The Christian Church and the Jews of the Diaspora ously never been the subject of a final report,^18 shows that it is rash to as-
sert a disjunction between ‘‘synagogal’’ and ‘‘rabbinic’’ Judaism. We do not
know.
The second reason for putting ‘‘Jewish’’ in quote marks is Martin Good-
man’s bold, and deliberately provocative, suggestion that what we normally
identify, in particular at Sardis, as a community of Jews, with a meeting
place adorned with Jewish symbols, might in fact be a community of gen-
tile ‘‘God-fearers’’ (theosebeis).^19 As such, the argument can hardly be refuted.
For, short of DNA tests, it will always be systematically impossible to dis-
tinguish a community which has fully adopted Jewish customs and beliefs
from one which is made up of people who are Jewish by biological descent.
We can make this distinction only where they themselves do. Which is why
it will be convenient to begin with the evidence from Aphrodisias, which
does precisely distinguishtheosebeisandprosēlytoifrom the main body of a
community which is marked by a high ratio of Hebrew names. Aphrodisias
will be the first of a series of examples considered in the next section, taken
in approximate order of their significance for this topic. As will be obvious,
the evidence for different communities varies very drastically in both type
and scale.
Jewish Evidence for Diaspora Communities
AphrodisiasOur knowledge of the Jewish community of Aphrodisias in Caria depends
essentially on a single inscribed block, with substantial texts in Greek on
two of its four sides (the synagogue itself may lie under the museum con-
structed to house the magnificent statues produced in the city). Published
originally in an illuminating pioneering study by Joyce Reynolds and Robert
Tannenbaum, the two texts have now been re-studied, and a convincing date
. For a (sadly typical) general interpretative description of the Rehov synagogue, not
based on any detailed archaeological report or analysis, see E. Stern, A. Lewisohn-Gilboa,
and J. Aviram, eds.,NewEncyclopaediaofArchaeologicalInvestigationsintheHolyLandIV (),
–. In the absence of any properly established archaeological dating, it is not possible
to say even in what century the main mosaic inscription was laid down. As a result, what
should be the starting point of all serious historical study of ‘‘Palestinian’’ rabbinic Judaism
is rendered useless.
. See M. Goodman, ‘‘Jews and Judaism in the Mediterranean Diaspora in the Late-
Roman Period: The Limitations of Evidence,’’Journ. Med. Stud. (): .