Talk:Mamre

19th cent travel lit

has some beautiful descriptions of the site, and we should cull a florilegium of them for a section. Nishidani (talk) 20:04, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Something odd about the use of 'the Palestinians' in 5th century Greek, so checked another translation

Indeed, this text is phrased more in line with Greek idiom, and does not use that expression:-

CHAP. IV. WHAT CONSTANTINE THE GREAT EFFECTED ABOUT THE OAK IN MAMRE; HE ALSO BUILT A TEMPLE. I CONSIDER it necessary to detail the proceedings of Constantine in relation to what is called the oak of Mature. This place is now called Terebinthus, and is about fifteen stadia distant from Hebron, which lies to the south, but is two hundred and fifty stadia distant from Jerusalem. It is recorded that here the Son of God appeared to Abraham, with two angels, who had been sent against Sodom, and foretold the birth of his son. Here the inhabitants of the country and of the regions round Palestine the Phoenicians, and the Arabians, assemble annually during the summer season to keep a brilliant feast; and many others, both buyers and sellers, resort thither on account of the fair. Indeed, this feast is diligently frequented by all nations: by the Jews, because they boast of their descent from the patriarch Abraham; by the Pagans, because angels there appeared to men; and by Christians, because He who for the salvation of mankind was born of a virgin, afterwards manifested Himself there to a godly man. This place was moreover honored fit-tingly with religious exercises. Here some prayed to the God of all; some called upon the angels, poured out wine, burnt incense, or offered an ox, or he-goat, a sheep, or a cock. Each one made some beautiful product of his labor, and after carefully husbanding it through the entire year, he offered it according to promise as provision for that feast, both for himself and his dependents. And either from honor to the place, or from fear of Divine wrath, they all abstained from coming near their wives, although during the feast these were more than ordinarily studious of their beauty and adornment. Nor, if they chanced to appear and to take part in the public processions, did they act at all licentiously. Nor did they behave imprudently in any other respect, although the tents were contiguous to each other, and they all lay promiscuously together. The place is open country, and arable, and without houses, with the exception of the buildings around Abraham's old oak and the well he prepared. No one during the time of the feast drew water from that well; for according to Pagan usage, some placed burning lamps near it; some poured out wine, or cast in cakes; and others, coins, myrrh, or incense. Hence, as I suppose, the water was rendered useless by commixture with the things cast into it. Once whilst these customs were being celebrated by the Pagans, after the aforesaid manner, and as was the established usage with hilarity, the mother-in-law of Constantine was present for prayer, and apprised the emperor of what was being done. On receiving this information, he rebuked the bishops of Palestine in no measured terms, because they had neglected their duty, and had permitted a holy place to be defiled by impure libations and sacrifices; and he expressed his godly censure in an epistle which he wrote on the subject to Macarius, bishop of Jerusalem, to Eusebius Pamphilus, 22/174 and to the bishops of Palestine. He commanded these bishops to hold a conference on this subject with the Phoenician bishops, and issue directions for the demolition, from the foundations, of the altar formerly erected there, the destruction of the carved images by fire, and the erection of a church worthy of so ancient and so holy a place. The emperor finally enjoined, that no libations or sacrifices should be offered on the spot, but that it should be exclusively devoted to the worship of God according to the law of the Church; and that if any attempt should be made to restore the former rites, the bishops were to inform against the delinquent, in order that he might be subjected to the greatest punishment. The governors and priests of Christ strictly enforced the injunctions contained in the emperor's letter.'Nishidani (talk) 21:41, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Legends re the angels and the tree near the well

‘Among the oaks of Mamre, at a distance from there, dwelt an old man, who was near death when Rabbi Petachia arrived there, and he told his son to show Rabbi Petachia the tree under which the angels rested. He also showed him a fine olive-tree cleft into three parts with a stone in the middle. They have a tradition that when the angels sat down the tree was cleft into three parts, each resting under one part whilst sitting on the stone. The fruits of the tree are very sweet.' Elkan N. Adler,Jewish Travellers from 9th to 18th Century, Asian Educational Services, 1995 p.90 [Nishidani, 12:27, 5 November 2008]

Removed but sourced. Chech

The Abraham's angel visitation being revered by the Eastern Orthodox Christians as a pre-figurement of the new testament Holy Trinity. The Constantine church appears on the Madaba Map.Nishidani (talk) 21:17, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

Mamre in South Africa

A new entry on the historically important Moravian Mission of Mamre, in South Africa (Province of the Western Cape) (1806) is needed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 105.226.60.68 (talk) 07:28, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

identification

This article seems to be entirely lacking when it comes to the identification of the site. How old is the tradition that this place is the Mamre of the Bible? Zero^talk 11:25, 20 March 2016 (UTC)

Pictures

The Tristram image is most probably the so-called "Oak of Mamre", which is NOT at Mamre, but more than halfway towards historical Hebron, and now within modern Hebron. Mamre is farther north of Hebron.

Madaba Map: there is only a fraction of the name, "MAM", still visible on the mosaic, at the right margin of what is left of it and right next to the modern pillar. Cheers, Arminden (talk) 16:01, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

Removed unsourced Canaanite connection

@Nishidani and Zero0000: I took out this part of the lead:

"Canaanite cultic shrine dedicated to the supreme, sky god El of the ancient Canaanite religion."

a) unsourced; b) the article doesn't explain this, either; c) not what it's most famous for.

If you have any sources for this, and it's not just put together by an editor's presumptions (very old means Canaanite; open to the sky means El), I'd love to see them and this should be put back in, but probably not in the lead (it can hardly be hard facts, and it's not what Mamre is best known for). Cheers, Arminden (talk) 08:57, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

Good move. It almost certainly was a Canaanite/Amorite cult centre. The difficulty consists in winnowing out the traditional lore hidden behind the quite late Hebrew theological re-use of it. R. E. Clements can be cited for the Canaanite-El equation, if you want. But, like 99% of the ancient history of that area, such references allude to reconstructive theories, reasonable but speculative. That it was, in all likelihood, pre-monotheistic is suggested by the cult of a primordial tree of which traces remain, and, given the many other spoors of remnant evidence indicating Hebron and its environs had an axis mundi creational cosmology before it was appropriated by 'God-fearers', the probability is that the El cult usurped this and recast the whole story as God-centered, and this in turn was spun by the Judean sacerdotal class into a narrative in which El/Yahweh made a covenant turning over the place to the Hebrews. If that occurred, the switch would have occurred late, perhaps under the Hasmoneans, as the Judeans, in strife with the Samaritans, started shifting the pristine Shechem traditions down to their own territory, as you can see in the overlap between the Joseph and patriarchal burial stories. I'm a bit busy and can't quite get the time off to look into my old files or search about - the muddle in ancient sources is turbidly intimdating. Keep up the good work.Nishidani (talk) 13:18, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

Nishidani, you probably feel even less attracted to it now than 5 years ago, but this would be the one major enrichment to the topic, which would take the article from the level of dryly listing proven or probable facts, to reflecting deeper and highly meaningful historical processes. This could be cross-referenced on a dozen other pages. Anyway, good that we have your comments here. Have a great day and don't let my Wiki-obsession distract you from what really matters. Arminden (talk) 14:13, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

I was attracted to it because, doing my master's thesis, I was absorbed by the concept of the cosmic tree and its global reflexes in myth. But I hadn't the time or patience to delve into the Mamre instance, esp because so many seminal sources were unavailable when I edited this article. Made a lot of notes, but they'll expire when my computer goes on the blink. There were three traditional sites for Mamre. One at Tel Rumeida, the other two at Khirbet Sibta (which the Russian Orthodox authorities purchased in 1871), and the other at Khirbet Nimra, which Detlef Jericke ('Die Lage des alttestamentlichen Mamre,’ in E.M. Dörrfuss, C.Maier,(eds),Festschrift P.Welten:Am Fuss der Himmelsleiter-Gott suchen, den Menschen begegnen, Sebstverlag, Berlin 1996 pp.93-103.*) identified with the Genesis site. You should be able to look at the records relating to Itzhak Magen’s excavations in the 1980s, which should be fairly comprehensive. The biblical Mamre (Genesis 13:18) and its terebinth were probably at Tel Rumeida, and some think Herod shifted it out to Haram Ramet el-Khalil which the Byzantines then built up. (I see now there’s a brief overview of this in Vladimil Drbal’s ‘Pilgrimage and multi-religious worship: Palestinian mamre in Late Antiquity’ in Troels Myrup Kristensen, Wiebke Friese (eds.) Excavating Pilgrimage: Archaeological Approaches to Sacred Travel and Movement in the Ancient World, Taylor & Francis, 2017 ISBN 978-1-351-85626-3 pp.245-260.

I got stymied here, though fascinated by the topic, by the inaccessibility of most of the sources that emerged which contained important information, without which, just adding bits and pieces would have been pointless. You can get a good quick overview at Detlef Jericke, Hebron (2006/2016) esp re Mamre at pp.7ff. (Unter der Voraussetzung, dass die Erzelternerzählungen, insbesondere die Abrahamgeschichte, in der vorliegenden Form in der Zeit nach 586 v. Chr. entstanden, ist die Gleichsetzung von Chirbet Nimrā mit dem alttestamentlichen Mamre durchaus plausibel. p.8)

Sorry I can't be more helpful, too many pressing things to do, not least sandpapering, oiling and then tinting the wood on a score of large window frames, before winter sets in, to relieve them of the effects of peeling from the torrid summer sun.Nishidani (talk) 16:12, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

@Nishidani: That's more than I could hope for. I'll read it for myself, let's see if I'll be able to add stuff to the article. I believe there's very little on Tel Nimra from Jericke's time, I hope more has been done since - w/o causing trouble. Thanks and godspeed with the window frames! Arminden (talk) 20:04, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

Herodian enclosure, content: useless sources

"Herod: the enclosure". The last sentence reads:

It contained an ancient well, more than 5 m in diameter,{reference: Jericke p.?.}{reference: Letellier} referred to as Abraham's Well.{reference: Heyden 2020}

All this is highly problematic:

1. reference: "Jericke p.?." — no page indicated. Google Books offers no help. Maybe Jericke not even correct author/source.
2. reference: "Letellier" — Again, what page? Google Books offers no help, searched for "Abraham's well", diameter/-re" - no hit! Even worse: Letellier's topic is text exegesis, not archaeology. Seems to be the wrong book for what it's offered as a source for. So both Jericke and Letellier probably quoted by mistake.
3. reference: "Heyden 2020" — This was my attempt at a partial & temporary solution, but it's not a good one. Source is good in general, should be kept as bibliography even if removed from this line. Heyden does mention "Abraham's Well", but she seems to write about the Byzantine period and later (didn't read whole article yet), so the name could also be valid for Herod's time, or maybe not. Is this whole last sentence based on Josephus? What other source is there for the Herodian period? I guess none.
4. Does the sentence even refer to Herod's time, or is it about the next period altogether?
5. Diameter of 5 m: nowhere in the sources. No size is mentioned.
6. Diameter of 5 m: Mader's plans all show the well as being from Constantine's time, not Herod's. According to the plans' scale, the diametre is of c. 2.5 m , so half the size from our article. If there was a wider Herodian well there, found at digs, we need a source, but I doubt it. Again, the whole sentence looks very fishy. Arminden (talk) 21:43, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

I've looked up who has introduced the sources. It was "Ashley kennedy3", who stopped editing in 2014. Here Jericke, and here Letellier, both in 2008. Doesn't help in any way. Arminden (talk) 21:56, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

Don't worry about who made the edits, me or anyone else. Just chuck out whatever can't be verified. No worries. There's the talk page to tell future editors what's to be done if this stuff is restored, i.e. find sources. Cheers Nishidani (talk) 16:14, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

Madaba Map

@Hazooyi: hi. Thanks for the excellent photo of the ruins, but I'd still like to have an image of the Madaba map with the fragmentary inscription and the image of the Constantinian church. True, the one you removed only gave a general orientation vs Jerusalem and the Dead Sea and one could only make out "MAM..." in red from the damaged inscription, but that was still quite useful. There is at Commons a drawing of the entire mosaic, see here. Do you know how to process it? I don't. We need to crop the relevant piece, to the right and one level higher from the big red IOUDA (ÏOYDA) tribe's name, the one reading ...HKAI ...EBINThOS ...MAP... ...MAM... with the tree & church image. At Christusrex you can find exactly what's relevant. Cheers, Arminden (talk) 11:47, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

I wish I could help but really have no expertise in Wikicommons image-cropping, which I presume is what you are asking for. You say that the image I removed is "quite useful." Personally I don't see that, but if you think so, and want to restore it, go ahead.--Hazooyi (talk) 14:12, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

Here, with reconstructed Greek inscription. (Sorry, no, that one only for the reconstructed inscription, but not for the image, it's too narrowly cropped; for the image see here!) Arminden (talk) 14:37, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

Thanks Hazooyi. Maybe you've been in Madaba, or you're familiar with the map, or more generally with the Byzantine "holy geography"; many are not. The photo is terrible, but offers exactly that, and it's that which I consider quite useful, not the actual photo, which is extremely low-res. The Franciscan discussion page offers all aspects - now THAT is an useful tool! Shame it's been taken offline, but thankfully it's been archived (main with full Greek inscription, sources, discussion). But I don't think we're allowed to reproduce their images for (c) reasons.

Maybe somebody else knows how to crop that image? Arminden (talk) 14:56, 26 February 2024 (UTC)