Nahman Avigad: a personal encounter 

by koot van wyk (DLitt et Phil; ThD)

Kyungbook National University

Sangju Campus

South Korea

conjoint lecturer of Avondale College

Australia

30 December 2009

 
Nahman Avigad was a professor emeritus of epigraphy and archaeology in Israel. I had the privilege to meet him a couple of times during my stay in Israel.

I went to Israel in June of 1990 with the purpose of joining an excavation hosted conjointly by Andrews University Seminary and Arizona University with William Dever as director. On Saturday evening of the 30th of June I met prof. W. Dever and J. Holladay and drove together with them to the conference at the Albright Institute. There we listened to the lectures of N. Avigad, A. Millard, M. Sigrist, A. Lemaire, J. Krestler and F. M. Cross. I met Baruch Levine and spoke to M. Sigrist and Emile Puech asking him if he had time to work again on the inscription from Deir `Alla. I passed Jonas Greenfield and followed Dever and Holladay to the car. In the car they were talking about the lecture of Greenfield and they felt uncomfortable with his cynical approach to epigraphy. I also saw proff. Daan Pienaar and Hannes Olivier from South Africa. On Sunday 1 July 1990 I met Manfred Bietak and congratulate him for his contribution in Egyptian archaeology but he rejected the compliment and said modestly: "Well it will still not solve everything". Modesty or reality?

On Monday 2nd of July 1990 I went to the Israel Museum. In the Museum I saw the new "Aphek" hall with the many interesting artifacts. The Aphek artifacts kept me busy before in 1989 during that visit and I have made notes of them during that visit in my diary. It is amazing how the artifacts of the Late Bronze period (1550-1200 BCE) contribute to our understanding of the Exodus reality (1450 BCE) and the invasion of Israel by infiltration and destruction (1410 BCE).

In the afternoon I spent time at the Numismatics hall and it was when I left the Judges period hall (1403-1087 BCE) to cross over to the Iron Age II and Iron Age III periods hall (900-700 BCE and 700-586 BCE), that I saw somebody that looked like prof. Nahman Avigad. The short old man came in my direction and I walked towards him:

"Excuse me," I said nervously but in good manners, "I have seen somebody yesterday at a conference that looked like you, but he was prof. Nahman Avigad".

"What about him," he said, disassociating himself from himself for a moment.

"Well, he presented an excellent paper", I said.

"That's me," he said.

I congratulated him for his talk on the Siloam Tunnel that "Hezekiah [701-690 BCE] took the inscription out of the public eye (my observation) and did not praise himself but the laborers", I said. 

"That's true," he said "but it is my own interpretation and observations", he said.

When the cup of our information ran out and neither of us had a proper taste, I quickly thought of something else to talk about.

"Well," I said, "I want to show you something," walking towards the Arad ostraca and from there past to the City of David Bullae which Y. Shiloh published.

"Look," I said to prof. Avigad, "those are similar waw's [a Hebrew letter that serves as a consonant that can be used as a vowel or service as a consonant also] that is also in the Arad ostraca".

"Do you know the publication of the Arad Ostraca?" prof. Avigad asked me.

"Yes," I said.

"Can you read them?" he Avigad asked me.

"Yes" I continued.

"Can you read Hebrew?" he asked me.

"Not the Modern Hebrew" I said.

"Well, where did you learned it?" Avigad asked me.

"Under prof. Hennie Dreyer [but he could not place him] and prof. Charles Fensham" and suddenly he brightened up.

"O, he was your teacher" he said seemingly impressed.

The police came in and showed us the way out since it is 5 o clock and we must leave.

At the door prof. Avigad waited for me while I fetch my sack.

We walked out together and I told him about my involvement with epigraphy and my unpublished Moabite Seals book.

He enjoyed every bit of information. I told him that I wished to study in Tuebingen in Germany after my archaeology at Andrews.

"Why? Can you speak German?" he asked me. I spoke a few words and he was satisfied.

By now we were out of the building in the sunlight. I mentioned to him the rift between Naveh and Larry Herr on the orthography.

Prof. Avigad referred to the work of F. M. Cross on orthography and spoke highly of it and denied explicitly a rift between Naveh and Herr.

"Naveh only wrote a book-report" Avigad said.

"Yes," I said, "but the Germans interpreted it as a rift".

"Naveh was my student" Avigad said to me "and Herr's book is no good". I had my reservations on this topic at this point but we arrived at the bus-stop.

We took a picture together and after some more talk outside the Israel Museum we left with gracious and heartily greetings.

I have made yet another friend for future, I felt that afternoon.

Riding the bus back to the Adventist Institute at Abu ibn Talef street in East Jerusalem, I was very pleased. 

Again in 1991 I visited prof. Nahman Avigad. We made a time for me to meet him in his house and I rode my bicycle there. I rang the bell at his apartment and he opened the door and let me into his living-room. I sat on the sofa and we spent an hour together talking about epigraphy and seals. His wife gave me a glass of orange juice before I left that afternoon. We talked about how emeritus professors in Israel are taken care of after they retired and I was already on my bicycle when the waving to each other carried on. It was the last time I could see him.

In January 1992, Nahman Avigad died and for me it was as if I have lost a very close friend. If we had more time, we would have spent a large percentage of our time together discussing epigraphy, orthography, history, seals and inscriptions.

I thanked God for the opportunity I had in meeting him and pay happily tribute that a person like him is a building block in my life, through his writings and the personal meeting. 
 

End item

Short Biography of Nahman Avigad

Dr. Nahman Avigad (born 1905; died 1992), born in Zawalow, Galicia (then Austria, now in Poland), was an Israeli archaeologist.

Avigad studied architecture in what is now the town of Brno, Czech Republic. Avigad emigrated to Mandatory Palestine in 1926. He married Shulamit (n? Levin) Avigad in 1928. He worked in the excavations of the Beth Alpha synagogue and the Hamat Gader synagogue.

Avigad earned his PhD in 1952, with a dissertation was on the tombs of the Kidron Valley, Jerusalem. He taught at Hebrew University from 1949 and until his retirement in 1974.

He directed the dig at Beit She'arim beginning in 1953. Avigad also worked on the excavation of the Masada mountaintop complex built by Herod the Great. He was involved in the exploration of caves in the Judean desert, and published one of the Dead Sea scrolls.

According to Bible Scholar Frank Moore Cross, Avigad as Israels most distinguished epigraphist in his generation, and one of the great figures in the history of Hebrew and Jewish epigraphy.?

In 1969 Avigad was invited to undertake the excavation of the Jewish Quarter in the Old City of Jerusalem, devastated by the 1948 war and its aftermath. Among the finds were what was believed to be the earliest depiction of the menorah that once burned in the Second Temple, cut into a wall plastered 2,200 years ago, and the remnants of a building destroyed when Titus, the future Roman Emperor, repressed a series of Jewish revolts against Roman rule. This was the first physical or archaeological evidence for the destruction described in the work of Flavius Josephus. The dig also unearthed lavish villas belonging to the Herodian upper classes, remains of the Byzantine Nea (new) Church and a 70-foot (21 m)-wide road, fifth century road connecting the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and Nea Churches.

Among the most exciting finds was the remnants of the "broad wall," twice mentioned in the Book of Nehemiah. Built to restore Jerusalem's fortifications after the Jews returned from Babylonian exile, it remains an 80-foot (24 m) stretch of wall 23 feet (7.0 m) thick, rising from bedrock west of the Temple Mount.

Avigad published on many topics, notably on Hebrew seals. One of the seals found by him in 1964 has been tentatively identified as belonging to Queen Jezebel, mentioned in the Bible:  however, this identification is contested by others.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nahman_Avigad

 

Van Wyk notes that the seal considered by Avigad to be that of Jezebel is also supported by this researcher as such. There are many arguments in favor of such an  identification. See Van Wyk notes for a discussion of this seal.

For a description of the announcement of his death, see http://www.nytimes.com/1992/02/14/world/nahman-avigad-an-archeologist-and-biblical-scholar-dies-at-86.html