The BIBLICAL
ARCHAEOLOG i9A~ 4,, Published by
THE AMERICAN SCHOOLS OF ORIENTAL RESEARCH (Jerusalem and Bagdad) Drawer 93-A, Yale Station, New Haven, Conn.
Vol. XXV
May, 1962
No. 2
Fig. 1. The balk-face cut by the excavators at Shechem into the tongue of debris in front of the temple of Baal-Berith. In addition to the discernible plastered surfaces, one can see various lines suggesting layers of debris in the fill laid down upon which to construct the
temple.
Contents
ArchaeologicalFills and Strata,by G. Ernest Wright Salt, Soil, Savior, by Eugene P. Deatrick . ................. ................................................34 ........... 41 Salt as Curse in the Old Testament and the Ancient Near East, by F. Charles Fensham More Bodmer Papyri, by Floyd ......................................................................................48 V. Filson N abataean Torques, by Nelson Glueck ...........................................................50 ......................................................................57
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The Biblical Archaeologist is published quarterly (Feb-ruary, May, September, December) by the American Schools of Oriental Research. Its purpose is to meet the need for a readable non-technical, reliable account of archaeological yet thoroughly discoveries as they are related to the Bible. Editors: Edward F. Campbell, Jr. and G. Ernest Wright, with the assistance of should be Floyd V. Filson in New Testament matters. Editorial correspondence sent to one of the above at 800 West Belden Ave., Chicago 14 Ill., or at 45 Francis Ave., Cambridge 38, Mass., respectively. Editorial Board: W. F. Albright, Johns Hopkins University: Millar Burrows, Yale University; Frank M. Cross, Jr., Harvard University. Subscription Price: $2.00 per year, payable to the American Schools of Oriental Research Drawer 93A, Yale Station, New Haven, Conn. Ten or more subscriptions for group use, mailed and billed to one address, $1.00 per year for each. Subscriptions run for the calendar year. IN ENGLAND: fifteen shillings per year, payable to B. H. Blackwell. Ltd., Broad St., Oxford. BACK NUMBERS: Available at 604 each, or $2.25 per volume. The issues of this journal are indexed in Art Index, Index to Religious Periodical Literature, and at the end of every fifth volume of the journal itself. Entered as second-cllass matter. October 2. 1942 at the Post Office at New Haven. Connecticut under the act of March 3. 1879. Copyright by American Schools of Oriental Research 1962
Archaeological Fills and Strata G. ERNEST WRIGHT Harvard
University
The term "stratum"as we are using it in the Drew-McCormick excavations at Shechem refers to a defiiite architecturalhorizon, which may have two or more "phases"if the changes consist only of slight shifts in floor levels and room arrangement, while major features continue in use.1 The term "phase"is used within a given field for temporarystratum indication while digging, pending final numbering of strata. The term "level" is used either for the surveyor'selevations, or for layers in debris which lack architectural features when their altitude in relation to one another is important. A whole series of the latter, for example, are found in the debris sections within the Shechem temple, certain key ones being correlatedwith definite phases in the architectual history of the structure. Between the strata, and not infrequently interrupting them, are fills, consisting usually of various levels of debris. Indeed, most of the dirt which excavatorsdig from a mound consists of fills which have been carried in from elsewhere to level up an area for new building or for a courtyard or street. A major difficulty in dating the strata, we have found, lies not only in dating the pottery within the levels of the fills, but in interpreting the nature and significance of the fills. It has generally been the custom to publish as a stratum everything between the floor level of one building and that of the next building below. The latter is then interpretedas being the architectureof the stratum.Where something is obviously wrong, the material is said to be mixed because of a methods of digging,2 however, subsequent disturbance.The WVCheeler-Kenyon 1. For preliminary reports of the first three campaigns, see B.A. XX.1; XX.4; XXIII.4; and especially BASOR 161 (Feb. 1961). 2. Mortimer Wheeler, Archaeology from the Earth (Oxford, 1954), and Kathleen M. Kenyon, Beginning
in Archaeology
(London
and New York, 1952).
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have focused attention on the problem of fills. As an example, we may mention one small test pit in Field VII at Shechem, where StratumV was a heavy mud-brick, plaster and clay-straw mixture of material from house walls and roof which sealed huge quantities of pottery broken when the house collapsed. This violent 8th century destruction was evidently the work of Shalmaneser V who destroyed the excavated cities of Shechem, Tirzah and Dothan about 724-3 B.C., and invested Samaria, though the latter did not fall until the winter of 722-21 B.C. Below this destruction layer and the floors on which it rested, there were between three and four feet of pottery-filled dirt which filled two walled areas over cobbled floors of a lower building. This house was labelled "StratumVI." Now, what pottery in the fill above the lower floors was of the same date as the floors? From several indicators, including soil and ceramic types, we judged that only a few inches of dirt directly above the floor in this case could be said to be occupational debris of Stratum VI. The remainderof the fill was later, it appeared,and probablyof a date nearer the time of the building of the Stratum V house, except that it had been carried in from a pit elsewhere on the mound where the digging had reached 12th century B.C. level and caused a mixture. How, then, can one define "fill"in relation to "stratum"?If we were to publish the whole fill as Stratum VI in a manner previously done, would not the archaeologicalmaterials be confusing? In 1958 ProfessorYadin suggested that since the latest pottery in the fill beneath the Shechem temple was MB II C, the temple itself should be LB in date, because the fill on which a building stands probably comes from the period immediately prior to the erection of the structure."This sounds eminently reasonable,except that it did not fit the facts of the situation at Shechem. One may mention, for example, the fill directly beneath a 3rd-2ndcentury house in Field II, excavated in 1957. The pottery in this earth was solidly Late Bronze (15-13th cent.) and Iron I A (12th cent.); it was occupational black earth laid in layers. When we began to dig this fill, it was thought to be introducing us to a stratum. Yet the peculiar alternation of layers, most of which had the two periods of pottery mixed together, was troublesome.Finally we came to a layer of pure Late Bronze, when suddenly it gave way to another below which was almost pure Iron I A; and below that there was more mixture with a coin of Ptolemy I (ca. 300 B.C.)! From this experience we became skeptical of any generalizationsregarding fills, and decided that each one would have to speak for itself. As for the great mound of fill on which the temple rests, our contentions regarding it in 1957 have been in general validated, though the situation is 3. See the notes
by Yadin
and the author
in BASOR
150
(April
1958),
pp. 34-35.
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far more complicated than we then knew. On the temple floors a thin black layer was discovered in places, filled with sherds, and one would assume this ought to be occupational debris that would not be far removed from the time when the floors were in use. This in general was the case, but with fills it is dangerous to say what ought to be, and then to assume it has to be! Each example seems to have its own individual history. Most of the fill levels between floors within the temple's cella, and below the foundations, was reddish earth filled with the soft chalky flakes of the underground "stone,"the erosion of which created the pass between Mts. Ebal and Gerizim. This chalky limestone is very distinct from the much harder limestone of the mountains themselves. Hence the fill put in for the temple building to rest on,4 which was subsequently used as foundation for both of the MB II C (ca. 1650-1550 B.C.) floors, and later still for the foundation of the LB floor of the second temple, is reddish gray, with occasional bands of red or light gray. This material was never occupational fill, but was dug out of the neighboring mountain sides. The few sherds it contains - and it is almost sterile - could be from almost any period prior to the erection of the temple, but one would think that most of them should date from about the time of the builders (i.e., MB II C). Near the tell during the summer of 1960 a house was built beside the road along the edge of Mt. Ebal. In digging out a flat area for it the builders removed about one meter of the reddish soil and then came across the white chalk, which was picked loose almost as easily as the soil. As it was spread in the field by our tents, it possessed the same nature and color as the reddish-light gray fill below the temple. Sherds in the newly dug material were very scarce. Stray Byzantine, Hellenistic, and Roman pieces appeared, along with a majorityof more recent Arabic origin. Below this light gray and red fill directly beneath the temple, there was another type of fill, the latest pottery in which was MB II B (ca. 1750-1650 B.C.), whereas almost a majority of the sherds were Chalcolithic with a few MB II A (ca. 19th-early 18th cent.). Here the gray chalky materialappeared, but it was used with great amounts of dark gray and brown earth evidently dug up from areas not far removed from occupation centers. This type of fill, presumably thrown in for the MB II B fortificationsystem, appearednot only in Field V, but in Field VIII, area 1 also. In the Samaria excavations Professor Kenyon faced the problem of fills as follows:" "At Samaria, the filling overlying any one floor is almost invariably the make-up imported for the floor above. The succession common in a brick-built town, of an occupation layer overlying the floors, succeeded by a 4. Apparently over the whole area except at the SE corner of the temple. There a great pile of sherd-filled gray earth was used to level up over the surviving remnant of Wall D of MB II B. 5. Samaria III. The Objects, (London, 1957), p. 90.
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Fig. 2. The sides of a deep probe-trench cut through the floor of the temple of Baal-Berith at Shechem reveal the layers of prepared fill, made up largely of the underground chalky limestone dug up from the mountain slopes near Shechem and brought into the city to form a platform for the temple building. The left side of the balk-face shows a pit which has been cut down into the fill, breaking through the stratified layers.
destruction level above which the new floors were laid, is not found, since stone walls do not produce continual deposits in the way that mud brick ones do. It is therefore only the pottery of the period of constructionthat can safely be associatedwith a building, and not that of the succeeding period of occu-
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pation. All the stratified pottery comes from beneath the floors associatedwith the various walls." At first glance this statement seems reasonable, though in the last two sentences its noted author gives a rule for handling fills that is precisely the opposite to that given by Yadin! The first sentence is generally correct where there is a definite fill between floors. The second sentence surely has a measure of truth within it, but there is a question whether it is not a radical oversimplification. For one thing, the most common floors are packed earth and occupational layers seem to accummulate on them. Then, too, the roofs of these stone houses were always made of wooden beams which could burn, after which the clay-and-strawmixture on top of them would topple into the room, preservingthe floor level intact. In addition, there appears to have been a considerableamount of materialwithin the buildings themselves that burned with a hot fire and finally burned on the floors, leaving them changed in color and covered with a layer of charcoal filled debris. Our Field VII House 1727 of Stratum V is a good example, as was the Israelite provincial palace of Hazor after its destruction by Tiglath-pileser III in 733-732 B.C. (Area B, Stratum V). Hence if house floors are found without such evidence on them, then, we can only conclude that the building to which they belonged was not burned and the evidence was cleared away during subsequent periods of rebuilding. And it appears that the latter frequently happened, as is clear from temple, palace, and Hellenistic house floors at Shechem. It is with regard to the last two sentences of the Kenyon statement, however, that trouble really arises, for here we have another attempt to simplify and schematize the problem of fills. Perhaps the statement could stand as partially true in general, if one does not require every fill to serve this purpose when it obviously does not happen to do so. The difficulty is the statement's implied assumption that the pottery in these leveling fills is always going to be homogeneous. Yet such is rarely the case. A number of different people independently observed that the pottery which ProfessorKenyon used to date Periods I and II at Samariawas certainly not homogeneous, that most of it was 10th century in date, with an occasional sherd coming from as early as the 11th century. Clear 9th century sherds were not numerous. This could only mean, therefore, that the I and II fills below I surface levels and within casemate walls were largely derived from a pre-OmriIsraelite village at Samaria, and could not in general be used to date the architectureof Periods I and II. Once this was clear, the whole reconstructionof the archaeologicalhistory of Israelite Samariaon the basis of fills had to be reexamined.6 6. See G. Ernest Wright, "Israelite Samaria and Iron Age Chronology." BASOR 155 (October, 1959), pp. 13-29: references are there given to the observations of other scholars on the same point. See also B.A XXII.3 (Sept., 1959), pp. 67-78.
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In the Shechem excavation we have decided on only one definite rule regarding fills: that each one is a special case and requires a special inquiry as to its origin and function! The Hellenistic fills used in Field VII were never completely homogeneous, because they always had at least an occasional sherd of a date earlier than their context. This fact, plus color, type of earth and the quantity of pottery meant that the people were scrapingup their earth for leveling from the mound itself, though the excavation for earth seems never to have gone deeper than about StratumV in the 8th century. The pits in the western sectorsof Field VII are illustrative of what went on. Hence it appears to us that the study of the nature of each fill requires a combination of stratigraphicand ceramic study. Neither stratigraphynor ceramics can be made the ruling principle in itself. Rather the use of fills in dating seems to us to involve a flexible process in which data from three sources is employed: the pottery, the general stratigraphy, and the origin, type and function of the fill itself. Wherever possible it is advisable to watch the layers in the fills carefully, where they exist, and to separate a sealed fill into at least two groups: that immediately below and that immediately above a given floor. At least this may act, in the absence of other criteria, as a kind of mechanical substitute for a stratigraphy nicely determined by burned L.ouses,the ruins of which seal their own floors. In our work at Shechem we have adapted a system of handling pottery which was devised by Yadin for the Hazor expedition. Each pottery basket is numbered consecutively in a given field, and the precise details of its origin are noted down by the field supervisor.Each object and locus is listed in relation to the related pottery basket numbers. Thus Reg. 712 is a black conical seal which is registeredwith the date found and the symbol VII 3.175, which means Field VII, Area 3, basket 175 (which contained the sherds being unearthed at the spot and level where the seal was found). The master pottery analysis book, kept daily by the author, ProfessorToombs, and Dr. Lapp, who analyzed each day's pottery with the field supervisors, records details about that basket, including the analysis of its content (Iron II in an unsealed locus, with a few sherds of Iron I). Certain sherds were saved from the basket'and noted in the pottery registry as Nos. 6793-6804, along with the indication as to whether the sherds are drawn and photographed. All of this data is assembled and listed by defined and described loci, and included in the field supervisor'sdetailed report, which is written as soon as possible after the conclusion of the work; it includes preliminary sketch plans and the numbered list of all photographs, with picture captions and actual prints included.7 7. The field reports of the were all completed in time The prompt preparation of all details are put on paper still intact.
in bulk, though quite extensive supervisors for the 1960 expedition, of the preliminary for use in the preparation report in BASOR 161. so that such a report is a requirement placed on each supervisor, is while matters are still fresh in the mind and the staff organization
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Meanwhile the original notebooks of the field supervisors, the notes of Director and Associate Director, the master pottery analysis books and registries, all serve as an independent check on the preliminaryreport of the supervisor. This system may appear unduly complex. It certainly requires an adequate staff, and even then is very time consuming for directors and supervisors. Field VII alone in 1960 produced in less than 10 feet of debris 1450 baskets of pottery, each of which had to be analyzed as quickly as possible, as soon as the sherds had been washed. Yet this prompt and detailed attention paid rich dividends. It enabled a close and constant check on loci, and, when the unexpected appeared, word could be taken to the field immediately so that interpretation could proceed with the new factors in mind. Listing pottery by loci alone, as is usually done, is in general probably sufficient, except that in digging fills the determination of precise loci is often a matter of retrospect.This was particularlytrue in Field VII where pits were filled with debris of the same color as that surrounding them. Our pottery numbering system meant that the loci could be controlled even when supervisors failed at first to discern them. The methods of debris-analysisso emphasized in the Kenyon excavations, and followed by us at Shechem in so far as we are acquainted with them, certainly appear to us to revise the common conception of a stratum and of the way in which it should be analyzed and published. If Stratum VIII at Megiddo, for example, includes everything above VIII floors and below those of VII, together with such other levels of material and tombs adjudged to belong to the same horizon, the question arises as to whether on a priori grounds the material is homogeneous?Without analysis of debris layers and fills in order to determine what really dates an occupation level, one can never assume homogeneity. This would certainly illustrate why, though it may be possible to date a stratum in an older excavation report, it is nevertheless difficult to be confident about the ascription of individual items to that stratum. It also suggests the reason why earlier, and even later, items appear in "strata"of the published excavations. Earlier items may come from fill dug up from a lower stratum elsewhere on the mound, while later items may be introduced when pits or tombs are dug into lower strata. Book
Notice
The Pottery of Palestine G. Ernest Wright, from the Earliest Times to the End of the Bronze Age. First published by the American Schools of Oriental Research in 1937, it in a form was out of print by 1941. Its author has now permitted it to be reprinted Microfilms, Inc., 313 N. First Street, more attractive than the original by University $6.60 hardIts number is OP 10,394; its price $4.35 paperbound, Ann Arbor, Michigan. work of W. F. Albright, Based on the pioneering and handling. backed, plus shipping Palestine in cultures of prehistoric the critical synthesis it for the first time presented at various points which is the basis of the present-day though adjustments chronologies, have had to be made in the light of discoveries since its publication.
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Salt, Soil, Savior EUGENE P. DEATRICK Former Head of the Soils Department West Virginia University
Jesus' saying about salt, in Matthew 5:13, Mark 9:50, and Luke 14:34-
35, has long raised difficulties in interpretation.The AmericanStandard Versionrefers,in Matthewand Luke,to salt that "lostits savor,"while Mark recordsthat Jesussaid salt "lostits saltness."Matthewstatesthat the salt was "thenceforthgood for nothing"and Luke that "it is fit neitherfor the land nor for the dunghill." Clearly,the salt to which Jesus refershere is quite unlike the salt we know. In our experience,salt disappearsas saltnessis lost; no residueremains.Yet herewe readof a salt thatlost saltnessand left a residue,a residue no longergoodfor anythingbut nonethelessa residue. Then again the literal"besalted"of "wherewithshall it be salted?"has been rendered"berestored,"and the sameGreekword,translated"ground," in "land,"or "soil,"in Luke,is translated"earth"in the senseof "mankind," Matthew. While admittingthat I remembervery little frommy Greekcoursesof fifty years ago, I contend that properunderstandingof these salt passages follows from a knowledgeof soil chemistryand agriculturalhistory.In the light of these disciplines,I wish to defend the followingrenderingof Matthew 5:13, in orderto interpretits meaning:"Youarethe saltfor the soil, and if (whenever) the salt becomestasteless,how can that which is ordinarily saltedbe salted?It is no longergood for anythingexcept to be thrownout and troddenunderfoot by men."And Luke 14:35: "Itis of no use for either the soil or the dunghill." Salt Which Becomes
Tasteless
The primaryguide for this study comesfrom a sermonon the subject "Wherewithshall it be salted?"which my father,W. W. Deatrick,preached 65 yearsago. He, with only a coursein NaturalPhilosophy,knew that sodium chloride,our table salt, is a chemicallystablecompound.He urged that the passagein questionbe givencarefulstudyso thatthe wordsof Jesusabout His urgingcamehome to salt might becomeapplicableand understandable. "The salt was not D. of W. Chamberlain: the me when I read explanation ... into to ... it caused dust."'Chamberdecompose pure;these impurities lain defendedhis convictionthat Palestiniansalt is not stablein a letterwritten in 1952, statingthat a piece of Palestiniansalt which had been on his 1. WV. D. Chamberlain, "Explain, Please," Presbyterian Life, May 24, 1952, p. 35.
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desk for eight years had become one-quarterits original size. It is too much for a chemist to believe that the decrease could have been due to anything other than crumbling. Palestinian salt is chemically stable today, and we can only conceive that it was chemically stable in the first century. For the benefit of the doubting, I weighed a piece of Palestinian salt in 1955 and again recently - there was no deviation from the original weight of 66.8 grams. Several kinds of salt are found in Palestine. There are "outcropsof rock salt .. (at) Mt. Sidon, southwest of the Dead Sea,"2 and there is salt evaporatedfrom clear Dead Sea water in pits, like the salt pits referred to in Zeph. 2:9. A third type has been describedby W. H. Thomson, who thought it was to this salt that Jesus referred.This type "is not manufacturedby boiling clear sea water, nor that taken from mines, but is obtained from marshes along the shore, as in Cyprus."3Thomson saw the incrustation of the salt marshes being gathered like "haycocksin a field," and he records that a merchant of Sidon had imported a twenty-year supply of this incrustation salt into Palestine. It was imported,probably,because it was less bitter than either rock-saltor salt-pit-salt,reportedly"too bitter to be fit for cooking."4Bitterness is due to the presence of magnesium chloride. The incrustation salts would be much less bitter because as the saline waters rose through the marsh soils much of the magnesium would be adsorbed- a reactionsimilar to that which occurs when calcium is removed from "hard"water to make it "soft." All of these salts are mixtures of both simple and complex compounds, chiefly chlorides of sodium, magnesium, and potassium, with very small amounts of calcium sulphate (gypsum). These compounds vary in solubility: the very soluble sodium chloride might readily be dissolved out of the comresidue. The merchant of plex and leave a much less "sodium-chloride-salty" Thomson's report stored his salt in mountain cabins to evade the salt tax. Before all could be sold, we can readily see that the salt next to the earthen floors may have become damp and the sodium chloride dissolved and leached aXway. The residue would then be found to be "no longer good for anything."Thomson, who was looking for a fact in common experience to which Jesus alluded, felt sure that the loss suffered by the merchant was "so generally known as to permit Jesus to found his instruction upon it." There is another possible explanation for salt which becomes tasteless. Explorers of the ledges of rock salt have found a dust which they considered had "lost its savor."A seventeenth century explorer, Maundrel, investigating a precipice of salt, reported: "I broke a piece of it, of which the part exposed to the rain, sun, and air, though it had sparks and particles of salt, had comwith the Mount Sidon sheet (no. 16) of the 2. Y. K. Bentor and A. Vroman in connection 1:100,000 geological map of Israel. The Land and the Book, vol. II, Harper, 1882, p. 362. 3. W. H. Thomson, 4. Edward Robinson, Biblical Researches in Palestine and Adjacent Regions, vol. I, 2nd ed., London. 1857, p. 502.
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pletely lost its savor."5Jacob Freedman, a geologist at Franklin and Marshall College, reports to me in a letter written after a recent trip to Palestine: "I believe I have the answer to your problem . . . The loss of savor (material) is actually gypsum." There is no question of decomposed salt. The complex Palestinian salt may disintegrate, but it does not decompose. Does the disintegration leave gypsum? Israeli geologist S. L. Shifton wrote me in 1959 that there is plenty of gypsum throughout the Jordan valley. My first guess was that the gypsum came from the weathering of the salt cliffs, but I have noted above that the amount of gypsum in Palestinian salt is very small. There could not be "plenty"of gypsum from this source, regardless of how much salt was exposed. Two different laboratorieshave subjected samples sent to them to X-ray diffraction analysis. The reports are that no evidence of gypsum was found, in either the unweathered sample or the weathered one,
Fig. 3. Diagrams of greatly magnified chunks of Palestinian rock-salt, the piece on the left unweathered, and the one on the right weathered.
where one might expect to find it (see Fig. 3). The amount of gypsum is too small to be detected except by chemical analysis. Freedman, confronted with this problem, found that the gypsum is wind-blown from a geological mountainous deposit near Ramon. Chamberlain's"dust,"which he concluded to be decomposed salt, must indeed be gypsum. And this gypsum dust may be the cause for at least one type of loss of savor. Freedman noticed that modem Israelis crush rock salt for table use, and it is possible that some gypsum would be included. Thus the loss of a salty taste might either be due to actual loss of sodium chloride or to the masking of its taste by gypsum. The fact that a common Palestinian salt which can lose its salty taste does exist renders the words of Jesus intelligible and the need to explain them as hyperbole unnecessary.6Jesus surely did not allude to pure sodium 5. Quoted in J. C. Ryle, Expository Thoughts on the Gospels, vol. 4, New York, 1860, p. 172. 6. As does Dalman, Asbeit und Sitte in Pallistina, vol. VI, p. 109: "Jesus presumes that it happens in order to stress the impossibility of restoration." Note also the story in the Talmud (Tractate Bekoroth 8B) where certain sages in Rome requested Rabbi Joshua ben Hanania (about 200 A.D.) to "tell us some stories." The Rabbi started with "There was a mule that gave birth." To the question "Can a mule give birth?" the Rabbi replied, "This is one of these stories . . . Can salt become unsavory?"
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chloride, which is a chemically stable compound, but rather to one of the complex salts of Palestine, which can lose savor through physical disintegration or through mixture with gypsum. Recognition of this leads (as several New Testament Greek scholarsagree) to taking the "if"in the sense of "whenever," since what follows is not a condition contrary to fact, but a very real possibility. A final note: George Lamsa reports to me that modern-day shepherds use the term "salt of the earth" as an idiom for "rocksalt," while using the term "salt of the sea" to describe salt secured by evaporating sea water. He states further that there is a belief that "salt from the sea" does not lose saltness as "salt from the earth" does. This belief may be based on the fact that no-one has seen "dust"on the "salt from the sea," but that must be because the salt evaporatedfrom the sea is never great in quantity, is not left out to weather, and is protectedfrom wind-blown gypsum dust. Salt For The Soil
It is Hermann Menge who suggested "for the earth" (i.e. "soil") in place of Luther's"of the earth."7This insight is consistent with the knowledge that sodium chloride has been used as?fertilizer "in all ages and in all countries for the purpose of promoting vegetation."8It follows that the Greek word for "earth"here, cognate with the "ge-" of geology, probably means "soil,"and is to be taken as an objective genitive. This is consistent with its usual use in the Synoptics. It is found in 88 places in the Synoptics, and only in Matthew 5:13 is there lacking an obvious guide leading to meanings such as "earth,""district,""land," "ground,"or "soil." See such instances as the RSV rendering of Mt. 2:20, "go to the land of Israel;"Mt. 16:13, "cameinto the district of Caesarea Philippi;" Mk. 8:6, "sit down on the ground;" Mk. 4:8, "other seeds fell into good soil." The New English Bible has followed the guides, but has used paraphrasessuch as "country-side"(Mt. 14:24), "fell prostrate"(Mt. 28:18), "whole country"(Lk. 4:25). In Mt. 5:13, where there is no obvious guide, both the RSV and the NEB follow Wycliff's implication of salt of mankind. The RSV retains Wycliff's "earth,"while the NEB uses "world,"a word which otherwise never is used to translatege. It is true that parallelismbetween Matthew 5:13 and 5:14, "you are the of the earth" and "you are the light of the world" suggests that "earth" salt be understood similarly to "world" (here Greek kosmos which can mean "mankind"). But the parallelism may also suggest that kosmou in verse 14 be taken as objective genitive, yielding "salt for the soil" and "light for the world." The agricultural interpretation of verse 13 yields better sense. 7. Hermann Menge, Das Neue Testament, ubersetzt und neu bearbeitet, Stuttgart, 1946, at Matthew 5:13. 8. J. C. Morton, A Cyclopedia of Agriculture, vol II, 1885, p. 793.
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Agricultural literature abounds in references to the use of salt as a fertilizer. The Arndt-Gingrich Greek lexicon indicates that such references occur in religious literature. "The value of salt in small quantities appears to have been known in ancient times - Cato, Virgil (and others) record its power of improving herbage of pastures."'That "sodiumchloride has had a marked effect on the productivity of some soils"10was so well known that Horace Greeley, surely more enthusiastic than most agricultural advisors, wrote: "If five bushels of salt be applied to a field and it does not thereupon yield five bushels more per acre of corn, I will eat the field."11It has not been too long since it was general practice to salt asparaguspatches in order to kill weeds. The shallow-rootedweeds withered, but the deep-rootedasparagusremained unharmed and was benefitted - not only because of the decrease of vegetative competition but also, quite possibly, because of actual root stimulation. The burning and withering effect on vegetation (where the amount of salt is large) was simply a matter of observation to the ancients; it is doubtless the basis of the ancient strategy of "sowing with salt" an enemy city after its capture (Judges 9:45). We do not as yet fully understand the stimulating effect of sodium chloride, but we surmise it is linked to the liberation of "certain plant nutrients, such as potassium."12 Nowadays, potassium is supplied by fertilizers bearing it; only a little research has been done recently into the problem of potassium-sodiumexchange. We do know that only when the concentration of the soil solution (be the solute sodium chloride, or a common fertilizer salt like sodium nitrate or potassium chloride or nitrate, or even sugar), is less than that in the cells of the roots will water be taken into the roots, and so the stimulation only occurs when the salt is present in not too large amounts. "What Can Be Salted Therewith?"
This translation, that of Tyndale and Luther, is quite different from "Wherewith shall it be salted?"which has been assumed to mean "Wherewith shall the salt be salted?"The passive verb has been made impersonal. Such usage is permissable: "The passive is sometimes used impersonally, the subject being expressed in the idea of the verb itself."'"The antecedent of the "it"of the King James translationand the "what"of Tyndale's translation, is, then, "that which you ordinarily salt." The antecedent is not in some preceding word but is hidden in the idea of the verb itself. If we do not translate in this way, we are forced to assume again that Jesus was speaking of an impossibility in order to exaggerate, that he was asking "How shall saltness be 9. J. M. Wilson, The Rural Cyclopedia, vol. 4, Edinburgh, 1852, p. 130. 10. T. L. Lyon and H. O. Buckman, The Nature and Properties of Soils, New York, 1927, p. 380. 11. Quoted by G. L. Eskew, Salt, the Fifth Element, Chicago, 1948, p. 217. 12. Lyon and Buckman, op. cit. 13. To quote a grammar W. W. Deatrick owned: W. W. Goodwin, Elementary Greek Grammar, Boston, 1887, p. 244.
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(Vol. XXV,
restored to salt?"It would follow that Jesus is using the idea of the impossibility of restorationof a physical loss of saltness to stress the impossibility of restorationof a spiritual loss, that is, a loss of Christian influence. In other words, as Deatrick saw, the meaning would be that there is a "fearful danger set before professing Christians. If we do not exert a saving influence on others, we are in greatest danger of not being able to save ourselves."Are we to believe that it was of this fearful danger that Jesus warned his disciples, stressing the impossibility of restoration, that is regaining effectiveness and even one's own salvation, if they, like salt, once lost effectiveness? Commentatorswho hold to the idea that the antecedent of "it" is "salt" point to Mark 9:50. Here in the Greek the reflexive pronoun "itself"is inserted, and it agrees in gender and number with the word for salt. This may seem to clinch the matter, but it does not take into account the possibility that the antecedent lies in the idea of the verb itself. Though much has been written about the pronoun "itself" here, only one translator, Noves,14 actually uses the word, and curiously he uses it in his translation of Matthew and Luke where the reflexive pronoun is not found, but does not use it in Mark! Although it is somewhat awkward, one can translate "How will you season that which itself ordinarilyis seasoned with salt?"The usual attempt to keep Jesus from salting salt, by reading, "be restored,"has not taken the impersonal construction into account, and a succession of English translations have changed the idea in one way or another. Curiously, the idea has been changed only in Matthew and Luke, where "be salted"and "be seasoned"have become "be restored;"translatorshave not changed Mark's "you season" to "you restore."But salting and seasoning are not restoring: the idea has been changed and a fundamental principle of translationhas been violated. It Is No Use For Either the Soil or the Dunghill
In Luke, in association with the agricultural guide word "dunghill,"ge must certainly be translated "land,""ground,"or "soil."Deatrick put it this way: "These words of Jesus seem to indicate He was thinking . . . of the manurial use of salt, of its use as a fertilizer rather than as a seasoning agent." Israeli agriculturalistshave not been able to send me references to the use of common salt as an additive to either land or dunghill. However, J. C. Morton wrote: "Salt is applicable in all cases in which ... fermented dung cannot be carted at once to the land. Covering the heap with salt will be found a cheap and effective means of checking fermentation."'5Indeed, if salt had not been used as an additive to soil and to dung, it is strange that Jesus should have specified that "it was no use for either soil or dunghill" instead of merely stating that it was no use for anything. Was this because the greater amount of 14. G. R. Noyes,
15. Op. cit.
The
New
Testament
Translated
from the Greek Text of Tischendorf,
1870.
THE BIBLICALARCHAEOLOGIST
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salt was used not for seasoning and preservingfood but agriculturallyfor the soil and dunghill? Trodden
Under Foot By Men
Matter is seldom absolutely worthless, and Lamsa points out that the savorless salt is spreadon house roofs in modern Israel. The flat roofs are covered with soil; the salt hardens the soil and stops leakage. Since the flat roofs serve for public gatherings and as playgrounds,the salt is still being trodden under foot by men!
Fig. 4. A pillar of salt and rock salt cliffs on Jebel Usdum along the Dead Sea. From BA V, 2 (May,
1942).
Conclusion
Cornell University's Professor Bancroft used to say: "This is highly improbable, and the only thing that makes it possible at all is the fact that it is so." The allusion to an agricultural"fact in experience"may seem highly improbable, but what makes it possible at all are the facts: that salt has been used as a fertilizer; that "for the soil" can replace the term "of the earth"; that certain kinds of Palestinian salt can and do lose salty taste; and that the passive verbs can be rendered "How can that which ordinarily is salted be salted?" Considerablebasis has been found to support the exegesis of the preacher of 1897, who believed that Jesus alluded to the growth-stimulationeffect of
48
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salt, since he was not interested merely in the preservationof his way of life but much more in its continued stimulation towardever greatergrowth, which comes about only if Christians do not lose their saving influence on others. "You are (like) the salt for the soil, a stimulant for growth. If you become like the savorlesssalt, no longer good for anything, how wxillthe gospel of the Kingdom be preached throughout the whole world?"
Salt as Curse in the Old Testament and the Ancient Near East
F. CHARLESFENSHAM University of Stellenbosch Stellenbosch, Union of South Africa
In Judg. 9:45, Abimelech's battle with Shechem is described. He took the city, killed all its inhabitants, and "sowed it with salt." Myers explains this sentence as "relegatedto perpetual desolation."' Others suggest that salt was used to put the city to the ban.2 Still another view is that salt was used to ward off bloodguilt. Abimelech, having killed his mother's kinsmen, was compelled to use salt to prevent supernaturalvengeance." In contrast to this last opinion, it is important to note that in quite a few places salt is connected to the idea of infertility. In Dt. 29:23, the infertility of the soil made barren by salt is connected to the tradition of the obliteration of Sodom and Gomorrah.Very important is the fact that this barrenness is used as a curse against disobedience,4directed against those who breach the covenant of God (verse 25). Infertility due to salt is the subject in Job 39:6, Jer. 17:6, and Zeph. 2:9. The soil is cursed as a result of the wrath of the Lord against Foreignpeople in Zeph. 2:9 and against his own disobedient people in Jer. 17:6. The strong tradition of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah5probably played an important role in the development of the prophetic message about a barren country.6 In Jeremiah and Zephaniah, the idea of barrenness due to salt is used as a curse; we may infer that a curse also lies behind Judg. 9:45. As a resultof the unfaithfulness of the people of Shechem to Abimelech, he sowed salt to bring a curse on the city. The result was infertility and barrenness. 1. Myers, "Judges" in The Interpreter's Bible II, p. 759. Cf. G. F. Moore, Judges, 1898, p. 263 and H. W. Hertzberg, Die Biicher Josua, Richter, Ruth, 1953, p. 207. 2. E.g. W. R. Smith, The Religion of the Semites, 1894 (paperback 1959), p. 454, note 1. 3. A. M. Honeyman, "The Salting of Shechem," Vetus Testamentum III, 1953, pp. 192-5. This view is followed by the writer in Bybel met Verklarende Aantekeninge I, 1958, p. 518, but should be changed ;n the light of this article.
4. On the curse, see J. Hempel, "Die israelitischen Anschauugen von Segen und Fluch," in
Apoxysmata, 1961, pp. 30ff., and S. H. Blank, "The Curse, the Blasphemy, the Spell, the Oath," Hebrew Union College Annual XXIII (1950-51), pp. 73ff. 5. Cf, I. Engnell, Gamla Testamentet I, 1945, p. 97, and M. Noth, History of Israel, 1958, p. 120,
note 1. 6. For a discussion of this verse, see F. Horst in T. H. Robinson-F.Horst, Die zwdlf kleinen Propheten, p. 191.
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We have ample evidence from ancient Near Eastern material to support this contention. Dupont-Sommer, in his splendid publication on the vassal-treatiesof Sefire draws attention to a parallel use of salt.7 It reads, "And Hadad will sow salt thereon."8This sentence occurs in maledictions which are accompanied by rites. In other words, if the vassal were to break the treaty, this malediction among others would come to bear upon him. In the first place, the sowing of salt in this text stands obviously in connection with infertility. In the second place, it is to be regarded as a curse against
Fig. 5. Foundations of the Shechem temple as they appeared in 1957. The building referred to in Judges 9 as the house of Millo and the tower of Shechem is represented only by some of the stones on top of the well-preserved foundations; the latter come from some 300 years earlier. Photo from BA XX.4 (Dec., 1957).
the transgressor.And thirdly, the text in Judg. 9:45 is almost identical to that of the Sefire treaty, except that in the latter the god takes action and in the former a man. This is not, however, a serious obstacle. The custom and effect in both cases are the same. On the other hand, the idea that a breach of covenant would result in barrennessdue to salt has its background in the Aramaean treaty. The malediction producing infertile soil as a result of disobedience by the people of God is to be linked to the malediction of the Sefire 7. Les inscriptions 8. Ibid., p. 18.
aramdennes
de Sfire', 1958,
p. 52.
50
THE BIBLICALARCHAEOLOGIST
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treaty. The fact that the malediction was accompaniedby a ritual act9 points to a visible demonstration of sowing salt to create infertility. Dupont-Sommer refers also to evidence in Assyrian tablets and in Hesychius for the use of salt to effect infertility.'0 There is still another piece of evidence to be noted. Friedrich published in 1924 his important study of the military oath of the Hittites." In a context where maledictions are pronounced against the soldier who might break the oath, the following occurs: "And as salt has no seed, so may (it happen to) such a man that his name, his descendants, his house, his cattle, and his sheep shall perish."'12Salt gives expression to the idea of infertility because it has no seed. This thought is now transferred to the person and property of the soldier who breaks the oath. Salt is not only connected with infertility but also with a curse of destruction which can befall the disobedient person. There might have been some link between this idea and that of Sefire and the Old Testament. We may summarize as follows: salt is regarded as effecting infertility. One of the greatest catastrophiesto overtake the Near Eastern man is infertility.13This idea is then used as a curse against a person who breaks a covenant, and is extended to his property.The curse is demonstratedby the ritual act of sowing salt. In light of these conclusions, the sowing of salt by Abimelech is a ritual act to bring a curse of barrenness and desolation on Shechem. Religion und Cultus, 1953, pp. 53ff. 9. Ibid., p. 20. For the rite, see S. Mowinckel, 10. Dupont-Sommer, p. 52, and W. R. Smith, op. cit., p. 454. 35 (N. F. 1), Zeitschrift fiir Assyriologie, Soldateneid," 11. Johannes Friedrich, "Der hethitische 1924, pp. 161ff. 12. Friedrich, p. 165. On the word for "perish" here see Friedrich, Hethitisches Wo6rterbuch, 1952 Wissenchaft. paper in Zeitschrift fiir die alttestamentliche p. 57, and my forthcoming 13. J. Pedersen, Israel, I-II, 1926, pp. 72ff.
More Bodmer Papyri FLOYD V. FILSON McCormick Theological
Seminary
Beginning in 1954, the Bodmer Libraryhas been publishing the Bodmer Papyri, a remarkableseries of ancient manuscripts,all in codex or book form.' They give the text of the Papyri, a French translation,and an introduction in French. Two of these Bodmer Papyri are works of Greek literature: Bodmer see "A New Papyrus of the Gospel of on a few of these manuscripts, 1. For earlier information John," B.A., Vol. XX, pp. 54-63; "The Bodmer Papyri." B.A., Vol. XXII, pp. 48-51; and "New B. A., Vol. XXIV, pp. 2-18. Greek and Coptic Gospel Manuscripts,"
1962, 2)
THE BIBLICALARCHAEOLOGIST
51
Papyrus I contains Books 5 and 6 of Homer's Iliad; Bodmer Papyrus IV presents Menander's Dyscolos. The remaining manuscriptscome from Christian sources. Four contain in whole or in part Old Testament material; three are in Coptic, an Egyptian language which arose in late ancient times. Bodmer Papyrus III contains the Gospel of John and Genesis 1:1 to 4:2. Only meager fragments of John 1: 1 to 4:20 survive; otherwise the manuscript is well preserved. The manuscript ended with Genesis 4:2. This manuscript may be dated in the fourth century. It is in the Bohairic dialect of Coptic, a dialect of which we previously had possessedonly one short fragment earlier than the ninth century. Two other Old Testament manuscripts, though numbered in the series of Bodmer Papyri, are really written on parchment. Bodmer Papyrus VI, a parchment manuscript of Proverbs, now contains chs. 1:1 to 21:4, with five gaps due to the loss of a sheet of the manuscriptat five points in the book. The manuscript was written in the fourth or fifth century. It is written in an alphabet somewhat like Old Coptic. Its language is not that of any previously known Coptic dialect, but has similarities chiefly with the Sahidic and Akhmimic dialects. Bodmer Papyrus XVI is a fourth century parchment manuscript of Exodus in the Sahidic dialect; it contains chs. 1:1 to 15:21. It is the only manuscript evidence for the Coptic text of parts of these chapters. At the end of the manuscript is added its title: "The First Part of the Law." (The editor reports that another Coptic manuscript of the Bodmer collection contains Dt. 1-10; it will be published later.) Tile fourth manuscript containing Old Testament material is Bodmer Papyrus IX. It is an early fourth century copy of the Greek text of Psalms 33 and 34. It was found as part of a codex containing nine different manuscripts which were written in the third and early fourth centuries and then bound together in one codex in the fourth century. Further reference to this codex will be made below. The Psalms are written in a way that keeps each line of the poetry separate;the scribe tried to get each poetic line on one line of the manuscript,and when the line was too long, he wrote the rest of the line just above the end of the full line thus: -him. This poor man cried out and the Lord heard Several immensely valuable New Testament manuscriptshave been published in the Bodmer series. The fourth century Bodmer Papyrus III, containing the Gospel of John and Genesis 1:1 to 4:2 in Bohairic, has been mentioned above. Its early date makes it highly important for the history of the Coptic New Testament. The manuscript omits the reference to the moving of the water (John 5:3b, 4) and the section about the woman caught committing adultery (John 7:53-8:11).
52
THE BIBLICALARCHAEOLOGIST
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Still more important are two Greek manuscriptsof the Gospel of John. Bodmer Papyrus II contains chs. 1:1 to 14:26 complete; a Supplement containing fragmentaryremains of chs. 14-21 of the same manuscript has been published. This manuscript, which the editor thinks was written about 200 A.D., is designated by the symbol P 66. It is the earliest manuscript of this Gospel except for the small fragment in the John Rylands Library (P 52) which gives fragments of only five verses. More recently Bodmer Papyri XIV-XV have been published. This is really one manuscript containing the Gospels of Luke and John. It is known as P 75. The editor thinks it was written between 175 and 225 A.D., that is, somewhere about 200 A.D. He suggested the same date for Bodmer Papyrus II, but thinks that Bodmer Papyrus XV may be a little earlier than Bodmer Papyrus II. When complete, the manuscript had 144 pages, but it now contains only Luke 3:18 to 18:18 and Luke 22:4 to John 15:8 (with gaps). Scholars are studying these new manuscripts for their light on the textual history of the New Testament. The editor notes that in their text P 66 and P 75 resemble each other more than either resemblesP 45, which is the Chester Beatty third century papyrus of the Gospels and Acts. A comparisonof all three, which had their origin in Egypt, shows that there was no uniform text of the Gospels in Egypt in the third century. The BodmerPapyri include no manuscriptof Matthew or Mark or Paul's letters or Hebrews or the Book of Revelation. The most recently published of the series, Bodmer Papyrus XVII, contained originally the Book of Acts and all seven of the Catholic Epistles. Acts is still remarkablycomplete but the Catholic Epistles are quite fragmentary (James is the best preserved of these Epistles). This Papyrus, known as P 74, is the latest of the Bodmer series; the editor thinks it was written in the sixth or seventh century. Like all of the Greek manuscriptsin this series, P 74 is an uncial manuscript, that is, written in capital letters, and the bold and formal handwriting supports the editor'sview that it was preparedfor church use and not for private reading. Its date may seem late in comparisonwith the other Bodmer Papyri, but it still is one of the earliest manuscriptsof these writings; the overwhelming majority of extant manuscripts of these New Testament books are later than
P 74.
Far more important for the study of the Catholic Epistles are Bodmer Papyri VII and VIII, which together are known as P 72. No. VII contains the Epistle of Jude and No. VIII the two Epistles of Peter. All three books were written by the same scribe and the editor dates his work in the third century. This is the oldest copy we have of these three Epistles, and it is the only copy extant on papyrus.This indicates that these Epistles were not widely copied in the early centuries when papyrus was used as writing material.
THE BIBLICALARCHAEOLOGIST
1962, 2)
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However,this new evidenceindicatesthat the text of these three Epistles was ratherwell preserved.The text of Jude here given is much like that of it differssomewhatmorefromverse20 on. The text good latermanuscripts; of I and II Peteris alsocloseto thatof otherancientmanuscripts; it omitsthe latterhalf of I Peter 5:14 and it has the spellingSimon insteadof Simeon in II Peter 1:1.
gi?.--1- ., I- -1
iZ !10
1.......
--mo, Rl?M 6P.? gv m:-........... "P ""I080 ..... ..... ........ .......
Fig. 6. A leaf from Bodmer Papyrus VIII, showing the Greek text of I Peter 5:12-14a. Verse 14b is omitted. Some interesting features of this page include the page number at the top (KB), the abbreviation theta-upsilon with a line over it in line 5 which stands for the word for God, and the legend which follows verse 14a: "Of letter A. Peace to him who wrote and to him who reads." One can discern quitePeter, clearly the fibers of the papyrus.
The manuscriptsof Jude and I and II Peter occur, as noted above, in a codex which bound together nine quite different sections, not all written by one scribe or at one time. These three Epistles are the only New Testament works included in the group, and the only Old Testament portion was the two Psalms mentioned above. Seven of the nine sections the editor thinks were copied in the third century, but the Apology of Phileas and Psalms 33 and 34 he thinks were copied in the fourth century. The nine units, each
54
THE BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGIST
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given a separate Bodmer Papyrus number, were bound together in one codex in the fourth century. The nine sections, in the order found in the codex, are as follows: The Nativity of Mary, The Apocryphal Correspondence of the Corinthians with the Apostle Paul, The Eleventh Ode of Solomon, The Epistle of Jude, Melito's Homily on the Passover, Fragment of a Hymn, Apology of Phileas, Psalms 33 and 34, The Epistles of Peter. The content of the Nativity of Mary was summarized and its importance pointed out in the Biblical Archaeologistfor May, 1959. We have discussed above the manuscriptsof Psalms 33 and 34, Jude, and the Epistles of Peter. The fragment of the Apology of Phileas has not been published. But the published Papyri include the other four writings of this group, and they throw an interesting light on the history of the early Church. Bodmer Papyrus X contains The ApocryphalCorrespondenceof the Corinthians with the Apostle Paul. It consists of two parts, a letter to Paul from the elders of the church at Corinth, and a letter from Paul in reply. This fictitious exchange of letters was used to attack the Gnostics. The Corinthian elders tell Paul that two men, Simon and Cleobius, have come to Corinth and taught that the God ruling this world is not omnipotent, that it is not necessary to follow the prophets, that the world was not created by the supreme God but by angels, that man was not created by the supreme God, that there is no resurrectionof the flesh, and that Jesus was not born of Mary and was not incarnate.This is clearly Gnostic teaching. Paul is asked to come at once or to write. Paul writes and refutes these Gnostic assertions. These letters were written in the second century when Gnosticism was threatening the Church. Some have thought that they were written as an integral part of the Acts of Paul, a second century apocryphal work. The editor thinks that the letters were written separately and later used in the Acts of Paul. This correspondencewas already known from Armenian, Latin, and Coptic versions of it, but Bodmer Papyrus X, written about the third century, is the first copy of the original Greek to be discovered,and is the most ancient copy we have of these apocryphalletters. It is interesting that these letters seem to have been considered canonical by the Syrian church for a short time about the third century, and that the Armenians had them in their New Testament for several centuries beginning at that time. Bodmer Papyrus XI, The Eleventh Ode of Solomon, is the only copy we have of this Ode in Greek. This Papyrus was written in the third century and is the oldest copy of the Ode known to us. Five Odes of Solomon were alreadyknown to us from the Pistis Sophia, a Gnostic work written in Coptic, and forty-two such Odes were found in Syriac and published in 1909 by Rendel Harris. The one now found in Greek is called the eleventh because it stands eleventh in this Syriac collection. The Greek definitely calls it an
THE BIBLICALARCHAEOLOGIST
1962, 2)
55
Ode of Solomon; this title had already been assigned to the Odes on other grounds, but this is the first time the title has been found in this explicit form. The Ode has no specific Christian content, nor is it a Gnostic writing.
A.
1*-
&er
kt4
4
jJJL.Ar
rId. Tw
-N7
6), kirr~tcr
~tr-T
~ c~O'~( jj ~~c-r2eaidZ, ~~C1 r j c ~4~r ~';*lt?l~t;~
Fig.
o
arc.c
7. Although this piece is called "papyrus XVI," it is actually a piece of parchment, containing the text of Exodus 1:1-10. The manuscript probably dates from the fourth century and is in the Sahidic dialect of Coptic.
Parallels in style and thought lead the editor to suggest that since the Ode has closest affinities to the Thanksgiving Psalms of the Dead Sea Scrolls and to the Book of Jubilees, authorship of the Ode by an Essene in the first century A.D. seems likely.
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THE BIBLICALARCHAEOLOGIST
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In the codex the Liturgical Fragment (Bodmer Papyrus XII) follows Melito's Homily on the Passover, and the editor suggests that it may have been a Passoverhymn. The six lines of the Fragmentgive no real basis for a solid theory. They speak of honoring the father and the mother; they refer to brides and bridegroom;they call Christ "yourbridegroom." The other writing found in the codex is the Homily on the Passoverby Melito bishop of Sardis. It is published as Bodmer Papyrus XIII. Melito wrote in the middle or in the second half of the second century. Eusebius says that he wrote sixteen (or eighteen?) works, but they have almost all perished, probably because Melito was a Quartodeciman, that is, he believed that the annual celebration of the death and resurrectionof Jesus Christ should occur on the fourteenth day of Nisan, no matter what day of the week this was; this was a rather widespread practice in his day. When the practice of celebrating the resurrectionon Sunday every year was established, the standing of Melito and so of his writings was undermined. So though it was known that his Homily had been translatedinto Syriac, Latin, and Coptic, the work was not known for centuries. Syriac extracts were published in 1855, and in 1940 most of the Greek was brought to light in a manuscript published by Campbell Bonner of the University of Michigan. Other Greek, Coptic, and Syriac fragments, and a shortened Latin version, were then identified. Now this Bodmer Papyrus of the late third or early fourth century not only gives us specific testimony that Melito wrote the work and that its title was "Concerning the Passover,"but also has the entire text of the Homily except for the first sheet of the manuscript, which is lost. But other sources have these first paragraphs,and so now for the first time we have the complete text of this writing. It is the oldest or one of the oldest complete Christian sermons that we possess. The work is written in a studied rhetoricalstyle, and it presents the Passoverand the slaying of the Passoverlamb as a type of the death and resurrectionof Christ. It is an excellent example of the use of typology in the ancient Church. What general observationsdo these Bodmer Papyri suggest? They throw light on the development of the Coptic language and the Coptic version of the Bible. They give us second century works that throw light on the ancient Church. They give us much of the earliest evidence we have for the history of the New Testament text. They show that the Gospel of John was popular in Egypt; it was the most acceptable of the canonical Gospels to the Gnostics, and early Christianity in Egypt was inclined to Gnostic ideas. (A tradition says that Mark founded the church in Egypt. But it is the Gospel of John, not that of Mark, which appears in these Papyri. We find here one copy of Luke, but none of Mark.) Except for an apocryphalletter, Paul's letters have no place in this series. Hebrews, which some have thought was written in or
1962, 2)
THE BIBLICALARCHAEOLOGIST
57
to Egypt,does not appear.Of the Johanninewritings,the Gospelof John is prominent,but the Bookof Revelationis not found.Judeand I and II Peter appear,both in the CatholicEpistlesin PapyrusXVII and in the much earlier PapyriVII-VIII.PapyriVII-VIIIgive an earlyindicationof theirrecognition, but the fact that this early copy of these three Epistlesoccursin a collectionof liturgical,apocryphal,homiletical,and apologeticworkscould make us wonderif they were reallyconsideredto be fully canonicalby the fourthcenturyChristianwho madeup this codex.Be thatas it may,the great importanceof these BodmerPapyriis clear. They deserveand will receive intensivestudyin the comingdecade. Nabataean Torques NELSON GLUECK Hebrew
Union College-Jewish
Institute
of Religion
The art and architecture of the Nabataean temple of Khirbet Tannur' represent a unique amalgam of cultural influences from the Orient and the Occident, in which the whole is aistinctively different from the sum of its parts.2 Some of the symbols and motifs employed occurred simultaneously in both main parts of the world which the Nabataean culture spanned, while others may be attributed to one or the other. To the latter category belongs the lions' torque, a collar of twisted material which is strikingly depicted on several of the stone sculptures of deities from the Nabataean pantheon of Khirbet Tannur.3 It is represented on reliefs both of Zeus-Hadad and Atargatis, among others there, and was borrowed,we believe, in unmodified form from the Orient. The direct source of its origin, we think, was Parthia, and the indirect one was Scythia. The torques or collars at Khirbet Tannur are all exactly alike in form, differing only in size. It suffices thus for our present purpose to examine only one of them, belonging to the accoutrement of the chief male deity of Khirbet Tannur, namely, Zeus-Hadad.4 Circling his shoulders near the very top of his chiton, is carved the likeness of a twisted torque, whose terminals consist of lions' heads. The fold of the himation thrown over the god's left shoulder conceals part of the torque on that side. Obviously a symbol of high authority and power, the torque is undoubtedly modeled after originals of gold or baser metals worn by royalty or nobility. 1. Glueck, 2. Glueck, 3. OSJ, p. fig. 15. 4. BASOR fig. 175.
The Other Side of the Jordan (OSJ), pp. 158-200. Rivers in the Desert (RID) p. 242; OSJ, pp. 175, 200. 189; BASOR 67, p. 11; The Illustrated London News (ILN), Aug. 21, 1937, p. 299, 65, p. 18; OSJ, p. 188, fig. 119; RID, fig. 29; Wright, Biblical Archaeology, p. 229,
58
Fig.
THE BIBLICAL,ARCHAEOLOGIST
(Vol. XXV,
8. The relief of Zeus-Hadad from Khirbet Tannur. His throne is flanked by bulls and the thunderbolt symbol is over his left arm. The face of the lion on the left side of his collar or torque is quite easily discernible. Photo: Hebrew Union College.
The lions' heads forming the terminals of the Zeus-Hadad torque emphasize the fullness of his might, which is underscoredin the first instance, however, by the thunderbolt symbol over his left arm5 and the bulls at the sides of his throne.6 Only parts of the two sandstone lions were recovered, 5. BASOR 65, p. 18 and note 46d. 6. BASOR 65, pp. 18f.; OSJ, p. 189.
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which we believe belong to a parallel stele, also of sandstone, featuring the relief of an enthroned Atargatis, the consort of Zeus-Hadad. She, too, may well have a worn a torque with lions' terminals, similar to the one encircling the shoulders of a small Atargatis relief of classical Nabataean appearance who, apparently, was also depicted originally as being seated on a throne guarded by two lions. The torques with the lions' terminals are thus to be interpreted as a symbol of divine power. They emphasize the prowess and rank of particular male and female deities, whose special qualities are furthermore delineated through additional features, such as the thunderbolt and bulls in the instance of Zeus-Hadad (Canaanite Baal), and the lions by the sides of her throne in the instance of the fertility goddess Atargatis. In general, in the NabataeanSyrian-Parthianworld of the Hellenistic period, bulls are the companions of Zeus-Hadad and lions those of Atargatis. The famous bas-relief of Zeus-Hadad and Atargatis found in the ruins of the temple of Atargatis at DuraEuropos on the Tigris shows just these animals as the respective attendants of the enthroned divinities.' It bolsters our conviction, furthermore, based on the above-mentioned remains, that an Atargatis figure, seated between lions, must have accompanied that of Zeus-Hadad with his bulls at Khirbet Tannur.8
It was particularly from Parthia,9we believe, as we have already suggested, that the Nabataeans borrowed the torque symbol of royal and divine authority, with which their kings and nobility probably adorned themselves and with which their gods were embellished. The routes of interchange of goods and gods, of fashions and ideas, led from the Parthian centers of commerce in Mesopotamia to the Nabataean emporium of Petra with its radiating spokes of far reaching influence. The forces of commerce and culture which supported the rise and prosperityof the desert city of Parthian Hatra near the northern Tigris made possible also the brilliant if brief efflorescence of Dura-Europosto the southwest of it on the Euphrates. Following ancient trails, the Parthians found their way west-southwestwardto Damascus, enriching Palmyra in between, and reaching Petra, far to the south, which commanded the approachesto the marketsof Arabia, Egypt and the Red Sea. Parthian Sculptures from Hatra in 7. BASOR 65, p. 19. note 49; 67. p. 12. note 12; Ingholt. Memoirs of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, XII, 1954, T. 18 and pl. IV:I; DuraEuropos III, pp. 100f. and pl. XIV. au Jcebel Druze, Le 8. BASOR 67, p. 12, note 12; OSJ, p. 189; Dunand, Mission Archdologique Musde de Soueida, p. 83 and pl. XXXIV, 169. 9. OSJ, p. 189; BASOR 67, p. 11, note 11; Rostovtzeff, V, p. 108 and pl. XIII; Dura-Europos ILN, Nov. 17, 1951, p. 806, fig. 8; Dec. 18, 1954, p. 1116, figs. 3 and 6; p. 1117, fig. 9 center Gods in Uniform and fig. 11 left; Dec. 25, 1954, p. 1160, fig. 3. See also Ernst H. Kantorowicz, and in Proceedings Society, vol. 105, no. 4, 1961, pp. 375-378 of the American Philosophical figs. 19, 24, 27, and 28; for torques from Palmyra, cf. Champdor, Les ruines de Palmyres, pp. 26, 30, 48, 86, 91; Ghirshman, Iran, pp. 107. 159, fig. 57.
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The torque was a common article of adornment of Parthian Hatra. The nudity of a statue of Hercules there is relieved only by a torque around his neck. There is, to be sure, the remnant of what was probably intended to represent a lion skin draped over his now broken left arm, while his right hand rests on a knobbed club.'o (There is, incidentally, a striking similarity between his beard and moustache and those of some of the Khirbet Tannur gods. His eyes, however, like those of some of the other Hatra deities, were inlaid with shell and stone," in contrast to the simpler fashion in vogue at Khirbet Tannur, of representing them through sculptural lines.) The torque of distinction and authority is worn also by other Parthian deities12 and members of royalty'3 at Hatra, but over their regular attire. None of these Parthian torques, however, including those of Palmyra,14 possessed terminals of lions' or other animals' heads. Lions' terminals were known, however, in earlier Persia.14a There is no question in my mind but that when other Nabataean sites are excavated in southern Jordan or in the Negev, additional Nabataean basreliefs will be found of deities, adorned, among other symbols, with that of the torque with lions' terminals. I cannot, furthermore,imagine the brilliant and rich Nabataean king, Aretas IV (9 B.C. - A.D. 40), appearing during his reign in public without there being draped over the top of his chiton a Parthian type torque or one exactly similar to that found on some of the gods of Khirbet Tannur, namely, with lions' terminals. Our quest for the answer to the problem as to where the Nabataeans the got torque is not sufficiently answered by pointing out that the Parthians, with whom they had commercial, cultural and even political ties of varying degrees of closeness, made much use of this type of decoration, and that it was therefore perfectly natural for the Nabataeans to have borrowed it from them. To be sure, no Parthian torques have yet been discovered exactly similar to those of Khirbet Tannur. But even if the Parthian duplicates of the Nabataean torques of Khirbet Tannur had been found in excavations at Hatra or Dura-Europosor Palmyra, or elsewhere in the reaches of Parthia, the question would still remain to be resolved as to where the Parthians obtained the torque. 10. ILN, Dec. 25, 1954, p. 1160. fig. 3. 11. ILN, Dec. 18, 1954, p. 1117, fig. 11; Nov. 17, 1951, p. 806, fig. 1; Dec. 25, 1954, p. 1161, fig. 9. 12. ILN, Nov. 17, 1951, p. 806, fig. 8; Dec. 18, 1954, p. 1116, fig. 6; p. 1117. fig. 9 center; fig. 11, two reliefs at left; Hopkins in Berytus III, pl. III, fig. 1, facing p. 6; Rostovtzeff, Caravan Cities, pp. 186, 218, and fig. XXXII:1, facing p. 193; Dura-Europos V, p. 108 and pl. XIII; Kantorowicz, Gods in Uniform, p. 378, fig. 27. Dunand, Le Musde de Soueida, p. 50 and pl. XX: 76. 13. ILN, Nov. 17, 1951, fig. 1 at right; Dec. 18, 1954, p. 1116, fig. 3. St6ve, M. J., The Living World of the Bible, Cleveland, 1961, pp. 27, 233, ill. 14, showing the bronze bust of a Parthian chief with a fine torque, held together by an oval-shaped medallion. Located now in the Teheran Museum, it comes from Shami in southern Iran. 14. Gods in Uniform, pp. 375f., fig. 19. 14a. Ghirshman, Iran, pp. 107, 159.
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knew the torquewell.'"A gold one accentuTheir Persianpredecessors ated the grandeurof the attireof Xerxes(485-465B.C.).1' Persianand Median courtiersworetorques,as seen in a sculpturalpanel at his fabulouscapiwhich Alexanderthe Greatwas to pluckand fireand contal of Persepolis,17 sume like a fat goosein 330 B.C. That the high fashionof torquesshouldbe appliedto someof the Persiangodswas natural,l8lendingfurtheraplombto the limitedcompanyof mortalswho could affordthem. But the storyof the torqueprecedesnot only the periodof the Parthiansbut alsothatof the earlier and relatedPersians.The Parthiansultimatelyinheritedthe rule and much of the domainof the Persiansafteran intervalof conquestandcontrolby the MacedonianGreeksunder Alexanderand his successorsin Seleucid Syria. The earliestbeginningsand long and widespreadusage of the torqueis, we believe,to be attributedto the Scythians. The only other torqueswith lions' terminalsthat I have been able to find, comparableto the Nabataeanones of KhirbetTannur, are Scythian. They occur in southern Russia along the shoresof the Bosporus.19The use of torques of Scythian origin or influence can be traced from Pergamene in Asia Minor to as far east as Ghandara in northwestern India,20 and as far west as Ireland and Gaul.21 This correspondsto the incursions of Scythian hordes from upper Asia, who roamed the vast, occasionally mountain chain flecked steppe, which stretches from western China to eastern Europe. Their physical might and economic and cultural influence made themselves felt directly and indirectly across Asia and Europe for over two thousand years, beginning with about 1700 B.C.22 Some of their tribes settled north and east of the Black Sea and early became a permanent part of the population of ancient Iran and later an integral part of the ethnic character of the Parthians.23Xerxes speaks of the Amyrgian Scythians and the Pointed15. Olmstead, History of the Persian Empire, p. 275; Herodotus, History, viii, 113. 16. Olmstead, p. 282 17. Olmstead, p. 276 and pl. XXXVIII; Pritchard, The Ancient Near East in Pictures, pp. 11, 253 and fig. 28; Herodotus, History, ix, 80; Xenophon, Anabasis, I, 2, 27. 18. The Ancient Near East in Pictures, p. 307; Dura-Europos V, p. 108 and pl. XIII; Borovka, Scythian Art, pls. 56, 57. 19. Daremberg and Saglio, Dictionnaire des antiquitis Grecques et Romains, V, pp. 375f.; Cumont, Les religions orientales dans le paganisme Romain, p. 97 and pl. II:1, 2; Minns, Scythians and Greeks, pp. 62ff., 197. fig. 90; Rostovtzeff, Iranians and Greeks, p. 124 and pl. XXIV:2; DuraEuropos V, pp. 229f.; Cook, Zeus II:1, p. 377 and fig. 285; Butler, Syria II, A. figs. 326, 328; Wiegand, Baalbek 1, pls. 13, 60b; II, p. 8, fig. 12; p. 11, fig. 16; Dalman, Petra, pp. 74-76; T. T. Rice, The Scythians, p. 242 and pl. 17, showing a gold neck circlet with lion terminals from Chertomlyk, South Russia, 4th century B. C.; Borovka, Scythian Art, pls. 56, 57; Dalton, The Treasures of the Oxus, p. 34, no. 117, showing 5th-4th century B. C. torque or armlet from Susa; cf. p. 8, no. 17 and pl. VII and pl. XVII, no. 118; Piggott, The Dawn of Civilization, p. 327: "a golden torque bearing 12 figures of lions," from the Chertomlyk burial in the Dnieper; for gold bracelet with lion head terminals from Ziwiye, Iran, of 8th-7th century B. C., cf. The Cincinnati Art Museum Bulletin, p. 12, fig. 5, pp. 15-17; The University Museum Bulletin (Philadelphia) XXI, (1957), fig. 28. 20. Dura-Europos V, p. 108. 21. Daremberg and Saglio, op. cit., V, p. 376; Cumont, op. cit. pl. II:1; T. G. E. Powell, The Celts, pp. 100, 261, 262 and pls. 35, 36, showing torques in Germany which seem to reflect Scythian influence. 22. T. T. Rice, The Scythians, pp. 23-24, 37-45. 23. Rice, p. 45; Ghirshman Iran, p. 243.
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capped Scythians,24who lived far to the east of Parthia,25which itself lies south and east of the Caspian Sea.
Fig. 9. Close-up view of the relief of Zeus-Hadad, showing the torque at his neck. Photo: Hebrew Union College. 24. Finegan, The Treasury of Persepolis and from the Ancient Past, p. 199; Schmidt, light Other Discoveries in the Homeland Oriental Institute Communications of the Achaemenians, 1939,
p. 14. 25.
Kraeling,
Bible Atlas, map XII.
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There seems to be little question but that the type of torque found at Khirbet Tannur is to be attributed ultimately, through the Parthians, to Scythian origin and example. The Parthians,partly Scythian in their makeup, thus came by the use of the torque naturally. It seems to have been a fairly common decoration among the Scythians of southern Russia and elsewhere especially during the Hellenistic period. The Parthian kingdom, which in its heyday extended from the Caspian Sea to the Persian Gulf and from the borderof India to a northern branch of the Euphratesin western Asia, marked by the age-old capital of Haran, had constant contact with a wide range of Scythian tribes. That served naturally to strengthen the tradition of Scythian art as reflected in the use of the torque in Parthia and make its transmission to the Nabataeans even more natural and understandable than otherwise. It must be remembered in this connection that an awareness of the name, memory and existence of the Scythians may have been brought home constantly to the Nabataeans through their contacts, direct or indirect, with Scythopolis,26the chief city of the Decapolis.27In Biblical times it had been known as Beth-shan. In several instances, its Hellenistic-Byzantine name was written Skython polis, city of the Scythians.28I cannot believe, convinced as I am of the reliability of historical memory,29that this name is empty of fact. It may reflect, as has been suggested by others, the settlement there of a remnant of the ebbtide of the Scythian hordes that had penetrated Palestine along the coastal road to menace Egypt, only to be bribed off and turned back by the Egyptian king, PsammetichusI in 611 B.C., if one may rely upon the account of Herodotus.30There is, however, no evidence of the presence of Scythians in Scythopolis at the time of the Nabataeans.31 26. RID, p. 50. 27. Matthew 4:25; Mark 5:20, 7:31. 28. LXX of Judges 1:27; Judith 3:10; II Macc. 12:29. 29. RID, pp. 31, 64, 68, 71, 156; Wright, BA XXII:4, Dec., 1959, pp. 105f. 30. Herodotus, History, i, 105. The ebb of the Scythian tide from Palestine seems to have left Judah unharmed. It has been conjectured by some, without definite historical proof, that Jeremiah and Zephaniah may have had these invaders from the north in mind when they prophesied, respectively, concerning the imminent destruction of Judah and the imminent approach of the Day of the Lord; cf. Jeremiah 4:5-31; 5:15-17; 6:1-8, 22-26; Zephaniah 1:7-8, 14-18; see also II Macc. 4:47; Hyatt, Introduction to Jeremiah, The Interpreter's Bible, V, pp. 779f., 833f., 849f., 856ff., 865. In any case, we cannot credit the impression given by Herodotus that the Scythians created an empire which included Palestine. This is one reason why Hyatt among others argues that the "northern peril" of Jeremiah and Zephaniah was probably less specific than once was thought. 31. The large and perhaps predominant Scythian element in the population of the kingdom of Parthia probably formed the chief strength of its armed forces (cf. Ghirshman, Iran, pp. 203f.). It is possible that there were Scythian-Parthians in Scythopolis in the heyday of the Nabataeans. This possibility is heightened by the fact that the Parthians were strong and bold enough to intervene directly in 40 B. C. in the tortuous Judaean politics. They helped capture Jerusalem from Phasael, the brother of Herod (who was to become known in history as Herod the Great; cf. Josephus, Antiquities XVIII, 5, 4), and install Antigonus, the son of Aristobulus II, as its ruler. His reign there, as the last of the Hasmonean rulers, came to an end three years later, when Herod, who had earlier been confirmed in the rank of king of Judaea by the Roman senate, drove him out, and, ascending the throne, began a career that became Solomonic in scope and accomplishment (Josephus, Antiquities XIV, 13:3-14:2). Reference needs to be made to the pottery figurine found at Beth-shan (cf. Vincent, Revue Biblique 1905, fig. 1, on plate opposite p. 96; p. 99), which was attributed by Rowe (The Topography and History of Beth-shan, vol. I, p. 42 and pl. 54, no. 1) to the Scythian period or earlier. He compared it to the pottery figurine from Saida in Syria, published by Virolleaud (Syria V, 1924, p. 119 and pl. XXXI:2). This Beth-shan figurine, however, as well as the one from Saida, may
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well be Parthian in origin, as was first suggested to me by Bernard Goldman in a letter of Dec. 11, 1961. Rowe (op. cit., p. 42) points out that "In Hellenistic and Roman times Beth-shan was known as Skython Polis or Skythopolis, i.e., perhaps 'City of the Scythians', and also as Nysa, but it is not exactly certain whether the first part of the name 'Scythopolis' refers to the Scythian invasion or is a corruption of some word other than 'Scythian'." (Cf. Glueck, The River Jordan, p. 188). We wonder, too, whether the name Scythopolis may not derive from the presence there during the Hellenistic and Roman periods, and perhaps also during the preceding Persian period, of large contingents of troops of Scythian origin (cf. Gressmann, Die orientalischen Religionen im Hellenistisch-Rdmischen Zeitalter, p. 151). It is known, for example, that during the period of Roman control, the Parthian city of Dura-Europos was occupied by a detachment of such troops, together with others of Roman origin and citizenship (Seyrig, "Antiquites Syriennes," Syria XIV, 1933, p. 154; Perdizet, "A propos d'Artagatis," Syria XII, 1931, p. 267; cf. Cantineau, "Tadmorea," Syria XIV, 1933, pp. 187f., no. 10). According to Pliny (Natural History V, 16, 18, 74). Scythopolis was first named Nysa by Dionysos, whose nurse Nysa was buried there, her tomb guarded by some of his Scythian troops. This implies the possibility, as has been pointed out by others, and brought to my attention again by Bernard Goldman, of a relationship between the names of Nysa and Dionysos (cf. Pauly-Wissowa, Real-Encyclopedia under "Nysa" in vol. 17, 2, col. 1628; under "Scythopolis" in vol. 3, 2, col. 948; Abel, Revue Biblique 9, 1912, pp. 413f.). Goldman has suggested to me, furthermore, that "Nysa would be a good Parthian designation" and that the legend dealing with the placing by Dionysos of a bodyguard from his Scythian entourage to guard the tomb of Nysa at Scythopolis "sounds like a poetic way of explaining why Scythians and the Parthian name should be found there."
