Galilee in the Late Second Temple and Mishnaic Periods

Life, Culture, and Society

David A. Fiensy, James R. Strange, David A. Fiensy, James R. Strange, David A. Fiensy, James R. Strange

• Publisher: Fortress Press
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781451466744
• eBook ISBN: 9781451489583
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Ancient Religion

This first of two volumes on ancient Galilee provides general surveys of modern studies of Galilee and of Galilean history followed by specialized studies on taxation, ethnicity, religious practices, road system, trade and markets, education, health, village life, houses, and the urban-rural divide.

The volume draws on the expertise of archaeologists, historians, biblical scholars, and social-science interpreters; Christians, Jews, and secular scholars; North Americans, Europeans, and Israelis; and those who have devoted a significant amount of time and energy in this research, especially those who have excavated in Galilee for many years.

A key goal of this volume and its companion volume devoted to the archaeological record of towns and villages is to make this information easily accessible to New Testament scholars and Mishnah scholars not familiar with these materials while also usable to the average interested reader.

Includes several images, figures, charts, and maps.

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Economics

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The Galilean Road System

James F. Strange

The earliest biblical reference to travel in what is evidently Galilee is in Genesis 12:5-6, where Abraham comes to Canaan. The text omits Abraham’s travel across Galilee and the Plain of Jezreel but mentions his arrival at Shechem. A later and clearer reference to a road in the Galilee is Isaiah 9:1 (Heb. 8:23): “. . . in the later time he will honor the Way of the Sea, the Land beyond the Jordan [as seen from east of the Jordan], Galilee of the Nations.” The “Way of the Sea” is the name of the main coastal highway in Canaan and of the eighth-century bce Assyrian province formed from the territories of Dor, Megiddo, and Gilead on both sides of the Jordan.^[1] Twenty kilometers south of Megiddo the “Way of the Sea” divides into two branches moving north. The west branch skirts the base of Mount Carmel and leads to Acco and eventually to Tyre. The eastern branch leads to Megiddo, crosses the Plain of Jezreel to Mount Tabor, and continues to the biblical city of Hazor southeast of Lake Huleh, now drained. From there it leads eighty kilometers to Damascus (for roads and locations in Galilee, see the “Maps Gallery”).

Galilee shares its name with the “Sea of Galilee,” usually given in the Hebrew Bible as Chinnerith or “the Sea of Chinnereth” (Num. 34:11; Deut. 3:17; Josh. 13:27; 19:35). The name is derived from Hebrew kinnor (“harp”) and describes its shape. The Apocrypha gives us the name Gennesareth in 1 Maccabees 11:67 (“the Waters of Gennesaret”). It is also in Luke 5:1 (Jesus stood by the “Lake of Gennesaret”). The town of Gennesaret on the northwest shore of the lake appears in Matthew 14:34 and Mark 6:53.^[2] Otherwise in the New Testament this body is called “the Sea of Galilee” (Matt. 4:18 = Mark 1:16; Matt. 15:29; Mark 7:31). Another New Testament name is the “Sea of Tiberias” (John 21:1), after the city of Tiberias, which Herod Antipas built on the western shore about 18 ce. Once, in John 6:1, it is called “the Sea of Galilee of Tiberias.” A road on the shore surrounds the entire lake.

Josephus gives a description of the Galilee in Jewish War 3.35. He knows that Mount Carmel (which belonged to Tyre) and the independent city of Ptolemais-Acco occupied western Galilee and the shoreline. The small, independent city of Geba, or Gaba, stood between Carmel and Galilee at the foot of Mount Carmel.^[3] To the south Galilee borders on the independent city-territory of Scythopolis and on Samaria.

Josephus traces the borders of Upper and Lower Galilee in his Jewish War (3.35–36). He knows village names that mark the borders of the region. These include Meroth, Thella, Baca, and Barsabe (Beer-sheba north). Michael Avi-Yonah fit these limits to a map of Upper Galilee by drawing a border westward from Thella on Lake Huleh to Baca (modern Pik’in). He suggested that Upper Galilee reached south from Meroth (Marun er-Ras in Lebanon) to Barsabe at the border with Lower Galilee.^[4] Thus, Upper Galilee reached 27 km west from Thella to Baca and 19 km south to Barsabe (Beer-sheba north). Lower Galilee would extend from Tiberias on the Sea of Galilee to borders with Gaba and Ptolemais-Acco in the west, or about 39 km. Lower Galilee ranges south from Barsabe (Beer-sheba north) to Ginae at the ascent to Samaria, a distance of 53 km.^[5]

In the same passage, Josephus knows that there is an Upper Galilee and a Lower Galilee. The mountains of Upper Galilee extend upward to 1,208 m at Mount Meiron, while the elevation of Lower Galilee at Mount el-Sikh 5 km northeast of Nazareth is 573 m. The hills intensified effort in travel and therefore impeded trade.

Josephus in his Life (Vita) mentions the distances between certain villages. In Life 265 Sogane is 20 stadia (3.7 km) from Gabara. The actual distance is 4.4 km.^[6] In Life 234 Jotapata is 40 stadia (7.4 km) from Chabalo (Cabul), which equals the measured distance. In Life 157 he locates Taricheae (Magdala) 30 stadia (5.6 km) from Tiberias, which compares well with the measured distance.

Some scholars estimate the total land area of Galilee as low as 1,400 and as high as 1,600 sq km.^[7] Careful measurement and digitization of the first-century ce borders of Galilee as presented in Aharoni and Avi-Yonah yield 2,073 sq km.^[8] This measurement omits the territory of Beth Shean-Scythopolis, which is part of the Decapolis.^[9]

Research into the Galilean Road System of the Roman Period

Research into the Roman-era road system in the Galilee is limited. Many scholars investigate Israelite settlement, the place-names in the Gospels, and identification of sites in the Hebrew Bible, the Apocrypha, and the New Testament, but understanding the road system was not a top priority. Nevertheless, certain scholars made contributions to the knowledge of the road system, principally Gustaf Dalman, Albrecht Alt, Michael Avi-Yonah, Willibald Bösen, Yosef Stepansky, John Wilkinson, and James F. Strange,^[10] culminating in Isaac and Roll.^[11]

The Galilean Road System in the Nineteenth Century

It is a commonplace in archaeological research to test hypotheses and generate new ones by appealing to comparative data. In 1871–77, the officers and enlisted men of The Survey of Western Palestine (henceforth SWP) gathered comparative data in a first-time survey of Ottoman Palestine.^[12] They produced a map in twenty-six sheets at a scale of 1:63,360. There was no map grid such as the Palestine Grid.^[13] Our interest lies in the thousands of surveyed footpaths, donkey caravan paths, trails, cart tracks, and “roads” of the time in Galilee. The nineteenth-century people who used the paths traveled without electricity, steam, or fossil fuels, matching the practice in the Roman period.

The accompanying volumes of The Survey of Western Palestine contain notes on archaeology, topography, mountains and mountain ridges (orography), and water sources (hydrography), with notes on the footpaths or trails connecting localities. Galilee is the title of volume 1 of the set and its related sheets (I–VI).

Col 1	Col 2	Col 3	Col 4	Col 5	Col 6	Col 7	Col 8	Col 9	Col 10
Sheet	Major Site^[14]	Square Miles	Square kms in Sheet	No. of Villages in Sheet	Density Villages per km^2	Rank in Villages per km^2	Census numbers	Density: Persons per km^2	Rank: Persons per km^2
I	Tyre	60.8	157.5	39	0.25	1	8,500	54.0	1
II	Dan	203	525.8	92	0.17	2	19,670	37.4	2
III	Acco	201.6	522.1	51	0.10	3	17,000	32.6	4
IV	Safed	307	795.1	60	0.08	4	18,170	22.9	5
V	Sepphoris	316	818.4	39	0.05	6	28,890	35.3	3
VI	Tiberias	252.8	654.8	33	0.05	5	10,000	15.3	6
Total/Average		1341.2	3473.7	314	Av = 0.09		102,230	Av. = 29.4

Chart A. A Summary of Information from SWP Sheets I–VI

The SWP reported the area of each sheet in square miles (column 3), which appears as km² in column 4. The number of villages in each sheet appears in column 5. Column 6 displays the density of each sheet as the number of villages per km². The distributions of the nineteenth-century villages and footpaths were not uniform. The number of villages per km² decreased on a line from Tyre toward Sepphoris. Sheets I and II to the north have the most villages per square kilometer, while Sheets V and VI contain the fewest.

The SWP also published a census for all villages, citing Guérin for comparison.^[15] One might expect to find more footpaths with higher populations. Census numbers including the total appear in column 8. Column 9 contains the calculated density of each sheet. Sheet I is the most densely populated. The villages were larger in Lower Galilee. The SWP reports that Nazareth, at “nearly 6,000,” is the largest town in Sheet V, larger than Haifa, the port city.^[16] The SWP reports the population of Saffûrieh (Sepphoris) as most reasonably 2,500 people.^[17]

Sheet VI is the least densely populated.^[18] The SWP gives the population of Tiberias as “about 2000 inhabitants.”^[19]

Roads in Roman Galilee

Paved, Roman imperial roads mostly date from the second century ce. They are broad, hard-surfaced, featuring curb stones, sometimes center stones, and even milestones. Such is not the case for village ways or paths.

The four-part composite Maps 4A–4D in the Maps Gallery show the villages and footpaths mapped by the SWP in 1881 and sh...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Table Of Contents
• Archaeological Chronology
• Events and Rulers in Galilee and Judea in the Late Second Temple through Mishnaic Periods
• Maps and Galilee Photo Gallery
• Preface
• Overview of Galilean Studies
• History
• Village Life
• Economics
• Abbreviations
• Contributors