.

Which they intertwined with another story

Story 2: The story of the scientists and professionals: apparently supportive statements from reputable scientists, archaeologists, epigraphers and historians, used as supportive pillars to prove the fictional story to be true.

Embedded within an overall detective story

Story 3: The story of the filmmakers: as investigative journalists recording, for all to see, the amazing history of their discoveries in order to convince the world that their methodology was correct and thus their conclusions should be both professionally and credibly communicated (in both film and book).

At first we were all taken in by story 3, and having no way to verify or critique their methods we merely accepted it for the moment as an entertaining and engaging jewel in the crown. When it became clear that story 1 was fictional and story 2 was scientifically unconvincing, many of us, including myself, pronounced publicly that the entire tale was thus nothing more than science fiction. After all, two of the team, James Cameron and Charles Pellegrino are both notable authors of many known science fiction works.

However, a few science fiction writers have justifiably taken issue with this view. The task of a science fiction writer is to produce a compelling fictitious story which gains the interest of its audience by interweaving it with real or theoretical science. However, the science fiction writer never pretends that his work is real history. Even though it may pose a somewhat credible story that could in fact take place, usually in the future, if one takes into account certain scientific facts or hypotheses, it is intended to remain fiction. Like other forms of fiction, the author intends to engage his audience in a piece of literary art posed in the form of a fictitious story. He has crossed the line if he presents his work as a historical fact. These science fiction writers and enthusiasts felt offended and appalled that such a work should be called “science fiction”. And why?

The filmmakers posed “The Lost Tomb of Jesus” as real history by selling it to the Discovery Channel. The writers of the book presented their work as nonfiction, where it arose to number 6 on the New York Times bestseller list, not in the category of fictional books, but in the nonfiction category.

We have already found out that the historians are denying the historic basis of the reconstructed gospel (the first story). Most of the interviewed specialists have already stated that they were manipulated and did not mean what was actually aired in the film (the second story). Now we discover that even the part of the film that we took for granted as truth, the exciting story of discoveries made by our investigative reporters, had entire sections which were both staged and the contents manipulated.

Since no actual fiction writer wants to lay claim to this new book as part of their trade, and since the filmmaker and the writers of Lost Tomb want to present their work as nonfiction, under what form of professional work can this be classified?

The professionally allowable artistic license: using narrative techniques to present a nonfiction story, was not followed here. Numerous “facts” were carefully contrived, staged or “made up”.

Shall we call this contrived and dishonest nonfiction?

Perhaps we don’t have to invent a new term for it. Shall we try:

j) Hoax: “Something accepted or believed in through trickery: something established by fraud or fabrication”

Or shall we seek yet another, less offensive term?