Chapter Ten

Between Liturgy and Social History: Priestly Power in Late Antique Palestinian Synagogues?

Figure 53. Tabernacle motifs, synagogue (photograph by Steven Fine).

Jewish literature and art from Byzantine Palestine suggests a fascina- tion with the priestly. This interest builds upon biblical and classical rabbinic sources, where issues related to the priests and the Temple are a central concern. Priestly themes are well developed in Byzantine- period sources, including midrashim, Targumim, and liturgical sources (especially piyyutim), much of which dates to our period. Archaeologi- cal remains also exhibit a strong interest in priestly themes. The well- carved (though fragmentary) plaque of the priestly courses discovered in 182 chapter ten the synagogue of ,1 three-dimensional seven-branched menorahs,2 and the once-lovely Aaron panel from the Sepphoris syna- gogue mosaic are among the most prominent examples of the priestly in synagogue art.3 This proliferation of priestly themes suggests to a num- ber of scholars that priests in Byzantine Palestine enjoyed higher levels of social and political significance than in previous periods. This approach, first proposed by Samuel Klein and Menahem Zulay, has reemerged and drawn a large number of contemporary adherents.4 Others have been rightly skeptical.5 In this essay I argue that extant sources for the Byzan- tine period do not reflect the expansion of the priests as a sociological group, but rather a deepening interest in priesthood and in priestly motifs

1 Michael Avi-Yonah, “The Caesarea Inscription of the Twenty-Four Priestly Courses” [Hebrew], Eretz- 7 (1964): 24–28; Naveh, On Mosaic and Stone, 87–88. Hanan Eshel has shown that an inscription from Kissufim is not a fragment of a mishmarot plaque. Eshel, “A Fragmentary Inscription of the Priestly Courses?” [Hebrew], Tarbiz 61, no. 1 (1991): 159–161. See also Fine, This Holy Place, 88. 2 See above, p. 16. 3 Ze’ev Weiss, The Sepphoris Synagogue, 77–80; eadem, “Were Priests Communal Lead- ers in Late Antique Palestine? The Archaeological Evidence,” in Was 70 CE a Watershed in Jewish History? On Jews and Judaism before and after the Destruction of the Second Temple, ed. D. R. Schwartz and Z. Weiss in collaboration with R. A. Clements (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 91–111. 4 The first recent statement of this approach to appear in print is by Joseph Yahalom, Priestly Palestinian Poetry: A Narrative Liturgy for the Day of Atonement [Hebrew] (Jeru- salem: Magnes, 1996), 56–57. Recent statements include Oded Irshai, “The Role of the Priesthood in the Jewish Community in Late Antiquity: A Christian Model?,” in Jüdische Gemeinden und ihr christlicher Kontext in kulturräumlich vergleichender Betrachtung, von der Spätantike bis zum 18. Jahrhundert, ed. C. Cluse, A. Haverkamp, and I. J. Yuval (Han- nover: Hahn, 2003), 75–85; eadem, “The Priesthood in Jewish Society of Late Antiquity” [Hebrew], in Continuity and Renewal: Jews and Judaism in Byzantine-Christian Palestine, ed. L. I. Levine (Jerusalem: Dinur Center and Yad Izhak Ben Zvi, 2004), 67–106; Lee I. Levine, “Contextualizing Jewish Art: The Synagogues at Hammat and Sepphoris,” Jewish Culture and Society under the Christian Roman Empire, ed. R. Kalmin and S. Schwartz (Leu- ven: Peeters; New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 2003), 91–132; Magness, “Helios and the Zodiac Cycle in Ancient Palestinian Synagogues”; Paul V. Flesher, “The Literary Legacy of the Priests? The Pentateuchal Targums of Israel in Their Social and Linguistic Context,” in Levine, The Ancient Synagogue, 467–508; David Amit, “Priests and the Memory of the Temple in the Synagogues of Southern Judaea” [Hebrew], in Continuity and Renewal: Jews and Judaism in Byzantine-Christian Palestine, ed. L. I. Levine (Jerusa- lem: Dinur Center and Yad Izhak Ben Zvi, 2004), 143–156; Stefan C. Reif, “Approaches to Sacrifice in Early Jewish Prayer,” in Studies in Jewish Prayer, ed. R. Hayward and B. Embry (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 165–180. See the far more cautious comments of Michael D. Swartz and Joseph Yahalom, eds., Avodah: An Anthology of Poetry for Yom Kip- pur (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2005), 14–15. See most recently Matthew J. Grey, “Jewish Priests and the Social History of Post-70 Palestine” (Ph.D. disser- tation, University of North Carolina, 2012), which summarizes this stance and many of the primary sources. Many thanks to Dr. Grey for making his dissertation available to me. 5 Stuart S. Miller, “Priests, Purities, and the Jews of Galilee,” in Religion, Ethnicity, and Identity in Ancient Galilee: A Region in Transition, ed. J. Zangenberg, H. W. Attridge, and D. Martin (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007), 375–402.