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SumFnl07 6/6/07 1:48 PM Page 50 LegalEase What’s the Truth about … King David’s Tomb? By Ari Z. Zivotofsky Photos: Leibel Reznick Misconception: King David is ‘buried’ in Grant’s Tomb. The 159-foot until 150 years ago when archaeologi- buried on Mount Zion, in a room that neo-classical structure is a tomb, there- cal evidence suggested, and more bears the inscription “King David’s fore both General Grant and his wife recently has conclusively shown, that Tomb.” Mount Zion is located just out- are ‘entombed’ above ground” and not the city captured by David was on the side and to the south of the Armenian buried.2) Unlike Marx’s joke, however, smaller, lower hill located to the south Quarter and Zion Gate of Jerusalem’s the question concerning King David’s of the Temple Mount (the modern-day Old City. burial site is not trivial. City of David). That lower hill was the Fact: Evidence indicates that the Signs direct visitors to Mount site of the Jebusite city, which then area known today as Mount Zion was Zion through a series of anterooms to became King David’s capital, and con- not part of inhabited Jerusalem in King an interior room housing a cloth-cov- stituted the whole Jerusalem for proba- David’s time (tenth century BCE) and ered granite cenotaph. This site is bly more than 200 years until it gradu- that he was not buried there. Rather, believed by many to be the tomb of ally expanded westward and incorpo- King David was buried in the south- King David.3 rated the area that is today known as eastern area of Jerusalem’s real Old To locate King David’s actual bur- Mount Zion.6 City, which is located to the south of ial site, one need only consult the Bible The erroneous notion that King the Temple Mount and Dung Gate and to discover that King David died and David is buried on Mount Zion devel- is known today as Ir David—the City was buried in Ir David, the City of oped over a period of many centuries. of David. David (1 Kings 2:10).4 The same place, During the middle of the second centu- Background:1 The question City of David, also appears in Samuel 2 ry CE, Jerusalem was razed, Jews were regarding King David’s Tomb seems (5:7, 5:9) where the text states that banished from the area, and the knowl- almost as inane as the riddle popularized David captured a fortress named edge concerning the true location of by Groucho Marx on his 1950s game Metzudat Tzion from the Jebusites and King David’s Tomb was lost. By the show “You Bet Your Life.” In order to renamed it “the City of David.” Thus, mid-fourth century, the tombs of King guarantee that no one left his show in order to find his burial site, one David and his father, Jesse, are described empty-handed, Marx would ask a losing needs to ascertain the location of as being in Beit Lechem.7 The first contestant: “Who is buried in Grant’s Metzudat Tzion, i.e., the City of David. mention of Mount Zion as King Tomb?” (He would usually accept The name “Zion” appears in David’s final resting place was in the “Grant” as a correct answer despite the Tanach in reference to the original, ninth century, and by the eleventh cen- fact that the US National Park Service ancient Jerusalem. In the Middle Ages, tury, this fallacy was so well-established states that “technically, no one is Byzantine pilgrims mistakenly thought that the Crusaders erected a Gothic that the hill located south of today’s Old cenotaph, in this case an empty sar- Rabbi Dr. Zivotofsky is on the faculty of the City’s Armenian Quarter was part of cophagus, to mark the site, which Brain Science Program at Bar-Ilan University that ancient city and named it “Mount remains until today.8 in Israel. Zion.”5 This error was not recognized Continued on 52 50 JEWISH ACTION Summer 5767/2007 SumFnl07 6/5/07 1:47 PM Page 51 King David’s Tomb: A Different Perspective By Leibel Reznick Photos: Leibel Reznick “Those who trust in the Lord shall be like Mount Zion, which cannot be moved but abides forever.” (Psalms 125:1) r. Ari Zivotofsky’s well-present- only highly improbable, but quite clear- story of Jerusalem archaeology realize ed article “What’s the Truth ly impossible that King David was that Davies is hardly a lone voice. In the Dabout … King David’s Tomb?” buried there. world of academia, his opinion is close addresses the question of the true loca- But what evidence is there that to, if not representative of, the majority tion of King David’s Tomb from a present-day Mount Zion was not inhab- view. And on what basis are the views Biblical as well as an archaeological per- ited during the reign of King David? that there was no Davidic capital of spective. In the article, Dr. Zivotofsky The answer is that since no evidence of Jerusalem and that Kings David and emphatically states that “the area known occupation during the era of King Solomon did not exist predicated? The today as Mount Zion was not part of David has been discovered there, that absence of evidence is evidence of inhabited Jerusalem in King David’s proves it was not occupied at that time. absence. As I already stated, this is a time, and it is highly improbable that In other words, the absence of evidence dangerous position to take. he was buried there.” The Bible tells us is evidence of absence! This is a very A tel is a mound that consists of a that “…the City of David is Zion” (1 dangerous stance to take with regard to layer of ruins built upon other layers of Kings 8:1) and that “David slept with the archaeology of Jerusalem. Many ruins. Jerusalem is not a tel in the tradi- his fathers, and was buried in the City archaeologists and historians claim that tional sense of the word; it’s a city of of David” (1 Kings 2:10). If, as Dr. in the general Jerusalem area there is a hills with bedrock a few feet below the Zivotofsky claims, the present-day dearth of artifacts and remains of build- surface. In some places bedrock even Mount Zion was uninhabited during ings from the eras of Kings David and protrudes above the land surface. This is the time of King David, then it is not Solomon, which gives them reason to because when an inhabited area was doubt there ever was such a capital city. destroyed, the conquerors would remove Some take an extreme position, carrying the debris all the way down to the Rabbi Reznick is a maggid shiur in Yeshiva this line of reasoning one step further: bedrock and build anew. (Recently the Shaarei Torah in Monsey, New York. He has “I am not the only scholar who suspects esteemed British scholar and archaeolo- written numerous books and magazine articles that the figure of King David is about as gist Kenneth A. Kitchen quipped about on the topic of Jewish history and archaeology. historical as King Arthur,” asserts Philip Jerusalem, “We are lucky to have any- He is presently a scholar-in-residence for the 2 David Dov Foundation of Lakewood, New R. Davies, professor of Biblical studies thing really old at all!”) 1 Jersey, which is dedicated to the research of at the University of Sheffield, England. Archaeology is the art of interpret- Biblical archaeology by Orthodox scholars. Those of us who follow the unfolding ing physical finds based on ever-evolv- Continued on 56 Summer 5767/2007 JEWISH ACTION 51 SumFnl07 6/5/07 1:47 PM Page 52 Continued from 50 In the twelfth century, the colorful Jewish traveler should be clear to all that it has been sanctified as a site of Benjamin of Tudela related that during his stay in Jerusalem, Jewish pilgrimage and prayer for centuries and should be he heard a fantastic story regarding the re-discovery of King treated as a Jewish holy place. David’s Tomb. Two Jewish workers employed by the If King David is not buried on Mount Zion, then Christian patriarch to reconstruct a damaged monument on where is he buried? The first clue is from the Bible, which Mount Zion accidentally happened upon a secret passage and states that King David, his son King Solomon and the kings found themselves in a palace made of marble columns. of Judea who followed for the next 150 years13 were buried in Within the palace was a table upon which rested a golden scepter and golden crown, with riches all around. The work- ers decided this was King David’s Tomb. Suddenly, they were The Old City Of Jerusalem struck down by a fierce wind and heard voices that told them to leave immediately. Three days later, the two workmen were N sick in bed and could not be persuaded to return to the site.9 The present building housing the cenotaph was erect- ed in 1335, but it is built on top of what is probably a sec- ond- to fourth-century building. Little was known about the building until a shell exploded there during the War of TEMPLE Independence in 1948, affording an opportunity for archae- MOUNT ological excavations during repair work. In 1951 an Israeli archaeologist and expert in synagogue architecture, Jacob MOUNT Jewish OLIVES Pinkerfeld, who was later killed in a terrorist attack at the Quarter KIDRON 1956 Archaeological Convention at Ramat Rachel, carried Armenian VALLEY out an archaeological survey.

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