2,000-Year-Old Bones of Rebel Jews Murdered by Romans Finally Laid to Rest
“The death of His faithful ones is grievous in Hashem’s sight.” Psalms 116:14 (The Israel Bible™)
image: https://www.breakingisraelnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/ofra-bones.jpg
AThe 2,000-year-old bones discovered at Ofra. (Courtesy Yaakov Ehrlich)
Christian archaeologist’s discovery of ancient bones in a cave in
Samaria unravelled a 2,000-year-old murder mystery, and led to the local
Jews performing a rare and powerful Torah commandment they believe will
help bring the Third Temple. The moving story brought Jews and
Christians together, emphasizing how the roots of both religions are
inextricably intertwined in the Holy Land.
Dr.
Scott Stripling, an archaeologist and provost of The Bible Seminary in
Texas, was exploring a cave complex at Khirbet el-Maqatir near the city
of Ofra
in Samaria in 2013 when he discovered a jumble of bones. Dr. Stripling
has been the co-director of the dig for 20 years on behalf the
Associates for Biblical Research.
“I have no doubt that these people were murdered in the first revolt in 69 CE at the hands of the Romans,” Dr. Stripling told Breaking Israel News. “It was a 2,000-year-old mass-murder mystery that was solved, and we now can tell their story.”
“Many
of the bones were disarticulated and jumbled, perhaps by animals, but
we were able to determine that one of the women was arthritic and
elderly, and one was a six-year-old child. Most of the skeletons
belonged to young women.”
Stripling explained that in a last-ditch attempt to avoid being
slaughtered by the Romans, the people of the town repurposed the olive
press cave, broke through to a cistern, and dug a hiding system.
“We found the skeletons of six people in the olive press
area, and fragments of bones from two people in the smaller hiding
area,” Dr. Stripling said. “The last moments of their lives must have
been terrifying.
“The men
must have made their last stand in a massive tower above, since it has
Roman arrowheads and nails from the Roman soldiers’ shoes were embedded
in the stones,” he explained. “Apparently they were trying to hide their
families in the caves below.”
Anthropologist
Marina Faerman of Hebrew University determined that the bones were from
seven women aged 6-60, and one male youth. Elisabetta Boaretto at the
Weizmann Institute conducted carbon dating tests to date the bones to
the first century BCE. This result was consistent with coins found at
the site, identified by numismatist Dr. Yoav Farhi, and pottery
deciphered by ceramic typologist Peretz Reuven.
Dr.
Stripling intended to rebury the bones at the site where they were
found. Frequently, human remains found at archaeological sites are
stored away in universities without ceremony. Yaakov Ehrlich, a surveyor
who has volunteered with Dr. Stripling for many years, approached him
and requested that after the scientific tests and studies were complete,
he be permitted to give the bones a proper burial.
Ehrlich’s
request to bury the bones came from a powerful Torah imperative that
transcends simply honoring the dead. Ehrlich was obligated to care for
the bones found at the dig since they were from individuals who passed
away and have no one else to take care of their burial. In Jewish law,
this is referred to as meit miztvah, a Torah commandment so important that it supersedes most other commandments.concerning meit mitzvah, the bones should be buried where they are found.
Read
more at
https://www.breakingisraelnews.com/94970/2000-year-old-bones-rebel-jews-murdered-romans-finally-laid-rest/#CUL2ksObycEeuGmg.99
2,000-Year-Old Bones of Jews Murdered by Romans Secretly Laid to Rest – Breaking Israel News – Re-Shared and administered by Aaron Halim
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