Semitic name-use by Jews in Roman Asia minor and the dating of the aphrodisias Stele inscriptions

Proceedings of the British Academy

Volumn 148, Issue , 2007, Pages 173-197

  Williams, Margaret H ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 61249694009     PISSN: 00681202     EISSN: None     Source Type: Book Series    
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References (110)

1. Only the Jewish evidence from Egypt has been looked at in this way. See V. A. Tcherikover in CPJ I, 27-30, 83-5, 109,
2. and, more recently, S. Honigman, 'The birth of a diaspora: the emergence of a Jewish self-definition in Ptolemaic Egypt in the light of onomastics', in S. J. D. Cohen and E. S. Frerichs (eds.), Diasporas in Antiquity (Atlanta, 1993), 93-127.
3. Proposed by the first editors of these texts, RT, 19-23. For its 'almost canonical' status, see A. Chaniotis, 'The Jews of Aphrodisias: new evidence and old problems', Scripta Classica Israelica 21 (2002), 211 with documentation at n. 9.
4. The evidence for settlement before that time (e.g. in sixth-century Sardis) is very dubious. See E. Schürer, The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ (175 BC-AD 135), iii. 1,
5. revised by G. Vermes, F. Millar, M. Black and M. Goodman (Edinburgh, 1986), 20-1.
6. 1 Maccabees 15: 16-24. For the date, see E. M. Smallwood, The Jews under Roman Rule from Pompey to Diocletian (Leiden, 1976), 8-9, n. 15 and 121, n. 5.
7. For a summary and brief discussion of this evidence, see V. A. Tcherikover, Hellenistic Civilisation and the Jews (Philadelphia, 1959), 287-9.
8. E. Miranda, Le iscrizioni giudaiche di Hierapolis di Frigia (Naples, 1999)
9. and 'La comunità giu-daica di Hierapolis di Frigia', Epigraphica Anatolica 31 (1999), 109-56. It is that second, improved version that has been used in the present study.
10. For the full text, which ends by specifying the penalty for misuse of the tomb, see Miranda no. 1.
11. Best seen in Miranda no. 13, the tomb of Aurelios Antiochides Makedon Polydeukes Antoninianos.
12. See Kroll, and Cross.
13. For the Greek text, see RT, 5-7 and SEG XXXVI 970;
14. for a translation, see M. H. Williams, The Jens among the Greeks and Romans: A Diasporan Sourcebook (London, 1998), VII.11 and 12.
15. RT, 19-23.
16. Chaniotis, 'The Jews of Aphrodisias', 218.
17. For earlier expressions of disquiet about RT's Severan date, including my own, see Chaniotis, 'The Jews of Aphrodisias', 211 n. 9.
18. By e-mail on 8 Jan. 2003.
19. W. Ameling, Inscriptions Judaicae Orientis, ii: Asia Minor (Tübingen, 2004).
20. See CIJ II 775 = Miranda no. 16
21. Most recently by T. Rajak, 'Synagogue and community in the Graeco-Roman Diaspora', in J. R. Bartlett (ed.), Jews in the Hellenistic and Roman Cities (London and New York, 2002), 34.
22. Miranda (140-5) believes that it belonged to Godfearers. For earlier views, see P. Trebilco, Jewish Communities in Asia Minor (Cambridge, 1991), 178-9 and 261.
23. For the rare Biblical cases of the analogous Hebrew name, Shabbethai, see O. Odelain and R. Séguineau.
24. Miranda no. 5: M.
25. Miranda, 138.
26. For this name, see H. Wuthnow, Die semitischen Menschennamen in griechischen Inschriften und Papyri des vorderen Orients (Leipzig, 1930), 30.
27. Ameling, Inscriptiones Judaicae Orientis, ii, s.v. inscription Phrygia, no. 206.
28. None are attested in the three communities examined in this paper. A few, however, are found elsewhere in Asia Minor - e.g. at Corycus in Cilicia. See CIJ II no. 785 = Monumenta Asiae Minoris Antiqua III no. 205.
29. Unsurprisingly, they are attested more frequently in Syria and Judaea/Palestine. Note, for instance, Marouthas, Marinos, and Halaphtha at Caesarea Maritima. See C. M. Lehmann and K. G. Holum, The Greek and Latin Inscriptions of Caesarea Maritima (Boston, 2000), nos. 80, 173, and 175.
30. For a useful discussion of the hellenized forms of Shabbethai that appear in Jewish inscriptions and papyri in Egypt, namely Sabbataios, Sabbat is, Sabbatios, and Sabbathion, see Horbury and Noy no. 58.
31. For a more wide-ranging survey, see M. H. Williams, 'Palestinian Jewish personal names in Acts', in R. Bauckham (ed.), The Book of Acts in its Palestinian Setting (= The Book of Acts in its First Century Setting, iv) (Grand Rapids, Mich., 1995), 101-2.
32. er siècles): une commu-nauté juive dans le Chôra égyptienne', Cahiers de Recherches de l'Institut de Papyrologie et d'Égyptologie de Lille 19 (1998), 89-91.
33. That is why they are seldom found in use among the Jews of Judaea/Palestine. Among the numerous ossuary texts from Jerusalem there are only a couple of cases. See Williams, 'Palestinian Jewish personal names in Acts', 102.
34. There are no attestations at all in the corpus of Jewish inscriptions (dated from the third to the fourth century) from Beth She'arim: see Schwabe and Lifshitz, and N. Avigad, Beth She'arim III: Catacombs 12-23 (New Brunswick, NJ, 1976).
35. See J. M. G. Barclay, Jews in the Mediterranean Diaspora (Edinburgh, 1996), 440-2
36. and, more briefly, M. H. Williams, 'Jews and Jewish communities in the Roman Empire', in J. Huskinson (ed.), Experiencing Rome (London, 2000), 324-5.
37. To be inferred, inter alia, from Josephus, Ant. 16. 162-5, an edict of Augustus upholding Jewish rights.
38. See below, n. 87.
39. See Honigman, 'The birth of a diaspora', 123.
40. See Schwabe and Lifshitz, 227; JIWE II, 520;
41. Williams, 'Palestinian Jewish personal names in Acts', 90.
42. On the Joshua, Yeshua, Iesous, Ieson, and Iason complex of names, see N. Cohen, 'The names of the translators in the Letter of Aristeas: a study in the dynamics of cultural transition', Journal for the Study of Judaism 15 (1984), 46-8.
43. W. Clarysse, 'Jews in Trikomia', in A. Bülow-Jacobsen (ed.), Proceedings of the XXth International Congress of Papyroiogists, Copenhagen 23-29 August 1992 (1994), 199.
44. e.g. RT, 100.
45. R. Bauckham, 'Paul and other Jews with Latin names in the New Testament', in A. Christophersen, C. Claussen, J. Frey, and B. Longenecker (eds.), Paul, Luke and the Graeco-Roman World: Essays in Honour of Alexander J. M. Wedderburn (Sheffield, 2002), 206, citing Lev. Rabbah 32: 5 and Cant. Rabbah 56: 6.
46. Found in Miranda 14b: epitaph of Aurelios Heortasios Ioulianos Ioudeos (sic).
47. RT, 99; Odelain and Séguineau, s.v. Haggai.
48. On these, see Tcherikover, CPJ I, 29
49. and G. Mussies, 'Jewish personal names in some non-literary sources', in J. W. van Henten and R W. van der Horst (eds.), Studies in Early Jewish Epigraphy (Leiden, 1994), 244-5.
50. For useful discussion of the latter, see Miranda, 138-9.
51. Figures for Glykon and its derivatives at Miranda, 138-9.
52. Josephus, Ant. 14. 235: Roman ruling concerning Jewish rights at Sardis.
53. See n. 4 above.
54. S. Mitchell, Anatolia: Land, Men, and Gods in Asia Minor, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1993), ii. 32.
55. For a more detailed analysis of these events, see now J. Ma, Antiochos III and the Cities of Western Asia Minor (Oxford, 1999), 61-3.
56. and Trebilco, Jewish Communities, 48 and 50.
57. To be deduced from Symeonios' full name, Aurelios Symeonios (Kroll no. 67).
58. N. Cohen, 'Jewish names as cultural indicators in Antiquity', Journal for the Study of Judaism 7 (1976), 112-17;
59. Mussies, 'Jewish personal names', 249;
60. For Christian examples of the name, see Monumenta Asiae Minoris Antiqua III nos. 234, 478, 645, 733-735a, 736-8 (Corycus).
61. See Tcherikover, CPJ HI 501, comm. ad loc. and Appendix IIIa below.
62. Kroll nos. 4, 34, and 56. For the dating of these texts, see Kroll, 15 and 18.
63. See, for instance, CPJ I nos. 14, 15, and 112;
64. Horbury and Noy nos. 29 and 58;
65. For a survey of the evidence, see M. H. Williams, 'The Jewish community of Corycus: two more inscriptions', ZPE 92 (1992), 250-1.
66. See B. Lifshitz, Donateurs et fondateurs dans les synagogues juives (Paris, 1967), nos. 58 and 59 for two third-century examples from Doura Europos.
67. See Cross no. 3 for the Yohanan text.
68. N. de Lange, 'The revival of the Hebrew language in the third century CE', Jewish Studies Quarterly 3 (1996), 350.
69. J. Naveh, On Mosaic and Stone [Heb.] (Jerusalem, 1978) has only six examples in Hebrew of this type of text: nos. 1, 6, 13, 75, 76, and 80.
70. Lifshitz, Donateurs et fondateurs, passim
71. A Hebrew dedicatory text (fourth century AD?), mentioning one Hananiah of Bosporos, has recently come to light at Sevastopol (ancient Chersonesos) on the Black Sea. For preliminary reports, see A. Overman, R. S. MacLennan, and M. I. Zolotarev, 'To the study of Jewish antiquities from Chersonesus Tavrichesky', Arkheologiya 1 (1997), 57-63 [Russian with English summary]
72. and R. S. MacLennan, 'In search of the Jewish Diaspora: a first-century synagogue in Crimea?', Biblical Archaeological Review 22.2 (1996), 44-51 (especially 50).
73. For these, see Appendix II.
74. For the remnants of what is possibly an Iranian name, see Kroll no. 40: [...].
75. The most recent discussion is Bauckham, 'Paul and other Jews', 207-10.
76. Although Kroll (no. 18) restores the name as Theod[or]os, an equally valid reading is Theod[ot]os, a perennially popular name with Diaspora Jews.
77. See n. 44 above. If the Leontios of Kroll no. 48 is assumed to be a Jew rather than a Godfearer (for Leontios the theosebes, see Kroll no. 22), then here we have another example of this phenomenon. Leontios is well known as a name used by Jews as the Greek equivalent of Judah.
78. See, most recently, Bauckham, 'Paul and other Jews', 206 n. 16, citing Leviticus Rabbah 32: 5.
79. IGLS IV no. 1319 with comm. ad loc. (dedicatory inscription at Syrian Apamea of Ilasios, archisynagogos of Antioch).
80. Odelain and Séguineau, s.vv. Elasah/Eleasah.
81. Robert, Nouvelles Inscriptions de Sardes, 47.
82. For the ancient evidence, see Barclay, Jews in the Mediterranean Diaspora, 416.
83. On the overwhelmingly Jewish character of the name Hilasios, see J. B. Curbera, 'Jewish names from Sicily', ZPE 110 (1996), 299-300, who discusses all the known examples.
84. See discussion at RT, 132 (graffito referring to Jewish Elders).
85. Like Jewish communities elsewhere in the eastern empire in the Byzantine period, Aphrodisian Jewry was known for its support of the Blues, cf. RT, 132.
86. For a more detailed discussion, see C. Roueché, Aphrodisias in Late Antiquity (London, 1989), no. 180 (iii) with comm. ad loc.
87. For a comprehensive list of Jewish, or possibly Jewish, evidence from Aphrodisias (inscriptions, graffiti, and objects), see Chaniotis, 'The Jews of Aphrodisias', 236-9.
88. Williams, 'Palestinian Jewish personal names in Acts', 102.
89. Besides Aphrodisias, it is also found at Hyllarima in Caria (Lifshitz, Donateurs et fondateurs, no. 32) and Corycus in Cilicia (CIJ II nos. 788 and 790), not to mention Rome (JIWE II no. 108).
90. As argued at RT, 102.
91. Mussies, 'Jewish personal names', 274. The absence of analogous contractions in the stele texts, however, makes this interpretation unlikely.
92. Odelain and Séguineau, s.v. Zechariah.
93. Cohen, 'Jewish names as cultural indicators', 117-28
94. and Bauckham, 'Paul and other Jews', 206, n. 19.
95. Mussies, 'Jewish personal names', 247.
96. Unless Hilarianos (line 12) be regarded as a possible equivalent of Isaac: see RT, 102. Gelasios, however, is generally regarded as the regular translation of that name: see Frey at CIJ I no. 25.
97. Two of these are in the hypocoristic form, Ioses.
98. Judges 4: 17-22.
99. See RT, 101.
100. Odelain and Séguineau, s.v. Jesse.
101. As noted above at Hierapolis (Miranda no. 3) and in Aphrodisias B, line 14.
102. Noted in connection with Aphrodisias B (n. 87) but applicable also to Aphrodisias A.
103. The theosebeis do the same.
104. For some of the Egyptian names borne by the Jews of Edfu, see Tcherikover, CPJ II, 116-17;
105. for Palmyrene names (e.g. Mokim and Zenobia) borne by Jews hailing from Palmyra, see Schwabe and Lifshitz, 10-11.
106. To be seen most easily by comparing the Jewish epitaphs from Rome (third-fourth century) with those from Venosa (fifth-sixth century). Details in JIWE II, 546 (Index Vllf) and JIWE I, 335-6 (Index VIId) and 337-9 (Indices VIIf-h).
107. RT, 20-1.
108. See notes 81 and 82 above.
109. Roueché, Aphrodisias in Late Antiquity, p. xxvi.
110. Cf. A. Under, The Jews in Roman Imperial Legislation (Detroit, 1987), passim.