以色列貝特謝梅什——這塊石頭只有一張小桌般大小，但它已經保守了兩千年的秘密。不管是誰雕刻了這些神秘符號，他描繪的顯然是一座古猶太聖殿。
聖經考古界認為這塊石頭是一個珍稀的發現，因為在它被雕刻的時候，第二聖殿仍然矗立在耶路撒冷。既然雕刻者可以見到聖殿，那麼該石就是聖殿的一個古代的快照。
這塊石頭顛覆了一些學者長期以來持有的關於古代猶太教會堂及其與猶太聖殿的關係的學術假設。在那個關鍵時期，猶太教是基督教的分支出發點，而猶太聖殿是他們的朝聖中心，是猶太人崇拜中最神聖的地方。
這塊石頭被稱為抹大拉石。2009年，它出土於以色列北部的加利利海附近。當時那裡正在建一個度假村和基督教朝聖的中心，政府的考古學家經常被電話叫去檢查任何可能被施工破壞的古的和重要的東西。在這種情況下，他們發現了一個公元1世紀的猶太教會堂的保存完好的遺址，並開始挖掘。
根據推測，發掘地點就是抹大拉的瑪利亞的家鄉。瑪利亞是耶穌最忠實的追隨者之一。除猶太教會堂外還挖出了一個古老的市場和若干漁民宿舍。
專家們認為，當耶穌在加利利的時候，他很有可能在這座猶太教會堂布過道。在一個側室里找到了一個公元29年鑄造的當地硬幣，公元29年是耶穌在世的時候。
但是在一些學者看來，抹大拉石頭是真正的大開眼界。
「我走近石頭，我簡直不敢相信我的眼睛，」麗娜·塔甘，耶路撒冷希伯來大學專門研究古代中東藝術的教授說。以色列文物局考古人員讓她到現場去觀看抹大拉的鑲嵌畫和壁畫，但是她第一眼就看了石頭，「他們說我在那裡站了三個小時。」
塔甘女士說，那三個小時她一直在看希律王聖殿的三維圖像，其中包括最神聖的密室，被稱為至聖所。
從那以後她花了幾年時間破譯和解讀石頭上的裝飾性符號和研究這個發現的可能含義。
專家們一直認為，在希律王聖殿於公元70年被毀之前的時期，猶太教會堂是聚會和學習的地方，就像今天的鄰里社區中心一樣。猶太教會堂用作執行宗教儀式的正式神聖場所的概念出現較晚，是在聖殿被毀後，在猶太人大流散的時期發展起來的。
但抹大拉石被發現位於一座老猶太教會堂的中心，塔甘女士說，這可能是為了給這地方一個神聖的光環，使它「像個小聖殿」，這是在希律王聖殿仍然存在的時候。
其他學者也得出了同樣的觀點。埃查南·萊納，特拉維夫大學的猶太史退休教授說，此石可能標示着上帝或聖靈居住的地方。它在猶太教會堂的中心位置「給這幢公共建築賦予了新的含義。」
對於當時生活在加利利地區的猶太人來說，耶路撒冷相當遠。萊納先生指出，雖然聖殿只有一個，但是此石給抹大拉的猶太教會堂帶來聖殿的意蘊。「它使這裡的人們更貼近耶路撒冷，同時也使得耶路撒冷進一步向外延伸。」他說。
專家說，石頭的一個側面有不同尋常的石刻圖案：七支的連燈燭台。聖經中記載那樣的燭台只有聖殿里才有。幾百年之後，這燭台逐漸變成猶太人希望救贖的象徵，以色列博物館負責古希臘羅馬和拜占庭考古的高級館員大衛·米沃拉說。
猶太人的光明節是從星期日夜晚開始持續八天的節日，此時他們點燃九支的連燈燭台以紀念第二聖殿奉獻使用，這是在公元前165年對敘利亞-希臘塞琉古帝國的成功的起義後。
但是，在公元1世紀的抹大拉並不需要救贖的象徵，米沃拉先生說。「聖殿在那裡，」他說。「一切都正常。那麼，為什麼會這裡會有聖殿的象徵？這引起了人們對猶太教會堂當時的角色的疑問。」
抹大拉石的尺寸正好適合擺放猶太律法紙卷，所以它可能是作禮拜的用具，塔甘女士說。此石發現之後，類似的石頭在霍瓦特·庫爾的猶太教會堂出土，此處從拜占庭時期起就是猶太教會堂，那塊石頭也裝飾着代表聖殿的簡化符號。
現在耶路撒冷局勢緊張，原來建有聖殿的地方，猶太人尊為聖殿山，穆斯林也把那裡當作神聖禁地。可是抹大拉考古發掘卻強調了宗教和諧。這裡的土地屬於一個羅馬天主教宗教團體：基督聖母軍。主持發掘並且發現了抹大拉石的是考古學家迪娜·阿沙龍-戈爾尼，一個以色列猶太人，和阿凡•納加爾，一個穆斯林。
即便如此，還是擔心狂熱分子。在抹大拉公開展出的抹大拉石頭，是一個高仿副本；原件鎖在貝特謝梅什以色列文物管理局的倉庫里。
據塔甘女士判斷，從石頭上還看出聖殿的更多意象。神器按它們出現的順序排列。連燈燭台下面的一個方形物可能代表了祭壇，兩邊都有大的盛油和水的容器。石刻的台階，拱門和柱子表現了聖殿的建築。
這位教授認為，在石頭頂上的12葉蓮座可能是重複把聖殿的主聖所與至聖所分開的紗帷的基本圖案。
塔甘女士認為石頭側面代表了內部密室，雕刻顯示一部戰車的下部，車輪下火光閃爍——可能這是上帝在地上的聖殿里的座位。上半部分，或上帝本人，她說，本來是在天堂。
塔甘女士說，公元1世紀是猶太教內部爭論不休的一個時期，這個因素在解釋石刻時必須考慮進去。
考古學家也沒有少爭吵。對於她的解釋「將會有爭論」，塔甘女士說。「但是這不奇怪，本應如此。」
翻譯：張天潤
這是讀者出於交流學習目的發來的譯稿，在譯文體例、風格等方面，可能有別於中文網翻譯製作的內容。
BEIT SHEMESH, Israel — The carved stone block is about the size of an occasional table. It has held its secrets for two millenniums. Whoever engraved its enigmatic symbols was apparently depicting the ancient Jewish temples.
But what makes the stone such a rare find in biblical archaeology, according to scholars, is that when it was carved, the Second Temple still stood in Jerusalem for the carver to see. The stone is a kind of ancient snapshot.And it is upending some long-held scholarly assumptions about ancient synagogues and their relationship with the Temple, a center of Jewish pilgrimage and considered the holiest place of worship for Jews, during a crucial period, when Judaism was on the cusp of the Christian era.
Known as the Magdala Stone, the block was unearthed in 2009 near the Sea of Galilee in northern Israel, where a resort and center for Christian pilgrims was going to be built. Government archaeologists are routinely called in to check for anything old and important that might be destroyed by a project, and in this case they discovered the well-preserved ruins of a first-century synagogue and began excavating.
The site turned out to be
the presumed hometown of Mary Magdalene, one of Jesus’s most faithful followers. The dig also revealed an ancient marketplace and fishermen’s quarters along with the synagogue.
Experts have raised the tantalizing possibility that Jesus may have taught in the synagogue when he was in Galilee. A local coin found in a side room was minted in A.D. 29, when Jesus is thought to have been alive.
But for some scholars, the Magdala Stone was the real eye-opener.
“I approached the stone, and I could not believe what I was seeing,” said Rina Talgam, a Hebrew University of Jerusalem professor specializing in ancient art of the Middle East. Israel Antiquities Authority archaeologists had asked her to visit the site to view Magdala’s mosaics and frescoes, but when she first saw the stone, “they said I stood there for three hours.”
Ms. Talgam concluded that she was looking at a three-dimensional depiction of the Temple of Herod, including its most sacred inner sanctum, known as the Holy of Holies.
She has since spent years deciphering and interpreting the symbols that adorn the stone and researching the possible implications of the discovery.
Experts have long believed that in the period before Herod’s Temple was destroyed in A.D. 70, synagogues were used as a general place of assembly and learning, something like a neighborhood community center. The more formal conception of a synagogue as a sacred space reserved for religious ritual was thought to have developed later, in the Jewish diaspora after the Temple had been destroyed.
But the Magdala Stone was found in the center of the old synagogue, and Ms. Talgam said it might have been intended to give the space an aura of holiness “like a lesser temple” even while Herod’s Temple still existed.
Other scholars have come to the same view. Elchanan Reiner, a retired professor of Jewish history at Tel Aviv University, said that the stone was probably intended to represent the place where God, or the holy spirit of God, was believed to reside and that its placement in the middle of the synagogue “gives new meaning to that public building.”
For Jews living in Galilee in those days, Jerusalem was a substantial journey away. Mr. Reiner noted that, though there could be only one Temple, the stone would have brought a suggestion of it to the synagogue in Magdala. “It brings that community closer to, and further from, Jerusalem at the same time,” he said.
One side of the stone has what experts say is an unusual feature for the time: a carving of a seven-branch menorah. A candelabra of that kind is described in the Bible and is believed to have stood in the Temple, and it emerged as a Jewish symbol of hope for redemption centuries later, according to David Mevorah, senior curator for Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine archaeology at the Israel Museum.
During the annual eight-day festival of Hanukkah, which began on Sunday evening, Jews light a nine-branch menorah to commemorate the rededication of the Second Temple after a successful revolt against the Syrian-Greek Seleucid empire in 165 B.C.
But there would have been no need for a symbol of redemption in first-century Magdala, Mr. Mevorah said. “The Temple exists,” he said. “Everything is functioning. So why would there be a symbol of the Temple here? It raises questions about the role of the synagogue at that time.”
The Magdala Stone is about the right size for laying down a Torah scroll, so it might have been used as liturgical furniture, Ms. Talgam said. After it was found, a similar stone was unearthed in a synagogue from the Byzantine period in nearby Horvat Kur, and that, too, was decorated with what appear to be schematic depictions of Temple iconography.
In contrast to
the current tensions over the contested site in Jerusalem that is revered by Jews as the Temple Mount, where the ancient temples once stood, and by Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary, the Magdala project has emphasized religious harmony. The land belongs to a Roman Catholic religious order, the Legionaries of Christ, and the archaeologists who are managing the dig and who found the stone are Dina Avshalom-Gorni, an Israeli Jew, and Arfan Najar, a Muslim.
Even so, there is some fear of zealotry. The stone on public display at Magdala now is a close replica; the original is locked up in the Israel Antiquities Authority’s storage warehouse in Beit Shemesh.
According to Ms. Talgam’s interpretation, there are more signs of the Temple to be seen on the stone. Sacred utensils are depicted in the order in which they would have appeared. A square shape below the menorah may represent the sacrificial altar, with large oil and water containers shown on either side. Engraved steps, arches and columns refer to the architecture of the Temple.
The professor suggested that the 12-leaf rosette on top of the stone might have echoed a motif on the veil that divided the Temple’s main sanctuary from the Holy of Holies.
On the side of the stone that Ms. Talgam believes represents the inner sanctum, the carvings suggest the lower portion of a chariot, with flashes of fire beneath its wheels — possibly illustrating the seat of God residing in the earthly Temple. The upper half, or God himself, she said, would have been in heaven.
Ms. Talgam said the first century was a period of debates within Judaism, a factor she said must be considered in interpreting the stone.
Archaeologists can be no less quarrelsome. “There will be disputes” of her interpretation of the stone, Ms. Talgam said. “But that is the way it should be.”
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