Books in Brief
Women Leaders in the Ancient Synagogue
Bernadette Brooten
(Scholars Press: Chico, California, 1982) 292 pp., $20.00
Rarely does a book come along that challenges an entire generation—or more—of the best historical scholarship in America, Britain, Europe and Israel. This is such a book.
Several years ago Tom Kraabel suggested in his Ph.D. thesis at Harvard (“Judaism in Western Asia Minor under the Roman Empire,” 1968) that the title “archisynagogos” or “head of a synagogue” might not be simply honorific when it was conjoined to a woman’s name in an ancient inscription. This was a somewhat iconoclastic suggestion because the consensus among scholars was that women could not have had a substantive role in Jewish worship in antiquity. Therefore, it went without saying that women in antiquity could not have had a substantive role in synagogue administration. Accordingly, titles like “archisynagogos” when applied to women must have been purely honorific. Until Bernadette Brooten of the Institute of Antiquity and Christianity in Claremont, California, published this brilliant book, no one had picked up Tom Kraabel’s challenge to accepted scholarship in any sustained fashion. In this book Brooten has thoroughly undermined accepted scholarship in this area.
Brooten examines 19 Greek and Latin inscriptions (1st century B.C. to 6th century A.D.), each of which refers to a woman with some important title. The titles are “head of a synagogue” (archisynagogos), “leader” (archegos or archegissa), “elder” (presbytera/presbyteresa = presbyterissa), “mother of a synagogue” (mater synagoges), “mother” (mater), “priest” (hiereia/hierissa), or “fatheress” (pateressa). In each case scholars have interpreted these as honorific titles applied to these women because of the status of their husbands or fathers. The argument was that these titles were analogous to calling the wife of a German professor “Frau Doktor,” even though she had no earned doctorate of her own, or to the still current Greek Orthodox practice of using the title presbytera for the wife of a priest, who is himself called pater. But the scholars who subscribe to this view have not produced the evidence that would require such an interpretation.
Brooten squarely addresses the underlying issue of whether, as a matter of historical fact, women served in synagogues in any substantive position other than sweepers of floors and beaters of carpets. If it can be established either that women actually bore synagogue offices or at least that women were not prohibited from participation, then these inscriptions may be read as records of real leaders in real synagogues. She does not face this issue until Chapter VII, but her opening wedge is unequivocal: “Women’s attendance at synagogue worship services is taken for granted in the ancient sources” (p. 139).
Brooten also treats a related issue: Was there a gallery or other separate area for women in ancient synagogues? Can we find inscriptional, literary or archaeological evidence for such a gallery in Roman or Byzantine synagogues?
Brooten’s method is to work her way through the inscriptional evidence title by title. For example, she devotes Chapter I to three Greek inscriptions—two from Turkey, one from Crete—that refer to the women named in the inscriptions as “head of a synagogue.” The first is an announcement: “Rufina, a Jewess, head of the synagogue, built this tomb for her freed slaves and the slaves raised in her house … ” (there is more). The second is an epitaph: “Sophia of Gortyn, elder and head of the synagogue of Kisamos, lies here … ” The third is inscribed on a chancel screen post and identifies the donor: “[From Th]eopempte, head of the synagogue, and her son Eusebios.”
Brooten also reviews the question, “What is an honorific title?” (pp. 7–10). She then considers whether the titles in these inscriptions are honorific. Her conclusion is simple: “We do not have evidence that the custom of wives taking on their husbands’ titles even existed in ancient Judaism … ” (p. 10). She is right. She is also right that, even if we could prove the existence of such a custom, this does not, in and of itself, suggest that all such titles from ancient sources are honorific when applied to women.
Along the way, Brooten examines the meaning of each title. For example, in one valuable discussion (pp. 15–30), she reviews the scholarship concerning the meaning of the title “head of a synagogue.” She quotes ancient and modern authors to build up a likely description of the duties of such a person and then describes how a woman who held this position would have been able to fulfill this function.
Thus, she infers that it is most likely that a “head of a synagogue” would see to it that the Law was read and the Commandments were taught, that the congregation received spiritual direction and moral exhortation, including teaching, and in the period of the Jewish patriarchate that the monies were collected and sent to the patriarch. A “head of a synagogue” of either sex would see to it that the synagogue was built, repaired, maintained, and rebuilt when necessary. Finally, this officer would serve as “a leader for the congregation and representative of the congregation vis-a-vis non-Jewish neighbors and Roman authorities” (p. 29).
Brooten approaches the other titles in the same way. She treats “leader” in Chapter II and “elder” in Chapter III. Chapters IV and V deal with “mother of the synagogue” and “priest” respectively. In each case, she tries to isolate the function of the person bearing that title, citing Jewish, Christian and pagan authors. She also notes where the evidence suggests regional variations, though she wisely refrains from diverting herself by pursuing the question of regionalism. (Examples of possible regionalism are reflected in titles like “mother of a synagogue” and “fatheress,” which are found so far only in Italy) (Chapter IV).
Brooten also confronts the stickiest question head on but does not provide a definitive answer: Does the title “priestess” mean anything more than wife or daughter of a priest? The answer is unclear. Perhaps a “priestess” did have a cultic function. If so, perhaps this was true only in Egypt. Could “priestess” be a synagogue title? Perhaps. Brooten is correctly cautious in this area.
One of the most important sections of the book reviews the literary, inscriptional and archaeological evidence for the putative women’s gallery in ancient synagogues. It is rather slow reading, mainly because she reviews so much evidence in such detail, but her conclusions are important.
Naturally the book contains some errors. For example, it is incorrect to say that the synagogue at Magdala cannot be considered first-century (p. 106). In considering whether the absence of small columns at Eshtamoa would evidence the lack of a gallery, Brooten finds it hard to understand why visitors to the ruined site would steal only the small capitals and columns and leave the large pieces (p. 122). The answer is simple: The small pieces are easy to cart away.
The evidence simply does not support the thesis that all—or even most—ancient synagogues had galleries, for women or anyone else. This conclusion will probably generate some controversy, for the consensus among scholars is strongly to the contrary, even though the evidence for the consensus is weak and is sometimes missing altogether.
This is an important book. It forces us to look at archaeological material and admit our biases. If we flew in from Mars and read these inscriptions with synagogue titles referring to women, would we shout, “Honorific!”? I think not.
I suppose someone will object that we cannot give up received traditions so easily. That is true. Yet we need to examine the consensus whenever we discover that our ideas are entrenched. This book brilliantly begins that process.
Carta’s Historical Atlas of Jerusalem
Dan Bahat
(Carta: Jerusalem, 1983) 96 pp., 16 maps, 45 figs., 30 photos and illustrations, $19.95
In 1973 Carta first published Dan Bahat’s Atlas of Jerusalem. It was a useful tool, and it would be reasonable to expect a revised edition to appear after an active decade of archaeological work in and around the city. This new atlas, however, is so much improved over the earlier volume that the publishers have not identified it as a revised edition. And indeed, it is not. It is a new book. It is twice as large in format (full quarto size, 9 in. × 12 in.) and more than twice as long in text. It also has almost twice as many maps, plans and photos. It is so much improved that anyone who owns the 1973 atlas will unhesitatingly want to replace it with this volume.
In this new atlas, Bahat describes the changing shape of Jerusalem during 12 major historical periods, ranging from the pre-Davidic Jebusite town to the city after 1967. For each period, Bahat illustrates the major archaeological monuments with photographs, plans and drawings. He gives balanced treatment both to the Biblical periods and to the post-Biblical transformations of Jerusalem under the Romans, the early Christians, the Moslems, the Crusaders and the Turks.
The atlas also includes a helpful topographical overview of Jerusalem and a detailed map of present-day greater Jerusalem, with an index to streets and important institutions.
More resources have been devoted in the past decade and a half to the archaeological retrieval of Jerusalem’s past and to planning the Old City’s preservation and beautification than occurred in the preceding century and a half. Bahat knows intimately both the archaeological work and the preservation and beautification projects. He incorporates in this volume the latest developments in both of these endeavors. His text reflects the recent discoveries in Yigal Shiloh’s City of David excavations, Gaby Barkay’s investigations of Jerusalem’s Iron Age cemeteries, and the dramatic new light thrown on several periods by Nahman Avigad’s excavations in the Jewish Quarter. Here also are the outlines of the new Jerusalem emerging from the drawing boards of Mayor Teddy Kollek’s city planners.
There are some disappointments, naturally, but they are few. The absence of directional arrows on some plans makes them unnecessarily confusing. The plan of the Muristan quarter on p. 60, for example, is printed with north to the left, without so indicating. Even someone already acquainted with Jerusalem needs to do a bit of detective work to make use of the plan.
Another flaw is that Bahat presents as assured conclusions some interpretations that are less than certain. Warren’s Shaft, for instance, is confidently dated to the early Israelite occupation rather than to the pre-Davidic Jebusites (pp. 12f, 18). Personally, I think the later dating makes the most sense in light of the evidence from the datable water systems elsewhere. But Yigal Shiloh, who also prefers the later dating, has been careful to point out that his recent re-investigation of the shaft system has not yielded evidence on which to base any date for the inception of the system more precise than before the late eighth century B.C. (that is, sometime earlier than the so-called Siloam Tunnel of Hezekiah’s time, which makes use of its lower portion). This is one of a handful of examples I noted where the historical or archaeological picture is not quite as clear as Bahat has presented it.
These reservations are minor, however, and should not detract from the fact that Bahat and Carta have collaborated to provide an invaluable resource for historical studies of Jerusalem. This book of course belongs on the reference shelves of academic libraries and in church and synagogue study collections. But it will also be a welcome addition to the personal library of anyone who has visited Jerusalem or who plans to visit it.
Prophets and Markets: The Political Economy of Ancient Israel
Morris Silver
(Kluwer-Nijhoff: Boston, 1983) 306 pp., $35.00
It is always refreshing when a scholar from another field tackles problems in Biblical history and archaeology. We expect a solution, or at least new suggestions. Prophets and Markets (pun no doubt intended) by economist Morris Silver is such an endeavor, and I welcome it despite the fact that I strongly disagree with his arguments and conclusions.
Silver’s theme is as follows: the classical Biblical prophets, those who left their teachings and preachings in writing, were members of a priestly class or order and thus belonged to the establishment. They rose to power as royal advisors in the affluent states of Israel and Judah in the ninth to seventh centuries B.C. From their positions of power, they launched campaigns of socio-economic reforms that were possible because of the prosperity that characterized the divided monarchy. The prophets pressed for reforms that eventually were promulgated by the kings. These reforms, some of which found their reflection in Deuteronomy and the prophetic books, were economically unsound and thus contributed to the loss of power and fall of the two states, first Israel and later Judah.
While Silver is amazingly well read and up-to-date on most of the recently published material in the areas related to his study, his conclusions always tend to be unconventional. Although this is not wrong in itself, it often requires him to bend the evidence. Silver’s economic evidence includes examples from different parts of the ancient Near East (Mesopotamia, Egypt, etc.) as well as medieval Europe, and evidence from modern times.
The book is divided into three parts:
Part I, “The Israelite Economy in the Eighth and Seventh Centuries B.C.,” argues that through specialized production in industry and agriculture, Israel and Judah developed high standards of living. According to Silver, these standards were reflected in expanded imports and exports, mass-produced pottery, larger consumption of oil and wine, better housing, and new agricultural practices (terracing, desert farming, diversification).
In Part II, titled “The Call for Social Justice: Priests, Prophets, Proverbs, and Psalms,” Silver tries to show that the prophets were members of the ancient Israelite establishment and operated in the royal court, often with permission of the ruler.
Part III, “The Implementation of Social Reform,” attempts to show that the cultural, cultic, and socio-economic reforms advocated by the prophets and ultimately sanctioned by the establishment led to disaster.
In many instances the author draws important conclusions from very questionable evidence. For example, his conclusion that the Israelites were generally affluent during the eighth to seventh centuries B.C. rests on material from very few sites and cannot prove a general state of affluence. He goes to great lengths to prove that each of the classical prophets was indeed a member of the priestly class and operated with the permission and the “blessing” of the establishment. And since the prophets were powerful people, they were able, according to Silver, to destroy the economy and the nation, or as he states, “In each instance of the reforms the results were disastrous: innocent people were humiliated and murdered, civil war flared, the economy was damaged, and foreign nations took advantage of the opportunity to tear away chunks of Israel-Judah until nothing remained. In the end the prophets did not succeed in transforming the Israelite. Since they understood neither the man nor Israelite society, they succeeded only in making the former miserable while destroying the latter” (p. 249).
To prove his point, Silver takes “Amos with his notable rhetoric and even more notable paradoxes … [as] the key to positioning the prophets within Israelite society” (p. 143). He tries to find hidden meanings in the simple terms used by Amos to describe himself and his profession. According to Silver, noqed and boqer are not mere “shepherd” and “herdsman,” but should be interpreted as having to do with divination and omen taking. Thus Amos, according to Silver, plays an important role in the cultic life of ancient Israel. Amos is “a tender of sycamores.” Silver suggests that Amos uses this phrase as a code by which Amos really means to identify “himself as a savior of Israel” (p. 149). Silver rejects Mendenhall’s suggestion that “except for Isaiah, all the prophets of whom we know the relevant facts stem from the village” (as quoted on p. 162) and concludes that “Amos and the other classical prophets were intellectuals, social activists, important public figures, and quite probably, cultic ‘priests”’ (p. 162). The prophets were social activists, it goes without saying, but their being members of the establishment and having influence on matters of public policy cannot at all be gleaned from the Biblical text.
Silver fails to convince me that the prophets had free access to the kings and influenced the reforms promulgated by Jeroboam II, Hezekiah, and Josiah. Therefore, I disagree with his conclusion that it was the prophets’ fault that Israel and Judah lost their political and economic power as a result of listening to the prophets and following their advice. If Silver’s economic theories are correct, and if Israel and Judah lost their independence as a result of socio-economic weakness, this was not because of the prophets; the prophets may have understood the economy and tried to influence the nobility, but the nobility would not heed them.
When I started reading this book, I expected a more realistic treatment, but instead I found the author continuously going out on a limb to prove certain points. Although Silver is quite familiar with recent literature, many times he relies on outdated studies, as he demonstrates by referring to Tell Beit Mirsim as Debir and by insisting that this site was a center for wool production and dyeing. Silver debates the dates assigned to certain Psalms, but he makes no reference to Mitchell Dahood’s work on the Psalms in the Anchor Bible series. In his lengthy argument in favor of the northern origin of Deuteronomy, he neglects to acknowledge Nickolson’s book Deuteronomy and Tradition, which would have saved him a lot of time and effort.
I do agree with one of his conclusions. When he discusses Israelite affluence, he states that the jar handles stamped l’melek (literally, “to the king”) do not signify royal ownership of the jars or the wine, but instead signify quality, showing that the “wine or oil was fit for king or even gods” (p. 34), something in the nature of our present-day endorsement, “by special appointment to his/her majesty.”
I also like the fact that Silver looks at Biblical and archaeological problems from an economist’s viewpoint. But his conclusions appear to me to come from left field. A less serious problem is that the book contains a large number of misprints and inconsistencies in transliteration.
Loot! The Heritage of Plunder
Russell Chamberlin
(Facts on File: New York, 1983) 248 pp., 120 illustrations, 10 in color, $19.95
Who should own the art treasures that currently repose in the world’s great museums is a question that is frequently ignored but which sometimes erupts into international incidents. Written with the pace of an adventure story (which in many respects it is), Loot! The Heritage of Plunder probes behind the facade of possession to the shadowy and often shabby back rooms of acquisition. While Russell Chamberlin wisely refrains from attempting to sketch a comprehensive history of the appropriation of weaker nations’ cultural treasures by stronger nations, his work does not lack breadth. He begins by describing the acquisition of magnificent marble statues from Greece’s Parthenon by Lord Elgin of England in the early 19th century, then passes on to discussions of the plundering of Egypt’s antiquities, the appropriation (by theft or force of arms) of royal treasures in Africa, England and Hungary, and the campaigns of two particularly ambitious “collectors,” Napoleon and Hitler. Loot’s final chapters focus on the efforts of “Third World” nations to retrieve the pieces of their cultural heritages displayed in foreign museums and on wider problems concerning the ownership of artistic compositions. Chamberlin is not blind to the many facets of the ownership question; his analyses of the episodes he describes are both cogent and thought-provoking. He concludes his book with the response of the New Zealand Maori Council to the question of whether they wanted Maori art treasures returned from England: “While they would very much like to see the treasures back in New Zealand, they also felt it was important that other people should know about the Maoris.”