Biblical Archaeology Review

See Barry J. Kemp, “Large Middle Kingdom Granary Buildings (and the Archaeology of Administration),” Zeitschrift für Ägyptische Sprache 113 (1986), pp. 120–136, esp. 130ff, on Kahun, Uronarti and Mirgissa. The walls of these structures are wholly of mudbrick.

The modern name was given to the site by a Benedictine monk who noted the beauty of the site and called it “splendid hill” in Hebrew. The Arabic name is Sheikh Khadr.

On the Arameans of Damascus, see Wayne Pitard, Ancient Damascus (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1988).

The urbanization of Galilee points to the probability that Jesus spoke Greek as well as Aramaic. Present-day debates among New Testament scholars are turning from the question of whether or not Jesus spoke Greek to how well he spoke Greek. Careful study of the Greek text of the Gospels has led some scholars to conclude that a number of parables were composed originally in Greek rather than Aramaic. Batey, “Jesus and the Theatre,” p. 572, note 2; Robert W. Funk, Parables and Presence (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1982), p. 28.

Margarete Bieber,The History of the Greek and Roman Theater (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1961), p. 161.

Lewis, Gospel According to Matthew, Part 1, pp. 98f. Rabbi Halafta, a first-century rabbi, made it a religious custom at Sepphoris, the residence of influential priestly families, to sound a ram’s horn or a trumpet after benedictions (Babylonian Talmud, Rosh Hashanah 27a and Ta’anit 16b).

Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 15.268.