Greco-Roman Culture and the Galilee of Jesus (Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series) by Mark A. Chancey

Author:Mark A. Chancey [Chancey, Mark A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2005-12-14T23:00:00+00:00

the neighboring areas

If one should insist that the “accidents of survival and discovery” are the only reason for the relatively small number of inscriptions from Galilee, the evidence from adjacent areas, most of it in Greek, stands as counter-testimony. Pre-Roman examples at many sites go beyond amphora handles and coins. Inscriptions from the vicinity of Scythopolis include at least four second-century BCE examples: the stele with orders from Seleucid kings and officials'[147] two lead weights with the names of agoranomoi'[148] and what is probably a list of priests of Zeus Olympios.[149] Two pagan dedicatory inscriptions from the mid-second century BCE were found near Ptolemais, one to Atargatis by a Didotous Neoptolemy,[150] the other to Zeus Soter by the Seleucid governor.[151] Excavations at Ptolemais also revealed a second-century BCE epitaph memorializing a Cretan soldier.[152] At Gadara, a Greek building inscription probably dates to 85/84 BCE.[153] Mt. Hermon's long history as a site for temples resulted in a number of Hellenistic- and Roman-era pagan inscriptions there.[154] At the mid-second-century BCE Iturean site of Khirbet Zemel, five pithoi were inscribed with Greek names.[155]

As in Galilee, the number of inscriptions in the surrounding areas increases in the Roman period. They include the expected occasional ostraca, like the Aramaic example found at Jalame, southwest of Galilee.[156] They also include numerous burial inscriptions, like the probably third-century CE example at Kedesh reused by modern villages as a doorjamb,[157] the inscribed sarcophagus found near the coast at el Makr,[158] and the inscribed ossuary in the Jezreel at Kefar Barukh[159] (all three in Greek). Many are governmental, like the inscribed market weights from Paneas[160] and Gaba.[161] A few inscriptions are honorific, like one at Gaba naming a citizen “first of the city and its founder.”[162] The Roman colony at Ptolemais marked its boundary with a Latin inscription,[163] and along with the villages of Nea Come and Gedru, it honored Nero with a Latin inscription.[164] At the end of the third and in the early fourth century, Roman officials used Greek inscriptions to mark boundaries (apparently for taxation purposes) for many villages in the Huleh Valley and Golan.[165]

Unlike Galilee's inscriptions, many of those from the neighboring regions are explicitly pagan. At Qeren Naftali, a Tyrian village on the northern fringe of geographical Galilee, two dedicatory inscriptions, one to Athena (c. 50–150 CE), the other to the Heliopolitan Zeus (third century CE) were found.[166] Five inscriptions are associated with the early second-century CE temple at Kedesh, also in Tyrian territory.[167] Further north still, pagan worshippers left behind other inscriptions.[168] At Paneas, numerous pagan inscriptions from the second through fourth centuries have been found.[169] Other examples in the region are plenteous.[170]

Focusing on the epigraphic finds from three nearby cities helps to reveal the distinctiveness of Galilee's epigraphic habit. The number of inscriptions at Scythopolis also increases after the wave of development that swept over the city in the second century CE. Most are Greek,[171] though a few are Latin.[172] At Caesarea Maritima, excavators have found over 400 Latin and Greek inscriptions, many from the Byzantine period, but a considerable number from the first three centuries CE.

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