208 CHAPTER SEVENgrimage site. Others were Jewish villages that became Christian, perhaps like
er-Rama, in western Galilee.^22 A ver yfew villages had two churches or two
synagogues (Kefar Baram, for example), probably the result of the synoecism
of two originall yseparate settlements.
The precise numbers of churches (there were man yhundreds)^23 and syna-
gogues (commonl ysaid to be around 100 or 120)^24 indicated b ythe remains
are impossible to establish because in man ycases the remains are merel y
suggestive. For example, man yof the Upper Galilean sites surve yed b yZ. Ilan
yielded only fragments of monumental structures. Some or all of these could
indeed have been from synagogues, as Ilan assumed, especially since earlier
observers had documented what the yregarded as the remains of s ynagogues
at man yof the sites. But man ycould just as well have been from churches,
or the large stones ma yhave been brought from elsewhere for use in later
structures.^25 Notwithstanding the man ydoubtful cases, though, patterns of
geographical distribution emerge clearly: the churches were heavily concen-
trated in Judaea and in the district of Akko-Ptolemais, northwest of Upper
Galilee, while the synagogues were concentrated in eastern Galilee and west-
ern Golan. In western Galilee, the Carmel region, the Beth Shean Valley,
and southern Judaea, there were looser concentrations of both churches and
synagogues.^26
Dates
There were certainl yman ymore such structures than have been discovered.
Given the small size of the settlements in which some of the buildings were
found, it seems reasonable to follow the consensus of archaeologists and histo-
rians in concluding that b ythe later fifth or earl ysixth centuries, almost ever y
village in Palestine, except perhaps the ver ysmallest, had either a church or
a synagogue.^27
Unlike the Jews, the Christians tended to record the dates of construction
and renovation of their religious buildings in dedicator yinscriptions. (The
(^22) On the christianization of some Jewish villages in southern Judaea, see J. Schwartz,Jewish
Settlement, pp. 107–9.
(^23) Ovadiah lists 265 sites inNEAEHL, but man yof these were pilgrimage sites and monasteries
that contained more than one church.
(^24) See Levine, “Synagogues,” inNEAEHL.
(^25) See Z. Ilan, “Surve yof Ancient S ynagogues in Galilee,”EI19 (1987): 170–207.
(^26) See most convenientl ythe maps in Y. Tsafrir, L. DiSegni, and J. Green,Tabula Imperii
Romani: Iudaea-Palaestina(Jerusalem: Israel Academ yof Sciences and Humanities, 1994). Simi-
lar maps appear inNEAEHL.
(^27) E.g., Y. Tsafrir, inAncient Churches Revealed(Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1993),
p. 4; D. Urman,The Golan(Oxford: BAR, 1985), p. 93.