{"id":23789,"date":"2017-04-07T03:30:42","date_gmt":"2017-04-07T10:30:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=23789"},"modified":"2017-04-04T17:20:24","modified_gmt":"2017-04-05T00:20:24","slug":"mosaics-change-our-views","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2017\/04\/07\/mosaics-change-our-views\/","title":{"rendered":"Mosaics change our views"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dr. Ra\u2019anan Boustan of Princeton University delivers the Itta and Eliezer Zeisler Memorial Lecture at the University of British Columbia on March 23. (photo by Gregg Gardner)<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

A mosaic from Late Antiquity has lessons for Jewish communities today. According to Dr. Ra\u2019anan Boustan of Princeton University, \u201cJewish identity, historically, was broader, more porous, and integrated more non-Jewish elements than we might think, and, likewise today, we should not hasten to essentialize or rigidly define Jewish identity or culture.\u201d<\/p>\n

Boustan offered this insight when delivering the Itta and Eliezer Zeisler Memorial Lecture at the University of British Columbia on March 23. Called Greek Kings and Judaean Priests in the Late Antique Synagogue: The Newly Discovered \u201cElephant Mosaic,\u201d Boustan\u2019s visit was presented by the Archeological Institute of America, Vancouver Society, and co-sponsored by the UBC Diamond Chair in Jewish Law and Ethics, and the department of classical, Near Eastern and religious studies (CNERS).<\/p>\n

A 2011 dig led by archeologist Jodi Magness excavated several sections at the site of a former village, Huqoq, near the Sea of Galilee. Among the items uncovered was a mosaic that is said to have adorned the floor of an elaborate 1,600-year-old synagogue.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe discovery of the mosaic was a major find,\u201d Prof. Gregg Gardner of CNERS told the Jewish Independent<\/em>. \u201cThere are very few mosaics from the ancient world that depict biblical scenes.\u201d<\/p>\n

The mosaics\u2019 scenes include Samson fighting the Philistines, Noah and the flood, the destruction of the Egyptian army in the Red Sea, and others. A particularly noteworthy element is that the mosaics also show images from Greek history and mythology. \u201cThis confluence of biblical and Greek imagery was quite surprising,\u201d said Gardner.<\/p>\n

Boustan was in Vancouver to talk about the \u201cElephant Panel,\u201d which depicts a battle between unknown actors. Although some have argued that the panel represents Alexander the Great, Boustan interprets the mosaic as the depiction of a Seleucid attack on Jerusalem led by King Antiochus VII in 132 BC. \u201cIt shows they had a sense of historical connection to predecessors in a more robust way than we might have expected, and wanted to have that memorialized in synagogue art. This shows a historical consciousness, not just the timeless world of rabbis and scriptural interpretation developing in the Talmud of the same period.\u201d<\/p>\n

Boustan is a specialist in Judaism in Late Antiquity (circa 200-700 CE) who has focused particularly on understanding \u201cextra-rabbinic culture,\u201d the Judaism that existed outside of what was preserved in the narratives of the rabbis. \u201cThe rabbinic writings \u2013 the Talmud, the Midrash \u2013 preserve the world through their eyes, what they thought was important and how they wanted things to be viewed. The rabbis did not represent all Jews or all Judaism, and the wider Jewish world may have had different viewpoints and priorities.\u201d<\/p>\n

Boustan has focused on studying the piyyutim<\/em> (hymns) written and preserved outside the rabbinic canon and containing some unusual theological ideas, as well as on apocalyptic and mystical literature, which flourished on the fertile edge between Jewish and non-Jewish cultures.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe mosaic is important for understanding the history of Jews and Judaism and gives us something to think about in terms of Jews living in the Western world today,\u201d he said, noting the broader and more porous nature of Jewish identity in those times, and how we shouldn\u2019t be in a hurry to \u201crigidly define Jewish identity or culture.\u201d<\/p>\n

For example, Boustan explained, \u201cThe figural art we are finding at Huqoq and elsewhere upends some of our assumptions that, classically, Jews didn\u2019t do that. In fact, we\u2019ve found many small villages of one to two thousand habitants who built very expensive buildings containing a mixture of folk art and world-class art. In Huqoq, the art is imperial-quality work, which would not be surprising to find in a major landowner\u2019s villa in Antioch. Yet, there it is, being commissioned, paid for and used by a farming village of maybe 2,000 people. That tells us we have a lot more to learn about the Jews of Late Antiquity.\u201d<\/p>\n

He noted, \u201cIn addition, the synagogue art contains a zodiac wheel with a figure of the sun god, Helios, in the centre. What\u2019s going on there? Is it just a decoration? Was it actually part of religious worship in the synagogue? Was it seen allegorically as a poetic representation of God?<\/p>\n

\u201cHelios imagery was adopted by Christians in the third century, along with many other Greek religious symbols,\u201d he said. \u201cAs the Greco-Roman world Christianized, however, they distanced themselves from \u2018pagan\u2019 imagery. By the late fourth to seventh [century], Jews are the only ones actively cultivating zodiacal and Helios imagery. Ironically, if you find a building with Helios imagery from that period, it\u2019s almost definitely a synagogue.\u201d<\/p>\n

The mosaics can be viewed in detail at nationalgeographic.org\/news\/huqoq-excavation-project<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Matthew Gindin<\/strong> is a freelance journalist, writer and lecturer. He writes regularly for the <\/em>Forward and <\/em>All That Is Interesting, and has been published in <\/em>Religion Dispatches, <\/em>Situate Magazine, <\/em>Tikkun and elsewhere. He can be found on Medium and Twitter.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dr. Ra\u2019anan Boustan of Princeton University delivers the Itta and Eliezer Zeisler Memorial Lecture at the University of British Columbia on March 23. (photo by Gregg Gardner) A mosaic from Late Antiquity has lessons for Jewish communities today. According to Dr. Ra\u2019anan Boustan of Princeton University, \u201cJewish identity, historically, was broader, more porous, and integrated […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23747,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[989],"tags":[224,6953,4242,4750,6954,6952,3556,6951],"class_list":["post-23789","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-visual-arts","tag-archeology","tag-elephant-panel","tag-history","tag-mosaics","tag-national-geographic","tag-raanan-boustan","tag-ubc","tag-zeisler-lecture"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23789","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23789"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23789\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}