Obtención del modelo digital de superficie (MDS) mediante sistemas aéreos no

Useful as such a generalized picture undoubtedly is in any attempt at constructing a picture of ancient societies, including Galilee, it should be recognized immediately that it is an ideal type, not an actual description of how things really were. It is open to revision in the light of historical or other special factors that can be shown to have been operative in any particular context. In fact both Galilean and Judaean society would seem to require such a revision, because, as we shall see, of the special role that a shared religious affiliation played within the system, ultimately bringing about a serious clash between the native aristocracy and the ruling elite, which culminated in the first Jewish revolt of 66–70 ce.

But there were other complications also. Who, precisely, are we to nominate as the ruling elite in first century Galilee? Herod Antipas and his immediate family and court are the most likely contenders, but it must not be forgotten that Antipas’ appointment as tetrarch of Galilee was very much at the behest of his Roman overlords, who refused his claims to succeed his father, Herod the Great, as king of the Jews. Indeed his removal and subsequent banishment in 37 ce in favour of his nephew Agrippa I, shows how precarious his position was. Should we then see Antipas and his court as the ruling elite, the semi-native aristocracy or merely retainers acting on behalf of the Roman imperial overlords? Lenski’s model will not easily assist in sorting out the complex network of power comprising Antipas, the native Galilean aristocracy, styled hoi protoi tês Galilaias (Mark 6:21, and frequently in Josephus’ Life), the Jerusalem priestly authorities, the procurator of Judaea and the Roman governor of Syria, who seems to have had a watching brief over client kings in the East during the pre-provincial period in Judaea and Arabia, at least after the death of Herod the Great.

Antipas’ relative absence from the account of Jesus’ public ministry in Galilee is noteworthy. The fact that Jesus’ mentor, John the Baptist, was murdered by him because of the threat of social unrest, might have applied to Jesus also, one would have imagined. Yet, it is only Luke who suggests a direct threat from Antipas in Galilee (13:31), and he subsequently involves him, if only perfunctorily, in the trial in Jerusalem (23:6–12). Mark is aware of a threat from the Herodians (3:6, 12:13), but Herod is presented as inept, credulous and detached; his interest in Jesus is voyeurish rather than political (6:14–31). The Baptist had been operative in Perea

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rather than in Galilee, the other district that was under Antipas’ control ( JA 18.119). His first marriage to a Nabataean princess had been political, and its dissolution had led to a conflict with her father, Aretas IV. He must therefore have been particularly sensitive about any disturbance in the region of Transjordan, since this would certainly not have helped his cause in Rome, particularly in view of the deposition of his brother Archelaus because of disturbances in Jerusalem. By con- trast, Jesus seems to have had a freedom of movement in Galilee, unless one is to interpret his transfer from Nazareth to Capernaum as an evasive tactic from the immediate sphere of influence of Sepphoris and its demands.

Two other aspects of the proposed model call for comment. First, Lenski himself was conscious of the fact that within the Jewish tradition the priestly retainer class may not always have operated in favour of the ruling elite, because of the emphasis within that tradition on God’s just care (sedeqah) for the anawim or the pious poor. It is not at all clear who might have exercised such a ‘religious authority’ in Galilee, or how in time they would have related to the Roman puppet administration there, however. There were no native Galilean priests, it would seem, but Josephus would have us believe that the peasants willingly brought their tithes to him and his two priestly colleagues on his appointment as governor of the region in 66 ce, ‘because they were due to me as a priest’ ( Josephus, Life 81). A later Talmudic anecdote relates how an eminent Jerusalem scribe, Johanan ben Zakkai, spent a considerable time in Galilee, but without having much success with the population there, which, if true, may indicate no more than a lack of interest in the pharisaic halachic concerns. The gospels too refer to scribes and Pharisees coming from Jerusalem to Galilee to challenge Jesus’ influence with the crowds (Mark 3:22, 7:1), and Josephus mentions the strong pharisaic composition in the delegation sent from Jerusalem to unseat him in 66 ce (Life 198). While this may suggest that Pharisees were popular in Galilee by that stage, it may merely be a reflection of the influence wielded in Jerusalem by the Pharisee, Simon, who was a friend of Josephus’ implacable enemy in Galilee, John of Gischala. In short, we have no clear picture of who the native Galilean religious and scribal authorities were or how they related with the populace at large on an ongoing basis. If we could trust Josephus’ account of his own popular- ity with the Galileans as a Jerusalemite priest, this would confirm Lenski’s suspicion that the priestly class did not always function in favour of the ruling elite. Even if we are to dismiss the account of his popularity with the Galileans as part of his defence against the charges of Justus of Tiberias, it still remains true that, together with other members of the Jerusalem aristocracy, he did become embroiled in a rebellion against Rome, no matter how much he tried to cover his tracks subsequently. On the supposition that the bulk of the Galileans we encounter in both the gospels and Josephus were descended from those with Hasmonean rather than Herodian loyal- ties (Aviam 1993, 1995), as will be discussed later, we may assume that they would have been less than impressed with the Herodian celebration of Rome at their expense in the renaming of Sepphoris as Autokratis and the founding of Tiberias in order to honour Augustus and his successor.

The second relevant factor that needs to be taken into account in terms of the appropriateness of Lenski’s model is the specific nature of Jewish relationship with the land, and the impact this was likely to have had on the continued existence of an

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independent Jewish peasant class in the early first century. The issue is complicated due to our lack of detailed information on the specific Galilean setting. Yet from scattered pieces of evidence it is possible to infer that a combination of large estates and small, family-run farms co-existed, symbols of two different worlds and their impact on the changing face of Palestinian society (Fiensy 1991). The Zenon papyri from the third century bce, as well as the parables of Jesus and the information from Josephus about Herodian possessions – both from the first century ce (Mark 12:1– 12; Bernice, Life 119f.; Herodias, JA 18.252–5; Crispus, Agrippa II’s prefect in Tiberias, Life 33ff.) – would seem to confirm the existence of estates in Galilee, even though no archaeological evidence has so far come to light for large villas similar to Ramath ha-Nadiv, north of Caesarea Maritima (Figure 5.4), a city rebuilt by Herod the Great and named in honour of his friend Augustus Caesar, or the field towers in Samaria (Hirschfeld and Birger-Calderone 1991; Dar 1986). The same sources indi- cate the continued presence of smaller holdings whose owners lived in nucleated villages throughout the Galilee, however.

Indeed, Herod the Great, both in his settlement of cavalry veterans at Gaba in the Carmel region on the borders of Galilee and Babylonian Jews in Batanea, continued this pattern of small family-run farms, whose inhabitants could be relied upon, when required to answer a call to arms ( JA 15.294; Life 115–18 – Gaba; JA 17.25 – Batanea). In other words, strategically, it was not in his interest to disrupt entirely

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the patterns of land-ownership which had been established in Hasmonean times, inspired by the old Israelite ideals, even when royal lands inherited from previous rulers were retained for his and his family’s benefit.

We shall later discuss the economic implications of such a conclusion, but here it is important to note that in so far as the pattern of small landowners was warranted by the biblical ideal, it ran counter to the trends of later Hellenistic and Roman imperial designs, and is another example of how a generalized model will have to yield to contrary evidence in order to avoid a distorted picture of the actual situ- ation. Subsequent events in terms of the two revolts were to show how the Galilean peasants, together with those of other regions in Jewish Palestine, prized their freedom (Applebaum 1977). Hence a model such as Lenski’s, which suggests that they were locked into a system over which they had no control, needs – like any model when faced with facts which do not readily correspond to it – to be qualified to accord with the situation both of the peasants and of those who were charged by Rome to control the region.

All that having been said, there are individuals within the Galilean social world who may be described as belonging to the retainer class. The best attested are those charged with the extraction of benefits from the natives (tax collectors) and the enforcement of sanctions through the administration of justice. The general impres- sion is that these latter are to be avoided if possible, since the image of the harsh and uncaring judge crops up more than once in the sayings of Jesus (Matt. 5:25–6/Luke 12:58–9; Luke 18:1–8; Mark 13:9). We know from the Babatha documents, which were discovered in the Judaean desert, that going to court was a costly business, since Babatha from the village of Engeddi had to be present at the provincial capital, Petra, ‘every hour of every day’, until her case had been heard (Isaac 1992). Josephus, at least by implication, contrasts Antipas’ style with that of his brother Philip in this regard. This latter conducted a circuit court to facilitate the peasants of his region in solving their disputes locally ( JA 18.107). Jesus’ message is to make peace with your adversary before going to court, since otherwise the last farthing (kodranten/lepton) will have to be paid.

The extent to which one can speak of a policing system is unclear outside the Herodian city environs, where presumably a prefect of police was in charge of law and order. The sayings of Jesus just cited mention the hyperetes or prison guard (Matthew), whereas Luke uses the more technical term praktor (meaning bailiff). The permanent army of the ruler would be responsible for maintaining order in the area generally, and presumably there were various garrisons throughout the region, espe- cially at sensitive locations, or along the borders. Many of the Hasmonean founda- tions such as Sepphoris, Jotapata, Gischala and Gamla, were fortresses originally (M.Arakin 9.6), and retained something of that character subsequently, it would seem, on the basis of Josephus’ descriptions when he took charge there in 66 ce. However, there is no evidence of a large military presence in Galilee. Indeed Sep- phoris had to request a garrison from the Romans (Life 394). Antipas’ regular army was of modest proportions, but we do hear of chiliarchoi present at his birthday celebrations (Mark 6:21), and a centurion approached Jesus at Capernaum (Matt. 8:5–13/Luke 7:1–10; cf. John 4:46–53). After the first revolt the Romans stationed a legion nearby, at Legio (Kefar Othnai) on the Great Plain, and not in Galilee itself.

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The role of such a military presence was to ensure that the countryside remained loyal and that elites and trading caravans could travel freely and safely. In times of special crisis the peasantry would be expected/obliged to form a local militia, as Josephus was able to command in Galilee during his time there (Life 102, 386, 392). It is presumably to such as these that John the Baptist’s admonition ‘to be content with their pay’ (Luke 3:14) was directed, since the opportunity for looting was all too real in the ancient world.

Tax-collectors are well represented in the gospel records as companions of Jesus, but their negative standing is underlined by their frequent association with sinners (Mark 2:16; Matt. 11:19, 21:31; Luke 7:34, 15:1, 18:13, 19:7); that is, other publicly discredited members of society such as prostitutes. The fact that Jesus openly consorted with these people was a source of scandal to more observant Jews, and raises the question of the religious and political implications of such behaviour (Herrenbrück 1981, 1987). Those sent to collect the tribute by Herod the Great did have a reputation for venality and lewdness ( JA 17, 304–9), but that need not have been true of all engaged in such activity. At the lower end of their profession as toll collectors rather than the hated tax-farmers of earlier times, the telonai of the gospels were ‘subject to authority’, as the centurion also had declared, and this brought social rather than economic marginalization. That was sufficient to make them welcome members of the Jesus retinue, with his inclusive vision of the kingdom of God.