134 CHAPTER FOURYonah, the archaeologist and historian, may serve as an exemplary figure be-
causeofhistremendousinfluenceontheinterpretationofancientJewishart.
Avi-Yonah and colleagues were inclinedto understand most paganizing art
andiconographyfromancientJewishPalestine,whateverthecontextinwhich
it was found, as “merely” decorative. The ancient Jews were able to utilize
such threatening images in this way because sometimes they were unaware
of the implications of the images, and in any case by the second and third
centuries paganis mhad run out of stea mso the i mages were largely free of
any noisome religious content.^14 However, art with recognizably Jewish or
biblicalthemes,evenwhenfoundinthesamecontextasthepagan,forexam-
ple,onadjacentpanelsofamosaicpavementinasynagoguenave,issupposed
to have been profoundly meaningful. The continuing vibrancy of this school
of noninterpretation is strikingly demonstrated in a recent publication on the
grand Dionysiac mosaic discovered on the acropolis of Sepphoris, duly de-
scribed as religiously meaningless. In an important, in many respects excel-
lent, recent synthetic book on ancient Jewish art, Avi-Yonah’s approach,
clearly and programmatically described, is represented as the view of “most
scholars.”^15
Goodenoughadoptedadifferentsortofjudaizingapproachtothematerial.
In contrast to the Avi-Yonah school, which rabbinizes, by supposing that if an
image was not likely to have been worshiped then it was purely decorative,
absolutelydevoidofreligiousmeaning,andthusunproblematicfromtheJew-
ish perspective (see below on the rabbinic view of “idolatry”), Goodenough
“Philonized.”^16 ForGoodenough,evengeometricdesigns,rosettes,andsoon,
were packed with religious meaning. Nothing was simply decorative; indeed,
nothing even had a subtle meaning, as being faintly evocative of secondarily
religious emotions, for instance. All images used by Jews were in a more or
(^14) See also E. E. Urbach, “The Rabbinical Laws on Idolatry in the Second and Third Centu-
ries in the Light of Archaeological and Historical Facts,”IEJ9 (1959): 149–65, 229–45. Some-
times a mild judaizing interpretation is offered. For example, the zodiac wheel with Sol Invictus
seatedinhisquadrigainthecenter,foundinseveralPalestiniansynagogues,representstheJewish
liturgical year; see R. Hachlili, “The Zodiac in Ancient Jewish Art: Representation and Signifi-
cance,”BASOR228(1979):61–76,followingAvi-Yonah.Cf.G.Foerster,“TheZodiacinAncient
Synagogues and Its Iconographic Sources,”EI18 (1985): 380–91; and “The Zodiac in Ancient
Synagogues and Its Place in Jewish Thought and Literature,”EI19 (1987): 225–34; and below
for further discussion.
(^15) See R. Talga mand Z. Weiss, “The Dionysus Cycle in the Sepphoris Mosaic,”Qadmoniot
83–84(1988): 93–99.Manyexamplesof Avi-Yonah’sapproachcan befoundin hiscollectionArt
inAncientPalestine(Jerusalem: Magnes, 1981); for a characteristic case see the discussion of the
imported mythological sarcophagi from Beth Shearim, pp. 268–69; Hachlili,AncientJewishArt,
pp. 286–87.
(^16) See E. R. Goodenough,Jewish Symbols in the Greco-Roman Period, 13 vols. (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1953–68); the essential evaluation of Goodenough’s work is M.
Smith, “Goodenough’s Jewish Symbols in Retrospect,”JBL86 (1967): 53–68. Goodenough was
a leading authority on Philo before he began studying ancient Jewish art.