The “John the Baptist” Suba Cave
Excavated Entrance to the Suba Cave
As readers know one of the archaeological sites I discuss in my book, The Jesus Dynasty, is the Suba cave, located outside Ein Kerem, the traditional birthplace of John the Baptist, a few kilometers west of Jerusalem. My colleague, Israeli archaeologist Shimon Gibson and I have been digging there since early 2000. In fact, this past March we just finished our seventh season of excavations at the site. What we have uncovered is quite amazing with many questions still remaining to be answered.
Recently a reader of my book pointed out to the entire world (the World Wide Web that is, where anyone can post anything at anytime): “The Suba cave that Tabor thought was used by John the Baptist is now agreed by other scholars to date to the iron age. It was later utilized briefly in the 4th century AD. John the Baptist had nothing to do with it.”
Since Gibson and I are the ones who discovered as well as reported upon and published the evidence related to the Iron Age construction of this site, this reader’s assertion that “other scholars” have set us straight on this point borders between the amusing and the irritating.
Whether John the Baptist or Jesus ever used this site for ritual water purification ceremonies we can not be sure. What we can say are three things in that regard. 1) In the Byzantine period Christians came to this cave to remember and venerate John the Baptist, leaving behind some of the oldest Christian art associated with John ever found in the Holy Land. This should not surprise us since it is located just outside Ein Kerem, the earliest place associated with his birth. 2) In the first century A.D. scores of people were coming to this cave and carrying out some kind of ceremonies associated with water purification. 3) The Suba cave itself, as well as the entire complex (there is much we have now found outside the cave) has a much earlier history, constructed in the Iron Age for a yet undetermined purpose.
Gibson and I published a summary of our evidence in this regard in an article titled “John the Baptist’s Cave: The Cave in Favor,” in the May/June, 2005 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review. Dr. Gibson has also ably summarized all our relevant archaeological findings in his book, The Cave of John the Bapist (New York: Doubleday, 2004), which is now out in paperback.
Gibson and I are as interested in the Iron Age history of Suba as what went on in the 1st century. However, for those who are skeptical regarding our hypothesis that massive activity involving ritual water purification rites went on for several decades in the early 1st century, possibly involving movements such as those inaugurated by John the Baptist and Jesus, are obligated to come up with alternative explanations for what we found at those levels of the excavation. For one to say “I am not convinced that John the Baptist was associated with this cave” misses the point. What we are obligated to do is to try and come up with the most plausible evidence we can to explain the massive and unqiue material evidence. Gibson and I welcome alternative hypotheses.
In The Jesus Dynasty I suggest Suba as a possible location for the massive baptismal activities of Jesus and his disciples reported in John 3:22-24; 4:1-4. This “hill country” of Judea is a rugged area with a few springs but no significant bodies of water. The Suba cave is massive and surely was a well known and prominent feature of that area. It is removed from any significant population center. I take the “Jesus the Baptizer” tradition as historically probably since to have Jesus baptised at all by John was a problem enough for early Christians. To have him then carrying out extensive baptisms himself, in the south, in the Judean countryside, with John working in tandem in the north–is not something the author of the gospel of John would likely have concocted. That is why the “editor” of John adds the caveat: But Jesus himself did not baptize, only his disciples! When we see that sort of qualifying gloss we can be almost certain that the underlying tradition is valid–thus the protest.
P.S. There are some breaking new discoveries at Suba about which I will write as soon as Gibson and I determine how we want to initially report them.