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Wednesday, April 24, 2024

Magness, Ancient Synagogues in Palestine (OUP)

NEW BOOK FROM OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS:
Ancient Synagogues in Palestine

A Re-evaluation Nearly a Century After Sukenik's Schweich Lectures

Jodi Magness

British Academy

Schweich Lectures on Biblical Archaeology

£76.00
Hardback
Published: 07 March 2024
128 Pages | 25 b/w images, 1 colour image, 1 table
234x156mm
ISBN: 9780197267653

Description

Dozens of ancient synagogues have been discovered around the Mediterranean, most of which date to the fourth-sixth centuries CE and are concentrated in Palestine. In the 1930 Schweich Lectures, Eleazar Lipa Sukenik established a typology and chronology for these buildings. Ancient Synagogues in Palestine evaluates Sukenik's conclusions in light of new discoveries since his time. It opens with an overview of ancient synagogues in the region, followed by a survey of the historiography of the study of these buildings, highlighting its ideological roots in the early Zionist movement. In the final chapters, Magness examines the evidence for the dating of the synagogues at Khirbet Wadi Hamam and Capernaum, arguing that different synagogue types overlapped and were contemporary to the fourth-sixth centuries CE instead of being sequential, as Sukenik thought. This conclusion contradicts a widely accepted view that late antique Jewish communities in Palestine suffered and declined under supposedly oppressive Christian rule.

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