I am honored to offer an online (Zoom) class beginning January 30, 2021 that will meet eight times, on Saturdays, either in the morning, early afternoon, or late afternoon EST. Each session will be recorded and I will do my best to accommodate everyone who signs up, irrespective of their location in the world!
The course will cover the following areas related inscriptions and how to use them to interpret the New Testament:
The Why, What, and How of Inscriptions
The Typology of Inscriptions: Public
The Typology of Inscriptions: Private
The Typology of Inscriptions: Graffiti and Magic
Using Inscriptional Corpora
Inscriptions as Embedded Artifacts
The final two meetings will be devoted to two specific case studies related to inscriptions and the New Testament:
Greco-Roman Women and the New Testament
Imperial Divine Honors and the New Testament
Check out the course webpage by clicking here for more details!
This week I had the pleasure of being part of a panel on the use of documentary sources or material culture as I prefer to call it and the interpretation of the Bible at the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, which due to COVID 19 was online this year. My task in the panel was to address how I determine a source to be documentary or material, what method I use to interpret documentary sources or material culture, and what value these sources have in the interpretation of the Bible.
As a historian of early Christianity who focuses on the Greco-Roman period of history, I determine a source to be documentary or material if it restores the human touch to the inquest of history. Thus, I define documentary sources as archaeological, papyrological, numismatic, statuary, inscriptional, and ceramic (i.e., pottery) evidence that individuals living in antiquity produced. In essence, almost anything that does not consist of written literature that scribes copied throughout the centuries.
Let me unpack what I mean. Archaeological evidence comes from controlled, scientific excavations—whether they be large like the city of Philippi (see Image 1) or small like a cave near Khirbet Qumran (see Image 2)—conducted by qualified archaeologists. Papyrological evidence consists of ancient written documents on papyri or ostraca (i.e., pottery sherds). This dataset is diverse and contains private letters, reports, census, and much more (see Image 3).
Numismatic evidence consists of coins that local cities and empires produced (see Image 4). These sources are diverse too and contain texts and images that help to reconstruct cults, magistrates, and customs of individual Greek cities. Statuary evidence are images that ancient artists created and that individuals viewed, which were erected throughout Greco-Roman cities (see Image 5). For a discussion of some of the famous statues of mainland Greece, see the second century CE traveler Pausanias and his Description of Greece.
Inscriptions are messages engraved, incised, or scratched on durable materials that imperial and local governments as well as individuals set up in conjunction with monuments (see Image 6). There are myriads of surviving Greco-Roman inscriptions (close to half a million) and this lot, like papyri, is diverse and consists of official decrees, funerary inscriptions, magical curses, and much more. Finally, ceramic evidence is pottery that individuals made, distributed, and used (see Image 7). Pottery is one of the surest chronological dating methods on an archaeological excavation because of the diversity of pottery in time and place and the constant changes in its appearance and shape.
To say that these sources are variegated is an understatement. Each type of documentary source has its method of interpretation with limitations and possibilities. As a historian of earliest Christianity, I try not to prefer one over the other (even though I am partial to inscriptions, see Image 8 and click here to purchase my book on inscriptions) because I am convinced that historians must use all these documentary sources to reconstruct antiquity. However, I confess to the ire of my friends and colleagues who are ceramicists that I find pottery the least exciting of documentary sources with which to work. In my reconstruction of history, I endeavor to use all these sources for one common goal: to provide what I call narrative glimpses, always incomplete, into the lives of ancient individuals. Thus, I am convinced that each documentary source that I use has a life of its own and a story to tell, which I labor to reconstruct.
Image 8: My book on inscriptions!
In the end, every narrative glimpse that I reconstruct will be incomplete due to the fragmentary nature of the source. However, I am an optimist and something is always better than nothing. To reconstruct a given narrative glimpse, I approach whatever documentary source with which I am working contextually. That is, I interpret each datum in light of its archaeological context. Consider the following example.
In the winter of 1855, a statue base with an inscription was discovered on the Greek island of Calymnus (on the western coast of modern-day Turkey, see Image 9) among the partial remains of a temple dedicated to a personification of Apollo, Delian Apollo, who appears to have been Calmynus’s patron deity. The inscription (see Image 10) dates to 37 CE and says:
Image 9: Calymnus or Kalymnos is marked on this Google Map
The citizen-body of the Calymnians dedicated (a statue of) Gaius Caesar [G]e[rma]nicus beside Apoll[o] [De]lian the Guardian of Calymnus because of his piety . . . (Ὁ δᾶμος ὁ Καλυμν[ί]ων συνκαθιέρωσε Ἀπόλλ[ω]νι [Δ]αλίῳ Καλύμ[ν]ας μεδέοντι άϊον Καίσαρα Γερ[μα]νικὸν εὐσεβ[είας ἕνε][κεν . . . . ]; my translation).
M. Segre, “Tituli Calymnii,” Annuario della scuola archeologica di Atene e delle missioni Italiane in oriente 22-23, (1944-1945) [1952]: no. 105
Because of the findspot of this inscription and a Greek term (συνκαθιέρωσε) and a linguistic construction (Ἀπόλλ[ω]νι [Δ]αλίῳ Καλύμ[ν]ας μεδέοντι, a dative of place) used in it, I have argued elsewhere that this statue base is of a temple sharing image.[1] That is, a statue of a benefactor that is set up inside the temple of a deity next to their cultic image. In this case, the benefactor is Caligula and the temple is that of Delian Apollo. During the Hellenistic and Roman periods, Greek kings and Roman emperors were in the best position to offer benefactions to Greek cities and thus there is more evidence that monarchs shared Greek temples than any other individual from antiquity. When rulers shared temples, it was to acknowledge the ruler’s piety and beneficence and to showcase that the deity in whose temple the ruler’s image was erected approved of and supported their reign. Provided that I have identified correctly this inscription from Calymnus, we can reconstruct the following narrative glimpse.
Caligula provided some concrete benefaction for Calymnus, which the city interpreted as stemming from his piety. Hence, the mentioning of “because of his piety” (εὐσεβ[είας ἕνε][κεν . . .]) in the inscription. To show appreciation for this gift, the citizen-body met to decide how best to honor the emperor. Someone must have put forth the motion, which was subsequently ratified, that Caligula should share the temple of Delian Apollo and that his statue should be set up next to that the deity’s, which indeed occurred. This short narrative glimpse, however, is incomplete. We neither know the benefaction for which Calymnus granted Caligula temple sharing with Delian Apollo, details of other divine honors that the emperor received, nor if and when the island polity removed him from being Delian Apollo’s temple sharer. Nevertheless, without this inscription and archaeological site from Calymnus, we would never have known that Caligula has a relationship with this tiny, insignificant island.
In my estimation, documentary sources such as this inscription and archaeological site from Calymnus are invaluable for reconstructing the social history of the early Roman Empire and thus the context of the spread of nascent Christianity for two main reasons. First and foremost, they are direct witnesses of the past that provide windows into the lives of non-elite men. Almost all surviving Greek and Latin literature are either by elite men or those who were patronized by them, much of which focuses on major events that and persons who changed the course of history in the Mediterranean world and the ancient Near East. In short, they focus on history from above. What is more, this literature has been passed down through the copying, editing, and sometimes alteration of scribes until the invention and widespread use of the printing press. Such is not the case with documentary sources where we can construct the social history of non-major cities such as Calymnus and where we can find letters and inscriptions composed by non-elite men, women, children, and slaves and sometimes archaeological sites where such individuals lived and worked. In short, documentary sources provide us with a history from below. Such information often supplements and sometimes contradicts surviving Greco-Roman literature.
Second, documentary sources are contextual data allowing historians to contextualize early Christian documents in a way heretofore unrealized. Archaeological sites, inscriptions, coins, statuary, pottery, and the occasional papyri finds outside Egypt provide evidence for local cults, customs, law-codes, and traditions. This information has the potential to help us contextualize more concretely early Christian texts whose provenance and addressees are certain. To provide an example, I have been able to show in my contextual work that contrary to the oft-repeated false claim that the Roman emperor was hailed as Lord (kyrios) during Paul’s tenure as the apostle to the Gentiles (from the early 30s to the early 60s CE) inscriptions and coins from Philippi, Corinth, and Thessalonica indicate that the denizens of those cities did not acclaim the emperor with this title.[2] For all these reasons, I endeavor to employ documentary sources, as much as literary sources, in any research project that I undertake. My hope is that my fellow New Testament scholars will do likewise!
[1] D. Clint Burnett, Christ’s Enthronement at God’s Right Hand and Its Greco–Roman Cultural Context, Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft 242 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2021)
[2] D. Clint Burnett, Studying the New Testament Through Inscriptions: An Introduction (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2020); “Imperial Divine Honors in Julio–Claudian Thessalonica and the Thessalonian Correspondence,” Journal of Biblical Literature 139 (2020): 567–89; reprinted in The First Urban Churches 7: Thessalonica, edited by James R. Harrison and Larry L. Welborn (Atlanta: SBL Press, forthcoming); “Divine Titles for Julio–Claudian Imperials in Corinth,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 82 (2020): 437–55; Christ’s Enthronement.
Currently, I am writing two new books for two major publishing houses. The first is a monograph on imperial cults (the worship of the Roman emperor like or as a god) in first century CE Philippi, Thessalonica, and Corinth and Paul the apostle’s responses to them in the letters that he composed to the Christian communities in those cities. This book will contain around 40 pictures of archaeological sites, statuary, coins, and inscriptions from Philippi, Thessalonica, and Corinth, all of which will require permission from the excavations and museums in those cities.
The second book is a collection of hundreds (!) of inscriptions associated with historical figures, social practices, and customs mentioned in the New Testament for the purpose of helping readers understand and interpret the New Testament more accurately. For each inscription, I will provide the original text, be it Greek, Latin, Aramaic, or Hebrew, a fresh English translation of it, a picture of the inscription, and a discussion of the inscription’s archaeological context and how it relates to the New Testament. In all, this book will contain about 100 pictures, maybe more, of inscriptions from various museums in Europe and the United States.
Permission to use most of these images costs money; sometimes a lot of it. For example, for my second book, Christ’s Enthronement at God’s Right Hand, which is forthcoming in early 2021, the Vatican Museum charged € 170 to publish two black and white photos of two artifacts on display there.
What this means is that I need your help and partnership to create these two unique, visually rich books!
Most scholars agree that Paul composed his letter to the Romans to a group of house churches that consisted mostly of Gentile Christ–confessors and a minority of Jewish ones (although some dispute this reconstruction). It is probable that many of the former group were God–fearers—Gentiles who frequented Jewish synagogues and were attracted to certain tenets of Judaism—and proselytes to Judaism before they confessed Jesus as Messiah. The method most scholars use to arrive at this reconstruction is a combination of a critical reading of Romans,[1] Greco–Roman literature,[2] and inscriptions.[3]
It is the use of this last dataset with which I take issue and suggest that scholarly use of inscriptions must be more critical. Many scholars point to Jewish inscriptions from Rome that mention between eleven and thirteen synagogues (the number is debated):
The synagogue of the Agrippesians (JIWE 2.170, 562, 130 [?], 549);
The synagogue of the Augustesians (JIWE 2.547, 169 [?], 194, 189, 542, 96, 547);
The synagogue of the Calcaresians (JIWE 2.69, 558, 98, 584, 165);
The synagogue of the Campesians (JIWE 2.560, 288, 577, 1);
The synagogue of Elaea (JIWE 2.576, 406);
The synagogue of the Hebrews (JIWE 2.33, 578, 2, 579);
The synagogue of the Secenians (JIWE 2.436);
The synagogue of the Siburesians (JIWE 2.338, 452, 527, 557, 428, 451 [?]);
The synagogue of the Tripolitians (JIWE 2.166);
The synagogue of the Vernaclesians (JIWE 2.106, 117, 540 [?], 114);
The synagogue of the Volumnesians (JIWE 2.100, 167, 163, 577);
The synagogue of Acra (synagogue is reconstructed in this inscription and this reading is now rejected, JIWE 2.568); and
The synagogue of the Rhodians/Herodians (JIWE 2.292).[4]
All of the inscriptions that mention the above synagogues are epitaphs or funerary inscriptions from Jewish catacombs in Rome. Therefore, they are not from the actual synagogal structures themselves. None of these epigraphs date to the first century CE; the time when Paul composed Romans (probably between 56 and 58 CE). Rather, these inscriptions are dated paleographically (that is, by the form of their letters) between the third and fourth century CE with one even dating to the fifth century CE.
Despite their late dating, some prominent scholars such as Joseph A. Fitzmyer and Richard Longenecker conclude that the above synagogues existed in the mid–first century CE and they use the offices mentioned therein to reconstruct the organization of Roman synagogues at that time.[5] For example, Fitzmyer contends:
“[F]rom thousands of funerary inscriptions . . . we learn about the Jewish population there and its groupings into thirteen synagogues . . . From such sources we also learn that the Jewish community in Rome was organized; a synagōgē was governed by a gerousia, ‘council of elders,’ presided over by a gerousiarchēs. These were the archontes of the community; there was also a phrontistēs, ‘administrator’ of the community’s material goods and supervisor of the dole [of grain]. Among them were also hiereis, ‘priests,’ but that was probably a title of honor for members of priestly families, since there was no temple.”[6]
Peter Richardson exercises more caution. He argues that only five of these known synagogues likely existed in the mid–first century CE: those named after patrons—Augustus (Augustesians), Agrippa (Agrippesians), Volumnius (Volumnesians) (maybe?), and Herod (Herodians)—and the synagogue of the Hebrews. Richardson suggests that Augustus (63 BCE–14 CE; reigned 31 BCE–14 CE), patronized the synagogue of the Augustesians, Augustus’s son–in–law, Marcus Agrippa (63–12 BCE), the synagogue of the Agrippesians, Volumnius, the procurator of Syria from 9 to 7 BCE, maybe the synagogue of the Volumnesians, and Herod the Great (73–4 BCE; reigned 37–4 BCE) patronized the synagogue of the Herodians. Finally, he posits that the synagogue of the Hebrews is the earliest in Rome and was formed when Jews in Rome still spoke Aramaic/Hebrew.[7]
The epigraphic evidence does not support the conclusions of Fitzmyer and Longenecker. There is no reason to presume that because a synagogue existed in the third and fourth century CE that it existed in the first century as well. What is more, it is anachronistic to assume that the third and fourth century CE organizational structure of the Roman synagogues applies to the mid–first century CE (for which there is little evidence).[8]
Richardson’s reconstruction is more careful, but still problematic. The main reason is that in the end it is conjecture, albeit with varying degrees of likelihood and probability. It is likely and even probable that Augustus and Agrippa patronized the synagogues of the Augustesians and Agrippesians respectively and that these two existed in the first century CE.[9] However, his conclusion that Volumnius the procurator of Syria may have patronized the synagogue of the Volumnesians does not convince for two reasons. First, the only connection that this Volumnius had with Second Temple Jews is that he served as procurator of Syria (something that Richardson acknowledges), which is not enough evidence to conclude that he patronized a synagogue in Rome.[10] Second, there were numerous Volumnii in the capital of the empire (another observation that Richardson acknowledges).[11] Therefore, one of them may have patronized the synagogue in question.
Richardson’s proposal that Herod the Great patronized a synagogue is also unconvincing. The name Herodians is reconstructed in an epigraphic lacuna because of the fragmentary nature of the surviving inscription:
However, some epigraphers reconstruct Rhodians (ΙΡΟΔΙΩΝ), not Herodians (ΗΡΟΔΙΩΝ).[13]
Leon proposes that there is no evidence that this fragmentary inscription refers to a synagogue at all because:
“in all other inscriptions [from Rome] on which the name of the synagogue appears this name immediately follows the word συναγωγῆς or is separated from it only by the article τῶν, whereas here there is a large gap before the alleged name of the synagogue.”[14]
In the end, any reconstruction of what may have been in the inscription in question is what epigraphers call “history from square brackets,” which is unreliable.
Finally, the reasoning of Richardson that the synagogue of the Hebrews is the earliest one in Rome—and thus that it dates to the first century CE—is not without difficulty. His main supporting evidence is the supposed first century CE date of the synagogue of the Hebrews in Corinth. However, that inscription does not date to the first century CE, but, as the official publication of the epigraph states, it dates “considerably later than the time of St. Paul.”[15] Hence, it is unclear if the synagogue of the Hebrews in Corinth and thus Rome can be dated to the first century CE.
In short, despite claims to the contrary, there is not concrete inscriptional evidence of numerous first century CE Roman synagogues. There is only likely epigraphic data for two first–century CE synagogues: those of Augustesians and Agrippesians. With this conclusion, I am not claiming that more synagogues did not exist. The first century BCE–CE Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria clearly notes that more than one synagogue existed in Rome during Augustus’s reign when he testifies that Augustus knew of Jewish synagogues (plural), which Philo calls proseuchai (προσευχὰς; Acts 16:13, 16), and that Jews studied Torah in them on Sabbaths (Embassy 156).
What I am claiming is that there is no certain epigraphic evidence for eleven to thirteen first–century CE synagogues in the city (as Fitzmyer and Longenecker claim) or likely five first–century CE synagogues (as Richardson suggests). This negative conclusion notwithstanding, these later Jewish inscriptions that mention synagogues do provide some important evidence for Jewish life in first century CE Rome. They were found in Jewish catacombs near the right bank of the Tiber River in a region of the ancient city known as Transtiberine (modern–day Trastevere).
The find–spots of these inscriptions support Philo’s testimony that a large Jewish population lived there in first–century BCE–CE (Embassy 155).[16] However, the number of synagogues that these Jews established remains unknown.
Want to know more about how inscriptions can help to interpret the New Testament documents? Then purchase my latest book, Studying the New Testament Through Inscriptions: An Introduction:
[1] Paul clearly addresses Gentile Christ–confessors in Romans (1:5, 13; 11:13; 15:15–16) as well as Jewish ones (1:16; 2:9–11, 17–29; 3:29; 10:12; 16:7, 11).
[2] These sources have been gathered by Menahem Stern, Greek and Latin Authors on Jews and Judaism, 2 vols. (Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1974, 1980).
[3] The following inscriptions are taken from David Noy, ed., Jewish Inscriptions of Western Europe Volume 2: The City of Rome (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), abbreviated JIWE 2 hereafter.
[4] For the most balanced treatment of these inscriptions see Harry Joshua Leon, The Jews of Ancient Rome (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1960),135–66.
[5] Joseph A. Fitzmyer, Romans: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, AB 33 (New York: Doubleday, 1993), 28; Richard N. Longenecker, Introducing Romans: Critical Issues in Paul’s Most Famous Letter (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011), 64–65; Robert Jewett (Romans: A Commentary, Hermeneia [Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2007], 57–58) proposes that only eleven synagogues existed in Rome, which seems to imply that he believes that they existed in first century CE Rome. James D. G. Dunn (Romans 1–8, WBC 38a [Waco, TX: Word Books, 1988], xlvi) is somewhat more cautious when, identifying ten to thirteen synagogues, says that they “may” date to the first century CE.
[6] Fitzmyer, Romans, 28. Longenecker’s (Introducing Romans, 66) reconstruction is similar: each synagogue had a council of elders, a chief elder, rulers (who were elected every one to three years), a head of a synagogue in charge of worship, an administrator who supervised the congregation’s goods, and a secretary (there were priests but that was an honorary title)
[7] Peter Richardson, “Augustan-Era Synagogues in Rome,” in Judaism and Christianity in First-Century Rome, eds. Karl P. Donfried and Peter Richardson (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 17-29. See also Wolfgang Wiefel, “The Jewish Community in Ancient Rome and the Origins of Roman Christianity,” The Romans Debate, rev., ed. Karl P. Donfried (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1991), 85–101.
[8] For what little is known of Second Temple Jewish synagogue liturgy see Lee Levine, The Ancient Synagogue: The First Thousand Years, 2nd ed. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005), 530–61.
[10] Richardson (“Augustan-Era Synagogues,” 22) concludes, “An argument in favor of the association is that no other of the several known Volumnii had even this degree of contact with Jews, so far as can be ascertained.”
[12] Richardson (“Augustan-Era Synagogues,” 27) translates as follows: “X X X name X X X [ruler of the syna]gogue [of the He]rodians [age??] A blessing to all.”
[15] Benjamin D. Meritt, ed, Corinth VIII,1. The Greek Inscriptions 1896-1927 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1931), 78–79, no 111. Richardson (“Augustan-Era Synagogues,” 20) dates this inscription to the second century CE and contends that the synagogue mentioned in it existed in the late first century CE.
[16] Leon (Jews, 136) concludes, “It may be regarded as reasonably certain that the earliest substantial Jewish settlement was in the Transtiberium . . . on the right bank of the Tiber and that the bulk of the Jewish population was concentrated in that area throughout the ancient period and even into the Middle Ages.”
I am delighted to see praise for my book, Studying the New Testament Through Inscriptions: An Introduction. Bob Turner, Library Director at Harding School of Theology (Memphis, TN), has hailed my book as “a really impressive work” that “any NT student or scholar” should purchase. One particular strength of my book, he notes, is that it is really “an exercise in both epigraphy and hermeneutics.” To exemplify this, Turner points to my chapter on 1 Corinthians 11:21 and the translation of the Greek verb προλαμβάνω, which is important for reconstructing the problem with the Lord’s Banquet at Corinth that Paul the apostle addresses. Does it mean to eat, to devour, or to go ahead with? Turner notes, “In that conversation Burnett engages with the leading figures in Corinthian scholarship, reviews the usages of that word in antiquity, reconstructs the social setting of house churches in that world, and shows how inscriptional evidence can inform the reading of that passage.” For the rest of Turner’s review click here.
I appreciate Turner’s kind comments and encourage everyone to purchase Studying the New Testament Through Inscriptions to see the immeasurable benefit that inscriptions have for interpreting the New Testament. It is available now for your Kindle on Amazon or your Nook from Barnes & Noble. As soon as some Coronavirus restrictions are lifted, physical copies of Studying the New Testament Through Inscriptions will be available everywhere good books are sold, including Amazon, ChristianBook.com, and Barnes & Noble.
