This volume presents the papers given at the Second International Conference on Galilee in Antiquity held at Duke University and the North Carolina Museum of Art in 1997. The goal of the conference was to examine the significance of Galilee and its rich and diverse culture through an extended period of time. Several of the papers have been revised since the conference and in light of continuing discussion. Furthermore, three new papers have been added to the collection, for a total of 25 contributions.

What is a Galilean? What were the criteria of defining a person as a Galilean - archaeologically or with respect to literary sources such as Josephus or the rabbis? What role did religion play in the process of identity formation? Twenty-two articles based on papers read at conferences at Cambridge, Wuppertal and Yale by experts from 7 countries shed light on a complex region, the pivotal geographic and cultural context of both earliest Christianity and rabbinic Judaism. In these papers, ancient Galilee emerges as a dynamic region of continuous change, in which religion, 'ethnicity', and 'identity' were not static monoliths but had to be negotiated in the context of a multiform environment subject to different influences.

This dissertation argues against the widespread belief among current scholars that Galilee experienced extensive Hellenization, rapid urbanization, and a socio-economic crisis in the first-century C.E. as a result of major socio-economic changes initiated by Herod the Great and his successors. My research indicates that earlier studies allowed the textual evidence to have an undue influence on the way that scholars interpret the archaeological evidence, and vice-versa. Unlike previous studies on Early Roman Galilee, the dissertation begins by attempting to interpret each source for the region individually and without recourse to other sources. After establishing what each source says on its own about Galilee, the dissertation analyzes the data as a whole and offers a reconstruction of Galilean society in the first-century C.E. that better reflects the available evidence. The major findings are that the region was politically stable until the Great Revolt of 66 C.E., that the region was much less Hellenized than some prominent scholars claim, that the urbanization process initiated by Herod Antipas had less of a negative immediate impact on Galilean society than modern scholars usually assume, and that Galilee was not experiencing any unusual or severe socio-economic problems prior to the revolt.

Drawing on the expertise of archaeologists, historians, biblical scholars, and social-science interpreters who have devoted a significant amount of time and energy in the research of ancient Galilee, this accessible volume includes modern general studies of Galilee and of Galilean history, as well as specialized studies on taxation, ethnicity, religious practices, road systems, trade and markets, education, health, village life, houses, and the urban-rural divide. This resource includes a rich selection of images, figures, charts, and maps.

In New Testament scholarship, the study of space has been underrepresented in comparison with the study of time. While Jesus’ life and ministry have been intensively explored in terms of eschatology—i.e., with time significance—space has tended to be treated as simply a given room or inactive backdrop where events took place. Interest in the space where Jesus ministered has, however, gradually increased, and space has received greater attention from sociological and literary perspectives. In particular, spatial investigations into the social circumstances of Galilee, the place of origin of Jesus’ missional movement, have begun to attract serious scholarly attention. The important functions of space in literature are also becoming better recognized: spatial settings serve not only to generate atmosphere but also to disclose the purposes and themes of narratives. This book explores Jesus’ Galilean ministry in Mark 4:35—8:21 through the use of spatial analysis, dividing space into three categories: social, geographical, and allusive. The study of each space discovers social, literary, and theological implications of Jesus’ missional movement in Galilee.

Several world cities are held in reverence by some or all three monotheistic faiths, but no world region has allure to all three on a level matched by Galilee in northern Israel. The region where Jesus came of age, Galilee is where Christianity came into being as a communal faith; it is where Judaism reinvented itself in rabbinic, Talmudic form after the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple; and it is where Islam established its place in the Holy Land, following epochal military triumphs in the region’s center or its outer rims. The History of Galilee, 47 BCE to 1260 CE: From Josephus and Jesus to the Crusades tells Galilee’s history, from Josephus and Jesus to the Crusades, in a multi-cultural format and lively narrative voice. This first-of-its-kind publication will be a rich source of information and a catalyst of inter-faith discussion among readers of varying backgrounds and interests.

In both Bellum Judaicum and the Vita, an appendix to Antiquitates Judaicae, Josephus deals with his own role in the war. Although both works have apologetic aims, Josephus changes his story from one work to the next. By viewing these two works in the greater context of Josephus's life and not in isolation from each other, Cohen traces Josephus's development as a historian, as an apologist, and as a Jew. --from publisher description