Judaism in Asia Minor

Abstract

Introduction Map B VI 18 of the Tubinger Atlas des Vorderen Orients (the map with the title Die judische Diaspora bis zum 7. Jahrhundert n. Chr. ) reveals a striking concentration of Jewish settlements in Asia Minor (modern Turkey). As is to be expected, there is a higher density of Jewish communities in the west of Asia Minor than in the east, especially in great coastal cities such as Ephesus, Miletus, and Smyrna. The interior of Anatolia, however, also has a very high number, especially in Lydia, Caria, and Phrygia (see Map 7). The history of the Jewish diaspora in Asia Minor is a long one, probably starting as early as the fifth century BCE and continuing until the present day. This chapter will focus on the roughly one thousand years between the beginnings of Jewish settlement there and the end of the Talmudic period (or the rise of Islam). Unfortunately, the literary sources at our disposal are relatively scarce: only a handful of references in pagan literary sources, several more in Josephus and the New Testament, and some also in the Church Fathers and in canons of church councils. On the other hand, we have no fewer than some 260 Jewish inscriptions, the overwhelming majority in Greek and only a handful in Hebrew. Because there is no scholarly consensus as to whether or not we possess Jewish writings from Asia Minor (perhaps some of the Oracula Sibyllina and 4 Maccabees), we will have to leave this question out of account. Archaeological remains are not very numerous (apart from the epigraphic material), but some of them are spectacular (see below on Sardis).