The Myth of Nazareth: The Invented Town of Jesus (11 page)

An ominous shadow lurks in the backround, one which I can best describe as an absolute rejection of accountability. It is as if Kopp knows that he can write anything he wishes, with complete disregard for the empirical facts in the ground—as long as he conforms to Church dogma. For anyone who deals with empirical fact, this is a chilling attitude. It is unscientific, and antiscientific. The result, in this particular case, is a complete muddling of data—the village begins too early by a millennium; it moves when it is in fact only beginning; Middle Roman evidence becomes Middle Bronze evidence; people live in caves; agricultural evidence becomes domestic evidence... Thus, the Church produces a confused tale with hardly any foundation in fact. It is a transparent attempt to deal with the new Bronze-Iron evidence in a way fully compatible with dogma. Unfortunately, this state of affairs is not unusual in the scholarly Nazareth literature. It exemplifies the scientific difficulties into which the tradition falls when ruled purely by doctrinal considerations.

Kopp was especially aware of the disturbing implications of point (b) mentioned earlier, namely, the lack of evidence at the venerated sites dating to the eras immediately before and during the time of Christ. The priest rejected the most obvious explanation—that no habitations existed at Nazareth during those centuries. He preferred a complex scheme by which the settlement moved not merely once, but twice (see below). Like subsequent Catholic archaeologists, Kopp insists upon interpreting the hollows in the venerated area as domestic simply because that is where Joseph and Mary were supposed to have lived. Similarly, he calls the Nazarenes “troglodytes,” because he saw that the venerated area is characterized by caves and by all sorts of hollows in and under the ground.

It is important that we understand the dynamics of Kopp’s argument, for they repeat over and over in the Nazareth literature. The typical scenario is wide of the mark not primarily because the evidence is erroneous, but because the logic is not based on evidence at all. Let us consider another example. Kopp postulates the movement of Nazareth from the venerated sites on the hillside (area A) to the valley floor (area B). Empirically, such a movement can be affirmed only if chronologically-fixed evidence from both areas A and B is forthcoming. That should be obvious. There must be earlier settlement in area A (not just agricultural or funereal use, but habitations). Then, there must be evidence for the cessation of settlement in area A. Finally, there needs to be evidence for the later appearance of settlement in nearby area B. If any of these three steps is lacking, then no conclusion regarding the movement of a settlement can be made. In the case of Nazareth, we have not a single one of these three essentials. The Bronze-Iron Age evidence from the hillside does not betray settlement there at all, but agricultural and funerary use. It is therefore clear that
the settlement was always on the
valley floor
, where we should expect it—the valley floor is flat and amenable to habitations. That is the only possible conclusion from the evidence unearthed to date.

In this connection, we may look at the case of Japhia which, as we have seen, impinges on the history of Nazareth. Its Roman ruins are three kilometers southwest of the venerated sites of Nazareth. But archaeologists found no Bronze-Iron Age evidence there, though they knew that such a town existed somewhere in the vicinity, for Japhia is mentioned in Jewish scripture. On the other hand, there are demonstrable Bronze-Iron Age remains from the Nazareth basin. Though these are not domestic remains, their termination in the Iron Age shows that the settlement came to an end at that time. In addition, there is no mention of “Nazareth” in the Bible or anywhere else in pre-Christian records. By viewing Japhia and Nazareth synoptically, we are able to satisfy all the evidence, both archaeological and literary. Japhia moved from A to B (from the Nazareth basin to the Roman site) precisely because the evidence in the ground moved from A to B. Finally, that move is also corroborated by the literary record.
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Kopp’s logic is very different, and begins with scripture:

(1) the inerrancy of scripture demands that Nazareth existed in the time of Jesus;

(2) however, no sign of Greek or Roman Nazareth was found in the Franciscan excavations;

(3) Nazareth must, therefore, have existed
somewhere else
.

The conclusion answers to Church doctrine, which is also the
point de départ
of the argument. Because the logic is not based on evidence in the ground but on scripture, it leads to absurd scenarios whose implications are grotesque. Such doctrine-friendly logic is characteristic not only of Kopp’s several articles, but also of the bulk of the Nazareth literature.  The scholars who have written on the site have not so much attempted to explain evidence as would a scientist, but have attempted something very different: to vindicate dogma, and to justify scripture. The dominant logic is circular, for its beginning and endpoint are the same: Church belief. In this dogmatic loop evidence is often irritating, at worst alarming, and always irrelevant.

Kopp’s hypothesis that Nazareth was at some point in time on the valley floor is an example of illogic fortuitously coming across the correct solution. No excavations have been conducted on the valley floor, but the inference from topography is clear: flat and amenable to habitations, it offers the only possible location in the Nazareth basin for an ancient settlement, while the steep and rocky slope of the Nebi Sa‘in, pockmarked with hollows, presents an impossible venue. The fact that habitations and other domestic evidence have never been uncovered on the hillside confirms the obvious. It is clear that the settlement in all ancient periods was situated on the valley floor. At the same time, the evidence from archaeology shows use of the hillside for agricultural work (grain storage, cisterns, presses,
etc
.) and for tombs. Those were the ancient uses of the Franciscan venerated area. (The location of the ancient village is considered again in Chapter Five.)

In a circuitous way, Kopp’s mobile Nazareth scenario explained why no Greek and Roman evidence was found at the venerated sites. But his solution presented a new problem. If the village had moved to the valley floor, as he proposed, then it became necessary to explain why the domiciles of Joseph and Mary were not also on the valley floor, but were on the hillside several hundred meters away.

Undaunted, Kopp proposed a Third Nazareth, one which “moved again towards the south,” in the direction of the present Church of the Annunciation.
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This was the village of Jesus, existing at the new location already some centuries before Christ. However, the unforgiving razor of reason followed the priest’s every hypothesis, for his proposal is impossible whether he says aye or nay. If he maintained that the village was at the venerated sites, then he contradicted the newly-revealed evidence of Tonneau and others that no Greek or Roman settlement was there. On the other hand, if he maintained that the village was not at the venerated sites, then he contradicted Church doctrine that Mary and Joseph lived there.

Kopp apparently realizes this dilemma towards the middle of page 190 of his article, and he soon proposes a startling solution: the Nazarenes “loved to live apart.” Evidently, the misanthropes were spread out all over the basin. The priest quotes a fourteenth century pilgrim: “The houses are scattered all about” (
domus ejus sunt hinc inde ab invicem dispersae
), and he cites a modern guidebook: “A characteristic of today’s town is the isolation of many of the small houses in the outer neighborhoods.”
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Kopp concludes: “The assumption is thus permitted, that in Hellenistic and Roman times one or another house also existed on the southern slope, whose traces have since been obliterated by construction.” Those scattered houses (no longer detectable) included the homes of Joseph and of the young Mary. The former was at the site of the present Church of St. Joseph, and the latter at the site of the Shrine of the Annunciation one hundred meters away.

Such was the Church’s position at mid-century. The attempt to reconcile doctrinal exigency with the accumulating evidence in the ground, and the surprising lack thereof, led to a complex scenario involving three Nazareths, two moves, and houses “scattered all about.” The palpably contrived mobile Nazareth hypothesis ultimately rests on the casual observations of a fourteenth-century pilgrim and of a modern guidebook. Grasping at straws, the tradition went as far as necessary to defend the doctrine of continuous habitation in the face of new archaeological evidence.

The alternative was unthinkable. To admit the absence of Greek and Early Roman settlement on Franciscan property, plain already in 1931, was fatal to the traditional view of the venerated sites, namely, that Nazareth existed in the time of Jesus. As it had been with the discoveries of Galileo, Copernicus, Darwin, and many others, the Church now was again confronted with a not-so-new yet modern problem:
scientific evidence
.

A  changing landscape

Kopp had been a pioneer, attempting a reassessment of Nazareth archaeology in the prewar years, one which sought to accommodate both the newly-emerging data and Church doctrine. But, though the German’s intentions were thoroughly Catholic, the Church had difficulty with his work, which proved to be provisional, an aberration, and in the final analysis unacceptable. First of all, Kopp validated Tonneau’s dangerous observation that the Franciscan property revealed no signs of settlement (read:
habitations
) at the time of Christ. This was deemed unacceptable. Furthermore, Kopp unwittingly observed that the entire hillside betrayed no signs of an older village.
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This conflicted with the Church’s desire to show that Roman Nazareth was located on the flank of the Nebi Sa‘in, precisely where the houses of Joseph and Mary were venerated (see below). Perhaps most disturbing of all, Kopp’s publications reviewed damaging evidence of a potentially explosive nature: tombs under the Sanctuary of the Annunciation. Those tombs would require explanation. All this was indeed unsettling.

The exponential growth in scientific knowledge in the twentieth century, particularly during and following the Second World War, had profound effects on all the sciences including archaeology. Vastly greater precision, knowledge, technical expertise, and improved hardware were now available and were creating a flood of new information. In the decades following the war, older views were being revisited, revoked, revised, and rewritten all over the land of Israel.

Besides the scientific revolution, a political one took place. Israel was now a sovereign Jewish state. For the first time in the modern era Jews were able to freely dig in their own beloved terrain, and they approached the task with the alacrity of a husband long away from his beloved. In 1948, as part of the establishment of the state of Israel, the Israel Department of Antiquities and Museums (IDAM) was founded.
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IDAM continued the function of the former Department of Antiquities of the British Mandate Government, and now coordinated the work of academic entities such as the Israel Institute of Archaeology of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (the oldest department of archaeology in the land, in existence since 1934). IDAM had a number of functions including curation and storing of the state collection of antiquities, maintaining a list of registered sites, inspecting newly discovered sites, conducting salvage and rescue operations of endangered sites, maintaining an archaeological library (the state library) and an archive, and publishing results of excavations in three journals:
Alon
of the Department of Antiquities (Hebrew) – now defunct;
‘Atiqot
(Hebrew and English) – still published; and
Hadashot Arkheologiyot
(Hebrew and English) – still published, but only on the internet. IDAM also carried out the Archaeological Survey of Israel, and published the results of its work in maps each covering 10 km² of the State of Israel. The Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) superceded IDAM in 1999.

For the first time, Jews were able to control the agenda, methodology, technique, funding, and personnel of archaeological digs taking place on public property. Excavations on non-public property (such as at the venerated sites in Nazareth) became subject to strict laws, regulations, and reporting standards, promulgated particularly in view to the rampant dealing in black market antiquities that has been a perennial problem in the Near East.

The dramatic elevation in archaeological standards after the war, the accumulating evidence in the ground at Nazareth, the conflicting theories regarding that evidence, and the Church’s changing posture, were all forcing a new, and hopefully ‘definitive’ (as far as the Church was concerned) archaeological reassessment of the place. The fundamental problem with the prewar posture was that while Kopp’s theories were complex, unverified, and perhaps unverifiable, he
accepted
the newer evidence, and went to endless lengths to accommodate it to Catholic doctrine. The Church, however, perceiving the increasingly hostile implications of the incoming data itself, recognized that the march of science constituted a juggernaut that would not, and could not, be halted. After the war, it adopted a defensive posture regarding the evidence at Nazareth, one essentially characterized by denial.

Father Bellarmino Bagatti

After mid-century, the Catholic Church decided to begin again, as it were. It would conduct a thorough re-excavation of the venerated area, preliminary to building a larger and more impressive monument on the site of the 1730 Church of the Annunciation. The new church would befit its status as a premiere destination of Christian pilgrimage, second only to the most holy sites in Jerusalem. Yet, before a costly and very visible monument to the maiden home of the Virgin Mother was erected, the Vatican desired archaeological validation on two basic counts: firstly, it needed to know that at the turn of the era dwellings did indeed exist in the venerated area. If this were true, then one of those dwellings could well have been that of the Blessed Virgin. Secondly, the Vatican needed validation that there was continuity in settlement at the site – before, during, and after the time of Jesus. Such continuity would prove the existence of an enduring village and would put to rest past ‘rumors’ concerning the site. Together, these two elements were sufficient to validate both the claims of the Church and of the gospel record, for on the one hand the tradition claims that Jesus’ mother grew up at the site of the annunciation (and that the holy child was raised not far away); while on the other hand the gospel states that Jesus came from an already existing and viable town (Gk.
polis
) called Nazareth.