Text and Artifact in the Religions of Mediterranean Antiquity: Essays in Honour of Peter Richardson

23. Behind the Names: Samaritans, ΙΟUDAIOI Galileans

23 BEHIND THE NAMES: SAMARITANS, IOUDAIOI, GALILEANS SEAN FREYNE In recent times the question "Who were the Galileans in Hellenistic and Roman times?"has taken on an importance well beyond the bounds ofJewish historiography of the period. Population patterns in other outlying regions of Roman Palestine, such as Idumea, the Negev and Samaria, are just as significant in terms of our understanding of Second Temple history as a whole. None of these regions, however, has been so extensively studied or has taken on the same importance as Galilee, for obvious reasons to do with the origins of both Judaism and Christianity as world religions. Earlier in the twentieth century the Religionsgeschichtliche Schule opted for Isaiah's "Galilee of the Gentiles" (Isa 8:23) as an accurate description of the population of the region (Bertram 1935), whereas Jewish scholars sought to establish a Jewish Galilee on the scraps of evidence from the literarysources (Klein 1923; Biichler 1968). Even today, despite all the added information available from the archaeology of key sites, one can detect the same two trends dominating the various construals of Galilee, especiallywhen it comes to dealing with the question of the historical Jesus. Recently, Richard Horsley (1995) has argued for another possibility, namely, that the population of Galilee in the Second Temple period consisted of Israelites, stemming from the remnants of the northern tribes left after the Assyrian conquest of the eighth century BCE. The same idea had also been proposed by Albrecht Alt (1953­64: esp. 2.374­84), but with different consequences from those proposed by Horsley. Whereas Alt saw Galilee entering the 80vog iwv 'Iou6aiO)V freely and as it were by right once the opportunity arose for Jewish self­determination in the second century BCE, Horsley, adopting a conflictual model for understanding the Hasmonean 999' TEXTAND ARTIFACT expansion, believes that the Judeans imposed their laws and customs on the Galilean Israelites, often meeting with opposition and resistance from the native population. Crucial to Horsley's argumentisthe claim that the Galileans were not loudaioi, a term that he consistently renders as "Judeans" rather than "Jews," thereby opting for the geographical rather than the religio­cultural referent of the designation. In this short essay we cannot deal with all the issues involved in these differing opinions. The objective rather is to clarify the meaning of the names Galilean, Samaritan and loudaioi in our sources, by asking what lies behind these various designations. Are these names merely geographical markers for the inhabitants of the various regions ofRoman Palestine, or do they also carry religious and cultural assumptions about the inhabitants of the different regions? In that event we must also ask the further question concerning the real differences between the inhabitants of the various regions, based on the different epithets. The introduction of the Samaritans into the discussion may at first sight seem curious, since in considerations of Second Temple history they are often regarded assomething ofan intrusion into the discussion. Yet an examination of this group, especially in the light of some recent literary and archaeological developments, can shed new light on the questions being addressed here, especially the issue of Galilean Israelites. 1. Samaritans The bitter opposition between the Samaritans and the loudaioi has often been rehearsed, but the equally hostile relations between the Samaritans and the Galileans have not received the same attention. Yet the gospels, especially Luke (9:52­56) and John (4:4), as well asJosephus (War 2.232;Ant. 20.118), make it clear that Samaritans resented Galileans, especiallypilgrims on their way to Jerusalem in the first century CE—almost 200 years after the destruction of their own temple on GerizimbyJohn Hyrcanus. This hostility toward the Galileans is all the more baffling if, as Alt and Horsley claim, they had maintained their Israelite roots. One might a priori have expected solidarity between Galilean Israelites and Samaritans, since the latter also regarded themselves as Israelites,holding fast to the Mosaic traditions and rejecting the special Davidic associations of Judea and Jerusalem.Even the Samaritan Diaspora in Delos described themselves as "the Israelites who BEHIND THENAMES 391 make offerings at hallowed Hargarazein, the holy" (Kraabel 1984). Yet in fact no such bonding seems to have occurred in the Second Temple period. In order to understand this hostility of Samaritans toward Galileans we need a clearer picture of both groups. Recent archaeological evidence from Gerizim (Magen 1993a) suggests that the site consists...