The Jewish elite of Sepphoris in late antiquity: indications from burial inscriptions

Abstract

The inscriptions from the cemeteries of Sepphoris serve as a vivid reflection of Jewish life and culture in this vibrant city of late antique Palestine. Two of these burial inscriptions are studied in this article: a bilingual inscription (Greek and Aramaic) and a Greek inscription that was uncovered more than a century ago and mistakenly read as a dedicatory inscription from an unexcavated synagogue. Reading the first one and rereading the second introduces us to senior Jewish officials in the Roman provincial and imperial administration. It affords us a unique glance into the social and cultural background of the Jewish elite of Sepphoris at the turn of the fourth–fifth centuries, at a time when the Christianization of the Roman administration had accelerated and Jews were forced once again to deal with questions of identity and introspection.