t. Luke’s Technique from Contemporary Jewish Religious Law,” in Studia Evangelica, VI, edited by L. A. Livingston (Berlin: Akademia-Verlag

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

the Biblical account.Professor and archaeologist Anson Rainey says of the minimalists:Their view that nothing in Biblical tradition is earlier than th

back to 1450 BC, the approximate date the Bible indicates for the Exodus. He mentions that the documented evidence of foreign slaves at that time in Egypt could well include the Israelites. He also adds that archaeological indications of the destruction of Canaanite cities some 40 years afterward support the account of Joshua’s conquests.But Dr. Wood goes against the current. Although he sits in the forefront of archaeological digs and is excavating what he believes is the Biblical city of Ai, he notes that he can’t get his research published in serious archaeological journals because of an ingrained anti-Bible bias.The tide of scholarly opinion on the Bible has shifted several times in the past centuries. During the later part of the 19th century there was much skepticism of the Bible, but in the 20th century, thanks to astonishing archaeological discoveries supporting the Scriptures, the tide turned somewhat in its favor.U.S. News & World Report religion writer Jeffery Sheler observes:The spirit of post-Enlightenment skepticism unquestionably continues to dominate the Biblical academy. But it is skepticism seemingly less rigid and dogmatic than it has been at times in the past...There are many scholars of a decidedly “secular” nature who nonetheless appreciate the possibility of realities, some which are represented in the Bible, that are beyond the scope of nature and of a natural explanation (1999:14).The Biblical Evidence for the ExodusHow do these factors affect the debate over the Exodus?Although not apparent at first glance, the Biblical account of the Exodus contains many tiny details that place it within a distinct historical and chronological context. Those who ignore this evidence refuse to give the Biblical record a fair hearing.For instance, in the events leading up to the Exodus, the book of Genesis records that Joseph’s brothers sold him for 20 shekels to slave traders who took him from Canaan to Egypt (Gn 37:28). Egyptologist Kenneth Kitchen notes some of the flaws in the logic of those who reject the Biblical Exodus or assign it to unnamed writers many centuries later. He notes that the price of 20 shekels is the price of a slave in the Near East in about the 18th century BC...If all these figures were invented during the Exile (sixth century BC) or in the Persian period by some fiction writer, why isn’t the price for Joseph 90 to 100 shekels, the cost of a slave at the time when that story was supposedly written?...It’s more reasonable to assume that the Biblical data reflect reality in these cases (1995:52).The date of the Exodus can be accurately calculated since the Bible mentions in 1 Kings 6:1 that the fourth year of Solomon’s reign was “the four hundred and eightieth year after the children of Israel had come out of the land of Egypt.” Surprisingly, there is scholarly agreement about the dates of Solomon’s reign, placing his fourth year in the 960s BC. Subtracting 480 years takes us back to a date for the Exodus in the 1440s BC.Another Biblical reference used to date the Exodus is found in Judges, where Jephthah tells the Ammonites that Israel had been in the land for 300 years (Jgs 11:26). Again, there is acceptance among the experts that Jephthah’s victory over the Ammonites took place around 1100 BC. This would place the arrival of the Israelites in Canaan near 1400 BC, precisely 40 years after the Exodus. Thus both Biblical dates for the Exodus agree.In spite of this Biblical evidence, most minimalist scholars believe the Exodus took place around 1260 BC, a date that contradicts the Biblically-derived dates by almost two centuries. Minimalists generally give three main reasons for this later date of the Exodus: (1) the mention of the Israelites’ building of the city of Rameses (Ex 1:11); (2) the archaeological evidence that no sedentary population lived in the Transjordan and Negev regions between 1900 and 1300 BC; and (3) the widespread devastation of cities and towns of central Canaan during the 1260s BC.Let’s consider whether these reasons are grounds for a date that contradicts the Bible.The City of RamesesMany archaeologists assume the city of Rameses was named after Rameses II, a famous Pharaoh who was a great builder. Yet the term Rameses simply means “born of the god Ra” (or Re) and had been used in monuments centuries before the time of Pharaoh Rameses II. The Bible itself mentions the same name when it speaks of Joseph’s sojourn in Egypt, hundreds of years before the reign of Rameses II:So Joseph settled his father and his brothers in Egypt and gave them property in the best part of the land, the district of Rameses, as Pharaoh directed (Gn 47:11).So the argument that Moses lived in the 1200s because the Israelites helped build a city with the name Rameses is not convincing.In fact, Manfred Bietak, the excavator of Rameses (Tell el-Dab’a), has determined that the name of the site at the time the Israelites were there was at first Rowaty, and then later changed to Avaris. The name Rameses was not used until the city was rebuilt by Rameses II in the 13th century. Thus the use of the name Rameses in Exodus 1:11 and Genesis 47:11 is a case where a later Biblical writer updated the text to reflect the changed name of the city, as we see in some other Biblical passages. We have the same situation with regard to Pithom, the other store city named in Exodus 1:11. That name was not in use until the Saite Period, ca. 600 BC.Column fragment with the cartouche (oval with royal name inside) of Rameses II, Qantir, Egypt. Rameses II built a royal center here in the 13th century BC, and from that time on the location was known as Rameses. Earlier, when the Israelites lived there, the city had several different names. When the Biblical text was updated, the older, forgotten, names of the city were replaced with the newer, more familiar, name of Rameses. Bryant Wood.Evidence for SettlementsThe second argument against the traditional date for the Exodus is based mainly on the work of archaeologist Nelson Glueck in the 1930s, which failed to find evidence of permanent



settlements in the Transjordan and the Negev regions
between 1900 and 1300 BC. This region should have shown a sizable presence of Edomites, Ammonites, and Moabites at that time, since the Biblical account mentions their strong opposition to the Israelites.However, more-recent excavations have shown many settlements in the area that Glueck did not find. Archaeologist John Bimson notes thatGlueck’s initial conclusions were definitely wrong [indeed he later retracted them], and it is disappointing to find scholars citing them as if they were still valid evidence. All too often the 13th century date for the Exodus has been perpetuated by the baseless repetition of outmoded views (Bimson and Livingston 1987:44).Widespread DestructionThe third argument used to date the Exodus to the 1200s BC is the archaeological evidence for the destruction of several Canaanite cities during this period. Scholars believe this took place when Joshua invaded and conquered Canaan.Yet, if the traditional 1400s date for the Exodus is maintained, the archaeological evidence seems tRosetta Stone Arabic

Among his colleagues to the big-bang theory—irritation and anger. Why, he asked, would scientists, who are supposed to pursue truth and not have

the Biblical account.Professor and archaeologist Anson Rainey says of the minimalists:Their view that nothing in Biblical tradition is earlier than the Persian period [538-332 BC], especially their denial of the existence of a United Monarchy [under Saul, David and Solomon], is a figment of their vain imagination...Biblical scholarship and instruction should completely ignore the “deconstructionist school.” They have nothing to teach us. (Biblical Archaeology Review, November-December 1994:47).The maximalists, on the other hand, believe the Biblical accounts have solid historical and archaeological backing. Long a minority among archaeologists, their numbers are growing, since it seems that every year discoveries are found that support, rather than refute, the Biblical narrative.Archaeologist Bryant Wood is an example of a Biblical maximalist who is slowly turning the tide in favor of the Biblical evidence. He argues that the archaeological data for the Exodus fall into place if the event is dated back to 1450 BC, the approximate date the Bible indicates for the Exodus. He mentions that the documented evidence of foreign slaves at that time in Egypt could well include the Israelites. He also adds that archaeological indications of the destruction of Canaanite cities some 40 years afterward support the account of Joshua’s conquests.But Dr. Wood goes against the current. Although he sits in the forefront of archaeological digs and is excavating what he believes is the Biblical city of Ai, he notes that he can’t get his research published in serious archaeological journals because of an ingrained anti-Bible bias.The tide of scholarly opinion on the Bible has shifted several times in the past centuries. During the later part of the 19th century there was much skepticism of the Bible, but in the 20th century, thanks to astonishing archaeological discoveries supporting the Scriptures, the tide turned somewhat in its favor.U.S. News & World Report religion writer Jeffery Sheler observes:The spirit of post-Enlightenment skepticism unquestionably continues to dominate the Biblical academy. But it is skepticism seemingly less rigid and dogmatic than it has been at times in the past...There are many scholars of a decidedly “secular” nature who nonetheless appreciate the possibility of realities, some which are represented in the Bible, that are beyond the scope of nature and of a natural explanation (1999:14).The Biblical Evidence for the ExodusHow do these factors affect the debate over the Exodus?Although not apparent at first glance, the Biblical account of the Exodus contains many tiny details that place it within a distinct historical and chronological context. Those who ignore this evidence refuse to give the Biblical record a fair hearing.For instance, in the events leading up to the Exodus, the book of Genesis records that Joseph’s brothers sold him for 20 shekels to slave traders who took him from Canaan to Egypt (Gn 37:28). Egyptologist Kenneth Kitchen notes some of the flaws in the logic of those who reject the Biblical Exodus or assign it to unnamed writers many centuries later. He notes that the price of 20 shekels is the price of a slave in the Near East in about the 18th century BC...If all these figures were invented during the Exile (sixth century BC) or in the Persian period by some fiction writer, why isn’t the price for Joseph 90 to 100 shekels, the cost of a slave at the time when that story was supposedly written?...It’s more reasonable to assume that the Biblical data reflect reality in these cases (1995:52).The date of the Exodus can be accurately calculated since the Bible mentions in 1 Kings 6:1 that the fourth year of Solomon’s reign was “the four hundred and eightieth year after the children of Israel had come out of the land of Egypt.” Surprisingly, there is scholarly agreement about the dates of Solomon’s reign, placing his fourth year in the 960s BC. Subtracting 480 years takes us back to a date for the Exodus in the 1440s BC.Another Biblical reference used to date the Exodus is found in Judges, where Jephthah tells the Ammonites that Israel had been in the land for 300 years (Jgs 11:26). Again, there is acceptance among the experts that Jephthah’s victory over the Ammonites took place around 1100 BC. This would place the arrival of the Israelites in Canaan near 1400 BC, precisely 40 years after the Exodus. Thus both Biblical dates for the Exodus agree.In spite of this Biblical evidence, most minimalist scholars believe the Exodus took place around 1260 BC, a date that contradicts the Biblically-derived dates by almost two centuries. Minimalists generally give three main reasons for this later date of the Exodus: (1) the mention of the Israelites’ building of the city of Rameses (Ex 1:11); (2) the archaeological evidence that no sedentary population lived in the Transjordan and Negev regions between 1900 and 1300 BC; and (3) the widespread devastation of cities and towns of central Canaan during the 1260s BC.Let’s consider whether these reasons are grounds for a date that contradicts the Bible.The City of RamesesMany archaeologists assume the city of Rameses was named after Rameses II, a famous Pharaoh who was a great builder. Yet the term Rameses simply means “born of the god Ra” (or Re) and had been used in monuments centuries before the time of Pharaoh Rameses II. The Bible itself mentions the same name when it speaks of Joseph’s sojourn in Egypt, hundreds of years before the reign of Rameses II:So Joseph settled his father and his brothers in Egypt and gave them property in the best part of the land, the district of Rameses, as Pharaoh directed (Gn 47:11).So the argument that Moses lived in the 1200s because the Israelites helped build a city with the name Rameses is not convincing.In fact, Manfred Bietak, the excavator of Rameses (Tell el-Dab’a), has determined that the name of the site at the time the Israelites were there was at first Rowaty, and then later changed to Avaris. The name Rameses was not used until the city was rebuilt by Rameses II in the 13th century. Thus the use of the name Rameses in Exodus 1:11 and Genesis 47:11 is a case where a later Biblical writer updated the text to reflect the changed name of the city, as we see in some other Biblical passages. We have the same situation with regard to Pithom, the other store city named in Exodus 1:11. That name was not in use until the Saite Period, ca. 600 BC.Column fragment with the cartouche (oval with royal name inside) of Rameses II, Qantir, Egypt. Rameses II built a royal center here in the 13th century BC, and from that time on the location was known as Rameses. Earlier, when the Israelites lived there, the city had several different names. When the Biblical text was updated, the older, forgotten, names of the city were replaced with the newer, more familiar, name of Rameses. Bryant Wood.Evidence for SettlementsThe second argument against the traditional date for the Exodus is based mainly on the work of archaeologist Nelson Glueck in the 1930s, which failed to find evidence of permanent



settlements in the Transjordan and the Negev regions
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