DISCUSSION

Phoenicia and Galilee

The main problem with this section is that it is in a very fragmentary state. How much of Phoenicia was to be represented in the map? Did the map really extend so far as to comprise all of Syria and Asia Minor as somebody had claimed? What the shape of the building containing the map?
On the placement of the mosaic inside the church see the contribution by M. Piccirillo extracted from The Mosaic of Jordan, Amman 1993."The church of the Map", by M. Piccirillo.

1. Sarephtha (Sarafand)

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A city-state located near the tip of a promontory along the Lebanese Mediterranean seacoast about 14 miles (ca. 22.5 km) N of Tyre and 8 miles (ca. 13 km) S of Sidon. Since Zarephath was located on the coastal road in Phoenicia, it encountered many passing armies and therefore is occasionally mentioned in ancient records, but it never became an important city. An inscription unearthed near the site of Zarepath indicates that its name may have been preserved in the modern village of Sarafand, situated in the hills immediately SE of the rather inconspicuous tell. A 13th century B.C. Egyptian papyrus lists Zarephath as the site of a Phoenician harbor (ANET, 477).
At the time of Zarephath's peaceful surrender to Sennacherib in 701 B.C., he described it as a walled city of Sidon named at that date "Zaribtu" (ANET, 287). The city was transferred to Tyre's control in the time of Esarhaddon (ca. 680–669 B.C.). Located about 50 miles (80 km) N of Mount Carmel, Zarephath is mentioned in the Bible as the town where the prophet Elijah went during a severe famine in Palestine and was entertained by a poor widow. The prophet miraculously provided her with a constant supply of oil and later raised her dead son as a reward for her unselfish hospitality (1 Kgs 17:8–24; Luke 4:26). The prophet Obadiah envisioned Zarephath as the N boundary of restored Israel (Obad 20).
Recent archeological excavations undertaken by J. B. Pritchard since 1969 have unearthed information showing Zarephath to be a sizable commercial city during both the Phoenician and Roman occupations. They showed the site to have been inhabited during the latter part of the 2d millennium and through most of the 1st millennium B.C. More than 20 pottery kilns were uncovered, showing that the city probably was a center for manufacturing pottery. The city possessed industrial, religious, and residential quarters. The main business was the production of textiles and ceramics. Exports included grain, oil, wine, and a red-purple dye extracted from local shellfish from which both Zarephath and Phoenicia ("red-purple") derive their names. Of the old city, considerable indications remain to this day. A large, technically sophisticated Roman port was found dating from the 1st to 6th centuries A.D. A shrine of the goddess Tanit was discovered overlooking the Roman port, and scholars have associated the shrine with pagan religious ceremonies calling for the sacrifice of children, a practice strongly condemned in the Hebrew Bible (Jer 7:31; 19:3–6; 2 Kgs 23:10). Pilgrims journeyed to Zarephath as early as the late 4th century A.D. A tower was constructed marking the site of the "upper chamber," in which the prophet Elijah was to have lived (1 Kgs 17:23).
Bibliography: Anderson, W. P. 1988. Sarepta I. Beirut;. Khalifeh, I. A. 1988. Sarepta II. Beirut; Koehl R. B. 1985. Sarepta III. Beirut; Pritchard, J. B. 1988. Sarepta IV. Beirut.

Ray L. Roth, The Anchor Bible Dictionary, ad v. "Zarephat"

Michael Avi-Yonah (The Madaba Mosaic Map, Jerusalem 1954, 77)
P. Germer-Durand published (in: Revue biblique, 1895, p. 588) another inscription allegedly found in the corridor of a private house at Madaba. Clermont-Ganneau (Quart. Stat. Pal. Explor. Fund, 1901, p. 214) has completed the inscription and recognized it as part of the Madaba map, actually the northernmost fragment found so far: SAREPHTHA WHICH IS THE LONG VILLAGE THERE THE CHILD HAS BEEN RESUSCITATED THAT DAY : The reference is to the miracle performed by Elijah at Zarephath according to I Kings 17, which is also referred to in St. Luke 4:26. The inclusion of Zarephath (modern Sarafand) brings the Madaba map right up to the vicinity of Sidon. The church of Elijah on the spot is mentioned by Theodosius 23 (ed. Geyer, p. 147); Antoninus (ed. Geyer, p. 160) also visited Sarephtha and saw there a "coenaculum Heliae".

Herbert Donner (The Mosaic Map of Madaba, Kampen 1992, 38-39)
This Fragment, however, has totally disappeared. Considering the extension of the mosaic map to the north and its position in the present church, fragment B with the blessing of Zabulon near the northern wall of the modern church and of the ancient basilica, it seems rather improbable that fragment C ever belonged to the Madaba map.

Editors' note: But this has to remain open, for there are strong reasons to assume it could nonetheless have belonged to it (see below the contribution by Patricia Bikai). At any rate, we might draw the conclusion that mosaics similar to the map existed elsewhere in Madaba.

Patricia M. Bikai ("The Region of Tyre and Sidon", in: The Madaba Map Centenary 1897-1997, Jerusalem 1999, 238)
For those pilgrims travelling from the north, as many did, Sarepta would have been the first site of a supposed Biblical event that they encountered. It is thus very likely that it would have been included on the Madaba Map. Was it? What all the literature calls Fragment C of the map was first reported by J. Germer-Durand in 1895 on the basis of copies provided by the Latin Patriachate. He described it as an "Inscription en mosaïque dans le pavage d'une habitation privée." We are not told where that "habitation" was. The piece itself has since disappeared and is now known only from what Germer-Durand said about it. The transcription he reported was correctly interpreted by C. Clermont-Ganneau, and there is little doubt that it is to be read as: "Sarepta, the large village where the child was raised to life that day." (See also the complete article)

Map Section 1

Place

Sources