6 - Jewish art and architecture in the Land of Israel, 70–C. 235

Summary

INTRODUCTION

Several methodological issues make this topic a difficult one. First is the chronological issue. While the date of 70 ce recognizes the importance of the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple, it nonetheless does not provide a helpful or defining moment for the consideration of Jewish material culture in all of its complex aspects. Indeed, recent research into Second Temple Judaism indicates that a great many forces of continuity were operating towards the end of the Second Temple period and after 70 ce, demonstrating why the Jewish community adjusted so rapidly to the new reality of the post-70 era. The plethora of literary and geographical references to pre-70 ce synagogues, worship, Torah-reading, administrators, and functionaries, despite the dearth of archaeological remains in Eretz Israel, reveals the centrality of the institution of the synagogue to Jewish life before and after 70 ce. Extensive remains of domestic space from pre-70 Jerusalem fit effectively with patterns of Jewish housing found in Galilee later. In a real sense, therefore, one may speak of the forces of continuity in the formative first century despite the Great Revolt and Destruction of the Temple. Those forces of continuity are also relevant to discussions of other social and religious aspects affecting the post-70 transition, such as the formation of rabbinic Judaism, the process of canonization, the rise of early Christianity, and so forth.

The question of Jewish art is much more complex. Previous treatments have noted that Jewish attitudes toward art were more permissive in the First Temple period and the early Second Temple period when Persian and Greek influence made such great inroads. From the beginning of the Hasmonean period, however, the second century bce until the second century ce, Lee I. Levine has proposed that Jewish attitudes towards art became much “more polarized and practice more restrictive.” He suggests, therefore, that a stricter understanding of the Second Commandment banning images was operative for 300 years. The so-called aniconic attitudes of the fully assimilated and hellenized Hasmoneans will not be discussed, but the notion that Judaism remained essentially aniconic for some eighty years after the fall of Jerusalem suggests a dramatic change during the period under discussion, which I do not accept.