A long-haired rebel, invaders — and disciples
An American team from Concordia University has been excavating at the
ancient city of Hippos in the Holy Land. This is the first in a series about
2005 excavations at Hippos and at nearby digs. More about Hippos itself is at
http://www.virtualdig.org.
Was the long-haired rebel prince at Bethsaida? Maybe.
Were the Assyrians here? Definitely. They burned the city gate.
And the city is famous as the home of Philip, Andrew and Peter, disciples of
Jesus.
Wait a minute! That’s three different stories from three different times —
just what happens when you dig down layer by layer, as archaeologists do.
Bethsaida (Beth SY ah dah) means “house of the hunt.” It’s about 20
kilometers* north of the Concordia University excavation at Hippos.
LONG HAIR
Let’s start with the rebel prince. His name was Absalom (AB sah lum), the son
of King David of Israel. Absalom was a handsome young man who wore his hair long
— but cut it every year.
How do we know so much about him? His story is in the book of the Bible
called 2 Samuel.
The long-haired prince got in trouble with his father the king. Absalom
ordered the death of a prince named Amnon, Absalom’s half-brother. Amnon had
raped Absalom’s sister Tamar.
After Absalom’s men killed Amnon, Absalom fled to his mother’s homeland of
Geshur, north and east of the Sea of Galilee.
We’re not positive, but we think Bethsaida was the capital of the land of
Geshur. If so, nearly 3,000 years ago Absalom entered the city through the very
gate we can still walk through today — the biggest gate of Bible times that
archaeologists have found so far in all Israel.
The gate is between two massive towers. The western tower, excavated first,
is 10 x 8 meters. A 30-meter walkway paved with flat stones leads to a four-room
inner gatehouse.
In the stone threshold of the gate, you can still see the holes in the rock
that served as sockets for the hinges on which the great doors turned.
If Absalom fled here, he eventually walked or rode out of that big gate again
and returned to his father in Jerusalem, about 175 kilometers to the south — a
few days’ travel in those times.
Absalom wanted to be king himself but came to a bad end. He led a rebellion
against his father. King David’s army defeated Absalom’s soldiers. Absalom,
fleeing on a mule, caught his head in the branches of a great oak tree. The mule
ran away, leaving Absalom hanging in the tree. One of David’s soldiers speared
him to death.
When King David found out, he wept. “Would I had died instead of you, O
Absalom, my son, my son!” David cried.
ASSYRIAN ATTACK
About 250 years after Absalom, Bethsaida was destroyed by invading Assyrians
under their king Tiglath Pileser II. The year was 734 BCE**. Assyrians came from
the country now called Iraq.
At Bethsaida, archaeologists found arrowheads, burned bricks and pieces of
the burned wooden gate. Wood usually decays and leaves no sign after a few
hundred years. But burned wood lasts much longer. “We love destruction,” says
archaeologist Carl Savage, who is working at Bethsaida, “because it preserves.”
Outside the gate, excavators found an incense burner and a stele (STELL ee) —
a stone plaque — broken in five pieces. The carving on the 1.15-meter-high stele
shows a man with the head of a bull holding a sword or dagger. This was probably
a sacred area where people prayed before entering or leaving the city.
The bull is Haddad, the chief god of the people who lived here. The bull
stele now is in the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. You can find out more about the
stele at this site from the University of Nebraska at Omaha:
http://www.unomaha.edu/bethsaida/articles/bull_stele.htm
The stone on which the bull is carved was probably shattered on purpose by
the Assyrians. Inside the gate, in an area with another incense burner, pottery
had been broken and scattered — again as though people were deliberately trying
to make a mess.
The city was well prepared to wait out the Assyrian attack. In rooms inside
the gate, excavators found 1.5 tons of grain. Digging deeper, they found grain
at earlier levels too. In peacetime, farmers delivered grain to the city gate
and paid their taxes there.
FISHING VILLAGE
The Assyrians destroyed the city — but fast-forward 765 years: By the time of
Jesus around 25 CE **, Bethsaida was was the site of a fishing village on the
Sea of Galilee. One of the miracles Jesus performed near Bethsaida was feeding
of 5,000 people with just two fishes and five loaves (Luke 9).
The ruins of Bethsaida now are 1.5 kilometers from the Sea of Galilee. What
happened? Scientists think that earthquakes caused silt from the Jordan River to
build up over the centuries so that now the shoreline is much further away.
A rebel prince, Assyrians, miracles, earthquakes — old Bethsaida has been
through a lot. Thanks to hard-working archaeologists, however, you can still
walk through its city gate. — Marc Hequet
* To change from kilometers to miles and to make other metric
conversions, you can use this site from the state of Washington:
www.wsdot.wa.gov/Metrics/factors.htm
** BCE means “before common era.” It’s the same as “before Christ.” CE means
“common era.” It’s the same as A.D., which means “anno Domini,” Latin for “in
the year of our Lord.”
Marc Hequet writes about Concordia University’s excavation at Hippos and
other digs as well. Students, teachers and families are welcome to make use of
the material as part of a curriculum. Contact Marc with questions via mhequet@sprintmail.com
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