New Findings Spur Bible Land Archaeologists

Any given summer will find a host of seminary professors trading the comfort of an air-conditioned classroom for a stretch of Middle East sand where, clad in Bermuda shorts and clutching a pick under the broiling sun, they seek out ancient treasures.

For the survey of this year’s archaeological projects which follows, CHRISTIANITY TODAYis indebted to Dr. William Sanford La Sor, professor of Old Testament at Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, California.

A Presbyterian minister, La Sor holds both Ph.D. (Dropsie) and Th.D. (University of Southern California) degrees. He is familiar with current archaeological undertakings, having made four trips to the Middle East in recent years. He is a member of the American Oriental Society and the American Schools of Oriental Research, and his writings include Amazing Dead Sea Scrolls and the Christian Faith, Bibliography of the Dead Sea Scrolls 1948–1957, and Historical Geography of the Bible Lands, to be released by Harper in 1961.

To read about archaeological discoveries is sometimes thrilling. To engage in the work is often prosaic. To visit an excavation is frequently disappointing.

Yet it is highly profitable to observe archaeologists at work, to understand something of the tons of earth that must be moved with delicate care, the exact attention that must be given to every stage of the work, the combination of many sciences and skills that is necessary, and the vast knowledge of antiquity, ancient history, other archaeological digs, artifacts, bones, ancient languages, and traditions that the director and his staff must have at their fingertips.

Visitors learn to appreciate, moreover, that archaeological excavation is destruction. Once the area has been disturbed it can never again be studied in situ. The director therefore must record exactly everything that he does and everything that he finds.

To visit an excavation, the director’s permission, or that of local authority, should be obtained. He may not want a crowd milling around, breaking down baulks, picking up important surface finds, moving tabs or pegs, disturbing workers, and so on. If he has only a few weeks for the work, he may resent losing an hour or more each day for guided tours. Moreover, there may be rules against picture-taking. It is the director’s prerogative to publish—and he has no desire to let someone else “scoop” him. Above all, don’t argue with his conclusions unless you are at least as experienced as he is. He may appear to be an inconsequential figure in his working clothes, but the very fact that he is director is proof that he is a recognized scholar and authority—otherwise he would not be allowed to direct the excavation.

Glossary Of Archaeological Terms

Archaeology: The scientific study of the ancient past, historic or prehistoric, from the evidence of the remains, such as monuments, artifacts, population centers, and written materials.

Artifact: Anything that has been made by human skill.

Baulk: The untouched section of an excavation, usually about a meter (39.37 inches) wide, left at regular intervals to serve to hold steps to the lower levels as excavation progresses. Baulks provide a visible record of the levels in profile while holding tags and pegs necessary for recording the finds and surveying the levels. In a large excavation, baulks may be left at 10-meter intervals as a grid.

Cuneiform: Wedge-shaped writing made by pressing a stylus in soft clay or by chiseling in stone.

Dig: A familiar term for an excavation.

Epigraphic: Writing on a wall, statue, or other surface.

Glossary

Excavation: The scientific uncover op past civilizations at a given site.

Expedition: An organized team of skilled experts and assistants on a specific project.

In situ: In the actual location in which it was found.

Occupational level: A single layer in a tell or the level of the city at any given time during its occupation.

Site: The location of an excavation.

Tell: A hill or mound formed by successive layers of human occupation resulting from garbage and trash disposal, accumulated dust, and ruins of old buildings. The highest level is the most recent and the lowest is the oldest.

Here is a survey of this year’s expeditions:

PALESTINE

One of the most fascinating is an underwater exploration of Caesarea in a vessel built especially for the work by Edwin A. Link (of the company famous for Link aviation trainers). Professor Charles T. Fritsch of Princeton Theological Seminary will be chief archaeologist, assisted by Professor Immanuel Ben-Dor of Emory University, and others. The work is sponsored by Princeton Seminary and the America-Israel Society. It is believed that part of this Roman seaport was covered by the sea in an earthquake A.D. 800.

Another underwater exploration, headed by Dr. Ralph E. Baney, Baptist missionary from Kansas City, Missouri, was conducted in the Dead Sea, using skin-diving methods, in an effort to locate the ruins of Sodom and Gomorrah. Claims of discovery have been challenged by competent authority, and the results of this excavation are difficult to evaluate. Reports seem to indicate that the lack of customary archaeological techniques plus inability to photograph the finds will invalidate most of the work.

Dr. Benjamin Mazar, president of Hebrew University, reports that the Israel Antiquities Department of the university, in cooperation with the Israel Exploration Society, has located the Philistine city of Ekron. The site is Khirbet Muqenna, and the walled ruins, covering 40 acres, establish it as an unusually important city, twice as big as Lachish and three times as big as Megiddo. Professor William F. Albright had formerly identified the site as Eltekeh.

Another site identified by Professor Albright has been challenged, this one by Dr. Shmuel Yeivin, Director of the Israel Department of Antiquities. Yeivin has directed a dig at Tell Gat, supposedly the site of the Philistine city of Gath, since 1956. It gave evidence of having been an Israelite city, but no Philistine evidence was uncovered. Yeivin thinks, on the basis of some stamped jar-handles, that the site may have been Mamshat.

Professor James L. Kelso of Pittsburgh Theological Seminary (the union of Pittsburgh-Xenia and Western seminaries) is digging at Beitin, the site of biblical Bethel. The expedition is sponsored by his seminary and the American Schools of Oriental Research. Previous work was done at Beitin in 1934, 1954, and 1957. Dr. Kelso will be assisted by Professor T. M. Taylor of the same seminary and by professors from five other seminaries. The principal objective is to try to find the remains of the temple erected by Jeroboam I. A Reuters report last month quoted the Jordan Antiquities Department as having announced that Kelso’s mission has discovered the ruins of a Canaanite town dating from 1700 years before Christ.

Dr. Yigael Yadin of Hebrew University, Jerusalem, has continued to excavate at Hazor, in Galilee, using such equipment as airborne observation, walkie-talkie communication, aerial photography, etc., in an effort to locate the most significant portions of an extremely large tell (or occupation-mound.) He is attempting to shed light on the date of building this Solomonic fortification and the dates of at least five other occupation levels.

Dr. Yadin was also associated with an expedition searching the caves along the southern shore of the Dead Sea, in the vicinity of Engedi, which found fragments of the book of Exodus, dated by the discoveries at A.D. 132. These explorations are not to be confused with the Dead Sea Scrolls discoveries further north on the shore of the sea.

Work on the Dead Sea Scrolls continues. Tourists may wish to visit Khirbet Qumran, where some of the fragments were discovered and probably where most of the scrolls were produced. This requires special arrangement from the Department of Antiquities in Jordan. No excavation is in progress, but the site is in a military zone. Work on the thousands of fragments continues, by an international team of scholars, in the “scrollery” in the Palestine Archaeological Museum, Jerusalem (Jordan). Special permission must be obtained for a visit. Also on display are coins, desks from the Qumran Scriptorium, and other items from the great discovery. The original scrolls can be seen at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem (Israel).

Dr. Joseph Free of Wheaton College completed his sixth season at Dothan, north of Nablus, uncovering successive cities that date from 3000 to 1000 B.C. Of particular significance were the levels from the time of the Assyrian conquest (733–722 B.C.) and from the time of Solomon (c. 950 B.C.).

Professor G. Ernest Wright of Harvard Divinity School is directing a dig at Tell Balatah, the site of ancient Shechem, near Nablus, assisted by Professor Lawrence Toombs of Drew University and Professor Edward F. Campbell, Jr., of McCormick Theological Seminary. Shechem was excavated in 1912–13, 1926–27, 1928–32, 1934, and 1957, but much of the earlier work was not done in accordance with modern techniques and needs to be restudied by excavating the adjoining remains. According to Professor Wright, one of the objectives is “to train younger men in our American biblical archaeological tradition at a time when they are desperately needed to carry on what has been this country’s greatest single contribution to biblical scholarship.”

Père Roland de Vaux, whose name is most frequently associated with the Dead Sea Scrolls, is conducting the ninth season of excavation at Tell el-Far‘ah, near Nablus, which he identifies with the biblical site of Tirzah. The work will be done by the Ecole Archéologique Françhise de Jérusalem.

Professor James B. Pritchard of the Church Divinity School of the Pacific, Berkeley, California, directs the fourth campaign at el-Jib, biblical Gibeon. The work is under the University Museum of the University of Pennsylvania and the American Schools of Oriental Research.

Father Robert North of the Pontifical Biblical Institute, Jerusalem, has conducted the eighth campaign at Ghassul, three and a half miles east of the new Hussein Bridge, and about 100 yards south of the new Amman highway at the northeastern end of the Dead Sea. The last excavation was in 1938. This site is of great importance for the Chalcolithic era, about 3500 B.C., and has been widely publicized (see article by G. Ernest Wright in The National Geographic Magazine of December, 1957). One of the significant finds was the skeleton of a giant, well over six feet tall. It is not yet clear whether this was one of the Anakim, or an Englishman from the Crusades.

President Nelson Glueck of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, Cincinnati, continues exploration of the Negev under the David W. Klar Foundation. His previous discoveries have been beautifully described by him in Rivers in the Desert (See Dr. La Sor’s review in CHRISTIANITY TODAY, March 16, 1959, pp. 37–38—ED.).

THE BIBLICAL WORLD

Egypt, faced with the obliteration of all antiquities from Aswan to the Sudanese border by the building of the new dam and the lake it will form, is racing feverishly to explore the many sites in the area. Most of this region is all but inaccessible to tourists, but includes such locations as Abu Simbel with its gigantic statues of Ramses II, and numerous cities of the Ethiopian dynasties of Egypt (one king of which was Tirhakah, 2 Kings 19:9). In an effort to encourage foreign institutions to participate, the United Arab Republic is making extremely liberal grants of the amount of discovery that may be retained by excavators. The Oriental Institute, Chicago, will continue its Epigraphic Survey, or study of the inscriptions, at the mortuary temple of Ramses III, at Medinet Habu near Luxor. Professor George Forsyth of the University of Michigan plans to lead another expedition to Mt. Sinai. He will be assisted by a team including men from Princeton University.

In Syria, Professor André Parrot of the Louvre, Paris, is directing another expedition to Mari, near the Syrian-Iraq border. Mari has already yielded thousands of cuneiform tablets from c. 1800 B.C., which have revolutionized our knowledge of the period. Professor Claude Schaeffer of Paris will continue his excavations at Ras Shamra (Ugarit). Both of these sites are of primary importance for biblical studies.

Because of unsettled conditions in Iraq, there is uncertainty about excavations. Donald J. Wiseman of the Department of Western Asiatic Antiquities of the British Museum spent two months in Baghdad working on cuneiform texts found at Nimrud (biblical Calah). The British School of Archaeology in Iraq, under D. Oates, plans to continue excavations at Nimrud, near Mosul. The Baghdad School of the American Schools of Oriental Research, together with the Oriental Institute, hopes to continue excavation at Nippur, in southern Iraq.

In Iran, several expeditions are planned or in process. Dr. Robert Dyson of the University Museum, Philadelphia, assisted by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, continues to dig at Hansanlu, near Lake Rezaiyeh. The connection with biblical history is not immediately obvious, but the location is on one of the main routes between the Iranian plateau and Assyria. The Oriental Institute, under Professor Robert J. Braidwood, and cooperating with the National Science Foundation and the American Schools of Oriental Research, will continue the exploration of prehistoric sites in the Kermanshah watershed. This is of great interest for understanding more of the migrations of early man, the interchange of cultures, and other facts that must be deduced from widely separated areas.

In Turkey there are many fascinating sites. The expedition to Sart, the biblical Sardis, is directed by Professor George M. A. Hanfmann of Harvard University. Cornell University is also associated. Sardis was the capital of the wealthy kingdom of Lydia, one of whose kings was the fabulously wealthy Croesus. Later, it became an important administrative center of the Persian Empire, and still later, for the Roman Empire.

This survey omits reference to Greece and Italy, because these are more properly subjects for a classical scholar. The American Schools of Classical Studies at Athens and Rome maintain valuable programs. Inquiries to the schools will yield details.

Archaeological Hogwash?

Dr. Nelson Glueck, world-famous archaeologist says recent reports of the discovery of the ancient cities of Sodom and Gomorrah are “hogwash.”

Glueck, discoverer of King Solomon’s copper mines, declared in Dallas last month that “No one, no matter his competence, could find the cities.”

He discounted the claims of amateur U. S. divers led by Dr. Ralph Baney that they had found the remnants of the two evil cities described in the Bible.

“Thick salt deposits on the bottom of the Dead Sea would make it impossible to get to the remains,” he said, adding that the ruins of the 4,000-year-old civilization have been razed and that the only remains would be “some rather disreputable bits of pottery.”

Baney claims to have located, among other things, a long dike in the sea.

Protestant Panorama

• Official interpreter for President Eisenhower’s visit to Korea last month was an American missionary. Horace G. Underwood, 43, currently serving as chairman of the United Presbyterian Korea Mission was recalled to active naval duty for the assignment which included interpreting Eisenhower’s historic address to the Korea National Assembly. Underwood had served as a principal interpreter during the Panmunjom truce talks.

• The Fulton Street Noon Prayer Meeting closed its doors June 30 after 103 years of services in downtown Manhattan. Attendance had dropped considerably since the meeting site was moved to 93 Nassau Street seven years ago. Sponsors may decide to reschedule the meeting after a survey of the area.

• A New York City television station is programming two religion courses for college credit this summer. The courses, “Introduction to Biblical Thought” and “Religion and Modern Literature,” are presented in cooperation with Protestant councils of churches in the New York area and are produced by the Radio-TV Department of the New Jersey Council of Churches.

• The Lutheran, official weekly newsmagazine of the United Lutheran Church in America, is marking its 100th anniversary. Its 200,000 subscribers represent a doubling of circulation since 1951. Dr. G. Elston Ruff has been editor since 1945.

• The Rev. Russell H. McConnell, pastor of Greenfield Congregational Church in Dearborn, Michigan, is the first “resident agent” at the newly-organized Religious Center of the Dearborn, Campus, Inc. Purpose of the non-profit group, according to articles of incorporation, is to “further the religious life and enrich the temporal life of the campus community” served by nearby colleges. Dearborn is a suburb of Detroit.

• A Lutheran church now being built in Copenhagen is shaped like a snail’s shell. Designed by Danish architect Holger Jensen, the church will be primarily for school children, who may help decorate the interior by painting their own murals on biblical themes. All worshippers will sit on the floor.

• Baptists in Israel are setting up a youth camp near Pethan Tikvah in the Sharon Plain, with the help of the International Civil Service, an organization which sponsors voluntary youth work camps to promote better understanding between races.

• A new international magazine for Anglicans and Episcopalians made its debut in London last month. The Anglican World, edited by the Rev. Peter Harvey, vicar of a church near London, is a bi-monthly. Patrons include Dr. Geoffrey Francis Fisher, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Presiding Bishop Arthur Lichtenberger of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States. It is not, however, an official church organ.

• Cornerstone-laying and dedication ceremonies for the new national headquarters of the Hauge Lutheran Inner-mission Federation were held near Minneapolis last month during the federation’s annual convention and Bible conference.

• The five-day North American Youth Congress of the Seventh-day Adventist Church drew more than 12,000 delegates from throughout the United States and Canada. The congress, held in Atlantic City, New Jersey, was climaxed with the launching of a global drive to win converts among youth and to recruit them for full-time church service.

• The Massanetta Springs Summer Bible Conference encampment hopes to raise $600,000 for expansion and improvements following endorsement of the drive by the Presbyterian Synod of Virginia.

• Far East Broadcasting Company began beaming regularly-scheduled Gospel programs to the Chinese mainland from its new 100,000-watt transmitter on Okinawa last month.

• A new Christian day school will open in Silver Spring, Maryland, (Washington suburb) this fall.

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