Archaeology Magazine - March/April 1989 - 28

authenticate biblical stories and traditions; thus they
arrived with preconceived ideas drawn from biblical
texts and other literary sources. Because many were Old
Testament scholars, New Testament archaeology in the
Holy Land took a back seat. Outside the Holy Land, it
remained for years in the shadow of classical
archaeology.
Since World War II, and especially since the discovery
of the Dead Sea scrolls in 1947, archaeology has been
more attentive to the world of the New Testament. But
the new archaeological knowledge has only slowly begun
to have an impact because New Testament scholars have
been slow to take archaeology seriously. Some scholars
think archaeology is of peripheral concern to early
Christian studies, concluding debatably that the
"earthly" dimension of early Christianity is irrelevant.
New Testament archaeology is also given low priority in
Jewish studies, which traditionally have placed far
greater emphasis on sacred texts. Many believe New
Testament archaeology to be of limited value in the
study of ancient Palestine, erroneously assuming that
the archaeological time frame is restricted to only two
generations, from the time of Jesus to the destruction of
Jerusalem in the year 70. In fact, one cannot understand
the development of either Judaism or Christianity without looking at the historical context over centuries, beginning with the introduction of Greek culture into the
ancient Near East.

Synagogueremains in northern Galilee attest to a livelyartd
vigorousJewish communityin the third century.
THE
HOMELAND
Scholarly understanding of Judaism and Christianity in the Roman province of Palestine during the early
Common Era (abbreviated c.e. and chronologically the
same as a.d.) has long been burdened by some dubious
suppositions. One is the belief that after the First Jewish
Revolt against Rome in 66-70 c.e., the new JewishChristian community fled the Holy Land. Certainly
there was significant emigration to other Mediterranean
lands, but in light of archaeological evidence from the
first two or three centuries c.e., a growing number of
scholars have found the idea of wholesale Jewish-Christian migration untenable.
28 Archaeology

Actually, the first followers of Jesus were basically
indistinguishable from their fellow Jews. Although they
believed Jesus was the Messiah and professed a radical
love ethic that had few parallels in Judaism - for example, love for one's enemies - the first Jewish-Christians
observed most of the Jewish laws and revered the Temple in Jerusalem. They apparently got along well with
their fellow Jews, contrary to the impression created in
the Gospels and other New Testament writings, where
the Pharisees, the "mainstream" religious party of ancient Judaism, are presented in a negative light. The
new Christians, in fact, were at odds mostly with the
Sadducees, who were much more rigid in their religious
outlook than the Pharisees, and far fewer in number.
When the Apostles were persecuted by the Sadducean
high priest, it was the Pharisee Rabbi Gamaliel who
intervened to save them (Acts 5: 17-42); when Paul was
called before the Sanhédrin (the High Council) in Jerusalem, he obtained his release by appealing to the Pharisees (Acts 22:30-23:10); and according to the Jewish
historian Josephus, when Jesus' brother James was put to
death by order of the Sadducean high priest in 62 c.e.,
the Pharisees appealed to the king to depose the high
priest. Jesus' natural constituency was the Pharisees,
whose doctrine of love for one's fellow humans must
surely have been the foundation for Jesus' ethical
teaching.
The belief that all or most of the Jewish-Christians left
Palestine after the First Revolt stems partly from the lack
of clear material traces of the Christian community in
the Holy Land from about 70 to 270 c.e. Early Christianity, however, vigorously sought to win converts both
among gentiles and in the many Jewish communities
throughout the Mediterranean. It is exceedingly hard to
imagine these efforts bypassing the large Jewish community in Palestine.
Moreover, Jews from Jerusalem and the surrounding
area fled in large numbers to Galilee after the revolt was
crushed. Would the first Jewish-Christians have ignored
Galilee, where Jesus spent his childhood and where he
conducted his ministry? Later generations of Christians
certainly did not, as evidenced by the numerous
churches they built in Galilee. The presence of important Christian centers of worship makes it difficult to
imagine a great Christian "repopulation" of Palestine
between the third and fifth centuries. Rather, it seems
there was a large community of Jewish-Christians in
Palestine from the first century onward, a community
later augmented by pilgrims in the age of Constantine.
Jerusalem is central in the study of early Christianity.
It is there that the new religion received its most compelling moments of inspiration in the death and burial of
Jesus; and it is from there that its followers took their
message to the other cities and towns of the land. As
long as the Temple stood, the first Christians continued
to worship there and in private household meetings.
With the destruction of the Temple, however, both Jews
and Christians had to establish new patterns of worship.
Thus the local synagogue, which was both a meeting

Archaeology Magazine - March/April 1989

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