News Reports
from BIBARCH^™

Click on items of interest.

Wine and Beer Were the Ancient Beverages of Choice (6/98)

The Shroud of Turin Revisited (11/98)

Herodian Temple Site Questioned (7/15/98)

Dead Sea Scrolls Conference (8/1/97)

More on Neanderthals (7/11/97)

The Ice Core Score Again (2/28/95)

The Shroud of Turin
Revisited (11/98)

Two well-written analyses of the Shroud of Turin published in the November/December issue of the Biblical Archaeological Review argue that it is not what many believers hold it to be. In Debunking the Shroud: Made by Human Hands Gary Vikan holds that the Shroud of Turin is not nearly as mysterious as some would like to believe. If the carbon 14 tests don't convince objective people of its 14th-century date, perhaps artistic and historical considerations will. In The Shroud Painting Explained Walter C. McCrone argues that it's not blood but paint.

Wine and Beer Were the Ancient Beverages of Choice (6/98)

During biblical times, as for most of human existence, clean, drinkable, potable water was nearly nonexistent. People have turned to alcohol for refreshment, and possibly more, for 10,000 years. The primary liquids consumed by humans during this period were beer and wine reports Bert L. Vallee in "Alcohol in the Western World" in the June issue of the Scientific American. This physician traces alcohol's journey from a necessary good to a sometimes dangerous drug. The basic beverage consumed by Jews, Judeo-Christians, and Gentile Christians in the Apostolic Age consisted of fermented grape juice presumably tasting quite acidic like vinegar. Before the invention of pasteurization it was impossible to preserve grape juice in the Levant or anywhere else for that matter. The worker of an ancient vineyard might cool it in a deep well water for a time but the juice of the grape fermented just the same. Cooling only slowed the process. 

Herodian Temple Site Questioned (7/15/98)

Based upon historical research Ernest Martin has challenged the traditional understanding of the location of Herod's Temple. According to Martin the present-day Temple Mount [Haram esh-Sharif] where the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aksa Mosque stand, was in Herodian times actually the venue of the Roman Antonia Fortress. He holds that the Temple actually was about 600 feet south on the site of the ancient City of David on Mt. Zion (the southeastern hill). Martin, a prolific author, albeit somewhat controversial, of scholarly material about the Bible, founded the Associates for Scriptural Knowledge (A.S.K...) in 1985 and is presently Chairman of its Board. You can view a drawing of Martin's Temple proposal and his article at the askelm.com Web site. Martin's theory is unthinkable to traditional students of biblical archaeology. One of the first concerns biblical archaeologists have is why then do the mikvaot at the Stairs of the Teachers adjoin the Antonia Fortress and not the Temple site?

Dead Sea Scrolls Conference (8/1/97)

Half a century after their discovery the debate continues as to who wrote the scrolls when, where, and why. Still at issue is scholarly access to the scrolls. A timely report by Haim Watzman appeared in the August 1, 1997 issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education.

The Dead Sea Scrolls, or more properly the Qumran documents, found in various caves at Qumran, provide documentary evidence of the culture of the pre-70 CE Jewish homeland. The large cave at the center of the photograph is Cave 4 that contained about 400 fragmented scrolls in an advanced state of decay. The caves served as a hiding place for the scrolls to keep them from the Romans. Recent scholarly activity raises significant doubt about the original sources of the scrolls and the equating of the Qumran community with the Essenes.

While not prominent in the New Testament, the sect of the Essenes made up a significant subdivision of early first-century Judaism. The Essenes were an extremist monastic group holding to a rigid, austere and bizarre form of religion with Gnostic overtones awaiting the Messiah to appear to deliver them to a new Israel. They generally secluded themselves from a Jewish society which they regarded as defiled and doomed.

First-century Judaism was by no means a monolithic system. Rather, the "Judaisms" of the period-the Judaism of the Pharisees, the Judaism of the Sadducees, the Judaism of the Essenes, and the like-embodied a great diversity of opinions, convictions, ideas, and beliefs.

Except for a general consensus that there was but one God, as Jews practiced a strict monotheism which separated them from the polytheistic and pantheistic pagan cults of other nations, there was little or no unity or commonality of practice and belief. Each faction had its own ethics, politics, and solutions for problems, and its own philosophical basis. Their society reflected a far greater range of cultural diversity than has been generally recognized in the past.

The most well known subdivisions of first-century Judaism were the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes. These sects were composed of small minorities. The overwhelming majority of the Jewish populace of Roman Judea, being Hellenized and secular, did not align themselves to any one these factions. Nonetheless, as organized sects they were able to exert considerable power beyond what their numbers would infer.

More on Neanderthals (7/11/97)

An article in the July 11, 1997, issue of Cell, reports on Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) research on Neanderthal DNA traces. The genetic material came from the right humerus (the long upper arm bone in humans) of a Neanderthal found in Germany near Dusseldorf in 1856. The recovery and analysis of Neanderthal mtDNA is a scientific first. This was the first acquisition and analysis of mtDNA from an archaic H. sapiens specimen.

Based upon their analysis German-American researchers concluded that their sample evidenced the genetic divergence of Neandertals and the ancestors of anatomically modern H. sapiens about 550-690 thousand years ago. This does not exclude admixture between Neanderthals and anatomically modern H. sapiens. For details see Mark Rose's July 29, 1997, comprehensive report in Archaeology.

Research on the origin of H. sapiens includes that from molecular biological research into the neutral mutations of DNA. These are neither beneficial nor harmful to the survival of the species but accumulate over long periods. If this accumulation occurs at a constant rate over time, as most researchers believe, the number of mutations shared by individuals reflect how closely their relationship is. Researchers then use this to estimate when in the past that they shared a common ancestor.

Researchers use this approach to reconstruct recent human evolution using DNA from the mitochondria (the energy-producing part of a cell). mtDNA accumulates neutral mutations rapidly, making it a suitable tool for studying genetic relationships in modern humans. Inheritance of mtDNA is from the mother alone. Studies based upon it trace recent human evolution through the female line. Thus, the derivation of all mtDNA is from a common female ancestor. A caveat is that there is some evidence to link some mtDNA to fathers. Moreover, application of this research to Neandertals, and the like, requires usable samples of genetic material.

The Ice Core Scores Again (2/28/95)

The traditional benchmark of Mycenaean pottery indexes is an eruption of Thera in 1500 BCE. The fact is that the eruption of Thera, which caused the volcanic destruction of the Minoan town of Akrotiri, occurred about 1625 BCE not 1500 BCE as traditionally understood. There is no evidence in the ice core for a major 1500 BCE eruption.

This means that the traditional chronology for the first half of the late Bronze Age is off by more than a century. This is consistent with the re-calibration of Carbon 14 based upon improved instrumentation and its adjustment against the results of newly developed tree-ring date indexes. See Carbon 14 Dating and Tree-Ring Dating.

Studies based on annual growth rings in bristlecone pines in the United States, and oak trees in Europe, confirm a disturbance in global climatic conditions about 1628 BCE. The Carbon 14 dates for Akrotiri suggest the volcanic destruction of the city about 1625 BCE.