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Differing Approaches to Religious Benefaction: The Late Third-Century Acquisition of the Sardis Synagogue

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 June 2011

Marianne Palmer Bonz
Marianne Palmer Bonz
Affiliation:
Harvard Divinity School
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Extract

Although it was discovered in 1962 and its excavation was completed by the mid-1970s, the synagogue of ancient Sardis in western Asia Minor, with its nearly eighty Greek inscriptions, remains the single most important archaeological source for our knowledge of western diasporan Judaism and its relationship to the wider Greco-Roman world. Despite its historical importance, however, scholars have rarely questioned the assumptions and conclusions of its original interpreters, Andrew Seager and Thomas Kraabel. Yet, for example, on the crucial question of dating (that is, when the building actually became a synagogue) these authors clearly disagreed among themselves, as is evident from a careful reading of their jointly written analysis, published in 1983. Their long-awaited report on the Sardis synagogue may clarify this question as well as other important issues. At present, however, confusion abounds in the secondary literature, because in general this literature continues to accept uncritically Kraabel's selection and interpretation of the relevant evidence. Although I have reexamined the major aspects of the question of dating in a previous article, as has Helga Botermann independently and in more detail, the analysis of the building history reflected in this present article is also indebted to John H. Kroll's excellent but still unpublished manuscript of the Greek inscriptions.

Type
Research Article
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 86 , Issue 2 , April 1993 , pp. 139 - 152
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1993

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References

1 The excavation and reconstruction was carried out by the Harvard-Cornell Excavation Team under the direction of George M. A. Hanfmann. The synagogue's original excavator was David G. Mitten.

2 Seager, Andrew R. and Kraabel, A. Thomas, “The Synagogue and the Jewish Community,” in Hanfmann, George M. A., et al. , Sardis: From Prehistoric to Roman Times (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1983)Google Scholar.

3 Andrew R. Seager, A. Thomas Kraabel, and John H. Kroll, The Synagogue at Sardis (Archaeological Exploration of Sardis 5; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, forthcoming).

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8 The completion of the western half of the bath-gymnasium complex is dated to the 160s CE by means of a dedicatory inscription to Lucius Verus which was originally located in the frigidarium. The completion of the Marble Court at the western end of the palaestra is datable by inscription to 211–212. The palaestra itself, together with the North and South Halls which border it, would not have reached completion before the second quarter of the third century.

9 Buckler, W. H. and Robinson, David M., Greek and Latin Inscriptions (American Society for the Excavation of Sardis 7; Leiden: Brill, 1932)Google Scholar inscription 17.

10 The Harbor Baths complex has a total area of 11,000 square meters, excluding the palaestra; the Sardis bath-gymnasium complex has a total area of 10,700 square meters, excluding the palaestra. These figures compare quite favorably to an average size of 7,700 square meters for bath-gymnasium complexes in the Roman imperial era according to Nielsen, Inge, Thermae et Balnea (2 vols.; Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 1990) 1Google Scholar. 105.

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14 Ibid., inscriptions 22–24 and pp. 28–30.

15 Ibid., inscription 59.

16 The only coin found under the phase two floor indicates a date after 161 CE (unpublished coin, excavation catalogue number C71.268). See also Seager and Kraabel, “The Synagogue and the Jewish Community,” 173.

17 Kroll argues for a late third century date (“The Greek Inscriptions,” 11). For the possibility that the Claudius Gothicus coin, if countermarked, could represent a date as late as 304, see Harl, Kenneth, Civic Coins and Politics in the Roman East AD. 180–275 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987) 20Google Scholar.

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23 C/L 14.98.

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25 Magie, David, Roman Rule in Asia Minor: To the End of the Third Century After Christ (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1950) 703–7Google Scholar. See also Hanfmann, Sardis from Prehistoric to Roman Times, 146; Foss, Clive, Byzantine and Turkish Sardis (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1976) 8Google Scholar.

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32 Examples include Augustus's provision of a large sum for Artemis of Ephesus (decree of the proconsul of Asia ca. 44 CE, cited in Oliver, Sacred Gerusia, 21), or Hadrian's generosity toward the cult of Jupiter Aezanticus in Aezanius, Phrygia (CIL 3.355).

33 For example, in Teos, the senate and people laid down rules for honoring the gods presiding over the city (see Robert, Louis, Études epigraphiques et philologiques [Paris: Champion, 1938] 30)Google Scholar, and at Ephesus and Athens, the gerousiae oversaw the financial management of most of the cities' religious concerns.

34 C/L 5.10234.

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40 CIJ 1.726–30.

41 CIJ 2.754.

42 CIJ 2.803–18.

43 Hanfmann, “Ninth Campaign,” 29; photograph, 20.

44 CIG 9874 = CIJ 1.722–23. Notice that the amounts quoted are different in the two publications.

45 Philo Spec. leg. 1.76–78.

46 Ibid., 1.141–44.

47 Koester, Helmut, Introduction to the New Testament, vol. 1: History, Culture, and Religion of the Hellenistic Age (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984) 166–67Google Scholar.