Archaeologists do it in holes: Tales from the stratigraphy

[Valmy]

Awesome!

The best part is that his persona, at least as revealed in his writings and history, could not be more different from the character in the show - he's a dour, overtly religious Scottish Presbyterian, and apparently an extremely brave soldier. The fun was imagining that, beneath it all, he was "really" like the character in the show (for which there is of course not the slightest shred of evidence). 

Actually that would be classic. Pity they never made that part of the show. But then having a Scottish Blackadder would be weird.

[Malthus]

Awesome!

The best part is that his persona, at least as revealed in his writings and history, could not be more different from the character in the show - he's a dour, overtly religious Scottish Presbyterian, and apparently an extremely brave soldier. The fun was imagining that, beneath it all, he was "really" like the character in the show (for which there is of course not the slightest shred of evidence). 

Actually that would be classic. Pity they never made that part of the show. But then having a Scottish Blackadder would be weird.

Wasn't he visited at one point by a Scottish relation in the show?

[Agelastus]

Awesome!

The best part is that his persona, at least as revealed in his writings and history, could not be more different from the character in the show - he's a dour, overtly religious Scottish Presbyterian, and apparently an extremely brave soldier. The fun was imagining that, beneath it all, he was "really" like the character in the show (for which there is of course not the slightest shred of evidence). 

Actually that would be classic. Pity they never made that part of the show. But then having a Scottish Blackadder would be weird.

Wasn't he visited at one point by a Scottish relation in the show?

His "mad cousin MacAdder" in the final episode of season 3.

[Malthus]

As to the article - it isn't as singular a find as the article suggests, although depending on the dating, it's an early example.

The synagogue at Capernium, for example; while the very impressive ruins located there date from the 4th century, it was allegedly build on top of an earlier version dating from the 1st century
(though apparently that is somewhat disputed).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capernaum#Synagogue

Another ancient synagogue was found in the fortress of Masada and so must date to the 1st Century, if not earlier, as the fortress was destroyed at the end of the Jewish Revolt:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masada#Epigraphic_findings

Synagogues were associated with that sect of Judaism known as the Pharisees. While they get a lot of bad press in the NT, the fact is that if Jesus was a historic figure, he was probably originally a Pharisee, or inspired by them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharisees#History_.28c..C2.A0600_.E2.80.93_c..C2.A0160.C2.A0BCE.29

They opposed the Sadducees who controlled the Temple rituals, and modern Jewish religion descends ultimately from them. I don't think it made the Jews following that belief particularly susceptible to joining new cults - in fact, part of the reason the Pharisees get a bad press, is their refusal to listen to the new cult's teachings. 

[Valmy]

Yeah in Judaism the Pharisees are the good guys and the founders of "modern" Judaism. Though since we are talking about the last 2 thousand years or so I use that term loosely.

I would imagine Jesus, if he existed and my views on him are correct, would have originally been on their team before he joined the cult of John the Baptist. Whatever being a Pharisee would have meant to an extremely poor landless laborer anyway.

[Valmy]

His "mad cousin MacAdder" in the final episode of season 3.

And IIRC he was a Highlander stereotype rather than a lowlander like that other historical Blackadder.

[Malthus]

As for the "shocking" iconography found in the recent synagogue - you simply can't judge early synagogues by rabbinical "rules" that developed centuries later. Many early synagogues have oddities to them that surprise and baffle modern scholars. For example, I visited one which had a fully-formed zodiac wheel with what appears to be a picture of Helios in the centre of it:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beth_Alpha

The central panel features a Jewish adaptation of the Greco-Roman zodiac. The zodiac consists of two concentric circles, with the twelve zodiac signs appearing in the outer circle, and Helios, the Greco-Roman sun god, appearing in the inner circle.[16] The outer circle consists of twelve panels, each of which correspond to one of the twelve months of the year and contain the appropriate Greco-Roman zodiac sign. Female busts symbolizing the four seasons appear in the four corners immediately outside the zodiac.[17] In the center, Helios appears with his signature Greco-Roman iconographic elements such as the fiery crown of rays adorning his head and the highly stylized quadriga or four-horse-drawn chariot.[18] The background is decorated with a crescent shaped moon and stars. As in the "Binding of Isaac" panel, the zodiac symbols and seasonal busts are labeled with their corresponding Hebrew names.

This zodiac wheel, along with other similar examples found in contemporaneous synagogues throughout Israel such as Naaran, Susiya, Hamat Tiberias, Huseifa, and Sepphoris, rest at the center of a scholarly debate regarding the relationship between Judaism and general Greco-Roman culture in late-antiquity.[19] Some interpret the popularity that the zodiac maintains within synagogue floors as evidence for its Judaization and adaptation into the Jewish calendar and liturgy.[20] Others see it as representing the existence of a "non-Rabbinic" or a mystical and Hellenized form of Judaism that embraced the astral religion of Greco-Roman culture.

You certainly would not get that in a later synagogue! In my opinion, it just represents the symbology current at the time; I don't think it means they literally worshipped Helios (I think he's just there symbolizing "the sun").

[Valmy]

Yeah. The Christian Greeks made identical drawings. The association with the calendar lasted long beyond Greco-Roman paganism. I liked how they just casually had Helios at the center of the universe.

[Malthus]

Yeah. The Christian Greeks made identical drawings. The association with the calendar lasted long beyond Greco-Roman paganism. I liked how they just casually had Helios at the center of the universe.

Heh, I'm reminded of the puffy-cheeked blowing 'gods of the winds' at the corners of old-timey maps: they did not represent a survival until relative modernity of a " a mystical and Hellenized form of Christianity that embraced the astral religion of Greco-Roman culture"  They were an artistic motif that represented 'wind', nothing more.

[The Minsky Moment]

A few comments:

1.  The historicity point has been discussed before.  The evidence for the historicity of Jesus is pretty decent, and about as good as we have for anyone of that era except for very important kings and politicians.  For example, it is considerably better than the evidence that Epicurus actually existed, but most historians assumed Epicurus existed and there aren't lots of people running around insisting otherwise.

2.  Pace Malthus, I think its a pretty significant finding.  As Malthus concedes, the identification of the Caparnaum synagogue is uncertain for that time period.  If it was, it was probably small and minor.  This is a significant building, and the fact that it was covered in expensive decorative elements like mosaic and painting as well as the carved stone is interesting for what would have at best been a glorified fishing village in a relatively marginal region.

3.  The iconography of the stone is also very interesting to the extent that it suggests that whoever carved it had previously had direct access to (or has access to someone who had access to)  the holy of holies in Jerusalem.  Historically such "sub-temples" or even competing temples were known but by this particular point in history the Temple monopoly was a key political and economic power and tended to be more vigorously enforced.  So copying such sensitive Jerusalem Temple iconography is very interesting indeed.

[Malthus]

I agree it's a very important find, I disagree that as much can be drawn from the iconography as the article writers claim.

For example, I disagree that the iconography indicated someone had actually been inside the Temple. As the article writer notes, pictures such as the menorah show up on "coins and graffiti" that predate the Temple's destruction - so the image was already 'in the public domain' as it were. Similarly, the other images are at least written about in the Torah and so would be known to the ancient artists without the necessity of having to physically step inside the Temple sanctuary. 

The stone, she says, is a schematic, 3-D model of Herod's Temple in Jerusalem. Whoever carved it had likely seen the temple's highly restricted innermost sanctums, or at least had heard about them directly from someone who had been there. On one side of the stone is a menorah, or Jewish candelabrum, whose design matches other likenesses—on coins and graffiti—from before A.D. 70, when the Romans destroyed the temple. The menorah had stood behind golden doors in the temple's Holy Place, a sanctuary off-limits to all but the priests. On the other faces of the stone—appearing in the order a person walking front to back would have encountered them—are other furnishings from the temple's most sacrosanct areas: the Table of Showbread, where priests stacked 12 bread loaves representing the 12 tribes of Israel; and a rosette slung between two palm-shaped columns, which Talgam believes is the veil separating the Holy Place from the Holy of Holies, a small chamber only the high priest could enter and only once a year, on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.

On the side opposite the menorah—past reliefs of columned arches, altars and oil lamps—was an engraving that left Talgam dumbstruck: a pair of fire-spitting wheels. Talgam believes they represent the bottom half of the chariot of God, an object seen as one of the Old Testament's holiest—and most concrete—images of the divine.

[Emphasis]

[The Minsky Moment]

M - The Torah does not discuss the Second Temple.  We only know about from the Mishnah and Josephus, and it appears this building predates those sources.

[Malthus]

M - The Torah does not discuss the Second Temple.  We only know about from the Mishnah and Josephus, and it appears this building predates those sources.

The "Table of Shewbread" and its use is outlined in the Torah.

Exod 25:23-30 "You shall also make a table of acacia wood; two cubits shall be its length, a cubit its width, and a cubit and a half its height. And you shall overlay it with pure gold, and make a molding of gold all around. You shall make for it a frame of a handbreadth all around, and you shall make a gold molding for the frame all around. And you shall make for it four rings of gold, and put the rings on the four corners that are at its four legs. The rings shall be close to the frame, as holders for the poles to bear the table. And you shall make the poles of acacia wood, and overlay them with gold, that the table may be carried with them. You shall make its  dishes, its pans, its pitchers, and its bowls for pouring. You shall make them of pure gold. And you shall set the showbread on the table before Me always."

Lev 24:5-9 "And you shall take fine flour and bake twelve cakes with it. Two-tenths of an ephah shall be in each cake. You shall set them in two rows, six in a row, on the pure gold table before the LORD. And you shall put pure  frankincense on each row, that it may be on the bread for a memorial, an offering made by fire to the LORD. Every Sabbath he shall set it in order before the LORD continually, being taken from the children of Israel by an everlasting  covenant. And it shall be for  Aaron and his sons, and they shall eat it in a holy place; for it is most holy to him from the offerings of the LORD made by fire, by a perpetual statute."

The fact that a synagogue has a "table of showbread" pictured on it doesn't require actually having to visit the Second Temple. Josephus simply confirms what was no doubt well known at the time to every religious Jew: that the fittings of the Second Temple self-consciously followed the pattern as laid down in the Torah for the First Temple (as one would suspect, given that following this pattern was stated in the form of a commandment: why would any self-conscious Temple interior décor designer follow a wholly different design from that stipulated - indeed mandated - in the Torah?).

Likewise, one doesn't have to be an eyewitness to the interior of the holy precinct to know what a "menorah" looks like, as it was, even then, a common symbol of Judaism.

[Malthus]

Interestingly, the authors of the NT were well familiar with the "shewbread" (or "presence bread") found in the Temple:

Matthew 12:4English Standard Version (ESV)

4 how he entered the house of God and ate the bread of the Presence, which it was not lawful for him to eat nor for those who were with him, but only for the priests?

[The Minsky Moment]

The article indicates that the stone not only contains the relevant iconography but places it all the correct positions as if one were walking through the temple.  Although I admit I don't know to what extent the Second Temple mirrored the Bliblical descriptions of the First temple in this regard.  However, it can't have been an effort to exactly replicate the first temple because the ark is not included.