Dating Theodotos (CIJ II 1404) : J Ohn S. Kloppenborg Verbin

journal of jewish studies, vol. li, no.
2 , autumn 2000
Dating Theodotos (CIJ II 1404)
John S. Kloppenborg Verbin

University of St Michael’s College, Toronto
and University of Toronto
T he past two decades have witnessed a striking reassessment of the ori-

gin, development, and function of synagogues.1 It is no longer possible
to say with the certainty that marked the discussions of a generation ago that
we know where Jews of the first century CE met, or what they did in their as-
semblies, or the nature of synagogue leadership. The combination of archaeo-
logical data, epigraphical sources, and literary evidence that once was seen to
form a thick and coherent dossier bearing on the synagogue has now been
problematized, disassembled, and re-dated, so that much of what was once
taken for granted about ancient synagogues is now the subject of debate.
One of the pieces of the puzzle that has recently reentered discussion is the
Theodotos inscription (Plate 1: Rockefeller inv. S 842 = CIJ II 1404). This
inscription, discovered by Raimund Weill in his 1913–14 excavations at the
southern end of the eastern ridge of the Ophel,2 is of considerable potential
importance to the discussion of the nomenclature, leadership, and function
of ancient synagogues. For unlike many proseuchē and synagogē inscriptions,
which provide little data beyond the name or title of a dedicator or the name
of building or congregation,3 CIJ II 1404 not only records the terms συναγωγ
1 For recent surveys, see R. Hachlili, ‘The Origin of the Synagogue: A Re-Assessment,’ JSJ
28 (1997) 34–47; H. A. McKay, ‘Ancient Synagogues: The Continuing Dialectic between Two
Major Views,’ Currents in Research: Biblical Studies 6 (1998) 103–42. Several substantial mono-
graphs and anthologies on the synagogue have appeared or will appear imminently: D. Urman
and P. V. M. Flesher (eds.), Ancient Synagogues: Historical Analyses and Archaeological Dis-
covery, SPB 47/1–2; 2 vols (Leiden, 1995); S. Fine, Sacred realm: The Emergence of the Syn-
agogue in the Ancient World (London and New York, 1996); idem, This Holy Place: On the
Sanctity of the Synagogue during the Greco-Roman Period, Christianity and Judaism in An-
tiquity 11 (Notre Dame, Ind., 1998); K. P. Donfried and P. Richardson (eds.), Judaism and
Christianity in First Century Rome (Grand Rapids, Mich., 1998); D. D. Binder, Into the Tem-
ple Courts: The Place of the Synagogues in the Second Temple Period, SBLDS 162 (Atlanta, Ga.,
1999 [http://www.smu.edu/ dbinder]); S. Fine (ed.), Jews, Christians and Polytheists in the An-
cient Synagogue (London and New York, 1999); L. I. Levine, The Ancient Synagogue: The First
Thousand Years (New Haven, Conn., 1999); H. C. Kee and L.H. Cohick (eds.), Evolution of the
Synagogue: Problems and Progress (Harrisburg, Pa., 1999).
2 R. Weill, ‘La Cité de David: Compte rendu des fouilles exécutées à Jérusalem sur le site de
la ville primitive. Campaigne de 1913–14 [I–IV]’, REJ 69 (1919) 3–85 [I]; 70 (1920) 1–36 [II], 149–
179 [III]; 71 (1920) 1–45 [IV] + Plates (published as an ‘annexe’ to part II). The four REG articles
were revised completely and published as La Cité de David: Compte rendu des fouilles exécutées à
Jérusalem sur le site de la ville primitive. Campaigne de 1913–14, 2 vols, with plates (Paris, 1920).
3 Many of the relevant epigraphical materials were assembled by J.-B. Frey in CIJ I–II. B.
Lifshitz provided a new prolegomenon to the first volume in his 1975 re-issue of CIJ I, suggest-
ing numerous improvements (unfortunately the same was not done for vol. II). Lifshitz’s DFSJ
244 journal of jewish studies
(used of a building) and ρχισυν γωγο (3), but lists the intended functions
of this synagogē as a place for ‘the reading of the Law and teaching of the
commandments’ and as a hostel for visitors to Jerusalem. The inscription
reads:4
Θ[ε]δοτο Οεττνου, ερε κα |

[ρ]χισυν γωγο, υ ρχισυν[αγ] | -
γ[ο]υ, υων ρχισυν[α]γγου, κο | -
δμησε τν συναγωγν ε ν[ γν]ω | | -
5 σ[ιν] νμου κα ε [δ]ιδαχ[]ν !ντολ#ν, κα |
τ[]ν ξεν#να, κα[ τ%] δματα κα τ% χρη | -
σ[τ]ρια τ#ν &δ των ε κατ λυμα το' | -
[χ]ρ(ζουσιν π τ+ ξ.[ν]η, /ν !θεμε | -
λ[1ω]σαν ο πατ.ρε [α]το2 κα ο πρε | | -
10 σ[β]4τεροι κα Σιμων[1]δη.
Theodotos son of Vettenus, priest and archisynagogos, son of an archisynagogos

and grandson of an archisynagogos, built the assembly hall (synagogē) for the
reading of the Law and for the teaching of the commandments, and the guest
room, the chambers, and the water fittings, as an inn for those in need from
foreign parts, (the synagogue) which his fathers founded with the elders and
Simonides.5
Once dated confidently to the period before the First Revolt, this inscrip-
tion could serve as a benchmark for the discussion of first-century syna-
gogues. The situation is now less clear with the publication of several articles
by Howard Clark Kee challenging this near-consensus dating.6 Kee’s more
general thesis on the meaning of συναγωγ in the first century CE has at-
collects most of the donative inscriptions bearing on synagogues, but was published without
photographs and should be used only in conjunction with other editions with photographs and
facsimiles. The inscriptions from Egypt and Western Europe have now been re-edited, along with
more recent discoveries, in IJudEg and IJudEu I–II. Inscriptions from Cyrenaica are available
in CJZC and synagogue inscriptions from Israel have now been re-edited by L. Roth-Gerson,
ìàø×éõøàá úñáëäéúáî úåéðååéä úåáåúëä: [The Greek Inscriptions from Synagogues in
Eretz Israel], (Jerusalem, 1987).
4 I print the text of Lifshitz (DFSJ 79, following Frey, CIJ II 1404), checking it against Weill’s
photograph (1920:Plate XXVa).
5 The rendering of δμα is uncertain, since it can refer to a house in general, the main hall of
a house, roof terrace, or chamber. Although the first portion of the inscription describes various
portions of the building, the final relative clause (/ν !θεμελ1ωσαν . . .) treats all of these features
collectively, as part of the συναγωγ.
6 H. C. Kee, ‘The Transformation of the Synagogue after 70 CE: Its import for Early Chris-
tianity’, NTS 36 (1990) 1–24; idem, ‘Early Christianity in the Galilee: Reassessing the Evidence
from the Gospels’, The Galilee in Late Antiquity, ed. L. I. Levine (New York, 1992) 3–22; idem,
‘The Changing Meaning of Synagogue: A response to Richard Oster’, NTS 40 (1994) 281–83;
idem, ‘Defining the First Century CE Synagogue: Problems and Progress’, NTS 41 (1995) 481–
500 (reprinted essentially unchanged in Evolution of the Synagogue [n. 1], 7–26).
dating theodotos
Plate 1. The Theodotos Synagogue Inscription, Rockefeller Museum, inv. S 842

245
Courtesy of the Israel Antiquities Authority

tracted both severe criticism7 and favourable notice.8 To date, there has been
no thorough review of the epigraphy of the Theodotos inscription, and since
it is crucial to Kee’s thesis, this seems a good point at which to conduct a
review.
Συναγωγα1: Congregations or Buildings?

Kee’s views on CIJ II 1404 form part of a larger argument on the meaning
of συναγωγ. In several stages he has defended the hypothesis that in the first
century CE συναγωγ referred to assemblies or congregations rather than to
buildings, both in the land of Israel and in the Diaspora. In Eretz Israel, he
argued, it is impossible to identify any structure before 200 CE as a συναγωγ
with architecturally distinguishable features.9 In the Diaspora, he says, the
7 E. P. Sanders, Jewish Law from Jesus to the Mishnah: Five Studies (Philadelphia, 1990) 341–
43 nn. 28–29 (who describes Kee’s 1990 article as ‘remarkably ill-informed and often incoherent’);
R. Oster, ‘Supposed Anachronism in Luke-Acts’ Use of συναγωγ: A Rejoinder to H. C. Kee’,
NTS 39 (1993) 178–208; R. Riesner, ‘Synagogues in Jerusalem’, The Book of Acts in its Palestinian
Setting, ed. R. J. Bauckham; The Book of Acts in its First Century Setting 4 (Grand Rapids,
Mich. and Carlisle, 1995) 179–211; K. Atkinson, ‘On Further Defining the First-Century CE
Synagogue: Fact or Fiction? A Rejoinder to H. C. Kee’, NTS 43 (1997) 491–502; S. J. D. Cohen,
‘Were Pharisees and Rabbis the Leaders of Communal Prayer and Torah Study in Antiquity?’,
The Echoes of Many Texts: Reflections on Jewish and Christian Traditions: Essays in Honor of Lou
H. Silberman, ed. W. G. Dever and J. E. Wright; Brown Judaic Studies 313 (Atlanta, Ga., 1997)
99–114; and P. W. van der Horst, ‘Was the Ancient Synagogue a Place of Sabbath Worship?’,
Jews, Christians and Polytheists in the Ancient Synagogue, ed. S. Fine (London and New York,
1999) 18–43. J. F. Strange (‘Ancient Texts, Archaeology as Text, and the Problem of the First-
Century Synagogue’, Evolution of the Synagogue [n. 2], 28) cites Kee’s ‘reevaluation’ of the date
of Theodotos, but in the note (28 n. 10) appears to accept Riesner’s criticism of Kee.
8 Kee is cited favourably by McKay, ‘Ancient Synagogues’ [n. 1]. R. A. Horsley (Galilee:
History, Politics, People [Valley Forge, Pa., 1995] 223–25) agrees that there is ‘no archaeological or
literary evidence for synagogue buildings in Judean or Galilean towns and villages until the third
century or later’ (225). Similarly, idem, ‘Synagogues in Galilee and the Gospels’, Evolution of the
Synagogue [n. 1], 47. Hachlili (‘Origin’, 38 n.27) reports Kee’s redating of the stone, apparently
considering it to be viable. P. V. M. Flesher’s (‘Palestinian Synagogues before 70 C.E. A Review
of the Evidence,’ Ancient Synagogues [n. 1], 1:27–39) comments that the stone ‘could even be
from the late third or early fourth century’ (33 n.21) and his criticism of the methods of the
‘archaeologists who found the inscription’ appear to be influenced by Kee’s statements, although
Flesher does not cite Kee. Flesher erroneously states that the stone was found ‘at the bottom of
a well’ (33).
McKay (‘Ancient Synagogues’, 106) schematizes views on the ancient synagogue as ‘maximal-
ist’ and ‘minimalist’: the former view affirms substantial continuity between ‘synagogues’ of the
first century CE and the established institutions of the third and following centuries CE, while
the latter holds ‘that the synagogue did not reach a form more or less in recognizable continuity
with that of the present day until the third and fourth centuries CE’. A propos of the Theodotos
inscription, McKay characterizes the ‘maximalist’ view as maintaining a pre-70 CE date for the
synagogē, and the ‘minimalists’ (among whom she groups herself) as dissatisfied with this date
(109, 126–27). See also H. A. McKay, Sabbath and Synagogue. The Question of Sabbath Worship
in Ancient Judaism, Religions in the Graeco-Roman World 122 (Leiden, 1994) 242–45.
9 This view, as Eric Meyers has pointed out to me (per litt. 20.12.99), ignores the first phrase
of Nabratein (building one), dated no later that the mid-second century CE (on the basis of

stratigraphic and ceramic evidence). This building, a broadhouse (11.2 9.35m), has two rows of
benches on three sides (but not on the Jerusalem-facing south wall), a bema (against the southern
wall), and an impression at the centre of the pastered floor, probably made by a lectern. See E.
M. Meyers, J. F. Strange, and C. L. Meyers, ‘Preliminary Report on the 1980 Excavations at
dating theodotos 247
earliest literary references to συναγωγ as a building date from the late third
century CE:
Otherwise, from the first century C.E. on to the time of Diocletian, inscriptions
from the Bosphorus and the Black Sea area use synagoge for the community
and proseuche for the place where they gather. Analogously, in Greek literature
of the period, synagogai are designations for group gatherings, rather than for
the places where they assemble.10
Only at the end of the first century or beginning of the second did a lin-
guistic shift begin to occur, with συναγωγ being applied to buildings as well
as to congregations. This implies, according to Kee, that in referring to two
pre-70 CE buildings as συναγωγα1 (Luke 7:5; Acts 18:7), Luke inadvertently
read back later usage into an earlier period.
Setting the Theodotos inscription aside for the moment, Kee’s argument
runs foul of several other pieces of evidence. Kee claimed that ‘the oldest di-
rect reference in the papyri to the synagogue as a structure is dated from 291
C.E.’ The claim is mistaken: the oldest papyrus reference is much later, from
the mid-sixth century CE.11 As Richard Oster pointed out,12 however, the
impression Kee left by citing only papyri is misleading, for we have much ear-
lier epigraphical evidence from Benghazi (=Bernike, Cyrenaica) which uses
συναγωγ to mean both a congregation and a building.13 CJZC 72, dated to
the second year of Nero’s principate (55/56 CE), has the phrase ε !πισκευ|ν
τ+ συναγωγ+ in lines 4/5, which can only refer to the repair of a building:14
en-Nabratrin, Israel’, BASOR 244 (1981) 1–26; idem, ‘Second Preliminary Report on the 1981
Excavations at en-Nabratrin, Israel’, BASOR 246 (1982) 35–54; E. M. Meyers, ‘Nabratein (Kefar
Neburaya)’, NEAEHL 3 (1993) 1077–79; M. J. Chiat, Handbook of synagogue architecture, Brown
Judaic Studies 29 (Chico, Calif., 1982) 41–45.
10 Kee, ‘Transformation’ [n. 8], 6. See also ibid., 9 and 13.
11 Although Kee (‘Transformation’ [n. 6], 6) does not document his claim, his reference is
presumably to a manumission document, POxy IX 1205.6–8 (Oxyrhynchus; 291 CE) = CPJ
III 473.6–8: ριθμη|[θ.ντων 7μ'ν &π8ρ τ+ !λευθερσεω κα πολ4σ]εω παρ% τ+ συνα[γ]ωγ+
τ#ν 9Ιουδα1ων δι% Αρηλ1ων | [Διοσκρου κα 9Ιο4σ]του, ‘(The money) having been paid to us by
the congregation (synagogē) of Judaeans by Aurelius Dioskoros [vacat] and Aurelius Justus, for
the manumission and release (of a slave)’. As the context makes clear, συναγωγ refers not to a
building but to the congregation paying for manumission. The earliest papyrus reference to a
συναγωγ as a building is in fact a ledger of rents received, POxy LV 3805.v.56–57 (Oxyrhynchus;
after 566 CE).
12 Oster, ‘Supposed Anachronism’ [n. 7], 187–88.
13 CJZC 72 (pp. 155–58) = J. M. Reynolds, ‘Inscriptions’, Excavations at Sidi Khrebish, Beng-
hazi (Bernice), vol. 1: Buildings, Coins, Inscriptions, Architectural Decoration, ed. J. A. Lloyd;
Supplements to Libya Antiqua 5 (Tripoli, 1977) 1:242–44 (no. 12). The inscription, now lost, was
originally published by G. Caputo, ‘La sinagoga di Berenice in Cirenaica in una iscrizione greca
inedita’, Parola del Passato 12 (1957) 132–34 (with a photograph) and S. Applebaum, úáåúë
ä÷éàðéøé÷áÖ é÷éðéøáî äÖãç úéãåäé (‘A New Jewish Inscription from Bernike in Cyrenaica’),
Bulletin of the Israel Exploration Society 25 (1961) 167–74 (with a photograph) and by Lifshitz,
DFSJ 81–83 (no. 100).
14 Compare a similar decree of a club of Rhamnousian demesmen regarding the repairs
needed to their temple: IG II2 1322.10–13 (Rhamnous, Attica; III/II BCE): γαθε' τ4χει δεδχθαι
το' | =μφιεραϊστα' !πιδο2ναι μ8ν @καστον ε τν !πισκευν | το2 ερο2 Aσον Bν βο4ληται, τ#ν δ’
!πιδντων ναγρ ψαι τ% | Dνματα !ν στλει λιθ1νει κα στ+σαι παρ% τν θεν, ‘For good fortune, the
Amphieranistai have resolved that each member who is so willing shall make contributions for
the repair of the sanctuary, and that the names of those who contribute shall be inscribed on a
col. 1
–
(Fτει) β ′ Ν.ρωνο Κλαυδ1ου Κα1σαρο Δρο4σου |
Γερμανικο2 ατοκρ τορο Χιαχ ι –′ |
!φ νη τL συναγωγL τ#ν !ν Βερνεικ1δι |
9Ιουδα1ων το !πιδιδντε ε !πισκευ | | -
5 ν τ+ συναγωγ+ ναγρ ψαι ατο ε στ | -
λην λ1θου Παρ1ου.
(Year) 2 of Nero Claudius Caesar Drusus Germanicus, Imperator, 16th of
Choiak. It seemed good to the congregation (synagogē) of Judaeans (living) in
Bernike to inscribe this stele of Parian marble with (the names of) those who
contributed to the renovation of the synagogē.
(The names of 18 donors follow, giving the donation of each which range
from 5 to 28 drachmae.)
The Benghazi inscription indicates that already in the mid-first century,
συναγωγ could be used of both social groupings (congregations) and build-
ings. Thus, in its crudest form, Kee’s thesis requires modification.15 At the
very least, CJZC 72 is an exception to the rule that Kee proposes, and at
worst it is fatal to his thesis.16
Second, Oster observed that contrary to Kee’s claims, Philo uses the term
stone stele to be set up beside the god’. A list of donors follows. For other instances of !πισκευ as
‘repairs’, see IG II2 1361.10–11 (Piraeus; IV BCE), recording a resolution regarding the income
of a sanctuary for its repairs (ε|[ τν !]πισκευν το2 ερο2 [κα τ+] ο κ1α); Syll3 1106 B.69 (Cos;
300 BCE); ISmyrna II 721.1–4 (Smyrna; n.d.): =γαθ+ι τ4χηι· 7 συνεργασ1α τ#ν | ργυροκπων κα
χρυσοχων τν | =θηνα˜ν !πισκευ σασα ποκα|τ.στησε τL πατρ1δι ...; IG XII/7 937.9–10 (Malona,
Rhodes; n.d.).
15 Oddly, both in his rejoinder to Oster (‘Changing Meaning, 281–283) and in the article of the
next year (‘Defining’) Kee completely ignored CJZC 72 and simply reiterated his original thesis.
The double significance of συναγωγ had already been noted by Hengel (‘Proseuche,’ 182 [below,
n. 17]): ‘Das dritte Zeugnis [of inscriptions from Cyrenaica], rund 31 Jahre später (56 n.Chr.),
spricht nicht mehr von einem πολ1τευμα, sondern von der συναγωγ τ#ν !ν Βερνεικ1δι 9Ιουδα'ων,
die eine Marmorstele zu ehren. Jetzt bedeutet συναγωγ plötzlich sowohl die Gemeinde wie das
Sunagogengebäude.’
16 McKay (‘Ancient Synagogues’ [n. 1], 125) suggests a possible mitigation of the significance
of CJZC 72: ‘[A]ny discussion of the Bernice inscription would have to take more notice than
is usually taken of its uniqueness, rather than assume that many similar inscriptions could well
await discovery. Such a discussion would have to posit either the restriction of the double use of
the term “synagogue” as community and building to that one site only; or, contrarily, it would
have to argue for its representativeness of many other buildings of which we now have no evi-
dence. Many scholars imply that they assume representativeness, but they neither say so explic-
itly, nor do they argue the case.’ J. M. Reynolds points out to me (per litt.) that the possibility
that συναγωγ used of buildings was a local (Cyrenaic) usage must be balanced against the fact
that the term eventually became a standard designation for a building and it would be curious,
at least, if its origin was solely Cyrenaic. Moreover, there is good evidence of close contacts be-
tween Cyrenaica and Jerusalem in the first century CE: not only the New Testament references
to Simon of Cyrenaica (Mark 15:21) and to Jews from Cyrene (Acts 2:10; 6:9), but epigraphi-
cal records of Cyrenians buried in Jerusalem (N. Avigad (‘A Depository of Inscribed Ossuaries
in the Kidron Valley’, IEJ 12 [1962] 1–12) and Josephus’ (Bell. 7.437–53; Vita 424) mention of
Jonathan, a weaver, who fled from Judaea and as involved in an uprising in Cyrenaica. Such con-
tacts raise the clear possibility that regular movement to and fro accounted for the common use
of συναγωγ. On the contacts, see S. Applebaum, Jews and Greeks in Ancient Cyrene, SJLA 28
(Leiden, 1979) 215–16; J. M. G. Barclay, Jews in the Mediterranean Diaspora from Alexander to
Trajan (323 BCE–117 CE) (Edinburgh, 1996) 239–41.
συναγωγ in a way that can only refer to buildings. In 1990 Kee noted with
Hengel that in Egypt where Jewish assembly buildings are regularly called
προσευχα1, Philo also preferred the term προσευχ.17 Kee, however, also as-
serted that συναγωγ ‘appears only twice in the surviving Philonic corpus,
and refers to the gathered community rather than to the place of meeting’.18
Oster pointed out that Philo used συναγωγ five times19 and that in Philo’s de-
scription of Essene synagogai in Quod omnis 81,20 the term can only refer to
buildings. In his 1994 response to Oster, Kee seemed to concede the point that
‘Philo does use the term for places where Jews gather to study the scriptures’
and that Quod omnis 81 refers to Essene buildings.21 Yet in his later (1995)
summary, Kee merely reiterated his earlier conclusion that, ‘with the single
exception of Luke 7:5, the synagogue is depicted in the New Testament and
in pre-70 Jewish writings as a gathering rather than as a distinctive type of
religious structure’.22
Third, Oster adduced Josephus’s description of the hostilities between
17 M. Hengel, ‘Proseuche und Synagoge: Jüdische Gemeinde, Gotteshaus und Gottesdienst in
der Diaspora und in Palästina’, Tradition und Glaube: Das frühe Christentum in seiner Umwelt.
Festgabe für Karl Georg Kuhn, ed. G. Jeremias, H.-W. Kuhn and H. Stegemann (Göttingen, 1971)
157–84; repr. The Synagogue: Studies in Origins, Archaeology, and Architecture, ed. J. Gutmann
(New York, 1975), 27–54 (all citations are from the 1971 version). See pp. 158–159 + nn. 1–6 for a
list of inscriptions and papryi. Philo uses προσευχ always designating assembly halls: In Flaccum
41, 45, 47, 48, 49, 53, 122; Legatio 132, 134, 137, 138, 148, 152, 156, 157, 165, 191, 346, 371.
18 Kee, ‘Transformation’ [n. 6], 5. Kee’s reference is puzzling since συναγωγ occurs 4x in
Philo’s citations of Num 27.16–17 (de Post. 27 [bis]; de Agr. 44 [bis]) and once in Quod omnis 81.
Kee appears to be dependent on Hengel, ‘Proseuche und Synagoge’ 169, who was commenting
on συναγωγ1ον rather than συναγωγ and whose point was more nuanced: ‘In den zwei Fällen, wo
er [Philo] den Begriff συναγωγ1ον gebraucht, ist es umstritten, ob er damit das Synagogengebäude
oder die Synagogengemeinde meint’. Hengel cites (169 n. 50) De Somn. 2.127 (κα καθεδε'σθει !ν
το' συναγωγ1οι &μ#ν, τν ε ωθτα θ1ασον γε1ροντε) and Legatio 311 (!πιτρ.πωσι το' 9Ιουδα1οι
μνου ε τ% συναγωγ1α συν.ρχεσθαι). But Hengel continues: ‘Nur ein einziges Mal verwendet
er συναγωγ, und zwar bezeichnenderweise in seiner Schilderung der Essener Palästinas: ε ε-
ρο φικνο4μενοι τπου, οP καλο2νται συναγωγα1 [Quod omnis 81]. Neben der Theodotosinscrift
dürfte es sich hier um den ältesten Beleg für συναγωγ als Synagogengebäude handeln’.
19 Oster, ‘Supposed Anachronism’, 190–91. In fact Philo uses it seven times. In addition to de
Post. 67 (2x); de Agr. 44 (2x, both quoting Num 27.16–17) and Quod omnis 81, note QGen 2.66
(Qδωρ ε συναγωγν μ1αν) and QExod 1.19 (συναγωγν 7δον#ν). In his response to Oster, Kee
(‘Changing Meaning’, 282) noted QGen 2.66 (as well as de Post. 67; de Agr. 44 and Quod omnis
81, but failed to note QExod 1.19.
20 Quod omnis 81: ε ερο φικνο4μενοι τπου, οR καλο2νται συναγωγα1. That Philo has
buildings in mind is not completely clear; ερο τποι could refer to open spaces used for meeting.
But his main point stands: συναγωγ here refers to space rather than to social groupings.
21 Kee, ‘Changing Meaning’, 282. ‘The process of change of terminology for places of Jewish
study and worship has begun.’

22 Kee, ‘Defining’ [n. 6], 493. Noteworthy is the absence of Acts 18:7 from the list of alleged
Lukan anachronisms (contrast Kee, ‘Transformation’, 18). In the more recent (1995) discussion
of Acts 18:1–8 Kee argued that the fact that the house of Titus Justus was next door to the
synagogue (7 ο κ1α Sν συνομορο2σα τL συναγωγL) suggests that ‘the synagogue itself was a meeting
in a house rather than a special building’ (‘Defining’, 492). This assertion muddies the waters
by confusing the issue of whether there were purpose-built structures called συναγωγα1 in the
first century with that of whether any buildings—regardless of their original use—were called
συναγωγα1. The proseuche in Delos—originally a house that was modified for assembly use—is
located in a residential area but its design, with walls lined with benches, excludes the possibility
that it continued to function as house. See L. M. White, ‘The Delos Synagogue Revisited: Recent
Fieldwork in the Graeco-Roman Diaspora’, HTR 80 (1987) 133–160; B. H. McLean, ‘The Place
Greeks and Jews in Caesarea Maritima in 66 CE, including conflict over ac-
cess to a συναγωγ. Josephus (Bell. 2.285) states that Caesarean Jews had a
synagogē adjoining land owned by a Greek: ο !ν Καισαρε1T 9Ιουδα'οι, συναγω-
γν Fχοντε παρ% χωρ1ον, οU δεσπτη Sν τι VΕλλην Καισαρε4. They had tried in
vain to purchase the land and the owner instead built workshops, thereby im-
peding access to the synagogē.23 Following a violent conflict, some Caesarean
youths placed a bird-sacrifice beside the entrance to the synagogē (παρ% τν
εXσοδον ατ#ν) which the Jews discovered when they assembled on Shabbat
(τ#ν 9Ιουδα1ων ε τν συναγωγν συναθροισθ.ντων, 2.289). Oster’s conclusion
seems entirely reasonable: ‘It appears much easier to conceptualize the de-
tails of this narrative if συναγωγ refers to a meeting-place rather than to the
people themselves’.24
To this, Kee had two answers. In his 1994 rejoinder, Kee merely noted that
Josephus was writing at the same time as Luke or later and hence it was hardly
surprizing to find the same terminological shift.25 In the following year, with-
out expressly referring to Oster, Kee offered a different interpretation of Bell.
2.285–89:
Here the phrase ε τν συναγωγν almost certainly means ‘into the meeting’, but
it cannot be completely excluded that, following the destruction of the temple
in 70 CE, the term συναγωγ, which earlier had been used with reference to the
Jewish group meetings, began to be used to refer as well to the structure where
they met.26
The first part of this conclusion is based on a mistaken reading of the context,
for Kee assumes that the intent of the Caesarean Jews was ‘to buy a plot where
they could erect a building’27 —thus implying that they did not yet possess a
of Cult in Voluntary Associations and Christian Churches on Delos’, Voluntary Associations in

Graeco-Roman Antiquity, ed. J. S. Kloppenborg and S. G. Wilson (London and New York, 1996)
186–225, esp. 192–95.
23 Josephus, Bell. 2.286: Fτι κα παρYκοδμει τ χωρ1ον !κε'νο !ργαστρια κατασκευαζμενο,
στενν τε κα παντ πασιν βια1αν π ροδον π.λειπεν ατο'.

24 Oster, ‘Supposed Anachronism’, 189. Oster also adduced Bell. 7.43–44, where Josephus
describes the offerings which Antiochus IV Epiphanes confiscated and which his successors re-
turned to the Jews of Antioch to set them up in their synagogē: ο δ8 μετ’ ατν τν βασιλε1αν
παραλαβντε τ#ν ναθημ των Aσα χαλκZ πεπο1ητο π ντα το' !π’ =ντιοχε1α 9Ιουδα1οι π.δοσαν
ε τν συναγωγν ατ#ν ναθ.ντε (7.44). Συναγωγ here might mean ‘assembly’ but clearly it is
in a location where offerings can be set up. The same applies to Ant. 19.300–305 where Josephus
refers to the erection of an image of Caesar in the synagogē at Dor: παντ πασιν δ8 Dλ1γου χρνου
διελθντε Δωρ'ται νεαν1σκοι τ+ [σιτητο προτιθ.μενοι τλμαν κα πεφυκτε ε\ναι παραβλω
θρασε' Κα1σαρο νδρι ντα κομ1σαντε ε τν τ#ν 9Ιουδα1ων συναγωγν ν.στησαν (300). Yet in 305
it is less clear that a building is intended: ‘You have prevented the Jews from having a synagogue
by transferring to it an image of Caesar’ (συναγωγν 9Ιουδα1ων κωλ4οντα ε\ναι δι% τ μεταθε'ναι
!ν ατL τν Κα1σαρο νδρι ντα) . . . the image ‘was better placed in his own shrine than in that
of another, especially in the synagogue’ ( λλ% κα ε τν ατοκρ τορα, οU [ νδρι% β.λτιον !ν τ]
δ1Y να] ^ !ν λλοτρ1Y !τ1θετο κα τα2τα !ν τ] τ+ συναγωγ+ τπY).
25 Kee, ‘Changing Meaning’ [n. 6], 282 (in reference to Ant. 19.300–5; Bell. 2.289; 7.44): ‘But
writing as he is around and after the turn of the second century, Josephus occasionally uses
συναγωγ to refer to the gathering places of pious Jews. By the late first century therefore, the
word was well on its way to becoming the common term referring to the gathering place of Jews.’
26 Kee, ‘Defining’ [n. 6], 488.
27 Ibid.
building. The text of Bell. 2.285–89 indicates nothing of the sort. All that is
said is that the Greek owner himself began to erect buildings and thereby
restricted access to the synagogē. The Caesarean Jews may have wanted to
purchase the land because they intended to expand the current building or
merely to secure access by creating a plaza—the text of Josephus gives us
no hint. Elsewhere Josephus indicates that Caesarean Jews of the mid-first
century had considerable wealth and were thus in a position to do either.
Josephus’s description of the Caesarean συναγωγ leaves little real doubt that
it was a building, not a congregation: it was locatable παρ% χωρ1ον; it had an
entrance (εXσοδο); and it was a place where Jews could assemble on Shabbat
(τ+ δ8 !πιο4ση 7μ.ρα _βδομ δο οQση, τ#ν 9Ιουδα1ων ε τν συναγωγν
συναθροισθ.ντων). Whether the existing building was a purpose-built assembly
hall or a converted house makes little difference.
The dating of Josephus’s works to the latter part of the first century means,
nonetheless, that Kee might yet be right, and that Josephus, no less that Luke,
was being anachronistic in referring to the Caesarean assembly hall as a συ-
ναγωγ. The fact that Philo had to explain the term συναγωγ in Quod omnis
81—ε ερο . . . τπου, οP καλο2νται συναγωγα1—is explicable if this desig-
nation for a building was unusual in Philo’s Alexandria, where προσευχ still
dominated.28
A Revised Date for CIJ II 1404?

Along with CJZC 72 and Philo’s reference in Quod omnis 81, the Theodotos
inscription—if the usual dating is accepted—represents the earliest evidence
of the use of συναγωγ to refer to a building. Kee, however, has thrown the
date of the inscription into doubt.
Kee’s case for redating for the inscription has five bases: (1) epigraphic re-
marks; (2) the nature of the discovery locus; (3) linguistic observations; (4) ob-
servations about synagogue architecture in general; and (5) the likelihood of
Jewish (re)settlement of Jerusalem at least by the late second century CE.
(1) First, Kee asserted that ‘[s]everal responsible archaeologists and epig-
raphers who saw [the inscription] prior to publication dated it to the time
of Trajan or of Hadrian in the second quarter of the second century C.E.’29
and further, ‘When the Theodotus inscription was first found, the initial as-
sessment of it by archaeologists knowledgeable about Palestinian finds was
that it was from the later Roman period, as Deissmann himself notes’.30 Kee
concluded:
There is, therefore, no reason to question that the Theodotus inscription was
indeed associated with a building of the era to which the archaeologists initially
28 Similarly Riesner, ‘Synagogues in Jerusalem’ [n. 7], 182: ‘The wording leaves open the pos-
sibility that Philo is not only giving terminological information about the Essenes, but also refer-
ring to the common designation in Palestine’.
29 Kee, ‘Transformation’ [n. 6], 7.
30 Kee, ‘Defining’ [n. 6], 482.
assigned it: the second half [sic!] of the second century C.E.31 The epigraphic
assessment may even have erred on the early side, so that the inscription could
be from as late as the third century. This latter date would fit well with the
evidence that we shall now assess: the archaeological remains of synagogues in
Palestine.32
Kee seems to have taken the supposed dispute between ‘responsible archae-
ologists and epigraphers’ as licence to date the inscription far later than any
of these had proposed: in 1994 he declared that his examination of the inscrip-
tion led him to the conclusion that it dated ‘from no earlier than the fourth
century’,33 though he adduced no epigraphical or palaeographical evidence.
A year later he returned to a somewhat earlier date, claiming that epigraph-
ical analysis of the stone now confirmed a mid-second to late third century
CE dating.34 Again, he adduced no evidence.
Kee’s claims about the dispute among ‘epigraphers’ are misleading. Deiss-
man mentioned several discussions of the dating of the inscription, but only
one, Gustaf Dalman, suggested a date in the ‘late Roman period’. Dalman’s
suggestion, however, appeared in his 1915 notice of the discovery, i.e. prior
to the publication of the photograph and the editio princeps. In his 1922 es-
say on Weill’s excavations Dalman accepted the pre-70 date on the basis of the
palaeographical observations of Clermont-Ganneau, Reinach, and Vincent.35
Similarly, Vincent’s initial examination of the stone led him to suggest a date
early in the second century (not the late Roman period), but he eventually
acceded to the judgments of Clermont-Ganneau and Reinach in favour of a
date before 70 CE.36 In his brief notice about the discovery, Bees agreed with
Vincent’s initial assessment; his opinion, however, was not based on an analy-
sis of the stone itself but rather on Vincent’s report and photograph.37 Hence,
only Vincent and Bees registered serious dissents from the earlier dating and
31 It is not clear from Kee’s reference who the ‘archaeologists’ are. Weill dated the building to
the first century and Vincent, who observed Weill’s excavations at close hand, initially dated it to
the early II CE. No one, to my knowledge, suggested the late second century.
32 Kee, ‘Transformation’ [n. 6], 8.
33 Kee, Changing Meaning’ [n. 6], 283.
34 Kee, ‘Defining’, 482: ‘Estimates of the date of the inscription by a number of distinguished
epigraphers whom I consulted informally converge on the period from the mid-second to the late
third century CE.’
35 Deissmann, Light, 439 n.2. Dalman’s note appeared in ‘Zion, die Burg Jerusalems’, Palästi-
najahrbuch 11 (1915) esp. 75–76: ‘Also wurde wohl in der spätrömischen Zeit hier auf dem Boden
der alten Davidstadt weitab von der Aelia Capitolina jüdischer Gottesdienst geübt, entweder weil
man Synagogen in der Stadt nicht zuließ, oder weil das Bethaus sich an seinem Orte in der Nähe
von Wasser bedinden sollte, wie auch das galiläische Gishala die eine seiner beiden Synagogen
entfernt von der Stadt in nächsten Tale hatte’ (76). Compare Dalman’s 1922 assessment: G. Dal-
man, ‘Die Ausgrabungen von Raymond Weill in der Davidstadt’, ZDPV 45 (1922) 22–30, esp.
30: ‘Der Charakter der Schrift weist in die Zeit vor 70 n. Chr.’
36 Vincent recounts his earlier reasoning in favour of a date during the principate of Trajan
in ‘Découverte’ [Appendix 2], 247–77. McKay (‘Ancient Synagogues’, 126–27) rightly observes
that Vincent’s initial proposal of a date in the early second century was rejected and ridiculed by
Reinach on less than adequate grounds. Vincent’s epigraphical comments were far more rigorous
and careful than those of Clermont-Ganneau or Reinach, and one suspects that his retraction
and endorsement of the early date were less than wholehearted.
37 Bees, ‘Epigraphik’, 259: ‘ME ist die Inschrift nicht älters als die Trajanzeit’.
neither suggested a date in the late Roman period. Other critics uniformly
favoured a date prior to 70 CE.38
The dating of inscriptions—especially Imperial period inscriptions—by
palaeographical means is a far more complicated and subtle matter than Kee
imagines. As I shall indicate below, the style of lettering does not allow so
dogmatic a conclusion as that drawn by Clermont-Ganneau and Vincent. In
this limited sense, Kee is right (though inadvertently so) that palaeographi-
cal observations might permit a later dating. Epigraphical dating, however,
is not based solely (or even principally) on observations on the cutter’s hand
and it is these other evidences, neglected by Kee, that must also be taken into
account when assigning a date to an inscription.
(2) Kee’s second point concerns the site of discovery. The inscription was
not found in situ, but in a cistern, in a pile of other building materials. Thus,
there is no indication of the original function of the stone in the building,
nor, as Kee rightly notes, do we have an enclosed locus where ceramic and
numismatic finds can assist in dating. He asserts, moreover, that the complex
in which Weill had discovered the inscription was a Roman bath,39 the in-
ference being that the building materials and inscription found piled in the
cistern (presumably a part of the Roman bath complex), must be dated after
the construction of the baths:
On purely inferential grounds, the finding of the inscription among rubbish in
the bottom of the cistern increases the probability that it is from a later date
than the second or third century Roman bath complex in which it was found.
One possibility is that the inscription was dumped there in the fourth century at
the time that the city was being rebuilt in the post-Constantinian period, when
38 Weill, ‘Cité de David [IV]’, 34 = Cité de David 1:190: ‘antérieurs à la date de 70’; Clermont-
Ganneau, ‘Découverte’, 193: ‘soit du règne d’Hérode le Grand . . . soit, tout au moins, de la
période de 66 ans, comprise entre la mort de ce roi et la destruction de Jérusalem’; Reinach,
‘L’inscription de Théodotos’, 53: ‘vers 45 après J.-C.’; Klein, Corpus, 102: ‘Aller Wahrschein-
lichkeit nach, lebte [Theodotos] jedoch zur Tempelzeit’; Cagnat and Besnier, AE (1922) 117 (p.
37): ‘vers l’année 45 ap. J.-C.; il est antérieur, en tout cas, à la prise de Jérusalem par Titus en
70’; FitzGerald, ‘Recent Discoveries’, 179: ‘well into the first century without going beyond . . .
the critical year 70’; Lietzmann, ‘Notizen’, 172–73: ‘frühe Kaiserzeit’; Thomsen, ‘Inschriften’,
143: ‘Vor 70 n.Chr.’; Deissmann, Light, 441: ‘before 70 A.D.’ This dating is followed by virtu-
ally all recent editions: Sukenik, Ancient Synagogues, 69; SEG VIII (1937) 170; Frey, CIJ II 1404
(2:333): ‘sans doute’; Schwabe, úåáåúëä, 362: ‘the time of Herod the Great or the time immedi-
ately after him’; Gabba, Iscrizioni greche e latine, 79; Lifshitz, DFSJ 71; Hüttenmeister and Reeg,
Die antiken Synagogen 1:195: ‘zwar aus der Zeit vor der Zerstörung des Tempels’; Roth-Gerson,
úåáåúëä, 76: ‘end of the first century BCE or beginning of the first century CE’; Boffo, Iscrizioni,
275: ‘terminus ante quem il 70 d.C.’.
Until the issue of dating was reopened by Kee, the only recent suggestion of a later date came
from Press, äéãôåì÷éöðà ìàø×éõøà [Appendix 2], 2:414, who conjectured (without analysis
or argument) that the hostel mentioned in the inscription was designed for Jews returning to
Jerusalem following the First Revolt, hence, sometime between 70 CE and 135 CE.
39 Kee, ‘Defining’, 481 (‘excavations of Roman baths’); 483 (‘this discovery of an inscribed
stone slab in a junk filled cistern which was part of a Roman bath complex’); 483 (‘the fact that
a Roman bath system such as the one which was the locus of the discovery of the inscription
was built in the older part of the city of David makes the most sense if the construction were
to be dated sometime after the city was rebuilt by Hadrian’); 483 (‘it was in just this period that
an elaborate Roman type pool was built on the site of the Pool of Siloam in the area where the
ancient water supply system of the city was developed’.)
anti-Jewish sentiment and activities soared.40

The difficulty with this supposition is that the excavator made no refer-
ence to the structure as a Roman bath; he described only a series of cis-
terns and pools, all part of an ‘installation balnéaire’. There is no report of
a hypocaust or the standard parts of a bath (caldarium, tepidarium, frigidar-
ium). Moreover, Weill noted that the pools and water installations were built
on the site of older and disused tombs; and they were later disturbed by open
quarrying.41 A few metres to the east of the cistern Weill unearthed two or
three courses of ‘well worked’ blocks and the remains of paving stones sit-
ting directly on bedrock.42 Although Weill considered the possibility that this
building—presumably the συναγωγ of CIJ II 1404—had been constructed af-
ter the quarrying, he also noted that parts of the building had been disturbed
by quarrying and thus it should be dated before the quarry.43 The quarry-
ing, evidence of which Weill found throughout his site on the south-eastern
ridge,44 was so extensive that scarcely was a stone left in place. Kenyon’s later
excavations in Areas K and V, adjoining Weill’s 1913–14 site, as well as in Ar-
eas R and S (at the northern end of southeastern ridge), produced evidence
that the quarrying took place in the early second century, probably the re-
sult of Hadrian’s rebuilding activities.45 Although Weill himself did not date
the quarrying beyond saying that it was ‘Roman’, he was able to propose a
relative stratigraphy that placed the bath installation prior to the quarrying:
40 Kee, ‘Defining’, 483.

41 Weill, ‘Cité de David [IV]’, 18 = Cité de David 1:174: ‘nous avons parlé d’une vaste organ-
isation dont subsistent des éléments profondément excavés, piscenes et citernes, installés dans le
champ des tombeaux antiques et curieusement imbriqués avec eux, en plan, mais qui, non moins
remarquablement, prennent le soin de respecter les souterrains funéraires; et partout, aussi, nous
avons mentionné les carrières ouvertes, ultérieurement, sur toute la surface du site et dont les
coupes ont dévasté, indifféremment, les monuments primitifs et les installations hydrauliques de
deuxième stade.’
42 Weill, ‘Cité de David [II]’, 9 = Cité de David 1:99: ‘Il devait donc y avoir, à cette place, une
assez vaste installation balnéaire, qui fut détruite, à l’époque romaine, par l’ouverture de carrière
le long de certains lits de roche de bonne qualité. Nous avons signalé certaines des piscines et des
citernes qui faisaient partie de l’ensemble; par la suite, la fouille en découvrira d’autres encore.
Aux constations déjà faites est venue se joindre, en dernier lieu, la mise à jour de ruines propre-
ment dites, de portions d’édifices en maçonnerie quie reposaient sur le roc et dont il subsiste (S2
du plan) deux ou trois assises de grands blocs de calcaire bien appareillés, et en un autre point
(S1), une sorte de dallage ou de radier en grand blocs, reposant sur un épais lit de béton établi
sur la surface rocheuse’.
43 Weill, ‘Cité de David [II]’, 9 = Cité de David 1:99: ‘Certains indices porteraient à croire
que l’édifice dont nous avons ces restes a été construit postérieurement aux carrières; mais il est
également possible que certaines parties de constructions aient été perturbées par les carrières
en même temps que les chambres balnéaires, et il faudrait alors reconnaître en elles, sans doute,
les constructions dont il fait mention dans un important document historique, sorti de la fouille
dans les conditions que nous allons rapporter’.
44 Weill, ‘Cité de David [II]’, 1–9 = Cité de David 1:91–99.
45 K. Kenyon, Digging Up Jerusalem (London and Tonbridge, 1974) 263–64: ‘The most dra-
matic quarrying evidence is in the area excavated by Weill towards the southern end of the eastern
ridge. In our adjoining area V, we were able to date this quarrying to the second century A.D.
Hadrian thus very literally abolished Jewish Jerusalem with his construction of Aelia Capitolina.
Within his city he buried it to level up the site for his regular lay-out. Outside it he threw it away
in order to use the very rock on which it was built for his own city’.
De là résulte une sorte de précision ou de confirmation de la position historique

de ces chambres de balnéaire et de l’établissement dont elles faisaient partie:
antérieures aux carrière romaines que les dévastent, elles sont postérieures aux
grands tombeaux-galeries.46
As to the nature of the pools themselves, Ronny Reich has now noted the
presence of a low divider on the steps of the largest pool (P1 [Pool 1]: 6.2 m
5.5–8.2 m),47 which suggests that the stepped pool was a miqweh.48 Reich
is duly cautious about identifying the water installations mentioned in the in-
scription with the stepped baths discovered to the north of the cistern. In any
event, there is no indication that the baths belonged to a Roman bathhouse
or that they were posterior to the second century CE quarrying.
(3) Third, Kee offers an extensive review of the use of συναγωγ in literature
before 70 CE, concluding that the sole reference to συναγωγ as a building is
Luke’s anachronism in Luke 7:5. The logic of the argument is sound: an in-
scription that employs a term with a meaning that has a definable terminus a
quo should not be dated prior to that terminus. The difficulty, however, is not
with logic of the argument but with its neglect of important data in establish-
ing that terminus a quo, notably, CJZC 72 (55/56 CE) and literary evidence
from Philo, Josephus and the Gospels discussed above and cited by Oster.49
(4) One of the more controverted parts of Kee’s argument concerns ar-
chaeological data. Many archaeologists take the pre-70 structures excavated
at Gamla, the Herodium, and Masada to be ‘synagogues’50 and thereby im-
46 Weill, ‘Cité de David [IV]’, 21 = Cité de David 1:177.

47 See Weill, ‘Cité de David [IV]’, 20–21 = Cité de David 1:176–77 and Plate XX:B.
48 R. Reich, ‘The Synagogue and the miqveh in Eretz-Israel in the Second-Temple, Mishnaic
and Talmudic Periods’, Ancient Synagogues [n. 1], 1:289–97, esp. 291–92.
49 Oster, ‘Supposed Anachronism’ [n. 7]. See also Riesner, ‘Synagogues in Jerusalem’ [n. 7],
181–84; Horst, ‘Synagogue and Sabbath Worship’ [n. 7], 19–23.

50 See R. Hachlili, Ancient Jewish Art and Archaeology in the Land of Israel, Handbuch der
Orientalistik, 7. Abteilung: Kunst und Archäologie, 1. Band: Der alte Vordere Orient, 2. Ab-
schnitt: Die Denkmäler, B: Vorderasien, Lieferung 4 (Leiden, 1988) 84–86. On Gamla, see S.
Gutman, ‘The Synagogue at Gamla’, Ancient Synagogues Revealed, ed. L. I. Levine (Jerusalem
and Detroit, 1981) 30–34 and S. Gutman and Y. Rapel, ãøîá øéò ¬àìîâ [Gamla, a City of
Rebellion] ([Tel Aviv], 1994) 99–126; on the Herodium and Masada, see G. Foerster, ‘The Syna-
gogues at Masada and Herodium’, in Levine, Ancient Synagogues Revealed, 24–29. A structure
at Jericho has now been identified as a synagogue: E. Netzer, Y. Kalman and R. Loris, úñðëúéá
åçéøéá íéàðåîÖçä úôå÷úî [A Synagogue in Jericho from the Hasmonean Period]’, Qadmoniot
32/1 (1999) 17–24.
Excavations beneath the central nave of the III/IV CE building at Kfar Nah.um (trench 1) re-
vealed a large pavement continuing southward under the façade. Another pavement to the north
supports the northern stylobate (trench 2) and continues to the east (trench 11) and north (trench
6) (V. Corbo, Cafarnao 1: Gli Edifici della Città, Pubblicazioni dello Studium Biblicum Francis-
canum 19 [Jerusalem, 1975] 118–24, 127–28 and Tav. XI). S. Loffreda (‘The Late Chronology
of the Synagogue at Capernaum’, Ancient Synagogues Revealed, 52–56) suggested that the syn-
agogue was built over private houses, but this conclusion, as Loffreda makes clear, applies only
to the structures lying beneath the north-east corner of the later synagogue (trenches 2, 6 and
11). M. Avi-Yonah, (‘Some Comments on the Capernaum Excavations’, Ancient Synagogues Re-
vealed, 60) suggested that this pavement was too large for a private house and argued that this was
part of an earlier public building, presumably a synagogue. Loffreda (‘Capernaum’, NEAEHL
1 [1993] 294) now accepts this view. Kee (‘Defining’, 495) thinks that the structure was a house,
apparently unaware of Avi-Yonah’s dissent or Loffreda’s more recent views.
ply a continuity between these unnamed first-century CE structures and the

buildings expressly called συναγωγα1 from the third and fourth centuries CE.51
Reconsideration of the archaeological evidence has, however, underscored the
fact that the pre-70 structures lack the architectural adaptations that are most
characteristic of later synagogues: a Torah shrine, a bema, and orientation to-
wards Jerusalem.52 Kee interprets this to mean that the buildings at Gamla,
Masada and the Herodium were assembly halls without any special ‘religious’
function.53
This conclusion, however, overreaches the evidence. First, it presumes a di-
vision in ancient Jewish society between ‘religious’ and ‘non-religious’ activi-
ties that is hardly defensible. Second, since we do not know the specific func-
tions of any of these buildings beyond the obvious fact that they were used
for assemblies, it is hardly justified a priori to exclude liturgical or other cultic
functions. Nor, conversely, is it justified to conclude that the buildings were
used exclusively for such functions. Since a miqweh is located immediately to
the east of the Gamla building, and nearby the structures at the Herodium
and Masada, it is hardly unreasonable to imagine some cultic functions oc-
curring there.54 Nonetheless, insofar as the structures at Gamla, Masada and
the Herodium bear no inscriptions, we have no idea whether they were called
συναγωγα1, προσευχα1 or by some other term.55 To the extent that Kee’s point
is a lexicographic one, it is correct that archaeological findings—apart from
the Theodotos and Benghazi inscriptions—neither confirm nor disconfirm
the existence of buildings called συναγωγα1.
A second part of Kee’s argument is architectural. He asserts that in the first
The structure at Migdal (Magdala) thought to be a synagogue by the excavator, V. Corbo

(‘Scavi archeologici a Magdala [1971–1973]’, Liber Annuus 24 [1974] 5–37), has now been in-
terpreted as a nymphaeum or fountain house by E. Netzer, àìãâîá ïééòîä úéá ÖîéÖ íàä
¿úñðëúéáë [Did the Fountain house at Magdala serve as a synagogue?]’, íé÷éúò úñðëéúá
[Synagogues in Antiquity], ed. A. Oppenheimer, A. Kasher and U. Rappaport (Jerusalem, 1987)
165–72.
51 DFSJ 1 = IG IV 190.3–4 (Aegina; IV CE): !χ θεμελ1ων τν σ[υναγωγ(ν)] ο κοδμησα; CIJ
II 861.3 (Tafas, Syria; IV CE): τν συναγωγν ο κοδμησ[αν].

52 See Hachlili, Ancient Jewish Art and Archaeology, 141, who distinguishes three types of syn-
agogues: (1) the earliest structures in the Galilee and the Golan, with an ornamental façade and
(presumably) a moveable Torah-shrine; (2) a transitional form (IV–V CE) of broadhouse design
with a fixed Torah shrine on the Jerusalem-oriented wall, and a shift from reliefs to mosaic pave-
ments; and (3) the V–VII CE longhouse or apsidal basilica structures, with mosaic pavements. See
also L. I. Levine, ‘The Nature and Origin of the Palestinian Synagogue Reconsidered’, JBL 115
(1996) 425–48, esp. 445–46; S. Fine and E. M. Meyers, ‘Synagogues’, OEANE 5 (1997) 118–23,
esp. 120–21.
53 Kee, ‘Defining’, 494, citing J. Gutmann, ‘Prolegomenon’, The Synagogue: Studies in Ori-
gins, Archaeology, and Architecture, ed. J. Gutmann (New York, 1975) xi. What Kee quotes as
Gutmann’s view is that of S. B. Hoenig, ‘Review of Yigael Yadin, Bar Kochba’, Jewish Bookland
(April 1973) 8: ‘There is no proof of piety or of a definite place of worship other than [Yadin’s]
wishful thinking’. Gutmann (‘The Origins of the Synagogue: The Current state of Research’,
The Synagogue, 76) only observes that ‘no building dating from the first century has so far been
positively identified as a synagogue’.
54 This point is made by Atkinson, ‘On Further Defining’, 496–97. Atkinson (498) curiously
denies that the three buildings were ‘assembly halls’, insisting that they were synagogues. The
distinction is rather odd, since ‘synagogue’ in this sense means precisely ‘assembly hall’.
55 Josephus knew of a large building in Tiberias, but called it a προσευχ (Vita 277).
century both Jews and Christians most likely used private homes for ‘wor-
ship’ rather than purpose-built or specially converted buildings.56 If this view
is correct, CIJ II 1404 would either be highly anomalous or mis-dated, since
it appears to describe a purpose-built structure used for cultic and other ac-
tivities. Kee’s view, however, leads him either to treat the structures at Gamla
and Magdala as private houses57 —which manifestly they were not—, or to
dismiss these structures as merely meeting halls with no particular ‘religious’
function.58 This latter opinion, as I have already noted, is problematic be-
cause of the nature of the archaeological evidence, which scarcely allows for
secure conclusions regarding the activities that did or did not occur in these
public structures.
(5) The final part of Kee’s argument is a refutation of the notion that an
absolute ban existed on Jewish presence in Aelia Capitolina. This false sup-
position, Kee thinks, is at the root of the misdating of CIJ II 1404 and Kee
lays the blame at the feet of Deissmann, who ‘arbitrarily’ assigned a pre-70
CE date on the assumption that Jews would not have been permitted to live in
Jerusalem after 70 CE.59 ‘Astonishingly, most scholars have simply accepted
that wholly unwarranted date’.60
A careful review of the early literature on the inscription shows that Deiss-
56 Kee cites as his authority E. M. Meyers, ‘Synagogue’, ABD 6 (1992) 251–60, esp. 255: ‘[I]n
the first centuries [CE] large private houses were used as places of worship alongside other build-
ings that could be utilized for worship and other matters requiring public assembly. In Palestine,
it would seem, it was about a hundred years after the destruction of the Temple that the syna-
gogue as a building began to emerge as a central feature of Jewish communal life’. Kee, however,
misconstrues Meyers’s comment, whose intent was only to point out that in Temple times, pri-
vate houses were used along with purpose-built structures and other public buildings, not that
purpose-built structures did not exist. (I am indebted to Professor Meyers for correspondence
(21.09.99) on this matter.)
57 Kee, ‘Transformation’, 8: ‘Other sites that were first identified as synagogues—at Magdala
and Gamala—turn out to be nothing more than private houses in which the pious gathered for
prayer’. The structure at Gamla is clearly not a private residence. See Gutman, ‘The Synagogue at
Gamla’, 34: ‘The interior layout of this building clearly indicates that it was intended for public
assembly. The benches and the surrounding floors obviously served some public function’ and
idem, ‘Gamala’, NEAEHL 2 (1993) 459–63. On the structure at Magdala (a colonnaded building
with benches on three sides), see above, n. 50.
58 Kee (‘Defining’, 494) seems now to have corrected his erroneous view of the structure at
Gamla though he says nothing of Magdala.

59 Kee (‘Transformation’, 7; ‘Defining’, 482) seems unaware of Deissmann’s error. Deissmann
(Light, 441) claimed that from 70 CE on, ‘no Jew could settle within the city area—to say noth-
ing of building, and even erecting a synagogue there’. His authority (441 n. 1) was E. Schürer,
Geschichte des jüdischen Volkes im Zeitalter Jesu Christi, 3–4. Aufl.; 4 vols (Leipzig, 1901–1911)
1:649, 703. Apropos of the situation after 70 CE, however, Schürer had only observed, ‘Jerusalem
had been so completely razed to the ground “that there was left nothing to make those that came
thither believe that it had ever been inhabited” [Josephus Bell. 7.3–4]. It was first of all only a
Roman camp, in which, if not the whole of the tenth legion, yet at least the chief portions of it,
had its headquarters, together with its baggage and followers’ (1:649, ET: The History of the Jew-
ish People in the Age of Jesus Christ [2nd ed.; 6 vols (Edinburgh, 1898–1910] 1/2:265). It is only
apropos of the situation after the Second Revolt that Schürer stated that Jews were driven from
Jerusalem: ‘No Jew was allowed thereafter to enter the territory of the city; if any one should
be discovered there he was put to death’ (1:699, ET 1/2:315), quoting Jerome, In Jeremiam 4.971
[MPL 24:798]: ‘Nullus Judaeorum terram quondam et urbem sanctam ingredi lege permittitur.’
60 Kee, ‘Transformation’, 7.
mann’s comments were far from the decisive factor in swaying opinion on dat-
ing;61 Clermont-Ganneau’s palaeographical observations and his comments
on the name Vettenus were far more influential. Nevertheless, Jewish presence
in Aelia Capitolina after 135 CE is crucial to Kee’s case if a plausible case for
dating of CIJ II 1404 to the second or third century is to be sustained.62
Little directly is known of the Jewish population of Jerusalem between
the two revolts. It is likely that in Judaea Jews who had not participated in
the revolt maintained their land holdings or were able to purchase land that
Vespasian confiscated and subsequently auctioned.63 Jerusalem, however, be-
came a camp for Legio X Fretensis. This would not have automatically im-
plied the exclusion of the Jewish population; the camp would normally rely
upon locals for produce and labour. Moreover, Hadrian’s ban on Jews enter-
ing Jerusalem after Bar Kochba seems to presuppose that there had been a
Jewish population in and around Jerusalem prior to the Second Revolt.64
Hadrian’s ban on Jewish presence in Aelia Capitolina (except perhaps for
the ninth of Av) may have been relaxed during the Antonine period,65 since
the Talmuds contain stories of occasional visits to Jerusalem.66 From the Sev-
eran period onward, there are more reports of Jews visiting Jerusalem unim-
61 Already in 1927 K. Galling (‘Archäologischer Jahresbericht’, ZDPV 50 [1927] 298–319)
remarked, ‘Für die Theodot-Inschrift hat man Entstehung vor 70 n.Chr. angenommen, doch ist
dafür kein Beweis zu führen’ (315). ‘Bei A. Deissmann, Licht vom Osten4, 1923, S. 380 vermißt
man ihn jedenfalls. Die dort gegebene Ansetzung ist durch eine petitio principii bestimmt’ (315
n. 5).
62 Kee (‘Transformation’, 7–8) countered Deissmann’s supposition about the situation for
Jews after 70 CE by adducing Shemuel Safrai’s discussion of Jewish self-government after 70

CE: ‘[Safrai] asserts that in Jerusalem as early as the time of Nerva and Trajan, the Jewish system
of self-government was operative, not only in relation to religious issues (such as the setting of
the date of the new moon), but also on such legal matters as property, fines, modes of punish-
ment in accord with Jewish law’ (emphasis added). Safrai’s comments, however, have nothing to
do with Jewish presence in Jerusalem; they concern Jewish self-government at Yavneh, first under
Yohanan ben Zakkai and then under Gamaliel II. See S. Safrai, ‘Jewish Self-Government’, The
Jewish People in the First Century, ed. S. Safrai and M. Stern; CRINT 1/1 (Philadelphia, 1974),
377–419, esp. 406–409.
63 On this, and on the reading of Josephus Bell. 7.216, see B. Isaac, ‘Judaea after A.D. 70’,
The Near East Under Roman Rule: Selected Papers, Mnemosyne Supplements 177 (Leiden, 1998)
112–21 = JJS 35 (1984) 44–50.
64 Eusebius’ statement in Hist. eccl. 4.6.3–4 (citing Ariston of Pella) that Hadrian ban ex-
tended even to the area about Jerusalem ‘so that the ancestral home could not even be seen [by
Jews] even from afar’ (τ πZν Fθνο !ξ !κε1νου κα τ+ περ τ% `Ιεροσλυμα γ+ π μπαν !πιβα1νειν
εXρηται νμου δγματα κα διατ ξεσιν aδριανο2, b Bν μηδ’ !ξ ππτου θεωρο'εν τ πατρ]ον Fδαφο,
!γκελευσαμ.νου) implies that Jews had been in and around Jerusalem up to that time. Likewise,
Eusebius’ statement that from the time of Hadrian, the church in Jerusalem was composed of
Gentiles and that the earlier Jewish bishops were suceeded by Marcus (4.6.4) assumes that be-
fore Bar Kochba, there had been Jews in Jerusalem. Other reports of Hadrian’s ban are found in
Eusebius Hist. eccl. 5.12.1 and Tertullian, Adversus Iudaeos 13. On these texts, see J.R. Harris,
‘Hadrian’s decree of expulsion of the Jews from Jerusalem’, HTR 19 (1926) 199–206.
65 The ban, however, seems not to have been rescinded, for Jerome describes it as in force in
his day (In Sophoniam 1.15–16 [CCL LXXVIa:673]).

66 M. Avi-Yonah, The Jews of Palestine: A Political History from the Bar Kokhba War to the
Arab Conquest (Oxford and New York, 1976) 80; E.M. Smallwood, The Jews under Roman Rule
from Pompey to Diocletian, SJLA 20 (Leiden, 1976) 478–81.
peded by Roman officials.67 There is even a report of a group of disciples of

R. Meir settling in Jerusalem but, as Avi-Yonah points out, the community
seems to have lasted only one generation and left no traces thereafter.68 Avi-
Yonah surmises from a comment of R. Meir to the effect that the stones of
the walls were sacred and that no profit was to be had from them, that there
may have been some building activities.69
This evidence leaves some room for Kee’s late dating of CIJ II 1404 and
even allows for the possibility of the building of a synagogue during the Sev-
eran period.70 What is decisive, however, is not the issue of whether Jews dur-
ing the Antonine and Severan periods might have visited the city (or even
taken up temporary residence) but, as we shall see below, the specific areas
of the city that were occupied from the second to the fourth centuries CE.
The Ophel was in fact unoccupied before the Byzantine period and, hence,
it seems unlikely that the remains of the synagogue discovered in the cistern
come from those centuries.
Dating Theodotos
The dating of inscriptions is a matter of diverse factors, ideally converging
on the same general date. (a) First is the provenance of the inscription. In-
scriptions are not normally dated earlier than the foundation or later than
the destruction of the city in which they are found (although it is certainly
imaginable that a village may have preceded a city’s foundation or followed
its destruction, a village that also produced inscriptions). (b) The character
of the document must be considered. Some types of monuments are datable,
for example, elaborate Athenian funerary reliefs, which were banned under
sumptuary legislation about 312 BCE. (c) Inscriptions may refer to datable
events or persons or contain other prosopographic data. (d) Certain formulae
or names may be datable. For example, a high frequency of Aurelii might be
an indication of a date after the edict of Caracalla in 212 CE.71 (e) Finally,
and least decisively, the style and shape of the letters must be considered.72
Not all of these factors are relevant to CIJ II 1404. Dedicatory inscriptions
are found in the Levant from well before the earliest dating of the inscription
to very much later. Obviously, it is a petitio principii to date the inscription, as
67 For documentation, see Avi-Yonah, Jews of Palestine, 80; and Smallwood, Jews under Ro-
man Rule, 499–500.

68 Avi-Yonah, Jews of Palestine, 80–81; on the community, see S. Safrai, ‘The Holy Congrega-
tion in Jerusalem’, Scripta Hierosolymitana 23 (1973) 62–78.
69 b. Qidd. 54a: ‘R. Ishmael b. R. Isaac said: “If the stones of Jerusalem fall out [of the place in
the wall] trespass is incurred with them [if they are used for another purpose].” This is R. Meir’s
view.’ This occurs in a section dealing with the misuse of money or things devoted to the Temple.
70 Kee (‘Defining’, 498–99) describes Hadrian’s efforts to exclude Jews from Aelia has having
‘utterly failed within decades of the promulgation of his decrees’; this is rather an overstatement,
given the scanty evidence we have of permanent Jewish occupation in Jerusalem.
71 This is not an entirely reliable index, since both M. Aurelius and Commodus francised a
number of persons. (I owe this observation to J. Reynolds.)

72 See A. G. Woodhead, The Study of Greek Inscriptions, 2nd ed. (Cambridge and New York,
1981), 52–66.
Kee wishes to do, to the late second or early third century CE on the grounds
that συναγωγ in l. 4 refers to a building which, he argues, is a later usage.
This is especially the case since συναγωγ clearly has that meaning in CJZC
72 (55/56 CE). Nor is the designation of Theodotos as a ερε4 decisive for
dating; Jewish inscriptions from 27 BCE to the fourth century CE identify
persons as ‘priests’ despite the fact that after 70 CE they presumably no longer
functioned as such.73
The more relevant criteria are considerations of the provenance of the in-
scription, references to datable persons, and palaeography.
1. The Provenance of the Inscription

The site of discovery makes a Herodian date highly likely. In 1978 a major
excavation of various sites on the Ophel (City of David) was begun, issuing
in a reasonably clear and consistent stratigraphy of the area, including sites
directly adjacent to Weill’s 1913–14 excavations.74
As a generalization, the late Roman period (Stratum 4) is badly represented
throughout the entire City of David. Areas B, D1 and D2—respectively east,
north-east, and north of Weill’s area and the first two of these containing the
dumps of Weill’s excavations—bore clear signs of the destruction of Stratum
6 (27 BCE–70 CE). Nothing was discovered, however, that dated from later
than 70 CE. Shiloh’s preliminary report noted that the destruction layer (Stra-
tum 5), a constant feature of most areas of the eastern slope, often reached a
depth of 5 metres.75 He concluded:
With the destruction of Jerusalem at the end of Stratum 6, the hill of the City
of David was neglected. The structures of the ‘Lower City’ on its ridge, and
the supporting walls on its slope, collapsed and tumbled down. The eastern
slope for its entire length became covered with a layer of debris several metres
thick. This debris included many finds from Stratum 6, carried down from the
buildings at the top of the slope. They have been defined by us as a separate
stratum, Stratum 5, which also contains almost nothing later than 70 CE.76
73 IJudEg 84 (=CIJ II 1514) (Leontopolis; 27 BCE); CJZC 72 (Bernike, Cyrenaica; 55/56);
IJudEg 149 (=CIJ II 930) (Jaffa; II–IV CE); IJudEur II 11 (=CIJ I 315) (Monteverde, Rome;
III–IV CE); IJudEur II 80 (=CIJ I 346) (Monteverde, Rome; III–IV CE); IJudEur II 109 (=CIJ I
375) (Monteverde, Rome; III–IV CE); IJudEur II 124 (=CIJ I 347) (Monteverde, Rome; III–IV
CE); IJudEur II 125 (=CIJ I 355) (Monteverde, Rome; III–IV CE); IJudEur II 558 (=CIJ I 504)
(Italy; III–IV CE?); IBeth She ` arim II 180 (Beth She ` arim; III–IV CE); IBeth She ` arim II 181
(Beth She ` arim; III–IV CE).
74 Y. Shiloh, Excavations at the City of David, vol. I: 1978–1982: Interim report of the first five
seasons, Qedem 19 (Jerusalem, 1984); D. T. Ariel (ed.), Excavations at the City of David 1978–
1985 directed by Yigal Shiloh, vol. II: Imported Stamped Amphora Handles, Coins, Worked Bone
and Ivory, and Glass, City of David Excavations; Final Report II; Qedem 30 (Jerusalem, 1990); A.
De Groot, and D. T. Ariel (eds.), Excavations at the City of David 1978–1985 Directed by Yigal
Shiloh, vol. III: Stratigraphical, Environmental, and Other Reports, City of David Excavations;
Final Report III; Qedem 33 (Jerusalem, 1992); D. T. Ariel, and A. De Groot (eds.), Excavations
at the City of David 1978–1985 Directed by Yigal Shiloh, vol. IV: Various reports, City of David
Excavations. Final Report IV; Qedem 35 (Jerusalem, 1996).
75 Shiloh, City of David I, 8.
76 Ibid., 30.
The next occupational level (Stratum 3; Byzantine period) was evidenced only
in the central valley, in areas G, at the north end, and A1 and A2, above the
Siloam Pool. The Byzantine stratum was absent in areas B, D1 and D2.77
The final report provides a more comprehensive picture of the history of the
area. There is evidence of fortifications from the early Hellenistic (Stratum 8),
Hellenistic (Strata 7B, 7A) and early Roman periods (Stratum 6), but only
debris in Stratum 5 (early Roman-after 70 CE). No architectural remains sur-
vived from Stratum 6, thus apparently confirming the thorough destruction
wreaked on the site by Titus.78 Coins and pottery, none dated later than 70
CE, formed part of the rubble accumulated from the destruction of Stratum
6. A small amount of pottery belonging to the later Roman period (Stratum
4) appeared in Areas H and K (in the valley to the west of Weill’s excavations)
but no architectural remains were discovered. Signs of later (Byzantine) oc-
cupation were discovered only near the Siloam pool and at the northern ex-
tremity of the southeast hill (Area G).79
In areas B, D and E (near Weill’s site) the picture is similar: Stratum 5
is comprised by the rubble of the walls and terraces of Stratum 6 that had
collapsed due to deliberate destruction and neglect during the winter rains.
There were no finds that could be dated later than 70 CE.
The nature of the archaeological evidence makes it extremely difficult to
imagine the presence of a building on the south end of eastern ridge of the
Ophel at any time after 70 CE, since by all accounts, the site was unoccupied.
Kenyon’s evidence from Areas K and V (due east of Weill’s area) indicates that
it was used as a quarry after 135 CE. It seems a reasonable conclusion that
the quarrying which Weill had seen in his area and which had destroyed the
pools and cisterns, belonged to the period: Hadrian’s quarrying of the Ophel
to provide building materials for Aelia. The City of David was itself seemingly
unoccupied after 135 CE, becoming part of the Jerusalem only after ca. 460
CE.80
2. References to Datable Persons

Of the three names mentioned in the inscription, only Simonides and Vet-
tenus81 have attracted significant attention. The name Theodotos is of little
77 Ibid., 30–31. See also D. T. Ariel, and J. Magness (‘Area K’, in De Groot, and Ariel [eds.],
Excavations at the City of David 1978–1985 . . . , vol. III, 63–97, esp. 91), who report ‘intensive
occupation’ in the Byzantine period (Stratum 3) in the vicinity of the Siloam Pool; but ‘remains
of pre-Byzantine strata are scanty’.
78 Josephus (Bell. 6.363–64) describes the destruction of the lower town ‘as far as Siloam’ by
Titus’ troops.
79 Shiloh, ‘Stratigraphical Introduction to Parts I and II’, Excavations at the City of David . . . ,
vol. II, 1–12, esp. 2–3, 6–7.

80 Dan Bahat, per litt., 3.08.99.
81 The transliteration of the Latin name may be an indication of an early date for the in-
scription. Prior to the second century CE, v was commonly rendered ου (e.g. Vespesianus
Οεσπασιαν), but by the III/IV CE, both the initial and medial v were transliterated as a β (e.g.
Valerius Βαλ.ριο). See B. H. McLean, An Introduction to Greek Epigraphy of the Hellenistic
and Roman Periods from Alexander the Great down to the Reign of Constantine (323 BC–AD 337)
(Ann Arbor, Mich., University of Michigan Press, 2001) §5.11.
assistance in dating the inscription, since it was a common name, especially

in Jewish inscriptions of the Hellenistic and Roman periods.82
Simonides would not otherwise be of interest were it not for a coincidence
noted by Vincent: one of the consuls for the year 107/8 was C. Vettennius
Severus83 and about the same time, Josephus’ son, M. Flavius Agrippa (also
known as Simonides) occupied a Roman priesthood at Caesarea Maritima.84
‘Would this Agrippa-Simonides’, Vincent asks, ‘who had a Roman pontifi-
cal function at Caesarea in Palestine, not have been in the position to offer
easy assistance to the Jewish religious enterprise [of building a synagogue] in
Jerusalem?’85 He assumed that an ancestor of Theodotos had been among
Titus’ prisoners and that Vettennius or someone of his gens had manumit-
ted him. Hence, Οεττνου was not a patronym but instead the name of
Theodotos’ patron.86
There are some difficulties with this conjecture. First, had Theodotos been
a freedman of Vettennius, the more likely form of the name would have been
(e.g.) C(aius) Vettennius C(aii) l(ibertus) Theodotos or simply C. Vettennius
Theodotos, with both the nomen and the cognomen in the nominative.87 In-
deed, the names of five freemen and freedwomen of C. Vettenus in an inscrip-
tion from Samnium take just this form.88 Second, since the manumitted slave
of a Roman citizen became a citizen, it seems rather unlikely that a provin-
cial who had attained citizenship would have used a name-form that disguised
that fact. C. Vettennius [C.l.] Theodotos would have made displayed the en-
viable social status that attended citizenship—just the sort of display that is
frequent in dedicatory inscriptions.89 The form of the name in CIJ II 1404
82 See the indices in CPJ III; IJudEg and IJudEu I–II. The name is also borne by a freedman of
Queen Agrippina in an inscription from Jericho (θεοδτου πελευθ.ρου βασιλ1σση =γριππε1νη):

R. Hachlili, ‘The Goliath Family in Jericho: Funerary Inscriptions from a First Century AD
Jewish Monumental Tomb’, BASOR 235 (1979) 31–66, esp. 33, 46-47 (no. 3).
83 See PIR1 III 410 (V313), consul with C. Minicus Fundanus. The nomen Vettennius is, how-
ever, also attested in the third century CE as the name of a Vestal Virgin, Vettenia Sabinilla (ILS
1446 =CIL VI 1587: PIR1 III 410 [V314]; PLRE I 790).
84 Josephus, Vita 76 (Σιμων1δη [ κα =γρ1ππα !πικληθε1); CIL III Supplement II 12082 (Cae-
sarea Maritima): M. Fl(avium) Agrippam pontif(icem), II viral(em) col(oniae primae) Fl(aviae)

Aug(ustae) Caesareae oratorem ex dec(urionum) dec(reto) pec(unia) publ(ica).
85 Vincent, ‘Découverte’ [Appendix 2], 260.
86 Vincent, ‘Découverte’ [Appendix 2], 261: ‘Que l’on suppose notre Théodote, descendant de
captifs de 70, affranchi au début du second siècle par un Vettenius tel que le personnage con-
sulaire de l’an 107; sa dépendance aurait pu n’être exprimée—par un euphémisme intentionnel
ou quelque prétentieux retour au plus ancien usage romain—tout comme pour un ingénu, que
par le nom individuel de son patron, mis au génitif de propriété’.
87 A manumitted slave normally adopted the praenomen and nomen of his patron, followed
by the praenomen of the patron in the genitive, l(ibertus) and the slave name, now used as a
cognomen. Thus Cicero’s slave Tiro became M. Tullius M. l. Tiro. Since a woman normally had
no praenomen, she used a feminized form of the patron’s gentilicial name along with her own slave
name: Aurelia C(aii) l(iberta) Nais (ILS 7500) = (Nais, who was manumitted by Gaius Aurelius).
88 CIL IX 4157: C. Vettenus C.l. Aphrodisius | C. Vettenus C.l. Tertius | C. Vettenus C.l. Sextus
| C. Vettena C.l. Hilara | C. Vettena C.l. Maxima.
89 E.g., the honorific inscription from Benghazi (CJZC 70), honouring Δ.κμο Ολ.ριο Γαcου
Διον4σιο (ll. 6, 21), i.e., Decimus Valerius Gaii (f./l.?) Dionysios, a Jewish benefactor. J. and
G. Roux (‘Un décret du politeuma des Juifs de Bérénikè en Cyrénaïque’, REG 62 [1949] 281–
96, 290) argued that the Dionysios was a freedman, since there is no mention of his Roman
(nominative + genitive) suggests rather that Theodotos was freeborn, since

normally only freeborn persons were entitled to use a patronym.
Other conjectured identifications are not any more compelling. Clermont-
Ganneau and Reinach suggested that Ο.ττηνο more likely represented Vet-
tienus.90 Clermont-Ganneau speculated that Theodotos’ father or grandfa-
ther had been enslaved at the time of Pompey’s conquest of Judaea and
that subsequently he was manumitted or adopted by a member of the Vet-
tia gens.91 This made natural the supposition that the synagogue of CIJ II
1404 was the synagogue of freedmen of Acts 6:9.92 With more hestitation he
connected the synagogue builder’s ancestor with a Vettienus mentioned in Ci-
cero’s letters to Atticus.93
This suggestion also runs afoul of the point raised against Vincent: if
Theodotos’ father was manumitted by someone from the Vettiena gens, one
ought to expect a name like C. Vettienus (C.f.) Theodotos, again with the cog-
nomen in the nominative.94 Moreover, it is difficult to connect the Ο.ττηνο
of CIJ II 1404 with any specific figure of the first century BCE or CE: we know
the nomina Vettenus from one first century inscription and several undated
texts,95 and Vettieni are known not only in the time of Cicero, but during the
tribe; Reynolds (‘Inscriptions’ [n. 16], 246–47), however, points out ‘Greek practice in naming
tribes was so unsystematic that this is not compelling. He [Decius] appears to be given filiation,
though in the Greek, not the Roman manner (i.e. without the word υ for filius), and it seems
improbable that this would appear if he were not freeborn.’
90 Reinach (‘L’inscription’ [n. 5], 5) observed that Gallienus appears in Greek as Γ λληνο.
Since the eta seems to have been vocalized as an ı̄, the ei/ιη combination would easily reduce to
an eta.
91 Vettenus, Vettienus, and Vettius are in fact three distinct nomina; Vettius, which is by far the
most common of the three nomina [PIR1 III V318–346; PLRE 955]), would not, however, yield
Vett(i)enus, as Clermont-Ganneau believed.
92 Clermont-Ganneau’s suggestion is followed widely. See, e.g., Hüttenmeister, and Reeg, Die
antiken Synagogen in Israel, 1:195.

93 Clermont-Ganneau (‘Découverte’, 193, 196) does not provide references, but presumably
was thinking of the Vettienus who helped Cicero purchase a lodge (Atticus 196.3 [49 BCE]) and
to whom Cicero owed money (Atticus 202.5 [49 BCE]; cf. 205.2 [49 BCE); 207.4 [49 BCE]; 239.2
[45 BCE] 397.1 [44 BCE] 416.3 [44 BCE] 417.1 [44 BCE]). Vettienus is said to be ut monetalis
‘like a mint-master’ (417.1 [44 BCE]). Clermont-Ganneau (ibid., 197) took this as an indication
that Vettienus was Jewish: ‘Ce Vettienus exerçait un métier qui répond assez bien aux aptitudes
caractéristiques de la race juive’. Reinach (‘L’inscription’, 53–54) commented: ‘Si cet n’est là une
simple boutade, c’est un grave anachronisme, qu’on s’étonne de recontrer dans la bouche d’un
érudit éminent’.
94 I.e., C(aius) Vettienus C(aii) f(ilius) Theodotos. In this form, both the servile origins of
Theodotos’ biological father and his cognomen are hidden. The latter would have been men-
tioned only his father had been particularly distinguished.
95 Lucius Vettenus M[–]: AE 1966, 61 (Rome; beginning of I CE); L. Vettenus L. l. An-
teros: CIL VI 9137 =ILS 7684 (Rome); C. Vettenus C. l. Aphrodisius, with four other Vetteni:
CIL IX 4157 (Samnium [Italy]); C. Vettenus Dionysius, and Vettena Zmyrna (presumably freed-
men/women): CIL X 3094; C. Vettenus Timotheus: CIL X 3095; P. Vettenus Atilianus: CIL IX
6083.166.
principates of Trajan96 and Hadrian97 and in several undated inscriptions.98

Hence, there is little purchase for an identification of Ο.ττηνο with a specific
member of the Vett(i)eni, still less with the Vett(i)eni of a particular century.
If, as I have argued, neither Theodotos nor his father was a freedman, we
might ask how his father came to have a Latin name. There is evidence from
Egypt, Cyrenaica, and Rome of fathers who bore Hebrew or Greek names
giving their children Latin names (as Vettenus’ father presumably did), and
fathers with Latin names giving their children Greek names (as Theodotos’
father did).99 The giving of a Latin name which in Italy would have been
a nomen gentilicium is imaginable if Vettenus’ father had some reason to be
grateful to one of the Vetteni (presumably active in Palestine). An analogous
suggestion might be made apropos of Cornelius, the father of one of the
donors (Karnedas) to the synagogue at Benghazi (CJZC 72). Hence, there
is no compelling reason to suppose that either Theodotus or Vettenus had
servile origins and therefore no special reason to connect the synagogue of
CIJ II 1404 with the 7 συναγωγ 7 λεγμενη Λιβερτ1νων κα Κυρηνα1ων κα
=λεξανδρ.ων of Acts 6:9. And although we might suspect that Vettenus’ fa-
ther had some connection with a Vett(i)enus, the name is attested from the
first century BCE to the second century CE and, hence, is no real help in
dating the inscription.
3. Palaeography
The dating of undated inscriptions by script type is far from an exact sci-
ence. Ideally, good palaeographical dating requires a dossier of comparative
materials which (a) are securely dated by internal means—normally, by ref-
erence to regnal years of kings or emperors or city dates—, (b) which come
from the same site and (c) include several examples of the same category of
text, and which (d) show a continuous development of script types. Such a
dossier exists for Attica and Steven Tracy has even been able to identify the
hands of individual Attic cutters and thus (re-)date some undated stones to
the period of activity of these cutters.100
96 C. Vettienus Modestus: AE 1984, 15 (Rome; I CE); ILS 9054 [=CIL XVI 46] (Pannonia
Superior; 100 CE); AE 1980, 992 (Mauretania [Lixus]; 100–107 CE); ILS 2001 (Deva [Britain];
103 CE): AE 1990, 798 (Pannonia Superior [Carnuntum]; 103–107 CE); ILS 2002 (Germania;
107 CE); CIL V 4091.
97 C. Vettienus Hermes: CIL X 7855; AE 1967, 395 (Tibiscum [Dacia] 126 CE); AE 1974, 569
[=AE 1965, 131] (Aquae Calidae [Moesia Inferior] 121 CE); AE 1994, 1519 (Moesia Inferior; 133
CE); AE 1968, 407 (Abisina [Raetia] 135 CE).
98 C. Vettienus C. l. Metro[—]: CIL XII 5226 (Narbonensis; n.d.) (along with a son and an-
other freedman of C. Vettienus); C. Vettienus C. f. Pupin[–]: ILS 2351 (Colonia Agrippinensis

[Germania Inferior], n.d.); C. Vettienus Placidus: CIL VI 28656; C. Vettienus C.l. Nedymus: AE
1990, 341 (Etruria [Italy]; n.d.), with his wife, Vettiena Libas.
99 Hebrew/Greek (father) Latin (son/daughter): IJudEg 148 [=CIJ II 928]; 151; CIJ II 929;
1011; CJZC 7a; 11; 13a; 45c; 51c; 57b; 58f; 59c; 68; IJudEu I 35; 48; 68; 69; 76; 85; 90; 103; 107;
118; 183; Latin (father) Greek (son/daughter): CJZC 33d; 53c; 57g; 57h; 67e, f; 70; 72; IJudEu
28; 62; 120; 134.
100 S. V. Tracy, ‘Identifying Epigraphical Hands’, GRBS 11 (1970) 321–33; idem, ‘Identifying
Epigraphical Hands, II’, GRBS 14 (1973) 189–95; idem, ‘The Date of the Grain Decree from
Samos’, Chiron 20 (1990) 97–100; idem, Attic Letter-Cutters of 229 to 86 B.C., Hellenistic Culture
For other locations, more limited dossiers are available. C. Bradford Welles
analysed the inscriptions from Gerasa, identifying four early alphabets (and
three Byzantine alphabets), and observing some development of the scripts.101
At other sites, however, it has proved more difficult to show a continuous de-
velopment of scripts and thus to produce a template against which to com-
pare undated inscriptions. At Aphrodisias, for example, while the scripts of
contemporaneous public inscriptions are mainly homogeneous, private in-
scriptions are much more variable, sometimes anticipating features that en-
tered the ‘public’ scripts only later.102 Moreover, for the late Roman period,
Roueché notes that private inscriptions honouring the same individual often
exhibit differing epigraphic styles, thus making it difficult to speak of a ‘de-
velopment’ of script types.103 Sartre made similar observations apropos of the
inscriptions of Bostra (Syria) from the time of Roman occupation (117–120
CE) to Justinian. Developments in the form of certain letters could be ob-
served, but several scripts co-existed at any given time, their use dependent
upon the tastes of individual cutters.104
It is important to observe several cautions when dating undated inscrip-
tions. First, it is a precarious procedure to extrapolate from the local scripts
of, say, Athens, to other parts of the classical world, since regional differences
abound. Second, it is not possible to rule out either traditionalism, deliberate
archaizing, or innovation on the part of the cutter. Larfeld observes that the
entire imperial period is characterized by both variety and inconsistency of
scripts.105 Third, the studies of Roueché and Sartre have drawn attention to
the co-existence of several scripts.106 Finally, the scripts of public documents
are likely to display a more consistent and homogeneous style than those of
private documents, where a greater range of scripts is possible.
and Society 6 (Berkeley, 1990); idem, Athenian Democracy in Transition: Attic Letter-Cutters of
340 to 290 B.C., Hellenistic Culture and Society 20 (Berkeley, 1995). Tracy’s method applied only
to letters ranging from ca. .005 m to ca. .01 m in height.
101 C. B. Welles, ‘Inscriptions,’ in Gerasa: City of the Decapolis, ed. C. H. Kraeling (New Haven,
1938) 355–69. Welles identified four early alphabets: (1) square (appearing in Syria in the I BCE
and in Gerasa from 22/23 CE, and continuing until ca. 150 CE); (2) monumental (from the first
century to Caracalla); (3) the rounded alphabet, with three subforms: (3a) round (third quarter
of the I CE to the late III CE); (3b) tall-narrow (second quarter of the II CE to the second
quarter of the III CE); (3c) oval (second quarter of the II CE to the second quarter of the III
CE); and (4) the revised square (late II CE to III CE). Welles argued that the large number of
dated inscriptions from Gerasa made it possible to date Gerasene Greek hands within ‘a period
of a half-century or closer’ (358).
102 See C. Roueché, Aphrodisias in Late Antiquity, Journal of Roman Studies Monographs 5
(London, 1989) xxi–xxii; J. M. Reynolds and R. Tannenbaum, Jews and God-fearers at Aphro-
disias: Greek Inscriptions with Commentary, Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society,
Supplementary series 12 (Cambridge, 1987) 3–5. For the public script of Aphrodisias, see J. M.
Reynolds, Aphrodisias and Rome: Documents from the Excavation of the Theatre at Aphrodisias,
Journal of Roman Studies Monographs 1 (London, 1982) 33.
103 Roueché, Aphrodisias in Late Antiquity, 331–32.
104 Sartre, IGLSyria XIII/1, pp. 31–32.
105 W. Larfeld, Handbuch der griechischen Epigraphik, 2 vols (Leipzig, 1902–1907) 2:484.
106 In first-century CE Palestine it is possible to see the use of the lunate epsilon and sigma
and other cursive forms (alpha, delta, lambda, omega) in the texts scratched on ossuaries, even
though incised texts of an offical or semi-offical nature still employ classical letter forms. See, for
example, nn. 128, 133 and 143.
The initial epigraphical analysis of the Theodotos inscription (hereafter Θ)

was very limited, though widely assumed to be decisive. Clermont-Ganneau
dated the inscription to the Herodian period on the basis of similarities with
the balustrade inscription of the Herodian Temple (Plate 2 = CIJ II 1400,
hereafter Η1).107 He noted only two features: (a) in both inscriptions, the
outer strokes of the mu and sigma diverge slightly; and (b) the bar on the
epsilon does not touch the vertical. These observations sufficed for Clermont-
Ganneau to establish a date in the Herodian period or shortly thereafter.108
Reinach concurred with this dating, adding only that both inscriptions exhib-
ited a broken-bar alpha.109
Vincent’s analysis by contrast was careful and extensive, noting many dif-
ferences between Η1 and Θ. Most obvious was the fact that while the letters
of Η1 are regular and well spaced, the letter height and width of Θ vary: the
first three lines are regular and evenly spaced; the letters of ll. 4–8 are visi-
bly smaller; l. 9 has slightly larger letters, and the final line begins small, but
the final letters (ΚΑΙΣΙΜΩΝΙΔΗΣ) gradually increase in size. It would ap-
pear that the cutter of Θ feared he would run out of space after the third line,
and so compressed the letters of ll. 4–8. Only in ll. 9–10 did he realize that
he had sufficient room for the whole inscription and expanded the final line
significantly.
Vincent’s comparison of Η1 with Θ was designed to underscore the signifi-
cant differences in lettering, thereby allowing for a different (and later) dating
of Θ. The most important observations are:110
Alpha: in Η1 the form (a broken-bar alpha) is constant, with the bar

always higher than the midpoint of the hastae. In Θ the letter is some-
times wide, sometimes smaller than the neighbouring letters (ll. 6, 8)
and the bar deeply broken and always low.
Epsilon: in Η1 the bar is joined to vertical; in Θ the bar is detached
(except in l. 8, bis).
Eta: in Η1 the letter is usually narrow with parallel and equal hastae; in
Θ the letter is almost always wide, with unequal hastae.111
107 The inscription, mentioned by Josephus (Ant. 15.417), was found and published by C.
Clermont-Ganneau, ‘Une stèle du temple de Jérusalem’ RA nouvelle série 23 (1872) 214–234,

290–296 + Pl. X (=CIJ II 1400 + photo). A second fragmentary inscription was discovered in
1935 in secondary usage and published by J. H. Iliffe, ‘The ΘΑΝΑΤΟΣ Inscription from Herod’s
Temple: Fragment of a Second Copy’, Quarterly of the Department of Antiquities in Palestine,
6(1) (1936) 1–3 + 2 plates (cf. SEG VIII [1937] 169).
108 Clermont-Ganneau, ‘Découverte’, 192–93. Commenting on a second century Bithynian
inscription (=SEG II [1924] 663), Holleaux pointed out that there the medial bar was always
attached to the vertical (M. Holleaux, ‘Inscription trouée à Brousse’, BCH 48 (1924) 1–57, esp.
6). He added that the form of the epsilon in CIJ II 1404 ‘suffices to show that it is impossible
to bring this inscription down, as someone [i.e., Vincent] rashly tried, to the second century CE,
and that it is hardly later than the beginning of the first century’ (6 n. 2).
109 Reinach, ‘L’inscription’, 52.
110 Vincent, ‘Découverte’, 263–65. I have added line numbers to Vincent’s comments and made
some observations more precise.
111 Vincent, ‘Découverte’, 264 also states that the eta in Η1 is barred in the middle (ll. 1, 4, 5)
dating theodotos
Plate 2. Temple Balustrade Inscription, CIJ II 1400

267
Photographic reproduction: S. J. Kloppenborg

Kappa: the only instance in Η1 (l.3) has very open diagonal strokes
touching the vertical and aligned exactly with the base line and top line.
The κ in Θ has irregular diagonals that do not always reach the lines (ll.
5); they are attached high to the vertical (l. 3) or low (9, 10). In l. 6 the
branches are disjointed.
Mu: Vincent points out (against Clermont-Ganneau) that the sole μ in
Η1 has completely vertical hastae; Θ has the (archaizing) splayed outer
strokes in ll. 5, 6, 7, 8, and 10; but the strokes are almost vertical in l. 4.
Xi: the sole instance in Η1 (l. 6) has two equal bars, top and bottom,
while in the two occurrences in Θ (ll. 6, 8) the lower bar is shorter.
Omicron: the letter in Η1 is perfectly circular; in Θ there are some de-
formations (ll. 1, 6).
Rho: in Η1 the upper stroke of the loop is attached to the vertical at an
angle and the loop is rounded; in Θ the loop is small and attached high
on the vertical.
Sigma: Clermont-Ganneau made much of the archaizing sigma in both
inscriptions; but in Η1 the letter is generally rectangular, with the lower
horizontal declining only slightly (ll. 1, 4, 5; straight in ll. 2 [bis]). The
decline is much more obvious in lines 1 and 2 of Θ but as Vincent rightly
states, ‘I do not see that [Cleremont-Ganneau’s observation] is justified
in any of the other cases where the letter appears’.112
Omega: in Η1 the letter is very open (l. 5), with its branches ending in a
slight curve; a distant resemblance is found in Θ (l. 6) but elsewhere the
terminal strokes are either horizontal (ll. 2, 3, 6, 7, 10) or slightly diag-
onal (upwards) (l. 4) and in one case, the horizontal completely closes
the letter at the bottom (l. 7).
Vincent was rightly critical of Clermont-Ganneau’s limited comparison

and suggested three other comparisons. IG XII/5 739 (Andros; time of Au-
gustus)113 compared favourably to Η1 but not to Θ. Better analogies to Θ,
Vincent suggested, were offered by FD III/II 106 (Delphi; 129 CE)114 and
IMagMai 171 (Magnesia ad Maeander; 104 CE),115 both dating from several
decades after 70 CE. An examination of both FD III/II 106116 and IMagMai
while the bar is high in Θ. But while the bar is high in l. 1, it is in the middle in ll. 4, 6, 7, 8 (bis),
10.
112 Ibid., 265.
113 Incorrectly cited as CIG XII V1 739.
114 FD III/II 106 (pp. 114–15 + Plate IX:2). Vincent cited this incorrectly as FD III III 106.
115 IMagMai 171 (p. 126 + Plate 171).
116 FD III/II 106 has a broken-bar alpha with the bar sometimes high (l. 2), sometimes medial
(l. 2, 3, 4), and occasionally low on the hastae (l. 3). Unlike Θ, the medial stroke of the epsilon is
attached to the vertical (ll. 1, 3, 5). Like Θ the loop of the rho is small and attached high. Quite
unlike Θ, the right hastae of the delta and lambda are elongated, extending past the left hastae
(a shift towards cursive letters). And the sigma of FD III/II 106 is neither the archaizing splayed
form nor the rectangular form of Η1 but square, like an epsilon without the medial stroke.
171,117 however, shows as many divergences from the hand of Θ as it does

similarities.
Rather than drawing on Delphic and Carian inscriptions, a more appro-
priate set of comparative materials for Θ is provided by dated Greek inscrip-
tions from Roman Palestine. This is unfortunately a rather small corpus; there
are only a handful of Greek inscriptions from Herodian and early Roman
Jerusalem—probably the result of Titus’ assault on the city. Fewer still bear
dates. In the period following 70 CE there are many Latin inscriptions (many
coming from the legionary camp established there). Greek inscription reap-
pear only much later. There are, however, a few Greek inscriptions from Hero-
dian Jerusalem and more from other parts of Roman Palestine and southern
Syria that may be used for comparative purposes.
Herodian Cutters and CIJ II 1404

The second copy of the Herodian balustrade inscription (hereafter, Η2)118
provides a remarkable opportunity to see the variability in cutters’ styles in
the same period (Plate 3). Unlike the cutter of Η1, whose letters are even
and regular, the cutter of Η2 crowded the first two lines both vertically and
horizontally, apparently fearing that he would run out of space for the entire
inscription. The first editor, Iliffe, took this to be a sign of the cutter’s inex-
perience. A similar conclusion might follow from the inconsistency of letters:
the bar of the alpha in l. 1 is straight, but those in ll. 3, 4, 5, 6 are broken; and
the upsilon in l. 2 is almost V-shaped, while that in l. 4 has a tall vertical base.
The similarities with and divergences from Η1 are particularly noteworthy:
as in Η1, the upper and lower strokes on the sigma are parallel.119 Unlike Η1,
however, Η2’s bar on the epsilon (l. 1) does not touch the vertical and has
apices. The horizontal bar on the tau is very long (ll. 2, 3, 5, 6); and the ter-
minal strokes of most letters of Η2 have apices. In both the formation of the
epsilon and in the use of apices, Η2 is closer in style to Θ (though the apices
in Θ are more restrained). These observations confirm Iliffe’s suggestion that
the cutter of Η2 was not the same as that of Η1. At the same time they sug-
gest that many of the differences between Η1 and Θ, which Vincent took to
be indications that the two inscriptions are from different periods need not
be interpreted in this way. Instead, they indicate that the two could be from
different cutters.
A third Herodian-period inscription (Plate 4 = SEG XXXIII 1277) discov-
117 IMagMai 171 shares with Θ an alpha with a deeply broken bar but other letters exhibit
differences: the medial stroke of the epsilon always joins the vertical; while the delta of Θ is tri-
angular, in IMagMai 171 the two hastae cross at the top and then curve slightly downward; the
middle bar on the theta has apices (serifs) and does not touch the circle; both the mu and the
sigma are rectangular, with no hints of splayed outer strokes; and the rho, while rounded, has a
much larger loop than Θ and the vertical descends below the base line. Moreover, in IMagMai
171 ligatures—rarely attested before the II CE—make their appearance (H–M, H–K) and the
terminal strokes of many letters have apices.
118 See above, n. 107.
119 Iliffe’s facsimile (‘ΘΑΝΑΤΟΣ ’, 2) indicates a square sigma (l. 2) a square sigma but the
photograph shows a medial stroke and damaged left side.
Plate 3. Temple Balustrade Inscription, SEG VIII 169

Photographic reproduction: S. J. Kloppenborg
ered in Benjamin Mazar’s excavations south of the Temple Mount confirms

this point.120 The inscription is securely dated to 18/17 BCE and records the
donation by a Rhodian Jew, Paris son of Akeson, for paving the Temple com-
plex. The cutter’s hand resembles in some respects that of Η1: the letters are
evenly spaced; there are few apices; the bar on the epsilon (ll. 1, 2) touches
the vertical; and the outer strokes of the mu are completely vertical (l. 5). On
the other hand, the bar on the alpha is broken and begins at or below the
midpoint of the hastae (ll. 1, 2, 5); the kappa has irregular diagonals that do
not reach the base or top lines (ll. 1, 2); the loop on the rho is small and at-
tached high on the vertical (ll. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5); and the omega has terminal strokes
resembling Θ but is smaller than surrounding letters (ll. 1, 2, 3, 4).
Because it is securely dated to the same period as Η1 and Η2, SEG XXXIII
1277 illustrates the variability in lettering styles in contemporary public doc-
uments. The variations among Η1 and Η2 and SEG XXXIII 1277 are due to
the tastes of individual cutters, all presumably employed at public expense in
the building of the Temple. Such variations are not indicative of the lettering
styles of diverse eras. Θ, a private dedication and therefore probably not the
product of the shops that produced the three public inscriptions,121 nonethe-
less shows affinities with Η1, Η2 and SEG XXXIII 1277. Thus, most of the
differences between Η1 and Θ that Vincent adduced are not probative for es-
tablishing that Θ was cut a half-century after Η1.122 Although it is impossible
to identify the cutter of the Theodotos inscription with any of the Herodian
Temple cutters, the style of lettering falls within the range illustrated by these
three public documents.
Inscriptions from early to late Roman Palestine and Syria

Other documents from Hellenistic and Roman Palestine and southern Syria
help to set some general parameters for dating the Theodotos inscription.
Examination of these dated and datable inscriptions suggest both that the
lettering of CIJ II 1404 is thoroughly consistent with that of first-century CE
inscriptions from the Levant and that it lacks the transformations that are
characteristic of inscriptions of the second century and later.
120 B. Isaac, ‘A Donation for Herod’s Temple in Jerusalem’, IEJ 33 (1983) 86–92 + photograph
(SEG XXXIII 1277); repr. The Near East Under Roman Rule: Selected Papers, Mnemosyne Sup-
plements 177 (Leiden, 1998) 21–28 (+ photograph).
121 Tracy (Attic Letter-Cutters, 223–36) provides a helpful glimpse of cutters’ activities in
Athens between 230 BCE and 90 BCE. He has identified 38 individual cutters, each respon-
sible for between two and eighty-three inscriptions. There are, in addition, a large number of
inscriptions (64) which represent the work on individual cutters who cannot be identified with
any other. He estimates that at any given time, between fifteen and twenty cutters were able to
produce long decrees between 200 and 160 BCE, and twice that many between 140 and 100 BCE.
Some cutters travelled to the Piraeus, Eleusis and even Sounion, but there were probably also
local cutters at the Piraeus and Rhamnous.
122 Reynolds (per litt. 31.12.99) noted that while the cutter of Η1 probably laid the inscription
out with a ruler or a compass, the cutter of Θ seems to have designed letters freehand, and if he
ruled the lines, he did so as he got to each one. She suggests that ‘[the cutter of Θ] was a good deal
less competent than the cutter of the Balustrade text—and it is his weaknesses that have misled
some into thinking him rather late.’
272
Plate 4. Donation to Herod’s Temple, SEG XXXIII 1277

journal of jewish studies
Photograph of a squeeze by Benjamin Isaac

Alpha: The broken-bar alpha with apices is found in Levantine inscrip-

tions from the late Hellenistic period, through the first century and well
beyond.123 In the second and following centuries, however, two devel-
opments are common: first, the elongation of the right hasta,124 and
second, the (re)appearance of the straight medial stroke,125 or even a
diagonal, descending right to left.126
Delta (and lambda): The classical forms of the delta (a triangle) and the
lambda (an inverted V) are dominant in the first and second centuries
CE but also occur later.127 In the mid-second century, a development
parallel to that seen in the alpha occurs: under the influence of cursive
forms in non-monumental lettering, the right hasta is elongated.128
123 SEG XX 467 (Jaffa; 217 BCE); SEG XLI 1556 (Jamnia; 163 BCE); SEG XIX 904 (Ptole-
mais; 130/29 BCE); SEG VIII 13 (Nazareth; time of Augustus); GerasaCBW 49 (67/68 CE);
GerasaPLG 1 (75/76 CE); GerasaCBW 51 (81–83 CE); GerasaCBW 52 (81–96 CE); GerasaCBW
29 (98 CE); GerasaCBW 141 (102–114); GerasaCBW 56/57 (115 CE); SEG XXXIX 1624
(Gadara; 139–151 CE); JebelBlât A, B, C (all 148/149 CE); IGLSyria 21/2 17 (150 CE);
GerasaCBW 11 (163 CE); GerasaPLG 4 (177–180 CE). The broken-bar alpha first appears in
Attic inscriptions late III BCE and supplants the earlier A form in the mid-II BCE (Larfeld,
Handbuch 2:472, 478). Apices are attested already in the I BCE (IG II2 1339 [57/56 BCE]; IG II2
1046 [52/51 BCE]; IG II2 1343 [37/36 BCE]).
124 SEG XX 494 (Madaba; 108/9 CE); SEG XLV (1995) 1947 (Dor; 102–117 CE); GerasaCBW
144 (130 CE); GerasaCBW 21 (150 CE); SEG VIII 91 (Bêt Rāš [Capitolias]; 180–192 CE);
GerasaCBW 170 (210–212 CE); IEJ 38 (1988) 177–180 (161–305 CE). In Attic inscriptions, this
is attested first about 20 BCE and becomes more common in the period after 50–120 CE: IG II2
1099 (121 CE); IG II2 3733 (126/27 CE); IG II2 3764 (217/18 CE); IG II2 2245 (262/63 CE).
125 Already in SEG XXIX 1613 (Hefzibah; 199–195 BCE). See also SEG VIII 84 (Kh. Bene
Malek; 73/74 CE); SEG XVIII 1048 (Caesarea Maritima; after 71 CE); GerasaCBW 58 (130 CE);
SEG XX 456 (Scythopolis; 139/40 CE); GerasaCBW 11 (163 CE); CIJ II 891 (Apollonias; 176
CE): GerasaCBW 155 (212–217 CE). According to Larfeld (Handbuch, 2:483–490) now some-
what dated treatment, in Attic inscriptions the straight bar form, largely eclipsed by the broken
bar in the mid-II BCE, reappears in the period after 50 CE and begins to dominate after Hadrian:
e.g., IG II2 1099 (121 CE); IG II2 3764 (217/18 CE).
126 Already seen in SEG XXXI 1266 (Dora; after 70 CE), in a square script resembling the
square script of Gadara. See also Y. Tsafrir, ‘ïàÖúéáá ñåéàå÷à ñåàæ ïçìåô ìò úôñåð úåãò’,
Eretz Israel 19 (1987) 282–83 (+ photo); idem, ‘Further Evidence of the Cult of Zeus Akraios
at Beth Shean (Scythopolis)’, IEJ 39 (1989) 76–78 + Plate 10. The photograph published in
IEJ is too small to read. The inscription appears to come from the mid II CE, related to other
dedications to Zeus Akraios dated 139/40 (=year 203 of the city, founded in 64 BCE); see B.
Lifshitz, ‘Der Kult des Zeus Akraios und des Zeus Bakchos in Beisan (Scythopolis)’, ZDPV 77
(1961) 186–90 + Pl. 8 (=SEG XX 456) (who mistakenly dated the inscription to 159 CE).
127 SEG XIX 904 (Ptolemais; 130/29 BCE); SEG VIII 13 (Nazareth; time of Augustus); SEG
VIII 84 (Kh. Bene Malek; 73/74 CE); GerasaCBW 49 (67/68 CE); GerasaPLG 1 (75/76 CE);
GerasaCBW 181 (117 CE); SEG XXXIX 1624 (Gadara; 139–151 CE); JebelBlât A, B (148/149
CE); SEG XLII (1992) 1410 (Senaim [near Panias] 148/49 CE). Sartre (IGLSyria XIII/1, p. 32)
notes that the classical Δ is found at Bostra in the II CE (9005) III CE (9006, 9007), IV CE (9445)
and V CE (9046; 9119).
128 GerasaCBW 13 (mid II CE); GerasaCBW 150 (153/54); SEG VIII 91 (Bêt Rāš [Capito-
lias]; 180–192 CE); GerasaCBW 150 (193–211 CE); IEJ 38 (1988) 177–180 (161–305 CE). Sartre
(IGLSyria XIII/1, p. 32) notes that this is the only trait in the delta that is typical of Bostran in-
scriptions, found in the mid-III CE (9088) to the VI CE (9132). The elongation of the right hasta
of the delta and lambda is already seen, however, in first century ossuary texts: Hachlili, ‘Goliath
Family’ [n. 82], figs. 27, 35, 41. In Attic inscriptions the crossing of the two hastae is seen in the
early Imperial period (e.g., IG II2 1973; 40/1 CE–53/54 CE) and the elongation of the right hasta
appears at the same time (IG II2 1970; 45/46 CE), becoming common in the second century (e.g.,
Epsilon: The epsilon of the Hellenistic and early Roman periods takes
two basic forms: a rectangular letter with detached medial stroke, at-
tested in Η2 and Θ and common in Gerasene inscriptions to the time of
Trajan;129 and a rectangular form with attached medial stroke, attested
in the Hellenistic period,130 the Herodian period131 and supplanting the
detached forms in the second century.132 The more significant develop-
ment is the introduction of the lunate epsilon, seen at Dora and Gerasa
in the fourth quarter of the first century CE, becoming common in the
second, and dominant in Syria after the third century CE.133
Mu: The older form, with splayed outer strokes,134 continues in Pales-
tine and Syria until the second century CE135 but it existed alongside,
and was supplanted by a form with parallel verticals.136 A shift towards
IG II2 1996 [84/85–92/93 CE]; 1099 [121 CE]; 3733 [126/27 CE]; 3316 [132 CE]; 1368 [177 CE]).
129 SEG XIX 904 (Ptolemais; 130/29 BCE); GerasaPLG 1 (75/76 CE); GerasaCBW 49
[67/68 CE]; GerasaCBW 51 [81–83 CE]; GerasaCBW 52 [83–96 CE]; GerasaCBW 29 [98 CE];
GerasaCBW 141 [102–114 CE]; GerasaCBW 119 [115/16 CE]; GerasaCBW 10 [time of Trajan].
The latest attestation is GerasaCBW 132 [212–217 CE].
130 SEG XX 467 (Jaffa; 217 BCE); SEG XXIX 1613 (Hefzibah; 199–195 BCE); SEG XLI 1556
(Jamnia; 163 BCE).

131 Η1; SEG XXXIII 1277; SEG VIII 13 (Nazareth; time of Augustus).
132 SEG XVIII 1048 (Caesarea Maritima; after 71 CE); IGLSyria XXI/2 17 (150 CE);
GerasaCBW 120 [115/16 CE]; GerasaCBW 58 [130 CE]; SEG XXXIX 1624 (Gadara; 139–151
CE); GerasaCBW 11 [163 CE, alongside a lunate form]; GerasaPLG 4 (177–180 CE). A rectan-
gular form without a medial stroke occurs at JebelBlât A, B (148/149 CE), perhaps the cutter’s
mistake.
133 SEG XXXI 1266 (Dora; after 70 CE); SEG VIII 84 (Kh. Bene Malek; 73/74 CE);
GerasaCBW 117 [73/74 CE]; SEG XX 494 (Madaba; 108/9 CE); GerasaPLG 2 (ca 130/31 CE);
SEG XX 456 (Scythopolis; 139/40 CE); JebelBlât C (148/149 CE); SEG XLII (1992) 1410
(Senaim [near Panias] 148/49 CE); EI 19 (1987) 283–283 (mid II CE); GerasaCBW 63 [150 CE];
GerasaCBW 65 [162–66 CE]; GerasaCBW 11 [163 CE, alongside rectangular forms]; SEG XLII
(1992) 1409 (Senaim [near Panias] 163/64 CE); CIJ II 891 (Apollonias; 176 CE); SEG VIII 91
(Bêt Rāš [Capitolias]; 180–192 CE); IEJ 38 (1988) 177–180 (161–305 CE); GerasaCBW 148 [193
CE]. The epsilon is always lunate in the inscriptions of Bostra (IGLSyria XIII/1; III CE—VI CE).
The lunate forms are attested in Attic inscriptions as early as the IV cent. BCE and increase in
frequency in the early Imperial period (Larfeld, Handbuch, 2:484). They become common in the
second and third centuries CE, e.g., IG II2 1368 (177 CE; the Iobacchoi inscription). First cen-
tury ossuary inscription attest the lunate form: Hachlili, ‘Goliath Family’ [n. 82], figs. 7–8, 27, 30,
31, 34–35, 39, 41–42.
134 The splayed form appears alongside quadratic forms in Attic inscriptions starting in the
period 225–150 BCE (Larfeld, Handbuch, 2:472) and continuing into the early Imperial period;
see, e.g., IG II2 1029 (95/4 or 94/3 BCE); IG II2 1339 (57/6 BCE); IG II2 1715 (14/3 BCE); IG II2
2292 (36/7 CE); IG II2 45/6 CE).
135 SEG XX 467 (Jaffa; 217 BCE); SEG XXIX 1613 (Hefzibah; 199–195 BCE); SEG VIII
13 (Nazareth; time of Augustus) (some mus); GerasaCBW 141 (102–114 CE); JebelBlât A, B
(148/149 CE); GerasaPLG 4 (177–180 CE).
136 SEG XLI 1556 (Jamnia; 163 BCE); SEG VIII 13 (Nazareth; time of Augustus) (some mus);
GerasaCBW 49 (67/8 CE); SEG XXXI 1266 (Dora; after 70 CE); SEG XVIII 1048 (Caesarea
Maritima; after 71 CE); GerasaPLG 1 (75/76 CE); GerasaCBW 51 (81–83 CE); GerasaCBW
52 (83–96 CE); GerasaCBW 29 (98 CE); GerasaCBW 120 (115/6 CE); GerasaCBW 58 (130 CE);
SEG XXXIX 1624 (Gadara; 139–151 CE); GerasaPLG 3 (early III CE). Sartre (IGLSyria XIII/1,
p. 33) notes that the mu with splayed outer strokes is attested in the II CE (IGLSyria XIII/1 9049),
but beginning with the III CE, the outer strokes are more usually vertical (IGLSyria XIII/1 9054,
9055).
rounded, cursive forms is also seen in the mu: a rounded medial stroke
is seen in the second century CE,137 a development that is seen in Syr-
ian inscriptions in the third century CE, eventually resulting in a cursive
mu.138
Sigma: In the late Hellenistic and early Imperial periods, the sigma is
often encountered with the splayed outer strokes,139 although in both
Θ and Η1 it is only the lower stroke that descends slightly.140 Other
inscriptions from the third century BCE to the second century CE attest
a quadrilateral form with parallel final strokes.141 From the first century
CE, however, one finds a square sigma (like an epsilon without a medial
stroke)142 and in the second and following centuries, the lunate form
comes to dominate.143 Sartre notes that the sigma at Bostra is always
lunate.144
Omega: The omega is generally in its classical form (Ω) in the inscrip-
tions of Palestine and Syria up to the mid-second century CE, at which
point the square and rounded cursive forms appear.145 This corresponds
137 SEG XX 494 (Madaba; 108/9 CE); SEG XLII (1992) 1410 (Senaim [near Panias] 148/9 CE):
with splayed outer strokes and rounded medial; SEG VIII 91 (Bêt Rāš [Capitolias]; 180–192 CE):
a fully cursive form.
138 Sartre, IGLSyria XIII/1, p. 33: the medial bar begins to appear round ca. 210–220 CE,
(IGLSyria XIII/1 9007 [217/8]); then curved vertical and inner strokes (IGLSyria XIII/1 9108
[278/9 CE]); then cursive mu in the IV CE (IGLSyria XIII/1 9111 [320 CE]).
139 According to Larfeld (Handbuch, 2:481) this form of the sigma makes it appearance in Attic
inscriptions ca. 90 BCE.
140 A similar form is seen in SEG XX 467.3 (Jaffa; 217 BCE) and SEG XLI 1556 (Jamnia; 163
BCE) and in Attic inscriptions, e.g., IG II2 1029 (95/4 or 94/3 BCE); IG II2 1339 (57/6 BCE).
141 SEG XX 467.2, 5 (Jaffa; 217 BCE); SEG XXIX 1613 (Hefzibah; 199–195 BCE); SEG
XIX 904 (Ptolemais; 130/29 BCE); SEG VIII 13 (Nazareth; time of Augustus); GerasaCBW
49 (67/68 CE); SEG XVIII 1048 (Caesarea Maritima; after 71 CE); GerasaCBW 51 (81–83
CE); GerasaCBW 52 (83–96 CE); GerasaCBW 29 (98 CE); GerasaCBW 141 (102–114 CE);
GerasaCBW 119 (115/16 CE); GerasaCBW 181 (117 CE); GerasaCBW 10 (Trajan); SEG XXXIX
1624 (Gadara; 139–151 CE); JebelBlât A, B (148/149 CE); IGLSyria XXI/2 17 (150 CE); Gerasa-
PLG 4 (177–180 CE); GerasaPLG 3 (early III CE).
142 GerasaPLG 1 (75/76 CE); SEG XLV (1995) 1947 (Dor; 102–117 CE).
143 Already in the first century in SEG XXXI 1266 (Dora; after 70 CE) and SEG VIII 84 (Kh.
Bene Malek; 73/74 CE). Again, lunate forms are attested on ossuary texts in the first century,
e.g., Hachlili, ‘Goliath Family’ [n. 82], figs. 8–10, 12, 27, 31, 34–35, 39, 41. In the second: SEG
XX 494 (Madaba; 108/9 CE); SEG XX 456 (Scythopolis; 139/40 CE); JebelBlât C (148/149 CE);
EI 19 (1987) 283–283 (mid II CE); SEG XLII (1992) 1409 (Senaim [near Panias] 163/64 CE);
CIJ II 891 (Apollonias; 176 CE); SEG VIII 91 (Bêt Rāš [Capitolias]; 180–192 CE); IEJ 38 (1988)
177–180 (161–305 CE).
144 Sartre, IGLSyria XIII/1, p. 33.
145 Classical: SEG XX 467 (Jaffa; 217 BCE); SEG XXIX 1613 (Hefzibah; 199–195 BCE); SEG
XLI 1556 (Jamnia; 163 BCE); SEG XIX 904 (Ptolemais; 130/29 BCE); SEG VIII 13 (Nazareth;
time of Augustus); GerasaCBW 49 (67/8 CE); SEG XVIII 1048 (Caesarea Maritima; after 71 CE)
(closed at the bottom); GerasaCBW 81 (81–83 CE); GerasaCBW 52 (83–96 CE); GerasaCBW 29
(98 CE); GerasaCBW 119 (115/6 CE); GerasaCBW 120 (115/6 CE); GerasaCBW 10 (Trajan);
SEG XXXIX 1624 (Gadara; 139–151 CE); GerasaCBW 12 (ca. 163 CE). Square cursive: SEG
XXXI 1266 (Dora; after 70 CE); GerasaPLG 1 (75/76 CE); JebelBlât B (148/149 CE). Cursive:
SEG XX 494 (Madaba; 108/9 CE); GerasaCBW 58 (130 CE); EI 19 (1987) 283–283 (mid II CE);
GerasaCBW 11 (163 CE, alongside the classical form); SEG XLII (1992) 1409 (Senaim [near
Panias] 163/64 CE); GerasaCBW 155 (212–217 CE); IEJ 38 (1988) 177–180 (161–305 CE).
generally to the trend in Attic inscriptions, where the cursive forms, at-
tested in the first century (IG II2 3264 [37 CE]), become more common
in monumental inscriptions in the second (e.g., IG II2 1368).146 This
transition is, again, probably the result of popular letter-forms on the
cutters of inscriptions. Sartre comments that in Bostra, the classical
omega is found only in the second century CE (the earliest of his in-
scriptions) where it appears alongside the lunate forms, which dominate
thereafter.147
In addition to the shifts in letter form, the second and third centuries also
attest the appearance of ligatures and monograms at Gadara, Gerasa and
Bostra.148
In situating the Theodotos inscription within this range of letter styles, it
is important to note again that shifts in lettering styles are not sufficiently
sharply defined to enable one to exclude a second century date or one even
later. The broken-bar alpha and non-lunate epsilon and sigma, for example,
are attested beyond the first century. Nevertheless, the above description of
lettering forms should make clear that the lettering style of CIJ II 1404 is
completely consistent with an early Imperial period date. Moreover, none of
the transformations that are regularly attested in the second and following
centuries is in evidence: the bar on the alpha is always broken, never straight;
the right hastae on the alpha, delta and lambda show no lengthening; the ep-
silon and sigma are quadrilateral rather than lunate; the mu and sigma have
splayed outer strokes rather than parallel strokes; still less do these letters
display any tendency toward cursive forms; the omega is classical; and no lig-
atures or monograms are to be seen. Hence, while it is still possible that the
lettering is from later than the first century CE—the result of traditionalism
or deliberate archaizing—, nothing requires such a dating, and all of the in-
dications are consistent with the Herodian period.
Conclusion
Kee’s argument against the early dating of CIJ II 1404 and in favour of a
second- to late-third century dating is based on several faculty premises and
a rather misleading presentation of the history of scholarship on the inscrip-
tion. An examination of the features of the inscription germane to its dat-
ing favours an early date. Although the names Theodotos, Vettenus, and Si-
monides provide no secure basis for dating, both the provenance of CIJ II
1404 and its palaeography point to a date in the Herodian or early Roman
periods (prior to 70 CE). Consideration of the stratigraphy of the site of dis-
covery virtually rules out a date later than 70 CE, and the palaeography of
146 See Larfeld, Handbuch, 2:487.
147 Sartre, IGLSyria XIII/1, p. 33.
148 SEG XXIX 1624 (Gadara; 139–151 CE) (an ο-υ monogram written as an Ο with a Υ in-
side) and an ω-ν monogram (with the nun inside the omega); Welles, ‘Inscriptions’, 360; Sartre,
IGLSyria XIII/1, 34. The ο-υ monogram appears for the first time at Bostra in 501/2 (IGLSyria
XIII/1 9124).
the inscription is both consistent with the Herodian to early Roman periods
and shows none of the palaeographical transformations characteristic of later
inscriptions from Roman Palestine and Syria.
CIJ II 1404 thus attests a synagogue building in Jerusalem, probably
constructed in the early first century CE. Theodotos’ family, besides being
priestly, was wealthy enough to undertake the building project and appar-
ently enjoyed a longstanding connection with the aristocracy in Jerusalem (ο
πρεσβ4τεροι: ll. 9/10), a Roman family, and an otherwise unknown Simonides.
The securing of the date of the inscription is important for two reasons:
first, it confirms that συναγωγ was used of buildings not only in Egypt and
Cyrenaica but also in early Roman Palestine. Second, Theodotos’s grandfa-
ther is also identified as an ρχισυν γωγο, which implies that he held this
position sometime in the first century BCE. Hence CIJ II 1404 provides the
earliest datable attestation for the term ρχισυν γωγο used in Jewish associa-
tions,149 perhaps half a century prior to other epigraphical and literary attes-
tations of the term and contemporary with our earliest pagan attestations of
that term.150
149 Aside from CIJ II 1404 and the mention of ρχισυν γωγο in the New Testament (Mark
5:22, 35, 36, 38; Luke 8:49; 13:14, 15; Acts 13:15, 42; 18:8, 17), the earliest attestions of the term
a propos of Jewish groups are MAMA VI 264.3, 4 (Akmonia; late I CE), IJudEur I 14.2 (Ostia;
I–II CE) and MAMA IV 90.1–2 (Synnada, Phrygia; I/II CE). Pagan ρχισυν γωγοι are attested
from the first century BCE: IFayum I 9.7 (Crocodilopolis-Arsinoe, Fayd̄m; 80/79–69/67 BCE);
IAlexandriaK 91.4 (Alexandria; 4/5 CE); E. Voutiras, ‘Berufs- und Kultverein: Ein ΔΟΥΜΟΣ in
Thessalonike’, ZPE 90 (1992) 87–96 (Thessalonica; 90/91 CE); and IGRR I 782.3–4 (Perinthus,
Thrace; I CE?). For recent discussions of the title, see T. Rajak and D. Noy, ‘Archisynagogoi:
Office, Title and Social Status in Greco-Jewish Synagogue’, JRS 83 (1993) 75–93 (who fail to
note both MAMA IV 90.1–2 and the Thessalonican inscription in their list of inscriptions); G.
H. R. Horsley, ‘An archisynagogos of Corinth?’ New Documents Illustrating Early Christianity: A
Review of the Greek Inscriptions and Papyri Published in 1979, NewDocs 4 (North Ryde, N.S.W.,
1987) 213–20; and L. I. Levine, ‘Synagogue Leadership: The Case of the Archisynagogue’, Jews
in a Graeco-Roman World, ed. M. Goodman (Oxford and New York, 1998) 195–213.
150 This paper was written while I was a visiting fellow at Clare Hall (Cambridge). I am in-
debted to Fellows of Clare Hall for electing me a fellow, to the Faculty of Classics and Tyndale
House for extending me library privileges, and to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research
Council of Canada for a travel grant. Joyce M. Reynolds and Eric Meyers graciously agreed to
read earlier drafts of the paper, providing many helpful comments and sparing me from various
errors and overstatements. Dan Bahat clarified some points on the excavations of the Ophel; Yael
Barschak of the Israel Antiquities Authority kindly supplied a photograph of the Rockefeller inv.
S 842; and Benjamin Isaac assisted me in locating a photograph of a squeeze of SEG XXXIII
1277.
Appendix 1: Abbreviations
AE: L’Année épigraphique (Paris, 1988–); CIJ: J.-B. Frey (ed.), Corpus inscriptionum
iudaicarum (2 vols; Roma, 1936–1952); CIL: Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum (Berlin,
1863–1974); CJZC: G. Lüderitz and J. M. Reynolds, Corpus jüdischer Zeugnisse aus
der Cyrenaika (Wiesbaden, 1983); CPJ: V. Tcherikover, A. Fuks and D. M. Lewis
(eds.), Corpus papyrorum Judaicarum, 3 vols (Cambridge, Mass., 1957–1964); DFSJ:
B. Lifshitz, Donateurs et fondateurs dans les synagogues juives (Paris, 1967); FD: T. Ho-
molle et. al (eds.), Fouilles de Delphes, 6 vols (Paris, 1902–1987); GerasaCBW: C. B.
Welles, ‘Inscriptions’, Gerasa: City of the Decapolis, ed. C. H. Kraeling (New Haven,
1938) 355–69; GerasaPLG: P.-L. Gatier, ‘Gouverneurs et Procurateurs à Gérasa’,
Syria 73 (1996) 47–56; IAlexandriaK: F. Kayser. Recueil des inscriptions grecques et
latines (non funéraires) d’Alexandrie impériale (Ier–IIIer s. apr. J.-C.) (Cairo, 1994);
IBeth She ` arim: M. Schwabe and B. Lifshitz, Beth She ` arim II: The Greek Inscrip-
tions (Brunswick, N.J., 1967); IDelta: A. Bernand, Le delta égyptien d’après les textes
grecs, 3 vols (Cairo, 1970–); IFayum: E. Bernand, Recueil des inscriptions grecques
du Fayoum, 3 vols (Leiden, 1975–1981); IG II2: J. Kirchner (ed.), Inscriptiones Atti-
cae Euclidis anno posteriores, Inscriptiones Graecae II–III; 4 vols (Berlin, 1913–1940);
IGLSyria XIII/1: M. Sartre, Inscriptions grecques et latines de la Syrie, tome XIII/1:
Bostra (Paris, 1982); IGLSyria XXI/2: P.-L. Gatier, Inscriptions grecques et latines
de la Syrie, tome XXI: Inscriptions de la Jordanie. 2: Région centrale (Paris, 1986);
IGRR: R. L. Cagnat, et al. (eds.), Inscriptiones Graecae ad Res Romanas Pertinentes, 4
vols (Paris, 1906–1927); IJudEg: W. Horbury and D. Noy (eds.), Jewish Inscriptions of
Graeco-Roman Egypt (Cambridge, 1992); IJudEu: D. Noy (ed.), Jewish Inscriptions of
Western Europe, 2 vols (Cambridge, 1993–95); IMagMai: O. Kern, Die Inschriften von
Magnesia am Maeander (Berlin, 1900); ISmryna: Georg Petzl (ed.), Die Inschriften von
Smyrna, IGSK 23–24/1–2 (Bonn, 1982–1990; JebelBlât: F. Alpi and L. Nordiguian,
‘Les inscriptions de l’église de Blât: Essai de relecture’, Syria 73 (1996) 5–14; MAMA:
W. M. Calder et al. (eds.), Monumenta Asiae Minoris antiqua, 10 vols (London, 1928–
1993); NEAEHL: E. Stern and A. Lewinson-Gilboa (eds.), The New Encyclopedia
of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land, 4 vols (Jerusalem, New York and
Toronto, 1993); OEANE: E. M. Meyers (ed.), The Oxford Encyclopedia of Archaeol-
ogy in the Near East, 5 vols (London and New York, 1997); PIR1: E. Klebs, P. de
Rohden and H. Dessau, Prosopographia Imperii Romani Saec. I.II.III, 3 vols (Berlin,
1897–98); PLRE: A. H. M. Jones, J. R. Martindale and J. Morris, The Prosopography
of the Later Roman Empire, 3 vols (Cambridge, 1971–1992); POxy: The Oxyrhynchus
Papyri (London, 1898–); PRyl: Catalogue of the Greek Papyri in the John Rylands Li-
brary, ed. A. S. Hunt, et al.; 4 vols (Manchester, 1911–1952); SB: F. Preisigke and
F. Bilabel (eds.), Sammelbuch griechischer Urkunden aus Ägypten (Strassburg, 1915–);
SEG: Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum (Leiden, 1923–); Syll3: W. Dittenberger,
Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum, 3rd ed. 4 vols (Leipzig, 1915–1924).
Appendix 2: Earlier Editions of the Theodotos Inscription
Editio princeps: Weill, ‘La Cité de David [IV]’, REJ 71 (1920) 1–45, esp. 30–34 + Pl.
XXVA = La Cité de David 1:186–90 + 2:Plate XXVA. The photograph appeared first
in mid-1920, published as an ‘annexe’ of plates with Weill’s ‘La cité de David [II]’ (REJ
70 [1920]). In the next volume of REJ (71 [1920]) Weill’s own discussion appeared (pp.
30–34), along with T. Reinach’s, ‘L’inscription de Théodotus’, REJ 71 (1920) 46–56.
In the meantime, however, C. Clermont-Ganneau had presented an analysis at the
Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres (CRAI [June 1920] 187–88), summarized

in ‘Une synagogue de l’époque hérodienne à Jérusalem’, Revue bleue 58 (1920) 509–10
and subsequently published as ‘Découverte à Jérusalem d’une synagogue de l’époque
hérodienne’, Syria 1 (1920) 190–97 + photo (Pl. XVIIIA).
The inscription was later published by S. Klein, Jüdisch-Palästinischen Corpus In-
scriptionum (Ossuar-, Grab- und Synagogeninschriften) (Wien and Berlin, 1920) 101–
104 (no. 17); L.-H. Vincent, ‘Découverte de la ‘synagogue des affranchis’ à Jérusalem’,
RB 30 (1921) 247–77 + photo (Pl. III); S. A. Cook, ‘The Synagogue of Theodotus at
Jerusalem’, Palestine Exploration Fund Quarterly Statement (1921) 22–23; N. A. Bees,
‘Epigraphik’, Byzantinisch-neugriechische Jahrbücher 2 (1921) 259 (reviewing Vincent);
G. M. FitzGerald, ‘Notes on Recent Discoveries”, Palestine Exploration Fund Quar-
terly Statement (1921) 175–81; H. Lietzmann, ‘Notizen’, ZNW 20 (1921) 171–73
(reviewing Vincent); P. Thomsen, ‘Die lateinischen und griechischen Inschriften der
Stadt Jerusalem und ihrer nächsten Umgebung’, ZPDV 44 (1921) 143–44 (no. 261);
R. Cagnat and M. Besnier, AE (1922) 117 (pp. 36–37) = ‘Revue des publications
épigraphiques’, Revue archéologique 16 (1922) 365–421, no. 117 (pp. 400–401); A.
Deissmann, Light from the Ancient East, revised ed. (London, 1927) Appendix V, pp.
439–41 + photo (fig. 80); E. L. Sukenik, Ancient Synagogues in Palestine and Greece
(London, 1934) 69–70 + photo (Pl. XVIa); SEG VIII (1937) 170; CIJ II 1404 (2:332–
35 + ph.); I. Press, äéøåèñéääéôøâåôåè äéøôåì÷éöðà ìàø×éõøà [A Topographical-
historical Encyclopaedia of Palestine], 4 vols (Jerusalem, 1948–1955) 2:414–15; M.
Schwabe, íéÖåøé ìÖ úåéðååéä úåáåúëä [Greek Inscriptions of Jerusalem], in M. Avi-
Yonah (ed.), ìòé äéîé úîã÷î íéìÖåøé ìÖ äúåçôúäå äéúåãìåä ¬äòáè ºíéìÖåøé øôñ
åððîæì [The Book of Jerusalem] (Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, 1956) 358–69, esp. 362–65
(ph.); E. Gabba, Iscrizioni greche e latine per lo studio della Bibbia, Sintesi dell’oriente
e della Bibbia 3 (Roma, 1958) 79–82 (no. 23); Lifshitz, DFSJ 79 (pp. 70–71); F. Hüt-
tenmeister and G. Reeg, Die antiken Synagogen in Israel, Beihefte zum Tübinger Atlas
des Vorderen Orients. Reihe B, Geisteswissenschaften 12; 2 vols (Wiesbaden, 1977)
1:192–95; Roth-Gerson, úåáåúë, 76–86 (no. 19) + photo; L. Boffo, Iscrizioni greche e
latine per lo studio della Bibbia, Biblioteca di storia e storiografia dei tempi biblici 9
(Brescia, 1994) 274–82 (no. XXIII).
Appendix 3: Greek Inscriptions from Jerusalem
According to P. Thomsen’s tabulation of inscriptions from Jerusalem (‘Die lateinis-

chen und griechischen Inschriften der Stadt Jerusalem und ihrer nächsten Umgebung’,
ZDPV 43 [1920] 138–158; 44 [1921] 1–61, 90–168), the following Greek inscriptions
are extant: II BCE: no. 241–245, 263 (all stamped amphorae handles); 100 BCE–150
CE: no. 190–206 (graffiti on ossuaries); I CE (1–50 CE): no. 11 (=CIJ II 1400 [=Η1]);
no. 261 (=CIJ II 1404); II CE: no. 209 (inscribed gem); no. 220 (dedication [to Jupiter
Sarapis?]); no. 250 (pottery stamp); III CE: no. 181 (graffito); no. 207 (metal band); no.
208 (gold leaf); no. 238–240 (amphora stamps); no. 254 (cast); no. 256 (brick stamps).
None bears a date and all but nos. 11 and 261 are either too short to be useful for
comparison or are not inscribed stones.
Thomsen’s list of Greek inscriptions from Jerusalem can now be supplemented by
dated or datable inscriptions from SEG: I CE: VIII 169 [=Η2] (second copy of CIJ II
1400); SEG XXXIII 1277 (Herodian period); III CE: VIII 204 (=CIJ II 1414); VIII 206
(=CIJ II 1405). I have excluded from this list fragmentary undated inscriptions, pot-
tery stamps, mosaic inscriptions, and most ossuary inscriptions, which are scratched
on the stone rather than inscribed. An exception is CIJ II 1385, an ossuary inscription
cut in a hand comparable to that of SEG VIII 169 [Η2].

Other inscriptions of a reasonable length from Hellenistic and Roman Palestine in-
clude: III BCE: SEG XX 467 (Jaffa; 217 BCE); II BCE: XIX 904 (Ptolemais; 130/29
BCE); XXIX 1613 (Hefzibah; 199–195 BCE); XLI 1556 (Jamnia; 163 BCE); I CE:
VIII 13 (Nazareth; time of Augustus); VIII 84 (Kh. Bene Malek; 73/74 CE); XXI
1266 (Dora; after 70 CE); XVIII 1048 (Caesarea Maritima; after 71 CE); II CE:
VIII 2 (Kedesh; 117/18 CE); VIII 3 (Kedesh; 114/15 CE); VIII 91 (Bêt Rāš; 180–192
CE); XX 456 (Scythopolis; 139/40 CE); XX 494 (Madaba; 108/9 CE); XXXIX 1624
(Gadara; 139–151 CE); XLI 1547 (Dora; 119/20–130/31 CE); XLII 1409 (Caesarea
Panias [Senaim]; 165/66 CE); XLII 1410 (Caesarea Panias [Senaim]; 148/49 CE); XLV
1947 (Dora; time of Trajan); III CE: VIII 11 (Tiberias); XIX 923 (Kibbutz Erez; 210/11
CE).

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journal of jewish studies, vol. li, no.

Dating Theodotos (CIJ II 1404)

John S. Kloppenborg Verbin

T he past two decades have witnessed a striking reassessment of the ori-

Θ[ε]δοτο Οεττνου, ερε κα |

Theodotos son of Vettenus, priest and archisynagogos, son of an archisynagogos

Plate 1. The Theodotos Synagogue Inscription, Rockefeller Museum, inv. S 842

Courtesy of the Israel Antiquities Authority

Συναγωγα1: Congregations or Buildings?

study and worship has begun.’

of Cult in Voluntary Associations and Christian Churches on Delos’, Voluntary Associations in

στενν τε κα παντ πασιν βια1αν π ροδον π.λειπεν ατο'.

A Revised Date for CIJ II 1404?

anti-Jewish sentiment and activities soared.40

40 Kee, ‘Defining’, 483.

De là résulte une sorte de précision ou de confirmation de la position historique

46 Weill, ‘Cité de David [IV]’, 21 = Cité de David 1:177.

181–84; Horst, ‘Synagogue and Sabbath Worship’ [n. 7], 19–23.

ply a continuity between these unnamed first-century CE structures and the

The structure at Migdal (Magdala) thought to be a synagogue by the excavator, V. Corbo

II 861.3 (Tafas, Syria; IV CE): τν συναγωγν ο κοδμησ[αν].

Gamla though he says nothing of Magdala.

61 Already in 1927 K. Galling (‘Archäologischer Jahresbericht’, ZDPV 50 [1927] 298–319)

Jews after 70 CE by adducing Shemuel Safrai’s discussion of Jewish self-government after 70

his day (In Sophoniam 1.15–16 [CCL LXXVIa:673]).

peded by Roman oﬃcials.67 There is even a report of a group of disciples of

man Rule, 499–500.

number of persons. (I owe this observation to J. Reynolds.)

1. The Provenance of the Inscription

73 IJudEg 84 (=CIJ II 1514) (Leontopolis; 27 BCE); CJZC 72 (Bernike, Cyrenaica; 55/56);

2. References to Datable Persons

vol. II, 1–12, esp. 2–3, 6–7.

assistance in dating the inscription, since it was a common name, especially

Queen Agrippina in an inscription from Jericho (θεοδτου πελευθ.ρου βασιλ1σση =γριππε1νη):

sarea Maritima): M. Fl(avium) Agrippam pontif(icem), II viral(em) col(oniae primae) Fl(aviae)

(nominative + genitive) suggests rather that Theodotos was freeborn, since

antiken Synagogen in Israel, 1:195.

principates of Trajan96 and Hadrian97 and in several undated inscriptions.98

other freedman of C. Vettienus); C. Vettienus C. f. Pupin[–]: ILS 2351 (Colonia Agrippinensis

The initial epigraphical analysis of the Theodotos inscription (hereafter Θ)

Alpha: in Η1 the form (a broken-bar alpha) is constant, with the bar

Clermont-Ganneau, ‘Une stèle du temple de Jérusalem’ RA nouvelle série 23 (1872) 214–234,

Plate 2. Temple Balustrade Inscription, CIJ II 1400

Photographic reproduction: S. J. Kloppenborg

Vincent was rightly critical of Clermont-Ganneau’s limited comparison

171,117 however, shows as many divergences from the hand of Θ as it does

Herodian Cutters and CIJ II 1404

Plate 3. Temple Balustrade Inscription, SEG VIII 169

ered in Benjamin Mazar’s excavations south of the Temple Mount confirms

Inscriptions from early to late Roman Palestine and Syria

Plate 4. Donation to Herod’s Temple, SEG XXXIII 1277

Photograph of a squeeze by Benjamin Isaac

Alpha: The broken-bar alpha with apices is found in Levantine inscrip-

(Jamnia; 163 BCE).

Appendix 2: Earlier Editions of the Theodotos Inscription

Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres (CRAI [June 1920] 187–88), summarized

Appendix 3: Greek Inscriptions from Jerusalem

Θ[ε]δοτο Οεττνου, ερε κα |

στενν τε κα παντ πασιν βια1αν π ροδον π.λειπεν ατο'.

II 861.3 (Tafas, Syria; IV CE): τν συναγωγν ο κοδμησ[αν].

Queen Agrippina in an inscription from Jericho (θεοδτου πελευθ.ρου βασιλ1σση =γριππε1νη):