Introduction to Biblical Archaeology, Mamre

Introduction to Biblical Archaeology 

Mamre

Welcome! Today we begin a five-week series on Biblical Archaeology. This is a bit of a departure for us. Although we do have some topical series, the majority of our series are book-based, as we go line by line through a book of the Bible. In this series, the heart of each message will still be a Bible passage, but we will also look in depth at the physical evidence that has been found to corroborate these passages, and we will also talk about how the evidence was found.

 

Why are we doing this? Well, for one thing, the physical evidence helps us in our faith. I believe God has continued to work in modern times to help us to uncover these evidences of the truth that the Bible is not a collection of myths, fables, and fictions, but instead is a historical account of events, some of which are miraculous and others more “ordinary”, but all of which have actually taken place.

 

Now I realize that when many people think about Biblical archaeology, they think of Indiana Jones. The so-called holy grail, the cup Jesus used at the Last Supper, has been “found” over 200 times over the centuries, but real historians point out that there is no evidence that the cup was ever preserved, or anything special. Indeed, stories about the cup only seemingly began in the 12^th century AD, when medieval legends, Christian influences, and older Celtic myths apparently collided and merged into a story that describes the cup as a jewel-covered chalice that has miraculous, or magic, powers.

 

Unfortunately, stories like these have tainted popular opinion of Biblical archaeology. But real Biblical archaeology, like all archaeology, is based on science, on history, on painstaking, slow, and detailed exploration of ancient items, ideally undisturbed, buried and preserved under many centuries of dirt. Finding complete locations undisturbed, and uncovering the history of a site, layer upon layer, is the, if you will permit me the turn of phrase, the real holy grail of archaeology.

 

Interestingly, there is a beautiful example of Biblical archaeology in Scripture! I think it is good to begin our series by reading this account. The context is the long period of the kings of Israel and Judah. As you may remember, the later kings were almost exclusively corrupt, following after the false gods of the peoples around them. It got so bad that almost all of the belief in the one true God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, had ceased. The Law was forgotten. The practices, the sacrifices at the Temple proscribed by the Law, had ceased. Near the tail end of this period, shortly before essentially the entire nation is blotted out, its people scattered, we read that Daniel and his friends Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were led in captivity to Babylon. What is remarkable is that young Daniel and his friends were fiercely loyal to God, despite being “romanced” so to speak with the niceties of upper-class life, experiences specifically designed to assimilate groups into the Babylonian culture. The Babylonians were very experienced at assimilation, very good at it, employing what we today might call psyops, to get young people to forget about their heritage and embrace their new country, their new culture, their new life.

 

This attempt at assimilation completely failed with Daniel and his friends. In Daniel’s case, we know he lived out his life in this foreign land, under multiple administrations, but he never wavered in his faith and devotion to God.

 

How did this happen? Why wasn’t Daniel like nearly every other descendant of the Israelites, people who had abandoned their faith and abandoned God? The answer lies in King Josiah. It was only four years after Josiah died that Daniel and his friends were captured and brought to Babylon. They and their parents lived under Josiah, the king of Judah, who first became king as a boy, at age 9. Let us read of Josiah in 2 Kings 22, verse 3.

 

In the eighteenth year of his reign, King Josiah sent the secretary, Shaphan son of Azaliah, the son of Meshullam, to the temple of the Lord. He said: “Go up to Hilkiah the high priest and have him get ready the money that has been brought into the temple of the Lord, which the doorkeepers have collected from the people. Have them entrust it to the men appointed to supervise the work on the temple. And have these men pay the workers who repair the temple of the Lord—the carpenters, the builders and the masons. Also have them purchase timber and dressed stone to repair the temple. But they need not account for the money entrusted to them, because they are honest in their dealings.” – 2 Kings 22:3-7

 

Now, the Temple has fallen into severe neglect. People offer sacrifices to false gods at high places throughout the land. Josiah collects money so that the Temple can be restored, and as the men work on restoration, they have to move broken parts of the temple, perhaps dig a little, and so on. Portions of the Temple have been neglected for a very long time.  The workers are, unknowingly, and admittedly uncarefully, working as archaeologists. And they find something!

 

Hilkiah the high priest said to Shaphan the secretary, “I have found the Book of the Law in the temple of the Lord.” He gave it to Shaphan, who read it. Then Shaphan the secretary went to the king and reported to him: “Your officials have paid out the money that was in the temple of the Lord and have entrusted it to the workers and supervisors at the temple.” Then Shaphan the secretary informed the king, “Hilkiah the priest has given me a book.” And Shaphan read from it in the presence of the king. When the king heard the words of the Book of the Law, he tore his robes. – 2 Kings 22:8-11

 

How amazing – and depressing – to realize that the Law of Moses, the book containing the history of the people God had called, and the Law God had given to them, has become an ancient, forgotten artifact! But Josiah, to his great credit, listened to what the God-breathed book had to say. And he heeded the words! The passage goes on to say that Josiah sent someone to inquire of a prophet. The prophet explained that because the people had forsaken God, destruction would come, but that it would be deferred until after Josiah died, because Josiah was responsive to the words of the Law, and because he humbled himself before God, tore his robes, and wept in God’s presence.

 

Josiah responded by calling for a giant assembly at the Temple, where he read the words of the holy scroll to everyone. And then he called on the Lord, renewing the covenant within the book, promising to follow the Lord and keep His commands. And the people there also pledged themselves to the covenant. He then had the priests remove and destroy every idolatrous item from the Temple. He also had the priests go throughout the land, destroying all of the altars and other items of idolatrous worship at the high places where worship took place. He even had the small idols of the people destroyed. The account of Josiah says this:

 

Neither before nor after Josiah was there a king like him who turned to the Lord as he did—with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his strength, in accordance with all the Law of Moses. – 2 Kings 23:25

 

I believe all these praiseworthy actions, and even the repentance of the people, came in response to God putting on Josiah’s heart the idea of restoring the Temple. I do not believe that he had any idea that in so doing this, he would be an archaeologist, uncovering the most important artifact of the Israelite people that there was, God’s holy book.

 

Although my own story is nowhere near as exciting or profound as what we see of Josiah, I can say that reading about Biblical archaeology had a significant effect on my life when I was an unbeliever. One of the books I read was Evidence that Demands a Verdict, by Josh McDowell. This book is written more like a bunch of footnotes than like fully written prose. Nevertheless, it is packed with examples of archaeology, corroborating history, and much more, and it moved me from believing that the Bible was certainly fiction, embellished over the centuries, to believing that there was every reason to believe that the Bible was true, describing true history. My desire and prayer for you is that the examples we look at in this series will likewise strengthen your faith, and perhaps you will be able to pass on some of these things to someone either weak in faith or not yet a believer so that they too can grow in Christ.

 

One book I am using for some of this material is called Where God Came Down: The Archaeological Evidence, by Joel Kramer. Joel mentions that Biblical archaeology, like most of modern science, is dominated by secular scientists who a priori reject the Bible as a source of information. I think this is unfair, illogical, and foolish. It is important to remember that the Bible itself is an archaeological item, as our account of Josiah so profoundly illustrates. Archaeologists constantly use other ancient written documents to guide their analysis, documents that are subject to the limited view of their authors, and often include fanciful accounts. When we homeschooled our children, they read from Herodotus, who is considered the “father of history” by many historians even though his writings include many accounts scientists would call fanciful. Despite this, the accounts are used to guide much of our understanding of the events of ancient history. It is unfair to reject the Bible, even if it were to contain fanciful elements (which it doesn’t). 

 

Joel makes what I think is an excellent analogy for the actual process of archaeology:

 

A five-hundred piece jigsaw puzzle box is found with only five pieces inside: one percent of the jigsaw puzzle remains; the rest of the pieces are lost. Those few pieces are important evidence supporting the reality that at one time, the whole puzzle existed. But what can be done with only five pieces out of a five-hundred-piece puzzle? Practically nothing. There is one help, however. The box lid is still intact, and it shows a picture of the whole puzzle. Equipped with this bigger picture, we can now see where the five pieces fit in to their larger context. In Biblical archaeology, the five puzzle pieces represent what the archaeology – what comes out of the ground – while the picture on the front of the box represents the role of the Bible.

 

And so, in this series, as in Joel’s book, we will use the “box lid” to guide us to understand what the “puzzle” pieces mean, what they are actually showing us.

 

And so let us go to the first excavation site, starting with the “box lid”, the Bible. Our first passage is Genesis 13, starting at verse 5.

 

Now Lot [Abraham’s nephew], who was moving about with Abram, also had flocks and herds and tents. But the land could not support them while they stayed together, for their possessions were so great that they were not able to stay together. And quarreling arose between Abram’s herders and Lot’s. The Canaanites and Perizzites were also living in the land at that time. So Abram said to Lot, “Let’s not have any quarreling between you and me, or between your herders and mine, for we are close relatives. Is not the whole land before you? Let’s part company. If you go to the left, I’ll go to the right; if you go to the right, I’ll go to the left.” – Genesis 13:5-9

 

Lot looked around and saw that the whole plain of the Jordan toward Zoar was well watered, like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt. (This was before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.) So Lot chose for himself the whole plain of the Jordan and set out toward the east. The two men parted company: Abram lived in the land of Canaan, while Lot lived among the cities of the plain and pitched his tents near Sodom. Now the people of Sodom were wicked and were sinning greatly against the Lord. – Genesis 13:10-13

 

The Lord said to Abram after Lot had parted from him, “Look around from where you are, to the north and south, to the east and west. All the land that you see I will give to you and your offspring forever. I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth, so that if anyone could count the dust, then your offspring could be counted. Go, walk through the length and breadth of the land, for I am giving it to you.” So Abram went to live near the great trees of Mamre at Hebron, where he pitched his tents. There he built an altar to the Lord. – Genesis 13:14-18

 

Our first location, surprisingly enough, is Mamre. Now I find it almost impossible to imagine that anything could be found of a site where God spoke to Abraham roughly 4000 years ago, a site where a group of nomadic people (Abraham and his family) spent some time. Nomads, by their very nature, move around, and they take with them whatever they have. Even finding a trace of a nomadic group ten years later is often difficult, if not impossible. But let’s dig a bit deeper into this final verse, as there are additional details.

 

First of all, our location is described as Mamre at Hebron. The preposition is specific. It is not “in” Hebron but “at” it. When you think about Abraham and his family as a large group of nomads, it makes sense that he would not live within the walls of an established city, but instead, that he would live less than a day’s walk away from the city.

 

The passage also mentions the “great trees”. Now it would be too much to hope that descendants of those great trees would still be great trees at the same location 4000 years later. But for such great trees to grow, we would expect there to be a water source, and it is entirely possible that that water source would still be there. Additionally, much of the terrain of the Middle East is quite rocky, so large trees often grow up through multiple layers of rock, and even after the trees have died, even after any trace of the trees is gone, you can find large holes in the rock where the trunks and roots of the trees had been.  

 

Now, if we could find this place, that would really be something. It would validate something in the ancient book of Genesis. Is this the only place Mamre is mentioned? No.

 

In Genesis 14, the next chapter, we read about a great battle between one group of kings and another group of kings, and how one consequence of this battle is that the winning side carried off the goods and people of Sodom, including Abraham’s nephew, Lot. Continuing in verse 13:

 

A man who had escaped came and reported this to Abram the Hebrew. Now Abram was living near the great trees of Mamre the Amorite, a brother of Eshkol and Aner, all of whom were allied with Abram. When Abram heard that his relative had been taken captive, he called out the 318 trained men born in his household and went in pursuit as far as Dan. During the night Abram divided his men to attack them and he routed them, pursuing them as far as Hobah, north of Damascus. He recovered all the goods and brought back his relative Lot and his possessions, together with the women and the other people. – Genesis 14:13-16

 

From this passage we see that Abram is still living at Mamre, and still by the great trees. We also learn about the size of Abram’s party, which included 318 men of fighting age. This is a lot of people. What was the size of Abram’s whole family? We don’t know but it could easily be a thousand people. Why is this relevant? For several reasons. If Abram lived there with all these people, there had to be a reliable water source for his people and his many animals. This place had to be chosen because it was relatively flat, had the shade of the giant trees, had water, and so on. Recall that Abram had been told by God to explore the length and breadth of the land – and he chose this particular place. So it had to be relatively perfect, with a good city nearby to get goods he did not have, etc. In this passage we see that Mamre, from whom the place is named, along with his brothers Eshkol and Aner, were allied with Abram. So, in this location, he really had everything, even friends.

 

But still, up until this point, Mamre is essentially a campsite, maybe a long-term campsite, yes, but not a significant location. But there is one more passage that mentions Mamre, a very significant passage because it completely changes the nature of this site from the perspective of history. Let’s look at Genesis 18.

 

The Lord appeared to Abraham near the great trees of Mamre while he was sitting at the entrance to his tent in the heat of the day. Abraham looked up and saw three men standing nearby. When he saw them, he hurried from the entrance of his tent to meet them and bowed low to the ground. He said, “If I have found favor in your eyes, my lord, do not pass your servant by. Let a little water be brought, and then you may all wash your feet and rest under this tree. Let me get you something to eat, so you can be refreshed and then go on your way—now that you have come to your servant.” “Very well,” they answered, “do as you say.” – Genesis 18:1-5

 

So Abraham hurried into the tent to Sarah. “Quick,” he said, “get three seahs of the finest flour and knead it and bake some bread.” Then he ran to the herd and selected a choice, tender calf and gave it to a servant, who hurried to prepare it. He then brought some curds and milk and the calf that had been prepared, and set these before them. While they ate, he stood near them under a tree. – Genesis 18:6-8

 

“Where is your wife Sarah?” they asked him. “There, in the tent,” he said. Then one of them said, “I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife will have a son.” Now Sarah was listening at the entrance to the tent, which was behind him. Abraham and Sarah were already very old, and Sarah was past the age of childbearing. So Sarah laughed to herself as she thought, “After I am worn out and my lord is old, will I now have this pleasure?” – Genesis 18:9-12

 

Then the Lord said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh and say, ‘Will I really have a child, now that I am old?’ Is anything too hard for the Lord? I will return to you at the appointed time next year, and Sarah will have a son.” Sarah was afraid, so she lied and said, “I did not laugh.” But he said, “Yes, you did laugh.” – Genesis 18:13-15

 

When the men got up to leave, they looked down toward Sodom, and Abraham walked along with them to see them on their way. Then the Lord said, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do? Abraham will surely become a great and powerful nation, and all nations on earth will be blessed through him.” – Genesis 18:16-18

 

This entire passage is mysterious. In verse 1, we are told that the Lord appeared to Abraham (this is YHVH – the unpronounceable name of God) but in verse 2, we are told that three men had appeared, standing. The clear implications are (1) these men are God, or somehow a representation of God. Theologians have a field day on what this means, whether this was a picture of the trinitarian God, or two angels and God, or two angels and a preincarnate manifestation of Jesus. We are not going to be able to settle this today. Indeed, you can ask God someday in the life to come. (2) These men simply appeared. This is consistent with both angelic appearances and the way the post-resurrection Jesus could just appear and disappear. Taken together, these two statements mean that, although we don’t know exactly what is going on here, we do know that this is an immensely significant event, as in one way or another, God is visiting Abram in “person”, and He is letting him know that an impossible childbirth will happen in about a year’s time, a child born to people far too old to have children.

 

As believers, we know that this miraculous birth is appropriate because it foreshadows Jesus’ own miraculous/impossible birth, and indeed, Jesus will be from the seed of the one who will be born miraculously to Abraham and Sarah.

 

Now, did this birth happen? As believers who believe in the Bible, our answer is yes. But step back a moment and let us ask about the later centuries in which the Israelites lived here. Would they know about this location? Well, the location seems to have been clearly known by the author of Genesis, who was likely Moses. The description of Mamre made it likely that the next generation, the children of those who died in the desert for their disobedience against God, would have known where to find Mamre. It was near a known city, and had the identifying trees. And there was quite possibly still standing the altar that Abram had made. Recall that Abram had many people with him; the altar could have been far more than just a pile of rocks, especially since Abram had taken up long-term residence there. And if the location was known to the generation who took the land, then, given the importance of the location, its knowledge would have been preserved over the centuries, even on into the ages of the kings, including that of Josiah. It is even possible that over those centuries, a structure may have been made to commemorate the location. If this were true, it would not only lend credibility to the account in Genesis, but to the succeeding books of the Old Testament.

 

We then have the period of exile, and then the time of return, and the exile is short enough to suggest that this location would still be known. There were also some small numbers of Israelites who stayed in Israel despite the exile. Given that this is the case, is it unreasonable to think that the location would still be known at the time of Herod the Great, in the first century BC?

 

Now the existence of Herod is not contested by anyone, as there is physical evidence on coins and such as well as writings including that of the Jewish historian Josephus. Now, if the site was still known, we know that Herod, who was a terrible ruler except for his ability to direct masterful building projects, may have wanted to build up a structure for this location. If Herod had done so, we would expect to see certain signature signs of his work – especially the use of huge cut rectangular stone blocks, such as we see in Jerusalem. If Herod had built such a site, he would have likely torn down any sort of exterior structures that would have been there. It would make sense that the location would have walls and an altar, although, to please his Jewish subjects, the altar would be solely commemorative, because Jews were only allowed by Jewish law to sacrifice at the Temple in Jerusalem.  

 

Let’s jump past the time of Christ, to the time of Constantine, in the fourth century AD. Constantine was a Roman emperor who, at a minimum, proclaimed to be a Christian. We know that Constantine’s mother-in-law Eutropia visited a location believed to be Mamre. We know this because of a letter we have from Constantine to regional leaders – this letter is preserved through the writings of a church historian named Eusebius. Here is what Constantine writes:

 

She [Eutropia] assures me, then, that the place which gains its name from the oak of Mamre, where we find that Abraham dwelt is defiled by certain of the slaves of superstition in every possible way. She declares that idols which should be utterly destroyed have been erected on the site of that tree, that an altar is near the spot, and that impure sacrifices are continually performed.

 

According to Eusebius, Constantine made the following order:

 

That every idol which shall be found in the place above-mentioned shall immediately be consigned to the flames; that the altar be utterly demolished… the place itself we have directed to be adorned with an unpolluted structure… a church; in order that it may become a fitting place for assembly of holy men.

 

Constantine over his life only commissioned four churches in Israel, this being one of them.

 

Now Muslims conquered this area in AD 638. Because Abraham is also greatly respected in Islam, it would make sense that they would preserve this site. And as Hebron grew tremendously in these years, it would also make sense that they would grow the city around Mamre rather than destroying/rebuilding the site.

 

Hopefully you see where this is leading. Amazing as it is, we have found the location of Mamre. The location is very close to Tel Hebron, the location of the ancient city of Hebron, and it lies on an ancient road that connects Hebron with Jerusalem.

 

There is an ancient mound known in Arabic as Ramet Haram Al-Khalil, which means “The Height of the Sanctuary of the Friend.” It was first excavated in 1926-1928 by Evarsitus Mader. Mader’s team dug into the mound one layer at a time, going all the way down to bedrock. 

 

The first thing the team found was broken walls from the Islamic period. The walls appeared to have no other purpose than to preserve the site of something older. Digging a bit deeper, the team discovered the foundations of a building dating to the Byzantine period, the time of Constantine. Unlike the other known churches of Constantine in Israel, this one has unusual dimensions, being wide and shallow. Mader reasoned that the building had been built between two pre-existing structures, limiting its dimensions. This makes sense with what was found going deeper. Also found was evidences of an altar, and also pieces of broken idols and a stone carving of Hermes. Although pagan, Hermes makes sense to pagan thinking about a site commemorating angels or God coming to Abraham because Hermes was their “messenger of the gods.” And if you remember Acts 14, in Lystra, when Paul was with Barnabas, Paul healed a man who was lame from birth. What did the locals do? Ask about the Hebrew God, the true God? No, they declared “The gods have come down to us in human form,” and they began to refer to Barnabas as Zeus and Paul as Hermes, Paul being equated with Hermes because he was the one speaking. And so in the Abraham account you have people representing God speaking with Abraham – of course pagans would equate the messengers with Hermes.

 

The next layer, still seen today, consists of walls made with huge cut rectangular stone blocks. Pottery and other small items found in this layer date the construction to the first century BC. (Pottery styles change continually and are one of the best ways to estimate the age of a structure.) All of this is completely consistent with the walls being made by Herod. This site had been built up over an existing site, similar to how Herod had made the outer structures at the Temple in Jerusalem. Later excavations have led archaeologists to believe that the center of the site held an altar, consistent with both how Herod made similar sites and the statements of Eutropia.

 

Digging still deeper, Mader found the foundations of two square structures with a narrow passage between them. He believed these to be a gate system. It was common for protective enclosures to have such structures so that a narrow passage is the only entrance. In fact, sheep pens were made this way even in Jesus’ time. The passage was narrow enough for a single shepherd to completely block the opening. This structure gives insight into Jesus’ statement in John 10:7, “I am the gate for the sheep.” Shepherds would sit in the narrow gap, protecting the sheep from wolves who would have to go through them in order to reach the sheep.  These structures at Mamre have been dated to the iron age, 1000-586 BC. Kramer, the author of the book mentioned earlier, asks why the nation of Israel would build such significant structures. He rightly answers that it is because the Israelites believed that this location was deeply significant, the location of God’s promise to Abraham that was the reason that they even existed.

 

The bottom layer was perhaps the most interesting of all. Digging down to bedrock, Mader found a water source, a spring, which continues to give water to this day. And he also found two large holes in the bedrock, holes which also can be seen today, where the grass grows lushly compared to the areas around them. What would have caused these holes? The most reasonable explanation is giant trees, which are known to grow through the bedrock! 

 

Using the Bible as a guide, all of this evidence points to this location actually being Mamre, the site where Abraham and his large family lived, the location where he built an altar, and the place where God Himself or God’s representatives appeared and gave him the incredible promise that he would have a son, a son whose descendant Jesus would be the One through whom all nations would be blessed!

 

The fact that we have archaeological evidence of Abraham, a nomadic man with only a few hundred men with him, a man who lived in a tent, a man who was not a king, but a shepherd, is remarkable, if not miraculous. Hopefully this evidence builds your faith that you can really trust in the Bible, and therefore, you can trust in Jesus of the Bible with your life.