Queen Hatshepsut’s Perfume

Photo: Hatshepsut’s perfume bottle. The bottle is engraved with a hieroglyph of her name.

Photograph courtesy Ägyptisches Museum, Universität Bonn Egyptian Museum, University of Bonn





According to an article published by National Geographic, scientists are about to recreate Hatshepsut’s favorite perfume. Scientists are planning to duplicate Hatshepsut’s perfume from residue found in the 3,500-year-old perfume bottle seen in the picture above.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Archaeology, Hatshepsut, Perfume

Deborah: Prophetess and Judge

Today I begin a series of studies on Deborah. Deborah is the only woman who is numbered among the judges of Israel. According to the narratives that appear in the book of Judges, Deborah is also called a prophetess. The stories of the judges reflect the conditions in Canaan in the 12th century B.C., a time when there was no king in Israel and everyone did what was right in his own eyes (Judges 21:25).

The story of Deborah and how she helped deliver Israel from the oppression of the Canaanites is found in the fourth and fifth chapters of the book of Judges. The book of Judges is the second book in the Deuteronomic history, a history that begins with the farewell address of Moses in Deuteronomy and ends with the exile of Judah in 587 B.C.

The book of Judges was probably written after the reforms of Josiah in 622 B.C. and covers a period of about two centuries, from approximately 1200 B.C. to 1020 B.C. The book of Judges is a theological interpretation of the life of Israel in Canaan in the days prior to the monarchy. This history describes the activities of military heroes called "judges," who delivered Israel from the hands of nations which oppressed them.

According to the Deuteronomic historian, this oppression came because of Israel’s apostasy. Israel had been faithful to the covenant faith during the days of Joshua and the leaders who succeeded him. But there arose a new generation of Israelites that "did not know Yahweh or the work which he had done for Israel" (Judges 2:10).

This new generation of Israelite was indifferent to the demands of the covenant. They abandoned Yahweh to serve the gods of the land, and as a consequence of their disobedience, the curses of the covenant were evoked upon Israel.

The book of Judges includes historical events that took place after the death of Joshua, that is, after Israel entered and settled in Canaan. Although the first chapter of Judges indicates that after the death of Joshua Israel continued fighting against the Canaanites, the book of Judges narrates Israel’s struggle with their enemies up to the establishment of the monarchy under Saul.

The life of Israel in Canaan prior to the monarchy is presented in the book of Judges in a literary device of a cycle of apostasy and repentance that reflects the Deuteronomistic understanding of Israel’s judgment for their sins:

(a) The people of Israel sinned against God
(b) God sent an oppressor
(c) The people cried unto God for deliverance
(d) God raised a judge to deliver Israel
(e) There is peace as long as the judge lived
(f) Israel sinned again after the death of the judge

The book of Judges contains the acts of twelve judges. Six of them are known as major judges and six are known as minor judges.

The six major judges are: Othniel, Ehud, Deborah, Gideon, Jephthah, and Samson. These six judges are called “major judges” because their stories are presented with some details of their activities.

The six minor judges are: Jair, Tola, Ibzan, Elon, Shamgar, and Abdon. These six judges are called “minor judges” because the texts do not give any information about their work.

Several years after Ehud delivered Israel from the oppression imposed by Eglon, king of Moab (Judges 3:12-30), the people of Israel “once again did evil in the eyes of the Lord” (Judges 4:1). As a result, Israel was oppressed by the Canaanites under the leadership of Jabin. The Deuteronomic historian called Jabin “king of Canaan,” however scholars are not in agreement about Jabin’s identity.

In Joshua 11:1-14 Jabin appears as the king of Hazor who formed a confederacy of Canaanite kings to fight against Joshua and the people of Israel. In Judges 4:2, Jabin appears as a king of Canaan whose kingdom was in Hazor. For this reason, scholars believe that Jabin was a throne name for the kings of Hazor. The commander of Jabin’s army was Sisera. Sisera commanded the combined Canaanite army in their struggle against Israel.

During the period of the judges, Israel was a confederacy of tribes loosely organized around the worship of Yahweh and a centralized sanctuary. During the period of the judges, Israel was not a highly centralized nation. At this time, Israel did not have a standing army and had limited weapons with which to defend themselves against their enemies. Thus, the leaders of the tribal confederacy had a difficult time mustering a militia to fight against their oppressors, as Deborah found out when she tried to summon a military coalition against the Canaanites.

Deborah, as judge of Israel and as prophetess of Yahweh, summoned Barak to assemble the troops to fight against Sisera and the Canaanites. As the two armies met in battle, Israel’s army led by Barak defeated the Canaanites with the help of a torrential rainstorm that trapped the Canaanites’ chariots in the mud and allowed the Israelites to completely defeat their enemy.

Sisera escaped and fled to the tent of Jael, a Kenite woman, believing that he would find a friendly reception among the Kenites. Instead, after enticing Sisera to come inside her tent and rest, Jael drove a tent peg through his skull and he died.

With the death of Sisera by the hands of Jael, Deborah’s oracle that the credit for the victory against the Canaanites would go to a woman, and not to Barak, was fulfilled. Judges chapter four provides a narrative account of the battle and chapter five the story is retold in poetic form known as “The Song of Deborah.”

The story of Deborah as told in the book of Judges is rather brief and not much is said about Deborah. However, there are three women who became the central figures in the story, both in the narrative and in the song: Deborah, Jael, and Sisera’s mother. In a future post, I will study the important role these three women played in the story of Deborah, the judge of Israel.

Other Studies on Deborah:

Deborah: Prophetess and Judge

Deborah: A Judge in Israel

Deborah the Prophetess

Deborah: A Mother in Israel

Deborah and Jael

Sisera’s Mother


Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Barak, Deborah, Jabin, Jael, Judges, Sisera

The Essenes Never Existed

An article published by Time Magazine quotes Rachel Elior, Professor of Jewish mysticism at Jerusalem’s Hebrew University, who says that the Essenes were not the authors of the Dead Sea Scrolls and that the existence of the Essenes was a creation of Flavius Josephus.

Below is an excerpt from the article:

Biblical scholars have long argued that the Dead Sea Scrolls were the work of an ascetic and celibate Jewish community known as the Essenes, which flourished in the 1st century A.D. in the scorching desert canyons near the Dead Sea. Now a prominent Israeli scholar, Rachel Elior, disputes that the Essenes ever existed at all - a claim that has shaken the bedrock of biblical scholarship.

Elior, who teaches Jewish mysticism at Jerusalem's Hebrew University, claims that the Essenes were a fabrication by the 1st century A.D. Jewish-Roman historian Flavius Josephus and that his faulty reporting was passed on as fact throughout the centuries. As Elior explains, the Essenes make no mention of themselves in the 900 scrolls found by a Bedouin shepherd in 1947 in the caves of Qumran, near the Dead Sea. "Sixty years of research have been wasted trying to find the Essenes in the scrolls," Elior tells TIME. "But they didn't exist. This is legend on a legend."

Elior contends that Josephus, a former Jewish priest who wrote his history while being held captive in Rome, "wanted to explain to the Romans that the Jews weren't all losers and traitors, that there were many exceptional Jews of religious devotion and heroism. You might say it was the first rebuttal to anti-Semitic literature." She adds, "He was probably inspired by the Spartans. For the Romans, the Spartans were the highest ideal of human behavior, and Josephus wanted to portray Jews who were like the Spartans in their ideals and high virtue."

According to the article, Elior believes that the renegade sons of Zadok were the authors of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Elior’s theory about the authorship of the Scrolls is as controversial as the view proposed by Norman Golb. I am sure that this new proposal will continue the controversy about the origin of the Scrolls.

Read the details of this new theory proposed by Rachel Elior by visiting the Time web page.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Archaeology, Dead Sea Scrolls, Essenes, Qumran, Rachel Elior

Pharaoh and His Workers

Photo: Sennedjem and His Wife
Credit: Photo courtesy of Archaeology News



Archaeology News has an interesting article, "What Happened To Pharaoh's Workers? The article describes the lives of the workers who built the royal tombs in the Valley of the Kings.

According to the article, “It appears that the workers, or should we say workmen and artisans, the people who built the rock-cut tombs of the Pharaohs in the Valley of the Kings from about 1500 BC onwards, may have later been employed on a project aimed at "emptying" and "recycling" their contents.”

The article reports “that an impressive number of texts on papyri, ostraca and graffiti had provided researchers with extensive information on the workers' community at Deir Al-Medina, especially from the Ramasside Period and the second half of the New Kingdom, but that in spite of all our knowledge we did not know what happened at the end of this period when the Ramasside line of kings was no longer in power and no more royal tombs were built. Now, thanks to a largely unpublished dossier of texts, we are gradually beginning to understand what happened to them.”

Below is an excerpt from the article:

The settlement was founded some time in the early 18th Dynasty, in the reign of Tuthmosis I (1550--1525 BC), the first Pharaoh definitely to be buried in the Valley of the Kings, and that in its earliest stage there was no resident community -- just a village of some 40 houses to accommodate itinerant workmen hired for short periods of time. Later the settlement was expanded to accommodate a special group of artisans -- "expert artists" might be a better word -- and, from literary evidence recovered from the village, it appears that more than 100 people, including children, lived in the village, off and on, for several centuries.

"The situation changed after the Amarna period, in the 19th and 20th dynasties (1307--1070 BC) when the workers who plied their trade in the Valley of the Kings and the Valley of the Queens lived, worked and died at Deir Al-Medina, and built large and finely-decorated tombs for themselves," Demaree said. He went on to explain that texts had survived which told us about their lives and the organisation of their work.

During their weekly labour, the workers stayed in a small camp built on a ridge above the royal valley. The work force was divided into two -- one working on the left side of the tomb, the other the right side, the numbers varying according to the size of the tomb. Each work force was under a foreman, and several scribes reported the progress of work, worker absence, and payments.

Gradually the workers formed an elite class, as is evident from the contents of their homes and their tombs at Deir Al-Medina. The extant tomb of Sennedjem, for example, which was discovered early in the 20th century, clearly reveals the high quality of life expected in the afterlife, a lifestyle similar to that on earth. He and his wife are shown dressed in white linen, ploughing and reaping in a fertile hereafter; with protective deities guarding his sarcophagus; while other wall paintings show the deceased and his wife returning from a ritual journey to Abydos. These paintings are some of the finest on the necropolis.

The article is very informative with some paintings illustrating the article. To read the article in its entirety, visit Archaeology News.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Archaeology, Deir Al-Medina, Egypt, Sennedjem

Two Jokes from Ancient Rome

Mary Beard, Professor of Classics at Newnham College in Cambridge has discovered a book that is more than 1,600 years old, a book which she says contains many jokes told by ancient Romans.

The book, which was written in Greek, is called “Philogelos,” or “The Laughter Lover.” According to a news report published in the Guardian, the book “dates to the third or fourth century AD, and contains some 260 jokes.” According to Beard, the Roman jokes are similar to the jokes people tell today. According to the same report, Beard discovered “Philogelos” while she was doing research for a new book on humor in the ancient world.

The following are two jokes told by the ancient Romans.

The first joke:

A barber, a bald man and an absent-minded professor were taking a journey together. They have to camp overnight, so they decide to take turns watching the luggage. When it’s the barber’s turn, he gets bored, so amuses himself by shaving the head of the professor. When the professor is woken up for his shift, he feels his head, and says: “How stupid is that barber? He’s woken up the bald man instead of me.”

The second joke:

A man meets an acquaintance and says: “It’s funny, I was told you were dead.”. He says “well, you can see I’m still alive.” But the first man disputes this on the grounds that “the man who told me you were dead is much more reliable than you.”

Well, it seems that the Romans had a sense of humor after all.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Humor, Jokes, Mary Beard, Philigelos

I Will Make of Thee a Great Nation: A Book Review

This post is a review of the book I Will Make of Thee a Great Nation (Salt Lake City, UT: American University & Colleges Press, 2008) by Val D. Greenwood.

The subtitle of the book says that the book contains “Old Testament stories as told by Val D. Greenwood.” In the preface of his book, the author says that the purpose of his book is to make the great stories of the Bible “available for adult study in a simple, straightforward style” (p. ix). His goal is to help readers of these stories gain a deeper appreciation for the Old Testament. He said: “I hope . . . that the stories you read here will introduce you to the Old Testament, enhance your scriptural experience, and help you find deeper meaning in the Old Testament canon.”

After reading several stories from the book, I found many problems of interpretation and a large amount of eisegesis which take away the pleasure of reading and enjoying these Old Testament stories.

Since my time and space are limited, I chose to select two stories from the book in order to highlight some of the problems I have with the way Greenwood tells his stories. I have posted these two selections here. If you have not read them I suggest that you read the two selections before reading my review.

These are only some of the problems I found; I could mention several others. Take, for instance, story number 2, “The Serpant [sic] Deceived Me.” In Greenwood’s story Adam said: “I now know that she is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man, and the two of us together shall be one flesh. And for this cause shall a man leave his father and mother and cleave unto his wife.” This is a paraphrase of Genesis 2:23-24.

There are two problems with Greenwood’s interpretation. First, the addition of “and the two of us together shall be one flesh,” is not in the text and reflects a modern day effort to emphasize the sanctity of marriage. There is nothing wrong in emphasizing the sanctity of marriage, but this emphasis is not present in the story.

Second, Adam did not say “And for this cause shall a man leave his father and mother and cleave unto his wife.” This statement was said by the author of Genesis in order to explain what Adam said about Eve.

Greenwood wrote: “God told Adam and Eve that they could eat the fruit of every tree, except that which came from the tree of knowledge of good and evil.” This is a paraphrase of Genesis 2:16-17. Greenwood’s statement is false. The problem with his interpretation is that God spoke these words only to Adam, not to Adam and Eve since Eve was not yet in existence.

Greenwood wrote: “Adam and Eve enjoyed their lives in the garden and were kept busy caring for it. They were also busy naming the animals.” This statement is also false, since in Genesis 2:19-20, Adam names the animals before Eve was created. In fact, it is during the naming of the animals that Adam realized that there was no one who could be his partner.

As for story number 6, “In You and In Your Seed,” the story as told by Greenwood is filled with inaccuracies and misstatements. As most Bible students know, the word “Chaldeans” in Genesis 11:28 is an anachronism since the Chaldeans did not come into prominence until the seventh century B.C. But since Genesis 11:28 mentions the Chaldeans, the presence of the Chaldeans in Greenwood’s story is acceptable. What is not acceptable is to say that “The Egyptians had great influence among the Chaldeans.” I do not know where the author found this information; the statement is historically inaccurate.

It is also inaccurate to say that “Abram's father and most of his family, worshipped the false Egyptian gods.” This is not true. At Shechem Joshua told the Israelites: “Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel: Long ago your ancestors -- Terah and his sons Abraham and Nahor -- lived beyond the Euphrates and served other gods” (Joshua 24:2). If Terah and his family worshiped other gods, and they did, these gods were Mesopotamian gods, not Egyptian gods.

It is also inaccurate to say that “Abram, however, because of his righteousness, did not turn to idolatry,” since as Joshua 24:2 clearly says that Abraham worshiped other gods. The truth is that Abraham abandoned the gods of his father after he came to the knowledge of Yahweh.

To say that “A great famine swept the land of Chaldea and Abram's family suffered greatly. As the famine reached its peak, Terah left Ur” is just a guess because the Bible does not say that Terah and his family left Ur because of a great famine. Personally, I believe that this is not true. If one would guess a reason for their migration, probably the wars in Mesopotamia at the beginning of the second millennium would be a better reason.

The statement, “Terah eventually died at the age of 205 years. After Terah's death, when Abram was 75 years old, Jehovah appeared to him in answer to his prayers and told him to take Lot and go to the land of Canaan,” is not true. Genesis 11:26 says: “When Terah had lived seventy years, he became the father of Abram, Nahor, and Haran.” If Abraham was born when his father was 70 years old and he left to Canaan when he was 75 years old, then he could not have left after Terah’s death, since Terah died at the age of 205.

The statement, “Abram left Haran as Jehovah commanded him, taking his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, the people they had converted in Haran, and . . . arrived at a place called Jershon,” is not Biblical since the place called “Jershon” does not appear in the Bible but in The Book of Mormon. According to The Book of Mormon, the land of Jershon was located “on the east by the sea, which joins the land Bountiful, which is on the south of the land Bountiful.”

Another statement that is full of inaccuracies and eisegesis is the statement about Abraham and Sarah in Egypt. Greenwood wrote:

The Pharaoh was pleased with Sarai because of her beauty, and he pleaded with Abram because of her–offering many gifts if Abram would give Sarai to him for a wife. But, though Abram declined, Jehovah brought great plagues upon the Pharaoh and his house because of Sarai.

The Pharaoh became very angry when he finally learned that Sarai was Abram's wife. "Look at the trouble you have caused me," he said to Abram, accusing him. "Why did you tell me she is your sister and not your wife? Do you not know that I might have taken her as my wife? You must take her now and leave my country."

Greenwood said that Abraham declined Pharaoh’s offer, but he did not: “Therefore he [Pharaoh] treated Abram well for her sake; and gave him sheep and oxen and donkeys and male and female servants and female donkeys and camels” (Genesis 12:16).

Greenwood put these words in Pharaoh’s mouth: “Do you not know that I might have taken her as my wife?” But this is not correct. Genesis 12:19 says: “Why did you say, ‘She is my sister,’ so that I took her for my wife?”

I could go on and on pointing to problems of interpretation in Greenwood’s stories. Anyone who reads this book will not gain a better understanding of the Old Testament. To the contrary, the many inaccuracies that I found in only two stories, the faulty exegesis of the text, and the incorporation of Mormon geography into the stories of the Old Testament demonstrate that those who read this book will get a distorted view of the Old Testament.

Although I wish Greenwood well, I cannot recommend his book to anyone. As an Old Testament teacher, I am very jealous about the correct teaching of the Old Testament and I feel that this book does not present a good overview of the true teachings of the Old Testament.

Anyone who wants to read the stories of the Old Testament in “a simple, straightforward style” should get a copy of the Good News Bible, or the New Living Bible, or even The Message and enjoy God’s word in a style that is easy to understand.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Abraham, Adam, Eve, Sarah

A Book To Be Reviewed

Once in while I receive requests from authors asking me to review their books on my blog. Generally, these people are authors who are seeking an audience for their books. Since my blog has a large audience both nationally and internationally, some authors believe that a review by me can expose their book to a large audience.

Recently, I received an email from Val Greenwood, asking me if I would be interested in reviewing his book. The following is an excerpt from his email:

Dear Dr. Mariottini,

I hope you will forgive me for contacting you this way, but I admire the work you do at the Northern Baptist Seminary and have also appreciated your informative blog.

The reason for this contact is to invite you to review my forthcoming book of Old Testament stories on your blog (though I know that it is extremely rare for you to do such reviews).

My book, entitled I Will Make of Thee a Great Nation, will be released on Feb. 2, 2009. The publisher is American Book Publishing (under the imprint "American University & Colleges Press"). Perhaps you have already heard of this unique book.

The book is a collection of more than 200 Old Testament stories written for Christian adults and young adults in modern English. It is not a scholarly tome and does not pretend to be so. Rather, it is an easy to read book that is intended to help the typical Christian understand and appreciate the Old Testament. You will find it to be simple but not simplistic. A review on the Christian Book Reviews website gives it 5 stars as an essential tool for those involved in religious education.

My son read one of the stories on the publisher’s web page and encouraged me to review the book. After I received the review copy, I read several of the stories in preparation to review the book.

Before I publish my review of the book, I have decided to give you, the reader, an opportunity to read excerpts from the book so that you can make your own judgment. Below are two excerpts, taken from story # 2 and story # 6. Read these two excerpts, evaluate what you read, and then come back tomorrow and read my review of the book.

What follows are the two excerpts from the book:

2-THE SERPANT (sic) DECEIVED ME
(Genesis 2-3)

After God created the first man, he gave him the breath of life and named him Adam. Then God planted a beautiful garden in a place called Eden and put Adam in the garden to tend and cultivate it.
God, understanding that it was not good for man to be alone, took a rib from Adam's side and created from it a woman to be Adam's wife and his help. The woman was essential to God's plan because his full purposes for his children could never be accomplished by man alone. Adam called the woman Eve because she was the mother of all living, and Adam and Eve lived together in the Garden. Adam understood that man was not complete without woman and that Eve, as his wife, was part of him. Said he, "I now know that she is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man, and the two of us together shall be one flesh. And for this cause shall a man leave his father and mother and cleave unto his wife."

The garden was filled with trees, and the trees bore much fruit. Among those many trees were two of special significance-the tree of life and, standing in the middle of the garden, the tree of knowledge of good and evil. God told Adam and Eve that they could eat the fruit of every tree, except that which came from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. "You are free to choose for yourself," God said to them, "but remember that I forbid it. And you will surely die in the day you eat the fruit of that tree."

Adam and Eve enjoyed their lives in the garden and were kept busy caring for it. They were also busy naming the animals, for God had told Adam that whatever he called an animal, that would be its name.

6-IN YOU AND IN YOUR SEED
(Genesis 11-13)

About 200 years after the Tower of Babel," a young man named Abram-a descendant of Shem-lived with his family in a place called Ur, among a people known as Chaldeans." Included in Abram's family were his father Terah, his brothers Nahor and Haran, and his wife Sarai.
The Egyptians had great influence among the Chaldeans, and many of the people, including Abram's father and most of his family, worshipped the false Egyptian gods. Abram, however, because of his righteousness, did not turn to idolatry. Rather, he sought to have the blessings of God in his life
A great famine swept the land of Chaldea and Abram's family suffered greatly. As the famine reached its peak, Terah left Ur, taking with him Abram, Sarai, and Haran's son Lot. They traveled to a place that they named Haran after Abram's late brother who had died at Ur. They settled for several years in Haran, and it was there that Terah eventually died at the age of 205 years.
After Terah's death, when Abram was 75 years old, Jehovah appeared to him in answer to his prayers and told him to take Lot and go to the land of Canaan. He also made great promises to Abram, what we call the Abrahamic covenant. "You will be a minister to bear God's name in a strange land," Jehovah declared, "and I will give this land to you and your seed forever if they will obey my voice. Indeed, I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you. I will make you a great nation, and in you and in your seed shall all families of the earth be blessed."

Abram left Haran as Jehovah commanded him, taking his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, the people they had converted in Haran, and all the substance that they had gained there. Journeying southward toward the land of Canaan, they dwelt in tents along the way. But travel was difficult because there was a famine in the land.
When the travelers arrived at a place called Jershon, Abram built an altar and prayed to Jehovah that the famine would be turned away from his father's house so that they would not perish. When they reached Shechem, Abram felt uneasy because the land was filled with Canaanites and he did not know what to expect from them. When he prayed for guidance, his prayer was answered by a visit from Jehovah, who told him, "Behold, Abram I will give this land to your seed." And Abram built an altar at Shechem to Jehovah.
As Abram and Lot moved slowly through the land; they worshipped God and built many altars. One of these was on a mountain east of Beth-el, a place to which Abram and Lot would later return when the famine was past. But, for fear of perishing from starvation, they determined to go into Egypt, where they lived for many years. As Abram prepared to enter Egypt, he spoke to Sarai: "You are a woman very fair to look upon," he told her. "When the Egyptians see you, they will say, 'She is his wife,' and they will then kill me and save you. However, if you tell them you are my sister, we shall both live."
When the Egyptian princes saw Sarai, believing her to be Abram's sister, they spared both of their lives and took Sarai into the Pharaoh's house. Abram, at the same time, was given great honors by Pharaoh.
The Pharaoh was pleased with Sarai because of her beauty, and he pleaded with Abram because of her–offering many gifts if Abram would give Sarai to him for a wife. But, though Abram declined, Jehovah brought great plagues upon the Pharaoh and his house because of Sarai.
The Pharaoh became very angry when he finally learned that Sarai was Abram's wife. "Look at the trouble you have caused me," he said to Abram, accusing him. "Why did you tell me she is your sister and not your wife? Do you not know that I might have taken her as my wife? You must take her now and leave my country."

Read my review and evaluation tomorrow (click here).

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Abraham, Adam, Eve, Sarah

Friday the 13th and the Bible

John Roach, writing for the National Geographic News wrote the following about Friday the 13th and the Bible:

As for Friday, it is well known among Christians as the day Jesus was crucified. Some biblical scholars believe Eve tempted Adam with the forbidden fruit on Friday. Perhaps most significant is a belief that Abel was slain by his brother Cain on Friday the 13th.

There is also a biblical reference to the unlucky number 13. Judas, the apostle who betrayed Jesus, was the 13th guest to the Last Supper.

The number 13 never appears in the Bible as an evil or unlucky number. This is what the Bible says about the number 13:

1. Ishmael was 13 years old when he was circumcised (Genesis 17:25).

2. On the fifteenth day of the seventh month, during the Feast of Booths or Sukkot, the people of Israel should offer 13 young bulls as a burnt offering to the Lord (Numbers 29:13).

3. The inheritance of the tribe of Simeon was 13 towns and their villages (Joshua 19:6).

4. The Levites were allotted 13 towns from the tribes of Judah, Simeon and Benjamin (Joshua 21:4).

5. The descendants of Gershon were allotted 13 towns from the clans of the tribes of Issachar, Asher, Naphtali and the half-tribe of Manasseh in Bashan (Joshua 21:6).

6. It took Solomon 13 years to complete the construction of his palace (1 Kings 7:1).

7. The width of the gateway in Ezekiel’s temple was 13 cubits (Ezekiel 40:11).

8. The sons and brothers of Hosah, a descendant of Merari, totaled 13 (1 Chronicles 26:11).

So, the number 13 is unlucky only in the imagination of superstitious people.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Friday the 13, Superstition, Unlucky Number

Friday the 13th - Again

Today is Friday the 13th. Guess what: this is the second Friday the 13th this year.

I do not know how you feel about Friday the 13th. Whatever your view is about Friday the 13th, you must read John Roach’s article published in the National Geographic News. It is a great article, and I encourage you to read it. Here is an excerpt from the article:

You're not having a nightmare. It really is Friday the 13th again.

For the first time in 11 years, Friday the 13th is falling in two consecutive months. This double threat can only occur in certain non-leap years and only in a February-March combination. Look for it-or avoid it-again in 2015.

The double whammy isn't the only Friday the 13th claim to infamy for 2009, a particularly tough year for superstitious minds.

The ominous date falls on three Fridays this year: February 13; this Friday, March 13; and again on November 13.

But three Friday the 13ths is the yearly maximum, as long as societies continue to mark time with the Gregorian calendar, which Pope Gregory XIII ordered the Catholic Church to adopt in 1582.

"You can't have any [years] with none and you can't have any with four because of our funny calendar," said Underwood Dudley, a professor emeritus of mathematics at DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana, and author of Numerology: Or, What Pythagoras Wrought.

The calendar works just as its predecessor the Julian calendar did, with a leap year every four years. But the Gregorian calendar skips leap year on century years except those divisible by 400. For example, there was no leap year in 1900 but one was observed in 2000. This trick keeps the calendar in tune with the seasons.

The result is an ordering of days and dates that repeats itself every 400 years, Dudley noted. As time marches through the order, some years such as 2009 appear with three Friday the 13ths. Other years have two or one.

Curious Calendar

"It's just that curious way our calendar is constructed, with 28 days in February and all those 30s and 31s," Dudley said.

When the 400-year order is laid out, another revelation occurs: The 13th falls on Friday more often than any other day of the week. "It's just a funny coincidence," Dudley said.

Richard Beveridge, a mathematics instructor at Clatsop Community College in Oregon, authored a 2003 paper in the journal Mathematical Connections on the mathematics of Friday the 13th.

He noted the 400-year cycle is further broken down into periods of either 28 or 40 years.

"At the end of every cycle you get a year with three Friday the 13ths the year before the last year in the cycle . and you also get one on the tenth year of all the cycles," he said.

Two-thousand nine is the tenth year of the cycle that started in 2000.

Read the full article by visiting the National Geographic web page and read abut the Biblical reference to the number 13.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Friday the 13, Superstition, Unlucky Number

Bible Codes Predict the Global Economic Crisis

According to Bible Code Digest, Nathan Jacobi, an Israeli researcher, has discovered more than a dozen encoded Hebrew sentences in the Old Testament that predict the cause of the present economic crisis, its global extent, and the problems this economic crisis has produced.

According to a post published by Bible Code Digest, “In each code, the Hebrew letters are equally spaced within the literal text. For example, suppose that ‘credit crisis’ appeared in Job, picking up every tenth letter from the text. Jacobi then looked at the string of letters one would obtain by picking up every tenth letter before and after the original search term.” As a result, the biblical codes reveal thirteen causes that have contributed to the present global economic crisis.

If you are interested in reading the thirteen causes that have contributed to the global economic crisis, click here.

If you are interested in looking at the Hebrew words found by using the Equidistant Letter Sequence (ELS) method, click here.

Now, you ask me: “Do you believe that Bible codes predict the global economic crisis?” My answer is: “Of course not!” Such a prediction done by the ELS method requires a very fertile mind to read what is not in the Bible and a very gullible mind to believe this bunch of non-sense.

Here is an example of the prediction arrived by Bible codes:

Economic Crisis

He will illuminate to the evil people
the trap of an economic crisis.
Where are they? Are they ours?

This code is mysterious, with its references to he, they, and ours. However, the middle portion of the code, illuminate to the evil people the trap of an economic crisis, reads more like a cry to enlighten people about the dangers of this crisis. The evil people could be a reference to Wall Street and corporate executives whose greed helped create the current crisis.

Does this code make any sense? Not to me.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Bible Code, Economic Crisis, Nathan Jacobi

The Killing of Reverend Fred Winters

The killing of the Reverend Fred Winters is another evidence of the excess of evil that prevails in our world today. Winters was a Southern Baptist minister and the pastor of the First Baptist Church of Maryville, Illinois. He was killed on Sunday, March 8, 2009.

Winters was killed by Terry J. Sedlacek, a 27-year-old man from Troy, Illinois who, according to a news report, suffered bouts of erratic behavior caused by Lyme disease. While Winters was preaching at the early Sunday morning service, shortly after 8 a.m., Sedlacek entered the sanctuary, exchanged a few words with Reverend Winters, then fired a .45-caliber semiautomatic pistol four times. Winters, 45, and the father of two daughters, died of a single shot to the heart.

Winters came to the pastorate of the First Baptist Church in 1987. At that time the church had an average attendance of 32 people during Sunday worship. Today the church has about 1,200 members with three worship services on Sundays.

This tragic death was unnecessary and reflects the contempt and disrespect that some people have for human life. Many people in our society today do not understand that God values human life and that God has established laws that protect human life.

God values human life because every individual was created in the image of God (Genesis 1:26). Since every person bears God’s image, the killing of one person is an affront to God.

The sixth commandment is a prohibition against the willful and deliberate taking of a human life: “You shall not murder” (Exodus 20:13). This commandment concerns the taking of our own and our neighbor’s life. Killing is never right, but the sixth commandment does not forbid killing in war, in self-defense, not even when the state puts a criminal to death. What the commandment forbids is taking life out of malice, hatred, revenge, anger, or any reason that results from human interaction.

As tragic as the death of Reverend Winters was, this is not the first time nor it will be the last time that such an event will take place. Killing inside a church or a temple has happened before and it will happen again.

When Solomon tried to kill Joab, the commander of the Israelite army, Joab, fearing for his life, “fled to the tent of the Lord and took hold of the horns of the altar” (1 Kings 2:28). The tent of the Lord was a place of refuge and safety. But Solomon, when he was told that Joab had fled to the tent of the Lord and had taken refuge beside the altar, ordered Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada, to go inside the Lord’s tent and kill Joab (1 Kings 2:29-34).

Zechariah, son of Jehoiada and the prophet of the Lord, was also killed in the temple. When Zechariah stood before the people and told them about their rebellion against the Lord, the people, by order of king Joash, stoned him to death in the courtyard of the Lord’s temple (2 Chronicles 24:20-22).

Even the king of Assyria was killed in the temple while he was worshiping his god. According to 2 Kings 19:36-37, after King Sennacherib of Assyria left Judah and returned to his palace in Nineveh, “as he was worshiping in the house of his god Nisroch, his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer killed him with the sword, and they escaped into the land of Ararat.”

How can we explain the death of Reverend Winters? Seeking to understand what had taken place, Nate Adams, Executive Director of the Illinois Baptist State Association, said:

“Our great God is not surprised by this, or anything. That He allows evil and free will to have their way in tragedies like this is a mystery in many ways. But we know we can trust Him no matter what, and draw close to Him in any circumstances.”

Adams’s statement can be one reason why someone may choose not believe in God, but the presence of evil in the world is a good reason to believe in God, since the existence of evil also presupposes the existence of good, for God is good (Psalm 73:1).

It is evil that unhinges human beings into committing the kind of atrocity that took the life of the Reverend Winters. When that kind of evil happens, nothing can be controlled and nothing can be understood, thus our search for answers when at times answers cannot be found.

Evil is the result of human sin but only people who believe in God can truly understand the awful nature of sin and that the consequence of sin is the suffering of the innocent. This is the reason there are laws, both human and divine. Law is the process by which God and human authorities try to ratify the crooked effects of the madness of evil.

When human laws and divine laws fail to establish a society in which people live under the law, the result is the triumph of evil and the imposition of the will of outlaws.

It is in the arena of good and evil where we find God. However, people who do nor fear God may not fully understand that evil is a consequence of their rejection of God. Paul said that people who not acknowledge God do things that should not be done. They are filled with evil. They murder, they are heartless, ruthless, and inventors of all kinds of evil (Romans 1:28-31).

God and God’s people are in no way strangers to the horrors of evil. Jesus suffered by the hands of evil men (Hebrews 13:12). Jesus also said that his disciples would be persecuted (John 15:20). In the list of faithful people in Hebrews 11, we find many who suffered for their faith. These were the people who “were tortured, refusing to accept release, in order to obtain a better resurrection. Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned to death, they were sawn in two, they were killed by the sword; they went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, persecuted, tormented” (Hebrews 11:35-37).

Evil is a reality in the world and the death of Reverend Winters is evidence of the reality of evil. People try to understand the presence of evil in the world, but the reality is that alone, human beings cannot understand the problem of evil. It is only when people and God fight together against evil, that goodness can happen. If a person walks alone, then evil becomes incomprehensible, understanding fails, and fear and horror triumph. Alone, a person cannot hold the key that unlocks the mystery of evil.

The explanation of this paradox, how can evil exist in the presence of a holy God, is only explained when one walks with God. People will escape from the depths of despair and the horrors of evil if they walk in harmony with God.

Under his light everything becomes clear. As Jesus said: “You don’t understand now what I am doing, but someday you will” (John 13:7).


Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Evil, Fred Winters, Murder, Ten Commandments, Theodicy

Vessels of Papyrus

In my post on Hezekiah and the Assyrian Crisis, I wrote that at the occasion of the Ashdod rebellion, when Egypt, Judah, and several Philistines cities conspired to revolt against Assyrian imperialism, the king of Egypt sent ambassadors to Hezekiah to invite him to join in their rebellion against Sargon, king of Assyria.

According to the prophet Isaiah, the messengers from Egypt came “in vessels of papyrus” (Isaiah 18:2). Egyptian papyrus was a plant which grew on the banks of the Nile, and from which the word “paper”originated.

Papyrus roots were used as firewood and for making various utensils, objects, and even paper. The papyrus plant was also used to make boxes, chests, and boats. In addition, papyrus was used in the manufacture of sails, mats, clothes, bedding, and ropes.

Click here to see a vessel of papyrus.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Archaeology, Egypt, Hezekiah, Papyrus

The Balm of Gilead

“Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then is there no healing for the wound of my people?” (Jeremiah 8:22).

This verse in the book of the prophet Jeremiah is well known to readers of the Bible. It has been popularized in scores of titles of books, sermons, and in a well-known African-American spiritual hymn, “There Is a Balm in Gilead”:

There is a balm in Gilead
To make the wounded whole;
There is a balm in Gilead
To heal the sin sicksoul.

This hymn interprets Jeremiah’s words Christologically because the words of the hymn assume that Christ is the Balm of Gilead that can “heal the sin sicksoul.”

Although the text is well known, many of the interpretations of the words of the prophet (or maybe the words of Yahweh) do not reflect the true intent of Jeremiah’s message to the people of Judah. For instance, in a book by T. C. Horton and Charles E. Hurlburt, The Wonderful Names of Our Wonderful Lord (Uhrichsville, OH: Barbour and Company, Inc., 1996), the authors call Jesus “The Balm of Gilead.” However, I do not think this is what Jeremiah meant when he spoke about the balm of Gilead.

Another problem scholars have is giving the right answer to Jeremiah’s question. Is the answer to Jeremiah’s question “No, there is no balm in Gilead and no, there are no physicians there?” Or is the answer “Yes, there is balm in Gilead and yes, there are physicians there?”

C. F. Keil, in his commentary The Prophecies of Jeremiah (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1950), vol. 1, p. 182 wrote: “To these questions a negative answer is given: if there were balm in Gilead and a physician there, then a plaister would have been laid on the daughter of my people, which is not the case.”

In his book Not Ashamed of the Gospel: Sermons from Paul's Letter to the Romans (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2007), p. 352, Fleming Rutledge wrote: “When Jeremiah spoke those words, he had every reason to believe that the answer was no. If we don’t understand that there really might not have been any, we will never understand the magnitude of God’s saving work.”

Terence Fretheim, in his commentary on Jeremiah (Macon: Smyth & Helwys, 2002), p. 154 believes that the answer is positive. He wrote: “The first two questions are rhetorical: Yes, there is balm in Gilead; yes, there are physicians there; but, it is implied, they are powerless to restore health to a patient with this kind of illness.”

Peter C. Craigie, Page H. Kelley, and Joel F. Drinkard, Jr., in their commentary Jeremiah 1-25 (Dallas: Word Books, Publishers, 1991), p. 140, take an ambivalent position. They wrote: “The natural answer to these questions would have to be yes but the reality of the situation demands that Jeremiah answer no.”

The purpose of my post is to provide an alternative reading to Jeremiah’s words, a reading that I believe, reflects the true intent of what Jeremiah was trying to communicate to his audience.

The balm of Gilead was an ointment made from the resin of a tree that was used as a healing ointment. The identity of this tree is unknown although many solutions have been proposed. According to the Old Testament, the balm of Gilead was used for medicine, perfume, and body ointment.

According to Genesis 37:25, an Ishmaelite caravan traveled from Gilead carrying spices, balm and myrrh to sell their merchandise in Egypt. Jeremiah tells the Egyptians to go to Gilead and use its balm because they had used many medicines without finding healing for their sickness (Jeremiah 46:11).

Before a proper identification of the balm of Gilead and the physicians there can be made, it is necessary to identify the illness that caused the incurable wound mentioned by Jeremiah. In order to do this, it is necessary to look at the call of another prophet.

When Yahweh called Isaiah to the prophetic ministry, he gave Isaiah a near impossible mission. Yahweh told Isaiah: “Go, and say to this people: ‘Hear and hear, but do not understand; see and see, but do not perceive.’ Make the heart of this people fat, and their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed” (Isaiah 6:9-10).

Yahweh told Isaiah that his preaching would harden the hearts of the people and they would not listen. The people’s unbelief, their stubborn heart, and their resistence to the prophet’s words were caused by their rebellion against Yahweh.

According to the word of Yahweh to Isaiah, if the people would hear the message the prophet was to proclaim, if they would turn or repent, then they would be healed (v. 10). Thus, it is Yahweh who compares the rebellion of the people with spiritual illness. The rebellion of the people was worse than physical illness and only the message preached by Isaiah could bring the people to repentance and to the healing of its wound.

Thus, the balm of Gilead is a metaphor used by Jeremiah to explain how the people could find a cure for their spiritual illness. The balm that Jeremiah was talking about was not repentance, even though repentance was the first step toward the healing of their wound.

Several times in the Old Testament, the prophets speak about Judah’s rebellion as an incurable wound. Hosea said: “When Ephraim saw his sickness, and Judah his wound, then Ephraim went to Assyria, and sent to the great king. But he is not able to cure you or heal your wound” (Hosea 5:13).

Isaiah said: “Why will you still be smitten, that you continue to rebel? The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot even to the head, there is no soundness in it, but bruises and sores and bleeding wounds; they are not pressed out, or bound up, or softened with oil” (Isaiah 1:5-6).

In the book of Jeremiah, Yahweh spoke of Judah’s illness and its incurable wound. Of Jerusalem, Yahweh said:

“Her sickness and wounds are ever before me” (Jeremiah 6:7).

“For the wound of the daughter of my people is my heart wounded” (Jeremiah 8:21).

Why was not the wound of God’s people healed? Because the preaching of the false prophets did not provide the healing the people needed. Yahweh himself accused the prophets of not providing healing to the people. Yahweh spoke these words about the prophets:

“For from the least to the greatest of them, every one is greedy for unjust gain; and from prophet to priest, every one deals falsely. They have healed the wound of my people lightly, saying, `Peace, peace,' when there is no peace” (Jeremiah 6:13-14). The same words are repeated again in Jeremiah 8:10-11. Yahweh is saying that the prophets have healed the wound of the people only lightly because they were preaching the wrong message.

“Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then is there no healing for the wound of my people?” (Jeremiah 8:22). Jeremiah is proclaiming that Judah is like a person who is sick or wounded. He is also proclaiming that the balm of Gilead is the word of God in the mouth of the prophets and that the prophets are the physicians sent by God to bring the medicine that could heal the people.

Thus, in Jeremiah 8:22, the prophet is saying that there were plenty of physicians in Gilead who could heal the spiritual sickness of the people of Judah, for the physicians were the prophets. There was plenty of balm in Gilead, for the balm of Giled in the mouth of Jeremiah is a metaphor for the word of God being preached by the prophets to a rebellious people. But there was no healing because the prophets were preaching a message that did not bring healing.

Yahweh is the great healer of Israel: “I am the LORD, your healer” (Exodus 15:26). But healing would only come when the prophet faithfully proclaimed the word of God to the people.

The words of Jeremiah have a message for those who preach God’s words. We preach through the power of the Holy Spirit that people’s attitude may be altered, lives may change, and transformation may occur. Those who preach are heralds of God’s truth, proclaiming a message of hope to hungry souls and lonely hearts. Everyone who preaches must remember the words of the prophet Micah: “But I am full of the courage that the LORD's Spirit gives, and have a strong commitment to justice. This enables me to confront Jacob with its rebellion, and Israel with its sin” (Micah 3:8).

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Balm, Gilead, Jeremiah, False Prophets

The Dead Sea Scroll Controversy and Me

According to a news release put out by the New York County District Attorney’s office, Raphael Haim Golb was arrested today on charges of identity theft, criminal impersonation, and aggravated harassment. Gold is the son of Norman Golb, a professor at the University of Chicago and a specialist in the study of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

According to the news release, Manhattan District Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau announced that Golb was arrested for creating multiple aliases in order to engage in a campaign of impersonation and harassment against scholars who opposed his father’s views on the Dead Sea Scrolls.

One of the persons who has been defamed and attacked by Golb was Dr. Robert R. Cargill from UCLA. Cargill has developed a Wikipedia page that details many of the attacks on scholars who disagree with Golb’s father.

Unfortunately, I have been inadvertently involved in this controversy since my blog was used as a forum by Raphael Golb to attack other scholars and cast aspersions on those who disagreed with the views espoused by his father.

I was unaware that Charles Gadda and many of the people who commented on my posts was Raphael Golb. As any blogger who welcomes comments, even when those comments may differ with my own views, I responded to the comments left on my post, unaware that the people commenting on what I had written had a hidden agenda.

Gargill has developed a detailed account of the ways Golb used blogs to criticize those involved in the study of the Dead Sea Scrolls. You should visit Gargill’s Wikipedia page. When you do, you will discover that my name and my blog appear more than a dozen times under the several aliases used by Golb. Golb visited my blog under these aliases and used my posts to criticize scholars including Cargill.

Visit Cargill’s Wikipedia page and read “Who Is Charles Gadda.”

Below is the news release from the New York County District Attorney’s office:

DISTRICT ATTORNEY - NEW YORK COUNTY

NEWS RELEASE
March 5, 2009


Contact: Alicia Maxey Greene
212-335-9400



Manhattan District Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau today announced the arrest of a 49-year-old man for creating multiple aliases to engage in a campaign of impersonation and harassment relating to the Dead Sea Scrolls and scholars of opposing viewpoints.

The defendant, RAPHAEL HAIM GOLB, was arrested on charges of identity theft, criminal impersonation and aggravated harassment. The crimes in the Criminal Court Complaint occurred during the period of July to December of 2008.

The investigation leading to today’s arrest revealed that GOLB engaged in a systematic scheme on the Internet, using dozens of Internet aliases, in order to influence and affect debate on the Dead Sea Scrolls, and in order to harass Dead Sea Scrolls scholars who disagree with his viewpoint. GOLB used computers at New York University (NYU) in an attempt to mask his true identity when conducting this Internet scheme. He gained access to NYU computers by virtue of being a graduate of the university, and having made donations to its library fund.

The investigation, which included a court-authorized search warrant that was executed this morning at GOLB’s apartment, began in response to a complaint by Lawrence Schiffman, Ph.D., that he was impersonated over the Internet. Dr. Schiffman is a NYU professor, chairman of the Hebrew & Judaic Studies Department and a leading scholar in the field of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

In August 2008, Dr. Schiffman became subject to a campaign of impersonation and harassment through the Internet, by an anonymous individual. An investigation by the District Attorney’s Office revealed that this individual was GOLB, the son of Norman Golb, Ph.D., a Dead Sea Scrolls scholar who resides in Chicago. RAPHAEL GOLB used methods which were intended to maintain his anonymity, and opened an email account - larry.schiffman @ gmail.com - purportedly in Dr. Schiffman’s name and sent 11 emails to multiple NYU recipients, in which he pretended to be Dr. Schiffman, and purported to admit to plagiarism. Simultaneously, RAPHAEL GOLB, using other Internet aliases, sent emails to NYU personnel and administration accusing Dr. Schiffman of plagiarism, and created Internet blogs accusing Dr. Schiffman of plagiarism.

GOLB also created email accounts in the names of other individuals active in the field of Dead Sea Scrolls scholarship, including Stephen Goranson and Jonathan Seidel.

The Dead Sea Scrolls consist of roughly 900 documents, including texts from the Hebrew Bible, discovered between 1947 and 1956 in 11 caves in and around the ancient ruins of Qumran, on the northwest shore of the Dead Sea, in present-day Israel. The texts are of great religious and historical significance, as they include the only known surviving copies of biblical texts made before 100 A.D., and preserve evidence of considerable diversity of belief and practice within late Second Temple period Judaism, the Judaism of the second and first centuries B.C. and the first century A.D. These manuscripts generally date to between 150 B.C. and 50 A.D. Publication of the scrolls is now complete, however it was delayed for many decades.

There is considerable academic scholarship that surrounds the Dead Sea Scrolls, with areas of general consensus, and with areas of debate and differing opinions and theories. Because of the importance of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and because of the delay in publication, the scrolls are also subject to some conspiracy theories.

Many scholars view the scrolls collection as having been assembled by an ancient Jewish sect, which many call the Essenes. Furthermore, many scholars believe that this sect resided in the settlement in Qumran, in close proximity to the caves where the scrolls were found.

The defendant’s father, Dr. Norman Golb, is a professor at the University of Chicago. He has been a proponent of the viewpoint that the Dead Sea Scrolls found in the caves of Qumran had nothing to do with the buildings and settlement at the Qumran site. He believes that they were not the product of the Essenes, but of many different Jewish sects and communities of ancient Israel, who hid the scrolls in the caves at Qumran while fleeing from Jerusalem.

RAPHAEL GOLB, through his Internet aliases, promoted the theories of his father and criticized the theories of others. Frequently, he criticized the manner in which the Dead Sea Scrolls have been exhibited, for not giving sufficient attention to the theories of his father.

GOLB is charged with Identity Theft in the Second Degree, a class E felony, which is punishable by up to 11/3 to 4 years in prison; Identity Theft in the Third Degree, Criminal Impersonation in the Second Degree, Forgery in the Third Degree and Aggravated Harassment in the Second Degree, all class A misdemeanors, which are each punishable by up to 1 year in prison. He is scheduled to be arraigned today in Manhattan Criminal Court.

The investigation is continuing.

Read also: The Dead Sea Scroll Controversy


Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Dead Sea Scrolls, Raphael Golb, Robert Cargill

Lilith Demons

In an article published in the March /April 2009 issue of the Biblical Archaeology Review, Dan Levene wrote about magic incantations, written in Aramaic, that were inscribed on skulls. The article, “Rare Magic Inscription on Human Skull,” deals with belief in demons and the incantations and other magic rites that were used to combat these demons who, according to popular belief, caused medical problems as well as other misfortunes.

One of these demons was known as Lilith. Lilith as a night demon appears in Isaiah 34:14 (NJB): “Wild cats will meet hyenas there, satyr will call to satyr, there Lilith too will lurk and find somewhere to rest.”

James A. Montgomery of the University of Pennsylvania studied one skull in 1913 in which he found a reference to Lilith. According to Levene’s article,

Montgomery's comments on what he could salvage of the Philadelphia skull text indicate that it referred to "spirits" and "Liliths," in the plural. In this period, high infant and birthing-mother mortality rates were attributed to Lilith demons, who were thought to roam the earth looking for pregnant women and newborn infants to attack. Lilith, of course, emerges later, in the medieval period, as the mythological first wife of Adam who refused to be subservient to him. But the motif of the demoness who roams the earth looking for newborn infants to devour has its roots in much-earlier Mesopotamian traditions and persists throughout history.

To read the article in its entirety and to see photos of the skulls, visit the Biblical Archaeology Review online.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Dan Levene, Incantation Bowls, Lilith, Shlomo Moussaieff, Skull Inscription

How Much Did Hosea Pay for His Wife?

The story of Hosea’s marriage to Gomer has been a source of debate among students of the Bible. God called Hosea to take “a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom” as a sign that the land had committed “great whoredom” by forsaking the Lord. In obedience to God, Hosea went and took Gomer to be his wife and she bore him three children: two sons and one daughter. Hosea’s children were given symbolic names to reflect God’s judgment upon the sins of the people of Israel.

After Gomer left Hosea, whether by divorce, by becoming the legal wife of another man, or by becoming a temple prostitute is a matter for another study. In this post, I am assuming that the second woman in chapter 3 is Gomer and that God asked the prophet to return to his wife and redeem her.

After Gomer left Hosea, God came a second time to Hosea and told the prophet to take his wife back: “The Lord said to me, ‘Go again, love a woman who is loved by another man and is an adulteress’” (Hosea 3:1). In obedience to God’s command, Hosea went and bought her for “fifteen shekels of silver, a homer of barley, and a lethech of barley” (Hosea 3:2).

The purpose of this study is to ascertain how much Hosea paid for his wife. The problem with verse 2 is the repetition of the word “barley” and the use of the word “lethech.” The word “lethech” (לתך) is a hapax legomenon, that is, it is a word which occurs only once in the Old Testament, here in Hosea 3:2.

Because of this unique use of the word “lethech” in Hosea, the versions differ on the translation of verse 2:

“So I bought her to me for fifteen pieces of silver and a homer of barley, and a half-homer of barley” (JPS).

“So I bought her for fifteen pieces of silver and a homer and a lethech of barley” (NAB).

“Then I hired her for fifteen shekels of silver, a homer of barley, and a lethech of barley” (TNK).

The three translations above are variations of the same idea contained in verse 2. The JPS translation assumes that the lethech is a half of a homer. The NAB and the TNK assume that the homer and the lethech are different terms for dry measures but do not assume their value.

The translation of the Septuagint assumes a different reading for the text. The Septuagint reads: “So I hired her to myself for fifteen pieces of silver, and a homer of barley, and a flagon of wine.” Instead of “a lethech of barley,” the Septuagint has “a flagon of wine.”

Several English versions have chosen to follow the Septuagint:

“So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver, a homer of barley and a skin of wine” (NJB).

“So I bought her back for fifteen pieces of silver and about five bushels of barley and a measure of wine” (NLT).

“So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and a homer of barley and a measure of wine” (NRS).

The problem with the translation proposed by the Septuagint is that it has no manuscript evidence for the inclusion of “a flagon of wine” to the text. The Greek translation may reflect the inability of Jewish scholars in Alexandria to recognize the meaning of the word “lethech” in the second century B.C.

In his Friday Culture Word Study, Duane Smith at Abnormal Interest said that in the West Semitic usage, all uses of the word “lethech” “seem to apply to grain.” In his translation of the verse, Duane proposes another meaning for “lethech.” He translated the verse as follows:

“So I bought her for myself with fifteen shekels of silver and a homer of barley (that is) and a measure of barley.”

Duane proposes that “a lethech of barley” is a gloss on “a homer of barley,” that is, that “either at the time of composition or later someone felt the need to explain that a ‘homer’ of barley was a ‘measure’ of barley.”

In his article on “Weights and Measures,” published in The Anchor Dictionary of the Bible, Marvin A. Powell discusses (p. 6:904) the decimal structure of the homer. He also said that according to the Mishnah, the lethech was half a homer.

The price Hosea paid for his wife was significant. The reason for the payment was because she probably had become the legal property of another man or because she was being redeemed from service as a cult prostitute.

As for the price Hosea paid for his wife, the amount seems to correspond to the price paid for a slave according to the law of the goring ox: “If the ox gores a slave, male or female, the owner shall give to their master thirty shekels of silver” (Exodus 21:32). According to Leviticus 27:4, thirty shekels of silver was also the value of a woman when calculating the fulfillment of a vow.

Since Hosea paid half of the price in silver and half in grain, it is possible that he did not have enough silver to pay the price asked for his wife, thus he paid half of the price in silver and half of the price in kind. According to Powell, the price paid by Hosea “suggests that the underlying homer had 10 parts and the letech (sic) 5, i.e., 15 ephah, and that 1 ephah = 1 shekel.” Thus, 1 homer was equal to 10 shekels. Since Hosea only had 15 shekels of silver, he also gave a homer and a lethech of barley, which was the equivalent to the 15 shekels of silver which he lacked.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Gomer,Homer, Hosea, Lethech

The Power of the Written Word in Israel

Biblical Archaeology Review (BAR) has made available an excellent article by Joey Corbett on “Word Play: The Power of the Written Word in Ancient Israel” on its e-feature section. The following is an excerpt from the article:

In the Hebrew Bible there are clear indications that writing was often thought to have tangible, even magical, properties. In Numbers 5:11-28, a woman accused of adultery is made to consume "the water of bitterness," a cloudy concoction infused with the washed-off ink from the words of a written curse. If the woman is innocent, the curse will have no effect; if she is guilty, the curse will cause her thighs to waste away and her belly to swell. In a similar vein, when Ezekiel accepts his prophetic mission from God during a dreamlike trance, he eats a scroll inscribed with the words of the divine message (Ezekiel 2:9-3:11). Having ingested the words, Ezekiel and God's message become one.

The magical properties of writing meant that written words, once they came into being, were active and sometimes even unstable forces that could be manipulated, both for good and for ill. Numerous short dedicatory inscriptions found in Iron Age Israel and elsewhere make requests for divine blessing and protection, many having only the author's name, what is requested and the name of the deity. As Biblical scholar Susan Niditch has said, it is as if the act of writing the prayer "[brought] the God-presence into a sort of material reality," thus allowing the words to become infused with "visceral power."

Read the article in its entirety by visiting the e-feature page of the Biblical Archaeology Review.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Archeology, Writing, Written Words

The End of the Quarter

I have not written a post to the blog since last week. Here at Northern Seminary we are on the quarter system. This means that we are coming to the end of the Winter quarter. The end of the quarter means reading papers and doing all the things that must be done before the last week of classes.

In addition, I have to prepare for the Spring quarter. In the Spring I will be teaching a new course online. Since this is my first experience with online classes, I have to make more preparation that usual. For this reason, I have been reading new material, designing the structure for the online classes at the same time I am finishing my Winter classes.

I will not be able to publish a new post until Thursday. After that, I hope to be able to post regularly. Until then, thank you for your patience.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Blogging