came to pass while they were there the days were fulfilled.” The Bezaen text has no support from any earlier Greek texts and none from the early versions. It would seem that Bezae has been accommodated to the myth of a late arrival on the night of the birth. The transcribers of the Bezae text were more consistent than we are. Our text denies a late night arrival theory and yet we manage to maintain it. 3 Dalmann has a diagram of just such a house from a village near Jerusalem. In this particular instance the entire one room house is in the cave. Cf. Gustaf Dalmann, Arbeit und Sitte in Palästina, Vol. VII (Gütersloh: Hermann Werner, 1940), plate n.40. 4 Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, LXXIX. Cf. The Writings of Justin Martyr and Athenagoras, trans. by M. Dodds, G. Reith and B.P. Pratten (Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark, 1868), pp. 195–196. 5 Plummer, The Gospel According to S. Luke (Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark, 1922), p, 54 6 Justin Martyr, The First Apology of Justin 1:32; cf. Op. cit., p. 34. 7 Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, LIII; cf. Op. cit. p. 155. 8 O. Cullmann, “Infancy Gospels: the Protevangelium of James,” in New Testament Apocrypha, Vol. I, ed. by E. Hennecke and W. Schneemelcher (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1963), pp. 383–388. 9 Naboth and his famous vineyard (I Kings 21:1–14) is a classical example of the peasant attachment to the inheritance of his fathers. This same attachment is why Palestinian refugees in the current Middle East cannot simply move elsewhere. 10 K.E. Bailey, Poet and Peasant (Grand Rapids: Wm. Eerdmans, 1976), 147. 11 William Thomson, The Land and the Book, Vol. II (New York: Harper and Brothers, c. 1858, 1871), p. 503. 12 E.F.F. Bishop, Jesus of Palestine (London: Lutterworth Press, 1955), p. 42. In spite of the passage here quoted, in his volume Bishop offers another alternative, that of a shed attached to a village guest house. This ignores the fact that mangers are in homes and the fact that the Holy Family has been in Bethlehem for some time. In a public lecture in Jerusalem in 1958 Bishop reaffirmed his earlier view that the birth was in a private home. 13 Gustaf Dalmann, Sacred Sites and Ways, trans. from the German by Paul P. Levertoff (London: SPCK, 1935), p. 41. 14 G. Dalmann. Arbeit und Sitte in Palästina, plates 1–91. 15 Everyone sleeps on mattresses on the raised terrace floor in the village home, so placing a baby there is perfectly natural. 16 G. Dalmann, Sacred Sites and Ways, p. 41. 17 Ibid. 18 Miller suggests that the birth “was probably unattended” because Mary wraps her own child. Cf. D.G. Miller, Saint Luke (London: SCM, 1959), p. 35. The assumption of Miller’s remark is that the mother in her supposed weakened condition after childbirth would not choose to wrap her own child if she had had assistance. The difficulty with this assumption is that Palestinian peasant women are not physically incapacitated by childbirth. The present writer has heard first-hand accounts of Palestinian peasant women caught in the fields with labor pains who gave birth in the fields and then picked up the newborn child and returned to the village with no unusual
Bronze Age Camel Petroglyphs In The Wadi Nasib, Sinai
This article was first published in the Summer 2000 issue of Bible and Spade. Most scholars believe camels were not domesticated until the end of the second millenium BC. Yet evidence continues to amass that camel domestication was widely known earlier. Randall Younker adds Late Bronze Age I petroglyphs (Greek = rock/carving) depicting domesticated camels from the Sinai to that evidence. Introduction In July 1998, a small party of colleagues from Andrews University,1 undertook an expedition to Wadi Nasib (the valley of the stone altar) to visit Proto-Sinaitic Inscriptions found by Dr. Georg Gerster in 1961 (Gerster 1961: 62; Albright 1966: 3).2 The inscriptions are located on the vertical face of a large rock on the north side of the pass, through the N-S running ridge that serves as the eastern boundary of the Wadi Nasib. The pass itself is at the head of a tributary wadi of the Wadi Nasib that is located immediately east of the bedouin cemetery of Bir Nasib. The settlement of Bir Nasib, proper, is located just to the south of the cemetery. Just east of the cemetery there is a trail (actually several meandering trails) which climb eastward along the edge of this tributary up to the cut or pass. The Proto-Sinaitic inscriptions were easy to find and were found to be still in the same state of preservation as when Gerster first found them. Visiting the Proto-Sinaitic InscriptionsThe actual reading of the inscriptions has been a matter of some discussion. Albright (1966) failed to recognize the fourth column as belonging to the inscription and tried to make sense of only the remaining three. Albright’s transcription was: ‘D ‘[L]T[N] L H B[R] [N]H ‘LW. He translated the inscription as “O father E[l], gra[nt] to Heber re[st] beside him!” Rainey (1975), who was able to personally examine the inscription, subsequently noted that there is a fourth column that Albright ignored or overlooked. Also, he modified the readings of a few of the characters. Rainey’s reading of the whole text is:or Blessing(s) (on/of) ‘Ad(d)a’, chief of the stockades(s), arid (on/of) ‘h[ ... ]. Other scholars have proposed still other variant readings (e.g., Shea 1987). Two meters (six ft) to the right of Gerster No. 1, however, is an Egyptian rock-inscription in the form of a stele from the 20th year of Ammenemes III (Gardiner and Peat 1952; pl. XIV; no.46; 1955: 76).3 This inscription is quite weathered and the surviving portion measures only 20 x 23 cm. It is clear that the inscription was originally written in three horizontal lines of hieroglyphics at the top, while the lower part was divided into six vertical columns. It is these six vertical columns that have pretty much eroded away. The translation of Gardiner and Peet of the surviving top portion of the inscription reads, “Year 20 under the majesty of the king of Upper and Lower Egypt Nema’re’, son of Re’ Ammenemes, living like Re’ eternally” (Gardiner and Peet 1955: 76). The camel’s anatomy led to its value and domestication. Its hump serves for fat storage and probably developed as a body-heater. For water storage, the animal has several sac-shaped extensions in its stomach where liquid can be retained for a long period. Even today camels are bred in the Near East and sell for up to $2,000 each. About 20 cm (2.5 in) to the right of the Ammenemes III stele is the second, brief Proto-Sinaitic inscription (Gerster No. 2).’ Only two characters and part of a third have survived the ravages of time. The two discernable characters include the bull’s head (aleph) and the zigzag (mem). Obviously, there is too little of this inscription to make out a coherent translation. Like Gerster No. 1, this second Proto-Sinaitic inscription is later than the Ammenemes III stele. It is better preserved and the patina is lighter than the Ammenemes III inscription, indicating that Proto-Sinaitic was carved more recently. Most scholars agree that based on the style of the characters and the color of the patRosetta Stone Spanish
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