Tombs, the New Testament, and the Archaeology of Religion

Abstract

This article looks at tombs as indicators of certain aspects of religion, specifically death, burial and the afterlife. The first part of the article is a theoretical discussion concerning culture and material remains. The conclusion of the author is that artifactual evidence, material culture, embodies the culture. The author then revisits two Herodian tombs on French Hill in Jerusalem he excavated in 1970–71 and published in 1975. On the basis of his theoretical discussion, he discusses the architecture of the tombs, and the artifactual evidence uncovered in the excavation. He compares the evidence with New Testament descriptions of tombs and burials. He concludes that the tombs do provide a visual and material model for Jewish views of the dead, burial, and burial customs, but not a full-blown theology of death, burial, and the afterlife. The burial evidence from the French Hill tombs also dovetail nicely with reports about tombs and burials from the New Testament.