The Realia Jesus: An Archaeological Commentary on the Gospel of Luke

By David A. Fiensy

Where was Golgotha? Was Peter's house in Capernaum? Was Mary from the town of Magdala? Where was Bethsaida? We've all heard the arguments, but what do the archaeological finds tell us? This book pulls together archaeological information, scattered in journals and final reports, relating to the Gospel of Luke with appealing photography, instructive illustrations, and fascinating recent finds. It uses archaeology to reconstruct the social, religious, historical, geographical, and pathological context for the story of Jesus and the Jesus-movement. The book not only features the "shiny objects" from the excavations (the beautiful pottery, buildings, and entertainment facilities) but also items that are not usually handled in glossy magazines, namely, the human, skeletal remains. Yet, these bones are an important window into the biblical world indicating lifespan, morbidity, socioeconomic standing, violence, and stature. The work will employ four areas of archaeological finds and investigations, including inscriptions, large finds (of buildings), small finds (jewelry, pottery, coins), and human remains, to help interpret and illustrate the Gospel of Luke. Along the way, it assesses several archaeological controversies, giving care to be fair to all sides but leaving the reader with the information to make up his or her own mind.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cascade Books
• Release date: Jun 13, 2024
• ISBN: 9781666772593

David A. Fiensy

David A. Fiensy is Professor of New Testament and Dean of the Graduate School of Bible and Ministry at Kentucky Christian University. He also serves as Associate Director of the Shikhin Excavation Project. His previous publications include The Social History of Palestine in the Herodian Period (1991) andJesus the Galilean (2007).

Book preview

Introduction

Realia are objects or activities used to relate classroom teaching to the real life especially of peoples studied.¹ The word means the actual finds—some object you can hold in your hand, touch, or see—as opposed to literary sources, socioeconomic models, hypotheses, or theories. Of course, sometimes the finds are new literary sources, whether inscriptions (on coins or stone) or documents (on animal skins or papyrus). The material remains emerge from the soil—ranging from entire cities to microscopic items—with data we can use in understanding the people and events of our period of study. Understandably, those interpreting the remains always have an agenda. Therefore, in our appeal to the realia to shape our study in this volume, we sometimes will find that archaeologists disagree on what the remains mean.

Such disagreement is especially expected when dealing with the historical Jesus. We want to carefully distinguish between the real Jesus, a loaded and controversial term,² and our title "the realia Jesus. The two are by no means the same. What the title of this volume implies is an assessment of objects that illustrate and clarify history. This endeavor hopes to bring more understanding—through archaeology—to the environment in which Jesus was born, grew up, ministered, and died. But no monograph ever captures a real" person.

Archaeology, simply put, is the scientific study of material remains of past human life and activities.³ Or, one could say that archaeology is a way of making inferences about ‘how it was in the past’ by examining material culture remains . . . [it is an] ethnography of the dead.⁴ Archaeologists study bits and pieces of other peoples’ garbage;⁵ they [deal] with the wreckage of antiquity.⁶ Archaeology focuses on what is left over after wars, natural disasters, and time have had their effects. Obviously, only the most durable objects (stone, fired clay, metal, and bones) survive with any regularity although sometimes more perishable treasures are found—such as cloth, texts written on animal skins or papyri, or wooden objects—if the climate allows it.

We distinguish three broad categories in archaeology: (1) written remains (on clay, stone, coins, potsherds, papyrus, or vellum), (2) nonwritten remains including (a) large structures (fortifications, villages, gates, religious buildings, and domestic structures); (b) small finds (jewelry, weapons, pottery, animal bones, and glass),⁷ and (3) human remains.⁸ We will be dealing with all three categories of remains in this work; we are pressing for a holistic approach⁹ which considers as many realia as possible.

These are the sources of our information which I will supplement and interpret by using appropriate primary texts as well. The question always arises, however, how one uses these remains to understand the text of the Gospel of Luke. Several have weighed in on the appropriate use of archaeology in interpreting the Bible (or any ancient text):

Table illustrating Several Scholars’ Articulations of How Archaeology Informs Biblical Study:

KEY:

1

= Meyers and Strange;

2

= Charlesworth;

3

= Hoppe;

4

= Starbuck;

5

= J. F. Strange;

6

= Reed;

7

= Levine;

8

= Dever (

2

X);

9

= Moreland et al.;

10

= McRay¹⁰

As the reader can quickly see, there is essential agreement on the uses of archaeology in biblical interpretation, although some scholars offer a unique perspective. These historians focus on using the remains to clarify the text, to supplement the text, to confirm the text, and to correct the text. Most of the contributions to New Testament interpretation from the field of archaeology, however, are in reconstructing the political, social, economic, health, or religious world in order to place the New Testament texts in their context. This is where the present volume will focus. This book will often illustrate an object (for example, the so-called Jesus Boat or the fortress where John the Baptist was executed). Nevertheless, this volume will mostly seek to reconstruct practices such as ritual purity, living on a large estate, and crucifixion. It will also endeavor to reconstruct the religious, social, economic, and pathological world as they influenced—and today help us understand—the history of the Jesus-movement.

New Testament scholars are steadily (and slowly) realizing that we must consult not just the texts but also the artifacts. This is the point made by Felicity Harley in a recent review essay on crucifixion:

We can no longer study religion as an exclusively textual phenomenon, but must be able to use images and objects, as well as archaeological evidence, to effect fuller historical reconstructions of ancient practice and thought . . . [We need] a systematic analysis of the visual evidence from late antiquity.¹¹

What follows in the subsequent chapters will be visual evidence. Either by photograph, by drawing, or by mere verbal description, we hope to bring forth those archaeological remains that enhance our understanding of the life and ministry of Jesus as presented to us in the Gospel of Luke.

Sidebar

Introduction

The Pilgrims and the Natives: Beginning in the fourth century, after the Constantinian takeover, Christian pilgrims started to journey to Palestine. Their descriptions of venerated sites are today valuable in assisting archaeologists and historians to piece together the interpretation of the material remains. Additionally, those Christian scholars and leaders born in Palestine, or those who immigrated to Palestine, serve as helpful informants. We will cite several of these witnesses in the remaining chapters of this volume.

1

. Merriam-Webster.com/, s.v. relia, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/realia/.

2

. See e.g., Johnson, Real Jesus for a survey; and Levy (prod./dir.) et al., Smithsonian: The Real Jesus of Nazareth, a television series (https://www.smithsonianchannel.com/shows/the-real-jesus-of-nazareth/).

3

. Dever, Archaeology,

44

. This definition is very similar to Hoppe, Biblical Archaeology,

3

; and the official definition in a glossary on the Archaeological Institute of America’s website: The scientific excavation and study of ancient human material remains (https://www.archaeological.org/).

4

. Hoppe, Biblical Archaeology

54

.

5

. Dever, What Did the Biblical Writers Know,

53

.

6

. Wright, What Archaeology,

76

.

7

. See Lance, Old Testament,

5

; and Gibson, Cave of John the Baptist,

3

.

8

. We argue that bones of those long dead can be ‘read’ for clues that will reveal how the people lived, adapted, and died (Grauer and Armelagos, Skeletal Biology,

109

). I have added the third category due to my investigation of skeletal remains and latrine remains from the ancient world. See Fiensy, Daily Life.

9

. On the holistic approach, see Lev-Tov, Upon What Meat.

10

. Table is based on Meyers and Strange, eds., Archaeology, the Rabbis, & Early Christianity, 28–29

; Charlesworth, Archaeology, Jesus and Christian Faith?

8–9

; Meyers and Meyers, Holy Land Archaeology; Hoppe, Biblical Archaeology,

4–8

; Starbuck, Why Declare; Strange, Sayings of Jesus,

296–97

; Reed, Archaeology,

18

; McRay, Archaeology,

17–19

; Levine, Archaeological Discoveries,

76

; Dever, Recent Archaeological Discoveries,

32–35

; Dever, What Did the Biblical Writers Know,

83

,

271

; Moreland et al., Introduction,

1–2

.

11

. Harley, Crucifixion,

323

.

12

. Wikipedia, s.v. "Itinerarium Berdigalense, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Itinerarium_Burdigalense/. For a translation, see Jacobs, Bordeaux Pilgrim.

13

. Wikipedia, s.v. Egeria (pilgrim), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egeria_(pilgrim)/; and Cross and Livingstone, Etheria. See McClure and Peltoe, Pilgrimage, for a translation.

14

. Wikipedia, s.v. Anonymous pilgrim of Piacenza. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anonymous_pilgrim_of_Piacenza/. For translation, see Wilkinson, Jerusalem Pilgrims,

79–89

.

15

. Wikipedia, s.v. "De situ terrae sanctae" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_situ_terrae_sanctae/). For translation, see Wilkinson, Jerusalem Pilgrims,

63–71

.

16

. Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. Arculf (https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/

01699

b.htm/); Wilkinson, Jerusalem Pilgrims,

9–10

(translation

93–116

).

17

. Wikipedia, s.v. Saewulf (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C

3

%A

6

wulf); Sobecki, Seawulf’s Lost Arabic Map.

18

. Finegan, Archaeology,

60

.

19

. Cross and Livingstone, Justin.

20

. Cross and Livingstone, Origen.

21

. Cross and Livingstone, Eusebius.

22

. Cross and Livingstone, Cyril, St.

23

. Cross and Livingstone, "Epiphanius, St."

24

. Cross and Livingstone, Jerome, St.

25

. Cross and Livingstone, "Paulinus, St."

26

. Wilkinson, Jerusalem Pilgrims,

7

; Avi-Yonah, Madaba.

27

. Wilkinson, Jerusalem Pilgrims,

11

(translation,

117–21

).

1

The Birth Narratives

Luke’s Gospel is the most comprehensive in terms of biography. It begins not only with the birth story of Jesus but of John as well. Luke opens his story with the annunciation of the birth of John in the village of Ein Kerem in Judea. After that announcement to Zacharias, an angel appears in Nazareth of Galilee to a teenage girl named Mary.

Betrothal

And in the sixth month (of Elizabeth’s pregnancy) the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city in Galilee named Nazareth to a maiden betrothed to a man named Joseph of the house of David and the maiden’s name was Mary. (Luke

1

:

26–27

)

The text of Luke (and Matt 1:18–19) indicates that Mary is betrothed to Joseph at the time of the annunciation. How did one become betrothed and does archaeology offer any insights?

We have a rather full accounting in the Mishnah in the tractate Ketubbot (marriage documents) of the process for marriage in the second century CE. In the first place, the prospective bride and groom did not choose each other; the parents chose for them. In the Mishnah (as also in Josephus¹), the whole thing is a business transaction. The Mishnah indicates that there were three ways for a man to acquire a bride: by oral agreement, by written document, and by the couple entering a room together.² The parents negotiated a bride or groom for their child and sealed the deal before witnesses in one of those three ways.

Map

1

: Palestine under Herod the Great (map courtesy A. D. Riddle)³

The reader familiar with some of the Old Testament marriage practices might be surprised to find some new customs by the first century CE. A change had taken place decades before Joseph and Mary were wed. Simeon ben Shetach, great scribe and brother of Queen Salome Alexandra (reigned 76–67 BCE) had added the rule of the ketubbah. In this ruling—not at all hinted at in the Old Testament—the groom pledged a divorce or widow-settlement to be paid to the bride should the marriage dissolve. This settlement was called the ketubbah (the word can mean the document or the sum specified in the document).

Not only do we have a rabbinic tractate with rules for this process, but now we also have actual marriage contracts from near our period of time. They were discovered in caves on the west side of the Dead Sea, two from Wadi Muraba’at and one from Naḥal Ḥever (see Sidebar 2.2), and date from the early second century CE. Among these documents are three marriage contracts in the Aramaic language in which the groom promise to pay an amount of money to the bride if the marriage dissolves (one promises 400 denarii, about $24,000 by my calculation), confirming that the Mishnaic regulation was in effect.

Table

1

.

1

: Summary of the content of three Aramaic marriage documents from the Dead Sea area

When a couple entered a marriage, the groom wrote up a document—or orally agreed—and submitted the agreement to the bride’s family. In the document or oral agreement, the groom promised to pay the bride, in the event the marriage dissolved, a dissolution payment. If the family approved the contract, the couple was betrothed. Since Mary and Joseph were betrothed, Joseph must have had such a written or oral contract with Mary’s parents. He, or his parents, would have pledged a sum of money (the ketubbah) in the event of his divorcing her later or in the event of his death. During the betrothal period, the exclusivity of the bride to the groom was the same as after the marriage had been consummated. The presumed situation we find in the Gospel of Matthew is supported by texts in both Philo and Josephus.⁸ When Joseph found that Mary was pregnant, he decided initially to divorce her according to Matthew’s Gospel (Matt 1:19). For a betrothed girl to have sex with a man other than her future husband was adultery.

AGE AT MARRIAGE

How old were they? The girls were usually married off by their parents by the time they were teenagers. The rabbinic texts advise that a young girl—na‘arah,⁹ a prepubescent girl—should be betrothed at age twelve to twelve and a half and married about one year later.¹⁰ The rabbis urged parents to marry their children close to the age of puberty.

There is also archaeological evidence of age-at-marriage for Jewish girls in the first century CE. This evidence is in the form of tomb inscriptions and other documents. A woman’s tombstone would sometimes indicate how old she had been when she married. An investigation of these sources shows that most Jewish girls married between the ages of twelve and seventeen with the greatest number marrying at age thirteen. They would have been betrothed about a year earlier than the wedding. We should probably think of Mary in this age group.¹¹ What about the boys? Again, parents preferred to marry them young. An idealized text recommended age eighteen (m. Avot 5:21). Other rabbinic texts suggested around the time of puberty like the girls (b. Yebam. 62b). We should imagine Joseph in the same age group as Mary.

Table

1

.

2

: Age at marriage for Jewish girls in Palestine and the diaspora (sample size

29

)¹²

What about the suggestion by some¹³ in the ancient church that Joseph was older than Mary and had children by a previous marriage? That is possible. But it need not mean Joseph was in his fifties or even older. The Gospels never give an age for Joseph. They married so young back then that Joseph in his late twenties already could have been a widower with six children (see Mark 6:3) especially in light of the brief life-spans of women.

Whom would they marry? The villages were probably endogamous. Endogamy seems to have been the norm in the Old Testament (Gen. 28:2) as it is today in the Middle East.¹⁴ There are strong indications also that in the late Second Temple period Jewish families preferred their children to marry either a cousin or a niece/uncle.¹⁵

Further, archaeology offers strong hints of village endogamy. At Meiron in Upper Galilee (Map 2 p. 100), those examining the skeletal remains of the former inhabitants found an extremely high number of skeletal anomalies (genetically caused), indicative that those buried in the tomb were an endogamous group.¹⁶ Therefore, it is probable that Joseph and Mary were relatives even if we credit the medieval tradition¹⁷ that Mary grew up in nearby Sepphoris and not in Nazareth.

EIN KEREM

And Mary rose up in those days and journeyed in haste to the hill country to a city of Judah and she entered the house of Zacharias and greeted Elizabeth (

1

:

39–40

).

Next comes the visit of Mary to Elizabeth and the wonderful poem, The Magnificat (Luke 1:39–56). Luke 1:39 does not give us the name of the city, i.e., village, where Zacharias and his wife, Elizabeth, lived. It only tells us it was a village in the hill country of Judah (1:39, 65). We are, however, not totally in the dark regarding where John’s home village was.

The historian and exegete often must compare Christian tradition (either the witness of pilgrims to the Holy Land or that of natives; see Sidebar: Introduction) with archaeology to ascertain the location of certain events. Ancient veneration of a site along with archaeological evidence that the site was in use in the first century offers at least a plausible case for the site’s authenticity. The thesis is that the local Jewish Christians often remembered the locations of events important to their faith and pointed these out to the pilgrims, who, in turn, kept diaries or itineraries of their pilgrimage.¹⁸

Christian tradition has celebrated the village of Ein Kerem (4.5 miles west of Jerusalem) as the village of Zacharias and Elizabeth and the birthplace of John. The tradition is both direct and indirect:

•The earliest indirect evidence for this being a sacred Christian site is the discovery of two fragments of a marble statue of Aphrodite. These may have been part of a pagan shrine which Hadrian erected to supplant the Christian site as he allegedly did in the place of the Jewish Temple and Jesus’ tomb in Jerusalem. In the second century, Emperor Hadrian (see Sidebar 1.3), according to Jerome, wanted to remove Jewish and Christian venerated sites from Palestine and to replace them with pagan sacred sites. Again, this is indirect but early (second-century) evidence.¹⁹ If Hadrian in the early second century CE wanted to replace a Christian site, it means that it was being visited and venerated at least in the late first century.

•The earliest direct Christian tradition is from the fourth century CE followed by other authors from the sixth through the twelfth centuries:²⁰ Serapion (fourth century), Theodosius (sixth century), Epiphanius the Monk (eighth century), and Daniel (twelfth century). They mention the name Ein Kerem, and that John the Baptist was born there in the house of Zacharias (allegedly, the modern Church of Saint John).²¹

Sidebar 1.1

The Church of Saint John, looking west

²²

The village of Ein Kerem has not been completely excavated, but there was definitely a Second Temple period occupation. In 1941–1942 the Franciscans did an excavation of the Church of Saint John and the adjacent area. The Church of Saint John (see Sidebar 1.1) was originally built in the fifth century, destroyed, rebuilt in the Crusader period, destroyed again, and rebuilt in the seventeenth century. In the eastern end of the church is a stairway leading to a cave which is celebrated as the birthplace of John the Baptist. On the western end of the church are two small chapels which rest on ruins from the Herodian period (hence the time of Jesus and John). The chapels cover ancient wine presses with potsherds in them dating from the first century CE. Just south of the southern chapel was a mikveh (ritual bath) from the first century. Excavations of the courtyard, west of the church (Figure 1.1), also revealed a mikveh. Some of the tombs in the area are from the ER period containing ossuaries, a feature of Jewish burial introduced in the first century BCE and largely ended in the early second century CE (see Chapter 5). Some of the agricultural terraces have been dated to the first century BCE. Thus, the village was certainly in existence at the time John was born.²³

Figure

1

.

1

: Archaeological plan of Church of Saint John. In the northeast corner of the church is the grotto celebrated as the birthplace of John. Two rooms west of the church are small chapels that sit on Herodian-period constructions. A small installation southwest of the building is a mikveh (ritual bath). (Figure courtesy Shimon Gibson)²⁴

The Christian traditions combined with the archaeology show that the local Jewish Christians remembered this village as the home village of John. The archaeological remains show there was a village there at least by the first century BCE and that the village was Jewish (the mikva’ot). Further evidence is the so-called John the Baptist cave (see Chapter 2), some one and one-half miles to the west of Ein Kerem, where John was venerated from the first century to the Byzantine era. Ein Kerem was such a small and insignificant village that one struggles to imagine people inventing it as John’s home. Although this location has not been the only suggestion for John’s village,²⁵ it has the best and oldest evidence. This identification as John’s home village, therefore, is plausible. That does not necessarily mean, of course, that the grotto identified in the northeast corner of the Church of Saint John was the actual spot where John was born.

Figure

1

.

2

: Plan of excavations west of the Church of Saint John. Number

87

(at bottom) was a plastered chamber with ER ceramics. Number

16

at the top of the figure is a terrace dating to the first century BCE. Number

41

, in the middle of the plan, was a pit holding two fragments of a statue of Aphrodite.(Figure courtesy Studium Biblicum Franciscanum, Jerusalem)²⁶

Sidebar 1.2

Herod the Great

Herod reigned over a kingdom composed of Idumea, Judea, Samaria, Galilee, Perea, and Gaulanitis from 37 to 4 BCE. He is the Herod of Luke 1:5 and Matt 2:3, 16. A great builder of cities and monuments (including the Temple in Jerusalem), he was also a cruel and brutal tyrant. The Jewish historian Josephus (see Sidebar 2.4), wrote in detail about his reign. In addition, we have archaeological references to his name in the form of the bronze coins he minted (below) and in inscribed jar handles found at Masada.²⁷

Sketch of a coin of Herod the Great: On the left (obverse) a tripod with ceremonial bowl and helmet topped by palm branches and a star. On the right (reverse) inscription: of Herod the King, with symbols indicating the coin was struck in the year three and other symbols showing the coin’s value. Herod’s image never appears on his coins. (Sketch by James Dabney McCabe²⁸)

BETHLEHEM

And Joseph went up from the city of Nazareth into Judea to the city of David called Bethlehem because he was from the house and family of David (Luke

2

:

3–4

).

Luke, Matthew (2:1, 6, 8), and, possibly, John (7:42²⁹) affirm that Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea even though Joseph and Mary lived in Nazareth (Luke 1:26). Although some argue that Jesus was born in Nazareth because he was called Jesus of Nazareth,³⁰ Christian tradition from the second century on insists his birth took place in Bethlehem of Judea.³¹

Whatever one wants to conclude about Luke’s narrated taxation of the entire world under Augustus (Luke 2:1),³² that a Galilean like Joseph would be from the house and family of David is not surprising. That a family living in Galilee might have—indeed probably would have—kinship ties with a village in Judea can now be confirmed by archaeology.

There are today three hypotheses as to the origin of the inhabitants of Galilee. Some suggest that they were the remnants of the old Israelites, that is, those left over after the deportations into Assyria in the eighth century BCE.³³ Others offer that these folk were converted Iturians, that is, Gentiles, who became Jews when Aristobulus (reigned 104–103 BCE) or Alexander Jannaeus (reigned 103–76 BCE) conquered the territory (first century BCE).³⁴ Finally, others posit that the people were Jewish colonists—immigrants from Judea—who settled in Galilee after Alexander Jannaeus annexed the territory for Judea. Which view does archaeology support?

Jonathan Reed has presented the data, pulled from archaeological surveys of Galilee, in support of the third view. In a survey, a team visits a site, randomly collects ceramics (potsherds) from the surface (no excavating), and then records the dates of the finds.³⁵ Reed points out, first, that there was an absence of any Galilean settlements for over a century after the Assyrian conquest in the eighth century BCE (thus hypothesis 1 seems improbable). Second, the rule of Alexander Jannaeus coincides with an increase of population. This looks to Reed like Jewish immigration, not forced conversion of Gentiles. Reed suggests that the Galilean Jews originated as colonists from Judea. This view seems to be the consensus today.³⁶ Thus, it is plausible that Joseph—as the son or grandson of Judean immigrants—had kinship ties with the village of Bethlehem in Judea, and therefore—whether one wishes to credit the reference to a census/tax or not—finding Joseph and his family visiting there is not a surprise.

Bethlehem was famous in the Old Testament as the home village of King David (Ruth 4:11; 1 Sam 16:1–13) and was celebrated in prophecy by Micah (5:2). After the Babylonian exile, 123 persons from Bethlehem returned to Judea (Ezra 2:21, cf. Neh 7:26), presumably, to the original village. It was an Israelite village, then, with a long history.

The spot revered as the birthplace of Jesus has some ancient support. In Bethlehem, according to Jerome, Hadrian (reigned 117–38) consecrated a grove to Adonis (Tammuz), just above the cave revered as Jesus’ birthplace. He was, according to Jerome, attempting to replace Christian sacred places with pagan content. Jerome (395 CE) wrote a letter to Paulinus of Nola, noting that Hadrian, two hundred sixty years before his time, had placed a statue of Jupiter over the tomb of Jesus and one of Venus on the hill where the cross had stood. He went further to mention a similar replacement shrine in Bethlehem:

[Hadrian] supposed that by polluting our holy places [he] would deprive us of our faith in the passion and in the resurrection . . . Even my own Bethlehem, as it now is, that most venerable spot in the whole world . . . was overshadowed by a grove of Tammuz . . . and in the very cave where the infant Christ had uttered his earliest cry lamentation was made for the paramour of Venus.³⁷

Likewise, Paulinus of Nola (353–431 CE) wrote:

For the emperor Hadrian, in the belief that he could destroy the Christian faith by the dishonoring of a place, dedicated a statue of Jupiter on the place of the passion, and Bethlehem was profaned by a grove of Adonis.³⁸

Sidebar 1.3

Constantine’s Church of the Nativity (Bethlehem)

Thus, fourth century authors maintained that Hadrian embarked on a somewhat thorough replacement of Christian venerated localities. If that was true, one could conclude from these quotations that the Christian community must have been venerating this site at least by the end of the first century CE. Indeed, Bacci asserts, based on a statement by Origen in the third century (see below), that the grotto was a Christian cult site frequented and revered by Christians and non-Christians alike.⁴⁰ That the cave had become a cult center witnesses to the possibility that the memory of the location of Jesus’ birth may have been almost uninterruptedly cultivated by local Jewish-Christian groups.⁴¹

Later, Emperor Constantine (reigned 306–37 CE) destroyed the pagan shrine and built his Church of the Nativity⁴² as a replacement of the replacement. Around two hundred years after that, Emperor Justinian (reigned 527–65 CE) dismantled Constantine’s church and built his own, larger building, essentially the church we see today.⁴³

In addition to the indirect evidence of Hadrian’s attempt to stifle Christian reverence for this spot, there is possible direct testimony of their belief that Jesus was born here. Christian authors from the second century onward insisted that Jesus was born in a cave:⁴⁴

•Justin, who was born in the late first or early second century CE in Neapolis (in Samaria), knew that Christians venerated this site: When Jesus was born in Bethlehem . . . [Joseph] took up his quarters in a certain cave near the village . . . (Justin Martyr, Trypho 78; 140 CE)⁴⁵

•Origen, who frequented Palestine after 215 CE seems to have visited the cave: If anyone wishes to have further proof to be convinced that Jesus was born in Bethlehem besides the prophecy of Micah and the story recorded in the Gospels by Jesus’ disciples, it can be remarked that, in accordance with the story in the Gospel about his birth, a cave is shown in Bethlehem where he was born and the manger in the cave where he was wrapped in swaddling clothes. What is demonstrated there, namely that the Jesus who is worshipped and admired by Christians was born right in that cave, is well known in those parts even among people alien to the faith. (Origen, Cels. 1.51; 220 CE)⁴⁶

•Around one hundred years after Origen’s statement, Eusebius wrote: It is agreed by all that Jesus Christ was born in Bethlehem as even a cave is shown by the local inhabitants there to those who come from elsewhere for a look.⁴⁷

Thus, the argument is that there is a chain of evidence that Christians at least from the late first century CE venerated this cave as the place of Jesus’ birth. There are several caves under the church, in two of which Jerome (342–420 CE) and two women were later buried.⁴⁸ But the main cave (Figure 1.3), along with a highly decorated manger, is the spot celebrated as the birthplace of Jesus.

That a cave near or under a house might be used as an animal stable (Luke 2:7) was not unusual. Murphy-O’Connor⁴⁹ observed that there are many houses in Bethlehem even today built above caves, and it was common in the nineteenth century (in premodern times) in this region to house small animals in caves under the house.⁵⁰ In ancient Palestine/Israel, houses often had subterranean stables. If there was an excavated area under the floor of the house, it was usually for the livestock.⁵¹ We know from excavations (see, e.g., Figure 1.4, below) that the ancients utilized all available space, including the space under the floor of their house to give shelter to their livestock.

Thus, there is ancient Christian testimony that they venerated a cave as the place of Jesus’ nativity, and it is a well-known fact from archaeological sites and from Middle Eastern custom that residents often had subterranean stables for small animals. The testimony and the customs fit together to offer at least weak support for this site as the actual place of Jesus’ birth.

This way of reasoning, based