1. For the initial report on the synagogue and its frescoes, see Kraeling, Carl H., “The Synagogue,” in The Excavations at Dura-Europos Conducted by Yale University and the French Academy of Inscriptions and Letters, ed. Rostovtzeff, Michael I. et al. (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1936), 337–83.Google Scholar For a more comprehensive discussion of the site and the synagogue, see Kraeling, Carl H., The Synagogue: The Excavations at Dura-Europos, Final Report VIII, Part I (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1956).Google Scholar

2. In addition to Kraeling's final report, the following studies consider the question of the fresco cycle as a whole: Rostovtzeff, Michael I., Dura-Europos and Its Art. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1938) 100ff;Google ScholarRobert Comte du Mesnil du Buisson, , Les Peintures de la synagogue de Doura-Europos 245–56 Après J.-C. (Rome: Pontificio Istituto Biblico, 1939)Google Scholar; Grabar, André, “Le theme religieux des fresques de la synagogue de Doura (245–56 apres J.-C.),” Revue de l'histoire des religions 123/2–3 (1941): 143–92 and 124/1 (1941): 5–35;Google ScholarSonne, Isaiah, “The Paintings of the Dura Synagogue,” Hebrew Union College Annual 20 (1947): 255–362;Google ScholarSukenik, Eleazar L., The Synagogue of Dura-Europos and Its Paintings Jerusalem, 1947);Google ScholarWischnitzer, Rachel, The Messianic Theme in the Paintings of the Dura Synagogue (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1948);Google Scholar vols. IX–XI of Goodenough's, Erwin R.. Jewish Symbols in the Greco-Roman Period. 13 vols. Bollingen ser. 37 (New York: Pantheon Books, 1953–68);Google ScholarGutmann, Joseph, “Programmatic Painting in the Dura Synagogue,” in The Dura-Europos Synagogue: A Re-Evaluation (1932–72), ed. Gutmann, Joseph (Missoula, MT: American Academy of Religion and Society of Biblical Literature, 1973), 137–54;Google ScholarWeitzmann, Kurt and Kessler, Herbert, The Frescoes of the Dura Synagogue and Christian Art (Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks, 1990), 151–83;Google ScholarMoon, Warren, “Nudity and Narrative: Observations on the Synagogue Paintings from Dura-Europos,” in Polykleitos, the Doryphoros, and Tradition. ed. Moon, Warren (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1995), 283–316Google Scholar [originally published as Moon, Warren, “Nudity and Narrative: Observations on the Frescoes from the Dura Synagogue,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 60 (1992): 587–658CrossRefGoogle Scholar]; Wharton, Annabel J., “Good and Bad Images from the Synagogue of Dura Europos: Contexts, Subtexts, Intertexts,” Art History 17 (1994): 1–25;CrossRefGoogle ScholarWharton, Annabel J., Refiguring the Post Classical City. Dura Europos, Jerash, Jerusalem and Ravenna (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 38–51;Google ScholarLaderman, Shula, “A New Look at the Second Register of the West Wall in Dura Europos,” Cahiers Archeologiques 45 (1997): 5–18;Google ScholarFine, Steven, Art and Judaism in the Greco-Roman World: Toward a New Jewish Archaeology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 172–83.Google Scholar

3. See Kraeling, , The Synagogue (1956), especially 118–33.Google Scholar

4. See Gutmann, “Programmatic Painting,” 149.

5. See Fine, Art and Judaism, 172–83.

6. As in Kraeling, , The Synagogue (1956), 346–48;Google Scholar and Gutmann, “Programmatic Painting,” 150.

7. Early scholars such as Heinrich Graetz constructed a narrative in which R. Yohanan ben Zakkai founded an academy in Yavneh, reconstituted the Sanhedrin (or central court) there, and served as an all-powerful “president.” See History of the Jews, vol. II (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1893)Google Scholar. In contrast, Catherine Hezser has argued that the early Rabbinic movement should be understood as an informal network of relationships between teachers who could boast knowledge of Torah (but also piety, personal charisma, social influence, and wealth) and their disciples, rather than in terms of centralized political power. See Hezser, Catherine, The Social Structure of the Rabbinic Movement in Roman Palestine (Tübingen, Germany: Mohr/Siebeck, 1997)Google Scholar, Texte und Studium zum Antiken Judentum 66, as well as her conclusions regarding the rabbinic movement as a “personal alliance system,” ibid., 492–94, in particular. David Goodblatt has debated the existence of an all-powerful court (the Sanhedrin) that functioned as the authority for Jews throughout the empire in this period; see The Monarchic Principle. Studies in Jewish Self-Government in Antiquity, Texts and Studies in Ancient Judaism 38 (Tübingen, Germany: Mohr/Siebeck, 1994), 232–76Google Scholar. Likewise, Martin Jacobs expresses skepticism about the early status of the office of the “president.” See especially Die Institution des jüdischen Patriarchen. Eine quellen- und traditionskritische Studie zur Geschichte der Juden in der Spätantike (Tübingen, Germany: J.C.B. Mohr, 1995), 114Google Scholar. See also Schwartz, Seth's fundamental reevaluation of this question in Imperialism and Jewish Society, 200 b.c.e. to 640 c.e. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001), esp. 177–289Google Scholar. Richard Kalmin has argued that rabbinic scholars in the Babylonian sphere were even less integrated into the larger Jewish community than their Palestinian contemporaries. See his Jewish Babylonia between Persia and Roman Palestine (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 8Google Scholar.

8. For the dedication inscription, see Kraeling, , The Synagogue (1956), 264Google Scholar, Aramaic text on Tile B.

9. Although the Dura inscription does not make this claim about Samuel, other inscriptions state explicitly that priestly leaders in synagogues taught Torah in this setting. The Theodotos inscription from first-century CE Jerusalem refers to a synagogue run by generations of priests who list teaching the Torah as the primary function of the synagogue over which they presided. See Levine, Lee I., The Ancient Synagogue: The First Thousand Years (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000), 54–56Google Scholar with notes for references related to the inscription. An inscription in the Sardis synagogue also refers to a “priest and teacher of wisdom”; see Seager, Andrew, “The Synagogue at Sardis,” in Ancient Synagogues Revealed, ed. Levine, Lee I. (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1982), 183.Google Scholar Ed P. Sanders notes that “priests” and “elders” were specifically charged with the teaching of Torah (Deuteronomy 31:9–13) and that this formulation appears to be echoed in Philo's description of a “priest” or “elder” who read and taught the Torah in the synagogue (Philo. Hypothetica 7:12ff). He argues that priests were the primary teachers and arbiters of the Torah in the late Second Temple Period; see Judaism: Practice and Belief, 63 BCE–55 CE (Philadelphia: Trinity Press International, 1992), 170–89Google Scholar.

10. See Goodenough, Jewish Symbols, vols. IX–XI. Other scholars have revived Goodenough's approach to some extent. See, for example, Magness, Jodi, “Heaven on Earth: Helios and the Zodiac Cycle in Ancient Palestinian Synagogues,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 59 (2005), 1–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11. Fine, Art and Judaism, 172–83.

12. Fraade, Steven, “The Temple as a Marker of Jewish Identity before and after 70 CE,” in Jewish Identities in Antiquity, ed. Levine, Lee I. and Schwartz, Daniel R. (Tübingen, Germany: Mohr/Siebeck, 2009), 262.Google Scholar Seth Schwartz concludes that “It is obvious that neither the synagogue nor the community were rabbinic inventions, and unlikely that the rabbis played a role in their diffusion,” Imperialism and Jewish Society, 238.

13. Kessler refers to “some center, Antioch perhaps…” where such a program might have been devised, The Frescoes of the Dura Synagogue, 182. In contrast, Kraeling had raised the possibility that the model for the cycle might be found in the area near such centers as Edessa and Nisibis in northern Mesopotamia; see Kraeling, , The Synagogue (1956), 391.Google Scholar Gutmann states more generally, “Scholars agree… [t]hat the repertoire of the Dura synagogue may have been repeated with greater artistic skill in no-longer extant or buried synagogues in some major Near Eastern Jewish centers”; see Gutmann, “Programmatic Painting,” 140.

14. Kraeling, , The Synagogue (1956), 353.Google Scholar

15. For a brief synopsis of earlier arguments and associated literature, see Cook, Edward M., “A New Perspective on the Language of Onqelos and Jonathan,” in The Aramaic Bible: Targums in Their Historical Context, ed. Beattie, Derek R. G. and McNamara, Martin J. (Sheffield, England: JSOT Press, 1994), 142–43Google Scholar and notes. Cook argues that earlier versions of the texts represent a kind of “Central Aramaic” stemming from a

16. For liturgy and synagogue decoration in general, see Cohen, Shaye J. D., “The Temple and the Synagogue,” Ancient Records and Modern Perspectives (Provo, UT: Brigham Young University Press, 1984), 151–74;Google ScholarBranham's, Joan “Sacred Space under Erasure in Ancient Synagogues and Early Churches,” Art Bulletin 74, no. 3 (1992): 384–86CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and “Vicarious Sacrality: Temple Space in Ancient Synagogues,” Ancient Synagogues. Historical Analysis and Archaeological Discovery, ed. Urman, Dan and Flesher, Paul V. M. (New York: E.J. Brill, 1995), 319–45Google Scholar; Fine, Steven, “From Meeting House to Sacred Realm: Holiness and the Ancient Synagogue,” in Sacred Realm: The Emergence of the Synagogue in the Ancient World, ed. Fine, Steven (New York, 1996), 32–45Google Scholar, and Fine's, This Holy Place: On the Sanctity of the Synagogue during the Greco-Roman Period (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1997).Google Scholar

17. Hachlili uses these three categories to distinguish the types of shrines. Niches were generally built directly into the synagogue's western wall, aediculae were independent or semi-independent and were often supported by columns, and apses in early Byzantine structures also housed aediculae. Hachlili, Rachel, Ancient Jewish Art and Archaeology in the Land of Israel (Leiden: Brill, 1988), 167Google Scholar, and Ancient Jewish Art and Archaeology in the Diaspora (Leiden: Brill, 1998), 67Google Scholar. Levine refers to the Torah shrine at Dura as an aedicula rather than a niche since the columns protrude and form a sort of half-canopy: The Ancient Synagogue, 329. For examples of niches, see Hachlili's Ancient Jewish Art (Israel), 179–80 and Ancient Jewish Art (Diaspora), 67 and 73. For aediculae, Ancient Jewish Art (Israel), 167–75 and Ancient Jewish Art (Diaspora), 67 and 68–71. And for apses, Ancient Jewish Art (Israel), 180–82 and Ancient Jewish Art (Diaspora), 67 and 74–76.

18. No wooden cabinets survive from the period contemporary to Dura, though the text of the Mishnah (see M. Meg. 3:1 or M. Taan. 2:1) does refer to them. Fixtures that remain from wooden structures, such as nails or decorative bone inlays, have been recovered in Israel from later synagogues and may belong to Torah cabinets; see Hachlili, Ancient Jewish Art (Israel), 273. The earliest wooden synagogue cabinets to survive date only from the Fatamid period in Egypt. Examples are described and illustrated in Fortifications and the Synagogue: The Fortress of Babylon and the Ben Ezra Synagogue, ed. Lambert, Phyllis (Montreal: Canadian Centre for Architecture, 1994), 219–23Google Scholar.

19. Illustrated in Hachlili, Ancient Jewish Art (Israel), 273–78 and Ancient Jewish Art (Diaspora), 363–70. In some cases, only the aediculae themselves are shown; however, not all such structures necessarily housed wooden Torah cabinets. Other images depict menorot, for example, between the columns. Early examples come from the Beit She'arim necropolis in the Galilee, predating the destruction of the city in 352 CE. A drawing on a sealing stone from one of the loculi shows a chest placed in a kind of aedicula. A horizontal line dividing the chest indicates either a lid or a shelf, and a Torah scroll (and its cover?) superimposed over the chest suggests its contents; see Mazar, Benjamin, Beth She'arim: Report on the Excavations During 1936–1940. Vol. I: Catacombs 1–4 (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1957), 112–13.Google Scholar Although Mazar initially posited that the doors depicted would have been attached directly to the shrine (177), Hachlili sees the doors as attached to a separate cabinet. See Ancient Jewish Art (Israel), 166.

20. On the images of the “temple panel,” see Kraeling, The Synagogue (1936), 343 and Kraeling, The Synagogue (1956), 56–62. In the latter source (61), Kraeling explicated the meaning of the Torah shrine decoration in connection to the Abrahamic Covenant, the Torah, and the Temple, and the meaning these references would have had in connection to the community's identity. See also St. Clair, Archer, “The Torah Shrine at Dura-Europos: A Re-Evaluation.” Jahrbuch für Antike und Christentum 29 (1986), 109–17;Google Scholar Gabrielle Sed-Rajna, “Images of the Tabernacle/Temple in Late Antique and Medieval Art: The State of the Research,” in The Real and Ideal Jerusalem in Jewish, Christian and Islamic Art. Studies in Honor of Bezalel Narkiss on the Occasion of His Seventieth Birthday, ed. Bianca Kühnel, Journal of the Center of Jewish Art, 23/24 (1997/8); Revel-Neher, Elisabeth, L'arche d'alliance dans l'art juif et chrétien du second au dixième siècles (Paris: Association des Amis des Etudes Archéologiques Byzantino-Salves et du Christianisme Oriental, 1984), 85–86Google Scholar. See Hachlili, Rachel, “The Niche and the Ark in Ancient Synagogues,” Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 223 (1976): 43–53;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Hachlili, Ancient Jewish Art (Israel) and Ancient Jewish Art (Diaspora), as cited previously, as well as Branham's “Sacred Space under Erasure” and “Vicarious Sacrality.”

21. For a summation of possible interpretations of the ‘akedah, see Shinan, Avigdor, “Synagogues in the Land of Israel: The Literature of the Ancient Synagogue and Synagogue Archaeology,” in Sacred Realm: The Emergence of the Synagogue in the Ancient World, ed. Fine, Steven (New York, 1996), 130–52;Google Scholar and Kessler, Edward, “Art Leading the Story: The Aqedah in Early Synagogue Art,” in From Dura to Sepphoris: Studies in Jewish Art and Society in Late Antiquity, ed. Levine, Lee and Weiss, Ze'ev. (Portsmouth, RI: Journal of Roman Archeology, 2000), 40.Google Scholar For the connection between the ‘akedah and the site of Temple Mount, see I Chronicles 22:1; II Chronicles 3:1; Josephus Antiquities I. 224–26; Jubilees 18:13. The lamb presented twice daily for the tamid or perpetual sacrifice in the Tabernacle and Temple was linked to Abraham's affirmation that “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering” (Genesis 22:8) in the later midrash Leviticus Rabbah II:11 (ed. Freedman and Simon, 31). Although this connection can be found only in texts that postdate Dura, some scholars believe there is evidence for an earlier association. The term ‘akedah (“binding”) is not from the same root form used in the Genesis 22 text, but rather reflects the connection between the “binding” of Isaac and the binding of the lambs of the daily sacrifice in Tannaitic literature. See Davies, Philip R. and Chilton, Bruce D., “The Aqedah: A Revised Tradition History,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 40 (1978): 514–46.Google Scholar

22. For a review of possible meanings for the menorah as well as a discussion of previous scholarship, See Lee I. Levine, “The History and Significance of the Menorah in Antiquity,” in From Dura to Sepphoris, ed. Lee Levine and Ze'ev Weiss, 131–53.

23. “Four species” are mentioned in the celebration of Sukkot, generally identified as the etrog (citrus fruit) and lulav (palm), with the latter often tied together with the ’aravah (willow) and hadas (myrtle) into a “lulav bundle.” Other depictions of the four species in late antique Jewish art are more specific in their depiction of the lulav bundle of the three species along with the citrus fruit.

24. For biblical sources on the feast, see Exodus 23:14–19 (specifically verse 16b, the “Feast of Ingathering”); Exodus 34:22–24; Leviticus 23:33–43; Numbers 29:12–38; Deuteronomy 16:13–17.

25. The stipulation in Exodus 23:17 that “all the men are to appear before the Sovereign Lord” has been rendered in Deuteronomy as “before the Lord your God at the place he will choose” (verse 16), understood at least by the Second Temple period to mean the Jerusalem Temple.

26. Sukkot was celebrated as the culminating event of the First Temple's consecration under Solomon (I Kings 8:2 and 65–66/II Chronicles 7:8–10) and was part of the consecration of the Second Temple (Ezra 3 and Nehemiah 8) and the purification of the Temple under the Maccabees (I Maccabees 4:36–61; II Maccabees 1:9–2:18 and 10:1–8).

27. Rubenstein, Jeffrey L., The History of Sukkot in the Second Temple and Rabbinic Periods. (Brown Judaica Series 302; Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1995), 275–90.Google Scholar

28. Though some have argued that the Sukkot symbols indicate the “theme” of the panel and that the Temple image should be understood primarily as an eschatological structure, this argument seems too narrow to me. The Sukkot symbols themselves are comparatively marginalized within the panel, and it is not clear that the ‘akedah narrative can be related to the feast. See St. Clair, “The Torah Shrine at Dura-Europos”; Sed-Rajna, “Images of the Tabernacle/Temple,” 44; and Revel-Neher, L'arche d'alliance, 86. Revel-Neher indicates that an eschatological reading is only one of three possible levels of meaning, rather than the exclusive significance of the panel.

29. Kraeling read the lacuna in the first line as the name “Uzzi”: The Synagogue (1956), 269. We do not known what “Joseph, son of Abba” contributed.

30. According to Exodus 25:22, God would meet with Moses above the kaporet. The Ark is called God's “footstool” in I Chronicles 28:2 (See also Psalms 132:7). For God “enthroned upon the cherubim,” see I Samuel 4:4 and Psalms 89:2 and compare also Isaiah 6 and Ezekiel 1. God leads the armies in battle from the Ark in Numbers 10:35–36 and Joshua, chapters 3 and 4, and God exits the Temple on his “throne-chariot” in Ezekiel, chapters 10 and 11, returning in 43:1–7.

31. See II Samuel 7.

32. I Kings 8:20–21 and II Chronicles 6:10–11.

33. According to II Samuel 7, God at first rejected the offer of a “house of cedar” (verse 7) and Solomon admitted that even the heavens could not contain him, “much less this house that I have built!” (I Kings 8:27). See, likewise, Isaiah 66:1: “Heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool; what is the house that you would build for me, and what is my resting place?”

34. In the Hauran region of Syria, as at Dura, an Aramaic inscription records the construction of a beit arona or “house for the ark” in a local synagogue. For the inscription, which was found reused in a mosque, see Naveh, Joseph, On Stone and Mosaic: The Aramaic and Hebrew Inscriptions from Ancient Synagogues (Jerusalem, 1978)Google Scholar [ʿAl pesefas ṿe-even ha-ketuvot ha-Aramiyot ṿe-ha-Ivriyot mi-bate-ha-keneset ha-atiḳim].

35. Fine, This Holy Place, 133.

36. E.g., Y. Meg. 3:1, 73d. Fine, This Holy Place, 79–80.

37. The inscription indicating a “house for the ark” in the other Syrian synagogue (see Naveh, On Stone and Mosaic) referred to a Torah shrine very similar to the shrine at Dura. See Hachlili, Ancient Jewish Art (Israel), 179, citing Mayer and Reifenberg, 1936, 8, fig. 8/Pl. 3. Another passage in the Tosefta describes a wooden Torah cabinet with its back to the qodesh or “holy place,” suggesting another link between the shrine and the Temple. See T. Meg. 4:21–23 and Hachlili, “The Niche and the Ark,” 52.

38. It is sometimes argued that the text, or part of it, is itself a product of the experience of exile. See, for example, Levenson, Jon D., “From Temple to Synagogue: 1 Kings 8,” in Traditions in Transformation. Turning Points in Biblical Faith, ed. Halpern, Baruch and Levenson, Jon (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns 1981), 143–66.Google Scholar

39. While residing in Babylon, Daniel goes to “his upstairs room where there are windows opened toward Jerusalem” when he prays (Daniel 6:10). In the book of Tobit, Sarah prays “with hands outstretched toward the window” (Tobit 3:11), whereas the youth in I Esdras prays with his face “lifted… toward heaven in the direction of Jerusalem” (I Esdras 4:58). Josephus presents Abraham as raising his hands in prayer toward the site of the future Temple (Josephus War 5:380).

40. The Gamla synagogue in the Golan seems to be oriented south, but this may have been dictated by the constraints of topography rather than the desire to face the Holy City. See Ma'oz, Ze'ev, “The Synagogue of Gamla and the Typology of Second-Temple Synagogues,” in Ancient Synagogues Revealed, ed. Levine, Lee I. (Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press, 1982), 37.Google Scholar Numerous pieces of evidence from literary, papyrological, and epigraphical sources indicate the existence of synagogues in the Diaspora in the Second Temple period. Only in Delos, however, has a structure that may have been a synagogue building been unearthed. The entrance of the building faces east, toward Israel, perhaps indicating that orientation of synagogues toward Jerusalem was practiced first in the Diaspora. See Levine, The Ancient Synagogue, 100–101.

41. See Landsberger, Franz, “The Sacred Direction in Synagogue and Church,” Hebrew Union College Annual 13 (1957), 183.Google Scholar Branham notes two cases (the earliest synagogue of H. Tiberias (IIb) and of Beth She'arim), which were originally constructed so that a wall with an entrance and windows faces the Holy City. These synagogues were modified subsequently so that doors and windows on the Jerusalem wall were blocked and displaced by a Torah shrine. See “Sacred Space under Erasure,” 384–86.

42. M. Ber. 4:5; T. Ber. 3:15–16.

43. See, for example: M. Ber. 5:3–4; M. Taan. 1:2; M. Erub. 3:9; and T. Meg. 3:21–23.

44. Hachlili, “The Niche and the Ark,” 52.

45. See Kraeling, , The Synagogue (1956), 125–31Google Scholar, for the formal antecedents of the Tabernacle structure.

46. Ibid., 126, and Weitzmann, The Frescoes of the Dura Synagogue, 58. They are similar to the thymiatiria found in numerous scenes of incense-offering in Dura. For an example, see Rostovtzeff, Dura-Europos and Its Art, pl. VIII/I.

47. The precise reason for such apparent “confusion” in the depiction of the altars is unclear. Laderman argues that the incense burners are pedestals and that the altar is for incense; “A New Look at the Second Register,” 9–10. Her argument regarding the “pedestals” is not convincing, as they are smoking from the burning of incense.

48. Kraeling, , The Synagogue (1956), 279, Greek text n. 29.Google Scholar

49. See Exodus 28:1–39 and 39:1–26 and ibid., 126–29. However, some details reflect Persian influence, as pointed out by Goodenough; compare the Tak-i-Bustan relief illustrated in Jewish Symbols XI, fig. 236.

50. Kraeling, , The Synagogue (1956), 131.Google Scholar

51. Kraeling noted this fact, but then referred to Solomon's creation of 120 trumpets for the Temple (II Chronicles 5:12) to imply that the number of trumpets in the panel was irrelevant. See ibid., 129, n. 462.

52. According to Numbers 10:8, “The sons of Aaron, the priests, are to blow the trumpets.”

53. Aaron's two other sons died an ignominious death and left no descendants. See I Chronicles 24:1–2.

54. Kraeling, , The Synagogue (1956), 130Google Scholar

55. Ibid., 126.

56. For an initial analysis of the Sepphoris mosaic, see Weiss, Ze'ev and Netzer, Ehud, Promise and Redemption: A Synagogue Mosaic from Sepphoris (Jerusalem: Israel Museum, 1996)Google Scholar, as well as Weiss, Ze'ev's “Greco-Roman Influences on the Art and Architecture of the Jewish City in Roman Palestine,” in Religious and Ethnic Communities in Later Roman Palestine, ed. Lapin, Hayim; Studies and Texts in Jewish History and Culture (Bethesda: University of Maryland Press, 1998), 219–46Google Scholar, and “The Sepphoris Synagogue Mosaic and the Role of Talmudic Literature in Its Iconographical Study,” in From Dura to Sepphoris: Studies in Jewish Art and Society in Late Antiquity, ed. Lee I. Levine and Ze'ev Weiss, 15–30. Weiss's more recent and comprehensive contribution on the Sepphoris synagogue is The Sepphoris Synagogue: Deciphering an Ancient Message through Its Archaeological and Socio-Historical Contexts (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, Institute of Archaeology, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2005)Google Scholar. Following Kraeling's argument concerning the Dura panel, Weiss has identified the Tabernacle scene in the more recently discovered Sepphoris synagogue mosaic in connection to both the consecration and the daily sacrifice and notes the appearance of the same subject in Dura. See Weiss, From Dura to Sepphoris, 22, n. 17, as well as Weiss and Netzer, Promise and Redemption, 15.

57. For a discussion of the bull and “consecration” scene in particular, see Weiss, Promise and Redemption, 20–22, and Weiss, The Sepphoris Synagogue: Deciphering an Ancient Message, 77–85.

58. Weiss, The Sepphoris Synagogue: Deciphering an Ancient Message, 85.

59. Weiss and Netzer, Promise and Redemption, 22.

60. Sirach 45:14.

61. Laderman has recently argued that the central sacrifice at Dura relates to Yom Kippur. See “A New Look at the Second Register,” 8–10. However, her proposal that the panel at Dura represents the entry of Aaron into the Holy of Holies on Yom Kippur is problematic for a number of reasons, including the fact that Aaron changed from his “garments of gold” into all white when he entered the Holy of Holies once a year. The panel also bears no resemblance to the extensive description of the day in Leviticus 16.

62. Ibid., 129.

63. The Mishnah enumerates the offerings that the half-shekel could fund in M. Sheq. 4:1–2.

64. Kraeling, , The Synagogue (1956), 130–31.Google Scholar

65. Ibid., 132.

66. Kraeling had argued that the objects flanking the menorah should also be understood as incense burners; ibid., 119. However, as Weitzmann notes, they seem more like additional lighting; The Frescoes of the Dura Synagogue, 66–67.

67. Kraeling, ibid., 119. Although the lack of bread presented on it would then be puzzling. Weitzmann argued that the table is the incense altar, ibid., 67.

68. Kraeling, ibid., 118–25, for the legend and the panel. Although Weitzmann challenged little of Kraeling's identification, he expressed misgivings about the lack of connection to a specific biblical text, ibid., 64. J. Milgrom, on other hand, argued that it should be understood exclusively in connection to another water miracle in, “Moses Sweetens the ‘Bitter Waters’ of the ‘Portable Well’: An Interpretation of the Panel of at Dura-Europos Synagogue,” Journal of Jewish Art 5 (1978), 45–47Google Scholar. The image does not seem to relate to any one biblical text, but to an evolving tradition rooted in the interpretation of several texts.

69. An important point made by Fishbane, Michael in “From Scribalism to Rabbinism: Perspectives on the Emergence of Classical Judaism,” in The Garments of Torah. Essays in Biblical Hermeneutics (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1989): 76–78.Google Scholar

70. This legend dates from at least as early as the first century CE, as references in the Pauline epistles (I Corinthians 10:4) and Pseudo-Philo's Antiquities 11:15 demonstrate. References to the mobile well/rock also occur in Midrash Sifre Numbers 11:21 and in Targum Onkelos, Targum Psalms-Jonathan, and the Fragmentary Targum (see Kraeling, The Synagogue [1956], 123, where he summarizes the similarities and differences in the legend as recorded in the targumin), and is described most extensively in the Tosefta (as discussed below). (See also B. Shab. 35a, B. Abot. 5:6, and Numbers Rabbah 19:25–26.)

71. T. Sukk.. 3:10.

72. T. Sukk. 3:10 ff.

73. As emphasized by Wharton, “Good and Bad Images,” 13–15, who rejects the notion that one particular text must stand behind each image as a source.

74. As argued by Moon; see “Nudity and Narrative.”

75. See Pekáry, Thomas, “Das Opfer Vor Dem Kaiserbild,” Bonner Jahrbücher 186 (1986): 91–103Google Scholar, particularly 100–101, for a recent discussion of one such painted image, which shows the local Roman military leader offering incense before various deities. This panel is of similar dimensions to the Tabernacle panel and was created at about the same time. It is possible that the same worship produced both panels, though no investigation of this matter has been carried out.

76. See especially Weitzmann, The Frescoes of the Dura Synagogue, which is a late example of the methodology developed by the author in several earlier publications, chiefly his Illustrations in Roll and Codex: A Study of the Origin and Method of Text Illustration (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1947)Google Scholar.

77. Histories I.98. See Kraeling, , The Synagogue (1956), 106–108.Google Scholar

78. For images, See Kraeling, , The Synagogue (1956), plate LVIII.Google Scholar

79. For images, See ibid., plates LIV–LV.

80. For the panel, see Du Mesnil du Buisson, Peintures, 75–84; Kraeling, , The Synagogue (1956), 99–105;Google Scholar Goodenough, Jewish Symbols, X, 74–91; Weitzmann, The Frescoes of the Dura Synagogue, 75–80.

81. Kraeling, , The Synagogue (1956), 111–113.Google Scholar

82. For Goodenough, the “Closed Temple” was part of a focus on “the Judaism of Immaterial Reality”; Jewish Symbols, X, 42–60.

83. For Sed-Rajna, the absence of the Ark is a fulfillment of Jeremiah's prophecy that the Ark would no longer be needed in the Messianic Age; “Images of the Temple/Tabernacle,” 44.

84. Du Mesnil du Buisson, followed by Wischnitzer, argued that it represented the “wicked” city of Beth Shemesh, the Israelite city where the Ark first came to rest, and where the inhabitants looked inside the Ark. Du Mesnil du Buisson, Peintures, 84–92; Wischnitzer, The Messianic Theme, 65–68; Grabar argued that the Temple was the corrupt Jerusalem Temple awaiting purification under Josiah. See Grabar, “Le thème,” 180–82. And Moon understood the Temple as the “pagan” Philistine temple meant to be seen in rhetorical antithesis to the positive image of the Tabernacle in the Wilderness. See Moon, “Nudity and Narrative,” 296–99.

85. Gutmann, “Programmatic Painting,” 148.

86. For the dating of the Capernaum synagogue, see Stanislao Loffreda, “The Late Chronology of the Synagogue of Capernaum,” in Ancient Synagogues Revealed, ed. Lee I. Levine, 52–56.

87. B. Abod. Zar. 24b; see Gutmann, “Programmatic Painting,” 148.

88. Gutmann, “Programmatic Painting,” 149.

89. Kraeling, , The Synagogue (1956), 113–17.Google Scholar

90. Gutmann, “Programmatic Painting,” 141.

91. It is also likewise possible that the images could be understood in connection to mystical ideas regarding the heavenly sanctuary (as argued in Laderman, “A New Look at the Second Register”). But it is not clear that the images in question are inherently mystical, that they represent the heavenly sanctuary, or that parallels to liturgical hymns represent the structuring theme for the images.

92. See Zecharia 14:16–19, as well as Rubenstein, The History of Sukkot, 275–90.

93. Sed-Rajna has argued that at Dura “gold paint was used for the Temple, the menorah and the festival sheaf… to emphasize the eschatological character of an event which belonged to the realm of meta-history”; “Images of the Tabernacle/Temple,” 44. However, the gold color of the images is not an indisputable indicator of eschatological status. Josephus describes how Herod also adorned his Temple with gold, apparently for the beauty and richness of its associations. It was, according to the historian, “covered on all sides with massive plates of gold, the sun was no sooner up than it radiated so fiery a flash that persons straining to look at it were compelled to avert their eyes, as from the solar rays”; Josephus War, 5:222.

94. Kraeling, , The Synagogue (1956), 264Google Scholar, Aramaic text on Tile B. It is translated as “on every Sabbath… spreading out [their hands] in it (in prayer).” Regarding the later half of the portion cited, Kraeling notes that, “In this much-used phrase ‘the hands,’ is often omitted, and this is true also of ‘in prayer,’” 266. See also Fine, Art and Judaism, 180–81.

95. Fine, ibid., 174–77. The Amidah is also know as ha-tefillah, “the prayer,” or, in its daily form, as the shemoneh-‘esreh, “eighteen [benedictions]”). The fragment was published in Kraeling, The Synagogue (1956), 259. Prior to Fine, it was rarely discussed by art historians, with the exception of Laderman, “A New Look at the Second Register,” who identified the fragment as an example of piyyut (liturgical poetry), 5.

96. Josephus War 6:94.

97. M. Taan. 4:6.

98. According to the Mishnah, the prayer service in the Temple was carried out in the following fashion: “The officer said to the them, “Recite the benediction.” They recited the benediction and recited the Ten Commandments, the Shema, and “It shall come to pass,” and “And the Lord spoke to Moses.” They pronounced three benedictions with the people: “True and certain,” and “‘Avodah,” and the Priestly blessing, and on the Sabbath they pronounced a further benediction for the outgoing course of priests.” (M. Tamid 5:1); Levine, Lee. I., “The Second Temple Synagogue: The Formative Years,” in The Synagogue in Late Antiquity, ed. Levine, Lee I. (Philadelphia, PA: American School of Oriental Research, 1987): 20.Google Scholar

99. “Then Judith prostrated herself, put ashes on her head, and uncovered the sackcloth she was wearing. At the very time when the evening incense was being offered in the house of God in Jerusalem, Judith cried out to the Lord with a loud voice…” (Judith 9:1). See also Psalms 141:2: “Let my prayer be counted as incense before you, and the lifting up of my hands as an evening sacrifice.”

100. Levine, The Ancient Synagogue, 184.

101. Piska 41, Hammer, 85.

102. Kimelman, Rueven, “The Literary Structure of the Amidah and the Rhetoric of Redemption,” in Echoes of Many Texts: Reflections on Jewish and Christian Traditions: Essays in Honor of Lou H. Silberman, ed. Dever, William G. and Wright, J. Edward (Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1977), 190.Google Scholar

103. Kimelman, “The Literary Structure of the ‘Amidah,” 188–89.

104. Sifre Deuteronomy refers to a “First Temple,” a “Second Temple,” and the Temple “built and beautified in the future,” Piska 352. The Mishnah also expresses hope for the restoration of the Temple: “May it be thy will, O Lord our God and the God of our fathers, that the temple be built speedily in our days.…” M. Abot. 5.20; see also M. Taan. 4:9. Its tractate on the tamid concludes as follows: “This was the rite of the tamid in the service of the house of our God.” It adds, “May it be his will that it should be built up again speedily and in our days.” M. Tamid 7:3.

105. For the motif and its relationship to wisdom or Torah, see Fishbane, Michael, “The Well of Living Water: A Biblical Motif and Its Ancient Transformations,” in Studies in the Bible, Qumran, and the Ancient Near East Presented to Shemaryahu Talmon, ed. Fishbane, Michael and Tov, Emanuel (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1992), 3–16.Google Scholar The significance of the water has been interpreted in many ways. Wischnitzer suggested that the panel was an allegorical representation of Moses giving the Law to Israel at Sinai. Wischnitzer, The Messianic Theme, 1948, 55–58. Laderman refers to a passage in the Mishnah that names the well among the miraculous provisions devised in advance for Israel during the creation of the world and offers that the image indicates the miraculous provision and presence that the Israelites enjoyed in “A New Look at the Second Register,” 14.

106. Sirach 24.

107. Philo. De Ebr. 113.

108. CD VI:4.

109. Fishbane, “From Scribalism to Rabbinism,” 76–78.

110. See also Cave 4, frag. 2, column XIX and 1Q Hodayot VIII.4 and V.9 and Fishbane, “From Scribalism to Rabbinism,” 76.

111. M. Abot VI:1–2 Likewise, Sifre Deuteronomy uses metaphorical language derived from Proverbs 5:15 concerning water from a well. See Piska 48 (ed. Hammer, 102).

112. Mekhilta, Vayassa’ 1:73–81 (ed. Lauterbach, II:89).

113. Mekhilta, Vayassa’ 2:11–12 (ed. Lauterbach, II:98).

114. Mekhilta, Shirata 10:19–20 (ed. Lauterbach, II:78).

115. Genesis Rabbah, LXX:8 (ed. Freedman and Simon, 641–43).

116. b. B.Qama 82a.

117. Genesis Rabbah also cites both the water from the well and the waters flowing from the Temple in Zechariah among a list of examples in which God provided water for Israel in the past and in the future in recompense for the righteousness of Abraham. Genesis Rabbah, XLVIII:10 (ed. Freedman and Simon, 411).