The Decorated Stone from the Synagogue at Migdal

2013 ◽  
Vol 55 (3) ◽  
pp. 205-220 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mordechai Aviam
Keyword(s):  
First Century ◽  
Strong Connection ◽  
Stone Block ◽  
Upper Face ◽  
The Temple

Abstract In the center of the first century CE synagogue which was discovered at ancient Magdala (Migdal), a large decorated stone block was found. It is covered with decorative-symbolic elements on four sides and on the upper face as well, standing on four short legs. As the façade is carrying the Temple’s Menorah, this article will suggest that all other elements are not decorative but rather symbolic and symbolizing the Temple in Jerusalem. Another conclusion is that the block was used as a base for the Torah reading table in the synagogue. These symbols show that there was a very strong connection between Galileans and Jerusalem with the Temple in its center, and that there is an important reflection and relations between Jewish symbolism and Jewish heavenly mysticism as it appears in ancient Jewish sources, both Biblical and non-Biblical.

Sacred Space Becomes Public Space

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Deonnie Moodie
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Urban Space ◽  
Sacred Space ◽  
First Century ◽  
Tourist Attraction ◽  
Public Interest Litigation ◽  
Middle Classes ◽  
Governmental Organizations ◽  
Non Governmental Organizations ◽  
The Temple

At the turn of the twenty-first century, middle-class men and women formed non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and filed public interest litigation suits (PILs) in order to expand temple space, knock down buildings that block views of Kālīghāṭ’s façade, and remove undesirable materials and populations from its environs. Employing the language of cleanliness and order, they worked (and continue to work) to make Kālīghāṭ a “must-see” tourist attraction. Scholarship has shown that India’s new middle classes—those produced through India’s economic liberalization policies in the 1990s—desire highly visible forms demonstrating their modernity as well as their uniqueness on the international stage of urban space. The example of Kālīghāṭ indicates how India’s new middle classes build on the work of the old middle classes to deploy the temple as emblematic of both their modernity and their Indian-ness. In so doing, they read the idioms of public space onto sacred space.

The People of the Book, 200 BCE–200 CE

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maristella Botticini ◽  
Zvi Eckstein
Keyword(s):  
Secondary Schools ◽  
Primary School ◽  
Second Temple ◽  
First Century ◽  
Religious Leaders ◽  
The People ◽  
The Temple ◽  
Jewish Religion

This chapter discusses the well-documented shift of the religious norm that transformed the Jews into the People of the Book. During the first century BCE, some Jewish scholars and religious leaders promoted the establishment of free secondary schools. A century later, they issued a religious ordinance requiring all Jewish fathers to send their sons from the age of six or seven to primary school to learn to read and study the Torah in Hebrew. With the destruction of the Second Temple, the Jewish religion permanently lost one of its two pillars (the Temple) and set out on a unique trajectory. Scholars and rabbis, the new religious leaders in the aftermath of the first Jewish–Roman war, replaced temple service and ritual sacrifices with the study of the Torah in the synagogue—the new focal institution of Judaism.

scholarly journals Religion and covenantal praxis in first century Judeanism

2007 ◽  
Vol 63 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Markus Cromhout
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Identity ◽  
First Century ◽  
Social Domains ◽  
The Temple ◽  
Cultural Features

This article indicates how the two cultural features of religion and covenantal praxis helped foster or shape Judean ethnic identity in the first century CE. It focuses on socialization into the three social domains of the Temple, the synagogue and the home. In these domains, Judean ethnic identity was dominated by the requirements of the Torah. At the same time the presence of Romans, the Herodians and the Gentiles within the ancestral land helped shape Judean identity as well.

The Tradition of the Spolia Opima: M. Claudius Marcellus and Augustus

2000 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 34-64 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harriet I. Flower
Keyword(s):  
Early Years ◽  
Roman History ◽  
First Century ◽  
Julius Caesar ◽  
Special Focus ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Temple

This paper aims to reexamine how traditions about the spolia opima developed with special emphasis on two crucial phases of their evolution, the time of Marcus Claudius Marcellus' dedication in 222 BC and the early years of Augustus' principate, following the restoration of the temple of Jupiter Feretrius on the Capitol. In particular, I will argue that Marcellus invented the spolia opima, that his feat shaped the entire tradition about such dedications, and that this tradition was later enhanced and "reinvented" by Augustus, probably following upon renewed interest under Julius Caesar. Through an evaluation of the surviving evidence about the three canonical dedicators (Romulus, A. Cornelius Cossus, and Marcellus) the possibility is explored that the spolia opima, rather than being an archaic ritual dating back to the regal period, represent a tradition invented (and reinvented) by specific individuals at certain well-defined moments in Roman history. Augustus himself, beginning while he was still a child, was influenced by traditions about the career and achievements of M. Claudius Marcellus. Augustus' interest in Marcellus helps to explain his special focus on the spolia opima as a significant and hallowed Roman tradition. Consequently, in the late first century B.C., spolia opima were associated both with old-fashioned "republican" aspirations and also with the iconography and self-definition of the new ruling family. In this context other leading Romans of the age considered dedicating such spolia, notably M. Licinius Crassus, grandson of the triumvir, and the elder Drusus, brother of Tiberius. In addition, Virgil included the spolia opima as a recurring theme in the second half of the Aeneid. The poem reaches its climax when Aeneas kills his rival Italian leader Turnus in a duel which would have entitled him to dedicate spolia opima.

scholarly journals The Transition from the Temple of Jupiter to the Great Mosque of Damascus in Architecture and Design

2015 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 311-320
Author(s):  
Kamil Sobczak
Keyword(s):  
Strong Influence ◽  
Sacred Space ◽  
First Century ◽  
Saint John ◽  
Architecture And Design ◽  
Process Issue ◽  
Art And Architecture ◽  
The Temple ◽  
Religious Aspect

Great Mosque of Damascus was built between 705 and 715 by the Umayyad Caliph al-Walid I. However, the origins of this building dates to the distant past. At first it was a location of an ancient Aramaean temple dedicated to the god Hadad. With Hellenization the temple was dedicated to Zeus and in the first century BC the Romans transformation it into the Temple of Jupiter Damascenus. In 391 Emperor Theodosius converted the temple into Christian Cathedral of Saint John. Erection of the mosque by Caliph al-Walid I was under strong influence of earlier constructions. Meaning and consequences of such transitions, from the Roman temple (there is almost no data of the Aramaic building) through the Christian Cathedral to the Islamic mosque is an interesting process. Issue not only within the art and architecture, but what is more, in a religious aspect of the continuity of sacred space.

Ritual Purity in Daily Life after 70 CE: The Chalk Vessel Assemblage from Shuʿafat as a Test Case

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Yonatan Adler
Keyword(s):  
Interwar Period ◽  
Daily Life ◽  
First Century ◽  
Direct Result ◽  
Test Case ◽  
Southern Levant ◽  
The Temple

Abstract Chalk vessels became common at Jewish sites throughout the Southern Levant beginning in the late first century BCE, apparently because Jews considered stone to be impervious to ritual impurity. It is commonly thought that a drastic decline in the phenomenon occurred after 70 CE as a direct result of the temple’s destruction—on the assumption that the central motivation for Jews’ observance of the purity regulations was the temple cult. These notions are reconsidered here in light of an impressive assemblage of chalk vessels recently unearthed at Shuʿafat, occupied during the brief 70–132 CE interwar period. The character of this assemblage, presented here preliminarily, suggests that both use and production of chalk vessels continued unabated for decades after 70 CE, contradicting the notion that the chalk vessel industry was reliant on a functioning temple and that observance of the purity laws was inexorably linked with the Jerusalem cult.

A Perhaps Less Halakic Jesus and Purity

2016 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 120-136
Author(s):  
Thomas Kazen
Keyword(s):  
Everyday Life ◽  
First Century ◽  
Historical Jesus ◽  
The Temple

Purity practices during the first century ce were widespread in Judaea and Galilee as part of everyday life and not limited to concerns relating to the temple cult. Developments in key water rites were partly triggered by concepts of graded impurity, to which an understanding of defilement via food also belonged. Certain rabbinic characteristics represent later developments and cannot be assumed for the time of Jesus. Hand impurity did not originate as a rabbinic decree to protect tĕrûmâ, and accusations against Pharisees for setting aside Scripture in favour of their own traditions did not originate with the historical Jesus, but suggest later polemics. Jesus’ stance on purity is perhaps better characterized as prophetic than halakic.

Excavation of the Greek Temples at Mycenae by the British School at Athens

1997 ◽  
Vol 92 ◽  
pp. 247-322 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nancy L. Klein
Keyword(s):  
Preliminary Analysis ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Architectural Drawings ◽  
Strong Connection ◽  
Architectural Elements ◽  
The Third ◽  
Early Archaic ◽  
British School ◽  
The Temple ◽  
Material Evidence

The Greek temples on the summit of the citadel at Mycenae were discovered and partially cleared by Ch. Tsountas in 1886, but the major excavation was undertaken in 1939 under the direction of A. J. B. Wace. The results of this season have never been fully studied. This article is based upon a new examination of the material evidence and the documents in the Mycenae archives of the British School at Athens. Previously unpublished architectural drawings, photographs, plans, and sections make it possible to assess the nature of the Archaic and Hellenistic temples at Mycenae. The evidence points to the establishment of the cult in the Geometric period, along with the construction of the northern terraces, followed by a significant reorganization of the temenos and the construction of the first stone temple in the early Archaic period. Preliminary analysis of the preserved architectural elements indicates a strong connection between the Archaic temple at Mycenae and the early temples at Corinth and Isthmia. The well-known stone reliefs from Mycenae, datedc. 630 BC, should also belong to this early structure. In the third century BC, when Mycenae had been resettled as an Argivekome, the temple was rebuilt, incorporating Archaic material in its foundations.

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