Preface to Volume 2

No literary work takes places without a context. The three decades that span 1980–2010 wit- nessed three series of publications that provide the backdrop for this two-volume project. These publications took place in the fields of New Testament studies, Jewish studies, and Gali- lean studies. The first of these developments was the ongoing quest of the historical Jesus. The current quest has manifested itself in three movements: the Jesus Seminar, the Context Group, and the Third Quest. Although they operate under different assumptions and use different methodolo- gies, participants in these three groups have one thing in common. Few of them—there are exceptions—betray any knowledge of the archaeology of Galilee. We offer the current volume to the Jesus quest as a collection of data that scholars can easily access and use in their research. The second development was the advances in the study of early Judaism that occurred during these decades. First, a new collection of Pseudepigrapha was offered in the mid-1980s. Second, all of the remaining Qumran Scrolls were released in the early 1990s. Third, the trans- lations of much of the rabbinic literature by Jacob Neusner and his students and colleagues, published intermittently during these three decades, have made the monumental Jewish materials much more available to the English-speaking general public. Although these publication events have allowed greater access to the Jewish literature and have sparked renewed interest in Jewish Studies, the material culture of Jewish sites has remained largely unknown. The third development that has led to this project is the rise of the Galileans, both the historians and the archaeologists. Beginning with Seán Freyne (to whom volume 1 is dedicated in memoriam) several historians have scoured the literature—mostly Josephus—for information about Roman Galilee. In a few instances, these historians also benefited from some of the new archaeological finds and insights that were available at that time. But archaeological work continues in the Galilee, and new data must undergird these excellent works of history. Finally, we have seen more archaeological interest in Galilee in those three decades. First in Upper Galilee and now in Lower Galilee, excavators have collected the material realia and, where they could do so, have attempted to connect them to and relate them to the literature. This information, scattered in essays, dig reports, and even in excavators’ notes, needs to be gathered together for convenient reference. We offer the present volume to provide this service. Because of these three developments, the editors began in 2010 to contemplate the present project. The project started in earnest in 2012, and the first submissions began to arrive in the fall of 2013. With the publication of this second volume, the project is now complete.

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The reader will permit the editors a few words about this volume’s importance. First, whenever we could, we asked original excavators to produce chapters on sites they dug. When that was impossible for various reasons, we enlisted knowledgeable and thorough scholars to do the task. Second, several chapters compile, for the first time and in a comprehensive way, data from various digs and surveys by many groups over a number of decades. Third, some chapters present information that precedes and anticipates arguments and evidence that will appear in the directors’ final publications. The chapter on Sepphoris is simply a treasure. In addition to the two indexes at the end, we have supplemented this volume with a glossary of technical terms that appear in the chapters. The bibliographies that appear at the end of the chapters remain a gold mine. The editors thank Scott Tunseth and Marissa Wold Uhrina of Fortress Press for their patient responses to our concerns and their excellent work in the production of these two volumes. We again thank our spouses, Molly Fiensy and Laura Strange, for their support in the laborious work of overseeing the project. Finally, and not at all insignificantly, we honor the thousands of volunteers over the years who have dug at various sites in Galilee. They come in almost all ages and from many occupations to sink their trowels into Galilean soil. They do it for the fun of it, out of interest in Galilean history, and just to make a contribution, but it is they who recover and record the data. The excavations could not happen without them.

David Fiensy James Riley Strange Grayson, Kentucky Birmingham, Alabama

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David A. Fiensy and James Riley Strange

Galilee has fascinated historians for the last 150 years. Ernest Renan, the nineteenth-century biographer of Jesus, thought that ancient Galilee must have been a paradise. He referred to the area around Nazareth as “This enchanted circle.” Galilee was “charming and idyllic” and was characterized by green, shade, beautiful flowers, and small, gentle animals. “In no country in the world do the mountains spread themselves out with more harmony.” Galilee, he thought, “spiritualised itself in ethereal dreams—in a kind of poetic mysticism, blending heaven and earth.”1 It was here in Renan’s dreamlike never-never land that he pictured Jesus’ youth. What we need is a more sober appraisal of ancient Galilee. The research in the last thirty years has sought to do that, but, nevertheless, the current study of Galilee is fraught with con- flicting conclusions. If the Sermon on the Mount is known for its six antitheses (Matt. 5:21- 48), scholars may look back on this period of research as the antitheses of Galilee: (1) Some look at Galilee through the lenses of cultural anthropology and macro-sociology;2 others look at Galilee through the lenses of archaeology and reject the use of social theories.3 (2) Some

1. Ernest Renan, The Life of Jesus (London: Trübner, 1867), 51, 74–76. 2. See the analyses of Richard A. Horsley, “The Historical Jesus and Archaeology of the Galilee: Ques- tions from Historical Jesus Research to Archaeologists,” SBL 1994 Seminar Papers (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1994), 91–135; Douglas E.. Oakman, “The Archaeology of First-Century Galilee and the Social Interpretation of the Historical Jesus,” in ibid., 220–51; and Seán V. Freyne, “Archaeology and the Historical Jesus,” in Archaeology and Biblical Interpretation (ed. John R. Bartlett; London: Routledge, 1997), 129. 3. J. Andrew Overman, “Jesus of Galilee and the Historical Peasant,” in Archaeology and the Galilee: Texts and Contexts in the Graeco-Roman and Byzantine Periods (ed. Douglas R. Edwards and C. Thomas McCollough; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1997), 67–73; and, in the same volume, Dennis E. Groh, “The Clash between Literary and Archaeological Models of Provincial Palestine,” 29–37.

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maintain that the relations between rural villages and the cities were hostile;4 others propose that the relationship was one of economic reciprocity and good-will.5 (3) Some suggest that Galilee was typical of other agrarian societies, with poor peasants who lived in the rural areas and exploitative wealthy people who lived mostly in the cities;6 others respond that life was pretty good for everyone in Galilee and that it was an egalitarian society.7 (4) Some regard Gali- lee as so hellenized (Greek-like) that there were Cynic philosophers running around;8 others retort that Galilee was thoroughly Jewish.9 (5) Some think Sepphoris, one of the cities of Lower Galilee, was rather large for an ancient city (up to 30,000 persons); others think it was a small “city” (around 7,500).10 (6) Some think that the theater ruins in Sepphoris of Galilee (only

4. Oakman, “Archaeology of First-Century Galilee”; Richard A. Horsley, Archaeology, History, and Society in Galilee: The Social Context of Jesus and the Rabbis (Valley Forge, Pa.: Trinity Press International, 1996), 70–83; Gerhard E. Lenski, Power and Privilege: A Theory of Social Stratification (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1966), 206. 5. See David Adan-Bayewitz, Common Pottery in Roman Galilee: A Stury of Local Trade (Bar-Ilan Studies in Near Eastern Languages and Culture; Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 1993), 23–41, 216–36; Adan- Bayewitz, “Kefar Hananya, 1986,” IEJ 37 (1987): 178–79; Adan-Bayewitz and Isadore Perlman, “The Local Trade of Sepphoris in the Roman Period,” IEJ 40 (1990): 153–72; James F. Strange, “First Century Galilee from Archaeol- ogy and from the Texts,” in Edwards and McCollough, Archaeology and the Galilee, 41; Douglas R. Edwards, “First- Century Urban/Rural Relations in Lower Galilee: Exploring the Archaeological and Literary Evidence,” in SBL 1988 Seminar Papers (ed. David J. Lull; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1997), 169–82; Edwards, “The Socio-Economic and Cultural Ethos of the Lower Galilee in the First Century: Implications for the Nascent Jesus Movement,” in The Galilee in Late Antiquity (ed. Lee I. Levine; New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1992), 53–73; Eric M. Meyers, “Jesus and His Galilean Context,” in Edwards and McCollough, Archaeology and the Galilee, 57–66. 6. John Dominic Crossan and Jonathan L. Reed, Excavating Jesus: Beneath the Stones, Behind the Texts (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2001), 70; Richard A. Horsley, “Jesus and Galilee: The Contingencies of a Renewal Movement,” in Galilee through the Centuries: Confluence of Cultures (ed. Eric M. Meyers; Duke Judaic Studies Series 1; Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1999), 65. 7. Groh, “Clash between Literary and Archaeological Models,” 29–37. 8. Howard Clark Kee, “Early Christianity in the Galilee: Reassessing the Evidence from the Gospels,” in Levine, Galilee in Late Antiquity, 3–22, esp. 15; Robert W. Funk, Honest to Jesus: Jesus for a New Millennium (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1996), 58; Burton L. Mack, A Myth of Innocence: Mark and Christian Origins (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1988), 64, 66. 9. See Jonathan L. Reed, Archaeology and the Galilean Jesus: A Re-Examination of the Evidence (Harrisburg, Pa.: Trinity Press International, 2000), 49–51; Mark A. Chancey and Eric M. Meyers, “How Jewish Was Sepphoris in Jesus’ Time?” BAR 26, no. 4 (2000): 18–41, 61; Eric M. Meyers, “Jesus and His World: Sepphoris and the Quest for the Historical Jesus,” in Saxa loquentur: Studien zur Archäologie Palästinas/Israels: Festschrift für Volkmar Fritz zum 65. Geburtstag (ed. Cornelis G. den Hertog; Ulrich Hübner, and Stefan Münger; AOAT 302; Münster: Ugarit, 2003), 191–95; Mark A. Chancey, The Myth of a Gentile Galilee (SNTSMS 118; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 79–90. 10. Compare the figures in Reed,Archaeology and the Galilean Jesus, 117. Meyers suggests 18,000 for Sep- phoris and 24,000 for Tiberias (“Jesus and His Galilean Context,” 59). J. Andrew Overman offered 30,000 to 40,000 for Tiberias and 30,000 for Sepphoris (“Who Were the First Urban Christians?” in SBL Seminar 1988 Seminar Papers, 160–68); Horsley maintained that both cities together had a population of 15,000 (Archaeology, History, and Society in Galilee, 45).

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five kilometers or four miles from Nazareth) indicate that Jesus could have attended theatrical performances; others maintain that the theater was not constructed until after Jesus’ time.11 These contradictory viewpoints have made it a cliché that the quest for the historical Jesus is at the same time a quest for the historical Galilee.12 The geographical and cultural location of Jesus’ youth, it is surmised, may help us understand his later message and/or his pattern of ministry. Certainly scholars of the past have thought as much; the current group seems to have the same opinion.13 Today Galilee studies are having an influence on several areas of New Testament studies. In addition to the study of the historical Jesus, mentioned above, many today see Galilee as the context for the composition of the sayings source commonly called Q.14 Others add that the Gospel of Mark was also composed in Galilee.15 Research in the New Testament Gospels mandates that we have an up-to-date assessment of ancient Galilee. Students of ancient Judaism also have an interest in Galilee. As archaeological surveys are demonstrating, Judeans began to immigrate into Galilee during the Hasmonean period (early first century bce) and, consequently, Galilee became a very Jewish territory.16 When the great Jewish War erupted in 66 ce, Galilee was the focal point. It was there that the Roman army first attacked, defeating Josephus’s army and laying waste to several cities (J.W. 2.566–3.203). After the war, Judaism eventually reorganized there. The Sanhedrin moved at first to Yavneh (Jamnia) on the coast, then to Usha, to Beth She‘arim, to Sepphoris, and finally to Tiberias (all in Galilee).17 It was in Galilee, in Sepphoris, that Rabbi Yehudah ha-Nasi lived and redacted

11. For a date in the early first century (thus the time of Antipas and Jesus), see James F. Strange, “Six Campaigns at Sepphoris,” in Levine, Galilee in Late Antiquity, 342; and Richard A. Batey, Jesus and the Forgotten City: New Light on Sepphoris and the Urban World of Jesus (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1991), 83–103. For a date of late first century or early second century for the theater, see Zeev Weiss and Ehud Netzer, “Hellenistic and Roman Sep- phoris: The Archaeological Evidence,” inSepphoris in Galilee: Crosscurrents of Culture (ed. Rebecca Martin Nagy, Carol L. Meyers, Eric M. Meyers, and Zeev Weiss; Raleigh: North Carolina Museum of Art, 1996; distributed by Eisenbrauns, Winona Lake, Ind.), 32; Carol L. Meyers and Eric M. Meyers, “Sepphoris,” OEANE 4:533; and Mey- ers, “Jesus and His World,” 188–90. 12. Seán Freyne, “The Geography, Politics, and Economics of Galilee and the Quest for the Historical Jesus,” in Studying the Historical Jesus: Evaluations of the State of Current Research (ed. Bruce Chilton and Craig A. Evans; NTTS 19; Leiden: Brill, 1994), 76; and Halvor Moxnes, “Construction of Galilee,” BTB 31 (2001): 26–37, 64–77. 13. See the surveys in Moxnes, “Construction of Galilee”; and Mark Rapinchuk, “The Galilee and Jesus in Recent Research,” Currents in Biblical Research 2 (2004): 197–222. 14. Reed, Archaeology and the Galilean Jesus, 170–96; John Kloppenborg Verbin, Excavating Q: The History and Setting of the Sayings Gospel (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000), 170–75, 214–61. 15. Joel Marcus, “The Jewish War and the Sitz im Leben of Mark,” JBL 111 (1992): 441–62; Werner H. Kelber, Mark’s Story of Jesus (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1979), 13. 16. See the chapters by Jensen and Chancey in volume 1 of Galilee. 17. See b. Roš Haš. 31b and E. Mary Smallwood, The Jews under Roman Rule: From Pompey to Diocletian. A Study in Political Relations (SJLA 20; Leiden: Brill, 1976), 474.

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the Mishnah.18 Several other important rabbis also lived in Galilee.19 Galilee, therefore, has played an important role in both the formation of early Christianity and the reformulation of the Judaism that arose after the destruction of the temple to become the ancestor of the Juda- isms we know today. The Galilee at the time of Jesus and the Mishnah has received intense scrutiny in the past thirty years. Scholars have combed through the texts (especially Josephus) and the material remains to form an increasingly complete and complex picture. Archaeologists have reopened sites already dug and have sunk their spades into previously unexcavated sites. During this time, several useful collections of articles have appeared.20 These collections are certainly full of very helpful information, and they have expanded the knowledge of the region during our period of interest. The authors of the present volume owe a great debt to these previous contri- butions to the field, yet some of the conclusions and hypotheses may now need reevaluation, and the information can certainly always be updated. What we propose in these two volumes is to offer the general reader a somewhat full report of the status of Galilean studies. These two volumes consolidate a great deal of information that has been brought to light in various journals, field reports, and essays over the past thirty years. Our goal has been to make this information easily accessible to New Testament scholars and Mishnah scholars not familiar with these materials, and also usable to the average intelligent reader. The volumes will integrate the various excavations (for example, the three excavations at Sepphoris) and will also integrate the archaeological and textual data where possible. We have sought to hear all voices: archaeologists, historians, biblical scholars, and social-science interpreters; Christians, Jews, and secular scholars; North Americans, Euro- peans, and Israelis; those who have devoted a significant amount of time and energy to this research (especially those who have excavated in Galilee for many years), a few newcomers, and even “outsiders” who offer a new look at the data. As noted above, there is—and this is hardly surprising—no unanimity with respect to several issues. It has not been the editors’ goal to harmonize opinions or reduce disagreements. We present them as they exist and let the reader make decisions. Volume 1 has collected chapters on the life and culture of ancient Galilee. After surveys of the modern study of Galilee and of Galilean history, there are specialized studies on ethnicity, on religious practices of Galilee (including synagogues), on notable personalities, and on important social movements. Village life is featured in one essay on the village, followed by one

18. Smallwood, Jews under Roman Rule, 499. See the chapter by Caulley vol. 1 of Galilee. 19. For example, Rabbi H|anina lived in Sepphoris (y. Ta‘an. 3:4; y. Pe’ah 7:1). See also Shaye J. D. Cohen, “The Place of the Rabbi in Jewish Society,” in Levine, Galilee in late Antiquity, 157–73. 20. See Levine, Galilee in late Antiquity ; Nagy et al., Sepphoris in Galilee ; Edwards and McCollough, Archae- ology and the Galilee ; Eric M. Meyers, Galilee through the Centuries; and Jürgen Zangenberg, Harold W. Attridge, and Dale B. Martin, eds., Religion, Ethnicity, and Identity in Ancient Galilee: A Region in Transition (WUNT 210; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007).

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on household Judaism, and then one on the village houses. This section of the volume ends with essays on education and diseases and health. There follow offerings on the road system, trade and markets, the urban–rural divide, and the economic life of the village. In relation to these latter is the chapter—consisting of two companion essays—that forms a debate on the standard of living of the average villager during our time period. Were they destitute, living modestly, or prosperous? A chapter on taxation rounds out part four of volume 1. Volume 2 collects reports on all the archaeological excavations of Galilee at which significant remains from our period of time have been found. Among the sites we discuss, some have seen significant excavation (Capernaum, Sepphoris); in some the excavators focused on synagogues (Meiron, Khirbet Shema‘, Gischala/Gush H|alav); others have seen limited excavation either because of modern construction (Nazareth, Tiberias) or because the dig began recently (Shikhin). Those sites with remains only before or after our time period (100 bce–200 ce) find no discussion here.21 Also, generally speaking, those sites only surveyed but not excavated will not be covered, even though there may be strong evidence of occupation during our time period. The editors thought it important to include chapters on both cities (such as Sepphoris and Tiberias) and villages, because it is the social, economic, religious, and cultural interactions between village and city that provide the basis for so much of the discussion in volume 1. In both volumes, the reader has the opportunity to watch both textual scholars and archaeologists attempt to make sense of the ancient texts that talk about, and the material culture used and left by the inhabitants of, the Galilee. This is no light task, for it requires making inferences about human institutions and values. Those more ephemeral realities do leave their imprints in material culture and texts, but usually in an oblique way, and scholars are forced to interpret. That observation provides one of the most valuable offerings of these two volumes: the chance to see how scholars make arguments, while assessing the arguments of others. In this way we take our readers seriously as conversation partners, for we offer up the strengths and weaknesses of our conclusions for their assessment as well. The other value of the volumes is to be found in the bibliographies at the end of each chapter: they are gold mines for people who want to do further reading on their own. The editors invite readers into the ongoing conversations captured, in part, in these volumes. If you have read this far, it is clear that you are interested in the subject. It is our hope that the curious will find some answers here, and that others will learn how important the questions are. After all, we are looking at the birth of two of the world’s great religions: Chris- tianity and the Judaism of the Sages of Blessed Memory.

21. Therefore, towns and villages such as Philoteria, Horvat Kur, Bethlehem of Galilee, Kefar Reina, Chora- zin, and Gabara will not be treated in vol. 2.

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Bibliography

Adan-Bayewitz, David. Common Pottery in Roman Galilee: A Study of Local Trade. Bar-Ilan Studies in Near Eastern Languages and Culture. Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 1993. ———. “Kefar Hananya, 1986.” IEJ 37 (1987): 178–79. Adan-Bayewitz, David, and Isadore Perlman. “The Local Trade of Sepphoris in the Roman Period.” IEJ 40 (1990): 153–72. Batey, Richard A. Jesus and the Forgotten City: New Light on Sepphoris and the Urban World of Jesus. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1991. Chancey, Mark A. The Myth of a Gentile Galilee. SNTSMS 118. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Chancey, Mark A., and Eric M. Meyers. “How Jewish Was Sepphoris in Jesus’ Time?” BAR 26, no. 4 (2000): 18–41, 61. Cohen, Shaye J. D. “The Place of the Rabbi in Jewish Society.” In The Galilee in Late Antiquity, edited by Lee I. Levine, 157–73. New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1992. Crossan, John Dominic, and Jonathan L. Reed. Excavating Jesus: Beneath the Stones, Behind the Texts. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2001. Edwards, Douglas R. “First Century Urban/Rural Relations in Lower Galilee: Exploring the Archaeological and Literary Evidence.” SBL 1988 Seminar Papers, edited by David J. Lull, 169–82. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1988. ———. “The Socio-Economic and Cultural Ethos of the Lower Galilee in the First Century: Implications for the Nascent Jesus Movement.” In The Galilee in Late Antiquity, edited by Lee I. Levine, 53–91. New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1992. Edwards, Douglas R., and C. Thomas McCollough, eds. Archaeology and the Galilee: Texts and Contexts in the Graeco-Roman and Byzantine Periods. South Florida Studies in the History of Judaism 143. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1997. Freyne, Seán. “Archaeology and the Historical Jesus.” In Archaeology and Biblical Interpretation, edited by John R. Bartlett, 117–44. London: Routledge, 1997. ———. “The Geography, Politics, and Economics in Galilee and the Quest for the Historical Jesus.” In Studying the Historical Jesus: Evaluations of the State of Current Research, edited by Bruce Chilton and Craig A. Evans, 75–122. NTTS 19. Leiden: Brill, 1994. Funk, Robert W. Honest to Jesus: Jesus for a New Millennium. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1996. Groh, Dennis E. “The Clash between Literary and Archaeological Models of Provincial Palestine.” In Archaeology and the Galilee: Texts and Contexts in the Graeco-Roman and Byzantine Periods, edited by Douglas R. Edwards and C. Thomas McCollough, 29–37. South Florida Studies in the History of Judaism 143. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1997.

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Horsley, Richard A. Archaeology, History, and Society in Galilee: The Social Context of Jesus and the Rabbis. Valley Forge, Pa.: Trinity Press International, 1996. ———. “The Historical Jesus and Archaeology of the Galilee: Questions from Historical Jesus Research to Archaeologists.” In SBL 1994 Seminar Papers, 91–135. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1994. ———. “Jesus and Galilee: The Contingencies of a Renewal Movement.” In Galilee through the Centuries: Confluence of Cultures, edited by Eric M. Meyers, 57–74. Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1999. Kee, Howard Clark. “Early Christianity in the Galilee: Reassessing the Evidence from the Gospels.” In The Galilee in Late Antiquity, edited by Lee I. Levine, 3–22. New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1992. Kelber, Werner H. Mark’s Story of Jesus. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1979. Kloppenborg Verbin, John. Excavating Q: The History and Setting of the Sayings Gospel. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000. Lenski, Gerhard E. Power and Privilege: A Theory of Social Stratification. New York: McGraw Hill, 1966. Levine, Lee I., ed. The Galilee in Late Antiquity. New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1992. Mack, Burton L. A Myth of Innocence: Mark and Christian Origins. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1988. Marcus, Joel. “The Jewish War and the Sitz im Leben of Mark.” JBL 111 (1992): 441–62. Meyers, Carol L., and Eric M. Meyers. “Sepphoris.” OEANE 4:533. Meyers, Eric M., ed. Galilee through the Centuries: Confluence of Cultures. Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1999. ———. “Jesus and His Galilean Context.” In Archaeology and the Galilee: Texts and Contexts in the Graeco-Roman and Byzantine Periods, edited by Douglas R. Edwards and C. Thomas McCollough, 57–66. South Florida Studies in the History of Judaism 143. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1997. ———. “Jesus and His World: Sepphoris and the Quest for the Historical Jesus.” In Saxa loquentur: Studien zur Archäologie Palästinas/Israels. Festschrift für Volkmar Fritz zum 65. Geburtstag, edited by Cornelis G. den Hertog, Ulrich Hübner, and Stefan Münger. AOAT 302. Münster: Ugarit, 2003. Moxnes, Halvor. “The Construction of Galilee as a Place for the Historical Jesus.” BTB 31 (2001): 26–37, 64–77. Nagy, Rebecca M., Carol L. Meyers, Eric M. Meyers, and Zeev Weiss, eds. Sepphoris in Galilee: Crosscurrents of Culture. Raleigh: North Carolina Museum of Art, 1996. Distributed by Eisenbrauns, Winona Lake, Ind. Oakman, Douglas E. “The Archaeology of First-Century Galilee and the Social Interpretation of the Historical Jesus.” In SBL 1994 Seminar Papers, 220–51. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1994.

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Overman, J. Andrew. “Jesus of Galilee and the Historical Peasant.” In Archaeology and the Galilee: Texts and Contexts in the Graeco-Roman and Byzantine Periods, edited by Douglas R. Edwards and C. Thomas McCollough, 67–73. South Florida Studies in the History of Judaism 143. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1997. ———. “Who Were the First Urban Christians?” In SBL 1988 Seminar Papers, 160–68. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1988. Rapinchuk, Mark. “The Galilee and Jesus in Recent Research.” CBR 2 (2004): 197–222. Reed, Jonathan L. Archaeology and the Galilean Jesus. Harrisburg, Pa.: Trinity Press International, 2000. Renan, Ernest. The Life of Jesus. London: Trübner, 1867. Smallwood, E. Mary. The Jews under Roman Rule: From Pompey to Diocletian. A Study in Political Relations. SJLA 20. Leiden: Brill, 1976. Strange, James F. “First Century Galilee from Archaeology and from the Texts.” In Archaeology and the Galilee: Texts and Contexts in the Graeco-Roman and Byzantine Periods, edited by Douglas R. Edwards and C. Thomas McCollough, 39–48. South Florida Studies in the History of Judaism 143. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1997. ———. “Six Campaigns at Sepphoris: The University of South Florida Excavations, 1983– 1989.” In The Galilee in Late Antiquity, edited by Lee I. Levine, 339–56. New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1992. Weiss, Zeev, and Ehud Netzer. “Hellenistic and Roman Sepphoris: The Archaeological Evidence.” In Sepphoris in Galilee: Crosscurrents of Culture, edited by Rebecca Martin Nagy, Carol L. Meyers, Eric M. Meyers, and Zeev Weiss, 29–37. Raleigh: North Carolina Museum of Art, 1996. Zangenberg, Jürgen, Harold W. Attridge, and Dale B. Martin, eds. Religion, Ethnicity, and Identity in Ancient Galilee: A Region in Transition. WUNT 210. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007.

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The Transformation from Galil Ha-Goyim to Jewish Galilee The Archaeological Testimony of an Ethnic Change

Mordechai Aviam*

While the letter was being read, other messengers arrived from Galilee with their garments torn, bearing similar news, “The people of Ptolemais,Tyre, and Sidon have joined forces with the whole of gentile Galilee to destroy us!” When Judas and the people heard this, they held a great assembly to decide what should be done for their oppressed countrymen who were under attack from their enemies. Judas said to his brother Simon, “Pick your men and go and relieve your countrymen in Gali- lee, while my brother Jonathan and I make our way into Gilead.” He left Joseph son of Zechariah and the people’s leader, Azariah, with the remainder of the army in Judea to keep guard and gave them these orders, “You are to be responsible for our people. Do not engage the gentiles until we return.” Simon was allotted three thousand men for the expedition into Galilee, Judas eight thousand for Gilead. Simon advanced into Galilee, engaged the gentiles in several battles and swept all before him; he pursued them to the gate of Ptolemais, and they lost about three thousand men, whose spoils he collected. With him, he took away the Jews of Galilee and Arbatta, with their wives and children and all their possessions, and brought them into Judea with great rejoicing. (1 Macc. 5:15-23)

This paragraph of debated historical value1 gives us a picture of the ethnic structure of Galilee in the mid-second century bce. Regardless of whether it accurately reports an event in which

* This article is dedicated to the blessed memory of my good and beloved friend Modi Brodetzki, who passed away while I was writing this chapter. Together we read and discussed Josephus’s writings and hiked the tracks of Galilee. 1. For a short discussion, see Uzi Leibner, Settlement and History in Hellenistic, Roman, and Byzantine Gali- lee: An Archaeological Survey of the Eastern Galilee (TSAJ 127; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009), 277–79. 9

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a Jewish force commanded by Simon the Maccabee marched from Jerusalem to the Galilee to rescue his “brothers” or is largely legendary, in my view it reflects an ethnic landscape of this period. After the conquest of the Galilee by the Assyrians and the massive deportation of its population, many Galilean towns and villages were completely abandoned. Even the very recent excavations in the Galilee continue to reveal destruction and abandonment layers in Iron Age II sites. One of the very few sites with continued occupation after the Assyrian conquest is Tel Dan, especially at the cultic site. There, beginning in the eighth and seventh centuries and continuing to the fourth century bce, the activity looks as if it was connected to the region of Phoenicia. Some figurines from Dan bear some similarities to those found at the Phoenician temple at Mount Mizpe Yammim. During the Hellenistic period, the cultic site had a revival that is reflected mainly in the famous bilingual Greek and Aramaic inscription, “Zoilos made his vow to the God of Dan.”2 Who is the God of Dan? One reasonable hypothesis is that the inscription reveals the memory of a “great God” who resided here and who probably was later syncretized with Zeus. It is also important to note that in the Hel- lenistic period the cultic site at Dan was within the territory that may have belonged to the Itureans. In the Hellenistic levels at Dan, a few storage jars were found that are identical to Iturean jars from the northern Golan. Moreover, similar to a few other jars from the Golan, one of them bears an inscribed Greek name.3 This cultic site most likely bordered on two Lebanese cultural regions: the Phoenician coast and the Itureans along the Hermon ridge and the Bakaa. Continuing farther southwest, we come to Kedesh. The excavations at the site revealed a large administrative building that was first built in the Persian period; it continued in use into the Hellenistic period but was mostly abandoned in the second century bce.4 In the Hellenistic period, some rooms were beautifully decorated with frescoes and stucco. A hoard of more than two thousand bullae found in one of the rooms demonstrates connections between Kedesh’s inhabitants and Tyre. One of the storage rooms contained a series of storage jars. Although the excavators do not use this terminology, these jars are similar to the Galilean jars that we identified in the Galilee survey and excavations as “Galilean Coarse Ware” (GCW, discussed below). In any case, they do not resemble either the Golan types or those found in Tel Dan. Sharon C. Herbert and Andrea M. Berlin suggest that this administrative building was destroyed in the mid-second century bce as the result of the Hasmonean victory on the Hazor plain (1 Macc. 11:63-74), after which Jonathan’s forces chased Demetrius’s defeated army to Kedesh, where they encamped.

2. Avraham Biran, Biblical Dan (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society; Hebrew Union College–Jewish Insti- tute of Religion, 1994), 211–27. 3. Moshe Hartal, Land of the Ituraeans (in Hebrew; Qazrin: Golan Research Institute, 2005), 263–69. 4. Sharon C. Herbert and Andrea M. Berlin, “A New Administrative Center for Persian and Hellenistic Galilee: Preliminary Report of the University of Michigan/University of Minnesota Excavations at Kedesh,” BASOR 329 (2003): 13–59. See the chapter on Kedesh by Herbert and Berlin on pp. 424–41 in this volume.

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Figure A. Qeren Naftali site. Photo by Mordechai Aviam. Used by permission.

Two kilometers east of Kedesh, atop a high hill that goes by the modern name of Qeren Naftali, stand the remains of a massive fortress. My excavations there showed that the fortress was built in the Hellenistic period, in the third or second century bce, probably to guard and control both the central administration center of southern Phoenicia at Kedesh and the main highway in the Huleh Valley below.5 At a second stage, a mikveh was inserted into one of the fortress rooms. Together with the appearance of Hasmonean coins, it is one of the clearest pieces of evidence supporting the Hasmonean conquest of the Galilee. There are no clear historical records for the annexation of the Galilee to the young Hasmonean state. According to Flavius Josephus, in around 112–110 bce, John Hyrcanus I set out north from Jerusalem on a campaign in which he took Samaria and Scythopolis and went as far as Mount Carmel (J.W. 1.2.7 §§64–67). The last line of Josephus’s description says, “and all the land beyond it” (§64). Some scholars have suggested that this phrase refers to conquering the Jezreel Valley, but I have suggested that it refers to most parts of the Galilee, perhaps mainly the Lower Galilee. I do not suggest that the conquest of the fortress near Kedesh took place at the same time as Jonathan’s

5. Mordechai Aviam, Jews, Pagans and Christians in the Galilee: 25 Years of Archaeological Excavations and Surveys, Hellenistic to Byzantine Periods (Land of Galilee 1; Rochester, N.Y.: University of Rochester Press, 2004), 59–88.

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Figure B. Mikveh at Qeren Naftali. Photo by Mordechai Aviam. Used by permission.

attack in around 160 bce. Rather, it probably happened much later, during the expansion of the Hasmonean kingdom, whether at the time of Hyrcanus I after his father’s campaign against Beth She’an,6 during the one-year reign of Aristobulus, as many scholars suggest, or during the days of Jannaeus himself. Josephus tells us that Hyrcanus I sent young Jannaeus to be raised in the Galilee, and, if this story is true, the Galilee was taken during the days of his father. There are four more excavated sites in the Galilee that display Hellenistic settlements that were destroyed in the second half of the second century bce and that provide evidence for the Hasmonean conquest. Ten kilometers west of Kedesh, a team and I excavated a small site by the modern Arabic name of esh-Shuhra. It was probably a small farmstead dating after the late Persian period and existing to the second half of the second century bce. The few rooms that we excavated had been destroyed by fire. On the floors we found pottery vessels clearly dating to the second century bce and coins. We also found two large, broken pithoi from the GCW group on the floor. The twenty-two silver coins from a hoard found many years before the dig were minted between the years 148 and 140 bce. The coins from the dig itself are evidence of the use of Tyrian/Seleucid coins up to around 125 bce, followed by the appearance of Jewish Hasmonean coins, which we found in and on top of the ash layer at the site.

6. Ample evidence for the destruction and abandonment of Scythopolis/Beth She’an was found in the excavations. See Rachel Bar-Natan and Gabi Mazor, “Beth-Shean during the Hellenistic Period” (in Hebrew), Qadmoniot 27 (1994): 87–92.

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The remains of a Persian and Hellenistic period temple on top of Mount Mizpe Yam- mim have been excavated and recently published.7 For a long time, many scholars (I among them) discussed the remains as mainly dating to the Hellenistic period. Berlin analyzed the ceramic evidence and suggested that most of it had to be dated earlier, to the Persian period. She also suggested that the temple with its temenos and tower, together with their location on a strategic point, reflect not only a sacred place but also the limit of Phoenician control of the southern territory of Tyre. Although almost all the ritual activity at the site dated to the late Persian period, Berlin suggested that the final activity dated to the Late Hellenistic period. She based this argument on the Tyrian coin found at the late level, the violent desecration of the figurines, and the mutilation of the offerings, mainly the juglets, some of which were thrown out of the doorway. In her summary,8 she provides two possible perpetrators: the Hasmonean forces raiding the Galilee after the victory over Demetrius’s forces on the Hazor plain, or new settlers from Judea. Berlin’s reconstruction of the events leaves an open question: What happened at the site between the late Persian period (ending with Alexander the Great’s conquest in 332) and the desecration of the site sometime in the mid-second century bce? Was the site abandoned with the offerings left in place until the intruders came to desecrate it, or was there continued (probably minor) activity at the site that left only a few Hellenistic remains in the temple—a small number of cooking pots, bowls, and jars, a coin or two, and a handle of an imported amphora? Three kilometers west of Mizpe Yammim lie the remains of the ancient site identified as Beer Sheba of the Galilee. The Greek name Bersabe appears for the first time in Flavius Jose- phus’s histories of the region as one of the nineteen settlements he fortified before the Roman invasion of the Galilee. I surveyed the site during the 1980s, and Uzi Leibner has conducted a more recent survey.9 During my survey, we collected a large amount of GCW pottery as well as other Persian and Hellenistic types of pottery. (Naturally, the site continued into the Roman period.) Notably, we found three small bronze figurines. The first was a tiny figurine that could have been used as either a pediment or a standing representation of Horus the Infant, a well- known Egyptian figurine. This design can be dated to the Persian and Hellenistic periods. A similar figurine was recovered at Gamla, where no Persian-period pottery was found; the figurine from Beer Sheba, therefore, should be dated to the Hellenistic period.10 The second was the headless bust of a female figurine holding an object to its belly. Although the figure is clearly nude, it is unclear whom this figurine represents. The naturalistic design hints at a Hellenistic origin rather than a local Semitic origin, and the figurine could very well be a repre-

7. Andrea Berlin and Rafael Frankel, “The Sanctuary at Mizpe Yammim: Phoenician Cult and Territory in the Upper Galilee during the Persian Period,” BASOR 366 (2014): 25–78. 8. Berlin and Frankel, “Sanctuary at Mizpe Yammim,” 69. 9. Leibner, Settlement and History, 122–27. 10. Shemaryah Gutman, Gamla, A City in Rebellion (in Hebrew; Tel Aviv: Ministry of Defense Press, 1994), 48.

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Figure C. The base of the Apis figurine found at Beer Sheba of the Galilee. Photo by Mordechai Aviam. Used by permission.

sentation of Aphrodite/Astarte. The third was the base (5 x 3 cm) of an Apis figurine. One hoof of a bull’s extended front leg was preserved on the base. Three sides of the base were preserved, each one carrying an inscription. An incomplete hieroglyphic inscription on one of the long sides probably has to do with giving a gift. This inscription is very shallow and eroded, and was probably the original inscription on this Egyptian object. The only preserved short side carries which probably means “sacrifice.” The second long side carries ,קרב the three Aramaic letters an indecipherable inscription, but the few identifiable letters are Greek, including Γ, Ε, and Λ written in mirror writing. Although these three figurines were found in a survey, they clearly reflect pagan society in the Hellenistic period. The Apis base (see fig. C) was imported from Egypt, similar to some of the cultic objects from Mount Mizpe Yammim, and bears an original inscription in hieroglyphs, with a second, Aramaic inscription later chiseled into the metal at Beer Sheba. The Greek inscription was added by the same hand as the Aramaic, and although it is indecipherable, it is clear that Greek was familiar to these people. In addition, the female figurine is depicted in a western style, which is not typical in the Persian period.

Figure D. A figurine from Beer Sheba. Photo by Mordechai Aviam. Used by permission.

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Figure E. GCW jar in the center with with two typical Hellenistic jars on either side. Photo by Mordechai Aviam. Used by permission.

In two different areas of the excavations at Yodefat, we discovered below the later Early Roman period a layer from the Hellenistic period. On the hill’s northern side, this layer was found beneath the Hasmonean wall that encircled the summit. On the floor of this room we found two GCW pithoi together with an imported wine jar with a stamped handle that was dated to the beginning of the second half of the second century bce.11 Kh. ‘Aika was partially excavated on the summit of a hill in the eastern Lower Gali- lee. The rich Hellenistic-period level yielded a large building that had been destroyed by fire. The building contained many GCW pithoi together with other vessels. Based on the date of stamped imported wine jars, coins, and other vessels, the excavator suggested that the destruction happened in the mid-second century bce.12

11. See the chapter on Yodefat in this volume, pp. 109–26. 12. Uzi Leibner, “The Origin of Jewish Settlement in Galilee in the Second Temple Period: Historical Sources and Archaeological Data” (in Hebrew), Zion 74 (2012): 437–69, esp. 459.

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Finally, below the Hasmonean layer of Magdala (Migdal) on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee, an earlier Late Hellenistic layer containing GCW pithoi has recently been identified for the first time. Summing up the discoveries from different excavations and surveys, mainly in Upper Galilee but also in eastern Lower Galilee, the material culture reflects a pagan, autochthonic, mountainous population. On the one hand this population had a strong relationship with the Phoenician world, as reflected in the Phoenician inscription from Mount Mizpe Yammim, imported vessels from the Phoenician coast, and of course the distribution of Phoenician city coins. On the other hand, the Aramaic inscriptions from Dan and Beer Sheba of the Galilee, together with the local pottery, mainly the GCW, point to a population whose economic and cultural ties were mostly local. Following this situation came a change. Many of the sites with GCW ceased to exist, and in other sites a new layer was established that contained Hasmonean coins. A Jewish ritual bath was installed in one of the rooms of a former Seleucid fortress at Keren Naftali, and the temple at Mizpe Yammim was finally abandoned and its offerings and figurines desecrated. (Something similar may have happened at Beer Sheba of the Galilee.) What was the religion of the new population? Here we have no clear answers but can only compare what we find with what we know from Josephus’s other references to the ethnic ideals of the Hasmoneans. One of John Hyrcanus’s first acts was to destroy the Samaritan temple, a religious/ethnic act. Following that, he conquered Adora and Marisa and “permitted [the Idumeans] to remain in their country so long as they had themselves circumcised and were willing to observe the laws of the Jews” (Ant. 13.256–258). After conquering Samaria, Hyrcanus sold its citizens into slavery (J.W. 1.65). The archaeological evidence from Marisa, Samaria, Mount Gerizim, and Beth She’an/Scythopolis shows a massive destruction and complete abandonment. According to Josephus, Aristobulus conquered part of the Iturean land and forced them to convert to Judaism (J.W. 13.318–319). There is no good reason why we may not identify these events with the conquest of the Galilee. I assume that, as the Idumeans and the Itureans did, some of the pagan citizens of rural Galilee also “had themselves circumcised and were willing to observe the laws of the Jews,” some of them were exiled, others were sold to slavery, and others were killed. The Galilee was now “purified” from any idolatry, and the land was open to Judean immigrants. Scholars agree that the Galilean population at the turn of the first century bce was a mixture of Jewish remnants, converted pagans, veterans of the Hasmonean army, and many new immigrants from Judea. Many Galilean sites can be classified as Jewish based on their identification in Josephus’s narratives of Galilee in 67 ce, or by the presence of a synagogue, mikva’ot, and Hasmonean coins.13 Although today we know that Hasmonean coins were in circulation in the Jewish

13. Danny Syon, Small Change in Hellenistic-Roman Galilee: The Evidence of Numismatic Site Finds as a Tool for Historical Reconstruction (Jerusalem: Israel Numismatic Society, 2015), 161–66.

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territory until the end of the revolt, there is little doubt that the existence of a large quantity of coins dates the establishment of the Jewish villages to the time of the Hasmonean dynasty, sometimes on the remains of an abandoned pagan village and sometimes as a new settlement. Two types of evidence provide strong support for the Hasmoneans’ royal investment in the Galilee. The first is the existence of the military. The mikveh from Keren Naftali is evidence not only that Jewish forces conquered the Seleucid/Phoenician fortress but also that a Jewish garrison occupied the northern edge of the kingdom. (It is, however, possible that the border with Phoenicia lay even farther north of Keren Naftali.) Support for this argument comes from Josephus’s description of the Herodian attack on Galilee in 38 bce: “and [Herod] proceeded to Galilee to capture some of the strongholds which had been occupied by the garrisons of Anti- gonus” (Ant. 14.413–414). It is clear from both archaeological evidence and ancient texts that the Hasmoneans held garrisons in fortresses at least on the Galilee’s borders, if not in its inner areas. This reality is probably reflected in the remains of a large (military?) structure at the top of the hill of Sepphoris, with a large mikveh dated to the early first century bce,14 and perhaps in the fortified settlement on the hilltop of Yodefat.15 This evidence also hints at the settlement of Jewish veterans in the new conquered territories. The second type of evidence is the archaeological/economic data. The surprising identification of the Hellenistic-type bathhouse at Magdala is evidence for the existence of a large town on the coast of the Sea of Galilee. Magdala’s central location and status are strengthened by the important discovery of the royal port at Magdala. Behind the Herodian pier, the archaeologists discovered an earlier pier with mooring stones and a massive tower to its north. (Was this tower the origin of the Hebrew name Migdal?) This substantial pier, unfamiliar in other parts of the lake and second only to the Herodian port in Caesarea, is strong evidence for royal investment in the Galilee. The port was probably used to increase the quantity of fishing boats, and consequently to increase the quantity of fish for the fishing industry of Magdala/Taricheae.16 I suggest that the second royal investment in the Galilee was the development of a large- scale olive oil industry.17 The Galilee’s soil and weather provide an ideal environment for culti- vating olive trees, and olive oil was produced there during its entire history. There is evidence for a few oil presses at different sites during the Iron Age, mostly on a domestic scale. The Galilee’s oil production during the Hellenistic period is reflected in the Zenon papyri. When Zenon arrived in the Galilee, he visited the royal estate at Kedesh, where the main products were wine and grain. This produce is depicted by symbols on the official bulla found at the

14. Eric M. Meyers, “Sepphoris on the Eve of the Great Revolt (67–68 ce): Archaeology and Josephus,” in Galilee through the Centuries: Confluence of Cultures(ed. Eric. M. Meyers; Duke Judaic Studies 1; Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1999), 11, fig. 2. The mikveh is on the top right. 15. See the chapter on Yodefat in this volume, pp. 109–26. 16. See the chapter on Magdala in this volume, pp. 280–342. 17. For a larger discussion see Aviam, Jews, Pagans and Christians, 51–58.

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site.18 At present, we have no remains of an industrial19 oil press in any Hellenistic site in the Galilee; nevertheless, such developed machines have been found in Hellenisic sites in the Judean Shephelah, and they are especially characteristic of the oil production of Marisa in its later phase before its conquest and destruction by the Hasmoneans.20 At Mazor, in the northern Shephelah, a Hellenistic-period oil press was excavated and dated to the third and second centuries bce, and Hasmonean coins were found in the next phase.21 It seems as if during the Hasmonean expansion, after conquering towns and villages, the Jews were more familiar with the industrial oil press and started to use it in their agricultural industry. These machines were built in the Galilee while the new immigration wave came from Judea after the conquest of the region by the Hasmoneans. The earliest one excavated is at Gamla and has been dated by the excavators to the time of the Hasmoneans, no later than the turn of the first century. From that time forward, we find a growing number of oil presses in the Jewish settlements during the Early Roman period. The growth of this product is well reflected in both Josephus’s writings (J.W. 2.590–595) and talmudic sources (b. Men. 85b; Sifrei Deut. 316). Most scholars today agree that the existence of Hasmonean coins at a site clearly reflects Jewish life there. The appearance of Hasmonean coins in sites that in earlier phases contained GCW, figurines, and decorated figurative oil lamps points to the ethnic change discussed here. An ongoing question concerning Hasmonean coins in the Galilee is this: When did the first Hasmonean coins appear in the Galilee? Was it only after the final conquest of the Galilee, or were there coins of Hyrcanus I even before the annexation? Josephus provides the earliest evidence that Jannaeus took Gamla, yet Danny Syon claims in his new book that there are enough coins of Hyrcanus at Gamla to point to the existence of a Jewish population before Jannaeus’s conquest.22 Syon suggests that settlers from Judea immigrated to the Galilee from crowded Judea and settled in empty areas such as Gamla. I prefer another explanation, as I find it dif- ficult to explain why a small group of Judean Jews would travel far into a hostile area, build a settlement there, and import Jewish coins minted in Jerusalem. It is more plausible to see this settlement as a long branch of the victory of Hyrcanus I and his sons over Scythopolis and the area “north of there.” Syon’s maps 34 and 35 show the distribution of coins of Hyrcanus I and Aristobulus I, which covers Lower Galilee, eastern Upper Galilee, and central Golan.23 This

18. Donald Ariel and Joseph Naveh, “Selected Inscribed Sealings from Kedesh in the Upper Galilee,” BASOR 329 (2003): 72–73. 19. The term industrial points to the arrival of new machines that appear in the Mediterranean area in the Hellenistic period. These machines include (a) a crushing installation consisting of a round stone basin in which a stone wheel is turned around by the power of a donkey, mule, or horse; and (b) a squeezing installation consisting of a large beam from which three or four heavy stone weights are hung using a winch that can lower the beam by shortening the rope. 20. Amos Kloner and Nahum Sagiv, “Subterranean Complexes 44 and 45,” in Maresha Excavations Final Report I (ed. Amos Kloner; IAA Reports 17; Jerusalem: Israel Antiquities Authority, 2003), 51–72. 21. David Amit and Irena Zilberbod, “Mazor” (in Hebrew), HA-ESI 106 (1999): 61–64. 22. Syon, Small Change in Hellenistic-Roman Galilee. 23. Ibid., 165–66.

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distribution hints that the first campaign that annexed the Galilee occurred between 112 and 110 bce. Finally, in a recent study, Berlin suggests a process by which Judean Jews who immigrated to the Galilee brought with them their tradition of pottery manufacture and established the local Jewish pottery industry.24 Indeed, there are similarities between Late Hellenistic Judean vessel shapes and those of the Galilee in the Hasmonean layers, but there is still a missing piece: the typical Judean Hasmonean “pinched” oil lamp. Presently, we have no pinched oil lamps from a Galilean Hasmonean layer. Such a discovery would provide an important piece of evidence for Berlin’s suggestion. Summing up, there is no doubt that we have enough archaeological data to identify an ethnic change in the Galilee during the last decade of the second century bce. The disappear- ance of the GCW ceramics, which are good indicators of a pagan population,25 together with abandonment of the sites, is probably the most significant testimony for this change. At the same time or shortly thereafter, sites were settled with people who built stepped pools that we identify today as mikva’ot (Keren Naftali), who started using Jewish coins, and who stopped using imported wine in amphorae. Consequently, although we have no literary sources telling of such a change, we have to rely on the archaeological evidence to create the Galilee’s historical and ethnic framework. Leibner discusses such a framework in his detailed study on the survey of eastern Lower Galilee, and he suggests a number of steps in the Jewish settlement of the Galilee similar to what I have suggested. Leibner tries to avoid any identification of the Jewish inhabitants in the Hasmonean time as “native” Jews or as converts and rejects both references in the book of Maccabees to Simon’s campaign to the Galilee and Josephus’s note on the conversion of the Itureans. I propose that there is no reason to reject these stories as reflections of historical events. No dig will be able to prove either claim, as no one has found archaeological evidence for the conversion of the Idumeans. Although I base some of my own conclusions on surveys, we have to remember that arguments based on pottery gathered in surveys can quickly change when a site is excavated. For example, Leibner used evidence from Migdal (Magdala) to argue that the Hasmoneans established the town on a previously unoccupied site. Three years after his book was published, the excavations at Magdala revealed a Hellenistic layer with GCW jars in situ. The fact that the GCW sites also contain coastal Phoenician pottery does not mean that the inhabitants were Phoenicians from the coast. I still believe that, although Josephus named the territory north of the Jewish Galilee “the land of the Tyrians,” he himself did not think that

24. Andrea M. Berlin, “Identity Politics in Early Roman Galilee,” in The Jewish Revolt against Rome: Inter- disciplinary Perspectives (ed. M. Popović; JSJSup 154; Leiden: Brill, 2012), 69–106. 25. In few preliminary reports and in oral communication, however, Moshe Hartal has suggested that GCW continued into the Roman period, at least at Gush H|alav (Giscala), where he conducted a few salvage excavations. See Moshe Hartal, “Gush Halav A-5471,” HA-ESI 122 (2010): http://www.hadashot-esi.org.il/report_detail_eng. aspx?id=1517&mag_id=117 [cited May 8, 2015]. At present, there is no information about Roman period GCW from any other Roman period sites.

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the inhabitants had anything to do with the city of Tyre. He refers to the large hinterland of Tyre, but the people were local, mountainous, pagan tribes. There is no clear evidence that they were not being converted and joining the new, large wave of Judean immigrants who arrived and settled in the Galilee. These gentiles brought with them the knowledge of the industrial oil press; they were probably subsidized by the Judean authorities of the Hasmonean kingdom; and they were able to develop a strong economy very quickly. Today we know about two small urban centers—Sepphoris in western Galilee and Migdal in the eastern Galilee—that the Hasmoneans developed and that no doubt strongly influenced the rural areas surrounding them. Although we do not yet have evidence for an indigenous population that identified itself as Jews and called Judah the Maccabee for rescue, I do think that they existed and were a minor part of the new Jewish Galilee formed by the Hasmo- neans. From c. 110 bce to the year 66 ce, a period of almost 180 years, Jewish Galilee rapidly developed, and, according to Josephus’s account of the Jewish settlements in this region (both Galilees and central Golan), there were 204 Jewish settlements. I think that the inhabitants of the Galilee in 38 bce were obligated and loyal to the Hasmonean dynasty, not only because the Hasmoneans were priests and kings but also because the Galileans kept alive the memories of the settlement of the Galilee two to three generations earlier.

Bibliography

Amit, David, and Irena Zilberbod. “Mazor.” In Hebrew. HA-ESI 106 (1999): 61–64. Ariel, Donald T., and Joseph Naveh. “Selected Inscribed Sealings from Kedesh in the Upper Galilee.” BASOR 329 (2003): 61–80. Aviam, Mordechai. Jews, Pagans and Christians in the Galilee: 25 Years of Archaeological Excavations and Surveys, Hellenistic to Byzantine Periods. Land of Galilee 1. Rochester, N.Y.: University of Rochester Press, 2004. Aviam, Mordechai, and Aharoni Amitai. “Excavations at Khirbet esh-Shuhara.” In Eretz Zafon: Studies in Galilean Archaeology, edited by Zvika Gal, 119–34 (Hebrew section). Jerusalem: Israel Antiquities Authority, 2002. Berlin, Andrea M. “Identity Politics in Early Roman Galilee.” In The Jewish Revolt against Rome: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, edited by M. Popović, 69–106. JSJSup 154. Leiden: Brill, 2012. Berlin, Andrea M., and Rafael Frankel. “The Sanctuary at Mizpe Yammim: Phoenician Cult and Territory in the Upper Galilee during the Persian Period.” BASOR 366 (2014): 25–78. Biran, Avraham. Biblical Dan. Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society; Hebrew Union College– Jewish Institute of Religion, 1994. Gutman, Shemaryah. Gamla, A City in Rebellion. In Hebrew. Tel Aviv: Ministry of Defense Press 1994.

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Hartal, Moshe. “Gush Halav A-5471.” HA-ESI 122 (2010): http://www.hadashot esi.org.il/ report_detail_eng.aspx?id= 1517&mag_id=117 (cited May 8, 2015). ———. Land of the Ituraeans. In Hebrew. Qazrin: Golan Research Institute, 2005. Herbert, Sharon C., and Andrea M. Berlin. “A New Administrative Center for Persian and Hellenistic Galilee: Preliminary Report of the University of Michigan/University of Minnesota Excavations at Kedesh.” BASOR 329 (2003): 13–59. Kloner, Amos, and Nahum Sagiv. “Subterranean Complexes 44 and 45.” In Maresha Excavations Final Report I, edited by Amos Kloner, 51–72. IAA Reports 17. Jerusalem: Israel Antiquities Authority, 2003. Leibner, Uzi. “The Origin of Jewish Settlement in Galilee in the Second Temple Period: Historical Sources and Archaeological Data.” In Hebrew. Zion 74 (2012): 437–69. ———. Settlement and History in Hellenistic, Roman, and Byzantine Galilee: An Archaeological Survey of the Eastern Galilee. TSAJ 127. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009. Mazor, Gabi, and Rachel Bar-Natan. “Beth-Shean during the Hellenistic Period.” In Hebrew. Qadmoniot 27 (1994): 87–92. Meyers, Eric M. “Sepphoris on the Eve of the Great Revolt (67–68 ce).” In Galilee through the Centuries: Confluence of Cultures,edited by Eric M. Myers, 109–22. Duke Judaic Studies 1. Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1999. Syon, Danny. Small Change in Hellenistic-Roman Galilee: The Evidence of Numismatic Site Finds as a Tool for Historical Reconstruction. Jerusalem: Israel Numismatic Society, 2015.

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