More on the Reina stone-vessel workshop

ARCHAEOLOGY: Ancient Stone Workshop Sheds New Light on Roman-era Galilee Jews' Faith. Turns out Galilee Jews were as devout as their Judean counterparts ■ Chalk cave could be source of stone jars whose water Jesus turned into wine at nearby Kafr Kana. (Ruth Schuster, Haaretz).

Much of this article recaps earlier reports on the story, sometimes with additional details. I do not post it because of any speculative connection between this workshop and the stone vessels in the water-into-wine story. I would not get too excited about that. But the article does have a worthwhile discussion of the importance of stone vessels for ritual purity in Second Temple Judaism.

Stone is heavy, chalkstone is absorbent and it’s no walk in the park to clean. This adoption of this considerable inconvenience was apparently based on evolving thought about purity, originating with a curious omission in the Bible’s Book of Leviticus, explains Yonatan Adler of Ariel University, director of the excavations for the IAA.

Read on.

Background here.

Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.