Byzantine Palestine Research Articles

Reclaiming History from the Settler Coloniser: A Meditation on Nur Masalha's Palestine across Millennia: A History of Literacy, Learning and Educational Revolutions

In this wonderful book, Nur Masalha challenges and transforms world history, as did his earlier Palestine: A Four Thousand Year History (2018). In this meditation I recount some of Nur Masalha's argument — not all, given the extraordinary richness of the material he has uncovered, described, and analysed — but also offer my own reflections prompted by his book. As Masalha relates in his introduction, the work is a passionate response to Zionism's historical claim that Palestinians possess no history of literacy, education, and literary culture. He shows the falsity of such a claim through multiple examples. Masalha explores, for example, the multifaceted history of education in Byzantine Palestine (Third to Early Seventh Century), based on a philosophy of ‘civil society’. Palestine as a cosmopolitan and transnational world inhered in what Masalha refers to as Cities of Learning. There were famous intellectuals, such as in antiquity Josephus (AD 37-c.100) and Origen (AD 185–253). In modernity he highlights Khalil Sakakini (1878–1953), whose remarkable educational reforms, emphasizing a ‘philosophy of joy’, emerged at a similar time to A.S. Neill's Summerhill School in the UK. Women's education is featured, from the time of the Palestinian Madrasas under the Ayyubids and Mamluks (1187–1517) onwards, a powerful tradition which continues into the modern era. When press censorship was relaxed following the Ottoman Young Turk Revolution of 1908, there was a huge growth of newspapers, photography, and photojournalism, a remarkable figure here being the Palestinian photographer Karima ‘Abboud (1893–1940). Masalha draws attention to the importance of translation in Palestinian history, especially in the important figure of Khalil Ibrahim Beidas, a relative of Edward Said, who was interested in the works of Pushkin, Gogol, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy and Gorky. There is a fascinating chapter on the interactions of Palestinian scholars and the Crusaders, with free passages of ideas, goods and technologies; arabesque became a mainstream European decorative art. The result of these multiple explorations is a major transformation in how we think about the world.

The Mosaic Floors of the House of Kyrios Leontis in Nysa Scythopolis (Beth Shean)

The House of Kyrios Leontis in Nysa Scythopolis (Beth-Shean) was partially excavated by two expeditions and at different times, and the mosaic floors have been published only in preliminary publications. Two halls were discovered in the complex. The first hall is decorated with a mosaic pavement of three panels: the Homeric story of Odysseus and the Sirens; beribboned parrots surrounding a dedication inscription; the Nile god, Nilometer, the city of Alexandria, and a Nilotic landscape. The second hall served as a prayer room or a small synagogue. A pair of animals decorated the two entrances, and the hall itself is decorated with populated vine scrolls with animals. Jewish ritual objects appear in the central medallion: the seven-branched candlestick, citron, censer, and ram’s horn. The mosaic floors are inlaid with dedication inscriptions in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek, with the names of the donors and prayers for the holy congregation.
 The iconography, incorporating mythological subjects, the god of the Nile and Nilotic landscape, Jewish ritual objects, common animal chase scenes, and the use of the three languages that were customary in Byzantine Palestine, expresses the character of the city of Nysa Scythopolis as a cultural city inhabited by a mixed, well-educated population.

Palestinian Amoraic Hebrew As A Living Vernacular: An Indication From Morphosyntax

Abstract Presently, most scholars hold that the linguistic status of Rabbinic Hebrew from Byzantine Palestine (380-640 ce) is that of a dead literary language, influenced by Aramaic and earlier varieties of Hebrew, and that Hebrew had already died out as a spoken vernacular in the second or early third century ce. The sources for this variety are rabbinic texts produced by the Palestinian Amoraim and to a lesser degree, epigraphy. The article challenges this view, claiming that such opinions have not been based on a systematic morphosyntactic examination of Palestinian Amoraic Hebrew. The article presents such an analysis of a morphosyntactic structure, namely, pseudo-coordinated verb pairs. Two sub-structures are examined: (I) imperative + imperative and (II) imperative + yiqtol, in Palestinian Amoraic Hebrew, Tannaitic Hebrew, Biblical Hebrew and Jewish Palestinian Aramaic. Palestinian Amoraic Hebrew is found to clearly align with Tannaitic Hebrew, and not Biblical Hebrew and Jewish Palestinian Aramaic.

John of Scythopolis on Divine Darkness

Abstract The present article provides a commentary on the sixth-century Christian bishop John of Scythopolis’ scholion on Dionysius the Areopagite’s Mystical Theology I.3. In this scholion, John discusses the various Greek translations of Ex. 20:18/21. He also refers to a Jewish cosmological tradition about the seven heavens. Various rabbinic parallels to John of Scythopolis are discussed. The article argues that John most likely has recourse to an oral Jewish tradition, transmitted to him by a Jewish informant in Scythopolis. John of Scythopolis’ scholion thus provides important evidence on Christian-Jewish contacts in Byzantine Palestine.

The Creation of the Talmud Yerushalmi and Apophthegmata Patrum as Monuments to the Rabbinic and Monastic Movements in Early Byzantine Times

This paper investigates the compilatory processes that led to the creation of the Talmud Yerushalmi and the Apophthegmata Patrum in early Byzantine Palestine. These encyclopaedic works are based on individual oral traditions that emerged from teacher-disciple networks of rabbis and monks. A comparison of the scholastic settings, editorial processes, and structural arrangements reveals interesting similarities and differences. It highlights the complexity of the Talmud’s organizing principles that did not allow for later accretions in the same way that the Apophthegmata collections did. The development from oral transmission to written compilations had significant consequences. For the first time, multiple individual traditions that were diverse and contradictory were visible together on one and the same page. The reader of the written compilations is offered a synoptic overview of the accumulated anchorite and rabbinic knowledge of one and a half centuries. The early Byzantine compilers commemorated and (re)create the “classical” rabbinic and monastic movements for their own time and place.

Monks on the move: Evaluating pilgrimage to Byzantine St. Stephen's monastery using strontium isotopes.

Written and archaeological evidence indicates that migration, in the form of pilgrimage to Byzantine Palestine, was a major social phenomenon between the 5th and 7th centuries CE. Monasteries saw record growth at this time as pilgrims chose to stay in the region and take up religious life. A major influx of people to the region, with a corresponding growth in monastic vocations that led travelers to stay in the area, is not in question; however, the distant origins of pilgrims reflected in surviving texts may be an artifact of preservation, biased towards an elite minority. The Byzantine monastery of St. Stephen's provides an opportunity to study this question from a bioarchaeological perspective, given the excellent preservation of the human skeletal assemblage, a wealth of written works about the community as well as daily life in Byzantine Palestine, and a rich archaeological record for the site and region. An analysis of radiogenic strontium isotope values from the third molars of 22 individuals recovered from the St. Stephen's crypt complex was conducted to test whether those interred at the monastery were of local origin. Of those examined ( x¯= 0.7084 ± 0.0007, 1σ), 8 out of 22 (36%) exhibited (87) Sr/(86) Sr ratios that fell outside of local ranges. These results confirmed the sizeable presence of nonlocals at St. Stephen's Monastery. While most of these migrants likely traveled to Jerusalem from different areas of the Levant as pilgrims, others may have hailed from further afield, including Europe.

Dionysos and His Retinue in the Art of Late Roman and Byzantine Palestine

Dionysian imagery was a popular subject in the visual arts of ancient Palestine, reflecting a Hellenistic cultural heritage no longer identified with paganism. Dionysus’ popularity, universality, and longevity are due to the convivial aspect of wine-consuming among the Greeks: the idea of sharing. Scenes and motifs embellish different items: mosaic floors, sculpture and carved stone; marble and stone sarcophagi and lead coffins; tableware, household vessels, metal and clay lamps; bronze and clay figurines; ivory and bone carvings; textiles; coins; jewelry. The contextual evidence indicates that pagans, Jews and Christians made use of the same iconography.

The Justinianic plague: evidence from the dated Greek epitaphs of Byzantine Palestine and Arabia

The Justinianic plague, the first historically attested pandemic of bubonic plague, has recently made headlines with the publication of the genomic analysis of the bacterium responsible for its outbreak.1 Though its primary contribution is to the field of epidemiology, this study is a welcome addition to the growing body of research on the first plague pandemic, for which the literary evidence is still the main source of information.2 A number of attempts have been made to find non-literary evidence for this plague in order to substantiate the literary evidence and gain insight into areas for which the literary sources are insufficient, and the present study joins those by analyzing the corpus of dated Greek epitaphs of the 4th through 7th c. A.D. from the Byzantine provinces of Palaestina Prima, Palaestina Secunda, Palaestina Tertia (or Salutaris),3 and Arabia. The findings appear to confirm the traditional dating of the outbreak of plague to 541, and may even suggest that this first wave was particularly virulent; they are less informative about the succession of later waves.

O. Elusa 2: Another Enigmatic Ostracon from the Pottery Workshop at Elusa in Byzantine Palestine

A rather enigmatic Greek ostracon (O. Elusa 2) was recovered during the 1997 excavation season at Elusa in the Negev Desert. This ostracon is analysed in light of its archaeological setting, namely, a Byzantine pottery workshop, and the associated finds from the workshop, including a previously published ostracon (O. Elusa 1). Such an integrative approach underscores the importance of combining papyrological and archaeo- logical information for the interpretation of excavated texts.

A Note on ‘Yagur of the Talmud’

Standard gazetteers and geographies of Roman and Byzantine Palestine typically include a short reference to a Roman and Byzantine village named Yagur, located on the outskirts of Ashkelon and identified with the Arab village of El Jura. The references to this purported village cite as evidence a passage in the Tosefta (tAhil. 18:15). However, Yagur is nowhere mentioned in the Tosefta; it first occurs in an emended quotation of this passage by the medieval French rabbi Rash, in his Mishnah commentary. This article demonstrates that there is no evidence to support the Rash’s emendations as the original readings of the passage, and therefore removes all evidence for the existence of a Roman/ Byzantine Yagur.

The Christian Appropriation of Jerusalem in the Fourth Century: The Case of the Bordeaux Pilgrim

IN THE PAST THREE or so decades there has been a noticeable increase of scholarly interest in the world of Christian pilgrimage in general and that leading to the Holy Land in particular.1 Indeed the birth of Christian pilgrimage to Roman Palestine during the third and fourth decades of the fourth century took place not in the least due to the brilliant Holy Land plan of Constantine, which was, among other matters, aimed at diverting the attention of the Christian masses from what only just recently had been their lot - horrifying persecutions at the hands of the heathen Roman Empire. At the same time it served to invigorate their interest in their recent heroic, historic, and mythic past that took place in the Holy Land and particularly in Jerusalem.2 In addition to its avowed interest in a new Christian self-identity it seems to me that Constantine's plan served too as yet another component in the overall scheme to tilt the political and religious center of gravity from the Occident to the Orient - from Rome the civitaa aeterna to Roma Nova, which he founded in Byzantium on the banks of the Bosphoran straits and renamed Constantinopolis.3In no time the massive construction work carried out predominantly in (the Holy Sepulcher) and around Jerusalem (Mount of Olives, Mamre [near Hebron] and Bethlehem) was being augmented by the creation of yet another configuration of a spiritual nature, the holy Jerusalem liturgy, which no doubt when finally formed merited the title the Fifth Gospel given it by Peter Walker.4 The pilgrims who flocked by the hordes to the holy city were the backbone of the unique religious and cultural transformation that is the Christianization of Jerusalem and of the Holy Land. They captured and disseminated its message as well as its scents. It seems that it must have been to them, as well as to the neophytes gathering in Jerusalem to convert to the new religion, that Cyril the local bishop addressed the following: One should never grow weary of hearing about our crowned Lord, especially on this holy Golgotha. For others merely hear, but we see and touch5The end product, so to say, of the Christian appropriation of the Holy Land in general and of Jerusalem in particular was demonstrated cartographically on the famous mosaic floor of the Madaba Church east of the Jordan River, better known as the Madaba Map.6 This map and possibly other maps7 as well as other components of the Christian Holy Land edifice (relics and tombs) were to an extant a reflection of the circulating verbal accounts of the early pilgrims to Byzantine Palestine. The centrality of these accounts to the understanding of Christian views on pilgrimage and the Holy Land is beyond doubt, but before we take a closer look at segments of the earliest description of the Holy Land known to us, the one written by the anonymous pilgrim from Bordeaux (333 CE.), a short precis of the statua quaestionis of the early Christian pilgrimage to Palestine and its literary accounts is in order.Scholars like David Hunt and Zeev Rubin have scoured the intricate historical terrain of Late Antiquity in order to depict for us the hitherto unknown picture of Christian Palestinian pilgrimage set in the unique political and religious circumstances of the empire and in particular in the province of Roman Palestinian.8 Others, like Peter Walker, Robert Wilken, and Robert Markus as well as Piere Maraval, to mention only a few, immersed themselves in the conceptual world of pilgrimage and in the notion of the Holy Land as portrayed in the writings of the Church fathers.9 Still others like John Wilkinson and Ora Limor, took upon themselves to translate and annotate the pilgrims' accounts.10 In more recent years a more specific venue has been explored, namely, the Jewish component of Christian pilgrimage. Recent studies have looked into the following set of topics. On the one hand, for instance, Ora Limor has explored the role of the Hebraica Veritas (that is, the intrinsic and concealed knowledge of the Jews of local Judeo-Christian traditions) in the construction of Palestinian Christian sacred topography, and others like Elchanan Reiner have been tracing hints of possible Jewish reactions to this rather new religious and cultural intrusion into their land. …

MICHAEL RAND, Introduction to the Grammar of Hebrew Poetry in Byzantine Palestine (Gorgias Dissertations 22, Language and Linguistics).

MICHAEL RAND, Introduction to the Grammar of Hebrew Poetry in Byzantine Palestine (Gorgias Dissertations 22, Language and Linguistics).

A Portable Sundial from Byzantine Apollonia-Arsuf / Sozousa?

This article examines a unique clay object that came from the site of Apollonia-Arsuf (Israel), which we tend to consider was used as a horizontal (flat) portable sundial (horologium). The object is somewhat pentagonal in shape, depicting a design that was incised (and partially stamped) on it prior to firing. Thus it may add to our knowledge of daily time division in Late Byzantine Palestine.

Fama et Memoria: Portraits of Female Patrons in Mosaic Pavements of Churches in Byzantine Palestine and Arabia

Fama et Memoria: Portraits of Female Patrons in Mosaic Pavements of Churches in Byzantine Palestine and Arabia

The Hebrew Liturgical Poetry of Byzantine Palestine: Recent Research and New Perspectives

Over the past few decades there has been a striking growth of interest in the study of Hebrew (and Aramaic) liturgical poetry, or pjyut, in Byzantine Palestine. Scholars have published a substantial number of texts and studies and have started to produce several translations. The issues and observations presented here reflect the main current research themes and perspectives, thereby disclosing a state of the art in the study of ancient piyyut. This fascinating topic is attracting an increasing amount of fresh attention from scholars and students whose positive contributions question some of the traditional ways of describing and defining the phenomenon of synagogue poetry. Applying ideas of cultural, historical, and literary comparison, previous approaches are reconsidered and new means of viewing piyyutic and paytanic concepts and values are suggested. Jewish hymnography of Late Antiquity will continue to be an insightful and enriching source for the understanding of Jewish society at the time.

Introduction to the Grammar of Hebrew Poetry in Byzantine PalestineRandM. Introduction to the Grammar of Hebrew Poetry in Byzantine Palestine Gorgias PressPiscataway NJ, 2006, xvii, 537, $95.00ISBN 159333348X

Introduction to the Grammar of Hebrew Poetry in Byzantine PalestineRandM. <i>Introduction to the Grammar of Hebrew Poetry in Byzantine Palestine</i> Gorgias PressPiscataway NJ, 2006, xvii, 537, $95.00ISBN 159333348X

A Church Historian in Search of an Identity: Aspects of Early Byzantine Palestine in Sozomen's Historia Ecclesiastica

Zusammenfassung Die jüngsten Studien zu spätantiker Geschichtsschreibung werfen neues Licht auf die Gattung der Kirchengeschichte. Traditionelle Einstellungen zu den Kirchenhistorikern des fünften Jahrhunderts, nämlich Sokrates von Konstantinopel, Sozomenus von Bethelia und Theodoretus von Cyrrhus, vor allem als Fortsetzer und Nachahmer des Euseb von Caesarea, haben Raum gemacht für eine subtilere Annäherung, indem jedes einzelne Werk dieser Autoren individuell untersucht und nach seinem inneren Wert beurteilt wird. Dieser Aufsatz hebt einen besonderen Grundzug der Historia Ecclesiastica des Sozomenus hervor: die Bearbeitung seines heimatlichen Palästinas, welches er innerhalb seines Werkes in drei verschiedenen, untereinander verbundenen Kontexten erörtert: Familie, Politik und Religion. Die vorliegende Auffassung des Berichtes seiner heimatlichen Region legt nahe, daß die Christianisierung Palästinas in der frühbyzantinischen Epoche das Hervortreten eines eindeutig palästinischen kollektiven Identitätsgefühls bewirkt hat.

"Arab Christianity in Byzantine Palestine"

"Arab Christianity in Byzantine Palestine"

"Urban monasteries and monasteries of Early Byzantine Palestine: preliminary observations"

"Urban monasteries and monasteries of Early Byzantine Palestine: preliminary observations"

Rural Monasticism as a Key Element in the Christianization of Byzantine Palestine

In Palestine, Christian monasticism began early in the fourth century C.E. The first monks known to us by name are Hilarion of Thavata, who lived in the region of Gaza; Epiphanius, who settled near Eleutheropolis, in the Shephelah; and Chariton, a native of Iconium in Asia Minor who became the founder of monasticism in the Judean Desert. The monastic movement spread throughout Palestine during the Byzantine period (324–642 C.E.), and the remains ofmonasteries have been found in diverse areas. Many monasteries were establishedin or around large cities, or at holy places and sites of pilgrimage, while others were set in desert areas.