The AP published a report yesterday, run by everyone, that an archaeologist had found “the cave of John the Baptist.” You can find it online everywhere, including this CNN page which has 3 photos (also Haaretz and Jerusalem Post). People have asked me what I think, so what follows is my response. I would note that I know Shimon Gibson, respect him and his work, and even participated in the excavation of this cave with our students on a handful of days in the past couple of years.
The question is: how do we know that this cave is associated with John the Baptist? In the last decades, scholars have been criticizing “biblical archaeology,” particularly for its haste in associating sites and levels with biblical events. Archaeological “proof” for such biblical stories is hailed until a later discovery shows the evidence to be flimsy and the conclusion incorrect.
Gibson is not a “biblical archaeologist” and has no intention to prove the Bible correct. But I believe he makes the same mistakes as previous archaeologists in jumping to a conclusion for which the evidence is slim – particularly a conclusion which associates it with the Bible and therefore makes it headline-worthy. If this was just another Iron Age cistern used by hermits in a later period, no one would know about it (and no one would contribute to Gibson’s archaeological fund). But if it’s identified with an important, and little known, biblical figure as John the Baptist, the potential attention is profound and book sales multiplied (book is released today – here it is at Amazon). And yesterday’s headlines bore this out – every website I visited had a link to the story, and the book’s sales rank at Amazon skyrocketed to #335.
Gibson says he is certain of the identification. He said, “I am now certain that this cave was connected with the ancient cult of John the Baptist. Indeed, this may very well be’the ‘ cave of the early years of John’s life, the place where he sought his first solitude in the ‘wilderness ‘ and the place where he practised his baptisms” (source). This is the claim that must be evaluated.
First, it must be noted that the main claim is that this cave was used by followers of John the Baptist, hundreds of years after his death (in the Byzantine period, 330-630 A.D.). Pilgrims allegedly came to this cave to commemorate this man. The next issue is whether or not this pilgrim tradition is correct – if so, the cave could have been used by John the Baptist himself. These are two separate issues and answering one affirmatively doesn’t necessarily mean that the second is also true. If the first is true, but not the second, what is being hailed is yet another cave that pilgrims visited (erroneously). There are hundreds of such caves in Israel! Among the many examples, Byzantine pilgrims visited the cave where Mary allegedly breastfed Jesus (and milk dropped on the ground) – this is the Chapel of the Milk Grotto in Bethlehem (and pilgrims still visit/worship here).
So I am not impressed if this is another cave that the Byzantines believed to be a holy place. But I’m not convinced that this was such a cave in the first place. It’s a cistern. It has steps leading into it. There is a drawing of a man on the wall and another drawing of a head without a body. There is a foot carved into a rock. The cave is about 2.5 air miles (4 km) from Ein Kerem, the traditional place where John the Baptist was born (not grew up, not ministered). It is about 1 mile from the “St. John in the Wilderness” monastery, built over another cave which was the site of a chapel in the Crusader period (12th century). From the reports and from my own knowledge of the site, that’s the evidence.
The strongest support, in my opinion, is the location. The closest thing to this cave as far as important biblical events or people is John the Baptist. But a figure sketched on the wall – what does this mean? There is nothing that identifies this as an important person, let alone John. There are no inscriptions or direct evidence to tie this to the biblical figure. The evidence is all circumstantial, and appears to me to be weak. I know of no other person (scholar, archaeologist) who follows Gibson in this identification, though perhaps some will come to light with this dramatic announcement.
It bears repeating that I have great respect for Dr. Gibson and wish him all the best in his current and future endeavors. (And a book out last year by him is highly recommended for those interested in the subject as I am: Jerusalem in Original Photographs). But I always felt in the time at the site and now with this announcement that the claim was very bold and the evidence meager. Perhaps the book contains the evidence, but it seems strange that such would be missing from the press conference.