How Jewish Was Jesus’ Galilee?

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The pendulum is beginning to swing back again. Before 20th-century archaeologists began uncovering it, Jesus’ Galilee was generally considered rural Jewish terrain. Then archaeologists made some astounding finds. Excavations at Sepphoris, less than 4 miles from Jesus’ hometown of Nazareth, revealed inscriptions in Greek, Roman architecture and some breathtaking Greco-Roman art, including the famous mosaic dubbed by excavator Carol Meyers the “Mona Lisa of the Galilee.” The “Mona Lisa” was part of a larger mosaic depicting a symposium (a dinner with ample alcohol) with the mythological hero Hercules and the god of wine, Dionysus, as guests.

Digs at other sites in Galilee uncovered similar finds. The scholarly community was surprised, impressed and excited, and naturally sought to incorporate this new information into their reconstructions of Jesus’ Gzalilee. Some scholars argued that Greek complemented Aramaic as a language of daily use in Galilee, that Greco-Roman architecture dotted the landscape and that artistic depictions of emperors, deities and mythological heroes were common.

A Roman-style theater at Sepphoris raised the intriguing hypothesis that Jesus had actually attended it, watching classical dramas and comedies.^a

Jesus was soon compared to Cynic philosophers, those wandering counter-cultural preachers found in many cities of the Roman empire.

Some studies proposed that in Jesus’ time, many Galileans were gentiles, whether Greeks, Romans, Phoenicians, Arabs or others.

Now, however, as more detailed publication of archaeological finds have made more systematic study possible, many of these views are being questioned. The pendulum is swinging back—at least a little. Few would dispute that Greco-Roman culture was certainly a part of Galilean life in Jesus’ time, but it is important to put this into perspective. The region’s cultural milieu must be dated very carefully, for it changed quite considerably from period to period. In short, in Jesus’ time it was not so permeated by Greco-Roman culture as some scholars have previously proposed. Much of the archaeological evidence most widely relied upon reflects the Galilee not of the early first century C.E., but rather the Galilee of the second, third and fourth centuries C.E.

To understand the growth of Greco-Roman culture in Galilee, we must trace its historical development. By Jesus’ time, Galilee’s encounter with Hellenism (Greek culture) was centuries old, going back to the age of Alexander the Great, the Macedonian king who conquered Palestine and much of the rest of the Near East during his brief reign (c.336–323 B.C.E.).

On Alexander’s death his kingdom was divided between the Ptolemies in Egypt and the south, on the one hand, and the Seleucids in the north, on the other. Palestine, in the 044middle, often changed hands between the dueling dynasties. In the second century B.C.E., the Jewish Hasmonean dynasty—they of the Maccabees—ruled an independent Jewish kingdom, but the Hasmoneans turned out to be very devoted to Hellenistic culture as well.

In 63 B.C.E. Pompey interceded militarily to quell a Hasmonean conflict, thus ending the independent Jewish kingdom and bringing direct Roman rule to Palestine. Naturally the Romans brought with them their own culture. The mixture of Hellenistic and Roman influence came to be known, naturally enough, as Greco-Roman culture.

In 40 B.C.E. the Romans installed a new king over the Jews of Palestine, Herod the Great. Herod is known from the New Testament as ordering the massacre of all the male infants in Bethlehem in hope of killing the baby Jesus (Matthew 2:16–18). Herod was a devoted and loyal patron of Greco-Roman culture not only in Palestine, but in the entire eastern Mediterranean world. Even outside his own territory, he sponsored numerous major building projects like gymnasia at Tripoli, Damascus and Ptolemais and theaters at Sidon and Damascus.¹ In Palestine he built two cities: Sebaste, on the site of Biblical Samaria, and Caesarea Maritima, his showcase port. Both cities had streets aligned on a grid, intersecting at right angles, which was characteristic of Greco-Roman cities. Caesarea Maritima boasted of agoras, an amphitheater (a round or oval theater for animal shows and combat sports), an aqueduct and a theater; all typical features of Greco-Roman culture.^b

In Caesarea Maritima, Sebaste and Caesarea Philippi, Herod built temples to the emperor Augustus and Roma, goddess of the city of Rome (as well as rebuilding the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem).

Herod’s largesse, however, does not seem to have extended to Galilee. Through the death of Herod the Great in 4 B.C.E., communities in Galilee appear to have remained without Greco-Roman architecture.

On his death, Herod’s kingdom was divided. To his son Antipas (or Herod Antipas, also called “Herod” in the Gospels)² went Galilee. Antipas’s rule lasted until 39 C.E., thus covering the life of Jesus.

Though his father had neglected the region, it was the center of Antipas’s attention. He renamed Sepphoris Autocratoris, a name that honored the Roman emperor, whose Latin title of Imperator was 045translated into Greek as Autocrator.^c3 At least some of the city’s streets were built on a grid pattern during his reign. The foundations of a basilical building—a rectangular, columned structure often used as a sort of “city hall” in Roman cities—may also date to his reign, as does one of the aqueduct systems.^d Some scholars (James F. Strange and Richard A. Batey) have dated Sepphoris’s 4,500-person theater to Antipas’s reign on the basis of pottery fragments discovered underneath the theater. Others (Carol and Eric Meyers, Zeev Weiss and Ehud Netzer) date this pottery and thus the theater above it to the late first or early second century C.E., after the crucifixion.⁴ It is not yet clear whether a theater existed in Sepphoris that Jesus might have attended.

Everyone agrees, however, that at the end of the first century, a period of extensive growth began in Sepphoris that continued for centuries. The grid pattern of the city’s streets became even more pronounced, and a new aqueduct system (the one featured prominently in the modern park) was constructed, as were two Roman-style bathhouses.

As indicative as this is of Greco-Roman culture, it is also important to note what was not in the Galilee, although common in other areas of the Roman East at this time: no amphitheater, no 046gymnasium, no stadium and no nymphaeum (a large, elaborately decorated fountain).

The other major city in the Galilee (after Sepphoris) built by Antipas was Tiberias on the southwestern shore of the lake. Antipas founded it in about 20 C.E. and named it after the then-reigning Roman emperor, Tiberius (14–37 C.E.). The city underwent extensive growth in subsequent centuries, and the overlay of the modern resort city limits the area of potential excavation. Perhaps for these reasons, little has been recovered in modern excavations from the time of Antipas—and thus of Jesus as well. The Jewish historian Josephus refers to a sports stadium in Tiberias at the time of the First Jewish Revolt against Rome (66–70 C.E.),⁵ and archaeologists may have found this structure.⁶ As at Sepphoris, however, archaeologists have uncovered much Greco-Roman construction from later periods: a cardo (the main north-south street of Roman cities) in the second century; a theater in the second or third; and a bathhouse in the fourth.

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At other Galilean sites, structures reflecting Greco-Roman culture veritably abound, but little if anything is from the first half of the first century. Roman-style bathhouses were found at Capernaum from the second or third century.^e At the northern site of Rama, similar structures were found from the third or fourth century.⁷ The situation is similar even with regard to synagogues. Synagogues from the fourth century onward reflect strong Greco-Roman architectural influence, as seen, for example, in their rectangular layouts and use of columns.

Communities near Galilee experienced similar developments. Scythopolis (Beth Shean), for example, on the southeastern border of Galilee, had an amphitheater, a bathhouse, a palaestra, a temple and possibly a nymphaeum—but all from the second century or later.^f

The same chronological development we have seen with respect to Galilean architecture may also be observed in the visual arts—frescoes, mosaics, statues, figurines and funerary art. The interior walls of some first-century buildings were painted with geometric patterns: dots, lines and blocks of color. On the floors were some simple mosaics, often of only black and white tesserae. Compare these rather basic decorations with the early-third-century Dionysus mosaic that included not only the Mona Lisa of the Galilee, but also panels depicting Dionysus (the Greek god of wine), his worshipers and entourage, and the mythical Hercules. Another panel portrays the wedding of Dionysus to Ariadne. Still another depicts bearers bringing gifts to the god. The mosaic is one of the highest quality found anywhere in Roman Palestine.⁸ But it dates long after Jesus’ time.

Other finds at Sepphoris from the second century and later likewise reflect an increasing comfort level with artistic depictions of humans, animals and deities, such as bronze figurines of Pan and Prometheus. Although not entirely absent in first-century Galilee, such depictions are quite rare, presumably because of Jewish prohibitions of representational art.

The same chronological development in visual art can be seen elsewhere in Galilee as well. At the Jewish burial complex at Beth She’arim, where Rabbi Judah ha-Nasi, the revered compiler of the Mishnah (the core of the Talmud) was buried, we find sarcophagi that bear 048carvings of animals, people and even mythological figures, like Leda and the Swan (Zeus in the form of a swan impregnated Leda).^g But all this is from the third and fourth centuries.

Coins aside, only one inscription from the lifetime of Jesus (the first 30 or so years of the first century) has been excavated in Galilee: a market weight from Tiberias with a Greek inscription reading “In the 34th year of Herod the Tetrarch, during the term of office as market overseer of Gaius Julius…”⁹ Few inscriptions date even to later decades of the first century: A Greek inscription of an imperial edict prohibiting tomb robbery probably dates to 44 C.E. or shortly thereafter.¹⁰ Another Greek market weight¹¹ and a Semitic ostracon (a pottery fragment with writing on it) from Yodefat bear inscriptions too fragmentary to reconstruct.¹²

In later centuries, the number of inscriptions vastly increases. Several examples have been found 049at Sepphoris, including a mid-second-century Greek market weight.¹³ Greek inscriptions are also contained in the Dionysus mosaic mentioned earlier. Nearly 280 inscriptions from the late second through the early fourth centuries were found at Beth She’arim (approximately 80 percent in Greek, 16 percent in Hebrew, and the rest in Aramaic or Palmyrene).¹⁴ Latin (and in a few cases, Greek) inscriptions are found on the milestones of Roman roads. The chronological pattern is striking: The later the date, the more likely the inscription is to be in Greek.

Coins with images and inscriptions, however, are an exception to this chronological development. Old Hasmonean coins from as early as the second century B.C.E. were still circulating in the early first century C.E. Some indeed had Semitic inscriptions, but others had Greek inscriptions. Many bore common numismatic images such as cornucopias and plants. Coins struck in pagan cities or by imperial Roman mints naturally had Greek inscriptions and freely depicted living things. A portrait of the Roman emperor was also common on these coins. But until the time of Antipas, no coins were actually struck in Galilee. True, Antipas’s coins did contain Greek inscriptions, but this was more a reflection of his desire to conform to the coinage customs of the larger Roman East. In his choice of language, Antipas wanted his coins to blend in, not stand out. He did not, however, depict living things—no gods, animals or portraits of the emperor. Instead, his coins usually depicted a plant, such as a palm tree.

When the cities of Sepphoris and Tiberias struck coins later in the first century, they, too, avoided depictions of living things. Not until the second and third century did Galilean coins portray images of the emperor or deities. A coin struck in Tiberias during Hadrian’s reign (second century C.E.), for example, depicted the emperor on one side and Zeus seated in a temple on the other.¹⁵ In this way, Galilee coins became virtually indistinguishable from those elsewhere in the Roman East.

The conclusion is clear: During the early first 050century C.E., when Jesus lived in Galilee, it was hardly infused with Greco-Roman influence. Instead we should look at it as a region with a cultural climate in flux. It was not totally isolated from the architectural, artistic and linguistic trends of the larger Greco-Roman world, but neither had it fully incorporated them into its own culture. In the time of Jesus, we see what amount to hints of what would come in subsequent centuries.

Another similar and related question arises: What about the people living in the Galilee? Were they Jewish or Greek? The answer is somewhat like the cultural mix: Mostly Jewish, but a few gentiles as well.

This is the situation reflected in the ancient sources that have survived: the Gospels, the histories of Josephus and the writings of the rabbis. They mention some gentile Galileans, but few. Josephus, for example, reports that at the outbreak of the First Jewish Revolt against Rome (66–70 C.E.), certain Jews in Tiberias attacked the city’s gentile minority.¹⁶ Similarly Matthew 8:5–13 and Luke 7:1–10 mention a gentile centurion (probably an officer in the army of Antipas, rather than a Roman soldier) at Capernaum. But none of the sources gives the impression that gentiles formed an especially significant proportion of Galilee’s population.

The archaeological situation confirms this impression. There are three kinds of archaeological indicators that inhabitants of a settlement were Jewish: limestone vessels, ritual baths (mikva’ot) and ossuaries.

Most pots and dishes in the ancient world were made of clay. But Jews in Jesus’ time also used unusual limestone vessels (also known as chalk vessels).^h According to the rabbis, limestone vessels played a special role in the Jewish purity system, because they were believed to be impervious to impurity.¹⁷ Storing liquids in these vessels helped safeguard the contents from becoming ritually unclean. This is illustrated in the famous story in the Gospel of John about the wedding at the Galilean village of Cana: According to John 2:1–11, Jesus and his disciples were guests at the wedding; as the celebration progressed, the hosts ran out of wine. Nearby, however, were “six [empty] stone water jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons.” Jesus told the host’s servants to fill the jars with water; when 076they did so, the water miraculously turned to wine.

Limestone vessels were made in a variety of forms, sometimes carved by hand, sometimes on a lathe and sometimes both ways. They include mugs (often erroneously described as “measuring cups”), bowls and storage jars in various sizes.

Because the use of these stone vessels as Jewish is so well attested in literary sources and since they are rarely found at sites known to have been predominantly gentile, their discovery at a particular site is strong evidence of Jewish habitation. Stone vessels or fragments of such vessels have been found at 23 sites in and near Galilee.

Mikva’ot—plastered, stepped pools carved into bedrock used by Jews as ritual baths to remove impurity—have been discovered in first-century C.E. strata at Sepphoris and Yodefat. Additional mikva’ot appear at numerous other Galilean sites between 63 B.C.E. (the beginning of direct Roman rule) and 135 C.E. (the end of the Second, or Bar-Kokhba, Jewish Revolt). A mikveh from the first century C.E. was also found at Gamla, a Jewish community east of Galilee.ⁱ All this is indicative of Jewish habitation.

The final ethnic indicator comes from Jewish burial practices. Many Jews—but not gentiles—observed a custom called secondary burial. About a year after burial, when the flesh had desiccated, the deceased’s bones were gathered up and reburied, usually in an ossuary, a small sarcophagus. Regular readers of BAR are very familiar with ossuaries because of the controversy generated by the discovery of an ossuary with an inscription on it that some scholars have argued refers to James the brother of Jesus.^j Jews began practicing secondary burial in Judea in the late first century B.C.E. These ossuaries are usually made of limestone, though some are made of clay. Exactly when Galilean Jews adopted the practice of second burial is uncertain. There is ample evidence of the practice in Galilee soon after the First Jewish Revolt (66–70 C.E.). It is likely that the custom predates the revolt, however, although the evidence is still somewhat unclear. To be strictly accurate, secondary burial has been attested at a number of Galilean sites in Early Roman (63 B.C.E.–135 C.E.) and later archaeological strata.

What about archaeological evidence for gentiles in Galilee? There simply isn’t much, at least during the first century C.E. Inscriptions reflecting the worship of pagan gods are found at the border of Galilee, but not the interior. There are no Galilean statues of gods or goddesses. Figurines of deities are likewise few and far between. Nor have archaeologists found any first-century pagan temples in Galilee, though some point to a structure just across the Galilean border, at et-Tell (possibly Biblical Bethsaida), as a possibility.^k

In short, we can conclude that Galilee was predominantly Jewish during Jesus’ lifetime. Most of the areas around it, however, were predominantly gentile. For example, pagan Scythopolis was especially close, as were the pagan cities of Hippos, Caesarea Philippi, and the village of Kedesh in the north. It was on the other side of the Sea of Galilee, the eastern side, for example, that Jesus cured the demoniac(s) by sending the demons into a herd of swine who then ran into the sea and drowned (Matthew 8:28–34; Mark 5:1–20; Luke 8:26–39). The swine would not be seen in a Jewish area.

In Jesus’ time, Jewish Galilee had indeed been influenced by some Greco-Roman culture, but only later periods would see that influence flower. And in Jesus’ time the Galilee was largely a Jewish enclave.

The pendulum is beginning to swing back again. Before 20th-century archaeologists began uncovering it, Jesus’ Galilee was generally considered rural Jewish terrain. Then archaeologists made some astounding finds. Excavations at Sepphoris, less than 4 miles from Jesus’ hometown of Nazareth, revealed inscriptions in Greek, Roman architecture and some breathtaking Greco-Roman art, including the famous mosaic dubbed by excavator Carol Meyers the “Mona Lisa of the Galilee.” The “Mona Lisa” was part of a larger mosaic depicting a symposium (a dinner with ample alcohol) with the mythological hero Hercules and the god of wine, Dionysus, as guests. Digs at […]