The possibility of knowledge

Stoic epistemology is best understood as a response to a twofold challenge. Socrates had assumed that whether one had a good life depended on whether one had managed to acquire a certain kind of knowledge, which he identified with wisdom, in particular the knowledge of what is good and what is bad. For this reason he had devoted his life to philosophical inquiry concerning the good, the bad and related matters. Yet, for all of his efforts, even he himself did not think that he had obtained this knowledge. At the same time Socrates had made it clear that we should not content ourselves with mere belief or opinion concerning these matters, even if this belief happened to be true. One would not want to rely for the success or failure of one's life on mere opinion which at best happened to be true. Moreover, the Socratic elenchus suggested that one was not entitled to any belief which one did not hold as a matter of knowledge. For Socratic refutation seemed to rest on the fact that somebody who holds a belief as a matter of mere opinion can be made to see that he has equal reason to espouse the contradictory belief.

A century of philosophers since Socrates had done no better. Indeed, as if oblivious to Socrates’ strictures against mere belief, they had rushed precipitously to produce thesis after thesis, theses often quite extravagant and often contradicting each other, and in any case all a matter of mere opinion, as closer scrutiny would reveal.

THE SOURCES

Any attempt at a theoretical reconstruction of Herod's Temple must be based on the available literary sources as well as the evidence produced by archaeology. The two main literary sources which we have are Flavius Josephus' descriptions of the Temple as given in Ant.xv.380–425 and Bell.v.184–227 as well as several additional references to its history given by Josephus and, secondly, the various descriptions recorded in the Mishnah, especially that given in m. Mid. which contains a general description of the Temple and m. Tamid,i:1–3. In addition, several New Testament passages mention the beauty of Herod's building (Mark 13:1; Luke 21:5), while ‘Solomon's Portico’ is mentioned in John 10:23.

Research in the vicinity of the Temple itself, especially the work of the last hundred years, has been limited to the outer walls of the Temple Mount. Owing to the existence of Muslim shrines on the Mount, no excavations were ever carried out there. Sir Charles Warren pioneered scientific investigation of the Temple area, and his publication, describing work carried out during the years 1867–70, is still considered a prime source, a ‘text-book’ on the subject. More recent studies, however, have added to Warren's architectural discoveries and have yielded many new finds which help us to gain a clearer conception of daily life in the Temple.

THE HISTORY OF THE TEMPLE

The building of the Temple began either in Herod's eighteenth regnal year (Ant. xv. 380ff) or in the fifteenth (Bell. i.401), with the former date seemingly the more probable, that is, 20/19 bce. The work continued for nine and a half years (Ant. xv.420 –1), with the construction of the outer walls and porticoes taking eight years and the building of the Temple itself a year and a half.

PALESTINE UNDER POMPEY AND CAESAR; JOHN HYRCANUS II, HIGH PRIEST

The end of the Seleucid dynasty and the reduction of Syria to a Roman province were among the consequences of Pompey's victory over Tigranes of Armenia (66 bce). The political and territorial reorganization of the whole region (all the more necessary as the Roman power was now coming into direct contact with the Parthian empire) was bound to involve the Hasmonaean kingdom too. Here, after the death of Queen Alexandra Salome (67 bce), a dynastic struggle had broken out openly between her two sons, Hyrcanus (II) and Aristobulus (II), and this also drew in, in various ways, the different Jewish politico-religious groups and regional interests. The intervention on Hyrcanus' side of the Nabataean King Aretas, procured by Antipater governor of Idumaea with the promise of territorial compensation, had brought about the expulsion of Aristobulus in 65 bce. Roman interference in the affairs of the kingdom, undertaken at first by Pompey's Quaestor M. Aemilius Scaurus (65–64 bce) and the legate A. Gabinius, then by Pompey himself in 63 bce, was accepted more or less willingly by the two contenders, who vied for the favour and support of their new masters, with alternating results, by means which included valuable gifts. Before Pompey at Damascus the two rivals argued their cases: Hyrcanus, supported by Antipater and numerous prominent personages, relied on the rights of dynastic legality and accused Aristobulus of fomenting piracy and attacks on neighbouring peoples. Aristobulus maintained that his brother was incapable of governing.

During the period of the second temple (520 bce to ce 70) Judaism remained loyal to the past while sowing seeds for the future. It continued to maintain the temple, the priesthood, and the sacrificial cult, the legacies of the religion of pre-exilic Israel, but it also invented an institution of a completely different type, the synagogue. After the destruction of the second temple in ce 70, the synagogue gradually assumed a larger and larger role in Jewish society and consciousness. The synagogue is an enduring contribution of the second temple period to the history of Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

The origin of the synagogue is unknown, and, without a new discovery equal in magnitude to the Dead Sea scrolls, unknowable. The widely accepted theory that the synagogue originated in the sixth century bce during the Babylonian exile as a replacement for the Jerusalem temple seems plausible and attractive but is unsubstantiated and overly simplistic. Unsubstantiated, because it is not supported by a single ancient source. Overly simplistic, because it assigns to a single time and place the origin of a most complex institution. The earliest extant reference to a synagogue is an inscription from Upper Egypt from the third century bce which uses the term proseuche, ‘prayer(-house)’. The earliest known Judaean synagogue is the building erected in Jerusalem by one Theodotus in the first century bce or ce ‘for the reading of the law and the teaching of the commandments’, not, apparently, for the recitation of prayer. Ancient synagogues also served as assembly halls or community centres, much as the temple itself often did.

Before tackling in detail the issue of the organization and structure of the philosophical schools, both in the Hellenistic period and more generally, one must try to find an answer to the question of what a philosophical school was. This is a difficult question, which has not yet found an answer that copes satisfactorily with all the problems it poses.

Until recently the theory of Wilamowitz prevailed, according to which the philosophers' schools were religious societies (thiasoi), dedicated to the worship of the gods, or the Muses in this particular case. Wilamowitz started from the presumption that all such ancient societies had cult characteristics and that, for this reason, they were recognized by Athenian law, giving them the status of legal bodies. From an outsider's viewpoint the philosophical schools would therefore have appeared to be religious societies devoted to the worship of the Muses, while internally they would have developed functions like those of modern universities. In the Academy and Peripatos, above all, there would have been activity in scientific research and teaching based on a division of duties between teachers old and young, and carried out in a series of public lectures and private seminars.

Wilamowitz's theory has attracted criticism and objections. In particular, it has been discovered that certain elements which for Wilamowitz were typical of a thiasos (statues of the Muses and their worship) were shared by other institutions like the gymnasia and children's schools, and were therefore not by themselves enough to support the identification of philosophical schools as religious societies.

Rome's acquisition of a territorial empire in the eastern Mediterranean between the mid second and the mid first century bce put all the numerous Diaspora communities of Greece, the Aegean islands, Crete, Cyprus, Asia Minor, Syria, and Cyrenaica under her rule. The annexation of Egypt in 30 bce, closing the only gap in the ring of provinces bordering the Mediterranean, brought into the empire what was probably the largest of all Diaspora communities at the time, that of Alexandria, as well as many smaller Jewish settlements up-country in Egypt. In the west the Jewish community in Rome, apparently dating back at least to the mid second century, was dramatically enlarged in 62 bce when Pompey returned from eastern campaigns which had included the capture of Jerusalem with thousands of Jewish prisoners-of-war, who were sold into slavery after walking in his triumphal procession and later, on regaining their freedom by manumission, settled permanently in the city.

With the annexation of the province of Judaea in ce 6, all Jews except the Babylonian Diaspora were under Roman rule. The pax Romana and the improvements in communications which followed the expansion of Roman power throughout the Mediterranean world facilitated movement and the development of Diaspora communities in Italy and the western provinces. No date or origin can be assigned to the numerous settlements eventually known in the west, and some may have been founded as a result of the dispersal of Palestinian Jews after the revolts of ce 66–70 and 132–5, but it is reasonable to conjecture that many, such as the settlement in Puteoli attested in 4 bce, went back to the late republic or early empire and originated in voluntary emigration and the lure of trade and commerce.

There has been a veritable explosion of archaeological activity in Israel since the 1967 war. With the temporary acquisition of new lands major new surveys were conducted in Sinai, the Golan Heights, and in Judaea and Samaria. Most of the results of these activities have been published internally within the structure of the Israel Antiquities Authority and informally in Hebrew, though several surveys have been published in English. The serious student of Palestinian archaeology can make much of this material providing she or he has access to the original files of the Antiquities Authority, where all reports are deposited and recorded.

The Israel Antiquities Authority and its museums publish a schedule of archaeological sites in its gazetteer, Yalqut Ha-pirsumim. The schedule is a legal document used by the Authority to declare archaeological sites subject to protection against destruction by such things as vandalism or building or agricultural projects.

The present list, published on 18 May 1964, is mainly the Hebrew translation of ‘The Provisional Schedule of Historical Sites and Monuments’ first published in The Palestine Official Gazette on 15 June 1929, and then updated on 24 November 1944, by the British Mandatary government. Containing only the names of sites within the so-called Green Line – that is, within the pre-1967 borders of Israel – the list has been corrected and repeatedly updated since its original publication and is now available on computer as a database at the Israel Antiquities Authority.

Because it records the history of site names since the survey of the Palestine Exploration Fund in the nineteenth century, this publication can be very helpful for site identification.