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M AG DA L A G A L I L E E of A Jewish City in the Hellenistic and Roman Period Richard Bauckham EDITOR Magdala of Galilee This page intentionally left blank Magdala of Galilee A Jewish City in the Hellenistic and Roman Period Richard Bauckham Editor BAYLOR UNIVERSITY PRESS © 2018 by Baylor University Press Waco, Texas 76798 All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission in writing of Baylor University Press. Cover Design by Andrew Brozyna, AJB Design, Inc. Cover Art: Mosaic recreation by Andrew Brozyna, based on ancient mosaics from Magdala and surrounding areas The Library of Congress has cataloged this book under the ISBN 978-1-4813-0293-7. This ebook was converted from the original source file. 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Contents Preface vii Abbreviations xi List of Maps and Figures xiii Chronological Tables xix One Magdala as We Now Know It: An Overview 1 Richard Bauckham Two The Harbor 69 Anna Lena Three Domestic and Mercantile Areas 89 Marcela Zapata- Meza Four The Domestic Miqva’ot 109 Ronny Reich and Marcela Zapata- Meza Five The Synagogue 127 Mordechai Aviam Six The Synagogue Stone 135 Mordechai Aviam and Richard Bauckham Seven Magdala and Trade 161 Santiago Guijarro v vi Contents Eight Magdala and the Fishing Industry 185 Richard Bauckham Nine Magdala/Taricheae and the Jewish Revolt 269 Morten Hørning Jensen Ten Magdala in the List of the Twenty- Four Priestly Settlements 287 Richard Bauckham Eleven Magdala in Rabbinic Traditions 307 Richard Bauckham Twelve The Prosopography of Magdala 345 Richard Bauckham Magdala Bibliography 363 Comprehensive Bibliography 373 Contributors 411 Index of Ancient Sources 413 Index of Places Ancient and Modern 423 Index of Historical Persons 427 Index of Modern Authors 429 Preface Richard Bauckham I first visited the excavations at Magdala in April 2012. I was fortunate to be able to see the excavations in both the Franciscan area, to the south, which had just been discontinued, and the Magdala Center area, to the north, which have continued until now. My overwhelming reaction was: Magdala is really important! It is very important for all who have an interest in the historical Jesus and the Gospels. It is very important for all who have an interest in the archaeology of Hellenistic and Roman Palestine. It is very important for all who share the lively interdisciplinary interest in Galilee that has flourished in recent decades among scholars working in ancient Judaism, New Testament studies, Greco- Roman history, rabbinic studies, historical geography, history of Jewish art, and other fields. Among the precious gifts to such scholars and the interested public that the excavations of Magdala have yielded are its synagogue, the first from the period before 70 CE to be excavated within Galilee; its unique and extraordinary decorated stone table in the synagogue; its Roman baths, the only public baths from before 70 to have been excavated in Jewish Palestine; the first fish processing workshops to be discovered in the Roman East; the mosaics in the baths, the synagogue and a wealthy house; its unusual miqva’ot (ritual baths) in both domestic and industrial contexts; its massive harbor complex. All of these throw fresh light on and need to be related to the literary sources: Josephus, rabbinic literature, the list of priestly settlements in Galilee, the Gospels, and the early pilgrim accounts. Galilean studies have been slow to recognize, as a distinctive economic and cultural region, the area comprising the Sea of Galilee and the cities, vii viii Preface towns, villages and agricultural areas (whether Jewish or non- Jewish) around it. While the Jewish city of Magdala began as an outpost of Jewish Gali- lee, strategically placed on its eastern edge, it became the most important of the settlements around the lake, eventually overtaken in political and economic significance only by Tiberias. While we should certainly not neglect Magdala’s important relationships with Jewish Galilee to the west and with Jerusalem and the Temple to the south, getting to know Magdala as we can now know it should also help us focus more adequately on the distinctive character and dynamics of the lake region, especially in the Early Roman period, when Magdala flourished in the context of population growth and urbanization all around the lake. This should be of interest to those who study the Gospels, since so many of the stories of Jesus’ ministry in the Synoptic Gospels are situated, not in Lower Galilee to the west of Magdala, but around the lake—i n Capernaum, Bethsaida, on the eastern shore, and on journeys by boat to and fro across the lake. Though the Gospels may not explicitly say that Jesus visited Magdala, it was located only 12 km. (7 mi.) along the shore of the lake from Capernaum. The plain of Gennesaret and Capernaum were certainly within its orbit of influence. In the original concept of this book two key concerns were to bring the two areas of the excavations at Magdala together (studies up till now have tended to focus on one or the other) in order to understand the city as a whole, and also to relate the archaeology to the literary sources. This latter concern required the book to be an interdisciplinary one, bringing together archaeologists and those who work on texts. So the authors of the volume include both archaeologists and historians of Second Temple Palestinian Judaism and Roman period Galilee. A further need was to place Magdala in its wider contexts that had not in every case been adequately researched up till now. Since Magdala in the Early Roman period dominated the fishing industry on the lake, a fuller study of that industry (drawing on what we know of ancient fishing and fish processing as well as the specifically local aspects) was required for an adequate understanding of Magdala. Similarly, to understand Magdala’s place on the east– west trade routes that crossed the lake and connected the Decapolis to the Mediterranean coast, a fresh study of these routes and the trade that flowed along them was required. Two chapters are designed to address those topics. As well as being interdisciplinary in character, the volume is also, as befits its scholarly disciplines, notably international, with authors drawn from six different countries (Denmark, Israel, Italy, Mexico, Spain, United Preface ix Kingdom). It has been a great pleasure for me to collaborate with all these experts in their fields, some very different from my own. The book was originally planned at the time of my first visit to Magdala in 2012 and has been five years in the making. At the beginning there were two editors: Mordechai Aviam and myself. We were soon joined by a third: Stefano De Luca. Without Mordechai Aviam this book would never have existed. He played a key part in planning the book but unfortunately had to withdraw early in 2015 owing to pressure of other work. Stefano De Luca withdrew in 2016. I am deeply grateful to him for the way he shared some of his unrivaled knowledge of everything to do with Magdala during the long email conversations we had over the course of the three years we worked together. His acute and well- informed comments on early drafts have gone into the making of several of the chapters, including my own. Special thanks are due to Carey Newman, director of Baylor Univer- sity Press, for his patience over missed deadlines and his continued and supportive commitment to this project. I am grateful also to all at Baylor University Press for their diligent work on this book, especially to Cade Jarrell, who has worked long and hard on it. Richard Bauckham July 2018