Ethnic Identity Just before this, Jerome has given as examples the names of three reputed
Jewish teachers, and the rules which they taught: ‘‘Barachibas and Symeon
and Helles, ourmagistri, have transmitted to us the rule that we may walk
[only] two thousand feet on the Sabbath.’’
The context of this observation is therefore surely Palestinian, and we
should take seriously the possibility which Jerome’s remark opens up, that
for Jews Greek could have been not merely a secular language for everyday
use, but might have had a place in the context of religious teaching. If we
were disposed to dismiss this idea, the presence of Greek in the mosaic in-
scriptions of Palestinian synagogues would show beyond all doubt that it
deserves to be considered.
It cannot be stressed too strongly that, by comparison with our evidence
for the ‘‘Palestinian’’ Talmud, which consists of texts of uncertain date, based
on medieval manuscripts which have only lately become the subject of mod-
ern critical editions, the synagogue mosaics of late Roman Palestine repre-
sent by far the most direct and important means of access to the religious
life, language patterns, script, grammar, conceptions, and artistic conven-
tions of ‘‘rabbinic’’ Judaism. All that will be attempted here is to sketch a few
salient features. Even in this case, however, the treatment of many of these
essential items of evidence remains profoundly unsatisfactory. In various in-
stances the relevant archaeological reports have never been published, and in
the case of some of the mosaic inscriptions, though bare transcriptions have
been published, there have been no full studies of vocabulary, orthography
or conceptual content.
The first important feature, which is evident on even the most cursory in-
spection, is the tendency of the synagogue mosaics to incorporate inscribed
texts in two or three different languages. Thus the well-known texts of
(probably) the earlier fourth century from the mosaic floor of the synagogue
at Hammath Tiberias are in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. Paradoxically, it
is Hebrew which is used to identify the signs of the zodiac, while a blessing
is given in Aramaic, and the names of benefactors appear (as at Sepphoris;
see below) in Greek. It is in this context that we meet someone described as
‘‘athreptos(foster child) of the most distinguishedPatriarchai.’’^72 By contrast,
the vast mosaic floor of the synagogue at En-Geddi, itself never fully pub-
lished, incorporates two extensive texts in Hebrew, and three in Aramaic,
of which the last seems not to have been published to this very day. Those
texts which have been (very summarily) published offer a strange compila-
. See M. Dothan,Hammath Tiberias: Early Synagogues and the Hellenistic and Roman Re-
mains(), ff. (‘‘The Inscriptions’’); Ovadiah and Ovadiah (n. ), no. .