Benjamin Mazar

Benjamin Mazar (June 28, 1906 - September 9, 1995) was a pioneering Israeli archaeologist who shared the national passion for the archaeology of Israel that also attracts considerable international interest due to the region's Biblical links.

Background

Born Binyamen Maisler in Ciechanowiec, Poland, he was educated at Berlin and Giessen universities in Germany. At age 23 he emigrated to Palestine (then under the British Mandate) and in 1943 joined the faculty of Hebrew University in Jerusalem whose original campus at Mount Scopus became isolated in the Jordanian sector of Jerusalem following the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. Originally he also served as secretary of the Jewish Palestine Exploration Society, later renamed Israel Exploration Society. See Archaeology of Israel.

Between 1951 and 1977 Benjamim Mazar served as Professor of Biblical History and Archaeology of Palestine at the new campus of Hebrew University in West Jerusalem. In 1952 he became Rector of the University in 1952 and its president for eight years commencing in 1953. Between 1968 and 1978 Professor Mazar directed extensive excavations in the Ophel and the southwestern corner of the Temple Mount. The site had been inaccessible to Israeli archaeologists until it was captured in 1967 during the Six Day War.

Mazar family

Benjamin Mazar, his son Ory and his granddaughter Eilat Mazar and nephew Amihai Mazar all shared the same interests in Israeli archaeology. Eilat Mazar has been a frequent spokesperson for concerns regarding the archaeology of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.

Temple Mount controversy

According to Ory Mazar, a son of Benjamin Mazar, his father favored the idea that the Temple location was not where most people assumed that it had been on Temple Mount in Jerusalem. In 1960s Professor Mazar had worked with Dr. Ernest L. Martin of Ambassador College during student excavations around Temple Mount and Dr. Martin had been introduced to Ory.

From this relationship Dr. Martin published a controversial book called The Temples that Jerusalem Forgot based upon the ideas of Ory Mazar who claimed that his father also shared similar views before his death. After studying the words of Josephus concerning the Temple of Herod, which was reported to be in the same general area of the former Temples, in 1997 Dr. Martin concluded that all the Temples were located on the Ophel mound over the area of the Gihon Spring and not where everyone assumed that they were located. This theory implied that Judaism was fighting to preserve the wrong location, which in turn sparked reactions from Moslems. These ideas were even more controversial due to the fact that Dr. Martin had been associated with The Plain Truth magazine at the time when Michael Dennis Rohan had read an editorial by Herbert W. Armstrong, which it is claimed, led to the act of arson against the Al Aqsa mosque.

See also

• Archaeology of Israel This entry discusses the archaeology of Israel as an academic and scientific discipline, an important aspect of the country's cultural life and national identity.
• Biblical archaeology