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The Lake of
Galilee and the Dead Sea belong to the same north-south fissure
in the earth's surface, known as the Syro-African Rift. The
Dead Sea is 1390 feet below world sea level, and occasionally, on its
shores, warm mineral springs break through, having risen from the innards of the
earth. The Lake of Galilee, at minus 640 feet, also has mineral
springs. No less than 17 gush forth at a place on the western shore
just south of Tiberias. Originating more than a mile beneath the
surface, they are hot (60-62 degrees Celsius, about 140 Fahrenheit).
They are also rich in minerals: calcium, potassium, bromide and
sulfates (as well as radioactive radon gas). Their waters ease the
pains of rheumatism and arthritis. From ancient times, therefore,
people journeyed here to bathe. Jewish law even permitted bathing here
on
Sabbath (one was also allowed to cook). Starting in the
Hellenistic period, a town developed. It was called, not
surprisingly, "hot," that is, Hammat (pronounced "khammat": kham
means hot in Hebrew).
Since Jesus was a healer, and since many sick people
used to come to the hot springs, it is reasonable to suppose that
their presence nearby was a factor in his choosing to focus his public
mission in the area of the lake. Yet why not nearer to the springs?
Why on the north shore? The answer may lie in the fact that the
tetrarch Herod Antipas had established his capital in Tiberias, founded
by him around 20 AD. Antipas imprisoned and beheaded John the
Baptist. Perhaps Jesus did not want a similar fate to interrupt his
mission. By residing in Capernaum and working mainly on the
north shore, he could readily move by boat, if necessary, to the
territory of Antipas's brother and rival, Philippus. (See further on
Peter's confession at Caesarea
Philippi.)
While building a road to the modern Tiberias in 1920-21, workers
found the ruins of Hammath. An excavator then discovered a synagogue,
in use
from the third to the fifth centuries AD, including a seven-branched
candelabrum (menorah) carved out of limestone and complete with holes
for oil. (Picture.
It is on display in the Israel Museum.) |
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 In
1947, while workmen were expanding a modern bathhouse, they discovered
more of the city, including another synagogue. Systematic excavation
began only in 1961. The diggers found a series of synagogues built one on top of the other.
The earliest building, dating from the first century
AD, may have had another use, but the next, built in the third
century, was identified as a synagogue. It fell in
the fourth century, perhaps in the great earthquake of 363. On its
ruins arose the synagogue whose mosaic floor is the main attraction of
the site today. Its largest
"carpet" shows the signs of the zodiac (the name of each is written
beside it in Hebrew, sometimes misspelled) and, in the center,
pictured as riding through the sky, is Helios, god of the sun.
Such symbols
in a synagogue may arouse surprise , but we find the
zodiac elsewhere too: at Beit
Alpha, Sepphoris, Husifa
on Mt. Carmel, and Na'aran near Jericho. There
seem to be traces of it at Susiya in the Hebron hills and Yafia near
Nazareth. The astrological signs are listed in an inscription from the
synagogue at Ein Gedi. Most of these buildings
presented modest facades to the world, saving their glory for the
interior. From the same periods, there were also majestic
synagogues in Roman style, built with columns and large dressed
stones, for example, at Capernaum,
Chorazin, Merot and Arbel. On the
Golan Heights and in the Hebron area there were still further
variations. Altogether, the remains of more than a hundred synagogues
have been found, dating from the third to the eighth centuries.
(Their presence contradicts the widespread notion that the Romans forcibly exiled
the Jews from the land. See the note on Bar
Kokhba.)
But isn't there a ban on images? And what is the sun
god doing here? Is it "kosher" to busy oneself with the zodiac, that
is, with astrology? And in a Jewish house of worship!?
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On images. The Biblical text concerning images seems straightforward: "You shall not
make for yourselves an idol, nor any image of anything that is in the heavens
above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth:
you shall not bow yourself down to them, nor serve them." (Exodus 20:4-5)
In the
period of the Second Temple (515 BC - 70 AD), the ban appears to have been taken literally. In the
architecture, frescoes and mosaics at Jewish sites from this time we do not find
images. (An exception: Josephus reports that Herod the Great placed a golden eagle over the gate of
the Temple; pious Jews ripped it down (and were executed).
War Book 1, Ch. 33). In the
necropolis of Beth She'arim, however, which dates from the second to the fourth
centuries AD, the limestone sarcophagi (including those of important rabbis)
are decorated with images in sculptured relief, the exact kind of thing against
which their ancestors had risked their lives in protest. And here at Hammath and
elsewhere, we find images
in the synagogue floors. How shall we explain this change?
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 First,
there is no doubt that they were synagogues, for Jewish motifs dominate the
other mosaic panels.
It seems that Greco-Roman culture had permeated the land so
thoroughly, and images were so much a part of everyday life, that the
discrepancy with the Biblical text did not bother the pious, if they noticed it
at all. We have an indication
from the Mishnah, concerning a rabbi who bathed where there was a statue
of Aphrodite:
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Proclos, son of a Philosophos, put a question to Rabbi Gamaliel
in Acco, who was accustomed to bathe there in the bathhouse of Aphrodite. ..."Why are you
bathing in the bathhouse of Aphrodite?" He responded to him, "We may not answer in a
bath." When he came out, he said to him, "I did not enter inside her
border, she
has entered inside mine. Nobody says, 'The bath was made as an adornment for
Aphrodite,' but he says, 'Aphrodite was made an an adornment for the bath.' And
another thing: Even if someone were to give you a fortune to do it, you wouldn't
approach an idol you revere while naked or after you'd experienced a seminal
emission, nor would you urinate in front of it. But look, this statue stands
beside a sewer, and everyone goes and urinates in front of it. ...When people
behave toward something as a deity, then it is forbidden to us [Jews], but that
to which people do not relate as a deity is permitted. (Mishnah,
Nezikin, Avodah
Zarah 3:4)
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 Yet the image of the sun-god
smack in the middle of synagogue floors!
It still seems strange, and one can't easily explain it away. We recall, though,
that back in the time of the Second Temple, the Essenes (who
were extremely strict in ritual matters) showed "devotion to the Deity in a way all
their own. Before the sun rises they do not utter a word on secular affairs, but
offer to Him some traditional prayers as if beseeching Him to appear."
(Josephus, War
(Williamson trans.), II 125 -145.) The Essenes (whose ideal Temple was
oriented toward the sun, and whose calendar was solar) were reflecting the
subliminal influence of Zoroastrianism.
This religion had strongly affected the descendants of the Jewish exiles who had
stayed on in Mesopotamia. The Persian prophet Zoroaster (Zarathustra) viewed
reality in terms of a struggle between light and darkness (a form of
dualism). Beneath the supreme god of goodness and
light, Ahura Mazda, the prophet had found a place for an old Indo-Iranian deity
named Mithras, who was later identified with the "unconquerable sun." In the 2nd
century BC, many Jews, expelled from Mesopotamia by the Parthians, made their way
back to the land of their fathers and brought the Zoroastrian influence with
them. It is not altogether surprising, therefore, to find the Essenes
identifying the Jewish God with the sun. The same eastern influence (not
necessarily via the Essenes) comes out in the middle of the synagogue floors.
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The zodiac. In astrology the sun and
the zodiac function together. "The Zodiac is the ring of constellations that the Sun seems to pass
through each year as the Earth orbits around it." (Source) Although the courses of the moon
and the planets are also crucial, the main celestial
"sign" for an event (a birth for example) is the
constellation with which the sun "conjoins" on the day the
event occurs. We could say, "the constellation through
which the sun, in its route, seems to cross on that day,"
but the ancients saw a conjunction, because they thought
of all heavenly bodies as existing at equal distances from
the earth on a celestial sphere. To speak for a moment like a
modern: the earth and the other planets (except Pluto)
orbit on the same plane around the sun; someone standing on
the sun, watching these planets circle year after year,
would see them moving against the fixed background of
certain
constellations, which are more or less in line with that
plane: the
ram, the bull, and so on. This belt or highway of
constellations, forming the fixed background, is the
zodiac. The ancients distinguished 12 constellations on
that belt.
We are not on the sun; we are on the earth
that is moving, like the other planets, around the sun.
But as we move, the sun appears (or would, if we could
look at it) against the changing background of the
zodiacal highway: one month it is "in" the ram,
the next
month "in" the bull, etc. ( More
on this, with a qualification.)
From our perspective on earth, the moon and the planets
also move in relation to the zodiac. "Because the
stars maintained their patterns while planets mysteriously
moved among some of them, the constellations
of the zodiac acquired particular significance." (Clark
Foundation, my emphasis - SL.) In the view of
astrologists, the various conjunctions of the heavenly
bodies signify the vicissitudes of human fate.
The conjunctions can only
bear such significance if one perceives a divine will (or wills)
behind those "mysterious" movements. It was natural for the
ancients to do so: human life depends so much on what happens in
the sky. Cuneiform texts discovered at Ugarit, dating from 1200
BC, indicate that El, the Canaanite high god, had 70 children,
all associated with the stars. They leave a trace in the Bible
as the stars that fought against Sisera (Judges
5:20) or as the "host of heaven" (1 Kings 22:
19). Yet the stars are many. A strict monotheist will be wary of
them and avoid astrology:
Isaiah 47:13-14 You are
wearied in the multitude of your counsels: let now the astrologers, the
stargazers, the monthly prognosticators, stand up, and save you from the things
that shall come on you. Behold, they shall be as stubble...
Jeremiah 10:1
Hear the word which
the Lord speaks to you, house of Israel!
Thus says
the Lord,
"Don't learn the way of the nations, and don't be dismayed at the signs of the
sky; for the nations are dismayed at them."
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 These
Biblical injunctions were far from the minds of those who used this synagogue at
Hammat Tiberias or other synagogues like it. (The benches were located around
the sides. Given the relation of Helios to the astrological symbols, one could
choose a place according to one's birth sign!) Most rabbinical authorities
agreed that the stars do influence human affairs, but some held that Israel was
exempt. (Selected examples
from the online
Jewish Encyclopedia.)
In the fifth chapter of his doctoral
dissertation, Astrology
and Judaism in Late Antiquity, historian
Lester J. Ness has given an
interesting explanation for the presence of the zodiac in these ancient
synagogues:
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Ancient Jews were part of the larger
society, although with some distinctive customs, notably the worship of a
single god, YHWH, and a disdain for the use of religious images. During the
Hellenistic period, Jews adopted the practice of astrology enthusiastically,
but they gave the principles of astrology their own Judaic interpretation.
Thus, the planets were still imagined as personal beings, who might answer
requests. But the beings were seen as subordinates of the single God, angels
of YHWH, not independent deities. The power of astrology came from YHWH, and
was administered by the angels. In the same way, Jews adopted the use of
astrological art for religious symbolism. But, as with astrological practice,
the art was given a distinctive Judaic interpretation. Thus, it was not
possible to portray YHWH directly in a synagogue. But it was possible to
portray Him indirectly, by portraying His satraps, the planets. In the
examples which survive, Sol Invictus in the center of the zodiac represents
the whole planetary system, pars pro toto. ...
The entire composition not only praised
God's power, but also reminded worshippers of God's love and care for Israel.
It is no accident that the zodiac is coupled, at Beth Alpha, with the
sacrifice of Isaac or, at Naaran, with Daniel in the lion's den. These two
panels reminded viewers of how God rescued Isaac and Daniel when they needed
Him. Moreover, all the zodiacs are found in connection with panels of symbols
from Jewish cult. Just as God is faithful to care for the universe, including
the Jews, so the pious Jew will be faithful to worship the Almighty God, who
so often, in the Bible, declares His love for Israel.
The virtues of this theory
[Ness concludes] are that
it explains the zodiac mosaics by taking astrology and its role in Jewish
society seriously. We do not require Jews to be either totally isolated from
the rest of the human race, or apostates from Jewish tradition. Jews used the
same horoscopes, spells, and symbols as their neighbors, but they used them in
a Judaic way for Judaic purposes. Like their modern descendants, they were
both part of the larger surrounding society, and at the same time faithful to
the Israelite tradition.
In most of the known ancient synagogues with
mosaic "carpets," the carpet below the zodiac contains a Biblical scene, such as
the near-sacrifice of Isaac (at Beit Alpha), the visit of the angels to Sarah
(at Sepphoris), or Daniel in the lions' den (at Na'aran). In the example at
Hammat Tiberias, however, the equivalent panel contains, instead, two lions
guarding nine dedicatory inscriptions in Greek. One of them mentions "Severus,
the pupil of the most illustrious patriarchs." (This helps date the mosaic,
because the Jewish patriarchate was abolished by the Byzantine Emperor
Theodosius II in 429 AD.) Severus's patriarchs were the members of the
Sanhedrin, who assembled in nearby Tiberias. At the time when this synagogue
functioned, they were creating the Palestinian version of the Talmud. (The
other, more completely preserved version was written in Babylonia.) Because of
this inscription, the synagogue is sometimes referred to as that of Severus.
In closing this article, we bid you, "Mazel tov!"
Which literally means, Good star!
Logistics
Hammat Tiberias is a national park:
Phone: 04/6725287
Nature Reserves and National Parks:Main
office: 02/500-5444)
Opening hours:
April 1 through September 30, from 8.00 - 17.00. (Entrance until 16.00)*
October 1 through March 31, from 8.00 - 16.00. (Entrance until 15.00)*
*On Fridays and the eves of Jewish holidays, the sites close one hour
earlier. For example, on a Friday in March one must enter by 14.00 and leave by
15.00.
©
2003
Near East Tourist Agency
(NET)
Text
© 2003 Stephen
Langfur
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