הקבורה המשפחתית והחוץ-משפחתית בירושלים ובסביבתה בתקופה בית הורדוס

An examination of the names inscribed on ossuaries in Herodianic Jerusalem (37 BCE-70 CE) demonstrates that many Jews were buried in familial caves. However, a considerable number of the inscribed names and burial caves cannot attest to this practice, since they contain only the deceased's private name without familial information. Nonetheless, this fact still cannot rule out the common premise that most of the inhabitants of Jerusalem were buried in familial caves. Moreover, there are archaeological and historical considerations which support this view, such as the use and structure of regular burial caves which contain small niches (kokhim), as well as the importance of family relations in Jewish society. However, Jewish society in Jerusalem and its environs consisted of a considerable population that did not use familial burial: immigrants (some of them proselytes) and members of sects, such as those in Qumran. According to the epigraphic evidence, in at least three Jerusalem burial caves there are concentrations of Diaspora Jews and proselytes. They were probably buried together since they had almost no relatives in the city. Thus, they found an alternative reference group-other Jews who suffered from the same problem. The sectarians, on the other hand, chose to withdraw from their families and to be buried in the sphere of the sect. Indeed, the tension between the sect and the family (of the sectarian member) is testified to in the cases of Jesus' movement and Qumran. Jesus cynically criticized familial bone-gathering, and the Qumran sectarians were buried in individual shaft burials. It is also possible that members of pharisaic havurot were buried in the sphere of the havurah and not by their relatives. Hence, burial practice may reveal the social organization of immigrants from the Diaspora, proselytes, and members of sectarian movements and voluntary associations.