58 CHAPTER TWOnalconformity with Deuteronomic prescription.^24 Josephus’s incidental no-
tice that the people of Lydda, in northwestern Judaea, carefully observed a
pilgrimage festival indicates that sometimes such conformity was more than
nominal (War 2.515). Archaeologists have noted the rarity of pig bones in
excavations in Israel.^25
The Temple and the Torah were thus not only the main mediators between
Israel and its God, but also among the prime (though not the only)^26 repositor-
ies of power in Hellenistic and Roman Jewish Palestine, nodal points, like the
temples of Egypt and the city oligarchies of Ionia and Caria, in imperial and
native royal control of the native population of the country. There was thus,
in broad terms, a coincidence of their positions in the cosmic and human
political economies. As for imperial control, it was often loose. The central
authorities had other concerns and tended to react rather than actively con-
trol, which would have constrained the rulers’ local agents. And when native
kingsruled,theirfortunestoovaried,andsometimestheyhadtotolerateoppo-
sition, as the Hasmoneans tolerated the Essenes, and Herod the Pharisees.
Nevertheless,thepoweroftheTempleandTorahwasarealfactoflife,indeed,
one of central importance in ancient Palestinian Judaism; those who ignore
it do so at their peril.
(^24) Despite the rather odd insistence of, for example, H. C. Kee, “Early Christianity in the
Galilee: Reassessing the Evidence from the Gospels,” in L. Levine, ed.,The Galilee in Late
Antiquity(Ne wYork: Je wish Theological Seminary, 1992), pp. 3–14, it is indubitable that there
were some synagogues in first-century Palestine (see, e.g., War 2.285), though it is equally indubi-
table that the monumental, purpose-built synagogue became an established feature in the Pales-
tinian countryside only severalcenturies later; in the first centurysynagogues were located mainly
in cities, including Jerusalem (as indicated by the famous “Theodotus inscription” which, once
again pace Kee, was most likely made in the first century) and fortresses. For an account with
less special pleading, see L. Levine, “The Second Temple Synagogue,” inThe Synagogue in Late
Antiquity, (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1987), pp. 7–31 (his account of what went
on in the synagogue is based mostly on post-70 evidence). The evidence for sacrifice in diasporic
synagogues should perhaps be taken seriously; see S. Cohen, “Pagan and Christian Evidence on
the Ancient Synagogue,” in the same collection, p. 166. For more detail, see part 3.
(^25) For discussion see J. L. Reed, “Galileans, ‘Israelite Village Communities,’ and the Sayings
Gospel Q,” in E. Meyers, ed.,Galilee through the Centuries: Confluence of Cultures(Winona
Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1999), pp. 98–102. The real issue, though, is not whether Jews occasion-
ally ate pork; obviously those who could get hold of it sometimes did, just as some of them had
sex with siblings, exposed unwanted infants, and lit fires on the Sabbath. What is at issue ispublic
behavior: raising or importing pigs on a large scale, for instance, and thus the frequency of their
bones in excavations. Of this there is no evidence.
(^26) See below on manipulation of the demonic world. Furthermore, mediation between Jews
and the Roman government outside the hierarchy of Temple and Torah was an important source
of power at a time when Jewish Palestine was politically divided (so that the Temple staff probably
had no legal jurisdiction over significant areas of Jewish settlement) and dominated by a non-
priestly family, the Herodians. However, this sort of mediation was presumably not a significant
element of Jewish self-definition. Subjection to Rome united the Jews with their neighbors; the
mediating class thus cut across ethnic lines, as Josephus’s accounts of the dynastic marriages of