Monuments and Mosaics: 
The Ancient Synagogues of the Galilee

In the early twentieth century, a pair of German scholars went hiking through the hills of the Galilee. Dressed in dapper suits, they walked the same terrain that Jesus once walked; that the rabbis of the Mishnah called home; and that, centuries later, kabbalists like Moses Cordovero and Isaac Luria frequently strolled. Eventually, they spotted what they were looking for: an ancient structure peeking through a thicket. As they got closer, they realized that it had once been huge: Its ruined stone walls were thick, its rooms cavernous, and its architectural elements—grand doorways and lintels, large columns and benches—suggested a communal structure. Finally, after noticing what appeared to be a niche for a Torah scroll and an etching of a menorah, they realized that they were standing in the middle of an ancient synagogue.

How ancient, exactly? Without a plaque with a date or donor, what evidence could be used to date this structure? Given the long-term presence of Jews in the Galilee, the possibilities spanned centuries.

Heinrich Kohl and Carl Watzinger, the two German scholars in question, were both archeologist-architects. Modern archeology relies on carefully differentiating and analyzing the historical strata of a site. When many generations of people have lived in the same location, repaired aging structures, and eventually built new ones on top of them, archeologists can travel back in time as they dig deeper into the ground. But when Kohl and Watzinger came to the Galilee, archeologists still didn’t know how to accurately date a given layer of inhabitation. And so they used what they did know, comparing the architectural elements of Galilean synagogues with buildings in Syria that they had studied and could accurately date. In 1916, their findings were published as Ancient Synagogues in the Galilee, a work that inaugurated the modern study of ancient synagogues.

Of the eleven synagogues they documented, the one Kohl and Watzinger spent the most time excavating was the synagogue at Capernaum, known as “Kefar Nahum” in rabbinic texts. They concluded that it was built in the third century of the Common Era, following the failure of the Bar Kokhba revolt and the ensuing migration of Jews from Judea to the Galilee. This was the heyday of the rabbinic movement, a time when the Mishnah’s compiler, Rabbi Yehuda ha-Nasi, came to a place of prominence in the community. Capernaum became the chief representative of the “Galilean Synagogue,” featuring long open halls, walls made of large square-cut stones, stone pavements, and etched reliefs.

Modern Zionist archeology of the Holy Land began not long after this German expedition, with the arrival of Eleazer Lipa Sukenik. Born in Białystok, Poland, Sukenik moved to Ottoman Palestine in 1912 and later became a professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, founding its Department of Archeology.

In 1928, kibbutznikim digging irrigation ditches discovered the elaborate mosaic floor of an ancient synagogue at Beit Alpha. Its depictions of the binding of Isaac and of the Zodiac wheel with Helios in its center stunned scholars, who thought that the prohibition against graven images would have prohibited such things. When Sukenik arrived, he noted that the synagogue floor contained a fragmented dedicatory plaque that dated the structure to the sixth century. Consulting the work of Kohl and Watzinger and his own excavations, Sukenik theorized that the “Galilean-type” synagogues the German archeologists had discovered had been correctly dated to the late second and third centuries, while more architecturally modest synagogues, like that of Beit Alpha, which resemble contemporary Christian basilicas, should be dated to the fifth and sixth centuries. In 1930, Sukenik presented his theory as part of the British Academy’s prestigious Schweich Lectures in Biblical Archeology, and it was published four years later as Ancient Synagogues in Palestine and Greece.

Sukenik went on to train a generation of scholars, including his son, the celebrated general-politician-archeologist Yigael Yadin. As was to be expected, Sukenik’s historical paradigm needed adjustment, and these scholars added a period of “Transitional Synagogues” between Galilean synagogues like Capernaum and other synagogues like Beit Alpha. An example was Hammat Tiberias, which has a mosaic like Beit Alpha but an entirely different floor plan. Regardless, the crux of Sukenik’s theory remained: the monumental Galilean synagogues were a product of the thriving Jewish society of the late second and early third centuries, when the rabbis were at the helm. The church-like synagogues came centuries later, at the end of antiquity, and are a sign of a more modest, inward-facing Judaism, both influenced and besieged by Christendom.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, an Israeli archeologist named David Adan-Bayewitz showed how one could date sites in the Galilee through the close examination of earthenware vessels rather than synagogue architecture. His monograph Common Pottery in Roman Galilee reminds one of an Ikea catalog, though instead of vessels bearing names like “Färgklar” and “Upplaga,” they get “Kefar Hananya Form 1e” and “Kefar Hananya Form 4D,” or “KH1a” and “KH4d” for short. (The names point to pottery workshops in the village of Kefar Hananya, which are mentioned in rabbinic literature.)

It is this sort of evidence that Adan-Bayewitz’s student, Uzi Leibner, a recent head of Hebrew University’s Institute of Archeology, used in his excavation of the ancient synagogue at Wadi Hamam in the Eastern Galilee. Adopting the standard theory, Leibner concluded that this Galilean-type synagogue, with its vibrant mosaic of a gargantuan Samson grabbing three Philistines by their hair, was first built in the third century.

Jodi Magness trained with Sukenik’s students in Jerusalem before continuing her studies in the United States and taking up a position at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The Holy Land, however, was never far away, and over an astoundingly productive career, Magness has led several digs in Israel, including the recently concluded excavations at Huqoq (formerly the Palestinian village of Yaquq). These excavations uncovered a synagogue with some of the most remarkable floor mosaics yet to be discovered, including depictions of the biblical heroines Deborah and Yael and the now-famous and perplexing elephant mosaic panel, which depicts armed soldiers, elephants fitted for battle, and a mysterious meeting between two men.

In addition to her masterful recent survey Jerusalem Through the Ages: From Its Beginnings to the Crusades, Magness has also produced a book one-sixth the size, written for the most expert of audiences. Ancient Synagogues in Palestine: A Re-evaluation Nearly a Century After Sukenik’s Schweich Lectures is based on Magness’s own Schweich Lectures and aims to undo Sukenik’s picture of Galilean synagogues and Jewish life more generally. Although followers of Magness’s work have waited with anticipation to see what magnificent mosaic each season at Huqoq would bring, from enigmatic elephants to holy heroines, this is the issue that motivated the expedition to Huqoq in the first place. Because what good is a mosaic, however beautiful and mysterious, if its excavator cannot tell you when it’s from?

In addition to reconsidering physical evidence,Magness also examines what she calls the “ideological roots” of the study of ancient synagogues in Palestine, as revealed through the published reflections and archival documentation of Sukenik and his students. (Magness relies also on Steven Fine’s important discussion in Art and Judaism in the Greco-Roman World.) Sukenik and his followers were not shy about their Zionism. As his student, Nahman Avigad, recollected, “Jewish archaeology was sacrosanct for Sukenik, with ancient synagogues as its main focus.” Magness makes much of these statements and, in particular, of the very idea of “Jewish archaeology”:

Archaeology was considered a means of establishing a physical, historical, and scientifically based connection of the Jews to the Land of Israel, and, by way of extension, their right to the land. . . . Ancient synagogues, particularly those of the Galilean type, were viewed as evidence that vibrant Jewish communities flourished in the wake of the two Jewish revolts against Rome.

Zionist interest in the archeology of the Holy Land is as clear as it is unsurprising. What is harder to show is how exactly this has influenced the interpretation of the evidence for ancient synagogues.

According to Magness, Sukenik and his followers saw the monumental Galilean synagogues as proof of Jewish resilience in the aftermath of the failed revolts against Rome. The Galilean Jewish society these synagogues anchored flourished under the leadership of the rabbis until the onset of Christian persecution in the fifth century. Magness seems to think of this model as one that could buttress Zionist claims to the land while also painting Christian-majority societies as inherently inhospitable to Jews and Judaism.

This, Magness argues, is why Sukenik’s students remained devoted to their historical model even when confronted with strong evidence against it. When the floor of the Capernaum Synagogue—the archetypal Galilean synagogue, described in detail by Kohl and Watzinger—was dug up in the 1960s, its Franciscan archeologists showed that it rested on tens of thousands of coins, many of which date to the fifth century or even later. Hebrew University archeologists tried to explain this away in ingenious but often implausible ways. Similarly, when a sixth-century dedicatory inscription was found in a Galilean-type synagogue in Nabratein, it was suggested that the text was added during a later renovation. Clearly, Sukenik’s heirs couldn’t imagine that such massive synagogues could have been built during the reign of Christian emperors.

Eventually, Magness writes, “in the face of mounting evidence from new excavations,” even the archeologists in the Sukenik school had to acknowledge “that diverse synagogue types co-existed” over the course of late antiquity. But they nevertheless “continued to argue for a late second to third century date for Galilean type synagogues based on stylistic and historical considerations.” To show that this is still wrong, Magness looks closely at the evidence for the dating of the Wadi Hamam synagogue studied by Uzi Leibner and closes by returning to Capernaum.

According to Leibner, the Wadi Hamam synagogue was destroyed and rebuilt in the late third century before eventually falling out of use in the late fourth century, perhaps in part due to the lingering effects of a massive earthquake that hit the Galilee in May of 363. Magness’s reassessment of Leibner’s evidence makes for remarkably dense reading (“The pottery from L.2A051 includes a KH 6a jug of the second to third century . . . which contradicts the dating of the terrace’s construction to the early first century CE”). But her argument is quite simple. She says that “Leibner generally adopts the earliest possible dates within the chronological ranges” for the pottery fragments on which his dating is based. Magness asserts that the dishes from which these fragments came may have been in use for quite some time, so Leibner is wrong to assume their presence argues for an earlier dating. In the end, Magness claims that the two layers of the Wadi Hamam synagogue were built when Leibner thinks it was already out of use. If it was in fact built in the late fourth or fifth century, as Magness argues, it would be a contemporary of the nearby synagogue at Huqoq that she herself excavated—which has similarly striking mosaic panels. If so, she writes, this “contradicts a widely accepted view that late antique Jewish communities in Palestine suffered and declined under supposedly oppressive Christian rule.”

Finally, Magness returns to Capernaum, where the study of Galilean synagogues began with Kohl and Watzinger over a century ago. Magness accepts the Franciscan team’s redating of the synagogue based on the coins they found underneath it in the 1960s and suggests it may have been built even later than they thought, as late as “the second half of the sixth century or later.” While adopting this view, she refutes two related recent claims. The first is that the Capernaum synagogue had served a community of minim—Jewish heretics—who had close ties with Christian pilgrims who went there because the New Testament describes Jesus teaching and miraculously healing in a synagogue in Capernaum. The second claim is that the Christian emperors themselves financed its monumental reconstruction after the earthquake of 363 because it was a Christian holy site. This latter suggestion is one way to explain how a classic monumental Galilean synagogue could show up in the fifth or sixth century. According to Magness, this needs no explanation—because Jewish life in the Galilee thrived under imperial Christianity into the Byzantine period.

 Magness admits that the dating of synagogue buildings can seem arcane, even to specialists. “Why should it matter whether Galilean type synagogues date to the second and third centuries or the fourth to sixth centuries?” she writes. And yet, her redating leads to a different understanding of the classical rabbinic period in the Land of Israel, in which, she argues, synagogues were actually “relatively modest structures,” reflecting a relatively modest rabbinic Judaism. More importantly, it “contradicts the narrative that Jews suffered under supposedly oppressive Christian rule,” as it is precisely during that time that they built their monumental synagogues.

Some twenty years ago, in his influential Imperialism in Jewish Society, Seth Schwartz argued that Judaism was shattered by the failure of the first- and second-century revolts and that far from leading a resilient Jewish community in the Galilee, the rabbis’ influence was limited to their immediate followers. It was only in response to the Christianization of the Roman Empire that Jews experienced a kind of reactionary renaissance, a reassertion of (rabbinic) Jewish identity. This historical picture fits Magness’s dating of the synagogues.

In the end, Jodi Magness’s dense and brilliant book promises a little more than it delivers. She has not really shown how the Zionism of Sukenik and his students impacted their dating of the ancient synagogues of the Galilee. And more credit should be given to archeologists—including some in Israel—who have already adopted a model that allows for a diversity of synagogue types existing in the same historical period. Magness justifies her volume by stating that “since Sukenik’s time dozens more synagogues have been discovered and excavated, necessitating a reconsideration of his conclusions.” Yet the book—perhaps limited by its origins as a series of lectures—only discusses a few of them and ultimately only two in real depth.

Despite the advances of recent decades, there is still ample room for disagreement about how to interpret archaeological remains. Archeologists must be trusted to provide exact details about all that they have dug up, but every act of documentation inevitably involves interpretation. Archeologists call the publication of an excavation a “final report.” But as Magness has shown, such reports are never final.