Imperialism and Jewish Society, 200 B.C.E. to 640 C.E. - Seth Schwartz

246 CHAPTER NINE How precisely are we to recover this message? Here consensus breaks down. Programmatic readings of ancient syna ...

JUDAIZATION 247 aforementioned .Some of these works may provide evidence for the varie- gated, even conflict-riddenreceptionof t ...

248 CHAPTER NINE Most synagogues, though, utilized elements of the specifically Jewish icono- graphic language just discussed .W ...

JUDAIZATION 249 aware of.^23 Indeed, many treatments of synagogue art are content to describe, compare, and (often dismissively) ...

250 CHAPTER NINE If, as seems to be the case, Weiss is suggesting that the pavement had a single stable meaning, then he is nece ...

JUDAIZATION 251 We may illustrate the implausibility of Weiss’s ascription of stable meaning to the iconography by examining his ...

252 CHAPTER NINE pavement of the Bet Alfa synagogue, which is otherwise very similar to that of Sepphoris? If two pavements use ...

JUDAIZATION 253 ways, covered with embroidered cloths^28 and flanked by metal or stonemen- orot.^29 For city dwellers, such a co ...

254 CHAPTER NINE hall, so that the first thing to come into view were benches where fellow congregants sat) usually were paved i ...

JUDAIZATION 255 an amulet from the Cairogenizahin which a pregnant woman invokes the sign of Leo (mazal aryeh) to protect her fr ...

256 CHAPTER NINE the square .This identification of the zodiacal signs with the months is, in fact, rather odd .Assuming that th ...

JUDAIZATION 257 ark has standing on each half of its gabled roof a peculiar bird, plausibly identified as a representation of th ...

258 CHAPTER NINE perhaps still a cult performed on high (as some apocalyptists thought) in which we participate through our acti ...

JUDAIZATION 259 nothing more than a versified horoscope.^47 Indeed, since this text is alunar horoscope, the juxtaposition of mo ...

260 CHAPTER NINE the human or divine figures portrayed on their synagogue floors.^48 In the fol- lowing section I will discuss a ...

JUDAIZATION 261 the contemporaneous rise of thepiyyutand the appearance of collections of ma’asim, handbooks for Jewish judges t ...

262 CHAPTER NINE (Panel 3, in Aramaic) May Yosi and Azrin and Haziqin sons of Halfai be remem- bered for good ./ Whoever causes ...

JUDAIZATION 263 here, were considered improper in a public text .In any case, the third panel’s resemblance to contemporaneous a ...

264 CHAPTER NINE are little more than versified summaries of rabbinic halakhah and exegesis.^58 However, we have no idea how wid ...

JUDAIZATION 265 that the social history of thepiyyutis still largely unexplored .Thepiyyutim are a relatively recent discovery, ...