Dig beneath headline for archaeological truth
Excavations of biblical sites in Israel yield ancient artifacts, exaggerated claims
When Dr. Shimon Gibson looks at Jerusalem, he sees a landscape of layered history.
“You could look straight across the Jewish Quarter, and from the roof of this building, you could have seen the Temple in all its glory,” he told The Media Line.
His latest discovery, while co-leading a team of archaeologists from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, is a palatial mansion on Mount Zion that may have belonged to a priestly family and dates from the first century.
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Gibson has devoted his life to digging up answers to Israel’s myriad historical mysteries, conducting digs throughout the country for the past 20 years.
In the 1970s, as a teenager, he rooted around Mount Zion with a team of archaeologists led by Magen Broshi. Though Broshi’s finds were promising, lack of funds ended the dig. In 2000, Gibson reopened the site, and in 2009, his team unearthed a stone cup with 10 lines of cryptic inscriptions. This cup and the newly uncovered mansion could give unprecedented insight into the lives of first century Jewish priests living under – and in cahoots with – Roman rule.
James Tabor, co-director of the Mt. Zion dig, connected the discoveries and their potential implications directly to central figure of Christianity.
“These are the families who had Jesus arrested and crucified, so for us to know more about them and their domestic life – and the level of wealth that they enjoyed – would really fill in for us some key history,” he said in a statement.
But is this assertion connected to hard fact or is it just a leap of faith?
'Archaeology doesn’t really help with theology'
As archaeologists across Israel brush the dust off ancient bits of history, the press and biblical enthusiasts alike jump to Jesus to contextualize the findings. Newspapers and websites tout the scriptural pedigree of the latest discoveries. Just two examples in the last couple weeks: “Newfound Mount Zion 'mansion' may hold clues to Jesus' Jerusalem” and “Synagogue in Mary Magdalene's hometown offers clues about Judeo-Christian worship.”“We have sensationalist journalists who pose as archaeologists and like to latch onto these things. We have sensationalist fundamentalists who like to latch onto these things,” Joel L. Watts, an independent scholar of the New Testament, told The Media Line. “I would like to see archeology treated more as science than as a theological experiment. That would be great.”
Watts, who is the author of "Mimetic Criticism and the Gospel of Mark," took particular issue with one recent headline – “Biblical-era town discovered along Sea of Galilee” – for a story about the supposed discovery of Dalmanutha, a city from the time of Jesus that is explicitly mentioned once in the Gospel of Mark, but nowhere else in contemporary sources.
“There is simply no need nor evidence to connect every buried item in the Holy Land to something in Scripture,” he wrote in a blog for The Huffington Post. “It could just be a Roman vase, after all.”
On his way to church one Sunday, Watts told The Media Line that he’s been attacked for his column refuting the Dalmanutha findings, mostly by anonymous comments on his website.
“I was the exact same way,” he said, describing his evolution from fundamentalist Christian faith to a more ecumenical, hope-based belief. Whereas he once subscribed to the idea that Scripture is the infallible word of God, he now looks at the New Testament as a purely literary text.
"Journalists and fundamentalists do a disservice to the search for truth by linking every unearthed ancient scrap to this or that verse from the Gospels: “If nobody had ever said we don’t have Dalmanutha, would that make the Bible less true?”
In his opinion, the answer is no, and Dr. Gibson agrees.
“Archaeology doesn’t really help with theology,” the archaeologist said.
This summer, Gisbon’s team uncovered two floor levels of “remarkably well-preserved” 2,000-year-old architecture in an excavation that was partly funded by the University of the Holy Land, where he is head of archaeology, and by The Foundation for Biblical Archaeology. The structure included a Jewish ritual pool, known as a mikveh, and a bathroom complex.
“The parallels to this are few and far between,” Gibson explained. “Mikvaot are found beneath Jewish houses around Jerusalem. It’s not something that’s particular to rich people from that time. But bathtubs?”
The presence of a washroom indicates the residents’ wealth, but the stash of Murex shells found at the Mt. Zion site points to the priestly status of the mansion’s inhabitants. Special dyes were extracted from this particular snail and used in both priestly garments and the scripturally commanded fringes placed on four-cornered clothing worn by both ancient Israelites and modern Jews.
These findings, along with a discovery of a similar bathroom in the 1970s that bore a familial inscription, shed new light on the home life and economic enterprises of the elite clans of Jewish priests in the time of the Temple.
But despite these unprecedented findings and sensational headlines, a clear, evidence-based link from this mansion to the authorities who put Jesus on trial remains out of reach.
“I’m a scientific archaeologist, and I have to deal with the facts,” he said. “I don’t deal with fantasies.”
'Science fiction'
Stephen J. Pfann is a scholar who is busy deciphering the 10-line cryptic inscription on the stone cup found by Gibson’s team on Mount Zion in 2009. Involved in archaeological studies since the 1970s, he says both academics and scriptural literalists often make theoretical leaps of logic when they hear about the latest biblical-era findings.As co-director of excavations at Nazareth Village in the late ‘90s and now as president of the University of the Holy Land, Pfann has heard and made all sorts of assumptions about his discoveries, and he’s been misquoted by the Bible-waving Christian press in the process, but he takes it all with a grain of sand.
“It’s spinning a story from something that may or may not have credence,” he told The Media Line. “But all of history is built out of that.”
Pfann calls this “science fiction," the tendency to want to “prove” the stories from Scripture through archaeological evidence. He understands the motivation, but calls for more intellectual integrity.
“I’m happy that we have things that are so illustrative of what went on in the biblical period, and I’m also happy that we don’t have to say it’s 100% true,” he said. “But there’s a tremendous amount of material that helps us color in the picture. There’s no reason we can’t use that information as long as we’re honest with ourselves.”
One way that Shimon Gibson hopes to inculcate a more truthful approach to biblical archaeology is by opening the Mount Zion dig to the public. His team’s goal for the site is simple: “Change it from being a hole in the ground to an archaeological park that people can wander through.”
Such experiential learning might go a long way in helping people relate to their historical and spiritual roots. For Joel Watts, who studies how the Gospel writers used themes from the Five Books of Moses to evoke emotion and attachment in their New Testament readers, the hands-on laboratory of an archaeological site is a unique doorway into understanding history.
And in Israel, where he hopes to participate in a dig next summer, the lessons scientists glean from beneath ancient stones could pave the way to a better future for all of humanity.
“Archaeology connects us to our past,” he said. “All faiths have a part to play in how we progress as human, spiritual beings.”
Article written by Josh Fleet
Reprinted with permission The Media Line
