BEIT SHEMESH, Israel (AP) — In a cavernous warehouse where
Israel stores its archaeological treasures, an ancient burial box is
inscribed with the name of Jesus.
Not THAT Jesus. Archaeologists in Israel say Jesus was a common name
in the Holy Land 2,000 years ago, and
that they have found about 30
ancient burial boxes inscribed with it.
Ahead
of Easter, Israel’s antiquities authority opened up its vast storeroom
to reporters on Sunday for a peek at unearthed artifacts from the time
of Jesus. Experts say they have yet to find direct archaeological
evidence of Jesus Christ, but in recent years have found a wealth of
material that helps fill out historians’ understanding of how Jesus may
have lived and died.
“There’s
good news,” said Gideon Avni, head of the archaeological division of
the Israel Antiquities Authority. “Today we can reconstruct very
accurately many, many aspects of the daily life of the time of Christ.”
Israel
is one of the most excavated places on the planet. Some 300 digs take
place each year, including about 50 foreign expeditions from as far away
as the United States and Japan, the Antiquities Authority said.
About 40,000 artifacts are dug up in Israel each year. A third of all
the antiquities found attest to the ancient Christian presence in the
Holy Land, Avni said. Historians now know how long it took to travel
between cities and villages where Jesus preached, and what those places
looked like at the time.
Avni said knowledge of the period has advanced over the past 20
years. “We can reconstruct precisely how the country looked,” he said.
In a brightly-lit, 5,000-square
meter (54,000-sq. feet) warehouse crammed with stacks of ancient jugs
and pottery sherds — what the Antiquities Authority calls its “Ali Baba
cave” of ancient treasures — officials set up a simple white table with
finds from the time of Jesus.
There were well-preserved limestone drinking cups and dishes, widely
used by Jews in the Holy Land at the time as part of their strict
practice to ensure the ritual purity of their food. There was an
intricately decorated limestone burial box belonging to a scion of the
high priest Caiaphas, known in the New Testament for his involvement in
delivering Jesus to the Roman authorities who crucified him. In ancient
times, families would gather the bones of the deceased and place them
into boxes known as ossuaries.
They also showed off a replica of a major artifact located in the
Israel Museum in Jerusalem — a heel bone pierced by an iron nail with
wood fragments on each end, discovered in a Jewish burial box in
northern Jerusalem dating to the 1st century AD. To date, it’s the only
evidence found of a victim of Roman crucifixion buried according to
Jewish custom.
It has helped archaeologists
reconstruct how the man was crucified — with his feet nailed to the
sides of the cross. Avni said Jesus may have been crucified in the same
manner, unlike the way the crucifixion is depicted in traditional
Christian art.
Across from cardboard boxes marked “bones” from Bethsaida of the New
Testament, a massive stone block sat on a wooden crate on the warehouse
floor. The stone bears an apparent carved depiction of the Second Jewish
Temple, and was discovered in 2009 at the site of an ancient synagogue
on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. Archaeologists have suggested Jesus
may have preached in the synagogue.
Avni said there is no reason to believe Jesus did not exist just
because archaeologists haven’t found physical evidence of him. “You have
to remember that Christ was one among more than a million people living
during this time in the Holy Land,” he said.
Yisca Harani, an Israeli scholar of Christianity, said the lack of physical evidence of Jesus is a “trivial mystery.”
“Why do we expect in antiquity that there would be
some evidence of his existence?” Harani said. “It’s the reality of human
life. It’s either rulers or military men who had their memory inscribed
in stone and artifacts.”
She said what remained of Jesus “are his words.”
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