Qualla: Joseph's Tomb https://qualla.com/joseph-s-tomb en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:30 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/s/v/9/p/joseph-s-tomb-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Joseph's Tomb https://qualla.com/joseph-s-tomb Joseph's Tomb: Introduction https://qualla.com/joseph-s-tomb/ Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. Mark Twain visited in the 1860s and found it "not very imposing." The small rectangular room with its cenotaph, rebuilt in 1868, sits at the eastern entrance to the valley separating Mounts Gerizim and Ebal, 300 meters northwest of Jacob's Well, on the outskirts of the West Bank city of Nablus. Whether the biblical patriarch Joseph is actually buried here is a question that scholars, pilgrims, and the various religious communities who venerate the site have answered differently for centuries. What is not in doubt is that this modest structure has become one of the most bitterly contested holy sites in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, attacked and rebuilt so many times that its physical form has become almost secondary to what it represents.

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Image: Unknown author | Public domain

]]> Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/v/9/p/joseph-s-tomb-wp/sv9p-josephs-tomb-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Joseph's Tomb: Whose Bones Lie Here? https://qualla.com/joseph-s-tomb/ Photo credit TrickyH, CC BY-SA 4.0. The site sits near Tell Balata, the location of ancient Shechem, and one biblical tradition identifies this general area as the resting place of the patriarch Joseph and his sons Ephraim and Manasseh. The Book of Joshua records that the bones of Joseph, brought from Egypt during ...

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Image: TrickyH | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/v/9/p/joseph-s-tomb-wp/sv9p-josephs-tomb-whose-bones-lie-here.mp3 0:06 2 full Joseph's Tomb: A Survey of What Remains https://qualla.com/joseph-s-tomb/ Photo credit Daniel Ventura, CC BY-SA 4.0. Claude R. Conder of the Royal Engineers provided the most detailed 19th-century survey of the site in his works Tent Work in Palestine (1878) and Survey of Western Palestine (1881). He found an open courtyard measuring about 18 feet square, with plastered whitewashed walls roughl...

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Image: Daniel Ventura | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/v/9/p/joseph-s-tomb-wp/sv9p-josephs-tomb-a-survey-of-what-remains.mp3 0:06 3 full Joseph's Tomb: A Microcosm of Conflict https://qualla.com/joseph-s-tomb/ Photo credit Daniel Ventura, CC BY-SA 4.0. Under the Oslo Accords, Joseph's Tomb remained under Israeli military control even as the surrounding area was transferred to the Palestinian Authority. The site became a flashpoint. In October 2000, during the Second Intifada, Israeli-Druze Border Police corporal Madhat Yusuf wa...

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Image: Daniel Ventura | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/v/9/p/joseph-s-tomb-wp/sv9p-josephs-tomb-a-microcosm-of-conflict.mp3 0:06 4 full Joseph's Tomb: Night Pilgrimages and Armed Escorts https://qualla.com/joseph-s-tomb/ Photo credit Daniel Ventura, CC BY-SA 4.0. After the 2000 withdrawal, groups of Breslov Hasidim and other religious Jews began clandestine nighttime visits, evading army and police checkpoints to pray at the site. The IDF eventually began facilitating monthly escorted visits, typically arriving after midnight with militar...

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Image: Daniel Ventura | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/v/9/p/joseph-s-tomb-wp/sv9p-josephs-tomb-night-pilgrimages-and-armed-escorts.mp3 0:06 5 full Joseph's Tomb: What Persists https://qualla.com/joseph-s-tomb/ Photo credit Daniel Ventura, CC BY-SA 4.0. The tomb's physical modesty stands in stark contrast to its symbolic weight. It is a small room, rebuilt and whitewashed over and over, situated on the edge of a city of nearly 200,000 people. Nablus, the ancient Shechem, spreads through the valley below Mounts Gerizim and Ebal. ...

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Image: Daniel Ventura | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/v/9/p/joseph-s-tomb-wp/sv9p-josephs-tomb-what-persists.mp3 0:06 6 full