Scenes from the Mosaic at the "House of Dionysus" at Sepphoris

The following images come from a Roman style villa which was discovered in Sepphoris in the Galilee. The villa's triclinium, or dining room, was decorated with an elaborate mosaic depicting various scenes from the life of Dionysus, most notably a drinking contest between the Greek god and the often deified hero Herakles.We will discuss these images at length in class. Black and white reproductions of the images do not do these mosaics justice. Take a good look at the color scans of the scenes taken from the mosaic here and be prepared to discuss the images in class.

The first panel above shows the overall plan of the mosaic.

The second panel is a close up of the center of the mosaic- the drinking contest between Dionysus and Herakles.

The top panel here shows Herakles in a drunken state. The bottom panel shows Dionysus under the influence. Both panels have the word "drunkeness" written as a superscription in Greek.

These scenes depict more scenes from the life of Dionysus; his education at the hands of nymphs, here called Bacchai, and his wedding to Ariadne, the daughter of Minos who helped Theseus escape the maze of the Minotaur. Theseus abandoned her on the island of Naxos where she was discovered by Dionysus.

This is perhaps the most famous image from the Sepphoris mosaic, sometimes called "the mona lisa" of Sepphoris. There is little identifiable iconographic significance to this particular picture. Rather, it shows the technical quality of the mosaic which rivals that of contemporary mosaics from the Roman villas in North Africa.

The top panel presumably depicts the rape of Auge, the mother of Telephelus, by Herakles.

The bottom panel shows a scene from the childhood of Dionysus. He is being bathed by nymphs who were responsible for his early education.

Here you see the depiction of Dionysus' triumphant arrival to the East. After Alexander's conquests in the 330's BCE the myth of Dionysus' arrival in India was often depicted in graphic form.

Dionysos was, among other things, the god of wine. Perhaps this explains the incorporation of a depiction of three lenobate or "grape-treaders."

Having looked at these images, who do you think lived in the villa at Sepphoris? Can we say anything about them? What was their religion? How wealthy were they? What were their interests? What was their attitude towards Greco-Roman culture?

The answers to these questions (if there are any at all) are more complicated than you might at first assume.

The Ethiopic Book of Enoch

Jonah Rank
November 13, 2006
His1010x Ancient Jewish History
Instructor- Loren Spielman


The Ethiopic Book of Enoch

Remaining an almost universally extracanonical work (excepting in the Ethiopic church), the document variously referred to as I Enoch (or I En.) or the Ethiopic Book of Enoch offers the contemporary historian of early Jewish history an excellent insight into many different aspects of Judaism during the Second Temple period.
The book, in its pseudopygriphal style is attributed to (and, without a doubt, not truly written by) Enoch, the son of Jared, as mentioned in an obscure curious phrase in the fifth chapter of Genesis in which, without much explanation, the author of this section of Genesis informs the reader that Enoch was in some way “walking with God” (which, in an older mindstyle based on eschatological centrism, had been often interpreted as meaning that Enoch had a special relationship with the Divine and even never died but had rather ascended to Heaven [somewhat akin to the anachronistically formed story of Elijah the Prophet ascending to Heaven in a chariot of fire and never having been able to die]). The heavy messianic yearning and eschatological imagery in I Enoch is an inundating factor in the flow of this work: from a quote in which God refer’s to God’s own Son, and the seemingly pedestrian nature of the existence of the relationships that exist between Enoch and the angels and God. Furthermore, the text here seems to stray ideologically from most past mainstream forms of Israelite religion as, while Genesis did embrace breeding, much of I Enoch consists of shunning vices and sins that had previously not been seen necessarily as vices (cf. I En. 8:2, et al).
It is difficult to date I Enoch precisely; however, it is known that I Enoch, because of its references to various matters accomplished in the reign of Herod the Great, was written after the beginning of Herod the Great’s reign. The surmising of various historians has led many ancient Jewish historians to agree that this work was created circa the 2nd or 1st Century BCE.
Furthermore, the book at hand is claimed to have been written originally in Hebrew, according to Rabbi Joseph Halevi. Yet, none of the manuscripts found of the Enoch documents has been able to verify successfully with any certainty that Enoch I was originally written in Hebrew. The earliest transcriptions of I Enoch appear in Ethiopic (most fully), in Greek (noticeably fragmentarily), and – as found in the Qumran caves – in Aramaic. (Charles, an academic hoping to compromise the notion of its Hebrew origins and the Aramaic tendencies of the text interestingly has juggled the two and decided that the Aramaic is infused with Hebrew terminologies so that the Hebrew and the Aramaic are indecipherable one from another.
The text begins with an introduction where Enoch mentions briefly apocalyptically of the “Day of Judgment” and the happy fates of the “elect”. Enoch is then granted an explanation of all of the secrets of the natural scientific universe origins of the book are not so clear. In the second of a common series of dividing up the Ethiopic Book of Enoch into five sections, Enoch begins to prophecize about the “last day.” The third and intermediate section is a bit of a break and actually presumably the entirety of another extracanonical work, The Book of the Courses of the Heavenly Luminaries (discussing them in terms of the windows of space and the various new mathematically improved calendar for accuracy in which 364 days occur a year [rather than presumably the 354 lunar year often followed by contemporary Jews]). In the fourth section, a history beginning with the Children of Israel and ending with the Hasmonean dynasty’s beginning is recalled. In the fifth section and final section, Enoch reviews a history of Israel again from the theophany at Mount Sinai, and the writer’s voice disappears temporarily to insert another extracanonical work, The Book of Noa, and then Enoch leaves the reader with instructions for how to live better lives.
The Book of Enoch, despite its theological deviations from previous historical Israelite rite practices, it seems that certain eschatological and apocalyptic notions that seem innovative within this work, are matters that sometimes do consent and conform with later Rabbinic standards as recorded in the Talmud.

SOURCES CITED:
“Enoch, Ethiopic Book of.” Encyclopaedia Judaica: CD-ROM Edition. CD-ROM. Jerusalem: Keter, 1997.
Pratt, John P. Book of Enoch. 1883. Richard Laurence. November 13, 2006 http://www.johnpratt.com/items/docs/enoch.html.

The Jewish Diaspora Before 117 CE

Hopefully, by next class we will have reached the beginning stages of the first Jewish revolt against Rome. We will then take a brief jaunt back in time to discuss the Jewish Diaspora. We have already discussed this topic to some extent when we covered the Ptolemaic period. We will take a more indepth look at Jews living outside of Palestine on Thursday.

Please take another quick look at the Letter of Aristeas. Don't focus so much on the story of the translation of the Septuagint. The letter actually gives us a rather rich view about how some Diaspora Jews may have viewed the high priest, the temple, and Jerusalem. The philospophical discussions between the Ptolemaic king and the Jewish delegates is also worth another look.

If you have not already done so, make sure that you have read the material from John Barklay's "Jews in the Mediterranean Diaspora." The readings were sent to you a week ago as attachments to an email and are now available on the website.

You can also find them here , here and here.
In addition, I would like to start our section on the Diaspora by discussing the following list of names. Come to class prepared to discuss which figures you think are Jewish and which are not:


Iosepos
Joshua
Jason/Jesus
Sabbathios
Shelamzion

(the following three names roughly translate as "gift of god" or "god-given")
Dositheos
Theodotos
Theodoros

Artimodoros
Apollodoros
Horus
Gelasios (laughter in Greek)

Haggai son of Diaphoros (Greek for "different" or "excellent")
Hanniah father of Tasa ("the guardian" in Egyptian)
Apollonios son of Jason
Dositheos son of Artimodoros
Ezekias son of Ezekias