The Myth of Nazareth: The Invented Town of Jesus (32 page)

On account of the similarity with vases found in kokh
tombs
we believe they belong to the Roman period.

Deines concurs:

[From] Nazareth come four stone vessel fragments, which were found in the Franciscan area of excavations… Each two fragments belong together. We are dealing with a not too large stone vase, with an external diameter of 26 cm. and a thickness of 12 mm; as well as with a two-handled goblet.  (Deines
45)

The vase (
eine nicht allzu grosse Steinvase
) comes from Silo 36, on the north side of the Church of the Annunciation. Deines, relying on Bagatti’s scant information, does not categorically state whether this vessel is wheel- or hand-made. Both types, he writes, were produced at the stone workshop in the Tir‘an Valley nearby (see below).

The stone goblet was found under the CA, in an area which we shall discover contained Roman-period kokhim tombs (Part Five). Thus, the goblet may have been funerary. This is not ruled out even if, as both Bagatti and Deines point out, we are dealing with fill from Crusader times. For when the Crusaders built their Church over the Byzantine structure they had no hesitation in clearing away the old in order to construct walls,
etc
., where they deemed appropriate (
Exc
. 44). Such clearing, however, would not have brought in debris from far away. We can be confident that the ancient fill, though it may contain several eras jumbled together, contains finds from the immediate vicinity—including tomb finds.

The hand-made stone goblet is represented by Deines in a diagram and two photos. Regarding its dating, the author writes:

Their geographical dispersion [of hand-made stone vessels] was greater than that of wheel-made types, and their use can be followed until the time of Bar Kochba.
^[425]

The stone goblet fragments found at Nazareth may well date to the first part of II CE. According to S. Gibson, stone vessels “are usually dated to the first century C.E., but are known to continue in use into the early second century C.E.” Elsewhere he notes: “The manufacture of lathe-turned stone vessels seems to have terminated with the fall of Jerusalem, but hand-carved vessels persisted into at least the early second century C.E.”
^[426]
H. Eshel concurs with this latter dating: “In the late Second Temple Period, from the first century BCE to the second century CE, there was a stone vessel industry in the Jerusalem region whose products were used for storage and measurement.”
^[427]

Thus we are left with the distinct possibility that these stone vessels were produced about 100 CE or slightly later, perhaps in the vicinity of Nazareth. This is consistent with the other evidence which points to Middle Roman settlement of the basin, that is, after the First Jewish Revolt.

The two stone vessels found at Nazareth are part of the early evidence from the site. They must be added to lamps 1–22 of
Illus
.
4.3
, as remains of the earliest stage of Nazareth’s history, namely, the settlement that was born between the two Jewish revolts.

The stone vessels have an additional significance. They may suggest that the community was founded by Torah-observant Jews. We must keep in mind that in the earliest stage of the village relatively few people were involved—probably less than one hundred. After all, this was the
beginning
of the settlement. Everyone certainly knew everyone else very well and, indeed, it is probable that the earliest settlers (and the later ones?) were related by blood. The discovery of two stone vessels amongst the earliest remains of the village—vessels which are intimately related to Jewish purification laws—signifies, I would suggest, that the first settlers, and indeed the entire village, was composed of Torah-observant Jews.

Certainly, we cannot place too much emphasis on two artefacts that were, in Bagatti’s words, “not found in a sealed place.” But it would be difficult to explain how these fragments came to be where they were discovered unless they were once used by inhabitants of Nazareth. Thus, the probability is great that we are dealing with a Jewish village.

This observation is supported by the fact that the ornamentation of the twenty-two above-mentioned oil lamps is entirely in accord with the Jewish proscription against the graven image.
^[428]
On not one of the lamps do we find a pagan representation of a person or an animal. In fact, a review of all the pottery and oil lamps from Nazareth during Roman-Byzantine times demonstrates that this is consistently the case.
^[429]

A stone vessel workshop has been identified three kilometers north of the Nazareth basin, near Reina.
^[430]
According to Deines, it produced both wheelmade (lathe) and handmade vessels. Its existence shows that Torah-observant Jews lived in Southern Galilee before the Second Jewish Revolt, and also in the vicinity of the Nazareth basin. Proximity suggests that the Nazareth vessels were produced at this or possibly some other workshop in Southern Galilee,
^[431]
but as yet we cannot rule out that they may have been brought by the first settlers from Judea. We know of several stone vessel industries in the neighborhood of Jerusalem.
^[432]
A scientific assessment of the Nazareth stone fragments, their color and composition, could be helpful in shedding light on the character and perhaps provenance of the earliest settlers.

Many  “stone quarries” were noted by Bagatti in the venerated area.
^[433]
It has recently been suggested that the stone vessels found nearby were produced on site. However, Bagatti identifies all these rock cuttings with Crusader work, judging from the dimensions of the cuts. In one case (L 34) “the cutting in the rock is later than the press” (
Exc
. 49). Hence this quarry cannot belong to the earliest phase of settlement, which would be required were it used in stone vessel production (which ended
c
. 135 CE).

The Nazareth stone quarries are a good example of how the imagination can overlook chronological indicators, leading to extreme scenarios. In these stone quarries one scholar is ready to see evidence of a village in the time of Jesus:

…Moreover, recent excavations in Nazareth itself suggest that the assumption that Jesus
and members of his family would in all probability (and perhaps of necessity) have worked in nearby Sepphoris
is no longer so obvious. It appears that Nazareth had its own thriving economy—including building, if the evidence of the stone quarries
tells us anything, the commercial and economic activities of Nazareth were more than adequate to keep the local residents fully occupied, with little need to seek out-of-town employment.
^[434]

Although the quarries have nothing to do with the stone vessels, and though Nazareth was not yet in existence at the time of Jesus, the above citation is probably correct in claiming that the Nazarenes need not have depended upon Sepphoris, and that the inhabitants had their own viable economic base. These are evident from the impressive agricultural installations that have been excavated.

Roman oil lamps

It is possible that some of the Roman oil lamps found at Nazareth date to the second half of I CE. The seven lamps itemized at the bottom of
Illus
. 3 are the earliest such lamps found in the basin. The nozzles of such oil lamps were shorter than their Hellenistic predecessors and could be either rounded or triangular, often possessing volutes, that is, “collars” on each side of the neck. A low base, sometimes ring-shaped, supported the lamp.
^[435]

The seven early Nazareth examples are all variants of a Roman type common throughout the region (
Illus
.
4.2:
4).
^[436]
They may have been manufactured in Palestine itself or imported from Egypt, Cyprus, Asia Minor,
etc
. By 100 CE in Palestine, writes R. Smith, “lamps of predominantly Roman form became the dominant type.”
^[437]
Many Roman lamps had pictorial representations of people and animals that would have been offensive to religious Jews. The Nazareth examples, however, either sport no decoration or have simple floral patterns, double axes, etc. Examples of this lamp-type have been found in pre-destruction levels of Jerusalem, and Kahane dates the type’s appearance to the second half of the first century CE. This agrees with other evidence from Nazareth that we have gathered thus far, and supports a late-I CE entry into the basin of settlers. Use of this Roman lamp-type continued well into the third century, so we have no way of knowing whether these lamps came with the first Nazareth settlers or whether they were brought in later.

“Rolling stones”

It is occasionally suggested that the presence of round blocking stones at the mouths of kokh tombs is evidence of the time of Christ. Regarding Nazareth, one author writes that “Four tombs sealed with rolling stones typical of the late Jewish period testify to a considerable Jewish community there in the Roman period.”
^[438]

A. Kloner, however, has shown that funerary “rolling stones” did not occur before 70 CE, except in a very few royal and aristocratic examples in Jerusalem (notably the tombs of Herod the Great and of Queen Helen of Adiabene):

[I]n Jesus’ time, round blocking stones were extremely rare and appeared only in the tombs
of the wealthiest Jews.

[M]ore than 98 percent of the Jewish tombs
from this period, called the Second Temple
period (
c
. first century B.C.E. to 70 C.E.), were closed with square blocking stones. Of the more than 900 burial caves from the Second Temple
period found in and around Jerusalem, only four are known to have used round (disk-shaped) blocking stones.

In later periods the situation changed, and round blocking stones became much more common. Dozens of them have been found from the late Roman to Byzantine
periods…
^[439]

Several tombs at Nazareth had rolling stones. One covered the entrance of tomb 70, located 30 m south of the CA, and another rolling stone sealed the tomb under the Dames de Nazareth convent approximately 100 m from the CA.
^[440]
According to Kloner, such tombs postdated 70 CE and were common in later Roman times. Thus, it is noteworthy that Strange uses the Dames de Nazareth tomb as evidence of the “Herodian period”
^[441]
—its rolling stone clearly disqualifies it from that era.

According to local tradition St. Joseph was buried in the tomb under the Dames de Nazareth convent. Bagatti demurs: “there is no archaeological proof for this. The form can only indicate a possibility, because ancient literature… says that it was excavated in the rock and the type brings us to the time of the death of the saint” (
Exc
. 243).

However, the presence of a rolling stone is one more reason to discount this pious tradition.

Ossuaries

The practice of secondary burial entailed the collection of the bones of the deceased after a period of time (perhaps one year) and their placement in bone boxes (ossuaries). Though there is scholarly disagreement regarding the chronology of secondary burial in ossuaries, it is universally held that the custom was current in the Early Roman period in Palestine. In 1970–71 James Strange excavated a group of ossuary tombs which he considered “characteristic of the Herodian period.”
^[442]
Hachlili and Killebrew note that “a complete change in burial customs occurs during the beginning of the first century A.D. along with the change in the political status of Judea, which became a Roman province.” They ascribe the emergence of secondary burial to this time. This is close to the opinion of Kloner, who dates the introduction of ossuaries to the last third of the first century BCE, and Rahmani to
c
. 20–15 BCE.This is true for Judea but, significantly, Aviam has determined that stone ossuaries did not appear in the Galilee until II CE.
^[443]

The practice of secondary burial continued through the Roman period, and ossuaries have been found at locations quite distant from Jerusalem “as late as the fourth century CE.”
^[444]
No ossuaries have been found in the Nazareth basin. However, Bagatti did note some ossuary fragments at some remove from the CA. He has the following to say on the subject: