# Talk:Joseph's Tomb

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From the entry: "On May, 2007, the Breselov hasidim visited the site for the first time in two years and prayed under gun-fire from the Palestinians." From the source: "A Palestinian gunman opened fire at the escorting troops during the service and soldiers fired back, hitting the gunman." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.136.97.42 (talk) 23:14, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

"The present structure, a small rectangular room with a cenotaph, dates from 1868, and is devoid of any trace of ancient building materials.<ref name=Pringle94>{{harvnb| Pringle|1998|p=94}}.</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Schenke|1967|p=174}}: "der Gebäudekomplex... ist ganz modern und enthält nicht einmal alte Bauelemente." - "... the compund, built over and around a cenotaph, which nowadays is considered to be the tomb of Joseph, is entirely of modern date and doesn't even contain old architectural elements."</ref>
Schenke seems to me a bit more politically, rather than academically, motivated. We have

"One of the inscriptions is said to intimate the tomb's repair by a Jew from Egypt, Elijah son of Meir, around 1749. ... These Hebrew and Samaritan inscriptions were still visible on the white plastered walls as late as 1980...<ref>{{harvnb|Gafni|van der Heyden|1982|page= 138}}</ref>"
You cannot have inscribed plaster from the 18th century surviving if everything was rebuilt from scratch in 1868. Or the two sentences refer to 2 different sets of graffiti, some pre-, some post-1868, and misleads one into thinking they're the same (unless somebody wrote after 1868 about the repair of 1749, which makes very little sense). It's either this, or Schenke is polemical rather than accurate.
Also, the interpretation of "enthält nicht einmal alte Bauelemente" ("doesn't even contain old architectural elements") as meaning "is devoid of any trace of ancient building materials", is plain wrong and overstretched. First, Bauelement can be for instance an old door, carved stone, or column, so well beyond "building materials" (stone, cement, sand, paint...). Second, there is no way one can discern a reused stone from a recently carved one, embedded in a plastered wall, ever. For luminescence dating one must at least dismantle that part of the wall, but that's not even been argued.
Also, the structure was rebuilt at the expense of the English consul at Damascus, because its older incarnation was in a bad state of disrepair - but not absent. It's a huge difference between "dates from 1868" and "has last been rebuilt in 1868". Please mind that Schenke was a theologian and Coptologist, not an archaeologist - books, not stones -, a theoretician who came up with a very original proposal about Joseph based on cultural analysis, not on material analysis. Arminden (talk) 15:47, 15 August 2022 (UTC)

The historical evidence in the form of drawings and photographs is that the structure decayed and was rebuilt repeatedly. There is a lythograph from 1839 that looks nothing like the present structure and a photo from the 1860s showing a few crumbling walls. And who is/was Shlomo Gafni? He seems to have written some popular books but doesn't have an article in the Hebrew wiki. Why did you choose Schenke to accuse of political bias rather than Gafni? Zerotalk 10:13, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

There are 11 no-target errors. Perhaps someone who cares could try to fix them. DuncanHill (talk) 15:15, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

Yes, there are a few orphaned refs; must be in the history somewhere. Iskandar323 (talk) 17:57, 6 September 2023 (UTC)
I looked back to 2011 and gave up. DuncanHill (talk) 20:45, 6 September 2023 (UTC)
You nearly had it, the errors not causes by a recent removal of cites still in use, were caused in early 2011. However the article was nearly completely rewritten in 2011, so does the GA review from 2010 still count? -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 16:24, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

Here is a link to the Hebrew Wikipedia article on this shooting, for future translation or reference harvesting. I think the judicial history is interesting. Prezbo (talk) 09:47, 24 May 2025 (UTC)

Additional resource/reminder to myself: https://www.palestine-studies.org/en/node/1235758 Prezbo (talk) 15:57, 25 May 2025 (UTC)