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Jodi Magness, Associate Professor of Classical and Near
Eastern Archaeology in the Departments of Classics and Art History
at Tufts University, Medford, MA. She received her B.A. in Archaeology
and History from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and her Ph.D.
in Classical Archaeology from the University of Pennsylvania. From
1990-92, Professor Magness was Mellon Post-Doctoral Fellow in Syro-Palestinian
Archaeology at the Center for Old World Archeology and Art at Brown
University.
Professor Magness' research interests, which focus on Palestine
in the Roman, Byzantine, and early Islamic periods, include ancient
pottery, ancient synagogues, Qumran, and the Roman army in the East.
She has participated on 20 different excavations in Israel and Greece,
including co-directing the 1995 excavations in the Roman siege works
at Masada. She currently co-directs excavations at Khirbet Yattir
in southern Israel.
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Ancient Synagogues of Palestine
and the Diaspora
Wednesday-Sunday October
18-22, 2000
University of Oklahoma campus
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The institution of the ancient synagogue provided the setting
in which Rabbinic Judaism and early Christianity developed.
We know from the Gospels that Jesus and Paul preached to Jewish
communities in synagogues in Palestine and the Diaspora. Nevertheless,
many aspects of ancient synagogues are poorly understood, or
even shrouded in mystery. For example, we do not know when and
where the institution of the synagogue first developed. Did
synagogues develop during the sixth and fifth centuries BC,
among the Jews living in exile in Babylonia? Or did they develop
in Hellenistic Egypt, where we have inscriptions referring to
Jewish "prayer houses?" Or did they develop in Palestine?
Do we have the remains of any of the synagogues in which Jesus
reportedly preached? One of the biggest mysteries surrounding
ancient synagogues is the fact that many were decorated with
figured, and even pagan images (such as representations of the
Greco-Roman sun god Helios). Why did ancient Jews decorate their
synagogues in this manner, and what is the significance of these
images? In this seminar, we examine these topics and others,
focusing mainly on ancient synagogues in Palestine (modern Israel
and Jordan), as well as on the famous ancient synagogue at Dura
Europos (in modern Syria).
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The Class Reading List: (These books and articles supplied
by OSLEP)
This Holy Place, On the Sanctity of the Synagogue during
the Greco-Roman Period, Steven Fine, Notre Dame, IN:
University of Notre Dame Press, 1997.
The Ancient Synagogue, The First Thousand Years,
L. I. Levine, Yale University Press, 2000.
Ancient Synagogues Revealed, L. I. Levine, ed.,
Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1981.
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