Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

FROM THE GOSPELS TO JESUS §9.6
In the first thorough English language study of Galilee, Sean Freyne argued
strongly that, despite the above data, Galileans retained a firmly Jewish
identity. 165 Under the Ptolemies (Egypt) and Seleucids (Syria) the administrative
region ('eparchy') of Samaria included both Galilee and Judea. 166 Josephus
reports a decree of the Seleucid king Antiochus III that 'all the members of the
nation (of the Ioudaioi) shall be governed in accordance with their ancestral
laws' {Ant. 12.142), which Freyne thinks would have included Galilee. 167 Consequently,
there was no need for a 'judaisation' of Galilee under the Hasmoneans.
168 Rather, 'Galilean Judaism was now politically reunited with what
had always been its cultural and religious center'; 'the Jerusalem temple continued
to exercise a powerful attraction for them'. 169 Richard Horsley, however,
has protested that Galilee was not integrated into a culturally unified 'common
Judaism'. 170 Rather we should recognize a cultural divide between Galilean
peasants and imported aristocrats, initially Hasmonean 'Judeans' and subsequently
the Hellenized appointees of the Herods. 171 The continuity was more at
the level of ancient Israelite traditions stemming from the period of the northern
kingdom. 172
165. S. Freyne, Galilee from Alexander the Great to Hadrian, 323 BCEto 135 CE: A Study
of Second Temple Judaism (Wilmington: Glazier, 1980). Freyne has consistently updated his
views in the light particularly of fuller archaeological evidence; see his collected essays Galilee
and Gospel (WUNT 125; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2000), especially 'Archaeology and the
Historical Jesus' (160-82) and 'Jesus and the Urban Culture of Galilee' (183-207); also 'The
Geography, Politics, and Economics of Galilee and the Quest for the Historical Jesus', in
Chilton and Evans, eds., Studying the Historical Jesus 75-121; also 'The Geography of Restoration:
Galilee-Jerusalem In Early Jewish and Christian Experience', NTS 47 (2001) 289-311.
166. Freyne, Galilee 33-35.
167. Freyne, Galilee 35-36.
168. The area taken over by Aristobulus is described as Iturea, and Freyne questions
Schiirer's conclusion that Iturea included any of lower Galilee {Galilee 43-44).
169. Freyne, Galilee 392-93 (quoting from his conclusions).
170. Horsley, Galilee. In light of the above (§§9.1-2), we should also note that 'Judaism'
was not yet such an inclusive term as Freyne seemed to think. Like Freyne, Horsley has updated
his views in the light of increasing archaeological data — particularly Archaeology, History
and Society in Galilee — though Horsley's basic thesis has remained largely unchanged
throughout.
171. Horsley argues that the requirement to live 'according to the laws of the Judeans'
'meant political-economic-religious subordination to the Hasmonean high priesthood in Jerusalem';
similarly (re-)circumcision was 'a sign of being joined to the "body-politic"'; but
Galileans were not thereby 'integrated into the Judean ethnos' {Galilee 46-52). The disagreement
between Freyne and Horsley is highlighted by the unresolved question of whether
Ioudaioi in Josephus should be translated 'Jews' (Freyne) or 'Judeans' (Horsley).
172. Horsley here develops the earlier arguments of A. Alt, 'Zur Geschichte der Grenze
zwischen Judäa und Samaria' and 'Galiläische Probleme', in Kleine Schriften zur Geschichte des
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