224 CHAPTER EIGHTpilgrims from the Diaspora.^26 The Jewish inhabitants of the coastal cities,
unsurprisingly, conformed to patterns that were emerging elsewhere in the
urban Roman east, that is, some of them formed in some cases synagogue-
centered communities. Josephus (who mentions no rural synagogues in Pal-
estine) informs us that a synagogue in Caesarea contained holy books and
thattheprocuratorFlorusdeemedtheremovalofthesebooksfromthesyna-
gogue by the Jews at the outbreak of the Great Revolt an act of sacrilege.
Levine suggested that Florus regarded the scrolls as among the protectors of
the city, presumably because he thought the God of Israel was one of the
city’s patron deities, and the scrolls were somehow representations of the
God (as statues were of the Greek gods), or were necessary for securing the
God’s goodwill.^27 Did the Jews share Florus’s view? If so, what would this
imply about the relationship between the Torah scroll and the building that
housed it?^28
Josephus also mentions a prayer house, a “huge building,” in Tiberias
where Jews congregated on the Sabbaths (Life 276–79).^29 Tiberias must be
mentioned separately from the coastal cities because its population was
mainly Jewish before the outbreak of the revolt and almost entirely so after-
ward. But we know next to nothing about the religious life of the city before
the second century. The city’s constitution was Greek, but there is no way of
knowingwhether,aslater,theJews conductedapublicreligiouslifeofpagan
character, or whether they thought of themselves as constituting simultane-
ously the citizen body of a Greek city and a Jewish religious corporation, or
severalsuchcorporations;orperhapsJewishreligiouspracticesweresomehow
incorporated into the civic constitution. Josephus mentioned the rebels’ de-
structionoftheHerodianpalace,decoratedwithfigurativepaintings(Life65–
67) but says nothing of their destruction of temples, shrines, or idols. Were
there none or were they destroyed (unremarked by Josephus) along with the
(^26) SeeCIJ2.1414;Lifshitz,Donateurs, no.79;Roth-Gerson, no.19,with extensivediscussion.
The inscription makes special mention of the construction of guest rooms for foreign visitors,
complete with plumbing, attached to or somehow associated with the synagogue. Note also the
emphasis on Torah study, to the exclusion of prayer, as the chief function of the synagogue. I am
assuming, incidentally, that notwithstanding the strictures of H. C. Kee, “Early Christianity in
the Galilee: Reassessing the Evidence fro mthe Gospels,” inGalilee, pp. 3–14, which are too
vague to evaluate, the Theodotus inscription predates 70 or at least 132. The presence of a syna-
gogue in Aelia Capitolina, or Christian Jerusalem, and the existence of a substantial Jewish pil-
grimage, would be surprising, though they are not impossible.
(^27) SeeWar2.285–92;Levine,Caesarea under Roman Rule(Leiden:Brill,1975),p.30,includ-
ing note 198.
(^28) For an account that attempts to answer this question, though it does not mention the inci-
dent at Caesarea, see Fine,This Holy Place, pp. 28–32.
(^29) In Life 134, Josephus writes that Jesus b. Sapphias, archon of Tiberias during the revolt,
brought a Torah scroll to the hippodrome of Tarichaeae, not far from Tiberias. Had he taken it
fro mthe synagogue ofTarichaeae? Of Tiberias? Did he own it? Wasa Torah scroll kept for so me
reason in the hippodrome of Tarichaeae?