Religious identity and spatiality in Hasmonean and Herodian Galilee

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Scales, Joseph ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7288-8035 (2021). Religious identity and spatiality in Hasmonean and Herodian Galilee. University of Birmingham. Ph.D.

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Abstract

In this thesis, I examine the connection between ancient Galilean perceptions of space and religious identity by drawing on literary and archaeological evidence from the 2nd century BCE to the 1st century CE. It is divided into three levels of spatial analysis: bodily, communal, and regional. Spatial construction in Galilee is informed by the ideas and contributions of spatial theorists. Some of these theorists have examined how religion and spatiality are interconnected. The first section, bodily space, examines ancient Jewish conceptions of purity, in order to address how religion and ritual were expressed in everyday life in Galilee. In this section, I have consulted a wide variety of texts, and compiled and discussed elements of Galilean material culture which relate to the bodily expression of purity conceptions. The second section, communal space, documents the development of public spaces in Galilee and in ancient Judaism more generally. The third and final section, regional space, examines how Galilee can be conceived of as a distinct region in the Levant. In particular, I focus on the relations between Galilee and Jerusalem, principally economic and religious ties to the Hasmonean dynasty, which ruled over the southern Levant during the 2nd and 1st centuries BCE. My thesis utilises a variety of additional sources that document, and methodologies that have been applied to the study of, Greco-Roman history, archaeology and literature. Furthermore, I use insights from spatial theory to creatively imagine the spaces that were generated in ancient Galilee. My work considers discussions about identity formation and delineation, especially with respect to how groups are reconstructed through texts and archaeological materials. The thesis offers a more careful and nuanced understanding of identity and its relation to ancient materials than previous scholars’ approaches, whilst moving away from essentialist definitions of identity.

Type of Work:

Thesis (Doctorates > Ph.D.)

Award Type:

Doctorates > Ph.D.

Supervisor(s):