René Salm - NazarethGate: Quack Archeology, Holy Hoaxes, and the Invented Town of Jesus

NazarethGate

NazarethGate

Quack Archeology, Holy Hoaxes,

and the Invented Town of Jesus

Ren J. Salm

Edited and with a Foreword by Frank R. Zindler

2015

American Atheist Press

Cranford, New Jersey

ISBN-10: 1-57884-038-4 (Paperback)

ISBN-13: 978-1-57884-038-0 (Paperback)

ISBN-10: 1-57884-040-6 (E-Book)

ISBN-13: 978-1-57884-040-3 (E-Book)

American Atheist Press

P. O. Box 5733

Parsippany, NJ 07054-6733

www.atheists.org

Copyright 2015 by Ren J. Salm

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Earlier versions of chapters 2, 3, 5, and 7 appeared originally

in the journal American Atheist and are used with permission. Chapter 4

appeared originally in the Bulletin of the Anglo-Israel Archaeological Society

vol. 26 (2008) and is used with permission. Chapter 9 appeared originally in the book Bart Ehrman and the Quest of the Historical Jesus of Nazareth (American Atheist Press, 2013) and is used with permission.

The beautiful cover photograph of the Roman Catholic Church of the

Annunciation at dusk was taken by Evgeny Oserov and is used with permission.

Published October, 2015

in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Salm, Ren J., 1952-

Nazarethgate : quack archeology, holy hoaxes, and the invented town of Jesus / Ren J. Salm ; with a foreword by Frank R. Zindler.

pages cm

ISBN 978-1-57884-038-0 (pbk. : alk. paper) -- ISBN 1-57886-038-4 (pbk. : alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-1-57884-040-3 (e-book) -- ISBN 1-57884-040-6 (e-book)

1. Nazareth (Israel)--History. 2. Excavations (Archaeology)--Israel--Galilee. 3. Galilee (Israel)--Antiquities. 4. Jesus Christ--Historicity. 5. Christianity--Controversial literature. I. Title. II. Title: Nazareth gate.

DS110.N3S355 2015

933.45--dc23

2015015246

Dedicated to

Frank Zindler,

indefatigable polymath

and generous colleague

and to

my dear mother

Marguerite (Peggy) Salm

that gracious yet tough,

elegant yet no-fuss woman from Maine

who taught me that gratefulness

overcomes adversity.

Figures

Figure Page

Plates

Acknowledgments

My investigative skills were honed in researching The Myth of Nazareth (2008), and this book represents the advanced results of several further years research into the sensitive heart of a much-guarded and very powerful religion. The generousand sometimes unbiddenefforts of a number of people on three continents have been of critical value in this often difficult enterprise. Evgeny Oserov acted as my Man Friday in Israel, visiting sites, taking photos, interacting with the Israel Antiquities Authority, and knowing exactly whom to talk to and how to retrieve closely-held information. Chapters 10 and 12 particularly owe their results to his initiatives. Last but not least, Evgeny also contributed the beautiful cover photo.

Thanks go to Enrico Tuccinardi in Italy for first bringing to my attention problems associated with the so-called Caesarea inscription, and then for his help in conclusively demonstrating that the inscription is a 1962 forgery (Chapter 12).

To Professor Heather Sweetser I owe thanks for photocopying (unrequested and practically before I could blink) the entire 1924 Arabic book by Assad Mansur, for translating numerous pages, and for ferreting out Mansurs sensitive information on one-time kokh tombs in and around the Venerated Area of Nazareth (Chapter 13).

This book would have been impossible without the constant reliable assistance of the professional staff at the University of Oregon library. It treated me like faculty and left no stone unturned in procuring hundreds of books and articles from several continents. In particular, the Religious Studies librarian Dr. Paul Frantz was never too busy to field my sometimes complex requests for arcane material, while Katy at the Interlibrary Loan Desk unfailingly ensured that those requests met with a successful outcome.

Dr. Robert Kool of the Israel Antiquities Authority was good enough to photograph at my request a number of coins recovered from Marys Well, while Yael Barschak, Director of the IAA Photographic Archives, graciously made available a number of photographs for inclusion in this book. Other Israeli photographers who graciously helped in this endeavor are Gil Cohen-Magen and Assaf Peretz.

Last but not least, my thanks go to Frank Zindler, the dedicatee of this book. Frank has not only acted as capable publisher and editor, but has also lovingly shepherded this project along step by step from title to index, besides agreeing to write the Foreword and acting as patient colleague, friend, and the best possible resource of sane advice when that precious commodity was in short supply. Despite all of Franks interventions, however, the errors remaining in this book are solely my own. Ren Salm

end page xv

Foreword

There is nothing more difficult to carry out, nor more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to handle, than to initiate a new order of things. For the reformer has enemies in all those who profit by the old order.

Niccol Macchiavelli (14691527)

The future of a multibillion-dollar industry is teetering in the ba lancea balance so delicate that it is hoped by industry strategists that a few broken shards, several ancient coins, and a bit of imaginative archeology can stabilize and secure it and deliver the enterprise from ruin. At its foundational level of operation, that industry is the Israeli tourism business. At the pinnacle from which this world-wide economic adventure is controlled, we find the Pope of Rome, the Orthodox Patriarchs, TV evangelists, and various other magnates who profit from a literalist understanding of the Christian New Testament. If the weight of a few ancient (or not-so-ancient!) coins, shards, and paper reconstructions of masonry walls is not great enough to counterbalance the weight of the evidence presented in this book, corporate headquarters for the religion trade all over the world will collapse into ruin. Projected into the not-too-distant future, the cost to supernaturalism could mount into the trillions of dollars.

The main purpose of the present bookRen Salms sequel to his 2008 The Myth of Nazareth: The Invented Town of Jesus is to update his evidence showing, not only that there is no evidence to prove the existence of an inhabited town called Nazareth at the turn of the era, there is actually good evidence of its absence! That being the case, it seems useful briefly to outline the evidence apart from archeology that tells against a historical Nazareth at the turn of the era.

1. It is well to begin by noting that even many apologists and scholars who argue in favor of present-day Nazareth having been inhabited since before the turn of the era agree: it cannot be the site described in Luke 4:1630, a city ( polis ) built with a synagogue atop a hill with a cliff from which the congregation of the synagogue tried to cast Jesus down to his death. They prefer

end page xvii

to admit that Luke was incorrect in his description of the city (the New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman terms it a one-dog town) rather than accept the fact that the present tourist Mecca was not inhabited when Jesus and the Holy Family should have been living in it.