Antiquities Storeroom Gives Clues on How Jesus Lived
The Israel Antiquities Authority opened its cavernous warehouse on Sunday to give reporters a rare glimpse of unearthed artifacts that shed new light on the life in the time of Christ. The activity was organized ahead of Easter, which marks Jesus' resurrection after his crucifixion.
Some 40,000 artifacts are dug up in Israel each year consisting of vases, cooking utensils, a wine press, nails used in crucifixions, jewelry and ossuaries. These come from 300 excavations conducted annually by different groups including 50 expeditions from the United States, Europe and Japan, AP reported.
Gideon Avni, head of the archaeological division of Israel Antiquities Authority, said knowledge of the first century AD has advanced over the past 20 years.
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"Today we can reconstruct very accurately many, many aspects of the daily life of the time of Christ," he said. "We can reconstruct precisely how the country looked."
A replica of a heel bone pierced by an iron nail on each side helped archeologists reconstruct how a man was crucified and indicated that his feet were nailed on the sides of the cross. Jesus may have been crucified in the same way, Avni said, contrary to how traditional Christian art depicted the crucifixion.
The stacks of ancient jugs and pottery sherds may have helped historians understand how Jesus lived and died, but direct archeological evidence has yet to be discovered. An ossuary inscribed with that name "Yeshua" or Jesus in Hebrew doesn't count as evidence considering the name was commonly used 2,000 years ago. The storeroom has 30 ancient burial boxes bearing inscriptions of that name.
"Why do we expect in antiquity that there would be some evidence of his existence?" Yisca Harani, an Israeli scholar of Christianity, asked. "It's either rulers or military men who had their memory inscribed in stone and artifacts," he added, while Jesus lived as an ordinary man.
