222 CHAPTER EIGHTcommonmealsshows thatthecorporationshadan egalitarianaspect,though
there is no way of determining the frequency of the meals, and so whether
they actually performed a significant redistributive role and loosened thereby
the individual members’ dependence on the patronage of the city elites. Per-
haps they were primarily a symbolic expression of solidarity and had insub-
stantial social and economic effects. It must once again be stressed that there
is no reason to think that all the Jews living in an Asian city participated in
thelocalJewishcorporation,northat everyJewishsettlementhadacorporate
structure of any sort.
Acts of the Apostles may indicate that synagogue- and Torah-based com-
munities were increasingly common in Asia and Greece by the later first
century.^19 If this were true, it could perhaps be seen as a result of the integ-
rative pull of the Herodian state. But we should perhaps be wary of the cur-
renttendencytotakeActsseriouslyasadescriptionofreality—moreacoun-
sel of desperation (what other evidence is there?) than a methodological
advance.
Palestine^20A corollary of my discussion of first-century Jewish Palestine in part 1 of this
book is that the local community was insignificant there as a mode of social
and religious organization.^21 Villagers—the vast majority of the population—
did not view themselves as constituting religious corporations, at least not in
any way that has left traces either in literature or archaeology. God and his
subordinate deities may have been everywhere, but they were to be pacified
not primarily by villages but by individuals, families, the priesthood of the
Jerusalem temple, and similar intermediary figures.
Yet communities did exist, most conspicuously, sectarian communities.^22
Such communities may have influenced the development of the local Jewish
Diaspora,”HTR80 (1987): 133–60. For general discussion, Levine,Ancient Synagogue, pp.
74–123.
(^19) See especially Acts 15:21: James tells the Jerusalem church that Moses has those who read
hi m“every Sabbath in the synagogue in every city [polis].” Note also Philo,Leg ad Gaium370–
71, a highly rhetorical passage which takes for granted that the synagogue was fairly widespread
in cities.
(^20) See in general L. L. Grabbe, “Synagogues in Pre-70 Palestine: A Re-assessment,”JThS 39
(1988): 401–10; Levine,Ancient Synagogue, pp. 42–73.
(^21) This point is made already by M. Weinberg, “Die Organisation der ju ̈dischen Ortsgemein-
den in der talmudischen Zeit,”MGWJ41 (1897): 589–91; by contrast Y. Baer, “The Origins of
the Organization of the Jewish Community of the Middle Ages,”Studies in the History of the
Jewish People(Jerusalem: Israel Historical Society, 1985), p. 62 (=Zion15 [1950]: 3) claimed
that the local community was “immanent” in Judaism (which is not to say that it was always
widespread or highly developed or ideologized; for Baer, these are characteristic of the commu-
nity only in late antiquity)—the weakest element of this fundamental and brilliant article rarely
cited by ancient Jewish historians.
(^22) WhichIbelieveBaer,“Origins,” p.68(=9),wasmistakentoconflate withthelocalcommunity.