by Bruce Feiler
In Genesis 23, following the birth of Isaac and Abraham’s aborted sacrifice of him, events that Avner and I would come to later, the Bible reports that Sarah, at the age of 127, dies in “Kiryat Arba”—the city of Arba—“now Hebron, in the land of Canaan.” Abraham mourns and bewails her. Then he rises from beside his deceased wife and says to the local residents, “I am a resident alien among you; sell me a burial site among you, that I may remove my dead for burial.” The locals, whom the Bible identifies as Hittites, another migrant people from Mesopotamia, warmly receive the idea. “Hear us, my lord,” they say to Abraham. “You are the elect of God among us. Bury your dead in the choicest of our burial places.” Abraham then offers to buy the cave of Machpelah, on the land of Ephron, son of Zohar. Ephron proposes to donate the land, but Abraham insists, ultimately paying four hundred shekels of silver, “the going merchants’ rate.” He then buries Sarah on the site.
The fortress that I was about to enter is said to exist on the exact spot where Abraham buried Sarah. It was built two thousand years ago, perhaps by Herod the Great. Despite its scale, the building uses no mortar. Inside, it contains a courtyard and two colonnades containing memorials to Abraham, Sarah, and Jacob. The memorials to Isaac and Rebekah are in an adjacent room. The burial caves themselves are hidden beneath a marble floor. After the Six-Day War, Moshe Dayan, the flamboyant military commander and amateur archaeologist, sneaked in one night and lowered a twelve-year-old girl down a narrow hole to look for the caves. She found a long corridor and a blocked entrance. Later, Jews again entered in the middle of the night, removed a Muslim prayer rug, and scouted the caves, finding bones and earthenware from the first millennium B.C.E. These shed little light on the patriarchs, but do indicate that the cave was a holy site as early as three thousand years ago.
Tension surrounding the tombs flared dramatically in 1994 when Baruch Goldstein, an American Jewish settler, entered on the last day of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and gunned down twenty-nine Palestinians, before being beaten to death. Thirty more Palestinians died in riots that followed. Since then, Jews have been limited to half of the facility—the one including the tombs of Abraham, Sarah, and Jacob. Muslims have the other half. Each side gets unlimited access on ten days a year. Today was one of the Jewish days, which accounted for the thousands waiting by the metal detectors. After the first bank, there was a second, where visitors were asked if they had weapons, video equipment, plastic knives, even compacts for makeup. Compacts? “It could have a mirror,” the guard said. “Crack a mirror, it becomes a weapon.”
Inside, the crowd was almost overbearing, spilling through a maze of small rooms, larger rooms, spiral staircases, and impromptu prayer circles. The atmosphere was as fervid as a medieval cathedral on pilgrimage day. In the smaller rooms, chairs were huddled and worshipers crowded in casual exchange. The covered courtyard was even more intense. In front of each shrine, men nodded in prayer, swaying in unison, but chanting in isolation. Behind them stood scores of women, hiding their faces in their books and generally swaying in a circle instead of front to back. Well behind the worshipers, and by far the majority, were the families, hundreds of them, sitting on the floor, mothers tending their children, children scampering away. One woman was spooning her young son kernels of corn from a can.
I wandered from shrine to shrine, before arriving in the room dedicated to Isaac and Rebekah. There I saw Michel, the photographer I had met outside. We started talking when suddenly he interrupted himself, “Are you Jewish?” When I told him yes he asked why I wasn’t wearing a kippah. I explained that I hadn’t brought one and that they were out of temporary ones at the door. I continued my question. “But you need a kippah!” he exclaimed. I reached in my bag, pulled out a notebook, and ripped out a piece of paper. “How will you keep it on?” he asked. By this point several people were watching. “I’ll hold it,” I said. I did so and continued our conversation, but my pose was so awkward he quickly dismissed himself and went to pray somewhere else. I removed the piece of paper and walked toward the other side of the room; several more people hissed at me along the way. I returned the paper to my head. I could not remember feeling more naked—or chastened—as I slouched through the crowds toward the door.
Outside I walked the few steps through the crowded Arab market that splits the Jewish Quarter in two. Up above was a sign: THIS MARKET IS BUILT ON LAND STOLEN FROM THE JEWS. The central square of the Jewish Quarter is hardly bigger than a city block, with several limestone apartment buildings crowded around a playground. Overshadowing the quadrangle were three enormous water towers, like booster rockets on the space shuttle, with Israeli flags painted on the side.
“Sixty percent of our water comes from Arafat,” a man watching his children explained. He had a salt-and-pepper beard and knitted kippah. “We have to check it for poison. Every week we get a backup shipment from Jerusalem.”
David Wilder was a resident of Hebron. Born in New Jersey, he moved to Israel in the 1970s, married an Israeli, and came to nearby Kiryat Arba. Six months earlier, he, his wife, and their seven children moved into the disputed neighborhood.
“We had to think about it,” he said. “My wife and I had been discussing various options, when one day a terrorist jumped into the bedroom of a sixty-three-year-old rabbi who lived here and killed him. That convinced us to move.”
“Why that?”
“Because the whole act of terror is an attempt to push us out. They figure they kill enough people, eventually we’ll get up and leave. The only way to counter that is to do the opposite. Actually, the major problem we have is that we don’t have enough room. I’m not the only crazy one around here.”
“And are you crazy?”
“You tell me. I don’t think so. I think we’re about as normal as anybody can possibly be.”
“But you’re choosing to put yourself into a tinderbox.”
“We’re here as representatives. We have to remember why the Jewish people live in the Land of Israel. David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, when asked what his claim to the land was, held up the Bible. If we weren’t here today, the Bible would have no meaning.”
“So when you read the Bible, and you read about Abraham coming to Hebron, do you feel an attachment?”
“When we pray three times a day, we say in the beginning, ‘The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob.’ And when we stand here and realize, this is where they are, this is where they lived, this is where they’ve been for the last 3,700 years—it does something to a person. You’re living in a city, and it’s a city. It smells, it’s dirty, but it’s also very spiritual. And that’s what keeps people here. The only way to live here is to have that spiritual pull that gives you energy to put up with what you have to put up with.”
“Is that spiritual connection to the place, or the patriarchs?”
He thought for a second. “The connection is to God. He’s the one who brought us here. Abraham didn’t come here because he wanted to. He came here because God told him to come. And it’s not just him. It’s a history that runs from Abraham to David, who lived here for seven and a half years. Moses sent the spies, and they came to Hebron. Just the other day I held this jug in my hand. It was four thousand years old. And it was me. There is this chain that goes from four thousand years ago to today. How can you erase it? How can you say it doesn’t exist? The fact that we can be here—and are here—means we are preserving it for my children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren. They should have access to it. It shouldn’t be a place that once existed. It should be a place that always exists.”
I took the bus back to Jerusalem that afternoon and a few days later hooked up with Avner to continue our trip south, to the region where Abraham first put down roots. Following the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (and before Hebron), Abraham travels south to Gerar, where he meets King Abimelech. Echoing the earlier incident in Egypt, Abraham says that Sarah is his sister. Abimelech takes Sarah for himself, but is
warned off by God. The king summons Abraham and asks why he told a lie. “I thought surely there is no fear of God in this place,” Abraham says, “and they will kill me because of my wife.” And besides, he says, she actually is his sister, since they have the same father (though different mothers). Abimelech, like the pharaoh, repents by giving Abraham sheep, oxen, and slaves, adding, “Here, my land is before you; settle wherever you please.” Abraham prays to God, who rewards Abimelech with children.
God then rewards Sarah with a child as well. In Genesis 21, Isaac, the long-promised next generation, is born. “God has brought me laughter,” Sarah says. While joyous, the presence of Isaac, whose name derives from a Near Eastern root meaning laughter and gaiety, actually confuses the issue of the patriarch’s succession. Sarah recognizes this and responds with an action that would prove to be one of the most monumental in world history: expelling Hagar and Ishmael from their home. “Cast out that slave woman and her son,” Sarah announces, “for the son of that slave shall not share in the inheritance with my son Isaac.” Abraham is troubled by Sarah’s action, but God comforts him. “Do not be distressed over the boy or your slave; whatever Sarah tells you, do as she says, for it is through Isaac that offspring shall be continued for you.” As for Ishmael, God continues, “I will make a nation of him, too, for he is your seed.” It’s this line that Muslims cite as their claim to be one of God’s chosen people, directly descended from Abraham.
The next morning Abraham gives Hagar some bread and water and sends her into the desert. When the water runs out, near Beer-sheba, Hagar leaves the teenage boy under a bush so she doesn’t see him die, then bursts into tears. God opens her eyes and reveals a well, which she uses to give water to the boy. God stays with the boy until he grows up and marries.
Around that time, King Abimelech announces to Abraham, “God is with you in everything that you do,” and the two sign a pact of peaceful relations. For a time this pax Canaanica stands, but eventually Abraham complains that Abimelech’s men seized his well. Abimelech claims no knowledge of the act. Abraham sets aside seven lambs as an oath that he, in fact, did dig the well. The two make a covenant, calling the place Beer-sheba. Beer is the Hebrew word for well; sheba means both seven and oath. Abraham plants a tamarisk on the site in honor of the Lord.
By this point certain patterns in the Bible are becoming clear. For one, wells are crucial. In addition, there are repeated examples of tense relations among the patriarchs and local rulers in Canaan. Also, the story constantly has God repeat his promise to Abraham, in what appears to be an escalating manner:“I will give you this land,”“I will give this land to you and your descendants,” “I will give this land to you and your descendants, who will rule over the rest of the world.” To help understand the roots of these patterns, Avner suggested we stop off in Beer-sheba to meet a colleague of his, one of the senior archaeologists in the Middle East.
Eliezer Oren lives in a spacious ranch house in a neighborhood lined with lemon trees and gated homes. He ushered us into his office, stacked with books and pending Ph.D. theses, and festooned with pennants from Harvard, NYU, and Penn. Above his desk was a silhouette, cut out of black paper, showing him as a Sherlock Holmes figure with a meerschaum pipe. With his bushy mustache and formal demeanor, he reminded me of stories I had read about the grand archaeologists of the past—Heinrich Schliemann, Leonard Woolley, Arthur Evans—sitting in the desert being served five-course meals on silver trays with crystal goblets.
“You have made a correct observation,” he said when I asked about the importance of wells. “Water is the key to all life here. But more important, water symbolized attachment.” Abraham, he explained, was not a pure nomad, one who wanders from place to place. Instead he was a pastoralist, one who wanders but returns regularly to a few places.
“That’s why he came to Beer-sheba,” Eliezer continued. “It’s the edge of the desert, but there’s water here. It’s the same reason Beer-sheba was picked to be the hub of desert administration—by the Kingdom of Israel and much later by the Turks. Modern Israel is doing the same thing. Such an important location is always a place of worship.”
I asked him why God promised Abraham such a specific piece of land, and not the entire world.
“In ancient civilization, religion is not international,” he said. “It does not cross boundaries. Religion is closely integrated with land. The god of Babylon is not the god of Egypt, the god of Hebron. It’s only Judaism and later Christianity and Islam that made God universal.”
“Why, then, is the relationship between God and man expressed in a contract?” I asked.
“Now why would this surprise you?” he said.
“It’s very anthropomorphic. It’s almost putting it in terms of a business relationship, yet it’s the most intangible of relationships. Also, it’s not a relationship of equals.”
“To start with, from all the records we know, in the ancient Near East the relationship between gods and man is always contractual. Every single one of them: the Hittites, the Mesopotamians, the Assyrians. And a contract is binding. Every partner has its obligation. If man behaves in a certain way, then he assures the prosperity of his family, his tribe. The gods, meanwhile, must make it rain and make the land bear fruit. In this respect, the Bible is beautifully embedded in its surroundings. If the relationship was not codified through a contract, I, myself, would be very worried that the Bible was not part and parcel of the ancient Near East. Finding so many contracts assures me that the Bible, indeed, is an accurate account.”
“So would rival groups accept these contracts?”
“Usually not. The contract is between you and your god. Other people have their gods. The struggle between cities is over hegemony. To put it in the terms of children, ‘My god is stronger than your god.’ That’s why a contract is so important. It guarantees that a relationship has a history, continuity. My father had a contract with God, so I have it, too. And you don’t just sign it, you read it out loud. You pronounce it. Abraham renews the contract, as does Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, and Moses. It’s like renewing your driver’s license. In Mari, up in Syria, we actually found similar contracts written down. We’ve finally proved it archaeologically.”
“So let me ask you,” I said. We’d been sitting for close to an hour now and would soon be overstaying our welcome. “Is the archaeological research you’re doing enhancing your ability to believe that the stories in the Bible might have happened, or undermining it?”
“I’m going through a certain transformation,” Eliezer said. “When I was younger, I was in my rebellious phase. In my lectures, I kept saying that since we don’t have evidence, these stories did not take place. That goes for the patriarchs, the Exodus. The older I get, perhaps I get more stupid. But I feel that my archaeological experience only enhances my understanding that even if I cannot relate a certain event, or personality, in the Bible with a specific archaeological stratum, it doesn’t matter. At the end of the day, the question is this: Is the Bible unusual for its time and place? And the answer is: It’s not. It’s part of it. Dating is becoming secondary in my opinion. When I’m digging here, I’m digging with Abraham.”
“So what effect has that had on your faith?” I asked.
“Those are different camps,” he said. “But I can tell you this: today I treat the Bible with much more respect.”
“Can you give it a grade, in terms of archaeological accuracy?”
For the first time all morning he grinned. “A plus plus.”
We said good-bye and drove the few minutes to Tel Sheba, the ancient site. Overlooking the Negev, the site had all the ingredients of well-preserved tels in Israel, a guard gate, a green map for tourists, an ice cream stand, and knee-high remains of mud brick and limestone. There is a familiar, almost elusive geography to these places. To be blunt: There’s little to see. But in the same way that people who do crossword puzzles learn the keys that unlock those blank squares, the frequent visitor to archaeological sites begin
s to see through the blank spaces to the thriving story lying just underneath. And what better story than the great ages of Palestine—the patriarchs, the kingdom of Judah, the conquest by Rome.
Tel Sheba is a small site, around five acres, or one-tenth the size of Tel Dan. Though the biblical events likely took place a few miles away, under the modern city, the tel contains buildings from the Iron Age, beginning in the tenth century B.C.E. According to Avner, who perked up like a kid returning home as we entered the gates, the city was probably a military headquarters for the kingdom of Judah, starting around 926 B.C.E., with limited civilian population.
The tel’s most notable feature is a well, located just outside the city gate. The water is collected from an underground river, and as we arrived, one of Avner’s former students was demonstrating the process for a group of visitors. The well poses a curious question. Common sense would dictate that it be inside the gate for security reasons, but it’s on the outside. Avner’s explanation was that even in the early first millennium B.C.E., centuries before the Bible was written down (and a thousand years after Abraham likely lived), Beer-sheba was already known as the place of Abraham’s well. Pilgrims visiting the site would have needed protection, which would explain why there was a military base nearby. If he’s correct, Beer-sheba would have been one of the world’s first tourist attractions, a full millennium before people came to the Holy Land looking for pieces of Jesus’ cross. Two thousand years later, it seems safe to say that the Bible, besides its ability to inspire piety and devotion, has also prompted more tourism than any other work in history.
We wandered inside the gate where we caught sight of a small group of visitors in their forties. Approaching, we saw that one of the men, in a beard and T-shirt, had a map spread out on one of the ancient altars. “I had this vision,” the man said, in English. “I saw a line. Abraham entered the country from the north—” He opened a Bible and began turning pages. “He went to Shechem, then Bethel, then Hebron, then he came here, to Beer-sheba.” Having satisfied the group that they were in the right place, the man retrieved a shofar, a long, curly ram’s horn, polished smooth. The man reared back and blew the horn with jet-engine intensity, eliciting a screechy plaint. The others held hands and prayed.