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Galilee, Jesus and the Contribution of Archaeology

Sean Freyne The Expository Times 2008 119: 573 DOI: 10.1177/0014524608095452 The online version of this article can be found at: http://ext.sagepub.com/content/119/12/573

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Volume 119 12 ages 573581 TH E Number EXPO S IP T OR Y TIMES 573 Copyright 2008 SAGE Publications (Los Angeles, London, New Delhi and Singapore) DOI: 10.1177/0014524608095452 http://EXT.sagepub.com

Galilee, Jesus and the Contribution of Archaeology Y

By SEan FREYnE Trinity College, Dublin
After a brief outline of the history of archaeological investigation of Galilee and the interpretative issues that have arisen, the article focuses on recent discussions of the region in the Roman period. The aim is to suggest ways in which this evidence may help in providing a fuller context for the ministry of Jesus there. The results of various surveys are discussed in relation to the issue of the ethnic make up of the region. This is followed by assessments of the alleged urbanisation of Galilee and the nature of the village culture there. KEYWORDS Archaeology, Herod the Great, Antipas, Galilee, Jerusalem, Jesus, Sepphoris, Tiberias, Villages

n his Life of Jesus, rst published in French in 1863, Ernst Renan wrote about the importance of the landscape for understanding Jesus ministry, describing it as being equivalent to a fth gospel, torn but still legible. Today the landscape is indeed torn but in a very different manner to that which Renan could have intended. These recent developments in the archaeology of Galilee are contributing greatly to the project Renan was writing about, namely, the quest for the historical Jesus, but ironically, in ways that do not support his rather biased, if romantic ideas about Galilee and its landscape. In surveying these developments, I propose, rstly, to outline briey the history of archaeological research in Galilee, indicating the changing aims and methods over the decades; secondly, I will present the information that has been gleaned from the more important sites in terms of the changing social, religious and cultural life of the region. A Brief Account of the Archaeological Investigation of Galilee The systematic archaeological investigation of a territory as we know it today had not begun when Renan was sitting in his hut in southern Lebanon writing his book about Jesus. Such standard procedures as stratication of various layers, the laying out of sections, the collection and analysis of pottery sherds, not to speak of more recent techniques such as sonar soundings and chemical analysis of the

pottery through neutron activation analysis, had not been heard of. After centuries of neglect by the West following the collapse of the Crusades, it was only after the Napoleonic wars that interest in the Middle East, and in the Holy Land in particular, was reawakened. This interest went hand in hand with the colonial powers interest in the region after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Thus, the earliest modern accounts of the landscape of the region were the work of military strategists, cartographers and travellers, with missionaries and pilgrims following somewhat later. The establishment of learned societies such as the Palestinian Exploration Fund (1865), The Deutsche Palstina-Verein (1887) and the Ecole Biblique et Archologique Franaise (1890) reflected the growing interest in the systematic exploration of the region in the light of the biblical record. While these early investigations were conducted against the background of wider discoveries from antiquity in the Ancient Near East, there was, nevertheless, a danger that apologetic interests would prevail when it came to exploring the biblical lands.1 As a result, Biblical Archaeology acquired a conservative label among scholars who had begun to apply critical methods to the study of the literary texts. It is only
1 For a readable account, cf. Naomi Shepherd, The Zealous Intruders: From Napoleon to the Dawn of Zionism (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987).

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in more recent times that this tension has gradually eased. Archaeology has broadened its own scientic basis through a greater engagement with the social sciences (cultural anthropology and ethnography in particular), and literary studies of the gospels and other Jewish writings have become aware of the rhetorical and perspectival nature of all ancient literature. With regard to Galilee, the initial interest, strangely, was not with the life of Jesus but with the origins of Israel in the late bronze/early iron age (12th11th centuries bce). Such cities as Hazor, Megiddo and Dan, all mentioned in the biblical accounts of the conquest and settlement of the land, were foundations of the earlier inhabitants, the Canaanites. These cities were situated on the fringes of the region later known as Galilee. The name Galilee means the circle, in all probability reecting the rst experience of early (Israelite?) settlers of the interior who were encircled by these powerful city-states. These three northern sites in particular, but other lesser ones also, continue to yield important information, not just about the settlement of the Israelites, but about the later history of the north information dealing with the reign of Solomon, the religious situation after the schism of the northern tribes under Jeroboam 1, and the effects of the Assyrian conquest of the north in the 8th century bce. The religious and cultural tensions that this information reects will continue to be relevant for our understanding of Galilee in the later centuries also, as we shall see. These issues have to do with the encroachment of non-Israelite peoples and their cultures into Galilee, the relationships of the Galilean tribes with their neighbours, internal Israelite tensions between the north and the south, and the signicance of local and regional practices in maintaining a separate identity in the face of imperial powers. Jerusalem, rather than Galilee, was the focus of the early archaeological interest, just as it had been for the Byzantine pilgrims from the 4th to the 6th century. The Temple and its destruction, rst by the Babylonians in the 6th century bce and later by the Romans in the 1st century ce, was of special interest to Jewish and Christian scholars alike. Some structures, such as Robinsons and Wilsons arches and Warrens shaft, still bear the names of the pioneers of these early explorations in the guide books. The Temple area is also today of interest to

Muslim scholars, who claim the Dome of the Rock as a holy place for their faith also. This site, sacred to the three Abrahamic faiths, shows just how charged archaeological investigation of the past can be in the fraught political situation of the present. It is a reminder that in assessing the results one must always operate with a certain hermeneutic of suspicion. This too is an interpretative enterprise in which the presuppositions of the investigator have to be taken into account, no matter how objective or scientic the exploration might appear to be.2 The places of Jesus arrest, trial and crucixion are of particular interest for Christians. Archaeology has also shed light on a number of topics to do with the more general history of Jerusalem and its inhabitants. Among the more important are the site of Davids city, Solomons palace, the priestly quarter in Herodian times, the Hasmonean/ Herodian palace, the extent of the citys walls at different periods, Jewish burial places in the surrounding hills, the citys water system and the various pools for ritual bathing. The fact that Jerusalem has been inhabited over the centuries, leading to much destruction and rebuilding, has not made archaeological work there easy. Materials were often reused several times, and many of the older buildings and walls standing today come from the Crusader and Muslim periods, with only the foundations of earlier structures remaining. As far as the identication of sites associated with Jesus is concerned, the evidence of Constantinian buildings at a particular location is often the best evidence of the more likely location of the event, as for example the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which encloses the sites of Golgotha and the Tomb of Joseph of Arimathea. Despite the contested use of the building a positive scandal for any ecumenically minded Christian visitor it has recently been the subject of serious archaeological excavation for the rst time in the modern period, with some quite positive results.3
2 The guide book of Jerome Murphy-OConnor OP, now in its 5th edition, The Holy Land. An Archaeological Guide from Earliest Times to 1700 (Oxford: OUP Press, 2008), is by far the best introduction, given his detailed knowledge of the citys ancient and modern topography, combined with a keen historical sense of the changing character of Jerusalem in the different periods right up to the present. 3 Martin Biddle, The Tomb of Christ (London: Sutton Publishers, 1999).

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Galilee does not present the same difculties for the archaeologist, with the possible exception of the city of Tiberias, founded by Herod Antipas in 19 bce and still a thriving city today. Two converging sets of interest have combined to make the region a veritable laboratory for archaeological investigation in the past twenty-ve years or so.4 On the one hand, Jewish scholars have been interested in exploring the world in which Judaism developed after the two failed revolts against Rome (6670, and 13235, ce) which meant that the Romans no longer allowed free access to the holy city, rebuilt as Aelia Capitolina by the emperor Hadrian. Many Judeans migrated to Galilee, there to establish synagogue communities and rabbinic schools, around which Jewish religious life and practice was re-fashioned, now that Temple sacrice and pilgrimage for the three annual festivals was no longer possible.5 From the early 1980s on to the present a lively debate about the historical Jesus has been renewed among Christian scholars for the most part, but including some Jewish experts also, after decades of deep scepticism about such a scholarly enterprise. What distinguishes this latest phase of the quest for the historical Jesus from its 19th- and mid-20th-century predecessors is the interest in the social as well as the religious world of Jesus.6 Hence the interest in Galilee and the information about everyday life that archaeology can provide has been intense. Indeed so intense, but also so diverse have the claims been, that one is prompted to say that the quest for the historical Jesus has become the quest for the historical Galilee.
4 S. Freyne, Galilee as Laboratory: Experiments for New Testament Historians and Theologians, New Testament Studies, 53 (2007) 14764. 5 Eric M. Meyers and James F. Strange Archaeology, the Rabbis and Early Christianity (London: SCM Press, 1981); M. Goodman, State and Society in Roman Galilee, A.D. 132212 (Totowa, NJ: Rowman & Alleneld, 1982); Richard Horsley, Archaeology, History and Society in Galilee: The Social World of Jesus and the Rabbis (Valley Forge, PA: Trinity Press International, 1996); Eric Meyers (ed.), Galilee through the Centuries. Conuence of Cultures (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1999). 6 John D. Crossan and Jonathan Reed, Excavating Jesus: Beneath the Stones, Behind the Texts (New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 2001); Sean Freyne, Jesus a Jewish Galilean. A New Reading of the Jesus Story (London and New York: T&T Clark International, 2006); James H. Charlesworth (ed.), Jesus and Archaeology (Grand Rapids, MI: William Eerdmans, 2006).

Regional Surveys and Archaeological Sites in Galilee The results of three different approaches to the archaeological investigation of Galilee are highly signicant for discussions of the social world of Jesus and the nature of Galilean Judaism of the 1st century ce These are regional surveys, cities and their spheres of inuence and the nature of Galilean villages. The ancient literary sources (Josephus and the Mishnah) distinguish various sub-regions in Galilee upper Galilee, lower Galilee, and the Valley (the region of the Lake). In what follows attention will be drawn to each of these sub-regions in order to highlight the variations within Galilee itself in terms of ecological as well as human habitation within the region. 1. Regional Surveys Surveys, as distinct from excavations of individual sites, can be problematic, since they are based on surface evidence of ancient settlements. Nevertheless, when they are conducted with proper planning and detailed, systematic observation, the collection of pottery sherds and other identity markers can give an accurate picture of the changing demography of the area being surveyed, always subject to revision, once specic sites are excavated. Several of the surveys conducted in Galilee have proved highly signicant in clarifying some key issues which the literary sources either ignore entirely or leave unclear. One such issue that has been the subject of a lively debate is the impact on Galilee of the Assyrian conquest of the north in the 8th century bce, and the effect this was likely to have had on the population of the region subsequently. The literary evidence is sparse, with only a general reference to Galilee, all the land of Naphtali, followed by the names of a few towns in upper Galilee (2 Kings 15:29). This has been interpreted to mean that Galilees fate under the rst wave of the Assyrian onslaught (732 bce) differed from that of Samaria some ten years later, when the Bible does say that the Samaritans were deported in great numbers and their territory planted with non-Israelite people (2 Kings 17:23). However, the Assyrian Annals list a number of places, not mentioned in the Bible, all located in lower Galilee, from where deportees were taken, thus suggesting a more extensive depopulation, but without any mention of the plantation of others in

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their place. How can archaeology assist in lling out this picture and what can it tell us about the likely later inhabitants of the region were they of Israelite or non-Israelite stock? A detailed survey of lower Galilee by Israeli scholar Zvi Gal, brought forward archaeological evidence to support the view that indeed lower as well as upper Galilee was devastated by the Assyrians. Four different types of pottery which were characteristic of the 7th century on the basis of stratied digs at major sites such as Hazor, were absent from eighty-three surveyed sites in lower Galilee, suggesting that there was a major depopulation of the region in the period following the Assyrian onslaught (i.e. 8th7th century bce). Therefore, the theory of a continued Israelite presence in Galilee down to the 1st century, a claim that was rst made by the German scholar, Albrecht Alt, and one which I also originally accepted, is now largely discredited.7 Two more detailed surveys by Israeli scholars would seem to conrm Gals overall conclusions. On the one hand a survey of Upper Galilee conducted by a number of highly qualied eld archaeologists was able to show the beginning of the re-population of the sub-region, in the Persian period (i.e. 6th4th centuries bce) and continuing in subsequent periods up to Byzantine times (i.e. 5th century ce).8 In a separate study, one of these scholars, Mordechai Aviam, claims that there are unmistakable signs of new settlements with a decidedly Judean ethos in both upper and lower Galilee in the wake of the Hasmonean expansion to the north from the mid-2nd century bce. This development went hand in hand with the destruction of other sites that were clearly pagan.9
7 Albrecht Alt, Galilische Probleme, in Kleine Schriften zur Geschichte des Volkes Israels, 3 vols. (Munich: Ch. Beck, 195364, Vol. 2, 363435); Sean Freyne, Galilee from Alexander the Great to Hadrian: A Study of Second Temple Judaism (Reprint, Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2000, 25). Cf. Richard Horsley, Galilee, History Politics, People (Valley Forge, PA: Trinity Press International, 1995, 2529), who, despite the archaeological evidence still maintains that the population of Galilee continued subsequently to have an Israelite component that resisted the Judean take-over of their region. 8 R. Frankel, N. Getzov, M. Aviam and A. Degani, Settlement Dynamics and Regional Diversity in Ancient Upper Galilee (Jerusalem: Israel Antiquities Authority, 2001). 9 Mordechai Aviam, Jews, Pagans and Christians in the Galilee (Rochester NY: University of Rochester Press, 2004, 4151; idem. Distribution Maps of Archaeological Data

Detailed archaeological excavations at certain chosen locations has conrmed this simultaneous pattern of destruction of pagan sites such as Kadesh and Har Mispey Yamim on the one hand, and on the other, the emergence of new Judean sites at Qeren Naftali, Gamla and Iotapate.10 Most recently, a highly sophisticated survey of a 40km square region in eastern lower Galilee that includes the Valley region by Uzi Leibner conrms the ndings of Aviams more general account, for this sub-region also.11 It is interesting to note that all the evidence points to the continuation of the process up to the Arab conquest in the 7th century. With regard to upper Galilee, a limited survey by Eric Meyers and his team, focusing mainly on synagogue remains, postulated a Judean cultural continuity between upper Galilee and the Golan in the Byzantine period.12 While this survey had a limited range and objective, its overall conclusions have been further enhanced by the more general survey of the Golan by Dan Urman, as well as by the massive three-volume study of Byzantine Palestine by Claudine Dauphin.13 Taken together, the results of these surveys give a clear picture of the Galilean population as

from the Galilee: An Attempt to establish Zones indicative of Ethnicity and Religious Afliation, in J. Zangenberg, H. Attridge and D. Martin (eds), Religion, Ethnicity and Identity in Ancient Galilee (Tbingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2007), 11532 10 Kadesh: S. Herbert and A. Berlin, A New Administrative Centre for Persian and Hellenistic Galilee. Preliminary Report of the University of Minnesota Excavation at Kadesh, BASOR 329 (2003) 1359; Har Mispey Yamim: R. Frankel and R. Ventura, The Mispe Yamim Bronzes, BASOR 311 (1998) 3955; Qeren Neftali: M. Aviam, The Hellenistic and Hasmonean Fortress and Herodian Siege Complex at Qeren Naftali, in idem. Jews, Pagans and Christians, 5988; Gamla: S. Gutman, Gamla, in E. Stern (ed.), The New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Investigations in the Holy Land, 4 vols. Jerusalem: The Israel Exploration Society, 1993, vol. 2, 45963; Iotapata/Yodefat: D. Adan Bayewits and M. Aviam, Iotapata, Josephus and the Siege of 67: Preliminary Report on the 199294 Seasons, JRA 10 (1997) 13165. 11 Uzi Leibner, Settlement and History in the Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine Galilee: Archaeological Survey of Eastern Lower Galilee (Tbingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008) (forthcoming). 12 E. Meyers, Galilean Regionalism as a Factor in Historical Reconstruction, BASOR 221 (1976) 93101. 13 D. Urman, The Golan: A Prole of a Region During the Roman and Byzantine Periods (Oxford: BAR International Series 269, 1985); C. Dauphin, La Palstine Byzantine. Peuplement et Populations, 3 vols. (Oxford: BAR International Series 726, 1998).

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being strongly Jewish in its cultural and religious afliations from the 2nd century bce onwards. The use by some modern scholars of the Isaian depiction Galilee of the Gentiles (Isa 8:23) as an accurate description of the population at the time of Jesus, is therefore, wholly unfounded. Inscriptions suggesting a pagan ethos are almost entirely lacking in Galilee proper following the aggressive Judaization by the Hasmoneans, and the few that have been found come from the territories of the surrounding pagan cities such as Tyre and Sidon on the coast, Banias in the north and Scythopolis/Bethsean to the south.14 Thus, the evidence replicates, it would seem, the early experiences of the rst settlers of the region, for whom the name Galilee designated a sense of being surrounded by threatening and alien cultural forces. Detailed evidence from the more important sites gives some substance to this conclusion, though there is, as we shall see, a need to modify the picture somewhat. 2. Cities in Galilee The polis or city had been co-opted as the medium for the transmission of Greek culture in the East since the time of Alexander the Great. Rome continued with this policy in the eastern empire also and relied largely on local municipalities to provide a network of administrative, commercial and military centres within the provincial system.15 The same was true of the role of the city in client kingdoms such as Judea under the Herods. From the early imperial period cities played an important role in the propagation of Romes ideology as peace-maker and ruler of the world. Names, coinage and the public architecture all bespoke the citys dependence on and subservience to Rome and its determination to prove its loyalty to the emperor in the most visible and ostentatious manner possible. Thus, the city could have an ambiguous relationship with its surrounding territory, especially if Roman rule was resented by some natives, while others seized the opportunity
Mark Chancey, The Myth of a Gentile Galilee (SNTS Monograph Series 118; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002, 12068). Cf. idem. Greco Roman Culture and the Galilee of Jesus (SNTS Monograph Series, 134; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005). 15 S. Freyne, Cities of the Hellenistic and Roman Periods, in Eric Meyer (ed.), The Oxford Encyclopedia of Archaeology in the Near East, 5 vols. (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), vol. 2, 2935.
14

to win imperial patronage. Natural and human resources were required to build and maintain the edices which characterized the Roman cities paved and colonnaded streets laid out in grid format, temples, agoras, walls, nymphaea, arches, statues, a bath-house, a theatre, a hippodrome, aqueducts these were the constants in all self-respecting Roman cities. They were meant to be expressive of the power and majesty of Rome, constituting as one writer has put it, the rhetoric of empire.16 In addition cities usually involved a new layer of bureaucracy often competing with the local elites who chose to support the Roman rule. In Roman Palestine, Herod the Great (404 bce), who had been appointed king of the Jews by the Roman senate, was undoubtedly one of the greatest builders of his or any other era in the Roman East.17 Still today, wherever one goes in the land, the signs of Herodian buildings with their typical large ashlar blocks, nicely chiselled around the edges, are to be seen: Jerusalem, Jericho, Masada, Herodion, Samaria/ Sebaste, Caesarea Maritima, as well as a number of other lesser fortresses. Curiously, however, Galilee seems to have escaped his attention in this regard. Only in the far north, at the Pool of Pan in Banias did he build a temple to Roma and Augustus.18 The reason may have been that at the beginning of his reign Herod was not popular in Galilee, and he may have deliberately chosen to ignore it, or at least avoid the likely opposition from disaffected natives who were unimpressed with this half-Jewish Idumean. Early in his career he had alienated them by raising a considerable amount of money as procurator of the region. This he used to ingratiate himself with Augustus, while also ensuring that he would, after a manner, emulate the emperor, with the grandeur and opulence of his lifestyle, but without any suggestion of usurping the imperial role. It fell to his son, Antipas, who was made ruler of Galilee after Herods death, to begin the
16 Paul Zanker, The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus (Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press, 1990). 17 Peter Richardson, Herod, King of the Jews and Friend of the Romans (Colombia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1996) , 174 215 ; Duane W. Roller, The Building Program of Herod the Great (Berkeley: The University of California Press, 1998). 18 A. Overman, J. Olive and M. Nelson, Discovering Herods Shrine to Augustus. Mystery Temple found at Omrit, BAR 29 (2003) 4049 and 67f.

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Romanization process in Galilee.19 Josephus declares that he made Sepphoris (just 6 kms from Nazareth) the ornament of all Galilee, and gave it the name of autokrator/sole ruler in order to honour Augustus, who had emerged as sole ruler of the empire, east and west, once he had defeated his arch-rival Antony, at the battle of Actium in 31 bce. The visitor to this site today is confronted with a considerable amount of archaeological material, all of which was uncovered by various teams of archaeologists over the past twenty-ve years.20 For the untrained eye, there is a danger of all this evidence being attributed to Antipas refurbishing of the site which had been sacked by the Roman general Varus, because of a revolt there on the death of Herod the Great in 4 bce. In reality, however, many of the more impressive developments, such as the villas with mosaic oors, the synagogue, the huge water cisterns, the bath house and the colonnaded cardo, or main street, are to be dated from the 2nd century ce, when the citys name was changed to Diocaesarea and its population increased greatly, down to the late Byzantine period. The dating of the theatre has given rise to a lively discussion in view of the claim that Jesus may have actually visited the place as a young adult.21 It is still unresolved, with some scholars suggesting that the building went through two phases of development, the rst phase indeed belonging to Antipas renewal in the early 1st century ce. The possibility of Jesus attending the place, or at least being aware of its symbolic signicance cannot be ruled out, even though it would seem improbable on other grounds. The further extension of the seating came towards the end of that century, when Sepphoris was rewarded for its loyalty to Rome during the Jewish revolt. Indeed one of its coins from the year 66 has the
19 Morten Hrning Jensen, Herod Antipas in Galilee (Tbingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006), 12686. 20 Eric Meyers, Ehud Netzer and Carol Meyers, Sepphoris (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1992; Ehud Netzer and Zeev Weiss, Zippori (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1994); Jensen, Herod Antipas, 15061; R. Talgam and Z. Weiss, The Mosaics of the House of Dionysus at Sepphoris (Qedem 44; Jerusalem: The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2004); Mark Chancey, Greco-Roman Culture and the Galilee of Jesus (SNTS Monograph Series, 134; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 8286). 21 Richard Batey, Jesus and the Forgotten City. New Light on Sepphoris and the Urban World of Jesus (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1991); Jensen, Herod Antipas, 15456.

legend eirenopolis city of peace a rather blatant espousal of the Roman propaganda just as the countryside around was seething in revolt.22 Perhaps the most relevant discoveries with regard to the early 1st century are the number of miqvaoth or ritual baths found in domestic settings on the acropolis. These, together with stone jars and other signs of purity concerns, are indicative of observant Jewish residents, thus conrming the results of the surveys, previously discussed.23 Indeed, Sepphoris, even after its later expansion, which presumably meant the introduction of non-Jewish population, continued to be a major centre of Jewish learning for several centuries. It was here that Rabbi Judah ha-Nasi is believed to have redacted the Mishnah about the year 200 ce, and several Talmudic stories refer to rabbis dwelling there, and on one occasion meeting with a disciple of Yeshua ha-Nozri in the upper market. In the year 19 ce Antipas founded a new city on the shores of the Sea of Tiberias near the hot springs, and named it Tiberias in honour of Augustus successor, whose reign began either in the year 12 or 14 ce (JA 18, 3638). Students of the historical Jesus nd this move to be highly signicant, since some years later Jesus seems to have moved his centre of operation to Capernaum, also situated on the lake-shore. Yet, neither Tiberias nor Sepphoris are mentioned in the gospels, and in fact the indications are that Jesus, like his mentor John, deliberately avoided these Herodian centres (cf. Matt 11:8).24 Here, unlike Sepphoris, whose layout had predated the Roman period, on an unencumbered site, nothing inhibited the development of a Roman-style city except for some Jewish graves, which were ignored, despite Jewish reverence for the dead.25 As mentioned previously, the fact that Tiberias has been inhabited over the centuries, has limited the amount

22 E. Meyers, Gamla, City of Peace, in Andrea Berlin and Andrew Overman (eds), The First Revolt: Archaeology, History, and Ideology (London: Routledge, 2002), 11020. 23 Jonathan Reed, Archaeology and the Galilean Jesus: A Re-Examination of the Evidence (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 2000), 2361 and 10028. 24 S. Freyne, Jesus and the Urban Culture of Galilee, in idem. Galilee and Gospel: Collected Essays (Tbingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2002), 183207. 25 Z. Weiss, Josephus and Archaeology on the Cities of Galilee, in Zuleika Rodgers (ed.), Making History. Josephus and Historical Method (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 385414.

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of excavation of the original city that has been possible, yet some recent work in the southern part, close to the modern Hamath Tiberias, has uncovered a number of promising nds. These include a city gate with two circular towers, a basilica-type building with a tiled oor in marble in Herodian style.26 This building may have been the Herodian palace with animal representations on its walls, which was destroyed at the outbreak of the revolt by some zealot Galileans together with the more anti-Roman party in the city. Josephus mentions other public buildings, such as a synagogue, a stadium and hot baths, and seems to assume that the city was organized on the lines of a Greek polis, with a city council and a president, a market manager, banking and archives. These underline its administrative position, which was a cause of friction with the older foundation, Sepphoris. As in the case of Sepphoris, dating of these nds is by no means certain and hence it is unclear how much of Antipass city has been uncovered. Nevertheless, it is safe to say that the impression we get from the literary sources, especially Josephus, of the nature of Tiberias as a decidedly new foundation, is corroborated by the archaeological discoveries. If Rome was not built in a day, neither was Tiberias. Yet there can be little doubt about Antipas intention, namely to honour the new emperor, possibly in the hope of receiving the title King and having his fathers whole kingdom restored to him, as he believed was his due. Herod the Greats other two sons had similar ambitions. However, Archelaus was deposed at an early stage and banished by Augustus, but Philip continued the same policy of seeking to honour the Roman patron. Thus, probably in the year 30 ce, based on the dating of one of his coins which bears the legend founder, he changed the name of Paneas to Caesarea Philippi and upgraded the shing village of Bethsaida by strengthening its walls, increasing the population and adding the personal name Julia to that of the city (JA 18, 2728). In all probability this was Livia/Julia, Augustus wife rather than his disgraced daughter of the same name.27
Jensen, Herod Antipas, 13549. F. Strickert, The Renaming of Bethsaida in Honor of Livia, aka Julia, the daughter of Caesar in Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 18.2728, in Rami Arav (ed.), Bethsaida: A City by the North Shore of the Sea of Galilee, 3 vols. (Kirksville MI: Truman State University Press, 1995, 1999, 2004), vol. 3, 93114.
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Both Banias 28 and Bethsaida are subject to on-going excavation. With regard to Bethsaida, impressive remains of a city gate from the 8th century, destroyed presumably by the Assyrians, have been discovered on the eastern side of the Jordan, close to the present-day northern shore of the lake, but with little evidence of any intensive programme of Romanization on the scale that Antipas had initiated in nearby Galilee. Philip died some four years after his dedication of the city to Julia in 30 ce, and this could be the explanation for the lack of more obvious signs of the trappings of a Roman city. The archaeologists consider that they may have uncovered the outline of a Roman temple, though very little of the structures foundations can be discerned, so that no rm identication seems possible at present.29 The scarcity of such obvious signs of an aggressive Roman presence has led some to doubt that this is the site of ancient Bethsaida, especially since it is presumed that, as a shing village, it should be located nearer to the lakeshore. However, neither objection is telling against the identication of Bethsaida with et Tell (the site of the current excavation). For one thing Philips resources were limited and Caesarea/ Banias was his capital, with Bethsaida located close to the border with Galilee. His father had already set the trend to honour Caesar at the erstwhile Paneas, by building a temple to Roma and Augustus in that region. It would be natural, therefore, for him to give greater attention to that site, because of both its strategic and cultural importance for centuries as the site of the cult of Pan and of its situation on the main highway between Tyre and Damascus. With regard to Bethsaidas current distance from the lakeshore, the archaeological team working there, led by Rami Arav, have had the terrain between et Tell and the lake examined scientically by an expert team for signs of geomorphic changes in this highly volcanic region. The results of this investigation show that a combination of tectonic uplift of the
A. Berlin, The Archaeology of Ritual: The Sanctuary of Pan at Banias/Caesarea Philippi, BASOR 315 (1999) 2746; Zvi Uri Maoz, Baniyas in the Greco-Roman Period: A History of the Excavations (Qatzrin: Archostyle, 2007); idem. Baniyas, Upper Galilee and the Lebanon Beqa in the Hellenistic Period (Qatzrin: Archostyle, 2007). 29 R. Arav, Bethsaida, in J. Charlesworth (ed.), Jesus and Archaeology (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2007), 14566.
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shore, sedimentation of the Jordan delta and the lowering of the water levels of the lake could have led to major changes in the northern shore of the lake over the centuries and thus explain the approximately 3 km distance of the current site from the shoreline at present.30 This survey of the cities of Galilee in the Roman period shows that it is somewhat premature to speak of a thorough urbanization of the region in the 1st century already. Indeed the evidence of Bethsaida shows that the line between a city and a large village is a thin one, perhaps explaining why ancient authors, especially those writing in Greek can often use the terms polis and kome interchangeably. As in the case of Bethsaida, it seems possible to have a settlement upgraded to the status of a polis without all the trappings of a full scale Roman city being already put in place. A lot depended on circumstances, resources and the need to honour ones patron at any given time. In such a case the monumental buildings can come later as in the case of Sepphoris, or the place can revert to a village status again, once the immediate reason for its elevation has passed, as seems to have happened in the case of Bethsaida. 3. Galilean Villages According to Josephus there were 204 cities and villages in Galilee (Life 235). Elsewhere he mentions three locations Sepphoris, Tiberias and Gadara as being the three chief cities of Galilee (Life 123). It would seem then that for him Galilean settlements were for the most part villages rather than cities. But what did he mean by a village? In another of his works, he claims that the smallest of the Galilean villages had more than 15,000 inhabitants (JW 3, 43). This latter piece of information is clearly a serious exaggeration, but it should also be noted that Josephus is far from consistent in his use of the terms city and village throughout all his writings, and can describe the same site by both terms on occasion. Perhaps part of the problem has to do with the fact that unlike Hebrew, where we nd such terms as ir, kerach and kephar to describe different types of settlement, Greek has only these two terms.31 But
30 J. F. Shroder, M. Bishop, K. Cornwell and M. Inbar, Cartophic Geomorphic Processes and Bethsaida Archaeology, in Arav (ed.), Bethsaida vol. 2, 11574. 31 S, Freyne, Town and Country Once More: the Case of Roman Galilee, in Douglas Edwards and C. Thomas McCollough (eds), Archaeology and the Galilee. Texts and

even the Hebrew designations cannot adequately capture the range of settlements that must have existed in Galilee as elsewhere in all pre-industrial societies, and which we are accustomed to describe by such terms as towns, farmsteads, hamlets and the like. The only realistic way to distinguish between the different Galilean settlements at present is to point to places that did or did not come to Roman attention in terms of the enhancement of their architectural features, and even that criterion does not really apply in the case of Bethsaida, as we have seen. A number of the larger Galilean villages have been excavated, mainly because of their importance in Josephus or the gospels narratives. Thus Yodefat and Gamla (strictly, a site in Phillips rather than Antipas territory) played important roles as places of refuge during the revolt against Rome in 66 ce Both had defensive walls, as can be seen most obviously at Gamla today, with the point of the Roman breach clearly in evidence.32 We hear of country people leaving their well-stocked villages behind in order to ee to the protection that this larger settlement provided. The same was true of Yodefat for the populace of lower Galilee. In both instances we have the dramatic narratives of Josephus to ll out the story that the ruins at either site cannot fully capture, even when the general, turned refugee of the Romans, knows how to embellish a good story in his own interest. Cana and Caphernaum are both associated with Jesus ministry. Recent excavation under the direction of Douglas Edwards have convincingly shown that the more northerly Khirbet Qana, rather than Kefar Cana (close to Nazareth) was the more likely site for Jesus wine-making story (Jn 2, 111), at least as far as the early pilgrims were concerned.33 Like
Contexts in Greco-Roman and Byzantine Periods (South Florida Studies in the History of Judaism 143; Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1997), 4966. 32 Yodefat : Adan Bayewitz and Aviam (above n. 10 ); M.Aviam, First Century Jewish Galilee: An Archaeological Perspective, in D. Edwards (ed.), Religion and Society in Roman Palestine. Old Questions and New Approaches (London: Routledge, 2004), 727; Gamla: Gutman (above n. 10 ); A. Berlin, Gamla 1 . The Pottery of the Second Temple Period, (IAA Reports 29; Jerusalem: Israel Antiquities Authority, 2006); D. Syon, Gamla, City of Refuge, in Berlin and Oveman (eds), The First Jewish Revolt, 13453. 33 D. Edwards, Khirbet Qana, From Jewish Village to Christian Pilgrim Site, in J. Humphreys (ed.), The Roman and Byzantine Near East, 3 vols. (Journal of Roman Archaeology

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Bethsaida, Caphernaum and Magdala (where new excavations are currently taking place) were shing villages along the lake-shore.34 They were more likely to be relatively afuent than were other smaller settlements situated away from the resources that both the lake and the fertile Valley region provided with its rich supply of water and alluvial soil, which Josephus describes so enthusiastically (JW 3, 50621). Morten Jensens comparative study of the results of the excavations at these villages points to the fact that in terms of public buildings (i.e. synagogues), industrial activities and some traces of more upper class houses, there were no signs of hardship or decline in the economic conditions.35 Other villages such as Kefar Hanania and Shikhin, known from both the literary sources and some exploratory excavations and surveys, might also be added to this list, as well as Nazareth.36 It may well be that, as Douglas Edwards has suggested in several publications, one can detect the development of nucleated clusters of settlements in Galilee, that is, the abandonment of smaller hamlets for larger sized settlements, was also a factor.37 If that were the case, the reasons for such demographic changes would need to be explored more thoroughly against the known historical record and the evidence from the various surveys previously discussed. Would

such shifts reect external pressures on the patterns of social and economic life in the region, or were they peaceful developments resulting from greater opportunities provided by the changing political circumstances of the Roman period? And what, if any role might the ideological beliefs of the largely Jewish peasantry with regard to a share in the land and suspicion of cities have played in such a process? This issue of the nature of the village culture of Galilee is particularly important in any discussion of Jesus ministry to the villages of Galilee and his emphasis on the blessedness of the poor. Much more work remains to be done in coming to denitive answers to these and other questions. One wonders how Renan, with his romantic views of the Galilean landscape might have reacted to such questions. Conclusion: Interpreting the Data Describing the archaeological ndings is a relatively easy rst step in the exploration of a region in terms of its cultural, social and religious afliations and commitments. Putting the often conflicting and partial results of such a project into a coherent and plausible account of the overall ethos of the region is a much more difcult and tentative exercise. This is especially the case when one seeks to co-relate the data with the known larger historical picture, or when it relates to a gure such as Jesus, about whose mission and activity there can be so many different and conicting points of view. That said, there can be little doubt that the intensive archaeological investigation of Hellenistic and Roman Galilee has opened up a new and very different chapter in the study of Jesus, but also in the study of the Jewish ethos within which his life and world-view were shaped. There are several blind alleys in Jesus research that a responsible use of the archaeological evidence currently available should not allow one to enter, not least those of a pagan Galilee, or a marginally Jewish Jesus. Contrary to popular opinion archaeology does not provide hard facts but data in need of interpretation, just as much in need of a critical retrieval as are the texts with which we are all so familiar, including Josephus as well as the gospels. Renans fth gospel is a constant invitation to take and read, for those interested in the world of Jesus and his rst followers. We should do so wisely and with reverence.

Supplementary Series 49; Portland, OR: Journal of Roman Archaeology, 2002, vol. ??, 10132. 34 S. Loffreda, Recovering Capharnaum (Jerusalem: Studium Biblicum Franciscanum, 1993); J. Reed, The Population of Capernaum (Institute for Antiquity and Christianity: Occasional Papers 24; Claremont, CA). 35 Jensen, Herod Antipas, 16278. 36 Kefar Hananya: D. Adan-Bayewitz, Common Pottery in Roman Galilee: A Study of Local Trade (Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 1993); Shikhin: J. Strange, D. Groh and T. Longstaff, Excavations at Sepphoris: the location and identication of Shikhin, Part One, IEJ 44 (1994) 21627; Part Two, IEJ 45 (1995) 17187. Nazareth: Ross Voss, The Nazareth Village Project, Bulletin of the Anglo-Israel Society, 2007. 37 D. Edwards, The Socio-Economic and Cultural Ethos of the Lower Galilee in the First Century: Implications from the Nascent Jesus Movement, in L. Levine (ed.), The Galilee in late Antiquity (New York and Jerusalem: The Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1992), 5374; idem. Identity and Social Location in Roman Galilean Villages, in Zangenberg, Attridge and Martin (eds), Religion, Ethnicity and Identity, 35774.

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