The Myth of Nazareth: The Invented Town of Jesus (41 page)

The hillside venue for the village is understandable when we recall that it does not proceed from practical considerations but from scripture. The evangelist Luke writes that Nazareth existed on a hill. Accordingly, the first pilgrims looked to the hillside for a possible venue for the house of Mary. They saw numerous caves and assorted hollows in the limestone, and hence arose the tradition that the humble virgin lived in a cave.

The cavities in the ground

The Franciscan area is literally honeycombed with underground chambers and tunnels. This caused problems during construction of the edifices. Kopp writes:

“As I have been told, the foundations of the convent began to sag during construction [
in 1930
], for one hollow opened up into another. No fewer than 68 silos
were counted and filled with cement.
^[575]

In an anonymous 1930 report we read:

Its construction [
i.e. of the Franciscan Convent/Monastery
] has presented exceptional technical difficulties, not only on account of the unevenness of the terrain, amounting to about 14 m from one end of the building to the other, but also on account of the great number of silos
and cisterns
met with in sinking the foundations.
^[576]

In addition, Bagatti numbers twenty-three cavities under or next to the Church of the Annunciation, and a further thirty-three adjacent and leading to the Church of St. Joseph. Another dozen or so are close by. These artificially-worked cavities were certainly not fashioned all at once, but must have accumulated over many centuries. In the course of time, succeeding generations added to the complexity of the silos, and many of the underground cavities became connected.

Some of the silos go as far back as the Iron Age.
^[577]
It is clear that cavities from one era were reused and expanded in subsequent eras, resulting in the honeycombed state found in the modern excavations. Some of the silos are double, that is, one on top of another. There are also triple silos and one instance, quite exceptional, of a quadruple silo under the present Church of St. Joseph (
Illus
.
5.4
and discussion below). Placing silos one on top of the other offered several advantages: (a) Surface area was economized. (b) Large amounts of “emergency” grain could be safely stored in lower silos, away from the possibility of theft. At the same time, such provisions were available in times of famine. (c) The location of lower silos was unknown to foreigners or attackers from outside the village. Thus a considerable amount of food could be kept safe, secret, and ready to use.

The question of habitations

The size, complexity, and sheer number of hollows in the Franciscan zone of Nazareth betray two uses: agricultural and funereal. The datable evidence shows us that use began again in Middle Roman times (Chapter 4). Nevertheless, the tradition has insisted upon interpreting the hollows in terms of habitations and, furthermore, in backdating their use to the time of Christ and even before. Bagatti writes of “habitations of an agricultural character” (
abitazione di carattere agricolo
)
^[578]
—an interesting phrase which perfectly encapsulates his underlying posture: the archaeologist interprets the many silos, cisterns, and presses in the area as
adjuncts
to habitations. This maneuver is logically reversed, for he interprets the overwhelming agricultural evidence that he sees in terms of what he does not see—habitations. This comes from the pressing need to validate a village at the venerated sites, a need which forces him to view the agricultural installations as appendages of invisible habitations. This was not new. “It is a city of troglodytes” wrote Kopp a generation earlier, also suggesting that the ancient Nazarenes lived in caves.
^[579]

In a 1977 article, Bagatti writes:

In the excavations in 1955, it was found that the ground below the surface was riddled with cavities and hollows: pear-shaped granaries, vaulted cells for storing wine and oil jars, pits, and small wells. Several oil presses
were found at surface level.
In the rock-cut cavities, it was possible to detect traces of houses
. Some uniform depressions apparently held the foundations of walls. The remains of these structures vanished when the bishop’s palace was built. In several granaries, pottery from the Israelite period was found – sherds of jars with two handles and a short spout – indicating that the granaries were no longer in use in later times. Since Roman and especially Byzantine sherds were found in most of the cells, it seems that these rooms were buried under earth during the construction of the medieval buildings. The cells are similar to others discovered beneath St. Joseph’s Church and the Franciscan friary,
and it can therefore be concluded that the early town extended up to the present-day site of these two churches. The boundaries of the ancient graves also confirm this assumption
.
^[580]
  [Emphasis added.]

The area described is the wine and oil press complex a few meters north of the Church of the Annunciation. This is where “several oil presses were found,”
^[581]
and the location is confirmed by his descriptive, “bishop’s palace.” This refers to a part of the old Franciscan monastery in the area Viaud calls the “Grand Divan.”
^[582]
The surrounding agricultural installations clearly show that these “uniform depressions” must be associated with them. Only tendentious reasoning can suggest otherwise. This was in all probably Nazareth’s main wine and oil press complex. As such, it was an important and very busy area, not a domestic dwelling.

The scholarly Nazareth literature routinely overlooks the unsuitability of the venerated area for habitations. The acknowledgement by Tonneau in 1931,
^[583]
later confirmed by Kopp—that no signs of ancient habitation were found in the venerated area—has never been rebutted by evidence. Bagatti indeed found a short flight of steps, a wall, and a doorjamb under the Church of the Annunciation. But these elements were associated with a communal granary, as the archaeologist’s own admission makes clear:

Silo No. 48… An aperture by means of a stairway led us into [
a
] subterranean place, 9.30 m. long, used as a granary, with the excavation of six silos
and two corridors for ventilation.

The steps, as can be seen from fig. 34, taken from above, a little to [
the
] southwest side, are cut in the rock and are very worn. There follows the door which had a wooden frame as can be gathered from the two holes made in the rock to the right, usual for closing wooden doors with a bolt.

The rock was ruined on the west side and so the grotto was closed already of old by a rough wall, made of blocks, fairly well dressed and laid in regular courses. As we see in fig. 35, taken from inside, from the north, the walls are very irregular and sinuous, especially to the left on entering and to the right towards the end after the wall.

The ceiling is fairly level, but the floor is uneven. In this were cut the silos
which are distributed in four mouths appearing on the floor, and two others on the interior of one of them.
^[584]

Six silos, two corridors, an uneven floor—these are obvious signs that we are not dealing with habitations. Bagatti concurs and writes on the following page:

Yet on the walls the inhabitants did not make any signs, and since trace of life is missing, as hearths, smoke, niches for holding objects, which, on the contrary are found in grottos that were inhabited, we can affirm that the place was used solely as a granary.

In fact, no hearths (with or without smoke evidence) have been found in the venerated area. As for “Niches for holding objects” (
i.e
. oil lamps), these were common in Roman agricultural workspaces as well as in tombs. They are not a criterion determining habitations! This is yet one more indication that the interpretation of evidence at the venerated sites is tendentious. In short, there is no evidence for the prominent and persistent claims of habitations in the venerated area. Those claims usually are modeled after Bagatti. They conceive of “caves” in the area which have been modified for domestic use, as J. Strange’s claim of “Late Hellenistic to early Roman caves with domestic installations, some used as late as the Byzantine period.”
^[585]

Bagatti admits that “we have found but few masonry remains [
of the ancient village
] because little was excavated in this regard.” The statement is curious, since he personally excavated the area for almost a decade. The archaeologist continues:

But we believe that the village was in great part transformed in later times. Yet there is evidence of its existence in the literary texts and in the abundant pottery found in the silos, which bespeaks the presence of houses which have now disappeared.
^[586]

Thus, Bagatti is able to find evidence of habitations from pottery in silos. His tendentious posture is quintessentially stated in a 1960 writing:

[S]ince it is certain that within the zone delimited by the tombs there were habitations in ancient times—of which we have remains—it is equally certain that such remains are not to be found outside [
of that area
], so that we are forced to admit that the space occupied by the ancient village was situated on the small hill which is contiguous in the northwest to the Jebel Sa‘in and extends towards the valley between two ravines or wadis which border it.
^[587]

These pages amply demonstrate that each element in the above passage is false. (1) The remains of habitations that the archaeologist claims are pure invention, despite his certainty. (2) His claim that habitations do not exist elsewhere (
e.g
., on the valley floor) is a false rationalization owing to a false premise. It is also pure invention. (3) We are hardly “forced” to admit that the village existed where Bagatti claims, namely, in the venerated area. That, too, is pure invention.

The home of the Blessed Virgin

Quoting a fourteenth-century pilgrim, Kopp leads the reader to suppose that the domiciles of Mary and Joseph were two outlying houses removed from the main village and cleaving to the side of the hill.
^[588]
The houses (marked by the present Churches of the Annunciation and that of St. Joseph) are one hundred meters apart. Joseph and Mary, evidently, were neighbors from youth.

The Greek Orthodox venerate the spring at the northern end of the basin as the home of Mary (see above), and this tradition has roots going back to Byzantine times. The Latins claim that she lived in the Franciscan zone, but beyond that they are not entirely clear. “M” in
Illus
.
5.3
marks the Chapel of the Angel, where Mary allegedly received the visitation from the angel. This chapel is considered a vestibule of Mary’s dwelling in the adjoining cave.
^[589]
Immediately to the west (Locus 29, which we shall discuss below) was “a little room without light where Jesus the adolescent lived.”
^[590]
In fact this was a tomb, which neither Viaud, Kopp nor Bagatti deny.

Many factors show that the venerated grotto was part of a busy agricultural area. First of all, the northern side of the cave is connected by a short tunnel to a wine press complex.
^[591]
Secondly, on the south side of the cave, and immediately adjacent, are no less than three large silos (nos. 30, 30a, and 32), far too large for one family’s storage and certainly intended for communal use.
^[592]
The entrance to the cave lies between two of these silos. Thirdly, to the west of the cave are depressions, long since cut away, which indicate the original existence of three more silos or agricultural basins.
^[593]
Fourthly, two holes are in the roof of the cave. They would have admitted rain into a dwelling. Bagatti conveniently assumes that these holes postdated the time of the Holy Family and suggests they were used for Jewish-Christian services of veneration (to let candle smoke escape).
^[594]
More likely is that these holes were carved at an early time in order to admit sunlight into the cave, and possibly to also pass items from above to below. Fifthly, we recall M. Aviam’s observation that the caves of Galilee “are wet or damp from December to May, and can only be used during the summer and autumn.”
^[595]
This, too, would mitigate against the domestic uses the Church proposes for these caves. Sixthly, the ground in this area is steep and rocky. It is inconceivable that people would have chosen to dwell there rather than on the flat plateau only a hundred meters to the east (
Illus
.
5.2
). Finally, we shall learn that this locus is less than ten meters away from kokh tombs dating to the Middle Roman period. No Jewish family would have lived in such close proximity to tombs. For all the above reasons it is quite clear that the cave known as the Venerated Grotto was part of a busy agricultural area in Roman times.