A LANDSCAPE TRANSFORMED 211of much of their work) were not the onl yreasons, important as the ywere, for
the Israeli archaeologists’ denial of the obvious in the case of Capernaum.
In a major recent article, Z. U. Maoz offered three kinds of argument in
support of the old chronology.^35 The first two, from stratigraph yand histor y,
need not detain us. His stratigraphic arguments for dating synagogues like
those of Meron and Gischala to the earl ythird centur yappear at first glance,
at least to the nonarchaeologist, to have a certain rough plausibility; but in
fact the yare onl yrationalizations, amounting to no more than the claim that
the stratigraph ycan be reconciled with a dating to the earl ythird centur y, not
that it makes such a dating likely. Maoz’s argument about Capernaum—that
the s ynagogue was built elsewhere in the earl ythird centur yand then moved,
stone b ystone, to its present site in the fifth—is special pleading^36 (though I
have recentl yheard it publicl ypraised, if not precisel yendorsed, b yMorde-
chai Aviam). The argument from histor yma ybe unhesitatingl ydismissed,
depending as it does on the supposition that Rabbi Judah I was in effect king
of the Jews—a supposition derived from a misreading of both rabbinic litera-
ture and the works of Origen. The final argument, from style, is more compel-
ling. The resemblance of the Galilean synagogues to buildings constructed
in the second and third centuries, especiall ythe southern S yrian shrines sur-
veyed by Butler around the turn of the century, is undeniable, and Maoz
fortifies this main point with a good deal of circumstantial detail, the truly
novel aspect of his article.^37 But even this is unconvincing in the end. Why
should the resemblance of the synagogues to the Syrian shrines prove that
the ywere built at the same time? The shrines, after all, probabl yremained in
use into the fifth century, and some of them are standing to this day. Some
Galilean villagers, when the ydecided to build s ynagogues, ma yhave wished
them to look appropriatel y“sacred.” Before the fifth centur y, the onl yavail-
able models were the shrines built (and still maintained) b ythe pagan villagers
in the neighboring districts; monumental churches, later an important model
for synagogue builders, were still rare. Once in use for synagogues, there is
no reason the Galilean style should not have remained in use through the
sixth century.^38 An important component of the old chronology, it is worth
remembering, is a view no longer tenable since the emergence of late antiq-
(^35) “When Were the Galilean Synagogues First Built?”EI25 (1996): 416–26.
(^36) This argument has now been published in English: “The Synagogue at Capernaum: A
Radical Solution,” inRoman and Byzantine Near East2: 137–48.
(^37) Much of which, though, consists of results of studies of architectural features that posit
excessivel yspecific chronologies of the sort one would have imagined long since discredited.
(^38) As even Y. Tsafrir admitted, in an earlier attempt to salvage the old chronology; see “The
Synagogue at Meroth, the Synagogue at Capernaum, and the Dating of the Galilean Synagogues:
A Reconsideration,”EI20 (1989): 337–44. But he regarded the definitel ylate examples, e.g., at
Meroth, to be characterized b ycrudit yof workmanship, a view refuted b ythe s ynagogue of
Nabratein.