Galilee: History, Politics, People.

• Author: Meyers, Eric M.

By RICHARD A. HORSLEY. Valley Forge, Pa.: TRINITY PRESS INTERNATIONAL, 1995. Pp. 357. $27.

The publication of Richard Horsley's Galilee: History, Politics, People certainly marks an important trend in New Testament scholarship, one that is more cognizant of Jewish sources both literary and archaeological. Horsley's interest in late Second Temple Judaism and Judaism after 70 C.E. is also wedded to a thorough commitment to social scientific methods. His goal in Galilee is to offer a systematic presentation of the evidence, which he believes provides the most fertile ground for establishing the context of Jesus' ministry and the nature of interaction between Jews and the earliest followers of Jesus. All of these aims and objectives are laudable and Horsley has collected his data and presented them with skill and considerable elan. Unfortunately, the results are less than satisfactory. Many of my areas of disagreement with Horsley have been spelled out in a lengthy response to his work, "An Archaeological Response to a New Testament Scholar," BASOR 297 (1995): 17-26.

Horsley's book is divided into three parts: on "History," on "Rulers of Galilee in Roman Times," and on "Galilean Village Communities." Despite this tripartite division there are a number of themes which run throughout each section and form the basis of his interpretative scheme. First and foremost is his notion that the whole of Galilee, from earliest biblical times (Iron I or twelfth-eleventh centuries B.C.E.) to the first century C.E. and later, exhibited a distinctive independence from centralized authority and hence an independence of thought (e.g., pp. 19ff, 128ff, 238ff.). He goes counter to considerable archaeological evidence that indicates that the Galilee was devastated by the Assyrian wars and deportations of the late eighth century B.C.E. (p. 26), and rejects the findings of the major work on the subject (Zvi Gal, Lower Galilee During the Iron Age [Eisenbrauns, 1992]). Instead of addressing the archaeological evidence, Horsley chooses to engage in a reconstruction of Galilean history until Hasmonean times based on very complex biblical data. The results are not at all convincing, especially since he posits that it was the remnants of Old Israelite Galilean traditions that were to become the standard bearers of the new religion of Galilee in early Roman times (see pp. 243ff.).

The ethnic makeup of Galilee thus is a very controversial aspect of Horsley's presentation...