Imagine that you entered a synagogue and saw somebody writing her name on the wall. Or that you visited a cemetery and spied someone with a penknife carving a message into the nearest headstone. How would you—or any reasonable bystander—react? Perhaps you would notify the local authorities. After all, acts of writing graffiti are illegal inside places of worship and burial, as they are associated with vandalism, defacement, and disrespect. But these same types of behavior resonated differently in antiquity. Throughout the ancient world, many people, including Jews, carved and painted words and pictures (we might call them graffiti […]
