Ancient Synagogues Revealed ed. by Lee I. Levine (review)

348 BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS LEE I. LEVI NE (ed.). Ancient Synagogues Revealed. Jerusalem: The Israel Exploration Society; Detroit: wayne State University Press 1982. Pp.199. Cloth, US $24.00. ISBN 0-8143-1706-5. With the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in AD 70, the synagogue - neither a sacred centre nor a place of sacrifice, but a house of assembly, of prayer, and of study - emerges from obscurity to become the central institution of Judaism. The present volume of recently excavated synagogal remains from Roman and Byzantine Palestine, as well as from scattered sites in the Diaspora, is thus a fitting sequel to Jerusalem Revealed. Editor Levine, of the Hebrew University, has supervised the collection, arrangement, and translation from Hebrew of 38 articles and notes by 25 experts (mostly Israeli). The result is easily the best available overview of ancient Palestinian synagogues. The work is divided into eight sections. The first section comprises two introductory essays: the first (by Levine himself) sketches in broad strokes the significance, functions, and symbolic complexity of the synagogue within early Judaism; the second (by A. Kroner) offers a rapid archaeological survey of ancient Palestinian synaogues. The second section contains four articles on the earliest known synagogues: the late Second Temple exempla rs at Masada, Herodium, and Gamla. (The apparently contemporary synagogue at Magdala is mentioned only in passing.) The third and longest section is devoted to the riches of the Galilee, including Hammath-Tiberias, Horvat Shema', Gush Halav, and Horvat ha-' Amudim, but with special attention to the controversial Capernaum synagogue. S. Loffreda explains and defends the Franciscan excavators' "late chronology" (late 4th - early 5th c. AD), while articles by G. Foerster and M. Avi-Yonah are representative of the Israeli preference for the traditional 2nd - 3rd c. AD date. The fourth section focuses on the Beth-Shean region (synagogues at Ma'oz Hayim, Rehob, Kokhav-Hayarden, and Beth-Shean itself), while the fifth consists of a single lengthy survey of the lesser known synagogues of the Golan. Next, the synagogues of Judaea are represented by articles on BOCK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS 349 'En-Gedi, Eshtemoa, Horvat Susiya, and Gaza. The seventh section is devoted to inscriptions (six articles, including a useful survey by J. Naveh) and small finds (two rather flimsy notes on lintels with menorah reliefs). The final section is devoted to selected Diaspora synagogues, with G. Foerster's survey the most helpful of the five articles. The volume concludes with a glossary, select bibliography (already in need of updating), and index. Despite its obvious riches, the volume is not without its weaknesses. Levine notes in his foreward that, unlike its predecessor, Jerusalem Revealed, "almost half the articles in the present volume come from sources other than [the Hebrew quarterly] Qadmoniot, and of these, most are being published for the first time. II The scholarly user will thus find it frustrating not to be provided with any information regarding the exact source (and date) of each article. More importantly, while the editorial decision to move beyond Qadmoniot was undoubtedly wise, one wishes the editor had exercised an even stronger hand, especially in the closing sections. The inscriptions from specific sites need to be treated in their proper geographical and archaeological contexts, and Naveh's epigraphic survey matched by an equally comprehensive survey of artistic motifs. Lastly, the articles dealing with individual Diaspora synagogues add little to what is readily available in English; abstracts of these might have been included in a sl ightly expanded version of Foerster's survey. Such criticisms, however, do not lessen the debt we owe editor Levine for a work that must be strongly recommended to anyone interested in ancient Judaism and/or the archaeology of the eastern Mediterranean. The lavish illustrations, and especially the superb plans and Iine drawings, are alone worth the price of admission. If the volume as a whole possesses less coherence than its Jerusalem predecessor, this very sprawl is a sign of intense activity, and perhaps more representative of the archaeological wealth of Israel. THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA PAU L G. MOSCA ...